#i'm also losing my mind thinking about writing a fic where the strange man pays each gang member a visit

[reiverreturns]

rdr2 is such a special game to replay because. god. the whole thing is a ghost story. the gang is dead before they even reach colter. everything that tears them apart - the mistrust, the friction, the loss, the lack of place and time - it's there from the beginning. before the beginning. papered over by a veneer of love and care and family but when the last of it leaves they're all just. gone. scraps of newspaper headlines faded in the sun and wooden grave markers that will rot and fall back into the earth. if you've played rdr you know what happens to these characters. you play your first playthrough of rdr2 knowing you're hurtling towards an inescapable end. you play every one thereafter knowing the end has already come.

#they're not doomed by the narrative. they're at odds with the narrative. this is a story that was never meant to be told #but it mattered. it fucking mattered. #this game makes me want to tear my hair out honestly #i'm also losing my mind thinking about writing a fic where the strange man pays each gang member a visit #so there's that #reiver plays rdr2 #rdr2