Niko Bellic | Network 002

[vengeance_driven]

[Public | Audio]

I would like to say that I do not intend to eat my hound. He is a good dog. He protects me.

Those are not all the words I said.

I won't eat my beast either. She keeps creepers away. I also wouldn't eat her if she didn't keep creepers away.

[Niko's explanations at their finest.]

Comments

[givessweetness]

…Well, it's just a little odd that your mind went to eating when asked your opinion on 'pets to wildlife'. [It is a little odd, right? He doesn't know humans all that well.]

[vengeance_driven]

That wasn't all I said! [He's so frustrated and he hates journalists/documentaries even more now. He's going to just not be honest ever when a camera is pointed at him. Or break it. It wouldn't be the first time he needed to when they wouldn't turn it off.]

[Though he doesn't mean to yell at Wynter.] Sorry. It's ah... I was talking about living on a farm. I grew up poor in the Balkans. We raised most of our own food, what the government did not take or tax.

That was just the smallest bit of it. That there is something between pets and wildlife.

[givessweetness]

Oh. [Well, that was what farms were, even if… well, there is not a lot of subsistence farming going on on Gallifrey.] Well, I see. I'm sorry you were misquoted. [Which is, at least, a concept that Wynter's more at home with.]

[vengeance_driven]

Yes, well. Journalism hasn't been so kind to me or my people. I am used to our bombed out houses being on the news and no one actually doing anything about it.

[He has strong feelings about that stuff.]

[givessweetness]

Oh, I see.

[Of course his instincts are telling him that they don't interfere, because that would disrupt their own development but within their own culture that's a more iffy proposition.]

[vengeance_driven]

[It's good that he doesn't, because after what he and his family have been through he has strong feelings about that sort of thing. Narvin already rubbed them the wrong way with his commentary on the sacrifice of soldier lives.]

I am not so trusting of their intentions.

[ewestmarch]

Meat is meat.

[She's trolling, probably.]

[vengeance_driven]

I don't know, I probably don't want the meat if I'm good friends with it. Sort of wouldn't settle well shitting out something I played fetch with.

[ewestmarch]

[Emilia cackles, like a full-on witch cackle.]

Animals eat us when they can.

[vengeance_driven]

Well, I might change my mind when my dog eats me. I'll let you know.

[Emelia, you're one crazy lady. But he's seen stranger.]

[domesheriff]

What was that survey thing, anyway? Was there supposed to be a point to it?

[because to her it just sounded like a weird government way of making fun of other worlds]

[vengeance_driven]

They're doing a documentary, to tell the outside world what the town is doing.

This is the only place that can bring in people from other universes.

I don't know how it helps to make us look like barbarians, though. This way all they'll do is get us kicked out. And that would be shit because I have nowhere else to go.

[domesheriff]

[at his barbarians comment, she scowls] No shit. Is their documentary always like that?

[but his last comment catches her by surprise] You can't go back?

[vengeance_driven]

This is the first time anything's been posted or shown. I didn't even see them at the last market, though that is where they plan to do things.

[But that last part. Ah... well... he feels a little embarrassed for bringing it up.]

No.

I shouldn't, anyway.

So if I can't stay here, I am shit out of luck.

[domesheriff]

[her tone is sour] Great first impression they're giving. Especially matching that up with talk about the criminal.

[but at that, her expression softens a little] Then we'll just have to make sure we don't get kicked out.

[archeologue]

I would say that whoever edited that should go work for the Ministry of Propaganda, it's so misleading, except they failed to make any consistent point with it all, a flaw which Goebbels would not countenance.

Or perhaps this is not their native language and they struggled with the meaning.

[vengeance_driven]

I don't think they helped the town at all. That was the point to it, right? To make us sound good so people will trade with the town? It's stupid. Jeffers should find better writers.

What does countenance mean?

[archeologue]

It means that it was not a thing he would like or approve of. [He thinks for a moment.] I'm sorry, I can't think of the Serbian equivalent. My Serbian is passable, but nothing more.

Perhaps their first step was simply to humanize us. [A pause. He's still not used to aliens.] That is perhaps not the right word. Rather, make us individuals instead of a faceless, anonymous crowd. After all, the first step in getting people not to care about another group of people is to portray that group as inhuman, unknowable, other. You see it throughout history. Perhaps this is to counteract that, by showing us as varied individuals.

[vengeance_driven]

I wish they had not chosen that way.

[He doesn't think it makes him sound very human.]

[archeologue]

The disadvantages of a free press.

But don't worry, it's not too bad. Not good, but not too bad. I don't think anyone will believe that you eat your pets. Just that you certainly aren't a vegetarian.

[quixotically]

I thought that part of the broadcast sounded kinda... off... What was that supposed to accomplish, exactly? Eesh.

D'you think there's anyone we -- the imports, I mean, in general -- could go and like... lodge complaints or something? Try to talk to the people making the documentary about this?

[vengeance_driven]

I don't know.

I hate journalists, anyway. I am stupid for even participating. [At least he didn't outright break the camera. He might, next time.]

[quixotically]

No, you're not. Not for expecting them to -- to do what they should've done in the first place. What they said they were going to.

[... guess whose personal experience with journalists and the like come down to Mr. New Vegas?]

[vengeance_driven]

Yeah, the bad ones always count on people to think like that. And I have met more bad ones than good ones.

[Niko's journalism experiences have been far worse.]

[quixotically]

Is there anyone we can go to in order to talk about this? Lodge a complaint or... tell them off, or something?