stagcowboy99

[stagcowboy99]

Sometimes you just gotta lay in the grass 💖

[stagcowboy99]

Like father, like son

[stagcowboy99]

A light snack for the Willscuella nation

Couldn’t be bothered to finish it cuz line art always looks bad lol

[stagcowboy99]

eastward bound cut dialogue

[stagcowboy99]

do you have any other au’s planned?

I’m working on a fantasy au with @meeks-just-wants-to-scroll! They have a TON of gorgeous art posted for it, highly recommend checking it out

We also have a doc with some of the lore! It’s currently a WIP, but we’ve been updating pretty frequently

Other than that, just the mermaid au and some modern au stuff 👀 also have a few comics in the works but shhhhh

[stagcowboy99]

Does snake micah have venom?

Naga micah in the fantasy AU is a diamond back rattle snake so yes! (He also has mild construction powers but shhh that’s just for drama. Irl rattle snakes can’t construct like boa).

Diamond rattles have hemotoxin which attacks red blood cells. They are small in scale to humans yet their bites *can* be fatal.

Now scale that up to a human-sized naga and I am sure a bite from a naga with hemotoxin would leave the person a gusher bag of internal bleeding and cell death.

That being said I imagine naga rarely bite and when they do, they don’t expel their entire venom supply. They likely use their venom more for hunting to incapacitate large prey.

[stagcowboy99]

literally him

thanks to @delliebre their post w/ the leopard inspired this

[stagcowboy99]

AT LAST. IT IS COMPLETE.

This comic is for the fantasy au @meeks-just-wants-to-scroll and I are working on together!

From outlaw to white noise machine 😔 RIP Micah

[stagcowboy99]

I constantly think about Arthur's quote, "I can barely speak English." because the same man is saying things like, "I must moderate my approach to wine." "Despite my best efforts to the contrary..." or "I have to insist." At times he can be poetic (threatening or not) in the way he says things too. For example, "Maybe when your mother's finished mourning your father, I'll keep her in black on your behalf." Or one of my favorites, "Lack of something to feel important about is almost the greatest tragedy a man can have."

Or how about when he finds that crashed airship along Little Creek River? He mentions Icarus, a Greek myth about a man who flew too close to the sun and the wax melted, causing Icarus to plunge into the sea and drown. At that time not everyone is learning and reading classical literature, you literally have to go out of your way and read that shit in a book. Sure Dutch and Hosea taught him to read, but what outlaw is teaching a teenager about Greek Mythology?

Arthur is smarter than he gives himself credit for. He's by no means stupid. He's self-aware and far more emotionally intelligent than he comes off as.

And it makes it a bit more tragic when you think of the potential Arthur might’ve had outside of being an outlaw.

[stagcowboy99]

I'm editing a video right now, and while going through clips I noticed this little moment

I.......am not okay

[stagcowboy99]

what do you think the timewarp gang members favourite music artist are, other than molly and mitski?

I think charles would like mac demarco

unfortunately i only listen to white boy country music, the sapphos and mid 2000s emo the black parade marches on in the house of moss so i will accept any and all music headcanons for the gang but some funsies

speakers are on at the morgan-smith house more often than the tv, they both really embraced how readily available music is in modern era and both love it

charles will never tell arthur he hates country music, but it's worth putting up with to see arthur's little 'dancing but not dancing' shuffle steps and singing along so softly it's almost like he's just mouthing the lyrics

charles is also surprisingly on board with isaac's emo phase and is the only one who will scream 'i'm not okay' as aggressively as isaac does when they're in the car together

for more of my past attempts to give the gang some music headcanons see here

[stagcowboy99]

one of my few complaints about red dead 2 was that the 4 endings were all the same. I felt like if R* wanted to have multiple endings, they could have at least made them different, maybe with different characters involved changing the course of events.

What I thought would be interesting is a chain-of-events system, where doing one drastic action would lead to something different, and the missions that would change events being unlocked by having high or low honour. For example, high honour would unlock a mission to save Kieran after Jack’s party, and low honour would unlock a mission to save Strauss from Pinkertons around the same time.

i know exactly what you mean it would be so fun if rdr came out with a more interactive drama format and secret endings like until dawn but i also think it would lose some of its charm? so much of the narrative of rdr as a whole is built on the inevitability of the characters' fates. arthur says multiple times in chapter one he is going to die an outlaw, there's no escape for him, dutch warning john the agency will only be looking for another monster after he's dead, ultimately true when he meets his end, jack making the choice to seek revenge and becoming an outlaw despite everyone trying to give him the chance for a life better than that ect.

and of course part of the challenge of rdr2 is that it has to at least sort of match rdr1. bill, javier and dutch have to live and become evil. john, abigail, uncle and jack have to live and end up at beecher's hope together. i personally love the idea of if you save one character, another dies eg if you tackle sean quicktime event style having seen the sniper aiming at him, bill gets killed, but of course that wouldn't work.

it would be really fun though to have a chain of events system that changed some outcomes. the biggest gripe for me is that yes arthur has to die it's such a major part of the game and part of john's motivation to change but i really just want an ending where he doesn't die alone because that hurt me.

let me choose to send micah to the downes ranch. moss spends too much time on hypotheticals under the cut

1. saving sean in rhodes, resulting in sean coming to guarma and javier escaping during the chase through saint denis. sean gets into a fistfight with either micah or arthur depending on honor, resulting in the person he is fighting being the one captured in place of javier. the gang who stayed behind are obviously wary of javier, with a mission explaining how much abusive and power hungry he was while they were gone. some members of the gang leaving even before beaver hollow. 2. if you had high honor AND arthur didn't drink during jack's party, you'd get the option to be on guard duty. this would allow you to kill some o'driscolls attempting to sneak into camp, but also funnier options like not letting swanson wander off while drunk (if you don't, he gets attacked by alligators and dies), catching micah stealing extra rations from the food cart, and bill very very badly trying to flirt with arthur. 3. kieran living would result in kieran ratting to the pinkertons in an effort to get dutch captured or killed. when caught he'd give a very desperate speech about how dutch was worse than colm because at least colm didn't pretend to care, revealing what a creep dutch was to most of the women in camp (that one dutch interation with mary-beth brother ew), and arguing none of them would be safe if they kept following dutch because dutch was obviously losing whatever it was they used to see in his 'teachings'. high honor, kieran is allowed to leave with mary-beth quickly deciding to go with him, or low honor he is killed in camp for being a traitor. 4. arthur can choose to start shooting and save hosea during saint denis. this directly leads to lenny being shot in the shootout, with the choice to carry him or leave him behind. carrying him results in him dying of infection on the boat, but chapter 5 starts on the ship with the option to sit beside lenny and have a honor-changing conversation where lenny asks why arthur started shooting when of course dutch would have found a way to save hosea OR hosea reprimanding arthur for rescuing him at the cost of lenny's life, warning him that no life was worth more than another. low honor arthur would counter they decided which lives were worth more than others everytime they went robbing 5. if you save hosea, arthur tells john to go ahead during the attack on beaver hollow because hosea is struggling to keep up during the climb OR hosea tells john to go because arthur is struggling if arthur has tb. 6. if micah went to the downes ranch instead, it's possible for arthur to successfully beat and kill micah in their last fight since he has an obvious advantage. only to get shot by pinkertons (high honor) or dutch (low honor). 7. the secret ending would be if micah has tb, hosea lives AND arthur has low honor, dutch and hosea get into a stand off after dutch shoots arthur. dutch may have been willing to shoot arthur, but not hosea. he walks away and hosea gets to hold arthur and comfort him as he bleeds out. the first newspaper available for purchase in the epilogue would confirm the pinkertons caught up to hosea and arthur, killing both. the real devastation would be that going to where arthur's grave usually ends results in a surprise cutscene with charles already being there, saying it's where he would have liked arthur to be buried instead, and that he was a confusing, complicated man but he did love him (charthur confirmed ending). 8. there would be an achievement for sneaking onto the grounds of sisika, and finding two unmarked graves for hosea and arthur respectively.

[stagcowboy99]

feed me :3

first, just because everyone deserves to suffer the way we did

arthur didn't find two wooden crosses in the yard when he went to visit eliza and isaac for isaac's 6th birthday. he found them dead in a ransacked house. except - they'd been dead for weeks. he had to bury them himself.

arthur still didn't get to hold isaac one last time. his corpse was so decomposed, arthur had to pick him up in the ratty blanket that had been pulled over his tiny body so that he wouldn't fall apart.

a fresh batch of angst

dutch never loved molly. he liked having a beautiful woman in his arms hanging onto his every word for the power of it, and the only reason he picked molly was because she was a redhead. he never dated women with the same hair color as one of his past affairs, because he truly believed in collecting women like trophies. if john had brought up molly in 1911, or even 1907, dutch wouldn't have remembered who she was until he said 'the red haired one'

molly was pregnant in rdr2 and that was exactly what she was trying to talk to dutch about in the chapters 3+4. originally, she had been ecstatic and caught herself in daydreams of raising a precious baby boy with dutch's dark hair and her curls, and the idea of being mammy instead of miss o'shea made her knees weak. dutch robbed her of that fantasy by being an absolute prick, and it sunk in like the chill of colter that they would never have that soft, innocent life together. molly had never been a heavy drinker, but uncle later found her in a bar blind drunk because she was intentionally trying to drink herself to miscarriage.

while bessie and hosea made it work, him returning to outlawing, as sweet and patient and effervescent as bessie was, she hated hosea for leaving her. the day he decided to ride back, knowing where the gang was (part of the reason why he hadn't sooner), she stood in the doorway of their little cottage together and pleaded for him not to go the exact same way abigail cried for john not to go after micah.

while still loving him, and them finding a way to make things work with hosea often visiting for days/weeks at a time and bessie regularly catching up with the gang to see her husband and darling boy, the heartbreak of him choosing the gang over her had a permanent impact on her health. hosea realised this, and after she passed away of illness he considered himself her murderer for not staying.

even through the year he spent drunk after bessie died, hosea visited her grave as often as he had visited when she was alive, and would spend weeks sleeping alone in what had once been their happy little abode just so he could go into the garden and talk to her headstone. silently, one of the reasons he began doubting and second-guessing dutch is because they fled east after blackwater - which made it impossible to go visit bessie's grave, or the cottage they'd shared.

at least once arthur was sent to collect hosea from one of his trips to see bessie, much like the gang are sent after him when he goes awol. he found hosea passed out drunk with a bottle at his side, laying on her grave as if he would open his eyes to see her laying beside him.

arthur hated seeing hosea's grave in lemoyne. while the tree and quietness, a view of the lannahechee river when the old man had loved fishing so much, was as beautiful as they could ask for given the circumstances, he knew deep down hosea had always hoped to be able to go home and be buried beside bessie.

[stagcowboy99]

What subjects do you think the vdlg was good at in school?

quick high school au. grimshaw, hosea, dutch, pearson, swanson, uncle, molly and strauss are all teachers. rest of the gang is de-aged to teens.

arthur: art. he is the definition of the quiet kid the teachers let sit in the art classroom during lunch despite rules because he all he wanted was the peace and quiet to draw

john: pe. not just the actual physical activity side of it but really good at the health and human development, understanding of physiology side of it. could've been an all-star if he hadn't had an injury in middle school

javier: languages and music. unsurprisingly his brain is just pre-disposed to the particular process of learning third/fourth/fifth languages after moving to america as a very smol bean and having to learn english. still argues sheet music is easier to read than shakespeare. english is his least favorite language.

bill: chemistry. admittedly he can't explain how he's good at it and will forget a formula the second he learns it but on the practical side of things will outperform the teacher on experiments.

micah: home economics/FCS. which he will never admit to liking. but a bit of privacy and encouragement from his fav teacher and he can patch clothes, and cook like he's been doing it since was seven years old (because his father's an alcoholic and his mother died so he had to take over domestic duties to look after his little brother)

charles: vocational. woodwork, metalwork, outdoor ed, anything he can do with his hands without being in a classroom.

sean: history is the only class he pays attention in. except he's usually correcting the teacher because 'but my da said' and then going on with a mostly fantastical story about revolution and victory for the working class.

lenny: legal studies. he wishes it wasn't how his brain worked, but it's really intuitive to him even without his father's pressure to excel. he can't help he's got that belief that in righteousness and social justice. presentation on a class action? lenny and sean dream team going to make you think you're in court.

sadie: automotive! at least when she bothers to show up. she skips school more than sean does, usually to hang out with her bf jake and give him a heart attack as he plays backpack on their motorbike.

karen: english but only persuasive writing. captain of the debate team. her and lenny get into a fight it's the presidential debate. sean is increasingly aware he might just have a thing for being yelled at.

tilly: maths, specifically financial maths. but she's an all-rounder who knows she can go into absolutely any field she wants because she's just designed to learn. despite all warnings not to, she decides to go into teaching.

mary-beth: also maths. obviously she loves english but she is a maths prodigy effortlessly doing work several grades ahead of her actual level. when she eventually decides to pursue creative writing she has to put up with everyone who knows her telling her she wasted her potential. no i'm not projecting.

abigail: drama. she's hosea's little prodigy, lead for every play and landing some minor acting jobs while still in school. she's going to end up getting pregnant at prom and spend the next 5 years putting up with john's bs before he decides to grow up.

trelawney: it! he's amazing with computers, stopped attending school for two years at only to reappear at graduation with his wife in a fancy car. he was definitely running scams and apparently already owns his first house and is talking about getting a bigger one for when their first born arrives. he's 19.

kieran: english. yes, he couldn't read until senior school because it took that long for the teachers to realise he is hella dyslexic. but he's getting a lot better at it and it's still his best subject because he's just terrible at everything else.

[stagcowboy99]

Since you said Mary-beth and Tilly didn’t get timewarped does Karen ever get lonely without them or did she make new besties? :3

Karen my beloved.

Karen deeply misses her besties, especially Mary-Beth. Karen is actually such a sensitive soul when it comes to her friends and people she loves, and once she wrapped her head around timewarp the grief of not being able to tell Mary-Beth that they were all together and safe and finally getting the chance to be happy really impacted her.

It was a really weird version of survivor's guilt despite knowing Mary-Beth and Tilly went on to had amazing long lives and were very happy. It took therapy and medication for her to get to a point of being okay.

Having Jenny there was the biggest help. Jenny and Karen already got along like a house on fire in canon but being able to lean on each other emotionally but also have fun exploring modern era getting into mischief they were like glue.

Karen and Molly also became accidental besties. At first it was their usual bickering but Karen always ended up softening because of how distressing she found Molly’s death. And when she got sick of Sean and the boys antics, and Jenny was busy, Molly was one of the only people she could contact. Enough late night phone calls and suddenly Karen would fistfight for Molly’s honor.

Karen has a way of finding her people, especially after Maeve came along. Parent groups, organizing play dates, brunches with the parents of Maeve’s friends. She’s king of the PTA moms and she loves it.

[stagcowboy99]

deer antlers contain many of the same minerals found in horse mineral blocks.

[stagcowboy99]

reading through your old posts and in literally a few words you mentioned hosea dealing with sean having food poisoning and i need more context please if i may 🙏🙏🙏

certainly

Sean has really bad food anxiety. The worst in the gang by a long shot, keeping in mind MOST if not all of them have some issues with food as a result of just living in the 19th century.

Sean can blame his food anxiety on a long line of specific traumas. Darragh was born at the tail end of the Great Famine, with childhood memories of visiting the unmarked graves of his siblings who died and watching his parents constantly stress about food for decades after the Famine had technically ended. It was not an intergenerational trauma he was able to protect Sean from, with Sean very young when he realized Darragh would go without eating the second supplies seemed to be getting low, which in turn made Sean not want to admit when he was hungry to avoid opening what little they had.

After Darragh's murder, Sean went to reform school - where being denied meals was a regular form of discipline for children not 'reforming'. Due to being, well, Sean Macguire, the entirely of his time spent in reform school was somewhere between hungry and actively feeling like he was dying of starvation.

If that wasn't enough, the Ike Skelding boys were hardly interested in giving their captive bounty food, and therefore energy, to escape. Despite knowing better than to gorge himself, Sean still suffered through days of refeeding syndrome once he was rescued.

Sean's food anxiety manifests as hoarding, and has since reform school. And in typical gang fashion, it wasn't something they noticed in canon era. Holding onto food that looked questionable at best was just common practice. Even in modern era, they dismiss it as typical Sean when his room becomes a pigsty.

Until the day Sean decided to eat the second half of a chicken sandwich that had been on his bedside table for four days.

There wasn't enough towels in the house for the amount of vomit. Hosea was having to force feed Sean electrolyte popsicles whenever he was conscious. Sean repeatedly asked to be shot again instead of living through the hell of gastro.

It was the last straw in the gang finally acknowledging Sean had a problem and having to put steps in place to address his food hoarding.