#but ive thought about alma a Lot which is probably obvious by how LONG this is ahjfds

[shadowglens]

— an infodump about alma’s involvement in the endgame and epilogue of rdr2, as so humbly requested by @villainthirst. i know you asked for this saskia, but just a warning: it’s really fucking long. like, so long. also grace does get mentioned a tiny bit at the very end, but i’m still trying to finalise her endgame, so this is mostly about alma.

alma took what happened in saint denis hard, with both arthur and dutch (among others) lost to god knows where, john carted off to prison to face a likely hanging, and hosea and lenny six feet under. she’d been doubting dutch and his motives for a while but would have never voiced it to anyone, since he was a mentor to her and she didn’t want to seem disloyal to the gang. those few months of her, charles and sadie trying desperately to hold the gang together while the others are gone is incredibly hard for alma. she (and abigail) definitely try to convince sadie to go and break john out, but alma is all anger and high-strung emotion by that point and sadie manages to make her see reason. john is the closest thing alma has ever had to a brother, with the two of them being the same age and having known each other for 6 or 7 years, so leaving him to rot in jail is incredibly hard for alma.

by the time everyone’s reunited and the gang relocates to beaver hollow, alma is barely managing to keep her anger in check. charles helps and often goes with her on longer-than-necessary hunting trips - it’s some of the only times she’s able to truly air her grievances with dutch and the path he’s taking the gang down, since she knows charles would never rat her out for being disloyal. they almost kiss a few times but charles can never quite convince himself to take that first step, and alma is so emotionally all over the place and doesn’t know what to do with his affection. also, she helps sadie and arthur break john out of jail.

alma stays loyal to arthur until the end, and she often talks with him in private about helping the marston’s and the rest of the women get free. alma refuses to admit that arthur is ill, and doesn’t talk to him about his obvious deterioration. she spends a lot of time with arthur and charles helping rains fall and the rest of the reservation, because it’s the right thing to do but also because she knows how much it means to charles. she has a few quiet chats with rains fall and takes much of his advice to heart. alma and sadie also spend a lot of time together.

she and charles part ways when he insists on helping rains fall move the reservation north. it pains charles to not go with alma back to the gang, but he knows he has to help these people and she knows she can’t abandon her family even if its a lost cause. in my headcanon, charles travels with the reservation for months, and helps them relocate to canada, somewhere in the manitoba area - the whole trip is slow going and takes months. by the time charles helps them get settled and makes the return trip south, it’s been almost a year.

towards the end of the game, alma accompanies sadie and arthur to rescue abigail. her anger by that point is not in control at all, and she’s all flames and fury (about dutch, about micah being the rat, about john being dead even if she doesn’t want to believe it, about charles being gone even if she knows he had to go, about everything). when arthur tries to send her away with sadie and abigail she outright refuses, fighting the urge to slap him and just taking off towards beaver hollow instead so he has no choice but to follow her. she remains on the outskirts of camp when arthur once again tries to get alma to see reason, using the excuse that she can be his second and watch his back if things go south (he loves her like a sister and knows he’s walking into a storm, and doesn’t want to see her hurt anymore). she’s the one to raise the alarm when the pinkertons show up - she’s grazed by a bullet and chased from the camp as john and arthur make their escape through the caves.

in canon where arthur dies, alma circles back around the mountain once she’s shaken the pinkertons on her tail and finds john stumbling through the woods, bloodied and barely on his feet with arthur’s hat on his head. she drags him onto gaia with tears in her eyes and starts to ride back to the mountain, but john just grabs her hands on the reins and tugs her away. the two of them then reunite with sadie, abigail and the others at copperhead landing, and alma stays with them until john is back on his feet and things have quietened down a bit with the law. she also goes back to beaver hollow to bury grimshaw and arthur - she offers for the others to come with her, but none of them want to remember either of them (particularly arthur) like that.

alma offers to stay with the marstons to keep them safe, but john insists they’ll be better off if they seperate, so alma goes with sadie instead. the two initially try and seek out the remaining gang members, both to make sure they’re okay (in the case of charles) and micah (to kill him), but find no trace of anyone. eventually, they become bounty hunters, but alma grows tired of the business after about a year and leaves sadie to go on her own path. she picks up work as a stablehand and works her way through a few different ranches out west until eventually leaving the job in the middle of the night, because she’s not that little girl anymore and can’t bring herself to work under sexist ranchers anymore.

it’s just over three years after the gang fell apart before alma and charles reunite. by the time charles returned to america the gang it had been almost a year since things fell apart, and the gang had disappeared to the wind - all he finds at beaver hollow is a small group of squatters. he eventually stumbles upon arthur’s grave, which tells him the others are alive. all his efforts to find alma or john or sadie prove fruitless though, and in frustration he lets himself disappear as well. he takes up street fighting to make a living, and travels through various towns and cities making money before disappearing for months at a time to live off the land and recover before his funds run low again and he’s forced back to fighting. it’s during this time that he spies a familiar silhouette on the outskirts of a town in the middle of nowhere out west. he and alma reunite after three years, and in the (very sad and dramatic) aftermath of their reunion, decide to make things official between them. alma had been in the process of trying to track down the marstons when she and charles found each other, and so he accompanies her until they find uncle drinking himself stupid in the blackwater saloon. (and then the epilogue happens as normal, but only like 4 years after arthur dies rather than 7 because you cant tell me these people didn’t try to contact each other in like seven years, and also rdr1 never happens because i will give the marstons happiness dear GOD).

after micah is killed, charles heals from his wounds, and john and abigail get married, alma slowly travels back north with charles to canada. they eventually settle down somewhere in either british columbia or alberta, and start a family.

in the au where arthur survives, he and john stumble off the mountain together until alma eventually runs into the two of them in the woods bleeding out and half dead. she lets both men ride on gaia despite their protests, because “i’m not the one dying here, you idiots, just get on the damned horse”, and then leads gaia out of the woods until she finds a pinkerton horse running in panicked circles with its rider dangling dead from the saddle. the three of them reunite at copperhead landing, and the same thing essentially happens as i described in the ‘canon’ route except arthur is alive (but still sick with TB). i imagine grace is there somehow too, and she’s the one to take arthur and nurse him back to health (because after watching her father slowly die and waste away from sickness, grace was not going to let the same thing happen to arthur and had researched cures or something, i don’t know. idk how tuberculosis works ahjfdsgfj). in this au, grace and arthur stay with the marstons while arthur is recovering, but everything else stays the same. grace and arthur eventually move out to the pacific north west to start a family away from the ghosts of the gang. they visit alma and charles every so often, who are living just over the border, and the marstons write to them regularly.

GOD THIS GOT SO LONG IM SO SORRY ADHJSFASDHSH I NEED TO LEARN TO RESTRAIN MYSELF

[racingtoaredlight]

Degenerate’s guide to college football tv watch ‘em ups for week 10, 2018 season

Somehow there are a couple of HUUUUUUGGGGGEEE! matchups this week and the overall effect is still a complete waste of time trash set of games.

I love it and hate it all at this point. Rooting for a repeat national title for UCF. Of course, this Bama team is one of the best talent collections in football history but I still don’t want them to win anything.

You know the drill. Times are eastern. Lines are accurate per Vegas Insider at the time the post is written and will not be checked again before publishing. Advice is sketchy at best. All complaints are to be addressed to Dr. Soused Bergin, Toronto, Canada.

Saturday, November 3

Matchup                                             Time (ET)                     TV/Mobile

Air Force at Army                               12:00pm                       CBSSN

Air Force destroyed Navy earlier this year so a win here gets them the Commander in Chief Trophy. Go Zoomies.

Central Michigan at Eastern Michigan   12:00pm                 ESPN3

I doubt I’ll ever care about the MAC.

24 Iowa State at Kansas                       12:00pm                      FSN

Kansas is +15.5 at home against a team with only one more win than them. The Jayhawks are second in the country in turnover margin and feature one of the top players in the country for total yards. And I can’t stress enough how much you should put your money on Iowa State in this game.

Louisville at 2 Clemson                         12:00pm                      ABC

Two years ago at this time Louisville was a top 10 team with a soon-to-be Heisman trophy winner at QB and a close loss to eventual national championship winner Clemson the only blemish on their record. Now they’re a 38.5-point underdog against the same Clemson program, which somehow seems too low, and Bobby Petrino is probably going to get fired even with a $14 million buyout.

Memphis at East Carolina                      12:00pm                   ESPNU

Memphis has a lot more talent than their record would suggest. ECU does not. I’ve been burned too many times by Memphis this year, though, so take the Pirates at +11.5.

Michigan State at Maryland                    12:00pm                   ESPN2

This is really kind of gross feeling right now. If you watch this game make sure to report back on all the awkwardness from the announcers. There should be a lot.

Nebraska at 10 Ohio State                      12:00pm                     FOX

Scott Frost somehow has Nebraska in better shape than Louisville so that’s some sort of victory, right?

Oklahoma State at Baylor                       12:00pm                      FS1

Okie State is only a 6.5-point favorite. Is Baylor really going to have a decent team again within 2 years? That’s terrible. Go Cowboys. Beat that spread all to hell, please.

Rutgers at Wisconsin                               12:00pm                      BTN

Oddsmakers like Wisconsin to win 40-10 but they’re hardly any better than Rutgers at this point.

South Carolina at Mississippi                  12:00pm                    SECN

You will be hard pressed in your lifetime to find a game featuring more NFL talent that is less worthy of your time than this piece of shit.

19 Syracuse at Wake Forest                     12:00pm                RSN/ESPN3

Syracuse is ranked 19? What a stupid year this is.

20 Texas A&M at Auburn                           12:00pm                   ESPN

aTm at 20 isn’t much better than Syracuse at 19. This is a matchup of two of the better QBs in the country but the twist to that is that neither of them is really very good. Kellen Mond is OK. Jarrett Stidham is a stiff now, as he always has been.

Georgia Tech at North Carolina                12:15pm             Raycom Sports

I am absolutely dumb enough to watch a bit of this.

San Jose State at Wyoming                       2:00pm                    ATTSN

This is true degenerate football but it’s scheduled very weirdly. The over under of 38.5 is hilariously low and appropriate. I don’t know what happened to Wyoming this year but they are pure trash. SJSU is trash but they’ve been that way.

Texas State at Georgia State                      2:00pm                     ESPN+

You could convince me pretty easily that these schools don’t actually exist in the sense of having classes or students.

Georgia Southern at ULM                            3:00pm                    ESPN3

Georgia Southern is going to end up with a 12-1 record playing in a bowl game before Christmas. Not sure if I wish this was a 1-AA game or if I’d rather have all of D-1 be a single division (like it is in basketball.)

Marshall at Southern Miss                           3:00pm                   Facebook

Marshall has been one of the better group of 6 teams for a long time now but Southern Miss gave us NFL superstar QB Nick Mullens. So the Favres are better in the long run even if they’re losers in the immediate term.

South Alabama at Arkansas State               3:00pm                     ESPN+

There is no joy to be had in this drab expression of “football.”

Florida State at 21 NC State                          3:30pm                      ABC

FSU is at an interesting point where everything they do can make me laugh. They can live up to their talent level and win big or they can bicker and fall in on themselves like they normally do or they can get excruciatingly close and lose in heartbreaking fashion. I don’t see a downside here.

6 Georgia at 9 Kentucky                                3:30pm                       CBS

Georgia is favored by 9 and I think Kentucky is a mirage of a team but I also think the line is too high and I can’t quite explain my thought process there. THE ONLY PROCESS I NEED IS MY GUT!

16 Iowa at Purdue                                           3:30pm                      ESPN2

I think this matchup looks like fun. I might need to be committed.

Kansas State at TCU                                       3:30pm                       FS1

This game is a perfect metaphor for the Christian notion of purgatory.

Liberty at UMass                           3:30pm         11 Sports / NESN / WZBJ-24

Liberty is #4 in my teams I’m least likely to ever root for. Go Minutemen.

Louisiana at Troy                                            3:30pm                   ESPN+

It’s stupid that Troy’s teams are named Trojans instead of Horses.

Minnesota at Illinois                                        3:30pm                    BTN

This game is a perfect metaphor for the coming apocalypse.

Navy at Cincinnati                                           3:30pm                  ESPNU

Navy is bad this year but they might not be any worse than periphery of the top 25, 1-loss Cincinnati. The world is not orderly.

Tulane at USF                                                   3:30pm                 CBSSN

Is Charlie Strong any good as a defensive coach anymore? Did Texas just completely break him? Tulane is all scheme, no talent and they’re somehow only a 6-point dog on the road against USF. This is all very odd.

UTEP at Rice                                                     3:30pm                  ESPN3

This is an important game every year for recruiting. It’s hard to play in Texas and never find any good players but Rice and UTEP have made it an art form. Sure, UTEP has a rookie starting in the NFL this year but sometimes things but even the greatest masters don’t always get it right.

13 West Virginia at 17 Texas                            3:30pm                   FOX

If Texas is really BACK! they’ll lose this game by 40. 

22 Boston College at Virginia Tech                 3:45pm          Raycom Sports

Football actually sucks and here is my proof.

14 Penn State at 5 Michigan                             3:45pm                ESPN

In the interest of making football terrible for everybody as long as I’m hating it, I am rooting for Michigan to win out and make it to the playoffs. Even allowing that I don’t really want that for anything other than spite I’d still hope for a huge blowout win by the home team in this instance.

Alcorn State at New Mexico State                    4:00pm            AggieVision

Look at New Mexico State out here scheduling a 1-AA team in November like an SEC team.

Charlotte at Tennessee                                      4:00pm                 SECN Alt.

Tennessee is gonna lose.

Missouri at 11 Florida                                         4:00pm                   SECN

Florida is still Florida but the ranking doesn’t seem wrong because there are only a couple of actually good teams this year.

15 Utah at Arizona State                                     4:00pm                 Pac-12N

Utah could lose this and it wouldn’t be at all surprising even though there’s no logical reason for Utah to lose this game.

Appalachian State at Coastal Carolina              5:00pm                   ESPN+

It seems like only a week since Appalachian State was a top 25-ranked powerhouse.

Duke at Miami (FL)                                               7:00pm                  ESPN2

Mark Richt is playing some kind of long cruel joke on his alma mater. The only nice thing I have to say about Malik Rosier anymore is that he’s never lost to Duke. I half expect that to change this week.

 Houston at SMU                                                   7:00pm                  ESPNU

Ed Oliver probably isn’t going to play, which is a shame for watching Houston games but is good for him and his future earnings, but D’Eriq King and the Cougars offense has been going berserk all year. I don’t know about the -14 on the road but the o/u 71 seems like smart money.

UConn at Tulsa                                                     7:00pm                   CBSSN

Nobody likes football enough to watch this on purpose.

3 Notre Dame at Northwestern                            7:15pm                   ESPN

Maryland eventually listened to public outcry and fired their murderous head football coach but Notre Dame plays with a different set of morals. I’m still waiting for the Irish to unravel and bring some balance back to a world gone evil.

Florida Atlantic at FIU                                           7:30pm                Stadium

I always thought that in the long run Butch Davis would be the better hire between these two head coaches and looking at their current records the long run might have only been 18 months.

LA Tech at 18 Mississippi State                           7:30pm                 SECN

I don’t think anybody could guess the top 25 right now.

UCLA at Oregon                                                     7:30pm                 FOX

I’m interested to see the reception for Chip Kelly in his old haunts. Justin Herbert is probably sitting this one out so if you were planning to check this one out for his sake make other plans.

UTSA at UAB                                                           7:30pm      beIN SPORTS

Very solid weird football as counter-programming to LSU-Bama.

1 Alabama at 4 LSU                                                  8:00pm            CBS

Very obvious game of the week choice, might be the game of the year. Might be a platform for the Tide hype to kick into a ridiculous gear. Night games in Baton Rouge are often a bad time for the visitors but Bama’s whole thing this year is bombing the shit out of their opponents in the early going so if Tua is who we  want him to be and it’s 35-3 at the half then where do we go? Alabama has a tiny little bit of apparent vulnerability at this point but I’m not sure if LSU has what’s needed to exploit the defense. Ultimately I view this game as a way to gauge how sure I am that Clemson-Bama IV is going to happen in the CFP first round or in the championship game.

7 Oklahoma at Texas Tech                                       8:00pm             ABC

You’ve probably seen by now that this is a replay of the Most Big XII Game Of All Time. I watched the end of that game. I fucking hated it. The offenses didn’t look unstoppable except that the defenses didn’t look like they were even playing. This will probably be a lot like that but with worse QBs. Hurrah.

Stanford at Washington                                            9:00pm        Pac-12N

Weird set of circumstances that this game is mostly worthless in a national sense.

USC at Oregon State                                                10:00pm           FS1

It might be best for the long-term health of the USC program if they just go ahead and lose this game and fire Clay Helton now instead of waiting a few weeks to do it.

BYU at Boise State                                                    10:15pm         ESPN2

Not a bad blue field game. If Boise wins out they’ll be a top 25 team playing in a decent bowl game. That’s always entertaining.

San Diego State at New Mexico                               10:15pm          ESPNU

This is pretty good late night football.

23 Fresno State at UNLV                                           10:30pm          CBSSN

I am not seriously considering attendance for this which, in my defense, charts with writing about football as a TV entertainment.

California at 8 Washington State                              10:45pm          ESPN

Last year Washington State was a top 10 team playing Cal and they lost 37-3. So there’s no reason to think you know what the outcome should be in this game.

Utah State at Hawaii                                                    11:59pm       Spectrum

Utah State probably deserves a top 25 spot as things stand. This game is being televised by a cable provider instead of being on a channel that you can watch. I don’t really know how that works.