#rdr2 joe

[nthspecialll]

Hiii! I love your red dead analyses sm, you're so big brained. What do you think the dynamics were like within Micah's gang? I saw people say Joe was his right hand man but I don't recall seeing it stated anywhere? How did he go from "wanting a tight crew of 5-6 good guns" (paraphrasing here) to such a huge gang of desperadoes? Do you think Cleet was telling the truth about being disgusted by their actions? Thanks!

I have talked about some of this actually! I will link those posts at the end of this answer, but also thank you!!

What do I think the dynamic within Micah's gang was? I think that it was very professional. Unlike with the Van Der Linde gang, Micah's gang was not a family, it was very strictly a formal and professional thing, and I think that a lot of it is based on respect and fear for Micah.

Many of the newspapers report about Micah being very well know, very feared but also very sucessful, which to a regular person sounds extremely bad, but for a carrerr criminal you couldn't find someone better. Already by being part of Micah' gang you have asserted yourself in a position of power over civillians, law and other minor criminals.

That said, I don't think Micah cared a lot about his gang members, I think this rise of fresh meat is new, it is recent, that is what one of the posts is about, but basically the newspapers report that Micah is feeling desperate and I think that desperation is what leads Micah to accept more people into his gang because despite his dream, numbers is power. Micah's desperation is what leads him to break away from his ideal in order to try to protect himself. He doesn't care about all these people, about their lives, about what havic they make in his name, about anything. Likely he just kind of floated above them liek a symbol they could use.

About Joe being is right hand man, I don't particually remember anything directly stating it, but I do think it is correct due to the relation between Micah, Joe and Cleet.

Micah is the leader of these three, and while both Joe and Cleet do what Micah says, Joe is way more into it. If Micah says jump Joe will jump down on someone's head to bring that extra gore into the game, I don't think he is doing it to please Micah, I just think he does it for fun. Cleet however is just kinda following along, he does the crimes needed, he does what is told but he doesn't really make it anything big and fancy, which also brings me to, do I think Cleet was disgusted with Micah?

Yes, I do think he was digusted, I think he has morals, I think he has bounteries and I think in the end Micah crossed them.

[reddeadreference]

Various face angles of Joe [no last name] for reference (+ bonus tattoo photo).

-If asked I will add photos from RDO but he looks the same, it's only a year difference-

(If you think I should add more variations please let me know via reply or ask. For example: if you need a certain lighting or expression that is not shown above. Keep in mind these were taken with the PS4 version of the game's Photo Mode therefore there is a limit to what I can do. There are no mods on ps4 to help me.)

[adalidposts]

Joe!

[the99thfanboy]

I reset my Red Dead Online and I totally forgot Joe was there in his little cabin and I had to take a second

[abovesn4kes]

Sadie and some bad folk

[senirr]

[abeliophyllum]

I'm posting this to archive the comment emotes from the Red Dead Redemption Korean fan community that I drew. There are a lot of Korean memes on emote, but honestly I can't translate them into English lol.

I love that RDR Korean fan community.

[gremlin-boah]

Hello! If you feel inspired could you please draw Cleet and Joe? I love Micahs little lackeys sm and your art is so good 😭🙏 Have a nice day!

Ah yes.

Micah's lil bois

I made this shit with like 3 hrs of sleep pls don't judge me.

[rvstyartstar]

Hey, if there is still an empty space in your 6 cowboys meme draw, I would love to see Lemonade Joe (from the movie Lemonda Joe from 1964) with all of them. He's just so silly and goofy, I think he'd have a great time with the whole gang

The gangs all here The silles!!+ the bisexual cowboys !! :D

[shenziart]

spoiler page of upcoming answer in ask

[ilovecats-07]

my new wedded husband 💗

[micahs-chin-scar]

rat trio

[amrass]

An excerpt from my upcoming oneshot Blood Promise (Joe/Micah Bell)

Someone asked for this fic, but since it's not finished yet I decided to share an excerpt here. It is pretty mild by my standards, and explores their past together, but most of the fic is going to be explicit.

If you like darker themes of obsessive love, this might be for you.

Back when the two of them were thirteen and fifteen, they cut into the pads of their thumbs and pressed them together. 

But when Joe blood-promised that they were to be loyal to one another forever, and Micah went off-script and said he was to be the greatest survivor ever. Not outlaw. Survivor.

Their cuts scarred differently. Micah's became light and flat because of all his gun training. Joe's, like a red star because he kept sucking off the scab when thinking about the younger boy.

Gnawing on his thumb became a habit somewhere along the way of riding and shooting and running together because their fathers did the same, though his father was a nobody in comparison to Micah's crazy one. His twin was fanatically religious. And his infamous grandfather, a skeletal shape in a rocking chair on the porch, had a look about him that crazy wouldn't even begin to cover. 

Since they met Joe and Micah had only been truly apart twice. One was when Micah joined the O'Driscolls for a while. The other was when Micah went undercover in the Van der Lindes for a shorter while. Both times were torture. Joe gnawed and gnawed and gnawed, through the redness of childhood scabs, the deeper redness of endless longing, and the blackened redness of a bitterness so deep it could leak out of him on a very dark night. 

[abeliophyllum]

Joe's appearance in Chapter 6 of the RDR story is completely different from his appearance in RDO.

I honestly didn't expect him to be such a talkative person lol

-

Given the characterization in RDO that Joe doesn't have many friends, it's possible that he's more of a loner who just doesn't want to talk to the Van Der Linde gang, which is why he didn't talk to Arthur much in Chapter 6, and why he didn't tell Dutch about John falling off the train.

However, the portrayal in my drawing is slightly exaggerated for the sake of the joke. In fact, when Arthur antagonizes him, Joe sometimes responds with “You don't look so good”. It's just my opinion, but if he had been in the van der Linde gang with Micah in the first place, he might have had a chance to get to know Bill, Javier, and Arthur...

He also has an extreme aversion to betrayal, and since he doesn't know much about the Van der Lind gang, he can't help but think that Arthur and John are trying to betray Boss Dutch and his friend Micah.

Add to that the fact that he refers to himself as “Old Joe” and the wrinkles on his face and hands suggest that his actual age is probably considerably older than Micah's. Maybe he's actually about the same age as Dutch.

Joe's old age and his long experience as a Hired gun for various factions, including the Italian Mafia, it's my Headcanon that Arthur and John's actions that put them at odds with Dutch might have been viewed by Joe as simply younger gang members “rebelling” against their boss...

[zanazirafanfic]

Sharing because this video goes hard. (I also love the RDR1 Dutch mod.)