#red dead redemption 2 shifting

[dearfriendsinhigherplaces]

why do i have two drs where i live in a camp and sleep on the ground why do i do this to myself i dont need to live this way

[mirrorhouse]

∞ RED DEAD REDEMPTION 2

[blanche-elizabeth-devereaux]

being in the rdr2 fandom like

[kodiak-shifts]

1. Dutch

2. Arthur

3. Hosea

4. Bill

5. Micah

[eclaire-went-bam]

idk if i'll get my thoughts out clearly bcs it's 2 am but

i've seen people talk about the different ways dutch has acted counter to his own beliefs in rdr2, especially as the main story progressed

like, dressing real "smart" (looking more at home in cities), progressively moving camp cliser to the (civilised) east instead of west, getting buddy-buddy or appealing to powerful people who kinda represents what he's supposed to resent, allowing strauss to loan shark desperates (how arthur literally describes it as a legal/"civilised" crime or something like that), enacting revenge

& on that revenge note, i don't think i've seen anyone really talk about colm o'driscoll's hanging outside of that lens. i think it had equally to do with not only showing his morals against vengeance slipping, as it does with visually showing how dutch keeps driving himself & the gang closer & closer to society/law at the very same time as He In Particular becomes more & more lawless

the writers could have chosen numerous different impactful ways to kill colm off, but symbolically speaking, i think there's a reason why they had dutch, sadie, & arthur blend in with saint denis civil society as an upper class citywoman & lawmen while watching colm die. dutch's gang always seemed more as a commune of misfits lead by a robin hood, at least at first, while what we know of colm's gang seems more in line with what we expect from the ugly sides of the old west (like micah). being irresponsible, sleeping around, killing random people, torturing, etc (& if i remember correctly, didn't dutch say they began to drift prior to killing colm's brother bcs of how much their ideals clashed??). So i mean. Dutch, blending in as a lawman, watched a microcosm in one person of the wild west die, at the hands of the law

i don't think this is the writers Literally saying dutch sides with the law now, that clearly isn't the case he Literally just killed himself after going all "our time is over john </22222" he definitely was unable to realise & accept it the way hosea had. but i do think it's a visual portrayal of a very real shift in his priorities/morals/however you wanna put it

yada yada micah also personifying the evils of the old west while also siding with the law whilst also obviously not being a lawful person there's a connection there to the rest if this idk maybe since dutch was already Gone by then he started to do that too to a less conscious or organised extent something something i'm too tired to make a full line of reasoning and i dont even know where i'd put it so like. So like.

[danneronii]

Hello! This is an intro :3

My name is Danny, and I use any pronouns. This acc will serve as an online diary of sorts where I can meet likeminded people! :D

Some of my interests are

- Video games, my favorites are Dead By Daylight, Red Dead Redemption 2, Minecraft, Roblox, among many others!

- Reality shifting, this will be probably what i post about most here(if i actually remember tumblr exists LMAO). i'll talk abt my journey, and scripting as well!

- Writing/English stuff, wasnt sure really how to say it but yeah. I love writing (def not the best though)

- Music!! My favorite bands/artists are The Front Bottoms, Modern Baseball, Tyler The Creator, Mitski, Adrianne Lenker, The Crane Wives, and a lot more.

- Anime/Shows in general, my favs are Jujutsu Kaisen, Cowboy Bebop, Alice In Borderland, and I plan to watch a lot more.

Some things I will not tolerate here

While I've heard tumblr is pretty friendly and accepting, theres always gonna be haters! if you have unnecessary hate, just keep it to yourself instead of being a loser! thats really it

[selfixsworld]

Help

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[spocktheestallion]

no bc dutch really is the fucking worst for keeping micah around. if anything dutch keeping micah shows that deep down he was always an ass at heart. despite all his grandstanding about building a “better world” and “protecting his family” he was willing to keep a racist, selfish creep of a liability around all bc he liked getting his ego stroked. he claimed to love charles and lenny and javier but kept micah around to disrespect them. he let micah be predatory and creepy to the women in camp, though that’s not too surprising considering the way the whole mary-beth and molly situations reflect how dutch himself sees women. even if you wanna look at it as a purely practical “well he’s a good gunslinger” way micah was always way more of a liability than an asset. every one of his jobs (including the black water ferry which is literally the whole reason the gang has to flee the west and is the catalyst for the game) goes terribly wrong and always results in someone getting injured/killed and the law coming down on them even harder. even before micah was actively trying to sabotage the gang he was fucking them over constantly. this is why i don’t like those “well dutch wasn’t always bad 🥺” takes. dutch was always a selfish hypocrite. he is literally a textbook narcissist. in another life he would’ve been a cult leader. hell, he kind of already is. there’s lots of indicators towards dutch’s true character throughout the game, but him keeping micah around and letting him abuse everyone in camp so long as he sucked up to dutch was one of the big ones

[trbotunnel]

rip molly o'shea you wouldve loved mitski

[bluwu-draws]

Last ever Amazon post, bc today was my last shift, but Barbie and Arthur Morgan would absolutely be best friends and you cannot convince me otherwise

[limejow]

Anyone else shifting to rdr2?

If so, please do let me know. I want to meet other people like me who just wanna hug the damn cowboys to get rid of depression and like 283939 other mental illnesses. /j(tho it would help a LOT.)

Me looking for shifting moots like ^

[conkreetmonkey]

Red Dead Redemption 2 was so real for creating the most in-depth, realistic clothing system I've ever seen in any game, and exclusively using it on burly, unhygienic men.

You choose every layer, every accessory, with dozens to hundreds of each to choose from. You can go in and fine-tune minute details like whether or not to roll up the shirt sleeves, or button the collar, or whether to wear your pants under your boots. These clothes get dirty in real time depending on what you do in the game. Mud, dust and blood linger unless washed off. Every garment has a warmth rating based on its material, and the game calculates what temperatures an outfit is suitable for based on the combined total. Dressing too cold or warm for the weather causes health debuffs.

You can choose which way he parts his hair, and whether he gels it. If you eat too much he gets bulkier and gains a double chin, and if you eat too little he can go underweight and get all bony and sallow. Both of these states come with stat changes. His hair and beard grow in real game time, and you need to routinely style and shave his facial hair if you want any style other than a full Santa. You need to bathe him regularly or people will start commenting on his BO, and he'll start visibly appearing filthy long before that. He sunburns in the sun, and in the heat he becomes slick and glossy with sweat.

This shit is IN DEPTH. It blows the customization systems of actual fashion-centric games like tf2, Monster Hunter and Splatoon out of the water in every regard. They honestly look basic in comparison. It's a paradigm shift for sure once you experience RDR2's level of customization. Everything else starts to feel smaller.

The player character all this customization is applied to, and I simply cannot stress this enough, is a 36 year old, 6'3" smoker weighing well over 200 pounds, with facial hair thicker than a sheepdogs, forearms like gnarled tree trunks and a dark, dense forest of body hair covering every reasonable surface. His skin is pocked and marred with scars from a rugged, nomadic lifestyle, and his teeth are the colour of cornbread. He has a thick southern accent, is a known mean drunk and knows how to skin pretty much any North American animal. He has never worn deodorant, flossed or moisturized. He eats canned beans, fruit and the like by simply pouring them into his mouth and gulping, often while walking or riding a horse at full gallop.

I can think of NO better use case for such customization. Not some fresh-faced little twink, not some busty anime babe. Just a gross, hairy, unwashed homeless dude with crippling self esteem issues and a chest broader than a barrel laid lengthwise. A non fashion-centric game, certainly a non-fashion centric character, but for some reason the best clothing and customization system ever concieved, bar none. What the fuck.

[babyaiker]

It’s 3:30am but I have another rant idea. As a writer myself, when I go into fiction I tend to ask why a lot. Like, what importance does this scene have, why did this event happen and how did it affect the characters. Writing isn’t real life, and every event HAS purpose, and that to me is fun to analyze ^^

So anyway

Overthinking the purpose of the different character deaths in Red Dead Redemption 2

I know I’ve talked about spoilers a fair bit without warning, but I’m not holding any punches, so

SPOILER WARNING!!

Get ready for a long rant folks, and apologies for any spelling errors I missed,

First and foremost, rdr2 is a prequel. But more importantly, rdr2 is a prequel that depicts the explicit fall of the Van Der Linde Gang. Every death serves to cement that fact, as the game strategically will take out certain characters to both break down the gang’s stability, and the players emotions.

The first thing the game does to permanently shift the tone is to kill the comic relief characters. Both Sean and Kieran, while both complex in their own rights, serve specific, almost “gimmicky” roles in the gang (funny Irishman and whipping boy). These more comical purposes unfortunately don’t fit the game’s tone in the later chapters. And while I could go on about how interesting it would have been to see these two characters dramatically change over the course of the later chapters, their deaths are what the writers used to establish the beginning of the end.

The next duo the writing team had to take out of course had to be the smart, leveled headed characters, back to back no less. While Sean and Kieran’s deaths served to change the tone for the player, Hosea and Lenny’s deaths are what changed the tone for the gang. There’s a reason the fandom jokes that if Hosea had lived, he wouldn’t have let what happened happen. Both of these characters in their own right served as important emotional pillars for the gang, especially Dutch and Arthur. They were both rational and incredibly resourceful, two traits that made them a liability to the destined fate of the gang.

Hosea’s death also now introduces us to the section where a lot of characters die because they narratively HAVE TO. Like I said, rdr2 is a prequel, and you don’t want any loose ends popping up in rdr1 cause a character was introduced and not properly wrapped up. Lenny Kieran and Sean, while had their own purposes behind their deaths, didn’t have to die BECAUSE the story was a prequel. It’s easy to rationalize that if they had lived, their lives wouldn’t have affected the plot of rdr1. Hosea however, due to his personal connection to Dutch, HAD to die. He would have absolutely been brought up in rdr1 had he survived, as he was that important to Dutch and the gang.

That goes the same for Molly and Grimshaw. Both of these characters in my opinion would have been loose ends in the first game had they survived. Their deaths did serve other purposes though,

Molly for one served as both the gang and the audience’s sign that things were never going to be ok again. She’s the first death to happen within camp by the hands of another camp member, foreshadowing at its finest.

As for Grimshaw, standing as the last gang member in camp to stand by Arthur and John, had her fate sealed the moment she lifted her gun. By now the tone and the stakes were set, everything was falling apart, and nothing can save it. Grimshaw’s death doesn’t serve to set a tone or change anything for the characters, she’s just a victim of the gang’s fall, getting shot like a dog as reward for her years of loyalty.

And of course, we now get to Arthur,

For those who played the first game, it’s safe to imagine that when going into the next game, there’s a lingering feeling that Arthur isn’t going to make it out of this. The pinnacle of rdr2 tying its loose ends if you will.

And yet you bond with Arthur. You experience the world with him, meet new people with him, you bond with the gang and your family with him. You bathe him, you feed him, you make sure he’s rested, you make him do chores, you do little errands for others with him. You watch him grow scared and doubtful, you watch his eyes grow red, his skin go pale, his cough worsen. And because of the nature of a prequel, you know this can only end one way.

Sure, maybe the writers could write him out quietly, make it so that John would have no reason to ever mention his brother. But untouched grief works well too to keep a man quiet about his loved ones.

Despite everything, despite most players knowing Arthur doesn’t get to stick around, to live a long life, to get out of this ok, we still fall in love with him, and become completely undone at the end of the game.

And Micah’s death in the epilogue, of course, just feels good. It ties up a loose end for the first game, and it gives the player all the freedom in the world to pump his ass full of lead. It’s your reward for 40 hours of cowgirl simulator hell.

And also shout out to Strauss for not ratting despite getting kicked out and tortured, secret og right there,,

—————

Alright it’s now 5am as I finished writing this, but I have 3 more deaths I wanna quickly comment on. Davey, Jenny, and Mac, right?

Due to how sparely these three are mention outside of how they mildly affected other characters, I view their deaths as essentially worldbuilding. Characters WILL die in unfortunate and unfair ways, especially if it involves the Pinkertons. Characters don’t always get to go out with a bang, you are not immune to succumbing to the elements in this game, nor are you immune to the consequences of your actions.

—————

But of course, you can write a story however you want. I can see myself being easily convinced that any of these deaths weren’t required, as it’s all really just up to how well you can write it. I wholeheartedly think that the story could’ve been benefited by the presence of Sean and or Kieran for one. Whether it be watching Sean breakdown over the stress of the gang falling apart, or watching Kieran finally become a trusted member of the gang and break out of his shell more. And hell, I think there’s something interesting in the idea that Hosea survives, but is unable to help quell Dutch’s paranoia anymore.

There’s room to argue that each death wasn’t required, but in the end, they did die, and there were good reasons behind it. Yes, even as a fan who regularly forgets Kieran died due to the amount of “he lived” AU’s bouncing around in their head, his death was cool as fuck, and both thematically and narratively made sense. It’s beautifully tragic and deeply depressing, and the religious themes only make it that more interesting. Saw him pop up in a Twitter thread of “most graphic video game deaths” and felt genuine pride-

[selfixsworld]

I'm open for any questions you may have 💕

Have in mind that I haven't shifted

[tossball-stick]

heyy i saw your latest post about john's aromantic trutherism and i didn't exactly understand what you mean by that... could you explain? i too don't think he is actually in love with abigail if that's what you were saying...?

hiii!!! 1: thank you for asking about this im excited to write and analyze him in this way

2: plsplspls get the idea outta ur head that aromantic people cant love. noooo i couldnt have been misunderstood more. i wanna clarify that i do think john loves abigail. i just dont think that love is all that romantically motivated and ive got a few reasons to believe so.

3: uhhhh uhhh this ended up being like 2.5k words of analysis on john im sorry. no one on tumblr has asked me my thoughts about him before so this is the first time im talking about a lot of the stuff here and theres so much ive thought about johns character and its all messy and intertwined. itll be a little all over the place. i am deeply sorry.

okay. first reason? hes otherwise not much of a romantic. whether he wants to be or not, he falls flat on his face every attempt there is at being romantic with abigail (rarely do we see him be romantic with other women) is usually met with disdain, if there even are many to begin with. its rare to hear john say something pleasant about having a woman, and its rare to ever witness them having a good time together while in the gang. 

...up until the epilogue and john gets his shit together. but by that point i could argue further analysis as to how john isnt wholly himself by that point. hear me out.

john and arthur are two halves of one whole to me. its clear theres some sort of void in john after arthur dies, and he still holds the memory of arthur very very dear. he does his best to keep the memories alive, in fact, in a way to keep arthur alive. 

this starts extending to some kinda interesting parallels, though. writing and drawing in arthurs journal like he did, the hat being placed on johns head, john proposing with marys ring, the phrasing and tone of johns proposal is also shockingly familiar to arthur telling john that itd make him happy if john went to his family... after arthurs death, i find john taking on many of his traits even. he becomes more quiet and closed off, we see it even in rdr2 with arthur telking him to "knock it off with the whole being mysterious thing" or whatever. arthur claims its to act like dutch, but ill do you one better, its clearly just john idolizing his older brother and trying to be like him to be a proper man. this brings me to my next point...

the time period of rdr2!!! yayyy cowboys, the victorian era, Did u know. being a man was something you had to do in previous american and european cultures? this slowly started fading as we roll over into the 20th century, but there was a lot of emphasis placed on performing your role as a man. to be a good man, you must do xyz. otherwise, you are seen as immature, as a boy, as a child. 

throughout the entire series of red dead redemption, both 1 and 2, theres a lot of stuff pointing towards jogns struggle to Be A Man. arthur and dutch frequently refuse to let him grow up, still calling him "little john" and still treating him like hes a rowdy unruly boy that needs to learn better, not a man who should know better. hosea is the only man treating john like hes a man, and even then id say hes fairly lax with the guy. only as the story of rdr2 progresses do we see arthur start to shift his view towards john. not as a boy to stay a boy, because the gang isnt gonna be around forever. john cant keep being a boy. he needs to become a man, take care of his family. 

working off a distinctly gentleman influenced view of masculinity, johns inability to be a man is almost directly tied to his inability to be a proper romantic for his wife. compared to arthur, who is seen taken women on dates and flirting with them just to make them laugh at times. hes dancing with the ladies and helping them up and down the coaches, wagons, and horses. john like. just barely remembers to do that for abi in the epilogue. again, his failings to be a true romantic are tied with his failings as a man. 

in rdr1, this even extends to bill having the bit of dialogue, "you always were a scared little boy!" continuing to imply that john is not a man, hes never been a man. the only reason we can read him as a man Now is because we are going by arthurs definition of manhood. we can extend this further and say bill still views john as a boy because john does not live up to bills expectations of manhood- while arthur may view being a man as something chivalrous, more gentlemanly, bill clearly views masculinity as power and violence, without much to do with women. john does not live up to that, to bill, until the end.

if you read "masculinity" as "being romantic and chivalrous towards women", then, as john fails at being a romantic, he too fails at being a man. there are a lot of other ways john is immature and childish but this is a really easy one to point out if you know the time period and just how much emphasis was placed on both romanticism and manliness, and how they intertwined.

third reasoning for aro john: his family wasnt his for so much of his life. this one is another one that needs a bit of elaboration i fear.

the story of john and abigail getting together is simple enough. she joined the gang at 17 as a sex worker, slept around with some of the gang, then for one reason or another, very clearly believed that the pregnancy was johns. john runs away for a year.

in this time, we dont know a whole lot about what gang life was like without john. however, with arthurs comments about marrying abigail himself and loving her, and his close relationship with jack, i think its pretty clear arthur was the one being a man in johns place. when john left, there was a john shaped hole arthur had to fill. (i also like to think this because the potential misery of arthur having to lose his family a second time once john returns is fun to me.)

even in the story of rdr2, we see john Love and Care For his family, but its never in the same, romantic way arthur seems to involve himself in abi and jacks lives. john will defend them with his life, but when it actually comes to pulling himself up by his bootstraps and being a father or a husband, he kinda just drags his feet and gets lost. he has to be told to reunite with his family at jacks party, despite, in my eyes, his love for jack being very clearly displayed while they were looking for him. 

this is only bolstered by the conclusion of rdr2, with john and arthur on the mountain. arthur, in all his holy parallels, like jesus passing the virgin mary off to john the beloved, arthur tells john it would make him very happy if [john] went to be with his family and left. arthur is passing his family off onto john, the same as jesus passed his family onto saint john. (this one hits harder if you know the rest of the "arthur is jesus" parallels and symbolism but i feel like those would be more impactful as a web weave, and i cant make one right now haha. most obvious one i can think of to support this though is arthur being a scapegoat, dying for the gangs sins.) remember these points they are the most important and will come back later.

reason number four: "but javier-!" shhhhshshsh lemme talk. yes. john is infinitely more intimate with javier than abigail. however, again, we must take the time period into account.

not that far off from many disgusting redpill communities today, back in the 1800s it was typically expected for men to socialize with men and women with women. there was a certain level of bonding you only had with your wife, as well as a certain level of bonding you only had with the men who were close to you. 

i have got to grab this fandom by the shoulders and say rockstar did not make these men as affectionate as they should have been with each other, and thats completely platonically. this is taking romance out of the equation, these men considered each other brothers and family. they were all in a cult together. they would have been very close, and also very affectionate! they would confide in each other and hold each other and cry to each other. they would make gifts for each other and sing and dance together. you can at least see them all pass around beer bottles between each other.

do i think john and javier are closer than most? yes absolutely. do i think javier is in love with john in some way? yes absolutely. do i think its romantic? ehhh maybe. do i think john loves javier? yes absolutely. do i think its romantic? ....noo not really. their whole dynamic reads as one sided through and through to me. even if they ever got together im sure they were quickly apart again, and i doubt the relationship would have been fulfilling in the ways javier would want, leaving him longing still.

the "ive always loved you, even now" immediately funneling into a crate being shoved onto john to knock him over can also be metaphorical- javiers love is disarming to john Because he does not know how to react to it. hes never known how to react to it. hes never known how to react to love from anyone, because "love" seems to feel so much different for everyone but him.

reason ff. fiiiiive. dear god. im sorry for this being this long: john loves. he clearly loves very hard. he was clearly wrecked by arthurs death, he would clearly crawl through hell for his family, he was clearly hurt because his love for javier eventually stabbed him in the back. however, to me, a lot of this love feels similar to the love john has for dutch, or arthur, really. its familial, its platonic, it sure as hell isnt romantic. (even if the games themselves like to joke about it being so lol.)

its just clear to me that he loves. he cant not love jack and abi after everything hes done for them. he cant not love javier after being so close for so long. but in the same vein, he cant not love dutch for the same reasons. ysee what i mean? his devotion to his wife and child feels identical to the devotion to dutch, compared to arthur, whos devotion to eliza and isaac directly went against his devotion to dutch.

much like with dutch, where john was still seen as a boy, he will ferociously do the big things for his family (saving jack, defending the ranch, tackling gangsters and robbers). he will almost always fail to do the little things that would make him a true man, though. yknow. winding down, relaxing, just working, not getting involved in fights. spending some time with his family maybe. 

he can shape up and be good, he just never does. 

and i think thats why hes so torn between leaving on his own, leaving with his family, or staying with the gang. theres no difference between romantic, platonic, or familial love for him. when arthur tells him to go be with his family and john replies "youre my brother" its not only announcing arthur as family, but i think it only reinforces that blurred line of what love is for john. "i love you the same as them, why must i leave you behind? if they are family and i love them, then you too must be family, for i love you."

point six: i hope you remembered the first few points like i told you to. you did remember right

this brings us back around to john not being a man by not being a romantic, arthurs family being passed off to him, and also john not wholly being himself later on. in the epilogue, between 1899 and 1908, we hear about how john has been unable to avoid trouble and has them on the run still. whenever abigail asks something of him, he instead goes and does what he wants. its only after she leaves him (ultimate failure of being a man) do we see him start to shape himself up again, and i would argue this shaping up increases substantially after he reunites with charles. charles sets him on the right path and reawakens that memory of arthur. i imagine being close to blackwater also helps here. id argue due to charles' apparent closeness with arthur, and then sudden closeness to john due to john being all thats left of arthur... it makes john also feel like hes all thats left of arthur. i believe after speaking with charles and thinking to himself, he decides to fulfill the one dream arthur had, seemingly, at the end: take care of the family he had lost. well, eliza and isaac are six feet in the dirt so next best option: abi and jack. 

john starts to become quieter and more in his own shell- by rdr1 hes struggling to even really ask people for help with the most basic things. he becomes a lot more of a romantic speaker. he had always used fancy words with the gang, but never with charismatic purpose in the way i feel he does in rdr1. he starts making the decisions he thinks arthur would make. as a result, the hole that arthur left behind when he died, does not get filled by john. instead it simply gets filled with whatever arthur john can muster from within himself.

id also like to bring up john being the favorite, but not the golden boy. he was the youngest and most spoiled, but he was not the one dutch turned to for just about everything. he was still living in arthurs shadow, so i imagine all of that also plays a role in johns choice to live like arthur to get his family back, to be a man. he failed at being a man by his own merits. arthur was a real man by his own merits, lets just do what we've always done and look up to our older brother about it. copy what he does. clearly hes got it all figured out, even though you know he didnt, after reading the journal. 

this all is finally bolstered by john making the choice to kill micah and repeat the VDL cycle of violence, which ruins the perfect life he made for himself. he makes another decision HE, not arthur, HE would make, and thus has to deal with the consequences. 

in conclusion: i think john loves a lot and very hard. hes passionate about these people. but in his own words towards javier that start to become readable as projection, "hes a cynic that wants to be a romantic" and "hes all passion, no love ('no love' being how he perceives it, due to the views of those around him. he loves abigail and jack, he loved arthur, though because his version of love was different than theirs, its not read as love. therefore, he has none in his own eyes)." 

all of this coupled with a detached attachment style that leaves him cold and distant leaves him being tugged along in romances he truthfully does not feel the same about. he says he does, because he loves, but he doesnt know why the love isnt the same. so, clearly, since he loves, he must want the romance. he has to perform it for love regardless of if he truly does want romance or not. if he loves, he must be a romantic, and hes failing at being a romantic, so he cant be himself. he must be someone else in order to convey his love to his family.

i hope i got everything across alright ^-^ feel free to ask questions or send more asks ive got plenty more where that came from