#root plays rdr1

[burdock-root]

i need you all to see how severe john’s water allergy is

[ravengards-rogue]

dont take any of this too seriously. just spewing my thoughts. some rdr2 / johnigail stuff. mostly talking 2 myself. a lot of spoilers lmao

i really. i really like the relationship that john and abigail share both in rdr2 and later in rdr1. and what i like about it is that it, explicitly, is not a story of true love.

don't misunderstand, i think john and abigail love each other to death and ever after. they share such a deep and solid relationship and both make mutual connections to each other over the course of the game. but what makes them compelling to me is the deep realism rooted in their romance and the way that love is depicted as choice rather than fate.

rdr2 poses this more than once through out the story, with the most obvious example being mary-linton and arthur. when presented the choice to leave the gang or go with mary, arthur chooses the gang due to various internal and external factors. but the implication remains that things might've been different had arthur learned how to choose other things. himself. his future. etc. there's examples of this with hosea and bessie (said by hosea himself "she knew what i was"), with dutch and his varying models of young women. the van der linde gang chooses the outlaw life chronically, habitually, instinctively.

abigail joins the gang as a working girl. she sleeps with most of the camp, and then with john. they're sweet on each other. and she has a boy that she believes to be johns. john is hesitant to believe that (and maybe some of that is warranted) but most of it is him being a complete jackass. the kid is born. john is presented the option of fatherhood. he, like the rest of the gang, comes to a point where he feels he must choose what is going to take priority in his life.

(and this is important - because in my mind, so much of this pressure is so self-imposed. it's inherited in the way most sons inherit from their father or like most younger brothers inherit for their older ones. it's possible no one told john to choose explicitly. not then at least.

but well, john has seen this all play out before. and loyal men choose the gang, almost always. the gang is family, was family before jack and abigail. and if john owes anyone loyalty, it's dutch who raised him as a golden boy)

john, for better or worse, chooses neither. he leaves the gang entirely, for a year which is a huge point of contention. he leaves both things behind. he doesn't choose. he doesn't want to choose. but he comes back, and presumably makes the choice made many times before him. he chooses the gang and completely shafts responsibility of fatherhood and husbandry. but there is obvious uncertainty there.

the choice john makes to leave is interesting when you consider it thematically, and you consider arthurs specific advice to john before his death - that you can't be two men at once. something that is reiterated to john in the epilogue and that he acts on in rdr1. it's also interesting when keeping in mind some hidden dialogue hosea has with john, in which john says he knows that jack is his.

to me, john understands very well whats going on around him. and that his actions are informed explicitly by that choice.

and this to me is what makes his relationship to abigail so interesting. john is no doubt a loser, a deadbeat, and a bum (he is my favorite character) - but all of this information together makes me interpret his actions (coldness towards her and jack) not as genuine resentment but an externalized projection and defensive mechanism.

johns uncertainty is not towards jack being his or even towards abigail, but a baseline questioning of the violence he's been steeped in his entire life. what was once a simple, intuitive choice to be an outlaw is called into question by the legitimate possibility of something else.

arthur has a line to john, where he says that if you don't think jack is yours - why does it bother you so much? and it's a good question indeed, why does any of it bother him so much? why does abigails nagging bother him so much? why is it that john chooses to be actively antagonistic towards her when he could choose to simply be apathetic or choose to reject or stonewall her?

a lot of it is projection. its hypocrisy on johns behalf. he unloads his questioning and beliefs about the gang unto abigail who serves as a semi-constant reminder of his own problems. abigail during the main story game doesn't ask john to choose, but john knows that he has too. that's what that whole thing leads to.

when the gang starts to fall apart and when jack gets kidnapped, john immediately changes his tune. he's in clear disarray. the seeds of doubt planted in his head about dutch during blackwater only get increasingly extreme and as the game goes on into guarma and johns prison arc. he starts more clearly distinguishing where his loyalty will lie as the game closes, john is finally encouraged to make the cemented choice of jack and abi and not gang life (not all at once and something he will continue to struggle with) but he makes it all the same.

and then all of that intersects with abigail. and this to me is where the basis their relationship stems from because it's largely abigails influence, personality, and persistence that allows john not to make the same mistakes. abigail doesn't ask john for love, but she refuses to yield to him when it comes to jack. i know so many people see abigails nagging as nagging, or clinginess - but in my mind, it's simply her not letting john get away with being wishy-washy. abigail makes herself known and doesn't relent even when john continuously acts like a massive dick. she's not a pushover about it though either.

abigail loves john and probably understands him better than people give her credit for. especially with her calling him silly so often (a WHOLE different meta post) it's out of genuine love for john and in many cases, a genuine concern for john as a person that she acts the way she does. she gets on his case because she doesn't really want to give up on him, even though she probably very well could.

and she'd definitely be more at peace if she did lmao.

at a human level, abigails constancy and her both 1. not taking johns shit when he acts like a dick and 2. still wanting more and whats best for him is probably one of the base reasons john has full strength to make it out. and john knows that. abigail chooses john. she wants to choose john. she believes in him and so much of that contributes to the fact john doesn't end up somewhere much worse when the main story ends.

but again its not easy. for either of them. and it's not something that works until john gets his shit together. their relationship doesn't mend overnight, either. in the epilogue of the game, you see them face the same struggles they did through the main story. but like i said, abigail is no pushover. when john keeps choosing outlaw life, abigail leaves because she feels there's no helping him and john has to prove himself to her once more. he has to choose them.

(a lot of people critique abigail for being unfair to john and i understand that - but i think its mostly fear. john was in that life for years, and to abigails there's no telling if that siren song will take over and uproot her life again or not. i do think many times john took up the gun in the epilogue were completely fair, but i dont think abigails reaction is unwarranted.)

but again. again. the core of their love story is about choice. both john and abigail make the choice to choose their family and their love is founded on learning to choose each other. abigail straightens john out, and his character in rdr1 is so much more mellow than he is in rdr2. his loyalty to abigail is fierce and consistent, and john knows he owes a lot to her and never loses sight of that in the years they spend peacefully together.

he likes that abigail gives him shit and a hard time because he knows he deserves it and that it was one of the only things stabilizing him during some of the most tumultuous and difficult times of their life together.

they have such deep and genuine love for each other, built entirely in trying to believe and trust in one another and hold onto love in an era where everything was constantly at stake. it's not fairytale romance, but tried and true connection and choice. i love you because i chose you and i'd keep choosing you. they are so awkward with each other for so long because of the nature of their relationship to each other and that truly endears them to me all the more.

they just. they are so in love. but its not a fairy tale. and its not a case of john getting the girl because he's the hero or whatever. john loves her so much and she loves him and it all took a while and none of it was perfect. but it was real. so so so real between them. ack.

[shittybundaskenyer]

listen I don’t even play rdr (I tried once but the last time I opened the game to play rdr online I. Literally got kidnapped) but I read your one shot earlier and holy shit. I feel like I was taken on a journey and I left it no longer being the same. I am in love with how you describe things and especially uh intimacy bc that can be really easy to make corny or weirdly gross?? but the way you described everything was both incredibly poetic and sexy in a real way. the way you described the two characters orbiting around each other and then finally crashing together………..I feel like I’m repeating myself but it was VERY good. even as someone who had no idea who John is I was INVESTED. by the end of it I was really rooting for the characters!! I don’t know it was a really beautiful piece of prose and I’m really glad I stumbled upon it so thank you

AAAAA thank you so much for reading, I'm so happy you liked it this much. <33

I think my writing improved a lot since I started writing these fics, and I'm getting closer and closer to that goal I wanted to reach for years; trying to adapt my usual writing style in Hungarian into my style in English. Also, thank you for commenting about how I write intimacy, I aim to make it as realistic as possible while still keeping the feelings and emotions an important part of any love scene. I'm so happy it works.

Oh, and last, but not least, let me tell you dear anon, Red Dead is SO AMAZING, you should try playing story mode if online is not your cup of tea (it can be fun with friends but I don't really play it alone), I put like 600+ hours into the game (RDR2 bc I'm a PC player and haven't played RDR1) and I still stumble upon things I hadn't seen before. And the characters(!!), they're just so well written, multi-layered and so well acted, you really hold them close to your heart. So yeah, I think I'm rambling now, but thank you so much again, you're too sweet! <3

[neon-junkie]

In story mode do you ever wish you could have got more out of a character?

Like ok so, I absolutely love Sean. He’s my favourite NPC next Flaco and Kieran. And don’t get me wrong I loved his death, it was quick and over in a second. No sob story and you had to go into a gunfight so you don’t have time to dwell on it.

I just wish I could have seen more from him, he’s such a fun character, but in story mode I wish I had at least one more side quest/interaction with him. I would have liked it if I could meet him in Valintine’s saloon and you could get drunk with him. Like no side quest marker it’s just a random encounter you could stumble upon.

Kieran, I’ll admit I miss him. But I would have liked a side quest/random encounter where you could take him into valintine to get his hair and beard cut because no one trusts him to be let out of camp on his own. I think it would have made a player still dwelling on the ‘he was an O’Driscolls, still is’ mindest see that he isn’t such a bad guy. Or if you miss that encounter you could just have a horse race with him, I’d love to race against Branwen.

I understand with Flaco and online makes up for his lack in story mode so he gets a free pass from me. In online I’m glad you can do jobs for Sean, it just makes me miss his character so much more in story though. I do wish you could encounter Kieran in online though :[

Any characters you wish were utilised a little bettter?

bruh. I went off on this.... it’s long so I’ll add it all under the cut lmao

I agree with ALL of this, I would have loved more of those mini-missions, but It think R* could easily add a few more characters to online!! Kieran - You can meet him up in the O'Driscoll camp where we first find him in story. He's in the barn or whatever, and when you first stumble across him, he insists you get out of here because "this is O'Driscoll territory! y-you don't wanna get hurt, so go on, get goin'!" Kieran then realizes you're here for work, and says he can't pay much, but he can offer you a few jobs. He asks for hunting around the area, maybe there's wolves nearby that keep getting too close to the camp? he'll also ask for herb collecting missions, like collecting some burdock root for him because "I can't leave the camp, but you can! you mind gettin' some for me?" Charlotte & her husband - These two are in their home, maybe sitting on the porch when they see you approach. They greet you with a little bit of caution at first, but realize you're just another traveller who's looking to make some cash. They offer you jobs where you hunt around the area for them, maybe taking out some of the Murdfree Brood and rescuing their friends from them. Like Sadie&Jakey, one of them will be in the house at a time, and we'll get to see what their relationship was like before Charlottes husband passed. Albert and Marko - They can both have missions similar to how we see them in story mode. Albert asks you to protect him whilst he does photography, and Marko asks you to collect items here and there for his robot build. Shit, maybe Charles Chantenty could be found running around Saint Denis? and asks you to take out people he doesn't like? or steal art supplies for him? I'm also gonna add that I want MORE content for Marshal Davies. It would make sense if you randomly bump into him at the Sheriffs Office, and he explains that he switches between them to ensure the Sheriffs are all doing their job? It'd be nice to add mini cut scenes for the bounties, rather than just taking their poster off a board, so Marshal Davies could do that?! idk just gimme more of him!!!!!! We need a stranger at Manzanita Post, idc who it is, just give me a Manzanita stranger!! maybe Nils? and he gives you your missions on a slip of paper since all he can say is 'okay.' (oh and 'beechers hope?? okkayy...') Gavins friend? I'm surprised we don't see him walking around towns, but I guess it's because people would try and grief him cause they're arseholes. Anyway... story mode.... I'm REALLY surprised that R* didn't make it a thing where you can bump into other camp members out in the wild. Apparently you can sometimes see them riding about? but I've never had that pop up in my game... I'd also love to have drinks with them, or have a blip appear on my map to show they're in danger, to find that one of them has got into a bar fight looool As for your ideas of Kieran, YES. A lot of people don't even mourn Kieran because there's not much of him, and you don't see his character develop, not unless you hang around camp a lot. I think more people would have fallen for him if you 'helped him get back on his feet', so like you said, taken him out for a haircut and some new clothes, helped him build himself back up after being beaten down by the O'Driscolls. I think the women should have had more missions too. I'm surprised that Karen and Susan aren't brought out onto the odd heist, Karen especially seeing as shes so eager. It would have been nice to see more camp interactions with them, especially ones where maybe they're all playing with Jack, or ranking all the camp guys xD

There needs to be a filler encounter between Micah and Javier. I know we see them drinking together, but Javier suddenly trusts Micah enough in Chapter 6? I need more of Micah sucking up to him, along with most of the other camp members, as a lot of them just suddenly take his side when it all kicks off.

Trelawny magic tricks. That's all I need to say.

More of Bill and Javier, some nice camp interactions? or maybe we see them drinking at the Saloon and Javiers like "yeah Bill's an arse but he apologized so I'm giving him a second chance." Since Javier is find bailing Bills ass in RDR1, so I'd like to see how they got to that point.

It would have been nice if R* did decide to keep the camp member buddy thing, you know where you were able to pick somebody to come out into the open world with you? I think that would have helped show each camp members personality a LOT.

Okay. I'll stop rambling now, but these are my suggestions<3

[squidproquoclarice]

Hey Squid 👋🏻 Regarding your Sunrise AMA, what is one of your favourite moments from the story, or favourite thing about Sunrise in general? Was their a line or paragraph that stands out to you as one were you were like yes, this is good and just flowed easiest? Did you have any things that you knew straight away that you needed or wanted to write about? Also I was wondering what inspired you to have them join the Circus? And what do you think their kids jobs would be when they grow up? (I probably have a dozen more but I will just leave it at that for now 😊 ty!)

Heya!  Let’s see.  Since we’ve got multiple questions, I think I’ll leave the favorite moment(s) question for someone else to ask.   Favorite thing about Sunrise: I started it a few days after finishing the game.  From the savefiles and my chapter 1 posting date, it was only four days.  Obviously Arthur touched something emotional within me, like he did for a lot of people, and seeing Sadie so cold, alone, and fatalistic in the Epilogue hurt too.  I wanted to see if I tried to write what could have happened after that fight on the ridge where it might lead.   So I guess my favorite thing about Sunrise is that it debunked the assumption that Arthur had to die for the story to work or matter.  I wrote a journey for him and for Sadie that a lot of people connected to and told me that meant a lot to them to see them thrive and heal.  Characters don’t need a tragic ending to be deeply meaningful.  Characters don’t have to die for redemption.  It’s not somehow more artistically pure or daring to kill someone off.  I didn’t break RDR1 by writing Sunrise, and I made the plot beats of the RDR2 Epilogue work.  So Arthur’s death also frankly wasn’t necessary for plot integrity towards the events of 1907 and 1911. A line or paragraph that I really enjoyed writing: I’ll go with one early on, from chapter 6, “Death Is A Woman”, that actually gave the chapter its title. He managed a low, dark chuckle at that, leaning forward to rest his arms on his knees. His lungs gave a bit of a grouchy hitch at it. “Newsmen are a different breed of confidence men and liars, that’s all. Anyway, I’m sure Death’s got to be a woman, Sister, cause it seems even she won’t have me.” That one made me feel like I really finally nailed Arthur and his character and state of mind in the weeks right after he’s had his entire life and identity knocked out from under him.  But of course he has to couch it in a self-deprecating quip.  Also kind of a funny line in retrospect because I hadn’t planned anything with Death/The Strange Man cropping up in the story at this point, but apparently Arthur’s wrong and Death is not a woman in RDRverse.  ;)   Things I immediately needed or wanted to write about: Giving Sadie a voice and POV to show what was going on in her head.  Beyond that, giving both of them the respect of acknowledging their PTSD, but doing my best to let show what trauma recovery really looks like, and showing that it’s possible.  I didn’t want to either shrug it off as inconvenient to a happy ending, or else treat them like permanently broken things.  I wanted it to be a journey.  When it came to Arthur’s TB, I also wanted to write something realistic and accurate to the period in terms of his recovery rather than just sort of handwaving it.  Historical medicine’s an interest of mine, so this was a good chance to explore some of that.  Joining the circus: This is one of the rarer instances where the tail sort of wagged the dog and I had to make something fit to an immovable future plan.  I had them in 1904 having claimed a homestead up in Canada that needed to be settled and improved within three years.  And I knew for 1907 Team Griffith needed to be in the five-state area of the RDR2 map in order to be involved in the Epilogue.  I could have had them go back to Chuparosa and continue eking out a living, and debated pushing them back on the bounty hunter path to put them being sometimes in those American states that would let them cross paths with the Marstons somehow. Didn’t really like it.  Given how averse they were to bounty hunting together with two very young children at home, how Sadie absolutely wasn’t going to be the little wife sitting at home and letting Arthur go alone into danger as an alternative, and how much they both liked the idea that they no longer needed to live that sort of life, it felt like I needed something else.  And it needed to be something that they could walk away with no offense taken from in three years.  In retrospect, I could have had them hire on at MacFarlane’s full time rather than seasonal and developed that bond even more, but I ended up coming up with a circus that folds in 1907 as a good alternative.  Given they’re ace riders and crack shots and pretty fair actors, that Arthur was very used to a nomadic lifestyle, that circus folk are great actors and can deal some mild well-meaning trickery as part of the delight, that they were fairly egalitarian for the time, and that traveling circus folk sort of existed as a quasi-disreputable and tightly knit “outsider” group, it felt like a neat chance to mirror the gang, but in a positive way.  So with the circus, I got to write Sadie and Arthur getting to live the best version of that kind of life, and sort of coming to peace with more of the past by it.  Proving the things they missed about the gang weren’t the robberies or Dutch’s antisocial philosophy, but the people they loved and the freewheeling lifestyle.  Also proving that while they enjoy that life, they do both really want to have something more settled and put down solid roots.  Sadie misses that, and Arthur yearns for it as something he’s never had. Also noting I hadn’t planned at all on Arkady Rudenko when I wrote Sadie and Arthur performing as the “Cossack Karolovs”, and I only realized that connection after I’d written the final chapter.  Guess my unconscious brain knew more than I thought even back then, though I’d only earmarked a few months before that final chapter trying to possibly work in the interesting fact of Ukrainians being a very prevalent immigrant group to the Canadian prairie provinces at the time.  But yeah, as an actual Cossack kid, Archie’s probably going to laugh his ass off. Kid’s jobs: So I actually have a short scrapped bit that I didn’t include as an extra document at the end of chapter 88, though I debated it.  I like the piece, but I wanted to leave it with Sadie and Arthur’s journal entries and the circle of things being sort of complete. It’s a preface to a book called “Red Dead Redemption” written by Jack--who’s become a writer of a fairly famous radio play turned TV serial--in the ‘60′s once all the OGs are finally gone and he feels safe to tell that story.  It mentions that the illustrations were done by his wife, Bea.  So yeah, Bea got Arthur’s artistic talent, and by submitting her work as “B.M. Griffith”, she managed to get some illustration jobs that would have been denied to her as “Beatrice”.   Mattie (Matt as he grows older), becomes a doctor.  He’s already got the caring heart and desire to heal and help people.  He’ll likely end up helping Felipe out as a teenager and learning some of the ropes there before going to college. Susie ended up becoming a teacher.  There were definitely still strictures at the time against married women working as teachers, so if/when she got married (and I think if so, she did it later in life) she’d have been expected to retire and effectively become a housewife.  But she’d still keep teaching as a tutor.  Andy, with his energy and love of horses and the outdoors, actually shows a passion for farming and ranching.  So he’s the one who ends up running the day-to-day of Paradise Run as the next generation.     Feel free to keep up with the AMA with those further questions!  Might be better to send them in individually, though, as this one got pretty long.  ;)

[burdock-root]

just arrived to mexico for the first time, and then history tried to repeat itself.