HeavenlyMorals

Im on a thin line between the living and the dead ✨ Will take fic requests, just shoot an ask and I'll see if I can make it happen.

[ixvessel]

"I asked chatgpt" well I asked Daeron the Dreamer and he said he saw a fire. and a dead dragon. a great beast with wings so large they could cover this meadow. it had fallen on top of you. but you were alive, and the dragon was dead.

[heavenlymorals]

Everytime I tell someone I can't hang out with them because of how fucked my schedule is, an angel dies and Satan wins another battle

[budgiebabies]

You’ve been visited by the Money Bird. He only appears every 500 years.

Reblog the Money Bird in 10 seconds and you will be blessed with loads of sweet cash in your life!!!

[heavenlymorals]

I hope everyone who was mean to Dunk suffers a thousand hells

[dailyflicks]

You know, sometimes it's okay to pretend. Brendan Fraser in Rental Family (2025) dir. Hikari

[heavenlymorals]

I don't usually care for movies like this but I loved this one so much. Maybe it was seeing Brendan Fraser again or maybe it was just the ethics of a rental family period, but I loved this so much.

[nthspecialll]

If Arthur Morgan was a woman, what do you think her personality and role in the gang would be like?

A lot of Arthur's personality is build around being the rock of the group. He was raised to be realiable and to be able to do work on his own, and due to the social standards of the time, if Arthur was a girl, she would not have had said pressure on her. G!Arthur would not have had to work quite as much, no doubt that she would have had to work with crime and not just house work, and likely also would have wanted to work. But as the gang gets filled up more and more, especially with men, I think G!Arthur would have had to take a backseat on the violence and take a more domestic role. She would have been able to relax more and have the burden taken off her shoulders.

I think in 1899 she will have had a role similar to Karen, is there for the housework but absolutely will do jobs and really wants to do jobs. Will do guard duty, will gather info, will do all of these things, but might not do it as much and will absolutely not have had the same pressure.

As for personality, it is a bit harder to say because having to deconstruct and then reconstruct is a bit hard on such a large scale, but I would guess that she would be presistant like Karen, really wanting to do her part, but not be as "tense" so to speak. Will be more open about how she feels or about having a day off and not needing to be on 24/7. I still think she will be fast to put people in their place and has a good hand on her gun, but would likely show more of the kindness that we see in chap 6 because she has not been expected to rough up as M!Arthur has.

[heavenlymorals]

I love it when people take gender swapped characters and don't just make them "female" versions of their character but also take into account social constructions, taboos, mores, folkways, etc.

Ate with this one.

[heavenlymorals]

Mini rant -

I'm not usually a huge movie critic, especially if a movie isn't even out yet but Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey is killing me right now.

Not a single Greek actor, not a single tan in sight, the bright colors of the Ancient Greek world do not exist, the armor looks horrendous, everything is washed out, and why is there a Viking ship?

I've always found Christopher Nolan movies to be overrated (not bad, just overrated), but I'm so nervous about this because The Odyssey is such an important story and for many people, this will be their first introduction.

Same with that fuckass Wuthering Heights movie with Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi that's coming out soon.

[heavenlymorals]

!!!!SPOILERS FOR GHOST OF YOTEI!!!!

I finished playing Ghost of Yotei and I'm genuinely fucking devastated. Out of all the characters that didn't deserve to die, Jubei, the one who deserved to die the least, is like the only one to get fucking killed in this game.

There is something genuinely so tragic about that. Atsu gave her life away for her vengeance because she thought she had nothing left. She'd go to the mainland and train and fight and stay alive more through luck than anything else in order to come back strong enough to kill the Yotei Six for what they did to her family. She would play her mother's shamisen when she returns home. She would strengthen her blade in her father's forge. She would stack rocks like her brother because he liked doing it when he was a child.

She has absolutely nothing but her vengeance and she tells us herself that once she kills the Yotei Six, she'll join her family on death. Suicide.

But then she meets her brother once more. He was never dead, just like her. But Jubei was of a more gentle breed than Atsu could ever be. Jubei would see the sprouting of seedlings in scorched earth while Atsu would be blinded by tears of visceral rage and see only smoke and ash.

Jubei decided to live a different kind of life. He became a Samurai and well respected for being as kind as he is fair. He builds his life to be a protector of the north. Lord Kitamori. He has a beautiful estate inside the walls of the castle. He has men who respect him. He had a wife, even though she would later die. And he has a wonderful daughter.

As Atsu says: he did well for himself.

Unlike Atsu, who is so torn up for revenge, Jubei sees what else life has to offer and decided that that is far more valuable than vengeance.

Atsu says she has no one left. She says that she is doing it all for her family. But her family didn't all die. Jubei and his niece is right there and her world must be tearing itself apart because she dedicated her life to this quest of vengeance but now she sees that she isn't completely alone. Her brother is still alive and he is doing well.

But she is too obsessed with vengeance. It doesn't even really matter that he is alive or not. It doesn't even matter is she makes things worse for him and the life he built. She exists only for vengeance. And this happens over and over again throughout the story, whether its completely disregarding him or using him for her own means. It's like her brother doesn't even exist because he's been dead for so long to her.

So then comes the stand at Matsumae castle against the Dragon. He begs her to let it go, to help him save his home and her niece and focus on the living. But Atsu can't do that. She abandons him for her vengeance, a vengeance that he was a reason for, and she kills the Dragon, sure, but at the cost of everything.

Only then does she see that she made a mistake once her brother and Oyuki are captured. And Jubei is tortured. He is weak. And Atsu saves him and begs him to help her and he agrees, even if begrudgingly because though she may abandon him for the dead, he will never abandon her because she is the living.

So even though when she fights Saito, she tells him to leave, he jumps back in to save her like the wolf once he realizes that Saito is overpowering her. Because unlike Atsu, he could never abandon his sister.

And that just fucking kills me because Atsu finding Jubei and Kiku is perhaps the best thing that could ever happen to her because after she gets her shit together, she realizes that they are the reason to keep living and she gives up her sword for a more peaceful life.

For Jubei, finding Atsu alive is the worst thing that could've happened to her because he lost everything. His home, his strength, and then his life because he values the living far more than vengeance for the dead.

He did so well for himself and it was all ripped away from him because his sister was so hellbent on revenge that she could only see his worldview when it was far too late.

Like fahhh man 😔

[heavenlymorals]

Finished Ghost of Yotei and all I have to say is that I love Atsu, I really do, but I hope she feels guilty forever for abandoning Jubei to fight the Dragon which then leads to what happens in the final mission ☹️

[heavenlymorals]

Nothing irks me more than when Willis Todd is portrayed as abusive. Most of the time it just oozes of fucking classism. Willis being a criminal and being caught up in that world because of his background but still wanting to take care of his kid and wife, like many men who take part in criminal acts do, is much more interesting and makes for far better storytelling than him being an abusive piece of shit for no real reason other than "oh he's poor and doing bad things so he must hate his kid too lol"

[owl-s-personal-bs]

Sometimes I just giggle to myself about this

[stevviefox]

Holy shit it does scan perfectly and I can hear Yakko’s voice singing it!!

Congrats!

[heavenlymorals]

Elliot Alderson would watch the new Superman movie and sob

[heavenlymorals]

I'm writing an Arthur x reader but I started to think about what kind of woman Arthur would actually date? Like its kinda indulgent but do you think he'd date a younger woman?

Well he certainly doesn't have a problem with it in canon. Yes, his main love interest is Mary, who is only 4 years younger than Arthur, which isn't a big age gap at all, especially with them being 32 and 36 respectively, but just one look into his journal and he talks about how he should've married Abigail and he damns John for doing so instead and complains that Abigail chose John. Abigail is 22 years old in the game, so that right there is a 14 year age gap. And mind you, Abigail joined the gang when she was 16-17 according to the wiki. ☹️

We also don't know when he had a relationship with Eliza, so he could've very well been an older man as well with her. When he talks about Eliza, he mentions how she was just a kid, 19. We don't know if he means that is when he met her, or when she gave birth, or when she died. And again, we don't know how old Arthur was when they did what they did.

And also, just context wise, age gap relationships back then weren't necessarily considered normal, as most men and women in the 19th century, especially the late 19th century got married in their early to mid twenties to similar ages as themselves, but they weren't exactly put under the same moral telescope that they are today (or at least not with the same scrutiny and nuance) , with people trying to argue what type of age gaps are ok and which ones aren't.

So Arthur Morgan, with evidence shown from canon, wouldn't really have a problem dating or marrying a younger woman, same as he wouldn't have a problem dating or marrying a woman similar in age to him. Different times, different culture, different ethics and morals.

I mean, shit, he clearly doesn't give a fuck that Dutch is in a relationship with a woman half his age. And what's really fucked up is if you drunk antagonize Grimshaw, he can say something like "If this is how women get when they're older, no wonder Dutch keeps trading for a younger model."

Not cool bro.

ANYWAYS-

It's your x-reader and fanfiction, man. Write whatever indulgence you want for yourself, it doesn't have to be fact checked with canon, haha ♥️

ALSO, to everyone who has sent me an ask that I haven't answered yet, my bad 😭😭😭 I have like 40 of them I need to finish and it can get a bit overwhelming, which leads to me just procrastinating 😔 I'll try to answer more though, trust

[heavenlymorals]

Growing up is realizing that Arthur deserved to die no matter if he had high honor or low honor. Growing up is realizing that though he is a phenomenal character that most people can empathize and sympathize with, he is still an awful, awful human being. And just as good people can do bad things, bad people can do good things. But those few good things don't outweigh that bad that he has done throughout his life. Whether groomed into the life or not, he has killed and maimed far more people than he has ever helped and no matter how you justify it, Arthur was a blight who had the potential to be good but could never quite reach it. And that's all the more heartbreaking.

[goodmanarthurmorgan]

The OP is very nice even as we disagree, and obviously this is a very Hot Take which is what media is created to inspire. I want to preface that before saying that my objection to this specific post goes beyond defending my special boy and moreso goes into Abolitionist mentality.

I don't believe that there is room in a just and healthy society for condemnation of criminals as "blights" who are "better off dead". If we acknowledge, as the OP does here, that there are contributing factors to Arthur’s criminality in the eyes of the law -- that he was literally groomed as a child into it -- then when does one become too corrupted to be worthy of restorative justice? In many ways, the game is about this -- the law (the Pinkertons being closer aligned with ICE than the modern day cops) wants to blanket kill anyone associated with deviation while those depicted as morally righteous, such as Rains Fall and Mother Caldéron, emphasize what would now be seen as restorative justice. It isn't about doing a few good acts before death, it's about putting the player through a transformative experience of recognizing worth inherent in every human life. Arthur begins the game hinting at this (his distress at Dutch killing an innocent woman in Blackwater) and develops rather naturally in his writing even if the player plays low honor. High honor Arthur literally upends his entire programming to affirm that people radically unlike him are worthy of his life and care.

Regardless of the specifics of what Arthur did or didn't do or what he felt or didn't feel, I think recognizing the rhetoric of authoritarianism means seeing criminality not as an illness that needs to be stamped out through violence enacted on the lower class (like Arthur), but through the investment in community building and restorative justice. We have to kill the cop in all of us.

[mrheymister]

So goodmanarthurmorgan mentioned that Arthur was groomed, but neglected to mention the circumstances (we all know, we all played the game, let's go over it one more time:)

Arthur was a forgotten, starving, orphaned CHILD left to the STREETS when Dutch picked him up, and honestly, if left to his own devices, I imagine he could've turned out a whole lot worse if he didn't just outright die of starvation/disease before Dutch picked him up. He didn't just end up in a cult(the gang) because he felt like it. He is very much a victim who went on to victimize others (explanations are not excuses). That's not even to mention that his belighted example of a father set him on that path before Dutch ever crossed it.

Is it really any wonder he took Dutch's ideals hook line and sinker? Take a child who has been discarded by society, and tell that child you can show them how to finally strike back at what wounded you first. What do you think they'll do?

They had this grand, noble idea of fixing society (going about it the entirely wrong way,but the idea was right), and if they can't do that, then at least let them live freely apart from it (society can't or shouldn't; they killed a bunch of important people)

So yeah, Arthur was a bad bad man who did horrible horrible things, but locking him up and throwing away the keys works for all of about 5 seconds until the next Arthur Morgan decides he needs to rob a bank to provide for his community comprised of the forgotten dredges of society. He is a symptom of a larger problem, one that's arguably impossible to adequately solve, but investing in community building and restorative justice sounds like a pretty good start.

[thorst]

I am— I am preemptively admitting— very over tired and a bit stressed and I don't mean to be mean but. Look.

I think growing up involves letting go of clean cut yes/no notions of good and bad. Growing up involves recognising that morality is hugely complex and while we are responsible for our actions (Arthur and the narrative never once ask us to excuse him of anything) the forces driving our choices and our actions are a complex tapestry of action & reaction done to us and by us.

Arthur deserved to die? Even the Downeses didn't believe that, by the end.

The law said he should die, though, because the law is by its nature immutable. I can't speak for anyone else but for me growing up has certainly involved seeing all the holes— from pinpricks to gaping— in a system which must be one size fits all.

Look I know Arthur isn't real. But saying he deserved to die for his crimes is extreme. I have tremendous sympathy for the people in our world alive today who have grown up in similar circumstances (street orphans joining violent gangs as a means of survival and growing into perpetrators of violence certainly exist), even though yes they are dangerous and perhaps if I encountered one of those people it would go very badly for me. But you can't choose where you're born; I just happened to be born into a wealthy, stable country.

And look at other "obvious examples" of villains in history. Golden age pirates. Murderers! Villains all! No?

You're not going to believe this, but no, actually. You've probably heard the term and expression "press gang" or "pressed" (I have to look up the etymology of "impressed" but that was used also for these men).

The Navy would literally roam the streets, pick up men of the correct age and chain them onto ships. Then the ship would sail out of sight of land and the men would be unchained, and forced to join naval service. (The penalty for desertion of which was, of course, death. Any pressed man who fled his literal violent kidnapping was a criminal to be hanged.)

Some of these pressed men gained a skilled profession in a time of war, having previously had no skilled work. Some of them were engaged. Apprenticed. Already married. The wealthy did not get pressed.

But how do pirates come into this? Well. There was a lot of work for naval sailors and then privateers when England was at war with Spain. It lasted a long time... And then there was peace.

No more privateering, no more naval soldiering. No more work for the sailors. None at all.

So you have these men. Who were stolen from the streets in violence. Literally chained aboard a boat. And forced to become a naval sailor. Perhaps found a way to earn money to support themselves and their families through privateering. And then the same people that stole them away from their lives before said stop immediately. There is no need for sailors. Merchant vessels don't need as much crew as fighting men of war. There was not enough work. Probably almost overnight.

So some of them decided to just keep doing what they'd been doing. Privateering, but without the king's blessing. Can you really blame them?

Here's another thing about the pirates these men became (not that all pirates were pressed men, or that all pressed men turned privateer then pirate, but it was a significant factor): they jointly owned their ships. The food. The ammunition and the guns. They signed articles agreed upon by the men of the ship. They received injury payouts and looked after each other when they got wounded (far beyond anything a common sailor could expect in the navy or on merchant vessels.)

They were allowed to defend themselves! (Shot and canon cost money, so many merchantmen never practiced shooting their weapons with live ammo, it cost too much for the owners).

I have ranted myself out of the well of despair but my point is no, reducing things to black and white dichotomies of good and evil and deserves to die deserves to live is not, I fear, what growing up is about. And yes I did deliberately use a potc quote and I am indeed a nerd

I haven't used names of wars (I am so sure it's the War of the Spanish Succession but I haven't read a book about this in a decade) because I am ranting and working off of memory about a beloved topic that's been rotated in my mind over many many years like a shiny river stone. If you are intrigued by what I've written I deeply entreat you to look up the golden age of piracy and read about it because it's fascinating but also because I may be mistaken about fine details. I am correct about impressment, privateering and piracy however, and I think it underlines a very interesting phenomena where something that seems very easy to judge at first blush quickly becomes difficult and complicated and unpleasant

Redemption is active not passive. Arthur didn't deserve to die but he did. If he hadn't died he would have redeemed himself further

Did John also deserve to die? What about Jack?

[heavenlymorals]

NO SAY MORE THIS IS FIRE!!! seriously, it's a videogame about a fictional character, but it still serves as a reflection of the real world so you're all valid . LMFAO, if anything, I want to delete my own post cuz I'm getting COOKED, but I'm no pussy and I still stand by what I said 😭

I guess I should mention that when I wrote that, I failed to mention that I was thinking of it in more of a narrative sense than an ethical sense. Like IRL, I don't believe in shit like the death penalty because I do find it to be inhumane but Arthur isn't a real person, so it doesn't matter what happens or doesn't happen to him, if that makes sense?

And another thing that also fueled the extremity of the words used in my original post could also be that me and family at one point lived in a very dangerous area where similar types of violence that the RDR gang committed occured. Getting held up, hostage scenarios, robberies, murder, etc. My father has gotten robbed at gunpoint before and I've had an uncle killed trying to defend his home from intruders. Point is is that for me, it's also kind of personal as well, but again- narratively, not literally or ethically, cuz that's fucked up lmao. I'm not gonna bother editing my og post though, no point in that.

Regardless, you're cooking, same with @goodmanarthurmorgan , @mrheymister , @ratwife77, @flo-zoinks

Keep it going, y'all 😀

[heavenlymorals]

Growing up is realizing that Arthur deserved to die no matter if he had high honor or low honor. Growing up is realizing that though he is a phenomenal character that most people can empathize and sympathize with, he is still an awful, awful human being. And just as good people can do bad things, bad people can do good things. But those few good things don't outweigh that bad that he has done throughout his life. Whether groomed into the life or not, he has killed and maimed far more people than he has ever helped and no matter how you justify it, Arthur was a blight who had the potential to be good but could never quite reach it. And that's all the more heartbreaking.

[flo-zoinks-deactivated20260219]

Growing up could also be realising that nobody deserves death.

The game is called red dead redemption, pretty much establishing the main theme of the plot is of redemption. The writers purposefully focus onto redeeming Arthur within chapter six by having him recognise the true corruption in his actions, and furthermore actively try to change his life / future actions as a response for the better. Arthur isn’t able to be perfect, because he can’t. You can not ignore the fact of his grooming and background in this, as if Arthur were able to separate himself from camp he would, but he’s forced into this lifestyle even in chapter 6 in attempt to protect John and those he cares for. He wants to leave, and he cannot for the sake of others, which is a hell of a lot more than other people who don’t deserve death would do for someone else selflessly. His last actions are to save John, Abigail and Jack, and ensure the women of camp are safe. He writes in his diary his remorse, and forgives debts that would ensure his camp the money they need to survive. If you truly feel remorse, and do good in society as much as you’re able to in your limited capacity, why should you deserve death over old actions?

Try to genuinely think what good that death would bring. Solace to his victims families of the past? - that is revenge, another key theme that if portrayed good in this light would be contradicting the entire moral of the games that revenge isn’t worth doing. Consequences? Surely redeeming yourself is a much better act to do than die, as teaching that redeeming and being able to fix your past mistakes is worthless leads to nobody ever changing in life, and a cycle of the same actions. No good came of Arthur’s death, it wasn’t deserved.

One of the main points of the entire game, that I took away at least, was that good or bad people simply don’t exist. That the idea of such was only used for people to separate and justify their superiority, leading to unnecessary violence and never any good endings. Dutch, believing he’s a good person, Ross, believing he’s a good person, Micah, believing he’s a good person all go head-to-head causing the most damage to everyone else trying to act as a moral knight to save the day against the bad people. It takes people like John, who recognise that we’re all just people, to see the importance in doing good actions than establishing yourself as a good person. That is the moral I took from red dead redemption, and I believe it contradicts any belief that Arthur’s death was deserved.

Yo I’m tired does that make sense

[ratwife77]

I one million percent agree. Arthur didn’t necessarily fix all his past actions but he turned a new leaf and clearly expressed regret. What else can you ask for? If everybody was automatically punished for everything they’d done, nobody would be alive. I think the idea of wanting to be better before you die is enough to be somewhat redeemed. Not necessarily forgiven or forgotten by other people, because forgiveness is up to that person, but redemption means a change of heart and is internal first and foremost. Redemption doesn’t equal good. Sometimes it’s too late to change externally and prove yourself, but that internal change is the point. Redemption isn’t based on other people. (Note: it has to be a serious internal change and if it happens before you’re DYING there should be massive change, in theory, but bumps can be expected.)

[heavenlymorals]

I fuck with this actually 😭😭 Really interesting points, actually, gotta think about it some more. I don't entirely disagree with what I said, maybe I need to word it definitely, but Arthur is still a bad man in my humble opinion. What RDR does really good though is help us sympathize with him to such an extent that we DO see him as human, that we do understand why he does the things he does, and that we root for him but he still does awful, awful things that lead to death and desperation for so many people.

I'm gonna sit on it for a bit, though I will admit my original post could've been written before since it was done like 10 minutes before I went to bed lmfao or maybe I'm just falling off since I'm not that big of an RDR2 fan anymore idk 😔😭

[heavenlymorals]

GUYS SNAFU IS BACK-

If he was an officer and not a mortarman, if he never fought a day in his life and was instead a psychiatrist, if he wasn't a blue collar Louisiana man , and was instead from a white collar Californian family, if he had nothing to do with the pacific and was instead working to see if Nazis were fit to stand trial in Nuremberg-

BUT HE'S BACK!

[heavenlymorals]

Growing up is realizing that Arthur deserved to die no matter if he had high honor or low honor. Growing up is realizing that though he is a phenomenal character that most people can empathize and sympathize with, he is still an awful, awful human being. And just as good people can do bad things, bad people can do good things. But those few good things don't outweigh that bad that he has done throughout his life. Whether groomed into the life or not, he has killed and maimed far more people than he has ever helped and no matter how you justify it, Arthur was a blight who had the potential to be good but could never quite reach it. And that's all the more heartbreaking.