Blackwater: All Store Names & Locations in Red Dead Redemption 2
1. Town Hall
2. Lemoyne Eastern Riverboat Co.
3. Police Department
4. Mortuary (A. G. Ott)
5. Elridge & Sons Butcher & Meat Market
6. E. H. Kretzschmar: Merchant Tailor
7. Sam Wah Laundry
8. Flat Iron Restaurant (S. F. Mack)
9. J. W. Beard Lantern Maker
10. R. J. Dutton Tack and Feed
11. E. Woodcock Furniture
12. Fishmonger (M. Stern)
13. Blackwater Imperial Theater
14. Newbury Real Estate & Law Office
15. S. D. Howell Employment Agency
16. S. M. Neely General Store
17. Blackwater Tobacconist
18. Surgery (For Rent)
19. Elias K. Finch & Sons Boots and Shoes (1st Floor); B. Corcoran, Lawyer (2nd Floor)
20. Blackwater Ledger Newspaper
21. Calvin F. Steele, Architect
22. Oliver Mallory, Bookkeeping
23. Blackwater Hotel & Restaurant
24. Silver Skillet Café
25. West Elizabeth Co-operative Bank
26. Blackwater Grand Theater
27. Mrs. Wilson's Confectionery & Baked Goods
28. Blackwater Saloon
29. Althewaye Inn (C. Watson)
30. Blackwater Restaurant (Joseph Scranton)
31. Wilton's Barber Shop
32. Photography Studio (Benjamin P. Lockhart)
33. Wood & Carpenter Shop (Victor Cooper)
34. Joshua W. Tanner Salt & Seed
35. Pyke Bros. Grocery
36. Big Mill Construction Foreman
37. Cakes Hardwood & Timber
38. Union Freight Depot
39. B. R. Shelton Livery and Stable
40. Blacksmithing
A few notes: These were compiled in Story Mode in 1907, so some aspects may not reflect the map in Red Dead Online or the inaccessible 1899 version of Blackwater. Store locations are in order and exact placement was estimated to the best of my ability. All told, I think we can appreciate the beautiful level of intricate detail that went into creating this environment (the “For Rent” sign on the surgery to explain why there is no doctor in Blackwater; and “all-the-way-inn”? C’mon, that’s funny) and the additional opportunities for worldbuilding this provides.
🌹 Where in the world does your OC feel most at home? Is there any reason why? If it’s not the place they were born, where were they born? Is there a certain somebody that makes them feel at home where ever they may be? What does home mean to them?
🍄 What are your OCs favourite snacks? Their favourite comfort food which always cheers them up when they’re down? Favourite meal to make? Do they enjoy baking and cooking and are they any good in the kitchen?
🍁 Where does your OC go when they need to have some time to themself? Would they ever have their own “comfort corner” filled with all the things they like? Do they have a favourite spot outside that feels like its theirs and theirs alone?
🍂 Does your OC enjoy hugs? What do they do as a show of affection for: their friends, their family, their significant other(s) or for strangers? Over all what are they like with recieving affection from others?
🌻 What little things do they notice about people or the world around them that make them happy? What tiny little treasures do they find in the normal every day that makes the world seem a little brighter for them?
🌾 Describe your OC through the eyes of someone absolutely head-over-heels in love with them
💐 How does your OC handle being unwell or forced to rest in bed? Who cares for them and in what ways? Does your OC enjoy being doted on or are they a terrible patient? Reversed: is your OC good at taking care of others who are ill or in need?
🌿 What way does your OC show that they care without using words? What way do others show your OC that they’re cared about without using speech?
🌳 What is your OC’s favourite way to relax after a stressful day? Do they have a favourite book to curl up with? A hobby? Or do they have a nice bubble bath and have an early night to bed?
🌲 How deeply does your OC feel? Are they typically empathetic or do they have a hard time connecting with others in this way? What are they like when offering support and comfort to someone they care for?
🌺 What does your OC do to calm down when they’re scared or after a nightmare? Do they have any special comfort items or need to be reassured by a specific person? How do they handle this if they’re alone?
🌸 What are some of their favourite things and why? List as many as you can think of!
🥀 How would your OC decorate a notebook or journal? What kind of things are written in there? Could you give an example of a nice entry?
🌼 Who are this characters friends and found family? How did they meet, how long have they been friends for, could they ever be something more than just friends? What do they look for in a friend or a romantic partner?
Questions for You!
💫What is your favourite fact about this character and why?
☄️ Does this OC deserve better treatment from you? Do you make them suffer just a little bit too much? Be nice to them!
🌠 On a scale of 1 - 10 how Baby is your OC? BONUS when asking this question rate the OC yourself as see if the reply matches up!!
💦 If you as the writer could erase one traumatic event from this OC’s life what would it be and why?
Various Sins, old and new, from: Latin, Greek, The Inferno, and LaVeyan Satanism. Send a sin and I’ll answer when my muse committed that sin and why! Specify muse if applicable!
LIMBO - A time my muse acted faithless and disloyal.
LUST - A time my muse cheated, or was overwhelmed with sexual desire.
GLUTTONY - A time my muse spent too much money, time, or effort on something that was fruitless or materialistic.
GREED - A time my muse hoarded something selfishly and/or refused to give something away, materialistic or not.
ANGER - A time my muse wallowed in a dark emotional or mental place, refusing to get out.
HERESY - A time my muse went out of their way to troll or act contrarian, especially out of spite.
VIOLENCE - A time my muse attacked someone unprovoked or without reason.
FRAUD - A time my muse manipulated and outright lied or even gaslit someone.
TREACHERY - A time my muse betrayed someone after building up a relationship.
LUXURIA - A time my muse went out of their way to peacock their wealth.
GULA - A time my muse overindulged to the point of harming themselves.
AVARITA - A time my muse greatly envied wealth or a goal so insatiably they could not be stopped.
ACEDIA - A time my muse was extremely indifferent, apathetic, or bored to the point it hindered their progress in life.
IRA - A time my muse was impatient to the point of agitation or acting out.
INVIDIA - A time my muse was vindictive and held a grudge or wished harm upon others.
SUPERBIA - A time my muse put others down in order to boost themselves up.
TRISTITIA - A time my muse was overcome with needless self-pity.
VAINGLORIA - A time my muse was so jealous they acted out for attention or to divert attention from someone else.
STUPIDITY - A time my muse willingly acted without judging ahead of time.
PRETENTIOUSNESS - A time my muse made an unnecessary scene of things or twisted a scene in order to be right.
SOLIPSISM - A time my muse didn’t or refused to realize that the sun didn’t revolve around them.
SELF-DECEIT - A time my muse lied to themselves to avoid the truth.
HERD CONFORMITY - A time my muse followed orders without question.
LACK OF PERSPECTIVE - A time my muse refused to acknowledge the impact of their words or deeds.
FORGETTING PAST ORTHODOXIES - A time my muse claimed an old idea, innovation, or otherwise as new (or claimed something new as something old) knowingly and purposefully to reach their goals.
COUNTERPRODUCTIVE PRIDE - A time my muse held themselves back for the sake of keeping an image.
LACK OF AESTHETICS - A time my muse lacked pleasant and harmonious balance to themselves and those around them.
“And He Soon Put Many Older Guns to Shame”: Lenny Summers, American Idealism, and the Death of the Folk Hero Outlaw
The ensemble cast of characters in Red Dead Redemption 2 enrich the story of Arthur Morgan immensely, each with complex stories and personalities of their own, and the character of Lenny Summers is no exception. A 19-year-old outlaw phenom, Lenny has an important role to play in the story despite his lack of development compared to other characters. He is a vital part of the overall plot as well as developing the overarching themes of freedom, redemption, the idealism of the American West, and the folk legend of the American outlaw. This post contains spoilers for the entire story of Read Dead Redemption 2.
Lenny Summers is described as a relatively recent addition to the gang, but he proves his mettle quickly within the first few chapters. He is well liked by the other gang members and frequently praised: he is eager, competent, ambitious, ready, enthusiastic, bright, good-natured, confident. He participates in the necessary work of robbing and killing, and executes necessary violence unflinchingly without relishing it or crossing into unnecessary cruelty. His confidence can escalate to cockiness, especially when combined with his lack of life experience, but he is generally a young man of quick action and sound judgment. His character development is undeniably insufficient, especially considering his youth, but the overall impression of his personality is overwhelmingly positive.
Lenny is distinguished in the gang by his intelligence: he is bright and keen, capable of debating Dutch on the finer points of Evelyn Miller’s writings. His intelligence was fostered and cultivated by his father, born into slavery and emancipated, himself an educated man with excellent written composition. The concept of freedom, both physical and ideological, is very important to Lenny. A descendant of enslaved African Americans, he takes immense pride in maintaining the absolute freedom that outlaw life offers: “Before me, at least six generations were born in chains, and for the last three years I’ve been running from every lawman and bounty hunter west of the Lannahechee River…so yeah, I feel lucky!”
Lenny’s father expresses high aspirations and ardent dedication to his son’s future as a lawyer, and echoes the significance of Lenny’s potential and achievements in light of their enslaved ancestors. He writes in a letter to Lenny, “You have redeemed more than you know, or can know, or should ever be expected to bear.” This phrase could be interpreted as highly personal, a distant father’s thanks to his son; or more broadly, an acknowledgement that Lenny carries on his shoulders the legacy of generations of enslaved men who were not educated, and could not hope for such a future. His father acknowledges this as a burden even as he expresses his immense pride.
As a character, Lenny represents American idealism–his youth, his enthusiasm, his wholehearted ascription to the concept of freedom as the “American dream”, and the concept of outlaw life as the ultimate expression of that freedom. Not only is he the first Free-Born man of his lineage, he has further removed himself from the constraints of a still heavily prejudiced society that limits his potential on the basis of his race. Outlaw life means that he no longer has to participate in a society where the game is rigged against him, where he was never a contender to win, where no matter how good he is he will never gain the kind of success or respect due to him. This is the mindset at the crux of the romanticization of outlaw life: a rejection of institutional prejudice, a corrupt legal system, a flawed ideology that preaches equality but allows racism to run rampant. In the isolated society of the gang, Lenny’s race is incidental–for perhaps the only time in his life.
Lenny’s arrival into the outlaw life has much in common with other heroes of American folklore: morally gray enough to be against the status quo of the establishment, but pure-hearted and good enough to capture the imagination and affections of the people. Lenny’s past is an excellent example of this: at the age of fifteen, he murdered the white men who killed his father. A murder motivated by justice and vengeance, steeped in righteousness, with the balance of power securely out of Lenny’s favor (outnumbered, a Black child barely on the cusp of manhood): few circumstances would make the killing more justified and beyond reproach. Ironically, avenging his father is also the act that makes it impossible for Lenny to achieve his father’s aspirations for him: now outlawed, he must envision a new future for himself. The success promised by his education would now have to be found elsewhere. To Lenny, the outlaw life is a pure and absolute version of that same social, political and economic freedom.
It would seem, however, that Lenny Summers was simply born too late to achieve his true potential. The story of Red Dead Redemption 2 is set in the twilight years of “the era of outlaws and gunslingers”; this is a fact that many of the characters have to contend with (“We’re thieves in a world that don’t want us no more,” Arthur laments.) Facing the turn of the 20th century means leaving behind the era of the “folk hero” outlaws such as Jesse James, Cole Younger, and Doc Holliday– in the fiction of Red Dead Redemption, Otis Miller and Jack Hall are also among the celebrated names. The morality of the outlaw was no longer ambiguous; in an American society that was taming and industrializing the Wild West, the lines between legal and illegal, hero and villain, were becoming well-defined. There was no longer room for moral ambiguity in a world increasingly defined by strict cultural ethics.
There is something about Lenny’s character in the story that inherently smacks of tragedy: he is a young man in a dying profession. The tragedy of Lenny’s character and his story is that he represents the death of a dream. His death, like the others in the story, signifies the end of the gunslinger era: there is no future for young men in this life. Lenny is an arguable paragon of the young up-and-comer folk hero outlaw: skilled with the promise of becoming even better, smart enough to best his enemies, a keen sense of justice but ruthlessly dealing death to those who deserve it, free from the constraints of society, law, and civilization. Unfortunately, the only thing he lacked was more time. In a world that had already begun to turn away from the dream of the Wild West, Lenny could never achieve the greatness he was projected for.
It is significant too, then, that Lenny is buried side-by-side with Hosea Matthews: bookends to the era of outlaws, the oldest to the youngest, first to last. Both were intelligent and undeniably skilled; Hosea was allowed the wisdom of experience and age to jade him about the drawbacks of a life on the run. Perhaps Lenny’s untimely death serves to crystallize him in eternal hope and optimism, forever a symbol of the golden age of gunslingers and all that they represented.
BLACK = I would date you.
GREEN = I think you’re cute.
BLUE = You are my tumblr crush.
GREY = I wish you would notice me.
PURPLE = I don’t talk to you but I really love your blog.
TEAL = We have a lot in common.
YELLOW = I don’t know you at all.
ORANGE = I don’t like your blog.
BROWN = I don’t like you.
PINK = I think you are unattractive.
RED = I hate you with a burning passion.
WHITE = You scare me.
RAINBOW = BED PLZ.
Okay I’m gonna add more meaningful colors because this list is inadequate.
SCARLET = You have influenced my decision/thoughts on something.
MAROON = You taught me something new.
CINNAMON = You’re a really cool person and admire you from afar.
PERIWINKLE = You make me laugh
MAUVE = You are really talented
BLUSH = Seeing you on my dash makes my day a little better.
Actually I’m gonna add a few too
CYAN = We have very little in common
THISTLE = I only just started following you
INDIGO = I’ve been following you for a long time
FUCHSIA = Your blog content is gold
COPPER = Your blog content is trash (and I love it)
VERMILION = You make me feel passionate
HONEYDEW = I want to call you by a nickname
LAVENDER = You inspire me
CORAL = You’re a meme
UMBER = I want to know more about you
FORGET-ME-NOT = You remind me of somebody
RAZZMATAZZ = I would share my favorite food with you
ARSENIC = I don’t know how to describe the way I feel about you
WINE = You make me feel kinda funny, like when we used to climb the rope in gym class
SAFFRON = I love your ideas
TIMBERWOLF = I trust you
FALLOW = I want to run through the Northern wilderness barefoot with you
PLUM = I’d like to chat with you
TANGERINE = I love your aesthetic
SAGE = You make me cry
CRIMSON = We should collaborate on something!
VIRIDIAN = I wanna hang out on your blog
CHARTREUSE = You’re my homie
BURGUNDY = I get excited when I see posts from you
A few of my favorite places / sights around Saint Denis. I love the beautiful bridge just hidden on the edge of town, and that bookstore looks like such a lovely shop.
turnnoffyourmind
romaincrisis
prguitarman
kianamaiart
