you have to love yourself a fire.

𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐇𝐀𝐕𝐄 𝐓𝐎 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑𝐒𝐄𝐋𝐅 𝐀 𝐅𝐈𝐑𝐄.

[mediumhonors]

#𝙼𝙴𝙳𝙸𝚄𝙼𝙷𝙾𝙽𝙾𝚁  an independent writing blog for multiple muses from rockstar’s red dead redemption duology. as written by lou (white, he/they, 25). EST. 21+ only, low-activity & private. 

roster: john marston, charles smith, hosea matthews, tilly jackson, karen jones, lenny summers, dutch van der linde, bonnie macfarlane, javier escuella.

[wallbang-buzzkill]

- and the dog he said he didn't want

[mediumhonors]

continued , @gunm0ll 

       THE ROMANTIC IN JAVIER CAN’T DIVORCE HIMSELF FROM THE IMAGE OF THE REVOLUTIONARY.  in all fairness,  that’s been his life,  with little choice in the matter;  as a son of dutch,  though,  javier feels like he has a semblance of a choice even if it’s a mirage.  the choice is not to run and hide,  but to fight,  for a dream that’s palpable,  so close he can see it but not feel it.  it slips through his fingers like sand.  but it’s real.  karen is real,  too.  she earns a huff and a smile,  her own dreams of simplicity.

‘   i’ve seen you with a gun,  ’   javier argues,  ‘  i’d think that’s a real skill, isn’t it ?  ’    they both know what grimshaw means.  ‘  i think you’d be bored.  i know that i’d be bored.  ’ 

lips pursed in thought,  he plucks a few notes absently on his guitar strings with coarse fingers.  ‘  still,  though,  i don’t know what i wouldn’t give to see my sister and my nieces.  i’d be bored forever if it means i could go back to nuevo paraíso.  ’  he holds out the guitar too her,  a prized possession.  he trusts karen,  though.  ‘  i can show you.  ’  

[mediumhonors]

thinking abt tilly being just as much a child of dutch as john n arthur were rly! and also just thinking abt her being terrified of motherhood, of feeling she was to blame for her mother’s death even though she was literally a child when she was taken from her (and the implications are…. not great yk……) and feeling like smth was inherently broken inside her until jack was born! i just know she was scared to even hold him but realized her own capacity to nurture thanks to taking care of jack (she was around 15 when jack was born!) and also from abigail, mary beth, and karen. i also think abt her caring so much abt molly and then being super harsh on her once she believed that she betrayed the gang bc dutch is her father! most of the interactions i had w her in ch6 were her trying to make the men @ camp just get along

i’m just like :) john and arthur are her brothers and it rly pains me physically to see micah referred to as a child of dutch more than i ever see her refereed to as such… she’s fiercely protective of her family and as sweet as she is, she knows better than to assert herself in its downfall for her own health and safety, and for the safety of the rest of the girls

[notmorbid]

the vines, pt. 2.

dialogue prompts from the vines by shelley nolden.

you know something. i can tell.

the impossible happens somewhere every day.

you better not leave me like the others.

you deserve a chance to heal.

you need to get that chip off your shoulder.

’hate’ isn’t the right word.

it’s not like i’ve been completely cut off from the world.

you don’t know me as well as you think.

no modesty, i see.

god, the earth, and my plants are my only solace.

this is an awkward question. would you mind lying next to me?

a person needs other humans to feel fully human.

you’re a good person who’s been put through hell. that’s not your fault.

are you sure this is okay?

this book is excellent, by the way.

i was asleep, just not as long as you.

what can i say? i like knives.

just like the dead, i have no need for sentiment.

so much for trust being a two-way street.

one sin can’t justify another.

what are you thinking?

it’s like you think you’re fated to die early and you just want to get it over with.

the heart tends to want what it can’t have.

you’re the fiercest among us.

i can’t imagine being that lonely.

i always put family first.

the most important battle, i didn’t have the courage to fight.

you did everything you could.

that burden doesn’t belong on your shoulders.

someone has to be the hero.

you’re human. it’s okay to cry.

when did you become such an asshole?

i am sorry for the head injury.

you’re a hypocritical chauvinist pig.

i love you too much to keep you.

i didn’t want to disappoint you.

i’m sorry i haven’t been a good enough ____ to you.

you are my everything. i used to tell you that every day.

[nubb]

[abigailmarstons]

[reddeadvoid]

You know Arthur took that bet, and lost - John is enjoying every minute of it lol

Anyways I’m terrible at dominos and always lost to Tilly in camp so I  headcannon that she has always just been really good at it.

Lines and color version because why not

[mediumhonors]

like this for a meme?

[thesopranosgif]

[mediumhonors]

yes rdr1 javier is terrible and i do think javier betrays his own ideals as a revolutionary because he’s terrified of being on his own outside of dutch and the rest of the gang, hence why he’s constantly trying to keep everyone together in ch6, and yes he ultimately does become the absolute thing he claims to hate--the same type of man who fed his uncle to a boar in front of him, an enforcer of a totalitarian regime that oppresses the poor and disenfranchised--but while i do think it’s aligned w his character to not point his gun at john and arthur in the standoff yet still side with dutch physically, how safe could he possibly be not siding with micah and dutch considering micah is openly racist and has repeatedly terrorized him and other non-white people / the women at camp with dutch turning a blind eye and enabling him... like... at that point he 100% knows micah and dutch are in the wrong hence why he dips and doesn’t pursue john and arthur while conversely not helping them... i just. idk. think he’s neat, that’s all, and vastly more three-dimensional than fandom gives him credit for. 

[greensaplinggrace]

nothing will ever hit harder than realizing dutch was always like that. that he didn’t actually change or go insane. that he always had that in him - the cruelty and the violence and the bigotry. that in the end he was all talk, because back when things were good for him he could talk. he could preach and pat himself on the back for being so morally superior and he could stroke his own ego by ‘saving’ all the unfortunates, feeling unique because these outcasts weren’t accepted by anybody else but him. but it didn’t actually amount to anything.

all those things you once respected him for saying - calling the gang family and arthur his son and defending the native americans and telling the gang to never leave love aside and his support of equality and his criticisms of society and privilege and corruption and power - all of it comes to nothing. it means nothing. it becomes ashes in his mouth. because in the end he betrays his family and he abandons his son and he irrevocably harms the native americans and he does leave love aside, he does prove himself to be an oppressive white man when it comes down to it and he does revel in his power and his title and he does become corrupted as he demands unquestioning loyalty and faith in the same way those he claims to oppose do.

and goddamn he was always like this. but when it was good it never showed, not truly, not in ways that were noticeable. and he’s a tarot card because what he is now and what he was then are the same but when circumstances change so do the worst parts of you come forth. and your true self is revealed. and that’s what happened to dutch. and it hurts because everything he preached he betrayed and everyone who loved him and who he claimed to love he abandoned. and in the end everything he built and everything he said meant nothing. it was all for nothing. the people he used and abused and manipulated became nothing to him. and he’s just smoke. he’s not a martyr. he’s not a relic. he’s not like arthur or hamish or john. he’s just words in the fucking wind.

[mediumhonors]

now that i also have dutch on here, i need to go off about how different arthur and john’s dynamics with dutch are, how dutch’s ‘you’re just like me’ @ john in rdr1 isn’t just a villainous throwaway line but is actually the culmination of years of projecting onto john and years of trying to mold john into his image. the fact that dutch managed to shoot john from such a distance in rdr1 + the fact that he can double-wield so effectively really just. makes me think of how good of a gunslinger dutch is and there’s no way much of john’s gunslinging prowess isn’t part of dutch teaching him.... i just. hm. think arthur ‘eldest daughter’ morgan vs john ‘golden boy favorite youngest brother’ marston duality is pretty neat, and how both of their identities are so entwined w dutch’s perception of them even (in john’s case) years later

[mediumhonors]

will b converting this to a red dead multi! peep the tag drop. 

[hoseas-angry-ghost]

RDR1 Sunset & Sunrise

[abigailmarstons]

[mediumhonors]

        JOHN IS NO GOOD AT BEING A SON, A FATHER, OR A BROTHER.  family is a concept that is still foreign after all these years,  and now is even more so,  considering the splintered state of the gang.  not even javier will look at him,  hasn’t since sadie and arthur rescued him from sisika,  which stings something awful.  and,  yeah,  he still feels horribly inadequate for abigail and for jack,  and,  of course,  to arthur.  always has.  but he’s seen the way everyone’s shifted,  and now that arthur’s sick -- john doesn’t know to the extent,  but he knows it’s gotta be something severe ‘cause he ain’t stupid,  and that idea strikes fear into him that he’d like to ignore but can’t.  for a long time,  he thought he hated arthur,  after spending years vying for his attention and,  most of all,  his approval.

it’s late.  the fire crackles distantly,  with none of javier’s strumming on his guitar or singing,  none of uncle’s drunken cajoling.  it’s quiet,  save for bill’s drunken grumbles,  dutch’s low voice speaking to micah and cleet and joe,  and the distant crackle of the fire.  john isn’t on watch tonight,  but he’s had trouble sleeping since even before sisika,  but his venture in the prison and outside of it,  now,  have done little to help.  with abigail and jack asleep beside him,  he lies awake in his tent,  stares up at the ceiling,  for god knows how long ‘til he’s tired of it and exits,  spotting arthur’s broad outline by the periphery of camp.  he’s been thinking about arthur,  the hack of his new cough,  the kind tired look on his face.  he hasn’t been a good brother,  no,  but he thinks he’s capable of being a decent one.

with a bottle of fire brandy in hand,  john approaches arthur with his union suit and trousers and boots on,  suspenders hanging low.  he doesn’t want to treat arthur with kid gloves,  ‘cause no matter how much dutch may act like it,  arthur is still arthur,  and arthur isn’t dead.  but  ——  yeah,  he’s worried,   he’ll admit that much,  that arthur will join the ranks of the long-dead father he can’t remember the face or sound of,  of his mother he doesn’t know at all.  that idea’s terrifying,  inevitable as it is.  but. 

❝   mind if i join you ?   ❞   too late ——  john’s already sat alongside arthur in the cold dirt,  shoving the fire brandy toward him.  he just ain’t sure what to say,  really,  so he simply smiles and starts them off with,  ❝   stole this from micah’s tent.   ❞ 

semi-plotted starter ,  @redempting ♡