heavenlymorals

[heavenlymorals]

(warning: there is sexism and sexist ideas in this analysis because I refuse to sugarcoat the time period that RDR2 takes place in. Arthur is a product of his time and though it isn't shoved in your face, it's still there. Understanding the gender dynamics of this time period makes the characters much more understandable, nuanced, likeable, and better, if I'm being frank.)

I don't ship Sadie and Arthur, at all, it makes no sense to me besides two people liking the characters and thus putting them together. I like them as friends but that's about it.

And let's be so real for a second- even if they do get together for whatever reason, they absolutely wouldn't be compatible as partners because its been shown time and time again that Arthur believes in gender roles and gets visibly annoyed or angry when a woman takes up a man's role when a man is there or when a woman does something he thinks is unladylike in their line of work (just listen to his antagonization of Abigail (for her past as a prostitute, usually), Sadie, Karen, prostitutes, and female performers, all women who take on unconventional roles in their life(also pay attention to certain mission dialogues, and cutscene body language)).

Sadie proves herself as capable, and Arthur works with her, but he makes quips about her behavior or subtly judges her or makes fun of her("Oh, I'm sorry princess. Was there an insufficient feather in your pillow?" "You got a pair of pants and all of a sudden you think you're Landon Ricketts?" "You want to ruuuunnnn with the men?" "Few more like her and there wouldn't be much of a world left." "That ain't what you mean- I can still fight!" Or him being visibly annoyed when she doesn't take his hand to enter the boat and other similar things like that)

Arthur believes that a man should be the one doing the work that revolves around such physical exertion and if he isn't the one doing those things for a woman, he feels as if he is failing in his role as a protector and provider, which then provokes annoyance or in some cases, even anger. Sadie doesn't care about this obviously, and Jake Adler didn't either, hence why they worked so well together as a couple.

Not Arthur though. To put it quite simply, he prefers and is compatible with women who believe in the same gender roles as he does (Mary Gillis, Abigail Roberts, etc.).

This doesn't mean he dislikes Sadie, because it's quite obvious that he is fond of her, but given the intimacy of a relationship, Sadie would get fed up with him trying to be the ONLY provider and protector, and him getting fed up with her by encroaching on what he sees as his duties and responsibilities. He works with her in the way that he does because he has to and he respects that.

Some people may disagree with me on this analysis and that's fine, but to me, it feels like the most realistic outcome if they did become romantic partners. Another reason why I say this is because my mother comes from a culture that still operates a lot like 1899 America and I've seen this dynamic between men and women so many times that it's ridiculous- men who will accept working with a woman in more traditionally masculine roles and prefer partners who are more traditionally feminine.

#rdr2 #red dead redemption 2 #arthur morgan #sadie adler #arthur morgan x Sadie adler #gender roles #1800s #character analysis #story analysis #if i kicked any headcanons in the balls #I'm sorry 😔 #but i am a sucker for historical realism #which is what the red dead series always strived for #this idea of gender roles was more prevalent in rdr1 than rdr2 #but its still there #and it still affects arthur in the same way it affects john

[heavenlymorals]

(Warning: There are mentions of sexism in this post because I refuse to not acknowledge the time these people were living in and what that entails for men and women.)

The saddest thing about the Arthur and Mary romance is that it didn't happen because they were plagued by the same problem- family in 1800s America and what that entailed for men and women.

In Arthur's case, it was more obvious. He felt he had a debt to the gang, a debt he could never pay back- to Dutch and Hosea, his father figures who saved him, to the men he saw as brothers in arms, to the women he had to take care of and loved, and he could never for once think for a moment that he could also be kind to himself. Arthur Morgan, a strong man, a provider, a protector, someone that people NEEDED. Never once did people in the game ask Arthur what HE wants. It's always about their needs, and Arthur, being who he is, a selfless person to selfish people, would slave away to the ends of the Earth, to hell and back, just to be that pillar that they see him as, for Arthur Morgan is a man who had the world on his shoulders and couldn't, not even once, think about giving that responsibility to another man. He never could. His family consumed him to where his truest self, his most authentic self came only in the thin pages of a leather journal and the voice of lead. His family consumed him and the love he had for Mary, this want to have for once, something truly to himself, was inconceivable. How could he leave them? How? He couldn't. No matter how much he may want to, he just can't.

For Mary? Her family consumed her long ago, as soon as she was born, for she committed the cardinal sin of being born a woman in the 1800s. Whatever ambitions she had, they were impossible. The world made her horribly dependent from the moment she was born. Her prospects was being a lady, knowing department, and securing a marriage for the sake of her family and herself, otherwise, more likely than not, she will be thrusted into poverty or shame or both. And then she met Arthur and he showed her a world beyond the gilded age and she was happy because this love she had for him was her own and her experiences were ones that she wanted, not that her family wanted. She was happy with him, so terribly happy, but her dependence on her family crushed her- socially, economically, culturally. So when her family forced her to marry Mr. Linton, she agreed and forsaked her own love because how could she abandon her family? Her elopement would shame them and make her a disgrace to her sex.

They were both trapped by their families for different reasons but in the end, they decide to put themselves first and it was already too late.

When Mary called for Arthur, it wasn't for him and if it was, she masked it up by asking him for help with her family, the family that she forsaked everything for because how could she not? And Arthur helped. By God, he helped. Not necessarily because he wants to, but that's what love has done to him. It made him the one work stallion out of many who will one day be put down by sheer exhaustion of the weight on its back and the reward of very little. And Arthur would leave and go back to the gang, because how could he leave them?

But after years of abuse, loss of personhood, and the struggles of being a woman in 1800s America, Mary decides to be selfish. She saw how her father saw her as truly less than nothing when he decided to sell a broach that belonged to her beloved mother and then to be passed on to her. All that suffering she went through meant nothing because her father has shamed the family she tried so hard to keep happy and her brother was off to college and was no longer held on by the shackles of the wayward patriarch, Mr. Gillis. She decides to be selfish and asks Arthur to run away with her, so she can finally make do on that proposal long ago to be together, married and happy.

But Arthur then makes the same decision she made all those years ago when he proposed to her. He chooses his family. They need him, but maybe now it's finally over? He can pay his debt to them, have them live happy and free, and then chase his own happiness, his own treasure in the image of a wonderful and beautiful creature by the name of Mary Linton- and maybe in the future, Mary Morgan. After over 20 years- maybe he can be selfish.

But when he realized that these people that he dedicated his life to were draining him of life and hopes and dreams and gave him nothing in return but more troubles, it was too late.

He couldn't let go of these people who ruined him and Mary realized this. Her final letter was a heartfelt goodbye because as she finally broke free of those binds that tied her, Arthur didn't or couldn't. He made the same mistake as she did all those years ago and she couldn't handle such heartbreak anymore, for their souls were slaves to them who didn't deserve it.

And when Arthur finally did break free of those soulful chains, of those people who he loved so deeply, it was too late. Sickness turned a strong man to a husk and as he choked on his blood, he could only get solace from the fact that he tried. He tried to be his authentic self, he tried to be his own man with his own actions, he tried to be good, he tried to change, he tried, and his reward?

Choking and gasping on his blood due to actions in the past he never wanted to do but did anyways because the people he loved asked him to and he just couldn't say no.

Both Mary and Arthur loved each other. Fully and deeply but as their souls were entwined, their bodies and minds were held in bondage by a man's duty to protect and provide and a woman's duty of deportment and honor to families who ruined them. Both of them expect the other to forsake their family for them, but neither of them could do that at the correct time together.

All that remains of that love, true and pure, is Mary's ring on another woman's finger through her wish that Arthur could give the ring to another couple who weren't trapped in the same duty that they were, and that if they were, they had the strength to be selfish.

What a sad, sad story of two poor souls, Arthur Morgan and Mary Linton.

#arthur morgan #mary linton #red dead redemption 2 #rdr2 #character analysis #story analysis #they make me so sad #they truly did love eachother #but it was never destined to happen due to the duties they had from both their sex #and their “duties” to their families #when they finally decided to be selfish and for once put themselves first instead of their family #it was already too late #😭😞

[heavenlymorals]

Say it with me y'all-

Arthur Morgan isn't shy nor does he have crippling social anxiety- he is what we like to call

✨ introverted ✨

He isn't scared of being around a lot of people, he just prefers not to be.

#arthur morgan #rdr2 #red dead redemption 2 #idk why i needed to say this #but whatever #🙂❤️

[heavenlymorals]

Y'know when you don't really care for a real popular character in a fandom that everyone else loves and then it makes you weird or have people assume things about you when its like- idk me and bro just didn't vibe like that-

#joel miller #sadie adler #dick grayson #lagertha #Loki #johnny cage #ezio auditore #i know I'm basically putting a hit on my head for this post #and I get why people love these characters #but i ain't one of them unfortunately 😔 #the last of us #rdr2 #nightwing #vikings #marvel #mk1 #assassins creed

[heavenlymorals]

Oh my gosh. I just found this website that walks you though creating a believable society. It breaks each facet down into individual questions and makes it so simple! It seems really helpful for worldbuilding!

[heavenlymorals]

“The great angel, Arthur, shall smote you down”

[heavenlymorals]

The RDR2 fandom after I mention that despite being a better man (socially) than most during 1899, Arthur Morgan is still a man of his time so he still has certain prejudices if you analyze the game without the rose tinted glasses that come from loving the character -

#i love him so much #i love Arthur #i really do #but come on guys #you can still think he's a great character without trying to give page long explanations to certain things he says #when the easiest and most probable explanation is that he's a man in 1899 America #and thus holds certain prejudices #rdr2 #red dead redemption 2 #arthur morgan

[heavenlymorals]

Someone should write a fic in which Bi Han comes back with the others on the time storm.

I want him to meet grandmaster Kuai Liang, to find out that the little brother he once knew is now much older and wiser. Now he is the youngest one.

I want him to meet the new Lin Kuei and see that they no longer kidnap young children or force people to join their ranks, but actually try to protect Earthrealm.

I want him to actually meet Hanzo and get an apology.

I want Bi Han to struggle with the new clan, because the old values were literally beaten into him. I want him to meet Noob Saibot and be horrified with what he could've become.

I want Bi Han to have another shot at life like all the others did.

[heavenlymorals]

*fucking sobbing*

PLEaSE WHY R U DOING THIS TO ME- this is so sweet and sad and tragic and the art style is so cute and comforting and I'm just ❤️❤️😭😭

Yooo hoooo! It’s meeeee! Hope you guys didn’t think I was done with Tomas crying cause it gets wooooooorse!

context and headcannons:

Bi-Han I think cared for his brother a lot as kids, him and Kuai liang would stay up into late hours to stay with him when he got night terrors. Those were the only two who Tomas connected with for awhile, afraid of their father and unwilling to accept either parent for awhile. Bi-Han was a very protective sibling for a long time until the pressure of being the next grandmaster drowned out his free will and filed his growing resentment of his father.

A part of Bi-han is still so very protective of his brothers, but it’s buried under so much resentment and anger.

#beautiful #so fucking beautiful #mk1 #bi han #kuai liang #tomas vrbada

[heavenlymorals]

This is so fucking tragic and beautiful wtf your writing is phenomenal-

Bi-Han marking Kuai Liang with a large gash across the eye is a much more subtle punishment than it sounds. It's a message. A message that means: 

"I counted on you. I've pursued my vision in silence for years, swallowed my frustrations, lied and schemed when I wanted to scream the truth and my anger at the world. I hatched all this in the dark, when I wanted to see the sun and live in the broad daylight. To ensure that my vision would one day triumph, I had to hide my true nature and subject myself to a sheer inhuman discipline under the yoke of which many would have succumbed.

After all, what were a few more years of suffering in exchange for a free life and full control over my destiny? Wasn't it worth giving up my youth if I were to live the rest of my life free from the shackles of determinism? So I waited in the shadows. For years, for what seemed to be eons even, waiting for my time to come. For our time to come. I waited for you. In my vision, it wasn't just me. There was room for two. Maybe that's what kept me going, what kept me patient, what saved me from discouragement and despair, and enabled me to stoically endure injustice and humiliation. Thinking of you and of us has certainly kept me going. In the worst moments of distress, it even galvanized me. But what happened? All of a sudden, you rejected my vision and turned against me. I spent years shut away in the antechamber of life for you, longing and yearning for the great promises that I was sure our future together would hold. I denied myself many pleasures; had to tear myself away violently from all the drives that animated me, only to lock myself up in the non-existence of a slave to his own cause—a willing victim self-sacrified on the altar of his own obsession. Because the truth is, if it hadn't been for you, I wouldn't have done it. And I'd rather not think what would have become of me if I hadn't had this illusion to help me live. But of all this, all of this superhuman labour that I built hour after hour, night after night, grain of sand after grain of sand, just for us, at the risk of my own sanity, you refused it. You trampled and spat on it, viciously mocking, despising and denigrating it. Impassable abysses now separate us, and perhaps that was always the case. Was I blind? Did I fail to see that our paths were bound to diverge from the start? That, albeit physically similar, inwardly we were as far apart as fire and ice? Never mind. I've got nothing now, because you've taken everything away from me. All you had to do was sweep it all away with a wave of your hand, and it was gone. A cloud of smoke, a handful of dust and ashes, showing me the precariousness of my construct. Have I minted counterfeit money all these years? Have I built card castles destined to collapse at the slightest gust of wind, once my cell door has been opened? Never mind. In my inner vision, you've always been there by my side. We would have been one, like the twins we might have been had fate decided otherwise. But although not twins, we were brothers all the same. I would have dreamed of you as a cryomancer. Maybe you'd never have given up on me. Deep down, I'm sure that's what drove you away from me, what made your nature so different from mine, that cursed anomaly, that notch in the perfect genetics of our centuries-old lineage. What would it really have been between us, if you too had been a cryomancer, like thousands of our ancestors before us? Every time I thought about it, it made my heart bleed. If only that damned god hadn't ruined everything... If only you had been like me, brother... Perhaps in another life—perhaps in another timeline...

But never mind. It's no longer time to dream of hopes now destroyed forever. It's no longer time to weep or to explain. I'm not our father, this being so vile in his principles dripping with weakness that he managed to corrupt you, to possess you even after his death. Did I only get rid of him so that he could be better incarnated in you? Never mind. Now it's time to look at the smoking ruins of my dead aspirations, of my shattered desires, and leave without looking back. You couldn't, wouldn't see that everything I did was for you. And you don't want to see me anymore. So go now, go far away at the other end of the world and never come back. Once and for all, put an end to this sham of a brotherhood, enact our ontological divorce. Leave. And in return, I'll never mention your name again. I'll have my memory erase it, and in the memories of your former clan too (your blood family!), you will slowly fade away, just as I let our father die a pitifully long agony. Damnatio memoriae is what awaits the traitors. But because you didn't want to see me, because you fled from me over seas and mountains, I've still condemned you to see me in spite of yourself. Do you think this mark I've made on your face is the result of an impulse? I've given it a lot of thought. Rest assured, I didn't mean to poke your eye out. Quite the opposite, in fact. For you still have your two eyes to see that I'll always be with you. Every time you run your hand accross your face and feel it under your fratricidal fingers (because didn't you symbolically kill me?), every time you look in the mirror, pay heed: I'll be there. With both eyes wide open, you'll see that infamous scar staining the perfect beauty of your face, and you'll think of me, of me who did this to you, of me who claimed my due after you destroyed my life's work. For you, there's no escaping of it, when I've long since forgotten your name, having banished it from my mouth and those of my disciples. At the end of your life, I may already be dead, but I'll still be there, at your side, like a ghost, like a shadow, forever haunting your memory. Wherever you are, I'll be. Because I'm part of you now. Alive or dead, I'm inside you, engraved in your flesh, reminding you of your treachery every hour of the day and night without respite. Don't try to skin half your face with a knife or gouge your eyes out, because I'll still be there too. I'll be in that flayed flesh, in those empty sockets, in your thoughts, always. Every second, everywhere, at all times, you and I, together. In the mirror, you won't see your reflection, but mine. I'll die when you die, and I live as long as you'll live. Now farewell, he who was once my brother. You no longer exist for me. I am Abel, you are Cain. You have killed me in spirit by rejecting my love and the hand I extended to you; and I, in return, have marked you with the seal of shame. Everyone who sees this mark will see your turpitude. All you will see when you see your mark will be your tormented brother that you forsook out of faithlessness and disloyalty. May your flames become the flames of the inner hell that will consume you, a trap of your own creation. The foolish longing and now disappointed affection I once had for you are equal to my hatred, and it will spread over the whole world.

Yes, brother. Ice will cover this world. And it's all your doing."

[heavenlymorals]

And here I thought we finally had some sort of reconciliation between Sub-Zero!Kuai Liang and Noob Saibot in MK Onslaught but of fucking course not- 😀😀😀

#im so tired of this #FOR FUCKS SAKE LET THEM BE HAPPY #LET THEM BE BROTHERS- #is bi han evil #is he corrupted by Quan Chi's magic #i dont fucking know #i dont care either 💀 #im just tired of this evil brother thing #mortal kombat #mk onslaught #mortal kombat onslaught #sub zero #noob saibot

[heavenlymorals]

I love them so much, such kittens💞💞💞

Maybe I'm making Bi-Han look too "old", but I really like this dynamic between them...

[heavenlymorals]

Omg Bi Han headcanon time 😍

Bi Han does NOT cuss. Like at all. Both of his parents were against it and it's a habit that he never picked up and will never pick up because he finds it childish. He believes that if one needs to cuss to get their point across, they never had anything good to say in the first place (Anything and everything Johnny Cage ever had to say was ignored). He believes that insults are more satisfying if there is a bit more effort behind them. He gets SUPER annoyed if he hears his Lin Kuei initiates cuss.

#hes such a whiny bitch #i fucking love him #mortal kombat #mortal kombat 1 #mk1 #bi han #sub zero #bi han sub zero

[heavenlymorals]

💎❄️💦

[heavenlymorals]

As a sucker for both the Elder Scrolls and Mortal Kombat, two gaming behemoths that still live in my head rent free ever since I was a kid,-

I LOVE THIS SO FUCKING MUCH ❤❤❤❤ OMG PLZ GIVE MORE CONTENT FOR THIS AU, IT'S AWESOME!!!

What's it? Another image of a crossover with The Elder Scrolls!

After fleeing Skingrad and traveling with a Khajiit caravan for three years, the brothers ended up in High Rock. There, having concluded some kind of agreement, Bi Han joined the imperial legion, and his brothers went to the monastery of Anko - essentially a military school established by the Empire.

Circumstances still force Bi Han to resign from the legion after nine years and become a mercenary. After he finds out that the commander of his mercenary brigade was a Thalmor spy, Bi Han kills him and leaves the mercenaries after five years of service.

Eventually, fate leads him to Skyrim, where he hunts criminals for a reward.

Oh yes, nightshade flower - can you guess why he quit the legion.

A separate difficult story related to his brothers. After all, he still continues to kill for their protection.

#mercenary bi han? #doing this shit to protect and care for his brothers? #while dealing with his own issues? #oh sign me tf up #i love it sm #mortal kombat #mk1 #elder scrolls #skyrim

[heavenlymorals]

#I hope they feel like Italian today

[heavenlymorals]

Omni Man really said Smoke vapes people to death and I'm still laughing my dick off-

#he is so out of pocket #and its so funny #“😐 Stop please #dont hit me with ✨ w a t e r ✨“ #GIRL BYE 😭✋ #omni man #nolan grayson #invincible #mk smoke #tomas vrbada #mk1 #mortal kombat 1