big congrats to rdr fandom for having some of the worse moral posturing around shipping i’ve ever seen. like congrats for shipping the canon hetero pairings and your 1 or 2 allocated gay fanon pairings. also congrats for inventing the word “psuedoincest” to scare the crows off any pairings you deem unacceptable.
like i’m sorry, but the van der linde gang are not a family and if you believe that, dutch has manipulated you too. dutch uses the family framework to keep those he manipulates loyal. hosea and dutch are not the “mum and dad”, that’s fanon characterisation. arthur and john are not the sons or brothers, they were both boys groomed by dutch into a lonely and selfish life, robbing and stealing. and though they are close and brotherLIKE, they are not brothers.
another newsflash- you can have messy romantic feelings with a friend that is so close you consider them a sibling. it’s not wholesome, it’s a bit weird and intense. but that’s kind of the point. that’s why people ship it. we’re not getting off on incestuous dynamics because the incest is not in the room w us rn. idk how to make it any clearer.
it just upsets me to see a lot of good rdr artists getting smeared on twitter by fans who think they’re a better person for not touching the morally dubious pairings. personally, it makes sense for me that this group of outlaws in the 1890s, who’ve lived so close to each other, would have intimate relationships. they’re not a cute family living out in the country, they’re a group of criminals who’ve done a lot worse than fuck a guy that they’ve grown up with. it’s so odd to imprint 2024 shipping morality politics onto a bunch of cowboys from 200 years ago. i guarantee your not winning any awards for playing it safe in fandom.
got a couple of anon death threats over this post cause it got reposted on twt
you’re only reinforcing my point that rdr fans are a bunch of shallow minded babies who want to tie little pink bows on this western horror game