appledash as rdr1 jovier...

to clarify i’m not anti Johnigail i love them a lot and i don’t believe in ship bashing anyway but idk i find it strange that in SOME rdr spaces johnigail is very much reduced to “John is a stupid dumb dumb himbo whipped for Abigail, the dommy mommy baddie bitch who pegs him” which, while a certainly valid and fun dynamic for them in an AU setting, does ignore a lot of the complexities when it comes to them.

Abigail was a child prostitute (17 is a child, regardless of the time period and social norms back then, she was a year older than Jack in RDR1 and you wouldn’t call him an adult, would you?) who had been forced to sell her body since even younger. Abigail was a teenager in a criminal gang full of murderers who, as painful as this may be to hear, probably weren’t above doing some ugly things. Abigail was pregnant at eighteen years old by a criminal in his twenties who did not care. Abigail pretty much singlehandedly raised Jack on her own with John getting involved far too late. John mistreated Abigail through pretty much the first half of the game and didn’t even consider Jack his son until the kid was literally kidnapped. John did not decide to grow and change as a person until Abigail finally left him, and even then, how long did that last?

they are messy as FUCK. they, for the most part, aren’t actually healthy couple goals. rdr is a series about protagonists with complex morals and that theme really really seeps into John’s relationship with his family and especially Abigail.

i feel like so many people joking about Abigail in a position of dominance over John because his treatment of her IS ugly and it IS wrong of him and we don’t like to think about one of the heroes of the story mistreating someone he claims to love more than anything but isn’t this a story of redemption? isn’t this a story where the characters do bad things and grow from it? part of the beauty of Johnigail is that despite the awful circumstances they came together from, they managed to grow and develop as people to make and find their own kind of love.

i feel like when you scrub away the context of “Abigail is a sexual abuse victim who was a teen mom in poor circumstances and mistreated by John” then you scrub away what makes John’s realisation and yknow, his red dead redemption so profound by weakening a big part of why he has to redeem himself.

i also think it’s worth talking about how i feel like a lot of people try and act like there was understanding and closeness between John and Jack too when there really wasn’t and to me this feels like another example of declawing the messiness of the marstons. i know people like to ignore 1907 + 1911 Jack because he’s a whiney emo shitbag or whatever and i only really see people discussing 1899 baby Jack or 1914 vengeful Jack when talking about the marstons but like you aware that all through rdr1 and the rdr2 epilogue and presumably before, Jack truly believes John thinks less of him and believes himself to be a disappointment, and knows he was an accident. you are aware he has cut lines about wishing he was dead at the age of twelve. you are aware he felt like that even in the period where the marstons were supposedly happy and thriving.

i feel like when you’re romanticising the marston family you gotta remember that they were initially only together for the sake of their illegitimate child together, with John neglecting his duty to both his wife and son and even when he gets better and learns to grow, they’re not squeaky clean and they never get to be.

I hate happiness. JACK MY BELOVED.