#dbh fandom essay

[simping-for-kamski]

So the rundown is:

62% of respondents are rabid Gavin fans

100% of respondents do not need Gavin for sexual gratification

11% of respondents don't give a damn about Gavin or who he is

A whooping 30% of respondents don't get the dude bro hype

This was actually pretty hilarious :D And nice to see that we folks who don't like Gavin, however scattered we are in the fringe of the rat man imperium, are still more numerous than we might seem. And not alone.

My take - the backstory~

Well, I didn't start out hating Gavin. In fact, a Reed900 fanmovie on YT is what got me into DBH at all. I thought "holy shit, I want to be in a fandom that makes such amazing content" so, kudos to you Reed900 fans.

So I watched a playthrough and was MINDBLOWN over the fact that there were OTHER characters than Connor, Hank and Gavin. I legit did not expect Markus and Kara and all the characters in their stories. I thought it was going to be Connor and Hank bromance in a vacuum.

So, 5 days fresh into the fandom, only having watched that Reed900 movie and an "Everybody Lives" 6h playthrough, I started writing a fic called Gardengate that would turn into 270k of deep lore plot and praised for its characterization. It even has Gavin in it.

But as months went by, I felt like all I saw everywhere was "fucking Gavin Reed again" and it bothered me so much. But why? I see iterations of Connor all the time too (and yes, I think Connor is a bit overrated too). I sure wish I'd see more of Leo who also is a racist, hot-tempered, disrespectful, brash raccoon boy kinda character like Gavin (with much better looks, and witty lines).

And that's when it started to grate on me. Why all the obsession for Gavin when Leo, a much-more developed and intriguing character is RIGHT THERE. Wanna hook up him with Connor? Have him get interviewed, interrogated, arrested, be an informant, anything! Wanna hook him with RK900? Give Markus a bodyguard! But no. No, fandom wasn't looking for that. Gavin and RK900 are those minor non-characters that can be plied into whatever fanon fandom wants to create for them.

And that's where my irk starts

To me, Gavin is a spinoff fandom of his own, and I'm not into that fandom. I'm into DBH. Then why am I more tolerant of RK900, who I also view as a spinoff fandom? Well.

Gavin is a bully. An ugly, dumb, pos. He doesn't have an agenda, he's just a basic dudebro with a self-confidence inversely proportional to his non-existing self-insight. You can't write him in an enemies-to-lovers dynamic because he's not anyone's enemy, just a nothing with a foul mouth. It's bully-to-lover at best and as someone who's been bullied by small hormonal versions of him, it's just yikes to me.

I know these people don't grow soft or sweet on you just by proximity. They don't open their eyes one day and realize you're a person, because they don't have to. They're already in power, they want to keep that power, and they have zero interest in not keeping you down.

At this point I'm lowkey regretting to have included Gavin in Gardengate because I'm so tired of him. It's complicated. I'm normally really good at having fifty different versions of a same character and acknowledging they're not the same, letting them have different dynamics and relationships—here Kamski and Chloe are siblings, here they're friends, here they're lovers, etc.

But Gavin is the face of "Assholes Won"

Gavin makes me feel like those times I tried to emulate popular art styles and ended up heart-broken over the art pieces I created no longer feeling like "me". In the end, Gavin puts me face to face with the fact that as an autistic Queer person, I've always been scared of the majority and always sided and been drawn to the minorities and niches, where I could usually be safe from the dominant norm people.

Anything that is popular squicks me, the way popular kids who bullied me squicked me. I've had this in every fandom—I always simp for the resident mad scientist, ship rarepairs and dodge the popular ships and fanon stuff.

But Gavin burns me like no one else because he's a bully, and to me, it feels like taking your local nazi ugly douchebag and attempting to tone him down and redeem him by prettifying him on FaceApp, turning him gay for autistic dick and having the cute autistic boy thirst for that not-a-nazi-ugly-douchebag dick. EW YIKES.

So there. END OF THE FUCKING ESSAY shit that was long lol nobody gonna read that

Feel free to reblog and write entire essays about why you love, hate or don't care much about him!

(Just remember nobody's wrong for loving or hating a character, or for having a different interpretation of them than you do! Be kind!)

[leftneb]

✨✨positivity chain! tag some of your favorite creators (artists, gif makers, writers, etc) and say what you love about them. Share with as many people as you’d like✨✨

so I'm not the best at articulating this kind of thing BUT I do have quite the sizeable (but non-exhaustive) list of creators whose works are plastered to the inside of my skull for the rest of time. I can only recommend checking out their works <3

artists:

@dumbf1sketches where do I even start honestly. incredibly clean and downright edible style, mastery of anatomy I can only wish to have one day. I think about the way you draw hair often and with great enjoyment

@roosterhouse huge brained concepts and gorgeous technical drawings. I am allergic to drawing detail so it always blows my mind how well thought-out your art is, on top of being silly and so so gorgeous

@28220-c breathtakingly gorgeous rendering and ideas. like it makes me FEEL things

@prokrastinartiya's art eats SO hard every time, I love love LOVE the use of colour, composition and overall style

@lalikeslichto stylization masterclass, both in lineart and colours

@cickyart is an outlier on this list (not an F1 artist) but has been one of my all time favorite creators for quite some time now. forever amazed at and inspired by the gorgeous, breathtaking, absolutely jawdropping colours and texture

@lyslsstuff you pretty much picked me up like a baby bird and told me I could fly in my early days of tumblr-ing, it's been so much fun working on the dbh au together and just getting to know you in general <3 not to mention I adore your art, the colours and rendering and overall effect is always SO cool

writers:

@wisteriagoesvroom, @cx-boxbox and @kingkestrel all have incredibly fun but like, compelling writing styles, the earliest works I read in this fandom were by you lot so huge thank you for making me want to stick around <33

@wanderingblindly @drivestraight, @strawberry-daiquiris, @loquarocoeur and @freeuselandonorris: your writing blows me away every time. all of you have an incredible understanding of emotion and beautiful ways to convey it!

@inchidentally the way you understand and articulate dynamics and themes amazes me every time, your essays are an absolute delight to read!!

there are also so many tiktok users I'd tag in this if I had the means ngl. being a tiktok addict is certainly not an attribute I'm proud of but it DID get me into F1 so, maybe it's worth it

[chainslobber]

<< from previous anon >>

thank you so much for the genuine answer, and for being so kind. I appreciate it tons, seriously. and yes, since I've stepped away from the anti/proship stuff, I feel a lot better. although, if I may admit, sometimes I feel strangely guilty. maybe it's because it's been instilled in me for so long that certain things are bad.

if I may ask, did you ever struggle with this after you decided to stop associating with those labels/parts of the fandom? i hope this isn't too personal. 🩷

i just want to enjoy these harmless fictional things without feeling bad. is that really so wrong? obviously, it's not, but yknow.

Hello again, Anon!

I understand you entirely. I was in the same boat. My last fandom I was in, I LOVED it there. I loved the series but the 'fandom' was new to me. When I was 14-16, you couldn't go ANYWHERE online without seeing porn, or handholding, or kissing. It was two teenage boys. But then I came to the fandom and...all of that was gone. Sterilized. If you even called the boys 'hot' people IMMEDIATELY did callout posts and tried to cancel you.

Now, I had just come from two adult fandoms. One of which was D:BH. Now, everyone in DBH (main characters anyways minus Alice) were all adults. The fandom was ALL porn. Fics, body pillows, doujins, you name it. So coming from that fandom to this old fandom where none of that was allowed was jarring. I watched people get attacked for drawing risque pictures, or fics. Every adult in the fandom started making priv accounts because we were terrified.

I was, by this point, best friends with an anti and in an anti group. Every day, I'd see links in the discord of drawings, or fics, or video essays where people gleefully called these people pedophiles/ephebophiles--all for liking these things. SOme of them tried to doxx, others started signing them up for emails for junk, some even tried to find spouses and jobs to 'tattle' on them. Now, I was terrified. I was, at this point and still am, an adult artist for my job. I had never drawn porn of these characters but I read fics. I made a new AO3 just so I could like these fics without feeling guilty or having people crawl my bookmarks. Even on Twitter, even if the pic was SFW, I stopped liking/RTing. I bookmarked everything.

But.

People found out what I did for a living. People found out I was lying to them because my priv account got leaked by someone I could trust. I got callouts so badly, I stopped drawing for the fandom. My best friend, who I didn't wanna lose, turned on me. I literally had nobody up until I met Penny. I was too afraid to talk to anybody for fear they were 'in the circle'. People who didn't even know me were suddenly calling me a creep, saying they knew I had 'bad vibes', and that it was 'weird' I was so old in a fandom for 'kids'. I was only 27 at the time iirc.

It was scary. Even now, I'm waiting for someone to call me out for writing MHA porn, for drawing it. I still get people in my askbox calling me awful things sometimes.

But just know that you're doing nothing wrong. You never have, you never were, and I'm sorry people made you feel like you were the worst person ever for maybe finding an anime character hot or whatever the case might be. I DO promise you're safe here, even as anon, and I'm happy to talk with you. I got my socials and Discord everywhere. I don't want to out you and I never will, I just want you to know if it helps, you can even make a burner account to talk to me or anybody else.

It's really tough stepping away from the anti life, especially when you might've stayed for safety. But it's a toxic relationship; I'm not saying proshippers are also without their faults, but I have only ever had genuine friendships with folks who didn't give a shit.

People will defend you. People will swing for you. Fiction is meant to be an escape from your daily life, and if folks are making you feel guilty about enjoying it the way it makes YOU happy, then they're not worth your time.

You're fantastic, Anon, and I really hope you're doing okay. Whatever you hid before out of shame or guilt or fear, just know someone else is hitting kudos as a sign of respect and genuine adoration. I hope you're okay and I hope the things you were too afraid to enjoy or give a taste, you feel a little bolder trying.

[technicalthinker]

ok so ever since I realised that oh yeah capitol park should’ve definitely been before stratford tower and that it was probably the plan in the first place, I feel like I got a better grasp of things in my analysis of dbh’s structure and all that

but alright on the other hand do we know why they changed it? like analysis of video games are tricky in general because it’s such an interative process and dbh has been through many stages (the nature of the game sort of invites that effect) but im still curious if any fandom detectives has figured it out? like I havent rly had the time to dig into the behind the scenes stuff yet so idk if there’s any obvious discussions there. 

[dirty-droid]

So I believe you asked this in good faith and I want to answer in good faith, and write a bit of a long form essay. I don't quite speak for every shipper or even each of my own friends in this fandom, some are a bit more open than I am but I digress. You've posed a much shorter list of more abstract questions, but I've seen other questions and speculations throughout my time in this fandom and I will answer those as well to build my point. It's also just been a while since I've gone on a rant publicly, especially since I had to remake my account recently, and I've always wanted to go on a point by point rant both about this discourse and my own love for this ship, so this might be overkill but less is not more when it comes to having fun analyzing fandom.

First and most important point being that we don't believe that we're denying or bypassing any canonical familial relationship between Hank and Connor. I don't believe it exists in the first place. I do not see it in the text or the subtext of the story, I believe such an interpretation runs counter to the storyline and the characterization within it. Simply stated, it's not obvious to us because it's not there.

Canonically, Hank and Connor begin as strangers, become acquainted with one another through sharing a workspace, become coworkers, and maybe they develop a friendship, and maybe they cause each other to die.

There's a few intertwined reasons that I think the father-son interpretation falls flat, so in no particular order, this is where it gets messy: the storyline only takes place over the course of a week and I can't realistically buy that a familial bond could be forged that fast when- Hank spends half, if not most, of the game questioning if he even believes Connor to be a person and Connor doesn't believe himself to be a person and is still juggling how much he prioritizes Hank's approval of his actions. On top of that, I buy into the meta analysis that Connor is manipulating Hank throughout the story in order to achieve his mission, as he can even state that he's being friendly with Hank in order to make this mission run smoother and achieve success.

In regards to those points, I don't believe the storyline has room for a paternal type relationship arc, by the time the Eden club arc is over, Hank has explicitly threatened Connor's life at least twice, the threat to burn Connor in a dumpster and the threat of pointing a gun at Connor at the bridge are both unavoidable, and Connor's had the chance to threaten to report Hank, presumably to get him fired, about three times. They're warming up to one another, they've had some warm moments, but they're still butting heads, arguing, and not treating each other very well at the halfway point of the week and the story. Personally I feel like this is unacceptable in a familial dynamic, parents shouldn't be threatening the lives of their children, and while that happens all the time in real life and in fiction, I don't tend to enjoy those parents as parents, I don't want those people around their children, whether it happens in real life or is being depicted in fiction. So, if Hank were truly meant to be, or be acting or feeling as though he was Connor's father, I wouldn't like him very much anymore, I wouldn't want their relationship to continue, and I wouldn't be invested.

So because they canonically aren't considered family members, I see no reason to think of them as being parent and child when their canonical relationship is full of so much violence, plausible hatred, and lack of communication. If I were to be thinking of them as family members, this would be a very dark situation, one that holds fear and trauma and possible resentment. If I'm going to enjoy a familial relationship in my fiction, bitch should either be acknowledging how painful that relationship is, or it should be actually, truly wholesome. I hold much higher standards for character analysis then I do shipping. And I put my money where my mouth is on that one, I adore the relationship between Markus and Carl, I find it to be very realistic, I find it to be very relatable, the relationship holds real genuine affection, but it also acknowledges and leaves room for the pain that Carl has caused Markus in his pseudo upbringing, as well as the pain that was caused with Carl replacing Leo with Markus in his life. They don't ignore it and they don't brush over it, Carl loves Markus and has put time and effort into guiding him but he's also a bit of a blundering asshole who doesn't know what he's doing, and I love it. Their feelings toward one another are explicitly stated, it's well written, and it feels real to me. I have rarely, if ever seen the same energy given to Hank and Connor's relationship by father-sonners.

So I don't think it's a great found family dynamic, I think it's a very flawed one, if I would even acknowledge it as a family dynamic in the first place. Hank's affection for Connor is very conditional, though he is naturally protective, he does not hold back on being aggressive when Connor has pushed him or disobeyed his orders prioritize the Cyberlife mission over Hank's personal priorities and preferences. He certainly wants to care, but that goes out the window when Connor disappoints him enough. He'll go as far as to kill Connor. I don't buy that as fatherly behavior. Regardless of what David Cage says, Cage has also been reported saying that all the women in his games are whores, and that he doesn't make games for fags, so I'll take his opinion with a grain of salt, and I think it's relevant that he stated that he thinks of Hank and Connor as being father and son after he'd caught wind that people were shipping them, and didn't explicitly write it into the game as it was done for Markus and Kara, It's very easy for me to believe that he's taken that stance as a homophobe upset that the internet is doing gay things, and not as a writer who wants his work viewed a certain way.

So we're starting to get into the Hankcon support, and I will make the point that found family also isn't strictly familial dynamics, and is often simply platonic, which I'm sure you already know but is becoming a bit of a rampant problem in fandom I'm finding. The things we're typically replacing in a found family when we are young adults that we're not getting from our relatives is support, so the relationships themselves don't have to be strictly platonic. I do think of Hankcon, as a romantic and/or sexual relationship, as a found family situation, as I understand that our romantic partnerships, long-term serious relationships and marriages, are typically the first things we think of when we think of the family that we've found and made ourselves. My fiance is the first on my list. Friends, and friends with benefits is typically next, I've been intimate with the friends I hold the most dear in my life, these people are my family, and this is what I think of as being realistic in speculative fiction, this is what feels normal to me. One can fuck one's friends and still call them family, ex-partners can stay in one's life and still be called family. Family in this sense is best defined as Who Shows Up when you call for help, and the people that you show up for, the individual relationships and how they function emotionally aren't what's important. Just because I love you, need you, doesn't mean you're my brother or my sister or any other relation now.

I did see in your tags that you didn't mean the 'kid' comment literally, but I do think it is worth saying that shippers tend to only view Connor as young in comparison to Hank, and otherwise see them as equals in regard to their partnership, and typically the light in the balance of their power. While there is undeniably an age gap, which is a valid reason to not enjoy a ship though I don't think that makes it problematic, we typically fervently believe that they're quite well matched in power, there isn't an imbalanced power dynamic, where Hank might be experienced, Connor is programmed with the experience of others and has the world's knowledge at his fingertips, they are both incredibly strong, they're strong willed, stubborn, they both carry some aggression, neither would be able to easily take advantage. Connor is just as mature as Hank is, sometimes it even feels like more so, and he drags Hank through the game, he's not a rookie and he's not in need of guidance.

Which actually leads me to another point, I actually think the father son dynamic is a misinterpretation of a mentor/student dynamic between Hank and Connor that, while usually present in buddy cop stories, doesn't actually exist in Detroit become human, it's not a part of the plot. Connor is not technically a rookie, he comes in with his own mission that has nothing to do with whatever Hank was doing in homicide, he's using Hank to get into crime scenes he should have no clearance into, and Hank is not teaching Connor the ropes, he's typically watching Connor excell from the sidelines because he's curious about how well Connor was built. And Hank doesn't act as a mentor to Connor, Hank has his own priorities and morals and ideas about how their job should be done, and he does not teach Connor what these are, he expects Connor to meet them without guidance. He values life, both their own and that of others, and expects Connor to do the same, and they can bond when Connor does align with Hank and it causes a rift between them when he doesn't. This isn't typically how mentor/student relationships work, the mentor is typically invested in the student's learning in a way that Hank isn't, he's accepting of the fact that Connor might fail and leave, if their relationship progresses to friendship, he won't want that to happen, but he certainly thinks of it as being out of his hands and accepts that there's only so much he can do.

Now comes the real Hankcon textual support, and while I don't believe that shipping requires canonical, textual support, the nature of shipping is that it's merely a thought experiment for the purpose of fun and games, shipping is not an interpretation of a story or of a relationship between certain characters, shipping simply IS, I do think that there's some good subtext for Hankcon in particular that guides us in that direction of thought, that it's a little more than just them being friends and looking good together, and I think it's pretty juicy stuff. Shipping is also a bit different than an interpretation in that the basis of, "what if this character was attracted to this other character? What if those feelings were reciprocated?" comes with the understanding that people and characters can be sexually attracted to one another without doing anything about it, sexual attraction can fly under the radar of a story because it doesn't need to be acted upon, there are other things that are more important emotionally and logically for a character. It's part of why I think Hankcon undertones work so well throughout Detroit become human, because it doesn't matter if Hank and Connor are attracted to each other, there's no conflict of interest when it comes to throwing a man you think is handsome off a roof because you're busy fighting him to the death, him being handsome or sexy doesn't interfere with being on opposite sides of a war, (in short, the shipping goggles don't interfere with the machine path the way I think the father-son goggles do, not a lot of folks seem down for patricide and filicide, although I'd love to hear more about that arc from that perspective, but as a shipper... Characters fighting to the death is hot, characters being violent towards each other is hot, even if it is a tragic situation that they're killing each other instead of coming together)

Ultimately, I put a lot of stock in the Eden Club arc as a whole. Because it's more than just the one chapter, I'd say it really starts at Russian roulette, but there's foreshadowing for it as early as Partners. I think that whether the player has interest in it or not, Hank is actually being pressured by his society to view Connor as a sex object or a romantic companion, without agency. I'd go as far as to joke that Hank is being sexually harassed by the narrative.

It starts with the set dressing of the magazine on Hank's bedroom floor that Connor can find, the first article is about companionship androids, in-home sex bots that will pretend to be your spouse and do anything you ask. And we see twice that he's got companion androids on the brain, first he gets teased by Ben for showing up with an android in Partners, which is obviously less explicit, but I don't think it should go unstated, and then there's one of my favorite things in the game, Hank's monologue about companion androids in the back room of the Eden club.

I LOVE this monologue. It's loaded with subtext, a lot can be implied from what Hank isn't saying, as he rants and raves about how disgusting he thinks it is that humans use androids for sex, that they would rather buy an android to play house with instead of investing their hearts into another human being that has needs and is imperfect. The thing that I love about this, is that the flip side to these statements looks like it ought to be Hank expressing disgust with androids and a preference for humans when it comes to being in a relationship, but the longer he goes on the more you can sense that that's not what he's really saying. It's not necessarily a human being that he wants, it's a Person. And as the game goes on he understands deviants to be people more and more, especially after seeing the Tracis express their love, romantic love, for one another not five minutes later, and it weighs heavily on his mind in the next chapter. So what he's really expressing isn't a species preference, it's a need to be in a relationship of equals, he's inadvertently describing a marriage, caring for someone else's needs, being asked to show up as a man and have something to offer a potential mate, He wants to worry about how someone else feels, he wants to cater to an extent to have someone else feels, he says that pretty explicitly, "-they cook when you want, they screw when you want, and you don't have to worry about how they feel." Having an android sex slave is disgusting to him because he WANTS someone to make room for themselves in his life, he wants the hard realities of loving someone, true intimacy. As it stands in that moment, he believes that only a human could fulfill that, but as time goes on, deviant androids, with their own feelings and their own opinions, wants and needs, start to look like they could feel that role.

And then he asks Connor if he's a man or a machine. And it's hard for me not to feel like he's also asking if Connor could ever love him, if Hank were to love him first.

Because they're not in love at this time, Hank isn't falling that fast, Connor hasn't quite unlocked that ability yet, that we know he has it in him, but Connor answers that he's whatever Hank wants him to be, and it's hard for me to believe that doesn't or couldn't have a sexual tilt to it, after Connor teases him about going to a brothel together, after we hear the club owner heavily imply that Hank should fuck an android, after we learn that Hank is thinking about being in some fake relationship with an Android, after learning that deviants can feel romantic love, Hank demands to know if Connor can feel, and Connor replies that he could choose to fake it for Hank if he wanted.

Now I understand Hank being pressured by his society and the people around him (specifically that sleazy club owner) to view Connor not as a romantic interest, but as a sex object, can be distasteful, but I think it's just as important as Hank's initial insistence that he hates androids and wants them all destroyed. He's only adopted these beliefs, they aren't how he truly feels deep down, and he grows throughout the game to accept deviants and see them as his equals, and he lets those beliefs and pressures go when they stop making any lick of sense. In the world of D:BH, androids are not viewed as human, and because this game is directed at adults, it touches quite heavily on the concept of humans using androids for sex, and a possible counter to that as the setting evolves is androids occasionally choosing to consent to romantic and sexual entanglements with humans, with informed consent. So maybe Hank starts off knowing that he could use Connor sexually, that it would be socially acceptable, and as the relationship evolves he could either completely do away with that thought, or put it in his back pocket because once Connor's a deviant, with his consent, intimacy could be on the table. We start to get into the what if's of speculative fiction and shipping.

But moving on, maybe Connor keeps impressing Hank. Maybe he keeps saving his life. Maybe he keeps choosing to prioritize Hank's morals, and saves and preserve lives the way Hank wants him to, and he keeps finding out that Hank is easier to please than Amanda and freer with his praise, more accepting of failure, Maybe he understands that he'd be safer fighting for a chance to be free than by completing a mission for cyberlife, who doesn't care if he lives or dies. Maybe he deviates.

But I think Connor pushes Hank to want to live again not because he's deciding on his morality and deciding that it aligns with Hank's values, I think it's because Connor's, well he's kind of an asshole to Hank. Connor demands Hank be as mature and focused as he is, Connor's asking Hank to act as his partner, and not be dragged like dead weight. He's not walking on eggshells in regards to Hank's grief, he's asking questions and not making excuses and worming his way in closer to Hank by doing so. He's not letting Hank slack off, he drags him out of his drunken stupor, Hank gets no breaks from Connor barging into his life for a week straight... And I think he likes it. He likes it when Connor disobeys him a little, he likes it when Connor thinks for himself, he likes it when Connor kicks ass, but I think he mostly likes how Connor refuses to leave him alone.

It reminds me of this story my dad told me about when he was in basic training for the army, he writes home to my grandfather, complaining and bitching about how rough the training is, how awful the Sargents are, how bad the food is, how strict the standards are, how tired he is from all the PT, bitching and moaning about how he fucking hates it, and my grandfather writes back, "Well, it sounds to me like you're having fun!".... And it pissed him off at first, of course it's not fun to get pushed around like this, bossed around... But ultimately he realized he did kind of fucking like it, that he enjoy the challenge of having his ass kicked.

Maybe it seems like a silly comparison, but I think that's Hank's vibe. He likes his job... But he LOVES a challenge, and he hasn't had one in a long time, He hasn't had anyone to fight for or anyone to fight with. Connor walks in with these interesting cases that he's never seen before, makes him rethink his entire worldview, the adrenaline is running high because Connor thrusts them into dangerous situations, and saves his life over and over, and sure, Connor's annoying Hank, he's poking and prodding at Hank until he snaps, but fuck, he's having *fun* for the first time in a long time. He has a partner who gives a shit about him getting off his ass and putting some effort in.

By the end of it, they've grown to admire each other for their strengths and they're covering each other's weaknesses, they've learned to work together, as partners, they've seen each other at their best and at their worst. Hank's opened himself up to the mortifying ordeal of being known so he can receive the rewards of being loved, and Connor's finally figured out what that means. He's found his personhood, learned to put himself first and stop asking cyberlife to protect him, those strings are cut and they can come together as equals. They can be grateful to one another while also learning or relearning how to live.

I think also ultimately I think with them being equals, with them having gone through this journey together and found themselves in the places that they have, with Hank and Connor both kind of apologizing for their actions, now that they understand each other, It's a lot more reasonable that they would be able to sort of forgive and forget, live and let live about what assholes they were to each other. They were both dicks, so now they're square, they're even, and they've got shit to do.

And because I can't leave well enough alone, I do also enjoy the positive authority figure vibes that Hank gives off, I just think it's sexy.

If folks wanna judge me for being a kinky, perverted shipper, I get it, I dabble in the taboo from time to time, but honestly I've found solace in the world of kink, I've found solace and friendships on the sexy side of things, and I'd rather live in a world of romantic bliss. Please don't fall into the trap of believing that just because someone sees two characters and thinks they have chemistry, with not valuing or respecting platonic or familial relationships. Preferences are ever evolving, they're not static, and we don't see the reasons behind everyone's sense of taste.

I guess the thing that confuses me most about hankcon shippers is why y'all would pass up a great found family dynamic? Or why romantic love is better to you than familial? Personally, I find great joy in the idea that Connor has a positive authority figure in his life who actually cares about him, and that Hank has this kid android following him around who reminds him what it's like to find meaning in life again. That's what they mean to each other in game. I don't understand why that's lesser to some of you, or why you'd over look obvious signs of it in the game for the sake of a ship.

[dark1k]

can't stop thinking about the beauty from markus and connor's intertwined stories??? you're seriously telling me that the first time markus heard of connor's existence was while riding the subway to ferndale station – which turns into him discovering jericho – while the first time connor heard of markus' existence was while investigating stratford tower – which ALSO turns into him discovering jericho???

there's also a connection with these introductions. even though markus is distracted by thoughts of newfound freedom (and possibly trauma from the junkyard), you can argue that he's actively paying attention to the news report of connor joining dpd, glancing at the android department in comparison to such an accomplishment. as for connor, he is clearly captured by markus' speech and doesn't move his eyes away from the screen for even a second, even LYING to hank and keeping information that would help both dpd and cyberlife a secret, resolved to finish his investigations alone (hm i wonder why?)

and don't get me started on their first face-to-face interaction??? i still can't believe it's MARKUS – not hank, not a human, not ANYONE connor personally encounters throughout his story – that ultimately influences whether or not he turns deviant. it's just so??? insane to me that most of the dbh fandom disregards CANON GAMEPLAY. markus makes one 3 minute speech and latches onto some of connor's biggest indicators of software instability. his fear of being replaced ("we are your people. we're fighting for your freedom too! you don't have to be their slave anymore.") and his confusion whenever he makes a choice that goes against his mission ("you've never done anything irrational, as if there's something inside you? something more than your program?").

and connor????? can just listen in silence, his hands wavering on the gun and his shoulders shuddering from breathing so hard. not to mention how markus is so determined, so dedicated to helping connor make the right decision. markus has a keen eye and (depending on the playthrough) notices how close connor is on the cusp of deviancy. he stares down this android, the one he first heard on that train ride to ferndale station and the one he's heard others refer to as deviant hunter, and he just CALMLY AND RATIONALLY EXPLAINS HIS INTENTIONS?????

then markus actually gets to WITNESS connor turn deviant as a result of his WORDS, rather than his touch. and connor's red wall scene is so gorgeously done because it highlights his struggle, a primal instinct to tear down the weight of his oppressors and be FREE. after all is said said done, there's a moment of tranquility as connor lowers his gun and markus watches in quiet awe. AND??? THEY ARE SO??? idk it just absolutely amazes me how similar they are as the two active RK models and how their identities become so linked for the rest of the game.

i'll stop my rant right here bc if i don't it will turn into an essay about the church scene ("BE CAREFUL." HELLO???) and connor's trip to cyberlife tower and markus' relief when seeing him return safely. their relationship is so utterly indescribable if you look at how many times they directly AND indirectly impact one another in both words and actions, before and after meeting. it genuinely gives me chronic brainrot bc how can a single relationship be so beautifully symbolic of growth, acceptance, sacrifice – I JUST LOVE THEM SO MUCH?!?! okay i'm shutting up.

[connorinabeanie]

Guess who's back on their NONSENSE

I haven’t really been keeping up much with DBH fandom though so I dunno much about the fandom climate the moment, so I need to go poking around a bit but I definitely still have Things I want to write little mini essays about. I’m hoping my attention span and motivation hold out this time and I actually get to them.

[thosch3i]

Fic Writer Interview Game

was tagged by @extraordinarilyextreme <3 thank you so much! was out all day and only got around to this now lol

name: emmy/thosch3i whatever u wanna call me, it’s all good lol

fandoms: currently, only dmbj but previously also zhenhun. most of my fics on my ao3 are still weilan but maybe one day i’ll kick my ass into gear and write more pingxie LOL.

two-shots: ......I only write one-shots i’m sorry LOL

most popular multi-chapter fic: ............i really do only have one-shots man im sorry. most popular fic in general is going viral, at 840 kudos. shen wei vs technology in covid-era online classes lol. glad all 840 of you were coping with this pandemic well(?????)

actual worst part of writing: getting ideas from brain onto paper. talking about fun angsty ideas in dms? awesome! actually writing them? uhhhhhhhhhhh [sweats] also lol finding time to write. i feel like i never have time these days but maybe my time management is just...terrible.

how you choose your titles: i write the entire fic and then panic throw a random line that sounds vaguely related as the title. idk what im doing, ever, dont ask me things. *lies down*

do you outline?: usually yeah. most of the time my writing goes horribly south from the actual outline anyway though. (everything’s fine folks i promise--) though sometimes for short fics i’ll just have a general idea and start typing. and then it turns into like 15k words and i despair

ideas you probably won’t get around to, but wouldn’t it be nice?: all of my old weilan fics lol. i had a huge 20k outline for a weilan x dbh crossover with android shen wei and Plot and Twists and Betrayal and Revelations and whatnot and honestly i was rly hyped to write it, i got 50k for nanowrimo two years ago but ehhhh i just dont have the brain for guardian anymore....im only capable of fixating on one fandom at a time. looking through my guardian wips i also have multiple other soulmate AUs, a literal ghost!sw + human!zyl AU with a whole other plot, urban fantasy demon!sw + human(?)zyl again with....more plot. lol i give up on life *shrugs*

callouts @ me: write faster and also read more fics in english instead of chinese because you’re forgetting how the english language works at this point, dumbass

best writing traits: i legit do not know. descriptions? fluff? pining? lol help

spicy tangential opinion: hmmm...mainly, i dont read much eng dmbj fanfic bc i dont vibe with most popular eng fandom fanon/characterization, sorry 😅 uhhhhh i also really hate it when people forget that xg & pz have their own friendship and relationship independent of wx......pz tends to bring out xg’s playful side at times, which un showed w their last couple eps and also there’s a novel extra where xg pranks pz (&wx but mostly pz bc wx sees through it p quickly) with a fake zombie turtle and it’s rly cute lol. anyway t3j’s relationship is the heart of dmbj and it can’t be intruded upon or broken up by others, esp by chongqi/rain village. uhhhh another spicy opinion: i vastly prefer huaxiu to hei///hua, sorry guys orz i blame tlt2...huaxiu are too cute ;;;;;; anyway ill stop there before the entire dmbj tumblr fandom blocks me LOL. (i also have too many Opinions(tm) about characterization.)

but anyway, so like im definitely a cranky judgy bastard at times, but in the end fanfic is fanfic so u can write whatever ooc crackship crack premise stuff you want, have fun with it. i certainly do too. as long as you’re having fun then that’s all that matters. tangentially related, dramas don’t have to be Objectively Good/Amazing or anything for you to like them. i definitely have very strong opinions on dmbj adaptations for example re: how they respect the novel and characterization of t3j especially, but they all have their own problems....(some far more serious than others). i could write an essay about that but i wont, to save your eyes LOL. 

(i mean at the end of the day i unironically love time raiders and that is like an objectively terrible movie.)

tagging: im so inactive on tumblr im sorry idk anyone anymore. i think lots of dmbj writers have already been tagged but also i dont read much dmbj fanfic so im not sure who else there is OTL @laireshi ik u already got tagged but if u choose to do this i wanna see :D otherwise if you’re a fic writer and you see this please feel free to tag yourself~

EDIT: im a clown sorry laire just saw u already did it lmaoooo

[marcusrobertobaq]

I curse, and i curse a lot. That's me talking normally. But if u want me to be intentionally rude this time i'll grant your wish now.

I ain't got a motherfucking crystal ball to know if u played it recently or 84 yrs ago, and i for sure don't fucking know if u've ever been in or out this shitty fandom before or not or whatever the fuck u say. This scenario u made is so fucking generic i bet 80% of the DBH fanfics with "Connor" in the tags or even essays on this very shit of a site i've read got this same exact shit and i'm used to see this kinda shit every fucking day from people that been deep in this shit but can't think of anything else besides this annoying "let's talk about how Connor will struggle so hard with guity and the concept of emotions overall and how androids will see him as deviant hunter for the 72934837th time". If u open any random shit mfs write about Connor u gonna find what you're looking for IF you're looking for it.

And i don't like parties unless it's about work.

Something something. Can we explore Deviant!Connor feeling immense guilt for Daniel's death (especially if he lied to Daniel) and Ortiz's android who he immediately ratted out to if you find him. How Connor can get the info from him in the Interrogation but the Deviant will later bash his head against the glass of his cell so fucking hard he shuts down? Connor who ran Kara and Alice into the road. Nearly killing them (or in fact killing them)

Deviant!Connor has to come to terms and reconcile the fact HE got Jericho exposed, and god knows how many Deviants died in the attack. Connor has to tackle all that guilt ON TOP OF, probably having to tackle just the concept of feeling emotions for the first time.

And if other Deviants resent Connor? If he's still "that Deviant hunter"???

LIKE OH MY GOD, I WANNA HUG HIM

[lesbianwyllravengard]

saw ur tags about dbh brainrot and thought you’d relate: i learned two programming languages bc i felt like everyone thought kamski seems smarter than he is. i study political science (a main reason for this was bc i got into different tactics in political progression bc of markus). it’s sickening!!!! glad we’re in similar boats

(talking about the tags on this post) Oh my God YES and I've always done things like this with so many fandoms, but it seems dbh has been the worst djfjfjds.

That's so fucking cool that you learned two programming languages. I learned some throughout highschool and my dad has worked IT for 23 years now, so I know a lot from him, and it's such a fun thing to learn but definitely easier to understand once you've learned it.

Also studying political science??? That's so awesome and kickass of you. And yeah seriously, as much as I'll shit on the half assed politics of this game, that aspect of it certainly allows for the inspiration to explore these topics in real life.

I was so upset and frustrated with this game that it motivated me to double down on my own research of historical freedom fights and how absolutely none of them were won "peacefully" because the oppressors don't give that option. I wrote an essay about it too. Also made it through my old shitty job by pretending to be an android performing tasks by programming. Writing scripts, fics, and outlines like I never have before. I saw a simarkus edit on Instagram the other day that I'm obsessed with, and the audio was "De Diepte" by S10 - sung entirely in Dutch - and I loved it so much I literally taught myself how to sing the song. I don't speak a word of Dutch but now I can sing a song. I had to write a 5k word story for my intro to script writing class last semester (I'm a film major) and I based my two main characters off of Simon and North. Detroit: Evolution was so breathtaking to me from a film perspective that it spurred me through two other film courses with new examples and vocabulary - I even wrote a breakdown of the symbolism and foreshadowing in DE but I'll probably never share that because it's all over the place and kinda like a personal project.

I got into dbh last November. It has been 9 whole months which is the longest I've ever lasted in any fandom. And I don't see it going away anytime soon either. It's,,, ridiculous but also I am very grateful because it's given me SO much creative liberty and motivation. It's also so fun to write fix-it-fics for a game that has such terrible writing skfhdkdus

[subjectsix]

Anyone from the fallout games :O!! For the fictional character ask? Oh and Detroit Become Human if you want akskaks video games hours

GOSH you know I gotta just get some fallout thoughts off my chest lets go

Deacon

who? | only know their name | loathe | ugh | overrated | indifferent | dead | alive | just okay | cute | badass | my baby | hot | want to marry | favorite

can’t afford to ramble about him TOO much because I do need to eventually get to that essay lol but I do just love like. a lot of deacon is up to player interpretation just by nature of his character but i love how for a serial liar he’s just so GENUINE. also I do be reading too much into the fact that his story is one of grace and redemption and growth and healing and he CHOSE the code name deacon and I have 0 doubt that the man who loves old-world information and reads a lot chose the code name Deacon on purpose and not on accident. man is complex and I jive with his morals and thinking a lot and love seeing a character who’s flawed and growing and wrestling with themselves. also a goofball.

anyway I love him. I understand why we can’t romance him in game because it wouldn’t make much sense for him to do that but also Todd Howard I would like to romance the sunglasses wearing bald ginger spy. at least one of my sole survivor’s dates and marries him lol

Preston Garvey

who? | only know their name | loathe | ugh | overrated | adding the new category UNDERRATED | indifferent | dead | alive | just okay | cute | badass | my baby | hot | want to marry | favorite

[bangs fist on table] why are people so MEAN to Preston like i get it he was the unfortunate sufferer of “I have to give out radiant quests to the player” disease but he’s SUCH a sweetheart and protective and smart and caring and sweet and we do not talk enough about how he absolutely probably has PTSD and depression but grows and loves the player so much, either platonically or romantically? love you preston you are a ray of sunshine sir

Raul Tejada

who? | only know their name | loathe | ugh | overrated | indifferent | dead | alive | just okay | cute | badass | my baby | hot | want to marry | favorite | adding the category of he is my uncle/grandpa now thank you

I love Raul. I want to travel with Raul forever. Mr. Tejada sir you’re now my honorary uncle. His constant snarky teasing that’s clearly friendly/loving if not a little biting? We love that. Reminds me of people I know. He makes me so happy and feels safe. Thank u sir. 

Piper Wright

who? | only know their name | loathe | ugh | overrated | indifferent | dead | alive | just okay | cute | badass | my baby | hot | want to marry | favorite

BEST FRIENDDDDDDDD we love a lady who restlessly seeks truth and to inform, defend, and help others regardless of the threats against her. also she’s just a mood.

also legally I have to for DBH,

Ralph

who? | only know their name | loathe | ugh | overrated | indifferent | dead | alive (HE’S ALIVE OKAY) | just okay | cute | badass | my baby | hot | want to marry | favorite

when his actor said “at his core Ralph just wants to be loved” that ended me. i love how no matter what happens in game, Ralph literally cannot hurt you and even if you scare and threaten him he still backs down. he genuinely really just wants help adn to grow and I want to hug him so much. if he will let me. he’s a very good egg and complex and i adore him. my son.

also bc he gets slept on so much, Luther

who? | only know their name | loathe | ugh | overrated | indifferent | dead | alive (LOOK HE IS!!!) | just okay | cute | badass | my baby | hot | want to marry | favorite | adding the category of DAD FRIEND

I love him. Give him more attention fandom please. Big soft dad. Safe. Trustworthy. Will give nice hugs. Thank u

put a fictional character in my ask

[firstofficer-williamyiker]

God, I'd fucking hate to reblog this but this post doesn't allow people to just directly comment.

Yes, the Gavin Reed we see strictly in canon is an absolute asshole. I won't deny that, most of those who like Reed900 or Gavin won't deny that. He does a lot of bad shit that he shouldn't have done.

However, unlike characters like Amanda or Todd. Gavin can actually be written with redemption arc. Why? Well...

The Amanda we see was a program created by Cyberlife, she isn't a person or an android. Her one goal is to keep track of Connor and make sure he stays on task. And to reset him if he deviates. Lowkey not really a redeeming character cause she can't really develop a personality.

Todd was an abusive prick to Kara and Alice. He repeated sent Kara to be repaired due to the injuries he had caused. Also, he was presumably abusive to his ex-wife and daughter before they left him. High-key not a fucking thing I'd wanna redeem. Plus QuanticDream already kinda tried to redeem him and Y I K E S it was uncomfortable. I think most of us draw the line at child abuse.

Yet Gavin, due to the fact that the game doesn't give him much personality and was mostly just made so you could sympathize with Connor. You can practically do anything with him. Yeah, he's an asshole. But why is he an asshole? Why does he act the way he does? Is he afraid of being replaced by androids so that's why he reacts the way he does? And when androids gain their freedom how does he react to having to adjust to a new way of living. It's a perspective you don't really see with anyone else (other than like Hank but he has his own reasons).

The fandom has turned this one-dimensional prick into a fleshed out character. And that's pretty amazing! I've never seen another fandom that I've been in do something like that to such an extreme. Gavin is no longer just what QuanticDream made him, he's what we made him. (Dare I say we've done it better than David C*ge, cause honestly, as much as I love DBH. Some of C*ge's writing is just plain bad or basic.) We all gave him bits of a personality, a backstory, motivations. Same with RK900. They are ever bit ours as they are QuanticDream's.

And it's fun to ship Gavin with RK900 in my opinion. They're fun to write, such drastic opposites being forced to work together till they find a mutual understanding of one another. (But I also really like enemies to lovers so like, hehe).

But that's just my opinion. It's totally valid not to like Gavin Reed or Reed900.

But please remember, fandoms are supposed to be fun. Respect that others have opinions on fictional characters that may differ from your own. Where's the joy on hating something that people enjoy whether you personally like it or not. As long as it's not hurting themselves or other people I don't see the issue.

I hope this helps explain it a little bit :)

the fucking fact that 💀 the racist shithead white man with literally like 5 minutes of screentime has twice as many fics on ao3 than Markus aka the main fucking character 💀 AND that said racist shitty white man has a whole entire fan movie and twice as many ship fics as Markus/Simon with an uglie white character who literally isnt even in the fucking game.........i hate fandoms yall

[a-shakespearean-in-paris]

Love Yourself Challenge

Rules: It’s time to love yourselves! Choose your 5 favorite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc. ) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you brought into the world. Tag as many writers/artists/etc. as you want (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome works!

Thanks so much @muse-of-nightmares :) 

tagging: @starsandskies @savbakk @galadrieljones @lechatrouge673 @thevikingwoman @idrelle-miocovani @ladymdc @laraslandlockedblues @fade-touched-obsidian @ma-sulevin @gamermage91 @sarenkascrawls @princessvicky01 @agentkatie

1. Our Immortal Longings: My Connor from DBH x OC long fic. Finished this close to a year ago, and looking back I think it’s my most successful fic for a number of reasons. One: it’s finished. Lol. two, it feels the most “me” and something non fanfiction I would write. It’s also very unashamedly romantic in a way I don’t think I would have written years ago. I also am very proud of the central romance and I learned so much about myself and what’s important to me as a writer, and what themes I want to explore in future writing. This, to me, is my biggest fic accomplishment.  

2.  A Knight to Remember: Jaime x Brienne. My interpretation of their first time. I had so much fun writing this. It was new to write Jaime x Brienne but I fell in love with their dynamic of gentle teasing and laughing. I loved writing this so much I dabbled in trying to “fix” their relationship in season 8 via a longfic. I do plan on finishing it, but for now i am still very fond of this little one shot. 

3. My Rhetorical Study on Fandom and Fanfiction: The paper is formally called “The Passionate Rebellion: How we explore through fandom.” So I wrote this essay last semester for a rhetoric class. I’ll never forget the day I went up and presented my project to my peers, talking about how i was inspired to write this because i write fanfiction. yep. did this in front of a grad seminar in front of my professor, friends I admire, and boy I think/thought was cute. the crux of my argument is that the “rebellious” space of fandom allows women and minorities in particular a safe and rebellious space to create the content we want to see and explore. I applied concepts of “underlife” outlinned by Robert Brooke, wherein he notes that people have “underlives” that exist within people--a sort of space where people can live different lives beneath what I referred to as “institutional life.”  My glorious, six thousand word essay contains survey data and statements from you fine people on here. Thanks Viking and Sarenka! :D Over 1,000 people answered my survey I posted on here. 

Here’s my conclusion because I am so damn proud: 

Overall, my time in fandom echoes other rebels in the community. I have explored, I have rebelled, and I have been vulnerable. If there is one thing writing in fandom has taught me, that’s how writing should inherently be passionate, and with that passion, there comes an inherent sense of vulnerability. Profound writing carries vulnerability, and my time in fandom has inspired me to bring that to my other writings through “tremors,” especially with the creation of this paper.

            I can’t speak for everyone in fandom. I only speak for myself and for those who responded to my survey and expressed similar sentiments to my questions about the impact of fandom. However, I hope to have offered a peak into the minds of the rebels, and allow the understanding that we have our own unique voices and thoughts. We rebel, we love, we have passion, and we act vulnerable every day. We write, and we explore.

4. Anyway You want It: Dragon Age Modern AU with Cullen and Lydia, who have a special place in my heart. (See in Waking Dreams, the first fic I ever finished.) I started this ages ago but came back to it recently, because I wanted to write something fun. I think one of the reasons I’m so proud is because I breathed life back into it? I also was experimenting with a blunter style, and I really like it. 

5. The Sweetest Sorrow: Arthur x Charlotte, RDR2. Again, another fic I breathed life back into. There’s something soft about this fic that I gravitate toward and has become especially appealing now. Like my modern DA AU I wanted to try a different style. This is earthier in a way in terms of writing, and I made a promise to myself before I began that the sex scenes wouldn’t be graphic. Guess what? I kept my promise! I also was very interested in a maturer romance, and I hope I captured that essence. 

 Whelp, there you have it. Four fics and a graduate essay. I also threw a damn amazing bridal shower this year :D Thank you to my lovely and supportive  friends and supporters. You make the time here worth it. <3 

[thegeminisage]

What other characters (of DBH) you think people should appreciate more and why? I love read your opinions❤

omg anon pls thats so sweet

(if anybody wasn’t here for the last ask the first character was north & there’s a follow-up here)

alright just a “””quick””” (lol as if) little thing for each one bc it’s getting late & you’ve already been waiting on this for like an hour at the time i started typing. it’s probably gonna be long as fuck but the tl;dr is at the bottom

LUTHER:

they did luther so dirty…it was like david cage was playing “racist trope bingo” for his entire debut chapter…and then on top of that all he cares about is kara & alice, these two near-strangers, and it’s real easy to get him killed for them. in fact, in an ending where kara sacrifices herself at the border, she tells alice that luther will get her across the border, and after that, rose will take care of her. UM WHAT? don’t call ur PSN trophy “happy family” and then try to erase luther like that!! what does luther want? what are his hopes and dreams, his fears? nobody ever bothers to ask bc they’re too busy making ralph alice’s dad. and it’s not that i don’t like ralph - i do! but he threatened alice with a knife TWICE. after her previous dad’s bullshit, that’s the last thing she needs!!

here’s my take on luther: he says that what his life was before kara & alice doesn’t matter, and that’s because david cage doesn’t care about him. but imagine instead that luther remembers what he did (was forced to do) before he broke his programming. our luther is sweet and gentle and good, but zlatko forced him to use his strength as a weapon for LITERALLY tearing people apart. don’t you think luther regrets that? don’t you think he wishes he could take it back? perhaps his even temper and loving heart is a RESULT of those early memories: he’s seen the worst sides of anger and callousness, he’s had to be complicit in it. my feeling is that he never ever wants to be complicit in something like that again…it feels weird when he picks up a gun in the game because i think he would be even more of a staunch pacifist than josh?? i feel like even when luther does get annoyed or angry he’s so afraid of the harm he’s capable of doing he doesn’t even really let himself feel it And That’s Sad. he should be able to get annoyed at like a broken coffee maker or some shit without illogically worrying it will result in someone’s maiming or death?? maybe he is So Ready to throw himself on a grenade for kara and alice because yes, he does love them, but also he feels he has to redeem himself somehow, yk? he has to be willing to do absolutely WHATEVER it takes to be Good

they didn’t give luther any depth…he never got to speak to zlatko’s captives and apologize, he never got to express a feeling about kara potentially burning down the whole fucking nightmare house (with living androids inside, i might add) - would he have wished to save those androids? would he be glad their suffering was over? would he have motherfucking hearts in his eyes for kara single-handedly destroying his own personal hell? he deviated for alice, it was alice that made him say “ok, doing this to kids is where i literally can’t take it anymore” - don’t you think he’d be so retroactively terrified of all the terrible things that could have happened to her? 

like i truly don’t get why people make ralph alice’s dad when luther loves her so fucking much he’d bring her the moon if she asked - he’s the only person who loves her just as selflessly and unconditionally as kara does. she accepted him and wanted him to say goodnight their very first night together…as soon as he resisted his programming, she stopped being afraid of him, and it must be so amazing for him to finally have people around who don’t either fear him or try to control him…whether u ship him with kara or not (i do, everyone should - it’s one thing to HC kara as gay but i side-eye people who don’t wanna ship luther with anybody) you know he’s gotta cherish them so much

AMANDA:

ok look i know amanda is the antag to connor’s story but honestly she’s metal as FUCK. i was so fucking floored to not only learn the garden isn’t a garden but that amanda isn’t amanda…my first playthrough i was letting connor be just a lil bit deviant but whenever amanda would ask about it i would panic and lie…now i know it doesnt matter what you can say and you can be blatantly deviant right in front of her and she’s like ok Whatever BUT i was deeply shook to realize all my lying to her all along hadn’t meant a thing…she did in fact KNOW i was lying because she wasn’t real, she was living in connor’s brain and she could see all that shit he was doing

and also?? like, imagine you were made out of a dead person’s face and voice. we don’t know if amanda has a body, we don’t know if kamski actually liked what he created or thought it was creepy (like imagine if he and amanda were close and then she died…it’d be weird to see her like that), we don’t know if amanda CAN deviate like the androids…she’s living this half life potentially stuck in some garden and just doing what her program says like everybody else. but even though machines get all the sympathy in this game i very rarely ever see people stop and go “dude, is she ok…is someone controlling her can we help her” - amanda’s a lot like connor, she’s hunting down deviants but she’s not a human and she’s not alive yet so who’s pulling her strings?? can they be cut??? 

JOSH:

i’ll be honest i haven’t figured out what Angle i like best for josh the way i’ve got one for luther and north but he has such strong convictions i feel like they would have to stem from some past experience. everybody’s always arguing about simon vs north that nobody stops to give josh the attention he deserves…he’s part of the fantastic 4 too!! who is josh? what does he want? what is he afraid of? does he refuse to be violent for reasons like luther - did he hurt someone, deliberately or accidentally? (to a lesser extent, a pacifist markus who shoved leo can also follow this pattern - he gave into violence and thought he’d killed carl’s son, so he swore to do no more violence after that.) or: did he see someone else get hurt/get hurt himself? i know the backstory they give him in the gallery but tbh it’s very similar and not stand-out from most of the rest of the stuff we hear…

like, what made josh deviate? we literally never find out. i think it would be interesting tho if instead of just being the victim of violence, he was ordered to DO violence, and refused - maybe that’s why he got hurt. but i think his relationship WITH violence could be a complex thing for anyone who wanted to tackle it. we know why north prefers violence, why does josh detest it? (similarly, why does simon prefer safety over either approach? - but fandom gives him a lot of love and attention and tries to explain this, and nobody tries to explain it for josh.)

KARA & ALICE:

like…to a small extent…i know they’re main characters but i could write an essay just on why they didn’t get a fair shake either - constant victims of assault, little depth, kara got to choose what happened to her but not what kind of person she was gonna be like markus & connor, significantly less playtime than markus & connor, had NO influence on the big macro plot like markus & connor, i could go on…but definitely the worst for me is that everything about kara that made us love her (from the short), was ERASED - david took her memories and never made the slightest move towards kara wanting them back, or her being able to get them back. she’s six years old and he took all of her history from her, all of her agency!! i feel like translated into fic they can both become very flat - all kara cares about is protecting alice, and alice is constantly scared or hurt or needing to be taken care of, like a baby doll. granted that’s not actually far from the game’s canon, but it could have been MORE. kara had six entire years of experiences before she met alice - what makes alice special? who is kara without alice? 

i really wish we had been able to take a personality route with kara - her main superpower seems to be empathy and getting people on her side (ralph, jerrys, zlatko’s creatures), but she can also wave around a gun at anybody who gets near her baby. it would have been really interesting to explore two sides of that - to have a kara who is 1000% Done and ready for wholesale murder if it means surviving vs having a kara who can bring out the best in anyone, even if they seem like bad people at first. (imagine the influence you could have over alice - she would learn to be wary of strangers or be warm to them.) but instead the narrative is wishy-washy; you can’t teach alice anything, and in fact she serves as kara’s moral compass instead of the other way around - you wind up doing things like comforting the guy who broke kara multiple times and waving a gun at ralph (who like, shouldn’t have done that, but also isn’t 100% in control of his own facualities all the time). it would have been really interesting to see kara be able to influence her own fate more as well - the camp sections are shitty and should not exist but like maybe a kara who had spent the whole game yelling at everyone with a gun would have the ability unlocked to then rally the people inside, and who cared what connor and markus were doing, you know? 

but david doesn’t know how to write women so that’s not what we got - kara carried that entire franchise into reality and he totally screwed her over!!

TL;DR

luther was forced to do terrible things and that could explain a lot of his behavior if anybody cared, nobody ever wonders if amanda is being forced to obey programming like the rest of the machines or if she’s ok, josh’s relationship with violence could be very complex and we don’t know his motivation for refusing to participate in it the way we know north’s for preferring it, and david can’t write women so he shafted kara so fucking bad and it is an honest to god shame

(dbh meta tag)

[cultofthepigeon]

I didn't know it was bad until those anons but like If you know how bad dbh is why do you still post stuff about it?

I have this weird soft spot for Shitty Things That Could Have Been Really Cool. I like to take them, enjoy any good aspects that were in it, then take all the shitty aspects and turn em into something better. DBH isnt anythign new I’ve done this since I was a kid. I did it with twilight when i was in middle school, I do it with things like ayn rands works and conspiracy theories and weird religious ideas now, and I do it with things that arent Super Shitty(tm) but are still like...not amazing, like fallout and pac rim 2. 

And I really enjoy a fandom that will do the same. you know like, they take a movie/book/game say “wow you really shat the bed on this one” and then everyone proceeds to make art/fic/etc thats BETTER than the original. Actually bothering to explore underutilized themes, ideas, and world building. Developing characters that were otherwise flat. Filling in plot holes and making theories that make the story better. Or just like, completely rewriting the whole thing.

I just get a lot of enjoyment out of things like that and I have a lot of fun with it.

and when someone asks about said shitty thing i’m getting a kick out of (in this case dbh, cage, and qd) I let em know full well how shitty they all are and tell people directly not to give them any money.

I know some people are like “oh well youre still giving cage money by telling everyone about it” but I could just as well turn around and say “I’m also telling people about all these talented and funny artists/fic writers by reblogging their stuff, and I’d rather help out a few dozen starving artists then not help them to spite a few rich assholes.” 

but i dont. because this isnt a morality thing for me. i cant be utilitarian about all this shite in the modern world. im just here to enjoy myself until i die man.

but thank you anon for asking. im sorry i responded with a mini essay but its been something ive been wanting to say since that first random anon. even if you disagree with me after reading all this, i appreciate you bothering to ask 

[tartrazeen]

If everyone could just cater to me and write more essays on why they love their ships, so I can piggyback off of your excitement even if it's not specifically *my* ship, that would also be excellent.

I love when people love things. You love things. Tell me why you love them. Do that instead of getting bogged down by whether *everyone else* should love them.

"Valid" as it's used in shipping discourse is stupid.

Like.... just... no?

No ships are valid because the term "valid" doesn't have any good application in terms of which fictional characters you want to see interact. It's not entirely non-applicable, there just aren't any good applications.

For example, there can be valid arguments made for a ship becoming canon. That use of the word valid works when debating whether a ship will make it into the source material. But shipping is not based on what you think could or should be canon.

Shipping is about preferences. There are no valid arguments for preferences.

For example. My favorite color is purple. That is a preference.

Now, I could explain to you why I like purple.... but no amount of that is going to make your favorite color purple if your favorite color is already red. Especially if my reason for liking purple is something internalized to me. Like my favorite stuffed animal as a child had a purple dress. That has no bearing on you. Carries no weight. No validity.

People really need to stop using this word like this. It's absolutely stupid in this context.

Let's put it another way.

A synonym for 'valid' is 'justifiable'. Guess what?

You don't have to justify your ships!

You might want to justify them, to yourself. Because asking yourself why you like things is good and can give you insight into yourself. It's probably good for your mental health or something, idk.

Plus it can be fun. I love writing essays about why I love ships, but I don't do that to try and convince others to ship something because there would be no point. I do that because I enjoy talking about things I like.

But you don't have to justify them to anyone else. Anyone who is demanding you justify why you like anything is trying to assert some sort of control or dominance over you.

You're only using the term "valid" for this because antis have been bringing the lense of social justice and activism into fandom and you're trying to argue with them with their own toolkit.

You're probably using it because you've heard the phrase "your feelings are valid" a thousand times. That is a good phrase. Feelings sometimes do need validation. You sometimes need that when someone or something makes you feel a way and you're unsure of your emotional response.

But this doesn't transfer to "your ships are valid". Your ships never needed validation.

It's like if someone said you were evil for liking red. You're only searching for validation because antis said you should.

Don't listen to them. They're dumb.

And no. Your ships are not valid.