#tried to do perspective but uh. hand wonky

[daily-odile]

hm

[vaingloriosa]

God Shot

Connor x Reader

Words: 1,807

Summary: The moment he stepped into your humble coffee shop, you knew you were done for. The moment his eyes met yours, Connor was done for.

Prompt: “So… you come here often?” “I work here.”

Author’s note: most of this was written after i got a root canal done so if it sounds wonky, blame my root canal self. she....she’s still valid ://

God Shot: a shot of espresso that is so good, and inexplicable, that it is believe to be blessed by God

masterlist

When Hank gave up drinking a few days ago, he traded in alcohol for coffee.

Connor would scold the Lieutenant about the effects of coffee by listing off the harmful effects of caffeine consumption. Though, after the third attempt to get Hank to reconsider his decision by reminding him the addiction to caffeine is real, Connor gives up as Hank pours himself another cup while making direct eye contact with him.

It’s on the sixth day when Hank brings Connor along for his “new” morning routine.

Hank never noticed the small coffee shop down the street that apparently opened two months ago until turning over a new leaf. Connor had noticed the construction of the small shop but didn’t pay much attention due to the nature of his chaotic lifestyle. The bell on top of the door signals their arrival and Connor takes in the homey autumn decorations all around the shop. Several patrons sit quietly along the window in hushed tones, light pop music surrounds the room, and the sounds of fingers typing over keyboardless keyboards and coffee grinders blend together in odd harmony. The air is thick with the smell of ground up coffee beans with a hint of spices, pumpkin, Connor supposes. A sweet voice that exclaims Hank’s name lifts him out of his observation.

Connor turns his attention to the barista before him and feels his thirium pump skip a beat. Unusual.

“Good morning! Looks like you brought a friend this time.” You nod your head over to address the man besides your usual customer. You notice him swallow thickly and bashfully nod his head, extending his arm out for you to take.

“I’m Connor.”

Connor.

Your name leaves your lips as you shake his hand with a firm grip. The touch of his skin against yours makes you develop goose skin and you tell yourself you can’t be developing another crush. You bite your bottom lip and curse yourself for getting hot in the face.

“Connor’s my partner over at the precinct.” Hank gives you a side smile as he picks up on the way you look at him.

“Ah, it’s nice to finally meet you. Hank has mentioned you a few times, nothing but nice things of course, and it’s, uh, nice to put a face to a name,” you manage to say among the heart palpitations you’re currently experiencing. Connor looks over to the Lieutenant then back at you with an arched eyebrow.

Hank shrugs at his odd behavior. “What? Would you rather I talk shit about you behind your back?”

You snicker at their exchange as you whip up Hank’s regular order of black coffee with three sugars. From your peripheral, you can tell the two are exchanging some “heated” words and you can’t help but feel your ears burn. Sometimes you wish you didn’t have such a hopeless romantic heart.

You slide the coffee cup across the counter just as the argument dies down on their tongues. Hank gives you a few dollars and tells you to keep the change. You smile, waving a goodbye to Connor who lingers a bit after Hank heads towards the door. Connor feels the breath caught behind his throat as he notices that you’re actually waving at him. He waves back as a small smile graces his lips and you swear if other people weren’t around, you would have melted on the spot.

Connor can’t get you out of his mind.

When he notices that Hank isn’t going to the shop anymore, he passively asks what happened to the routine he had going for him. Hank waves him off, saying that work has gotten in the way and had settled on the filmy black liquid in the break room. Now Connor doesn’t have an excuse to see you.

Or does he?

Three days into a tough investigation involving a series of murders, Connor looks up to notice Hank nose deep in several files with fingers carding his grey hair. His eyes shift towards the empty coffee cup on half-haphazardly abandoned near the edge of his desk.

“Do you want a refill?” Connor asks in a non-conspicuous tone. Hank lets out a huff and waves his hand in the general area of the cup and leans back on his chair. Connor gets up and makes his way towards the break room. He makes sure that no one is watching him as he removes his synthetic skin to touch the coffee maker. In a matter of seconds, Connor causes the appliance to break from the inside.

The break room needed a new coffee maker that didn’t violate several health and safety codes anyways.

With his plan set in motion, Connor waltzes over to the Lieutenant’s desk with newfound purpose. “Unfortunately, the coffee machine is broken. Could I-”

Before he can finish his thought, Hank shoves his hands into his jacket pocket and slams a few dollars on the hard surface for Connor to take. He waves for him to scram, dismissing him to do what needs to be done in order for him not to crash and burn. A small smile creeps along the corners of Connor’s mouth as he finds another peep in his step.

His plan is finally in motion.

It’s an overwhelming sensation to try and figure out humanity at its core. What it means to feel, to show emotion, to say the right things and do what is appropriate for that scenario. Even a year after everything that has happened, Connor is still learning about the world around him from a different, LED-less perspective. He’s still bound to fuck up on some things.

Like when he nearly loses his composure once he sees your face. The always graceful android is mere thrium mush when he’s around you. Your smile brightens up the room with a halo like aura around you.

You’re absolutely stunning.

And you’re absolutely stunned when you find Connor alone without his friend.

Your mouth becomes slightly agape but you catch yourself by smiling. You weren’t expecting him after a few days absence. You thought that maybe they finally grew tired of the coffee shop you own and perhaps forgotten all about it. You even thought that you would never see Connor again and you would be lying if you said you didn’t feel the heaviness in your chest.

“Hey, Connor! Long time no see, eh?” Eh? Really? You really went with such a stupid noise as “eh”? You want to slap yourself for making a fool out of yourself in front of your crush. Connor lets out an airy laugh and places his hands along the smooth white marble counter.

“I apologize. A tough investigation has our hands tied up,” Connor explains but the ending of his sentence isn’t lost on you; making you raise an eyebrow. Connor squints a little at your facial expression, unable to decipher such an odd response. You find the confused look on his face cute and you can’t help but snort out loud. You press a hand on your lips and shake your head.

“Um, never mind me! There’s no need to apologize, really. It’s just....good to see you again.” You quickly change the subject as you shift your gaze from his earthy brown eyes to the counter top. Gosh, you wish you would stop getting hot in the face every time you make eye contact with him.

“It’s nice to see you again, too,” Connor says your name and you feel as if you ascended to heaven once more. You peer over to him as a fond smile forms on his lips. You can’t help but reciprocate the action and you go back to feeling of weak knees and goosebumps that form along your arms.

“So,” you perk up immediately, “what can I get for ya?”

He reaches into his suit jacket pocket to fish for Hank’s money. “Hank’s usual, please.”

As you turn your back towards the coffee machine, Connor looks at both his sides to make sure no one is staring. Even with an encyclopedia for a mind, there’s a difference between knowing the connotation of a word and actually performing said behavior. He props his elbow on the counter top and rests his head on his closed fist. Connor relaxes his body so that he’s crossing his legs to be suave and without all the tension in his shoulders. When you return with the cup of coffee, your heart stops as your eyes lay upon Connor’s.

Upon your return, his mind gets wrapped up by your presence and all logic gets thrown out the window.

“So… you come here often?”

You place the coffee cup down on the counter. You can’t help but grin at Connor’s attempt at flirting. “I work here.”

Connor shuts his eyes and licks his bottom lip. Your breath gets caught in the back of your throat and you brace yourself by placing your hand on the cool marble.

“That’s right, you...yeah.” Oh, he most definitely blew it. Connor tries to play this off coolly and swipes the coffee cup into his hands then tries to leave.

“Wait!” you say, gesturing with your hands for him to stop while you raise the wooden door of the side counter. Connor turns to you and tilts his head. He can feel his thirium pump quicken but he’s aware of the sensation already. His whole body seems to cinch as he watches you approach him. Connor has never been this close to you before and he’s afraid he might shutdown because of it.

“Hey, I, um, I thought what you did was cute. Most of the time flirting can be awful but, sometimes it’s not all that bad when it comes from the right person. A genuine one at that.”

You press your hands against your cheek and chuckle at the fact that you’re really doing this. “When will I see you again?”

It’s Connor’s turn to be a flustered idiot. You can see a visible blue tint along his cheeks and you bite down on your tongue to stop yourself from screaming out loud. Gosh, he’s just as nervous, isn’t he?

“Well, I can come by tomorrow if you’d like?”

You beam up at him and you place your hands behind your back. “I’d love that.”

You two bid farewell for now. As you two separate, both of you go into your own type of giddiness. You dance a little to the soft music on the speakers as you return to your post behind the counter. Connor can’t help but smile at what just unfolded in a matter of minutes. He looks down at the coffee then realizes something scrawled on the brown sleeve.

It’s your phone number.

You didn’t need a pickup line for your own plan to be set in motion.

It worked.

Tagging: @kwaiky, @chrisevansthedoritobastard, @black-widow-fangirl, @yonaih, @wiredhawkes, @heysliver, @justadweebwithashittydream, @deviantramblings, @deviantsupporter, @divadonadance1

if y’all ever wanna get tagged, send me an ask!! i only tag those who actively interact with my work even if y’all didn’t ask. if u don’t want to be, send me a message as well.

[thetriggeredhappy]

alright so i’m gonna set to work making a test version of the first chapter of the fic just to figure out some stuff about, like, where i’m gonna be hosting it and how long this’ll take and how/where i’m gonna record the audio, and i have some thoughts on stuff that i’m putting under the readmore

so the primary reason i would want to translate Running Blind into an audio format is for accessibility purposes, because i’m realizing now that my choice to write phonetic accents (for example, having medic say “zhat” instead of “that”) has made it next to impossible to use a text-to-speech program with it sounding accurate. and with accessibility being the primary reason for making it an audio format, that means any decision i make in translating it from text to audio would need to be made with that in mind. as someone who also has issues with accessibility at times (classic ADHD auditory processing stuff - i’m the person who tries to turn on the subtitles on videos), i understand that there’s a point when hilarious jokes need to take a backseat to actual helpful materials.

character voices are the immediate first possible issue i think of, and i’ve narrowed it down to two options. on one hand, i could fully commit to having character voices, maybe even going so far as to having other people on board to do character lines (accent work is one thing i’ve got considerable experience in, but the fic is primarily dialogue and i’m a bit rusty, so that might be a lot), and if done well it would be comprehensible. or, alternatively, i could scrap the character voices except for certain key pronunciations, and work strictly with inflections, which could potentially also be sufficient in separating out who’s talking at any given time. as of now, i’m leaning towards the second one, as it would be significantly easier to understand and less likely to sound wonky.

for recording, i’m almost definitely just gonna use Audacity (i’ve played with it before) and my current microphone, since it’s, like, at the very least passable. i was considering hosting on Soundcloud, but there’s a limited amount of time allowed for uploads before i’d need to pay actual money to keep hosting there, and considering i’m not entirely sure how long a full recording would be i’m hesitant to commit to using it. for that reason, i think it would be in my best interest to either host on Youtube or try and use AO3′s system, but i’ve never used the second one and have next to no info on how it works from the posting perspective, so at least until i get progress or experience with it, i’m most likely just gonna go with Youtube.

to summarize, i do have some amount of experience with just about every foreseeable part of this process except, and i don’t think any of it will pose a major issue except maybe time commitments and sheer tedium depending on how much editing is going to need to happen. it’s possible that i’ll be able to hammer things out quickly and this’ll only take a few weeks, or it’s possible that it’ll be A Whole Goddamn Thing. regardless of how anything else goes, i’d like to try and have something posted by the anniversary of the first chapter, which is in... shit, 13 days. uh. yeah i’m gonna go get to work on that now.

[toothyblowjob]

hi! i’m anon from mamoru (asking here cus asks aren’t on on ur sims blog) i’m really interested in your thoughts about incorporating disabilities into the sims, i’m trying to develop my own sims game cus fuck ea lol, and i’d really like to be as incorporating of disability as possible. thanks!

damn, my asks weren’t on? that sucks. i think i fixed it now, but i swear i already had them on...

anyway!!!

i’m looking at this more from a perspective of “how to make the sims 4 better” than like “how to make my own video game” and i don’t know much about coding or game development so idk how helpful some of this will be but hopefully some will?? infodump incoming!!! sorry if it’s not that coherent. i’ve bolded some keywords in case you want to only read sections pertaining to certain disabilities.

starting with canes, bc i use one and i wish my simself did: sims 3 had canes, but for some reason they were coded weird so only elders could use them (iirc modders weren’t even able to fix it?? wtf ea). plus ts4 has custom walkstyles, and your sim can hold things like umbrellas while walking, so it’s almost definitely possible to add canes and crutches.

adding walkers would probably be a very similar process, tho i can imagine there might be some issues w clipping? not that ea has ever given a single fuck about that lmao

i’m a little bit less sure how wheelchairs would work, but the best reference i can think of is the strollers from ts3, or maaaybe some of the smaller vehicles. i have a vague memory of like a bike or a hoverpad or something that you could ride everywhere and not just on the road, but idk. the main issue i can see is that certain animations and interactions would need to be a lot more flexible--eg, sims would need to be able to do things like cook or paint or give hugs while sitting down. i can also see it being a little tricky to animate “transfers” from like, a wheelchair to a desk chair or w/e. honestly i think this would be easier to implement in sims 4 than it would have been in sims 3, because ts4 at least allows you to multitask some things. idk, it would probably be on the harder side, but holy shit it would be so worth it.

and then for some reason when i think about wheelchair users in the sims i start to wonder how feasible it would be to include little people (i hope that’s the right term?). simmers have been wanting height sliders since at least ts3, but any time a modder tries to add one the animations start getting kinda wonky, and i don’t think anyone’s really considered a height slider that goes low enough to make sims with dwarfism. i KNOW there are non-sim games out there that use height sliders, but idk how tf they do it without giving everyone telekinesis.

there was a mod in sims 3 that added sliders for amputated limbs, but it was a purely cosmetic thing, so like, sims would still walk like they had two legs or write with their “missing” hand or w/e. ideally i’d love to see a way to give sims limb differences that actually affected how they went about their lives + gave them the option to use prosthetics. i found a set of running blades in the “shoe” category for sims 4, but like... if you give them to a sim they’ll still magically grow legs in the shower lol.

deafness i think ties into my desire for sims to be able to speak multiple languages. not all deaf people use sign language, of course, but it would be great if sims had the option. i guess languages would function like any other skills, and if two sims don’t have any languages in common, they won’t be able to communicate beyond very basic things. maybe if you wanted a deaf sim to be able to speak, you could hire a speech therapist, or purchase some sort of object for them to practice with. also, dyou remember the earbuds in ts3 that made it so like, you’d only hear the music when you selected the sim using earbuds? i think you could probably make it so that when a deaf sim is active the game volume is either much lower or completely off. then for things like hearing aids, you could equip them and the volume would get a little bit higher.

blindness could use a similar mechanic, but instead of everything being silent, everything would be very dark and low-contrast. maybe objects that were making noise or places your sim had been before would have more detail. blind sims could also use navigation canes that would like... light up the area immediately in front of them.

invisible disabilities, allergies, and neuropsychiatric conditions would probably be a bit easier to add. sims 4 has a “quirk” system for celebrities where certain actions can trigger your famous sims to develop new traits. 

i think the best example of how you could use this to make, for example, mental illnesses is the “emotion bomb” quirk. famous sims develop it after experiencing intense anger or sadness, and it basically makes them experience that emotion much more intensely. that’s already a symptom of a mental illness called bpd! so what if something like repeatedly being mean to a child sim had a 0.1% chance of causing them to develop bpd? or if having a powerful sad or tense moodlet had a 0.1% chance of causing them to develop depression? 

(side note: i can really easily picture something similar to the “dark form” for ts4 vampires being used for dissociative identity disorder. genetics would be consistent across all personality states, but they could have different traits and voices and clothing,)

certain conditions could also be present at birth, like autism or adhd. i actually have custom traits for these; they’re not perfect, but if you want to google them they might be a good reference. one little thing that i think would be neat is if autistic sims had idle “stimming” animations, like flapping their hands or spinning in a circle. the biggest problem, though, is that autism and adhd are highly variable and i’m not sure how to make it so that not all autistic sims have the same behaviors.

allergies i guess would have to have some sort of severity scale, and be triggered by a sim eating a certain food or petting a certain animal. i’d want the likelihood of a sim developing a particular allergy to be pretty low, but that’s just me lol. maybe sims with allergies could keep meds on hand to deal with the worst of their attacks?

actually, the allergies thing reminds me--diabetic sims! depending on which type, a sim could either be born with it or contract it later in life. i’m not totally familiar with how insulin works, but a sim could have a pump equipped to mitigate their symptoms, or take regular injections.

i have a custom trait in my game for chronically ill sims, which basically makes their energy deplete faster and sometimes gives them moodlets with little blurbs about their illness. this seems like a pretty good system for chronic illnesses, but obv it would vary a lot by which illness your sim has--eg, would you actually animate a sim with ehlers-dahnlos popping a joint out of their socket, or would you just give them an uncomfortable moodlet? in particular, though, i think the mechanic that makes elder sims unable to do most exercise would be great for sims with dysautonomia. 

also, i’ve mentioned some assistive devices already, but i think figuring out how treatment works would be a big deal. do sims have single-payer healthcare, or do they have to pay for everything themselves? can sims crowdfund their medicine? what kind of treatments/cures are available? are their side effects? some conditions don’t have cures irl, but maybe a sim can pay like $30k to a witch to make their fibromyalgia go away!

this is almost definitely more info than you wanted and i’m kinda embarrassed i wrote this much, but uh... here you go, a mostly stream-of-consciousness essay on disabilities in the sims! god i hope it’s readable