#two of the worst fucking dudes in dbh

[ultranerdygirl]

I was trying to figure out why Neil Newbon's voice was so familiar to me and I just learned from his imdb that he was both Elijah Kamski and Gavin Reed in Detroit: Become Human.

Now if you'll excuse me I must go lay down and scream into a pillow.

[cleverthylacine]

The thing I hate the most about this is that it so often comes from people who are judging you for shipping a particular pairing that they prefer to view as platonic / “found family” as a romantic or erotic relationship.

My only contact with DBH fandom for a long time was Dreamwidth RP with people playing Hank and Connor as lovers so imagine how I felt when someone I liked a lot from GF fandom started throwing vitriol around about people who don’t see this relationship as a quasi-parental found family dynamic.  I literally never knew anyone did see it as such and didn’t need to be yelled at because my feelings about the ship were 100% the result of a long PSL that came out of an interaction between Connor, Hank, and Ravage and Soundwave (mine) on a TFLN meme.  (Ravage/Soundwave being a ship that I have been yelled at about it being bestiality--which is not something two sapient people can do together--or an incest ship, despite the fact that the family-dynamic fandom is divided about which one is the parent and also the fact that they are robots, one of them grew up out of the ground and the other one of whom came off the line at a factory so what the fuck how are they possibly even remotely related.)

You are not morally superior if you choose to believe a relationship between two people with problems of various kinds has to be ‘found-family’ rather than romantic.  The worst hot take I’ve seen on RavWave is that because Ravage taught Soundwave her own tricks for dealing with her ND brain and helped him adapt them for his own needs it’s a therapeutic relationship.  Dude she is not his therapist, they were two people who met on a street corner when one of them was barely housed and the other one was homeless.

There's no shame in enjoying romantic ships

Over the past year or so I've seen quite a lot of people complaining that "everything is about ships! Why can't we just enjoy platonic relationships between characters?!"

And then I see other people actually feeling guilty because they like to read/write shippy fics, etc.

So here's a PSA: enjoying romance is NOT something to be ashamed of.

Platonic relationships are great! But there's a reason most songs are love songs and there are a million movies about people falling in love (and, despite society largely disparaging them because they're something primarily enjoyed by women, romance novels are still going strong): most humans crave those feelings. Even if we're in love in real life, experiencing someone else falling in love in a dozen different ways is wonderful and gives us the warm fuzzies!

To people who complain about all the romance in fandom, maybe:

Don't complain about free content other people are creating because it makes them happy (are you compensating them for it? last I checked, you weren't).

If you want platonic relationships in fandom, write your own fics or draw your own fan art instead of shaming other people for enjoying something in a slightly different way from how you enjoy it.

So I say, go forth and bask in your ships! <3

[mwolf0epsilon]

DBH - The 12 Pains of Christmas

Summary: The typical seasonal hassles cause a few issues for Leo and Co. as he helps the four leaders of Jericho prepare for a Christmas party Carl is hosting. Somehow it all works out in the end.

[The 12 Pains of Christmas will forever be my favourite parody song, and it perfectly describes the nuances of the jolliest holiday. What better way to have some fun but to torment a few of my favorite characters,plus a few OCs? Merry Christmas everyone]

---

[[MORE]]

     It was supposed to be everyone's first proper Christmas together, after androids had finally acquired their freedom and rights as an intelligent and civilized species. 

By all means it should be the highlight of their arduous year that had been full of tormenting perils and hours upon hours of slaving away behind a desk, agoning over paperwork and conferences. The key words here being 'It Should Be'.

Carl had good intentions inviting all of them to spend the holidays together to celebrate, and Leo knew his father had everyone's good interests in mind with all the hassle he went through to reach out and extend his gracious hospitality (with some mixed results due to a few political disagreements he had with his family)… The problem wasn't even the idea of a party. It was the goddamn holiday season itself…

Christmas, as it turned out, had a way of getting people to act up in the worst way possible. It was just one of those holidays that really made it easier to be a dick to people, which was a little ironic considering it was supposed to be the holly jolly, merry little season of gift giving and family bonding times.

Which was why he currently found himself trying to mediate an argument between two frustrated androids, over the best option of Christmas tree available. How freaking 'joyous', ending up as Markus's and Simon's seasonal middleman...

  "Think of all the harm that plastic tree will cause once we have to get rid of it!" Markus crossed his arms and glared daggers at the offending faux pine Simon was currently hugging closely to himself. The blond looked positively ridiculous holding on to the largest plastic tree he could find, while also looking incredibly offended at the RK200's opinion on his choice.

  "I'm not just going to toss it after the holidays! We can reuse it next year, and the year after that!" Simon cried out, indignated with such an idea as throwing out a perfectly good hunk of plastic bristles. "Besides, I'd rather decorate a physical tree instead of a holographic display!"

  "There's no space in the attic for that tissled abomination, and a holo tree would be more efficient and easier to put away afterwards!" Markus defended, holding the compact machine as if it were the most precious thing on this side of Earth. "And we can customize the ornaments to our own taste!"

  "I'd rather die than give up tradition! We're not leaving Carl's ornaments to rot in a box!" The PL600 was furious at such blasphemous insinuations.

Leo merely rolled his eyes and sighed. This had been going on for a while now and he doubted it'd be over anytime soon. The two were too stubborn to give up.

The brunet turned his back to them before taking his phone out of his pocket when he felt it vibrate.

Looking at the screen, he saw that it was Josh who was calling, likely to see what was taking so long. Hopefully things were less stressful on his end.

  "Ok, you two assholes fight some more about the tree while I go get this and end up being more productive..." He moved towards the store door, nodding politely at the poor android watching helplessly from the counter.

Neither Markus nor Simon seemed to have noticed his departure. Not that he cared much. They shouldn't be his problem in the first place.

Once outside (and blissfully alone), Leo picked up the call.

  "Hey Josh. You done with the lights?" The human greeted as he leaned against the closest street lamp. The bitter cold was biting at his fingers uncomfortably so he put his free hand in his pocket and hoped the wind wouldn't pick up too much. Winter in Detroit was not very pleasant at times, and downright sucky if you forgot your damn gloves like he had.

  "Not yet. Miles and Matthew just helped me pick up the last box from the attic. We're trying to decide how we're going to decorate outside." Leo could hear humming from Josh's end, likely Miles as he looked through the boxes at all the soon to be shiny lights. "You guys picked a tree yet?"

  "Markus and Simon are arguing over what type to get, so nope." Leo glanced back at the shop window. Yep still going at it. The shop android looked miserable as they watched the spectacle.

  "Really? It's been an hour…"

  "Well, this is just one of the mystical twelve pains of Christmas." Leo shrugged dismissively. "The first one is always finding a tree..."

  "Twelve pains of Christmas?" Josh sounded a little confused, before Miles cheerfully told him it was a song.

  "Yep, parody song. Ancient but pretty good." Leo smiled, glancing back at the store occasionally to make sure everything was still under control. "Dad has it, on like, a playlist. That and a few others, but that's definitely my favourite one."

  "Well, if finding the tree is the first pain, what's the second one then?" Josh asked out of curiosity. Leo could hear boxes being shuffled about. Josh was likely opening them up as well.

  "Rigging up the lights, of course!" Leo smirked, being able to almost see the realization on the lecturer's face when he was met with brief silence.

  "Is that why you asked to go with Simon and Markus when Carl asked you to help out with the Christmas lights?" Yep, he definitely had that pouty expression he bore whenever Josh felt like he'd been tricked.

  "Look dude, I haven't had to deal with tangled headphones since I was a kid. There's no way in hell I'm dealing with tangled lights."

  "Yet you're willing to deal with being the middleman in an argument over which decorative tree is the best?" Josh sounded pretty incredulous at Leo's choice for avoiding the task. Honestly it was a sacrifice he was willing to make if it meant escaping knotted cable hell.

  "Yes when both parties involved don't ask for an opinion. They're both so stubborn even the cashier looks like they wished they had the Hanukkah shift instead." Leo's gaze returned to the store where Simon and Markus had now acquired a bit of an audience.

It was probably about time he broke them up properly and bought a tree himself. "God, wherever Markus goes he just has to stick out like a sore thumb…"

There was a startled shriek on the other side of the line, which startled Leo enough to lose focus on the storefront and the growing crowd.

  "Oh damn...Hold that thought Leo, Miles got his arm tangled up in some of the lights. I need to go help him out." Josh changed the topic, clearly distracted with whatever shenanigans the prototype android had gotten to in the background "Just, try to get them to compromise and get all of you and the tree back before 18:00 pm."

  "Aye-aye captain. You go rescue Miles from the decorations."

The call came to an end with a monotone click and Leo crept back inside, skirting around the argument and heading for the isles.

If Markus wanted something more environment friendly, and Simon wanted tradition, he was going to give them both plus a good hearty laught out of it…

He was good at compromising and being petty while doing it.

---

     The car ride to Val's and Artyum's apartment was spent in silent fury, annoyed bafflement, and a great big grin upon Leo's face.

From the back seat Markus sighed. The look of defeat partly the reason behind Leo's contented shit-eating grin. He loved winning against his younger brother even if just in the littlest things. It felt more rewarding to be occasionally right.

  "I'm all for biodegradable options Leo...And really I should have gone for that instead of the holotree if we wanted everyone to be happy but…" Markus peered out the window at the "leaves" that were hitting the window, annoyance that was steadily growing into irritation. "...Why the hell did you buy a palm tree?!"

  "Because you're both assholes for taking up so much time arguing over a stupid tree, and because dad's probably gonna piss himself laughing when he sees it." Leo leaned back in the driver's seat, letting the autonomous car crawl at a snail's pace in the crowded snowy road. The rearview mirror showed the expressions of the people in other cars. All looking more shocked and amused at the fake palm tree carefully pinned to the roof of the car for easy and safe transport.

They seemed somewhat appreciative of Leo's sense of humor, so the brunet didn't feel particularly inclined to yell at them to mind their own business in a few more colorful words.

Probably for the best as they all waited in traffic, since the snow sweepers clearing out the piled up snow in front of them was likely to take a while...

  "Couldn't you have at least picked a less stupid looking tree?" Simon bitterly glanced at the back windows. The pout on his face made it look like the faux greenery alone was an offense to him and all that he stood for. "We can't exactly decorate a palm tree like we would a pine tree…"

  "Why the hell not? It's big enough to fit all the crud my dad saved over the years." Leo asked as he glanced over at his right to look at the blond. "The top is nice and smooth so the tree topper won't just fall off, and we could even wrap a ton of the lights around the trunk since it's nice and long. We'd still have enough to light up the fence walls."

  "So basically you want to string up a palm tree in festive ornaments and bright lights, like a sideroad bar you see in concert festivals…?" Simon didn't seem all too pleased with this idea. The way he made it sound was definitely less cool than a festival sideroad bar.

  "Would you rather I hadn't bothered picking a tree at all? Next year we'll just decorate the fucking giraffe then…" Leo decided that on Christmas everyone was a damn critic.

No matter, as soon as the road cleared out the three didn't take long to reach the apartment complex where both of the brunet's friends lived.

They were already outside waiting, with Artyum carrying a large bag and a ton of wrapped presents that the two had likely spent the day making nice and pretty. The group quickly noticed that Val looked to be slughtly under the weather (if the look of pure hatred on her face was anything to go by).

  "What's up Sourface?" Leo grinned as he rolled down the window.

  "Fuck off Manfred, my head's killing me and I fucking hate how bright it is out here." The younger Latina growled irritably as she hurriedly climbed into the back seat next to Markus with Artyum following close behind after putting the gifts in the trunk, the bag remaining in his possession.

  "Do not bother with her today. She has massive hangover from "sampling" some of drinks I bought yesterday." The Russian informed the trio while putting on his seatbelt. "None which survived for party."

  "Getting shit-faced alone on Christmas Eve? That's a new low for you, Val." Leo snorted. "What's with the bag?"

  "Postcards. For family." Artyum shrugged "That is something I forgot to ask. Can we stop quickly by mail place so I can send them?"

  "You send your family postcards? Really?" Leo raised an eyebrow. "We're in the 2030s Art. You could just...I donno… call them?"

  "Or send an email." Markus added.

  "It is family tradition!" Artyum sounded genuinely appalled.

  "Finally someone who understands!" Simon smiled at the larger man, appreciative of his devotion to some of the older ways. Christmas just wasn't Christmas without a physical tree, caroling, cards and eggnog. Why couldn't more people get that?

  "Artyum has a massive family tho, those are going to be some expensive post office bills…"

  "I'll manage. Worst was writing damn things in first place. I find that English has been coming to mind more often...Puns are hard to resist but also hard for non-english speakers to appreciate…" the Russian sighed sadly at the loss of opportunity to employ his acquired skills at weaving words into funny sentences.

  "Oh my god can we just go? I need a fucking aspirin!" Val whined, pulling her scarf over her face to escape the assault on her sensitive senses. Snow blindness was not something she wanted to be submitted to.

  "Fuck, this really is like the damn song… can't wait for number five on the list of how crap this holiday is." Leo groaned.

  "You're looking forward to five months of consecutive bills?" Markus snorted "You're unemployed."

  "You know what I meant… Dad fucking loves that song and I know you played it every year for him since Kamski sent you to care for him." The human shot Markus a dirty look.

  "I personally prefer 'Wreck the Halls'. It's got more of a beat." The RK200 grinned.

  "Fuck off."

Once everyone settled, off they drove to the post office. Now that there weren't any snow sweepers slowing down traffic the ride went more smoothly. Until a massive line ruined the mood considerably.

  "Ok yeah I can see the parallels of our current situation with the song..." Markus gave them all a long-suffering groan as the group ended up in said massive line at the post office, behind a couple who was currently arguing over their impending meet up with their in-laws for dinner.

  "Told you. That song speaks of the essence of this shitshow of a holiday. It's just a hassle all around if you take off the pink-tinted shades."

  "That's not how that saying goes, but yes." Simon checked his internal clock. Josh was going to be upset if they came in too late. "Christmas is a very hectic time of year, and a little overrated. I rarely got to celebrate it, and most of what I know are pleasant stories of functional families actually sharing the good little moments…"

  "Is that why you're so enamored with the traditional aspect?" Markus questioned, which the blond merely nodded along to.

Enough said of that then. The story behind Simon's escapism tactics was never a good one. That they knew by now.

  "Artie why couldn't you send these off earlier? This place is crowded!" Val grimaced as the crowd seemed to get just as agitated over the argument going on in the background.

  "Was also crowded earlier..." Artyum sighed.

The couple in front of them got louder.

  "Oh god could this get any worse?" Leo put his face in his hands.

  "Excuse me sir do you have time to donate a dollar to the cause?"

  "Oh my fucking god it can." Val punched the brunet on the arm. "The fucking Salvation Army is here."

  "Fucking shit!"

---

     After forty minutes of pure hell at the post office, the group finally got to the counter and thanked the gods that it didn't take long to sort the paperwork involved with sending off an entire bag of postcards.

They practically ran back to their car, avoiding the various parents dragging screaming children that were demanding this or that as the perfect gifts.

Next destination: Manfred household.

A drive that took less than an hour.

Except…

  "OH MY GOD THERE IS NOWHERE TO PARK THE FUCKING CAR, ARE YOU SERIOUS?!"

     It was well past 18:00 pm when they finally found an available parking space, and the effort of hawling the tree along was less of a minor inconvenience and more of an annoyance to add to the list since they had to climb uphill rather than simply take it from one end of the road to the next.

  "I have never seen so many cars on this street." Leo remarked as he steadied the base of the tree as they walked along.

  "That's because you've never actually spent the holidays over." Markus replied nonchalantly. "It was always a pain in the neck if shopping required an autonomous cab… There just wasn't ever a place to stop close enough that I didn't need about five trips to and fro just to get the all of the bags."

The gate opened up for them without much fuss and the group noticed North retreating out of the house looking absolutely pissed.

  "Where the hell have you been?!" She met with them, eyeing the odd choice of a tree briefly before staring accusingly at Leo. "We called! Repeatedly!"

  "Battery died."

  "And we also called you both." She pointed at both androids.

  "We were a little distracted." Simon admitted.

  "With what?!" North glared.

  "Marital problems at the post office, and an army of kids screaming because they wanted whatever is hot with the kids these days." Simon sighed "It's a long story…"

The redhead groaned before holding up the TV remote, much to the confusion of everyone else.

  "Well then, you're on remote duty. The batteries died and Matthew forgot to buy more... And if I browse through any more of those shitty stale tv specials I swear to God I'll blow up Stratford tower."

  "Please do." Leo grimaced. "Everyone else arrived yet?"

  "Yeah, but they're kind of busy right now…"

  "With what?" Markus asked.

Ten seconds later they all stood baffled, staring up at the chandelier.

Well at the entire living room, the stairs, hallways and even the kitchen actually…

  "How the hell did you manage this?!" Leo gawked as he watched Josh struggling to get free from the Christmas lights he'd gotten horrendously tangled in.

  "Miles got stuck and panicked...The rest kind of happened before we could control the situation…" the lecturer looked absolutely embarrassed as he hung in the hair just a little bellow said prototype.

  "To make matters worse, Miles can run like no other android in this freaking house…" Benji retorted as he tried to free his constricted arm, which was pinned by the chords that had wrapped around the giraffe's legs when the RK-series prototype had gone berserk.

  "That's Miles for ya. Problem solving is an experimental process." Tristan was stuck to a wall. He didn't seem too fussed over this. "If hitting it and running doesn't work, he'll stop to contemplate it for a bit. Not that it'd help now of course."

  "Sorry…" In the RK300's defense, he did look a little guilty over causing so much trouble. "I ruined Christmas..."

"I'll just...Go get a ladder." Markus walked off while Simon gave Miles a sympathetic look.

"You didn't ruin Christmas buddy." The blond caretaker reassured. "You got a little stuck, is all, and the house will probably look good once we actually turn on the lights."

"You really mean it?" The RK300 blinked in confusion, looking around before humming and then nodding "They'll blink unsynchronized... Might make more colors..."

"Yep. We might get orange lights this year. Pretty cool Miles!" Tristan smiled appreciatively at Simon, mouthing a silent 'Thanks' while Markus returned with the ladder.

"While Markus deals with that, I should get started on the baking. Then Leo can help rig the rest of the lights." Simon stated, ignoring the look of horror on the brunet's face.

"Baking equals good smells and pretty shapes. You can go bake Simon!" Miles smiled more genuinely as he kicked his legs about, narrowly avoiding hitting Josh on the head. "Sorry."

"I'm good."

"Not until I get you down you're not." Markus quickly got to work freeing the two of them, while Artyum helped Tristan and Benji down from their own prisons.

---

By 20:00 pm, all of the decorations were set up, lights properly rigged, food and sweets cooked and baked, and guests arrived. Despite the hectic confusing day, the party turned out alright.

All around friends and extended family talked, laughed, enjoy Simon's splendid cooking and Carl's family eggnog recipe, and gifts were exchanged without incident.

Leo looked all around and sighed contentedly as he rested on the couch, enjoying the buzz of conversations going on in the background.

His eyelids drooped as he watched humans and androids alike relishing in the enjoyments that followed the usual inconveniences of Christmas.

There was no good without a bit of bad. If anything, all the stuff they'd gone through just to get everything nice and ready made it more rewarding.

The brunet nodded off peacefully... Only to wake up when the caroling began.

"Oh my god..." Leo put his pillow over his head and mentally screamed.

Fine. Almost worth it. Fucking Christmas carolers ruining everything. They were almost as bad as the Salvation Army!

[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)

[thegeminisage]

dont start discourse w/ me about this but im watching a 2014 g*me gr*mps playthru of luigi's mansion & like.................

i dont get it bc the dbh one is literally so fucking funny and good, the UT one was good, and it was from like 2015 i think?? so did they just grow souls in the span of one year bc the luigi’s mansion playthru is just about the worst thing i’ve ever watched???? like they can’t go five minutes with being 1. racist 2. sexist 3. homophobic 4. otherwise horrible (for instance i had to dip out when they started monologuing about how great “fat sex” was, no thanks) or 5. talking about their own/someone else’s dicks. like..............who the fuck wants to hear that??? is it just something about luigi’s mansion or is that just how they Were in 2014?? like yeah they’re funny a lot of the time and it’s enough to overlook one or two sour jokes if you’re just trying to find some decent dinner entertainment but jesus fucking CHRIST in this they’re just acting like a couple of the most basic teen/college aged dudes in the universe. they’re not funny, they’re not exciting, they’re not even really paying attention to the game, they’re just shooting the shit in the most boring and/or disgusting way possible. if i wanted to listen to a bunch of dumb teenage boys talk about dicks all day i’d take a time machine back to when my little brother was still in high school. it’s hard to believe they had the kind of following they had back in 2014 if this is what they were like all the time