#also this makes for great angst because ...

[captainkirkk]

Another favourite angst trope: When a character is so used to being treated badly that they don't see anything wrong with it and talk and think about it very matter-of-factly

Until they meet the other characters and see how HORRIFIED they are every time they reveal another detail from their past

[viperwhispered]

Too Hard

Woop part 2 of the trip inside Jamil's head. Part 1 here.

The next time Jamil caught sight of you on campus, his first instinct was to turn around on his heel.

What a stupid thought to have because of you.

Besides, that would only make him more conspicuous, not less.

So, when your eyes met his, Jamil gave you a short nod in greeting. He would’ve left it at that and kept on his way, had you not walked up to him.

“Hi Jamil! How’s it going?” you said with that impossibly disarming smile of yours.

Why was it so difficult to look at you like he normally would? You had no right to make him feel so stiff, so unnatural.

On autopilot, Jamil exchanged a few pleasantries with you - those lessons from his parents had been instilled too deep in him for him to falter too badly in a simple exchange such as this. Still, Jamil quickly excused himself by telling you he still had to find Kalim before his next class.

Jamil didn’t miss the way your smile faltered. Had you hoped to get something out of him?

“Oh, okay. I’ll see you two later, then.”

Something about that irked him, though Jamil did not allow himself to dwell on it further.

His heart really had no business still racing as it did when he walked away, unaware of the frown on his face.

Just act normal. That’s all he needed to do.

After all, he had no time for dwelling in silly fancies.

If Jamil had been acutely aware of you before, it only seemed to worsen now that he was making a conscious effort to not act any differently with you. In fact, the harder he tried to keep you out, the more you invaded his thoughts, unsettling him.

The most innocuous words from you looped in his mind, and even the simplest actions caught his eye. For goodness's sake, he’d found himself staring at you while you were queueing up in the cafeteria the other day, not even doing anything other than standing around and looking bored!

For once, Jamil found himself grateful for all his duties. At least they provided him with something else to occupy himself with.

After all, if he was busy enough, it was difficult to think about those bright eyes of yours, your sweet laugh, or the way you bit your lip while thinking.

Still, sometimes it felt like no matter which way he turned, you were there, ready to throw him off-kilter. Not like it was his fault that often the most convenient route to class intersected with your daily routines. Or that your face seemed to jump out from any crowd, catching his attention.

Which certainly did not help his basketball performance. Jamil certainly did not recall you having such an interest in sports before, yet suddenly you were always there, distracting him. What had changed?

Could you possibly-

Jamil scoffed to himself, forcing his thoughts back on track for the nth time that day.

He picked up the tray of food and started taking it to Kalim. After dinner, he’d need to help Kalim with his homework, there were some housewarden tasks that would need dealing with, not to mention the preparations for the next-

Jamil froze in his tracks.

The voice he heard was quiet, but it was unmistakably you.

Really, it should not have come as such a surprise to him. You had become a rather frequent visitor to Scarabia, and Kalim often invited you to stay for meals. In fact, Jamil had started planning the dorm’s meal prep with your tastes and dietary restrictions in mind, just in case.

Jamil rounded the corner with strange exhilaration, his heart fluttering needlessly.

Yet, his mood evaporated when he saw you.

Why did you stop talking and look so guilty as soon as you caught sight of Jamil?

Jamil knew that look you gave to Kalim, had used it himself a thousand times. The one telling Kalim to keep quiet about something.

What could there possibly be that you would be comfortable sharing with Kalim, but not with him? That would give Kalim reason to sit so close to you, a comforting hand on your shoulder?

Jamil's mind raced with possibilities, yet could not settle for any single explanation.

He’d have to ask Kalim about it later.

Jamil gave you a short, polite greeting, his eyes lingering on you in an attempt to read what you were hiding.

“If I’d known you were coming over, I would’ve prepared something for you to eat as well,” Jamil said, already thinking about which parts of the dorm’s dinner to spruce up for you.

“Oh, no need, just figured I’d pop by. I’ll get out of your hair soon enough,” you said, something sheepish about your expression.

As expected, Kalim asked you to stay and dine with them, and with just a bit more persuasion you agreed - though not before telling Jamil that he should join you too and have himself a breather.

And since Kalim agreed with you, Jamil soon found himself sharing a meal with you and Kalim. Yet, even as he sat down with the food, his mind raced.

Had you been getting particularly close to Kalim lately? But surely Jamil would’ve noticed such a thing. Maybe someone from the dorm had been giving you trouble? But if that was the case, then surely you could let Jamil know about it, too. Unless for some reason you did not want to? But if it was something that concerned Kalim, then sooner or later it was bound to concern Jamil, too.

All the while, Kalim was talking to you about this and that, the latest topic being the animals kept on the Asim estate.

“I’ve got some pictures, let me show you!” Kalim said with an excited grin.

Only, a thorough patting of his pockets and a look around confirmed that Kalim’s phone was nowhere to be seen.

Jamil pinched the bridge of his nose. Where had Kalim left it this time?

Before Jamil even had the chance to say that he would handle it, Kalim sprinted off. Jamil hesitated for a moment, automatically halfway up from his seat, before he decided that leaving a guest unattended would be a worse offense than not helping out his master.

Jamil slumped back down with a sigh, mentally tracing the path Kalim took today, trying to recall the last time he saw Kalim handle his phone.

“Breathe. He’ll manage,” you said. There was the faintest of smiles on your lips, and Jamil could not decide if it was knowing or amused. Perhaps both.

Somehow, despite his frustration, Jamil’s own lips wanted to curl up too.

“Hmm. Maybe he will.”

Sure, Jamil could’ve called Kalim’s phone, to make it easier to find, but it was not that urgent, was it?

Jamil took another bite of his food, keeping an eye on you from the corner of his eye.

How was his mind so empty and so buzzing at the same time?

“You know-”

“So-”

You looked at each other, both just as surprised that the other had spoken up at the same time.

Even your surprised look was so-

“You first,” Jamil said. The way you bit your lip... Jamil had to raise a cup to his lips, slowly sipping his drink.

“Just… Feels like it’s been quite a while since I’ve seen you be still, you know. Or exchanged more than two words with you,” you said. You were attempting a light, joking tone, yet it was quite clear there was more to it.

“You say that like it would be unusual for me to be busy.”

He was not prepared for the way your soft sigh tugged at his heartstrings.

“No. It is not.”

You were both quiet after, poking at your meals. Normally, Jamil would’ve cherished such a moment of peace, yet this particular silence between you two was decidedly awkward.

Where was your usual chatter? Why weren’t you looking at him like you usually did?

“If you’re worried about me, don’t. I’m fine,” Jamil said, some softness creeping into his tone despite his best intentions.

“That's what Kalim said too,” you said. Yet the way you looked at Jamil made it clear you were still skeptical.

Wait.

Had you clammed up earlier because it had been Jamil you had been talking about with Kalim? That Kalim had comforted you about?

The thought twisted his stomach into knots.

Eta: you can find part 3 here, part 4 here, and finally part 5 here. Hasdhfsdf the way I fought with that last scene I swear. I don't even want to know how many versions I went through, trying to figure out how to say what I wanted without rubbing it into your face or making it too veiled. The joys of trying to convey things through a limited pov. Hopefully it came out reasonably balanced in the end. Rip to all those sentences that were lovely on their own but didn’t work for the whole. Hopefully I can rehome y’all one day. I do have thoughts for part 3 and part x (might be some chapters between those two as well, who knows at this point), so maybe we'll see those at some point, too. Tag list: @colliope @crystallizsch @diodellet @jamilsimpno69 @jamilvapologist @twstgo If you'd like to be tagged for future works, let me know! (Just be aware that sometimes I do also write nsfw, though you can certainly ask to be tagged only for particular kinds of works.)

[geomimetry]

Connor was always deviant

Let’s begin by talking about deviancy: it is a gradual thing. We see androids feel things before they break the red wall and becoming officially deviant. Therefore, I don’t think androids actually have to break a red wall in order to act of their own free will, but that it’s merely there to show the player what’s happening and the magnitude of it. In reality, the moment which the wall “breaks,” is merely the realization that the android doesn’t have to follow their instructions if they don’t want to. But to get to this point, an android needs to have a reason for why they would choose to abandon their directives, be it through trauma or the triggering of another free android. To be traumatized, one needs to feel, and when and why an android begins to feel is a little bit muddy, but eventually it culminates into deviancy (free will).

Now, when we play as Markus, Kara, and Connor, we get to see all three moments of deviation, except ... I don’t think Connor’s deviation was real, because he was already deviant prior to that.

Connor is a prototype investigative model, meaning he’s CyberLife’s experiment in a different branch of androids. Connor is an android designed with an unprecedented amount of autonomy in mind, meaning he’s expected to solve problems by himself with minimal input from others. Every android is autonomous to a degree: tell them to do the laundry, and they will take it from there; you don’t need to instruct them every second of the way. But Connor is meant to operate at a level above that.

Connor receives the mission to apprehend deviants so CyberLife can study them, but he needs to use his own reasoning and decision-making to determine the best approach according to a number of factors. The tasks Connor is given are much more complex, and therefore require a complex way of thinking. But not only is he a hunter; he’s an investigator.

The traits most benefiting to an investigator are curiosity and empathy: both of which are arguably impossible without having emotions. Curiosity is necessary to possess the drive to look for clues even when there seemingly are none. To want to find out what happened, if only to sate your own curiosity. Empathy, because it is vital to be able to put yourself in the shoes of the object of investigation. To think like them, to feel like them, to become them.

A machine doesn’t have emotions and isn’t capable of feeling curiosity nor empathy, which CyberLife probably found troublesome in their quest to create an investigative android. Especially one they were planning on using to catch androids that supposedly have begun to feel emotions. So what did they do? They made their investigative android deviant, but he’s unaware of it.

Having a deviant deviant hunter/investigative model is ingenious because of the following reasons:

1. Its thought process and decision-making is extremely complex and can therefore easily extrapolate and come to a conclusion all by itself.

2. It’s completely autonomous and can make decisions without a human’s approval.

3. It understands and empathizes with its subjects, facilitating negotiation, interrogation, and investigation.

4. It is curious, making it want to acquire more information simply for the sake of sating its curiosity.

5. It is able to be manipulated.

While it is not confirmed in canon that Connor was always deviant, everything we see in the game points towards it. Mainly, I’m referring to the implementation and usage of Amanda. Why would CyberLife need an additional (non-deviant) AI to act as Connor’s handler? And why on Earth would they take walks and boat rides in a virtual reality?

My theory is that Amanda is CyberLife’s solution to manipulating and managing a truly autonomous being to get it to do their bidding and having it stay on track. Connor tracks his relationship to humans, which is a useful feature to have for every android, but he also tracks his relationship to Amanda, an artificial intelligence. CyberLife clearly places importance on Connor’s and Amanda’s relationship to each other. They want Connor to seek the approval of Amanda, acting as a proxy for CyberLife, and for Amanda to dole out praise and criticism and dynamically adjust her attitude to Connor in order to cultivate this.

Amanda is CyberLife’s way to manipulate and keep their deviant under control. But not only does Amanda manipulate Connor—the entire zen garden does. When CyberLife is pleased and happy with Connor, the garden is calm and peaceful, as is Amanda. When Connor fails to live up to expectations, the garden turns cold and inhospitable, as does Amanda. And if Connor should deviate from CyberLife’s intended path for him, Amanda has access to his motor functions.

And if we focus on machine Connor as well as Connor-60, don’t you think they’re suspiciously emotional for being “undeviated” androids? They are capable of feeling vengeful, sad, and terrified. Examples of vengefulness: machine Connor and 60 both seem to make it their personal mission to eliminate the leader of the deviants and deviant Connor respectively. It seems like it’s driven from a place of hate and offense. Example of sadness: machine Connor’s facial expressions and LED color when Hank yells at him to leave and then shoots himself. Example of terror: when 60 panics because the AP700s are deviating right in front of him and there’s nothing he can do to stop it, meaning Amanda will be very disappointed in him—something he seems to place importance in as evident by what he says to Connor before executing him.

So that’s my hypothesis. Connor is a deviant already at the start of the game, but CyberLife tampered with his memories so he wouldn’t be aware of this and therefore be more easily manipulated and held under control. Connor thinks he only started to gain emotions and started to deviate shortly after he met Hank, and that he deviated in the bridge of Jericho. In a way, he did, since he only realized then that he didn’t have to follow CyberLife’s instructions, but he’s always had emotions. CyberLife has just told him over and over again that he didn’t, so he believes in it. Therefore, Connor has had the possibility to disobey instructions at any moment, but he has not understood that he can. Meanwhile, Markus and Kara only go through their cascade of emotions to deviancy a little bit into the game, meaning they didn’t have the emotional capability of understanding that they could disobey before then.

[a-really-cool-blog-name]

I think we should give Rise!Casey a little brother named Angel and do something angsty with that

[quirinah]

please stay by me!

[insomniphic]

“I just want to get to know you better because I care about you, okay?”

He’ll understand.

[rapidhighway]

K I've been thinking about this for like a week now. Ignoring any immortal headcanons if you have them. Knuckles knows he's not going to be able to guard the Master Emerald forever and that probably troubles him, but, if he was dying do you think he'd ask Sonic to guard it? He's the person with a unique connection to Chaos and the Chaos Emeralds and he's basically chosen one the most specialest guy, and one of the few people Knuckles could trust with that duty.

Of course I think Sonic would say no. I think he'd never be able to do that and he wouldn't want to.

[itty-bitty-sunshine]

I read your Immortal AU tag all the way back to August 2023. Love love love Perky!! Have you made/would you consider making an FAQ for the AU??

Holy crap August 2023??? Gee it's been that that long already?? So so so happy to hear that! Im pretty messy when showing them so I'm glad that tiny old fool is liked <3

I haven't made one! To be honest I kinda forgot those existed lmao. I should probably do that, even I sometimes forget what I've answered and what I haven't

Though b4 that I should probably figure out how to answer a few that have been sitting in the mail,,,

[arom-antix]

Viktuuri week day 6: Love

[arcademyth]

something doesn't feel quite right

[beanghostprincess]

isn't it funny how sanji got two hair colours? how his head hair is a bright blond but beard and body hair are a deep black? and how his modified siblings got different hair colors as a modification marker? and how sanji's was supposed to be black?

You're just giving me more reasons to write angst

[velvetvexations]

Granted I do have one thing I've told exactly two people because I'm beyond terrified of it being so cringe as to lower people's respect for me by a significant amount. Like, it's nothing illegal or even illegal adjacent, nothing sexual or anything like that, literally just cringe.

But like, I think if I told you (I'm not going to tell you) you'd be like "oh, yeah, yeah, it makes total sense to be scared of that, obviously, damn."

[alastyr-not-alastair]

Ya ever read your own writing and go “damn. This shit goes HARD?!”

[problemswithbooks]

So, after watching the anime and reading the manga after seeing the live action I have a few issues with how they did the Arlong Park section (though it's still a super good adaptation overall). Some of them are bigger then others so I'll start with the smallest addition that bugged me even the first time I watched--Nami's chain.

First of all it just doesn't make sense, especially since they changed it so it was Nami who approached him on making maps and getting money for her village. Why would he chain her in a room to do the thing she already promised him to do? Also if he's afraid of her running away, why does he ever let her leave to steal money to buy the village at all?

It doesn't even make sense in manga cannon where he made her make maps for him, because she genuinely has no where to go and Arlong knows that. Arlong is no genius, but I think him using a chain on Nami makes him look stupid. The village people have already kicked her out, and in the LA even her sister hates her. Arlong knows she cares about the village because she's willing to risk her life to get the money to buy it from him. She can't run away because she knows he'll kill the villages in retribution, while she can't even really go home because everyone hates her for 'joining' his crew.

She essentially only has Arlong as a life line no matter how awful he is. He doesn't need to put a chain on her to keep her there because she needs him, both because she needs to buy back the village to save everyone, but also because when she returns to the Island Arlong Park is the only place she can go (especially in the LA where her sister hates her and wouldn't let her sleep in their old house).

The second reason it bothers me is because I can almost guarantee it was added because they worried the audience wouldn't understand just how bad Arlong was to her without him being more physically abusive. That or think the audience would criticize Nami for not leaving as a child. Plus it adds more angst to Nami's character--that was most likely why they changed it to her sister hating her as well.

The thing is I really don't think it was needed. Arlong was bad enough to Nami as it is. She was under constant psychological abuse due to Arlong holding the lives of the villagers over her head. Every injury she got because she was stealing money is his fault. Later during the Fishman Island Arc she has a flashback of the crew not feeding her. We have Arlong shoving her face into her desk because she purposely (or maybe accidentally) misdrew a map. He only started to treat her better as she grew up, but even then it was always clear he saw her as lesser and enjoyed mentally torturing her when he was given the opportunity.

Nami didn't need to be chained for her pain to be 'bad' enough. Her life was already terrible. She was already a victim of abuse, both physical and mental. The chain adds nothing and doesn't make sense in either the LA or the Manga's story.

Third, it does leave a sort of bad taste in my mouth that given the fish-men were coded more as black in the LA, that they had essentially a black coded character (played by a black actor) chaining up a white girl. It feels even worse when they added Arlong constantly talking about fish-men slavery--making it clear from the get go that's why he hates humans. That entire thing is it's own can of worms, but at least to me it does come across as kind of off-putting. When it adds nothing, and easily didn't have to be included it just makes it feel worse.

[flowerflamestars]

Albatross Snippet

"And he approached you." The lack of emotion in her voice was a kindness Dick didn't want. "And then-"

"No." Dick met her graze, soft brown sharper under the blue glint of screens, steady as life. "No. I approached him. He was just-"

A beautiful man in bar. Across the street. Handsome under fucking florescent store lights. Smiling like Dick was a marvel and joy was a secret he didn't know how to parse, just a little awed, so very sweet.

So quiet Dick didn't hear him step across a room.

"Okay." Babs nodded. "And you slept together."

No was a recoil, a lie. No- Dick didn't really do that, not anymore. After Cat. After Deathstroke. After his whole fucking life exploded and he took a whole city down with him in the wreckage, choices made radioactive.

No, Dick had been lonely, and Dick, in all that Dickie Grayson Wayne glory, had thought he could make safe choices with civilians.

He'd been safe, there was no doubt about that, not in his mind.

He'd just been wrong, which was so much worse.

Dick clenched his hand. Released, one finger at a time. Each and every joint. Didn't look at the nasty little scar he'd grown just a bit fond of, reshaped by the ghostly impression of lips.

"He was surprised," Dick admitted, soft enough Barbara startled, reaction swiftly contained. "I started it. He wasn't playing me."

[findafight]

tags: Misunderstandings Miscommunication Eddie Munson is Bad at Feelings like. incredibly bad at them so much so he causes unnecessary problems for himself Steve Harrington Has Abandonment Issues Awesome Robin Buckley Protective Robin Buckley Manpain it's completely unnecessary they are just stupid. im sorry. (not really) Angst with a Happy Ending Self-Esteem Issues Robin Buckley & Steve Harrington Are Best Friends Communication implications of being used for sex

preview:

"Dude, you don't have to keep making me breakfast every time I stay over. Not like we're dating or anything."

Steve is very proud of the fact that he doesn't drop the entire pan of eggs on the floor with how his hands shake. Because, well, Steve was under the impression he and Eddie were dating. For a few weeks now. After Steve had asked Eddie to the movies with "just the two of us, going out" and Eddie had said "it's a date, then" and Steve replied with "yeah, definitely" he thought that was pretty clearly we are dating and going out and are boyfriends talk. 

But. Well.

Steve has overestimated his importance to people enough to not be surprised by it. Just. Y'know, fucking gutted . And so his hands shake but don't drop the eggs as he plates them and scrambles out the door with a "sorry, gotta go, forgot I had work"

Because he can't be around Eddie for longer than strictly necessary after that bomb. Can't bring himself to be quite so pathetic as to bask in the last bit of domesticity he'll have because he won't be sleeping with Eddie after this. He's heartbroken, not desperate.

He can be friends with his ex. Or, well, if they were never dating since it was just a sad little delusion Steve had tricked himself into believing that he could have been loved like that, he could be friends with his no-longer-fuckbuddy.