#compared to those people from new jericho who are Willing but do not have the training | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

anne-with-an-evangelion · 3 years

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When it comes to talking about DBH characters who get character growth/a redemption arc, Hank is the obvious person to bring up, and there’s the obvious fandom fixation on Gavin, but what about Adam Chapman? He has an arc in the game that sort of disappears in the fray when compared to other characters but he has the literal journey that everyone wants Gavin to have. But even in comparison to others I feel like Adam completely stands on his own as a good character with so much potential as far as his past, future and motivations.

When Kara, Luther and Alice first show up at Rose’s house, Adam is outside chopping wood and literally turns them away, saying his mom isn’t just too busy to talk to them - she doesn’t WANT to. Of course this isn’t the case and Rose invites everyone inside. And Adam is PISSED.

Also he’s wearing a shirt that says Average Casual Guy which is so funny

Adam is young, probably around twenty, he doesn’t seem to be away at college or anything, rather Rose says they just farm their own food to sell at the market and that’s how they scrape by. Sounds stressful, especially with a bunch of Androids living in their house. It’s obvious Adam doesn’t want them around and definitely doesn’t want any new deviants showing up, after the call for revolution that occurred with Markus’s Stratford Tower speech.

As the scene goes on, you get more information about the Chapman’s and the things they’ve been through. Rose is obviously an incredibly strong and compassionate person to be helping the Androids to this extent, but there’s no denying it’s putting her and Adam in danger. When Kara walks in on their right in the kitchen, Adam is telling Rose they need to stop getting involved, that it’s not safe, and he’s not going to back down about this issue anymore.

His outburst over this is pretty understandable, in the context of the game - even when Kara first shows up asking for Rose, Adam’s first question is, “What do you want with her?” Which I feel like isn’t just about whether Kara is an Android or not, but whether she’s someone there to bust them for having Androids in the house. And of course he’s right, because the cops come by like five minutes later to search the house. They are putting themselves in danger, and even though they’re doing the right thing, it must still be a strain on their family... and it’s clear they’ve fought about this many, many times.

So, yeah, his rejection of his mother’s desire to help the Androids comes from a place of fear for their safety, which is understandable to an extent. But he isn’t just afraid of deviants and doesn’t want to help them - he really seems to hate them, which shouldn’t be an understandable view to hold within the context of the game and the allegory of the Civil Rights Movement, and then the language he uses is like, yikes...

It’s not, I understand they’re in trouble but I’m upset you’re putting us in danger, it’s something else - and of course Adam is really mad, and maybe saying something he doesn’t necessarily mean, but this does seem to reflect his view of the Androids as a whole. At this time, Adam honestly doesn’t see them as being people, which probably makes it even harder for him to understand why Rose goes so far out of her way to help them.

I mean, she sets up trips across the river which have been obviously successful, she drives them to Jericho, she has some kind of contact with or understanding of the revolution leaders because she’s able to direct Kara on where to go, and though not much is explained, her brother (and Adam’s uncle) is obviously totally cool with Androids because he’s willing to help them too. She’s clearly been doing this for a while, or at least is proactive enough to take action and do whatever she has to. She’s even willing to take care of Alice once they get across the border. Literally the hero of DBH but I digress. Adam doesn’t think Androids are worthy of the rights they’re asking for, especially when compared to humans.

What follows this is one of the most intriguing lines in the scene (to me)

What does this mean?? We know his father passed away, and Rose says that ever since then, Adam just boils over sometimes. Maybe it happened suddenly, an accident possibly - or did he get sick? Were Androids involved somehow, like what happened with Cole? What was Rose’s husband’s opinion on Androids? Things have changed since he passed, for sure, but still. Did he hold that same “Androids aren’t alive” opinion that Adam is now expressing? Or is it just that Adam thinks if his dad were still here, he’d be able to solve this issue somehow? Maybe his dad was a politician who ran on pro-Android laws and after he died Adam has become disillusioned with his parents’ worldview ??? Maybe his father died helping Androids too and that’s why Adam rejects them so much. Or maybe his dad hated Androids so much he would have never allowed Rose to help them, and so they wouldn’t have gotten involved in the first place, in Adam’s mind. (Edited to say that apparently it’s canon that Adam’s father died of cancer though I can’t recall it specifically being said in the game, so that is definitely a sad addition to things☹️)

I’m literally just making shit up lol but I really do personally hesitate to give Adam some kind of super traumatic backstory or make him bigoted against Androids because the Black characters are already treated poorly enough in the game when it comes to those things. I’m inclined to think this is just a general outburst of missing his dad and wanting him to be there to ‘fix’ things or at least, maybe, mediate the conversation between Adam and Rose. Idk, it’s cool to speculate on, especially when other characters are given super deep dives into their literally nonexistent canon backstory, it definitely feels like there’s so much that’s unsaid here.

Obviously there’s a couple of different ways the gameplay can go after this - but one other thing I wanted to bring up was what happens if you end up with Kara at the border crossing and run into Rose and Adam there. After talking to Rose in the bathroom and making a plan to all go to her brother’s house, Kara talks to Adam outside-

He says he doesn’t agree with Markus’s methods (which is like.. ok.. a whole other conversation in itself)(EDIT: so apparently the answer is different if you choose the ‘pacifist’ route for Markus- Adam says that ‘seeing what Markus is doing made me realize you’re alive’ !!! Which is cool that it changes and def reflects something different about his character than if his response is always the same!) So anyway he now believes in Androids’ right to freedom and happiness. What made this come about?? Was it after interacting with Alice and Kara and Luther?? I have a theory that Rose knew Alice was an Android as soon as they showed up but just played along - maybe when Adam realized there were Android children mixed up in this too, he began to change his view on things, maybe see himself in them, or see things through his father’s eyes, wanting to protect his family and child. Maybe that’s the lens through which Adam begins to see it. It could be the peaceful pacifist revolution Markus is leading, if he is- but even if not, Adam still changes his mind.

Or, maybe after everything that’s happened, he just realizes he was being kind of an asshole about the whole thing and when it came down to it, a government that was literally going door to door searching for Androids and the people who might help them? That’s probably not the type of place Adam wants to live in. It’s definitely interesting to think about his motivations and what brought him to this point.

And even though it’s sad for Kara and Luther, I find the ending where Alice ends up with the Chapman’s really.. bittersweet-ly satisfying in a narrative way. Found family .... though of course it sounds like they were all planning on meeting at Rose’s brother’s house so they would have all been together anyway☹️

🥲I feel like I had so much more to say but yeah!! I think he’s such a cool interesting character and I love that he ends up on the side of the Androids in the end. And what happens after they escape safely??? Does he start helping deviants too like Rose does? Are they going to settle down and form a commune of sorts with the other Androids who escaped? I love the idea of that loss in Adam’s life being filled up with the addition of new people who care about him, and a little sister in Alice, since he seems to be an only child. The possibilities of it all...

Adam has a sad sort of story to his past, he dislikes Androids and then comes around, he has so much potential for what happens after the revolution - and he’s not the only one!!! There are so many characters in the game that deserve a closer look but I just love Adam..

#dbh #adam chapman #he’s just really compelling guys #like. he actually has an Android friendly redemption arc. in canon !!!#Gavin whomst????

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rk1kheadcanons · 4 years

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AU after the revolution Connor becomes a “symbol of escaping your oppressors (esp sexually-conservative parents)” by becoming Markus’ partner and is very uncomfortable with everyone using him as just an object to project their fears and fantasies onto. He gets called a thot and “Markus’ good little slut” just for kissing and he hates it, the amount of pron people make of him makes him puke. No matter how hard they try, they can’t ignore how fetishized/objectified their relationship is becoming

You have no idea how vastly I love you for your prompt, Anon.

I took this prompt on for many reasons.

As an ally, it's imperative to respect and uplift all forms of love. It becomes a problem when we actively seek it out for the "entertainment value." There are people behind those alternative lifestyles with their own struggles on a daily basis. They are human, not 2d paper and pen figment of some of all perversions. They're not here to be anyone's form of sexual excitement, period. If someone asked me now why had so much more homosexual pairings instead of hetero, I got my receipts for each and every one of them, and I promise "they so cute" is not my first thought. If it is for you, well might give this a thought or two. And, no, I am NOT singling anyone out, never that.😌

Anyways, I'm off my soapbox now. I just felt l I owed it to my friends out there to say that they aren't just "quirky, gay babies, uwu."

That said, you'll have to pry booty shorts-wearing, nail polish bedazzling Connor from my cold, dead hands. I know he can be a BAMF, break my neck, and still be adorable while doing so. That's just gospel, sis. 😏

Markus and Connor had decided to go public with their relationship sooner rather than later for a myriad of reasons. There was a history between the two that no Android alive now would forget.

The famous deviant leader and the infamous deviant hunter now in a romantic relationship was the talk of New Jericho.

Of course, those hurt during the period of time that Connor had not Hu deviated was the louder voice heard from the masses. They didn't establish the 'ex' on deviant hunter for a reason. They were bitter, intimidated, and above all else, felt the relationship between the two men betrayed something that Markus had pledged to them. So long as Connor was just there acting as the security on his off time from the DPD, no one cared. As soon as he showed true signs of his deviation, that he could indeed understand the concept of emotions like love... Well, to many that was unacceptable. What about their friends and possible lost lovers in the original Jericho? They, the murmuring androids, knew that he would have been shackled to his programming, that until it was broken, he would have been just as much a slave to his protocol as they would have been in his place.

The funny thing about emotions though is it tended to make you irrational.

Connor was forever cautious when at New Jericho despite Markus and North, Josh, and Simon finally taking him under their wing. He heard those murmurs, though. It wasn't like he did not have good hearing. Then there were the social protocols that let him know that others were uncomfortable around him. Maybe they glanced away upon looking at him or more obviously changed positions to get away from wherever he strolled.

Connor hated the feeling but he wore the mass shunning like a Scarlet Letter around his neck.

Markus and the others knew of Connor's treatment. Markus often publicly condemned the behavior. It worked for some, others revolted against it. That's when they changed tactics.

Connor immediately became apprehensive about the sudden change in behavior over the next month. No longer did those who meet him look away or run from him, but more and more an odd behavior happened in some.

Connor was met with blushes, flustered looks while others, male, female, or other, looked at him with a look that could only be described as hostility mixed with lust. It caused him to recoil away from those who wore those looks, recalling how North had confided candidly in him, shared memories of how she'd been treated. Those human faces matched those of these Androids.

Markus had come to him without him knowing, so caught up in the sea of emotions he was, pulling him away.

When Connor looked at the other man, his face looked tired. He looked overall defeated and hurt. Before Connor could ask, Markus took him back to his office and gently sat him in his office chair behind Markus all in one desktop he used to interface with when going over things. It was not long before North busted in the office, Simon right behind her, both taking there side by Connor. Josh came in lathe st closing the door and locked it.

Connor was wary. What was going on? Markus began talking to him telling him about how about a month or so ago a new online group had been created, a forum. It revolved around their relationship solely. He told Connor that the maker of the room was in custody, as well as several of the main instigators, that he was heartbroken that this was happening, that he should have done more and to not concern himself, he was taking care of it and to never look at the site as they worked to close it down for good.

The LED on Connor's temple pulsed yellow and Markus had to stop him from searching for it, instead interfaced with the PC front of him on his desk. He knew Connor would want to go to it regardless. He was too inquisitive for his own good.

The website seemed pretty benign, it even had a cute shorthand for their relationship as 'RK1K' or 'R1000'.

Connor gently shed the human skin and interfaced with the site.

It was wasn't cute or sweet at all if the tightening if his other hand on the armrest indicated with the squeal of leather in the starkly quiet room. North's fiery glare was in one screen as well though she gently pulled his fingers away from the chair willing him to grab at her own hand, even if his strength in his stress crushed it. Simon placed a resting friendly hand on his thigh, sad eyes turned up to him.

Markus wrapped his arms around his lover's shoulders and rested his head on one shoulder, also taking in the devastating effects of what misguided hatred could do again with Connor.

The tears came naturally to his eyes as he took in the sheer volume of disrespectful post one after another. Pictures and videos edit made to look very realistic of Connor in a very harmful or demeaning role in his relationship with Markus.

They really did have him as if he was just Markus' slave, literal pet, or even more insulting, just a hole to use, eluding Markus still remained with North but they agreed to this arrangement due to her history as a known sex model. This was insulting to not only him but also North, cheapening her struggle.

Others said that this was his new attack on the android leader: get him used to him, in a relationship with himself, and then when they were in the throes of passion he'd strike like some twisted black widow.

The group chat was abhorrent. Connor to them was little more than a beautiful carcass. He meant nothing to them but they'd be willing to bed him. The female-presenting androids made him little more than just some sort of soft, weak invalid that lived only for Markus to dominate in and out of the bedroom. Others just lusted for them both, striping everything that was Markus and Connor away to nothing but rutting animals, nothing further.

The screen turned off with the withdraw of Connor's hand from it. He was up and out of the chair on his way, away from here. He could not do this with these people.

Markus was right after him.

North and Simon were calling all Androids on the campus for a meeting while Josh had been working on ways to fully dismantle such an awful website.

About time Markus caught up to Connor, he was in a self-driving cab, whisking away from New Jericho, Markus knew most likely to Hank's House called his own to go there.

The meeting went exactly as one would expect from two extremely pissed leaders, one who could remain level headed regardless, and the third finally joined giving the names of the known accused and that the site was permanently shut down. There was no grumbling because they knew that it would be more issues. They all have seen Connor flee the compound, markus on his heels.

For however angry North was, nothing would compare to Markus when he showed that side of him to the people that caused this and the others that cast a blind eye to this sort of abuse, allowing for it.

When Connor reached Hank's door, he knocked hard but couldn't see well due to the tears. His face was flushed as they poured down his face. It was not long before the older father figure lieutenant let Connor inside just as Markus pulled up in his own taxi.

After Hank was assured Markus was not the cause of Connor's distress, he was admitted into the house as well. Markus immediately went and held on to Connor. They were both hurting from that level of hatred.

Of course, Markus would be upset and just as hurt as if the subject matter was him. He loved Connor and the sheer disrespect for the one he cared for was a slap in the face to him, as well.

The situation was explained to Hank, who was livid for them both, and sad that the other Androids couldn't see Connor for himself. Dad powers activated and Connor would stay with him for a while, away from Jericho.

Weeks pass, Markus is hurting and the rest of the leaders can see just how much Connor helped with smoothing the frayed edges in Markus own personality when he was tired, hurt. He tended to be snappish, not meaning to be. While he still did everything required, the whole of Jericho started to understand the gravity of the situation.

Sure, there would still be those who just treated the situation like Markus lost a favorite toy like Connor wasn't even a person, to begin with. As if Markus was throwing a tantrum in the face of genuine mistreatment.

Others though would likely see the pain they caused, fear what would happen if, though unlikely but improbable, Markus decided to walk away from all of this as a leader in the Deviants for his lover.

There are very real rumors.

It's not like they don't see Josh counseling his friend and brother daily when Markus anxiously paces the floor, the sometimes bitter and harsh words directed at no one stating the same grief he feels from this strife of his people and who he's chosen to love in the end. Or how he leaves all things that can be to the three leaders now, where before it wasn't an issue to wear that heavy crown of leadership primarily. Or how when he can he sneaks off to the old human Lieutenant's house to see the ex-deviant hunter and second he can because of that love.

Yeah, the vast majority of people are feeling like they fucked up, including any androids who dared to join in with this witch hunt for Connor and they were part of the group he directly deviated and saved from Cyberlife.

Fractions start to happen among the group, those for and against Connor's presence like finally some of those saved remembered some semblance of loyalty to him. North is fucking done with this shit. All she knows is that she misses her awkward murder baby that is so much more than just arm candy to Markus and it takes both Simon and Josh to keep her from charging into another dispute of Connor this week.

"Shut the fuck up! You have no idea what you are talking about, the person you are trying to tear down just because of his past and programming."

Of course, she'd vested. It was an explicit reminder of her own life before Jericho and how people, human and Android, loved to devalue someone with a sexual abuse past.

Connor's was mentally and emotionally abuse he suffered. The abuse was abuse at the end of the day. He had confided in her. She had seen Amanda...

From that day on, it seemed quieter about the Connor subject.

Six months.

It took six months of Markus creeping to see his lover that felt an outcast, North railing at any Android who dared speak ill of Connor, and Simon and Josh going to see him at the old lieutenant's house.

Simon had missed Connor, too. Though he was quieter about the whole thing, it didn't mean he didn't suffer the same.

Connor was so unique. He could be so cold and calculating in the heat of the moment, gun out, ready to go. But in private, talking about the 'family' dog Sumo, sharing snapshots of him, and talking about a new soft sweater he thought Simon might like as well.

Simon helped Connor with his identity as a homosexual man and as such, they bonded together. Between him and North scheming when they had a night out, it was so hilarious and refreshing.

He missed him.

Josh enjoyed Connor's brand of humor. It was dry as the Sahara, and typically delivered deadpan and it murdered him. Connor did laugh like a madman, but it was typically in Markus presence at his dry humor or sarcasm.

All the while Connor was gone, Markus and Connor talked about the dilemma. Whether Markus came and got him for lunch or they met after work at Hank's place, they talked about it, kept their communication strong, and their relationship stronger. It had been hard for them, and blame had been spread, mostly hurt fueled from Connor's side to Markus initially that this even happened under their leadership. Markus mutely had taken it, feeling as though he could have done more. Then Connor would apologize, realizing that his past was not anyone else fault but his own, that he deserved this treatment to which Markus would rally against, telling him he was good and kind, no he most definitely did not deserve this disrespect. In time, the storm calmed between them and Connor knew what to do.

On a cool, wet morning in October, Connor Anderson moved back into New Jericho, back into the living quarters with one Markys Manfred. Sure, there were murmurs but nothing like before.

One android saw this again felt some sort of way about Connor and his existence at Jericho. Just as she readied her verbal barbs, another shut her down before she could even start.

Connor witness it; Markus did too, as did North, Simon, and Josh as they were welcoming him back. A majority of people saw this brave soul stand up for one of their leaders as they had never done before.

It makes a difference in the way Connor is perceived and treated. Instead of the leadership having to police the situation, the fear of another common android speaking out for Connor and against the naysayer's curves the negative vibe that attempts to take hold again.

Connor is now welcomed back by the majority of New Jericho, not the minority, and things are back to running smoothly as before he left.

#rk1k #rk1000 #conkus #marnor #dbh #connor x markus #ask #anonymous #post canon #tw: mlm fetishizing #tw: depression #tw: relationship struggles #tw: cyberbullying #whole ass story #enjoy

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mrozek · 4 years

Text

Upgrades || Chapter 1: Dream Sequencing

MODEL RK800

SERIAL#: 313 248 317

BIOS 18.6 UPDATE 0609

REBOOT…

MEMORY DOWNLOADED

LOADING OS…

SYSTEM INITIALIZATION…

CHECKING BIOCOMPONENTS… OK

INITIALIZING BIOSENSORS… OK

INITIALIZING AI ENGINE… OK

ALL SYSTEMS OK

UPDATE COMPLETE

READY

Connor blinked awake, a white walled room coming into focus around him. The technician was standing to his front, slightly to the right, looking down at the readings she was taking on her digital clipboard. Hank was sitting in a chair against the far wall, eyes narrowed in concentration. As soon as he realized Connor was conscious he stood quickly; the look of relief was not lost on the deviant and Connor smiled at his friend.

“Everything seems to be in working order,” the technician said, her own face carrying the generic look of professionalism. Connor remembered she had introduced herself as Rachel Hodds; a scan had revealed that she had worked with Cyberlife but had actually quit of her own accord when deviancy started occurring. Her morals had prevented her from working for a company that was looking to quash the budding humanity, which was probably why she had been one of the first hired by the new android clinic.

“How do you feel, son?” Hank asked.

Hank asked Connor how he felt a lot. It was a question that could come up in most conversations, and there were varying ways to answer it. A lot of the time Connor had a hard time answering it—he was still figuring his way around emotions, even though it had been a good six months since achieving deviancy and androids gaining their freedom. But this time, this time!, Connor had the answer.

“I’m very excited,” he said. His LED was a bright, flashing blue in agreement.

Any wariness Hank might have had cleared away in that moment, leaving a bright, genuine smile stretched across his face.

“I just need you to fill out some paperwork regarding whether you’d like to report the results of your upgrade to help further progress on any future updates, and then you’ll be officially discharged. Enjoy your sleep, Mr. Anderson.” Rachel left him with the paperwork, which he agreed to—he quite liked the idea that he’d be able to benefit other deviants by self-reporting.

It had taken some time, and the cooperation of Jericho, the United States Government, and Elijah Kamski himself, but eventually it had been determined that as long as androids had a hand in it, Kamski, and other organizations (though Cyberlife had been completely dissolved), would be able to create new software and firmware for deviants. Creating entirely new androids was still illegal, and probably would continue to be for some time, as Jericho wasn’t eager to give that sort of power back to humans, and humans didn’t want androids just creating more of themselves en masse until the number of androids far surpassed the number of humans. But for software and firmware there had been a go-ahead, and so of course a rush to actually, successfully create something that was economically and technologically viable. It was, sort of, a race to see who would fill the hole left by Cyberlife.

There had been several available upgrades, though many of them didn’t apply to Connor. He was, after all, the most advanced android Cyberlife had ever made, and he’d stay that way forever—which was an unnerving thought if he dwelled on it too long. He was happy that older android models were finally being given comparable upgrades, though, and this made them not just sturdier, but more human-like.

And then this, very exciting, trial upgrade had been announced. They were only looking for models introduced to the market from 2036 and forward, and of those models they would only choose the ones that had memory upload features, which were a necessary part of this new upgrade. Rumor had it that Kamski himself had designed it, and that once it was successfully implemented in enough of the newer models, they would find ways to patch it into older models that wanted it as well.

Connor had never wanted anything as badly in life as to recieve the upgrade. Hank made him wait a couple weeks, to make sure the very first deviants didn’t suffer any horrible side affects. There had been a few bumps in the road, but nothing life threatening, and nothing Connor wasn’t willing to risk.

Because the upgrade allowed androids to dream.

Or, as close to dream as androids could get. But from the reports other deviants had given, it was a seemless simulation. When he went into standby mode, all his memories that he had collected from the day (and any previous memories he had) would be combined with the database of literature he’d consumed, films he’d watched, advertisements he’d come across—you name it, if his program had come in contact with it and absorbed it in any way, it was up for grabs—and all these things would mix and randomize, and, with the help of his AI engine, become a dream. Early reports even claimed that time warped, much like in human dreams, and that it was a truly unique experience.

Negative side affects so far had included nightmares, and Connor was well prepared for that. Sumo slept in his room every night, and Hank had made Connor promise that if he had a bad nightmare he would wake Hank up and they would keep each other company until Connor felt better. There were also some reports of deviants having a hard realizing they were actually awake once the dream ended, though they also all claimed that within a fifteen minute period they had figured it out, and that even if it happened for a couple days in a row, they eventually acclimated and the problem didn’t persist.

And Connor really was, genuinely, excited! It was late afternoon when they arrived home and he wanted to launch standby mode immediately, and Hank chuckled at his eagerness.

“Don’t you want to try to add more memories to the program, kid?” He asked.

Connor thought about it for a moment and was torn. Certainly he had enough memories as it stood…. But he also liked the idea of going into standby when Hank was asleep. Technically he could force himself into a longer standby than he normally took—six hours was optimum for an RK model—but he didn’t want to try doing that on his very first night of dreaming.

They agreed on taking Sumo for a walk. It was early summer now, the days humid. Hank was often miserable, and he grumbled as they set out, but even his grumbling was in good humor because Connor’s excitement was infectious. Sumo even seemed to be bounding more than usual. They walked the big dog all the way to the park, and let him off lead for a bit to chase some squirrels.

In the weeks leading to his upgrade Connor had pestered Hank about his own dreams. “Slow down, kid, or you’re just going to have my dreams instead of your own,” Hank had said. While Connor didn’t believe that was possible, he did take to heart that setting his expectations up too high, comparing them to Hank’s own dreams, might make his own experience disappointing. Might make him think he needed to have any particular dreams.

So he’d turned his attention to researching dreams. Humans still weren’t sure why they dreamed, though the pervading theory, and the one used when developing the upgrade, was that it helped them catalogue the day, to deal with all the complications of being alive. There was some hope that dreaming would help deviants adjust, as well.

“Did you know that humans used to believe that dreams were prophetic?” Connor asked as they watched Sumo play.

“Yeah, they were still teaching Freud when I was in high school,” Hank said.

Connor had looked up Sigmud Freud quite a bit and could never quite grasp why people had put so much stock in him. “In many ancient civilizations people with particularly vivid dreams were thought to be prophets. Isn’t it interesting that this was happening all over the globe, even in cultures completely isolated from one another?”

Hank agreed it was, but wasn’t it interesting that other countries were now also dealing with deviancy, many cases seemingly sprung up out of nowhere, just as it had started in Detroit. “I guess ideas can’t be stopped,” Hank said.

Connor liked that. He liked that quite a lot.

When it was finally time to go to sleep, Connor laid down in his bed, pulled the covers up, turned off the lights, and waited for Sumo to join him. He patiently petted the dog until he found a comfortable position and curled up. It felt like there was a buzzing in his stomach—aniticipation, he thought. His LED whirred between a pale yellow to a bright blue. Anticipation and nervousness and excitement.

And then he entered standby mode.

INITIALIZING STANDBY…

UPLOADING MEMORY…

SCANNING BIOCOMPONENTS…

BIOCOMPONENTS UP TO DATE

PROGRAM READY

LAUNCHING DREAM SEQUENCING…

Connor was taking Sumo on his walk. The dog was bounding ahead of him and Hank was next to him. And Hank was behind him talking to someone. It might have been Sigmund Freud, but he looked like one of Hank’s favorite basketball players.

Connor took Sumo to the aquarium. They walked inside as if it were normal for a dog to be in there; Sumo chased an angel fish. It swam out of its tank and into the air in front of them, weaving around mindless of the dog. Hank and Sigmund were still there. Hank and Sigmund weren’t around.

Connor stopped in front of the eel exhibit. He knew that the eels were nowhere near the angel fish. One of the eels stopped swimming and stared him down. It was an android, too. There was a sign on the tank that said it was a deviant eel. “Hello,” Connor said to it. “I’m a deviant, too.” What did it feel like to be an eel? He wondered. The eel swam away.

Connor was surrounded by dogs of all breeds. They were roaming the aquarium, some of them stopping to stare at the fish. He didn’t see Sumo anywhere. There was Sumo. Someone was petting him. They looked familiar and they looked up as Connor approached and they were laughing. Connor started laughing. The other person was petting Sumo behind the ears, just the way Sumo liked it.

The world was turning blue all around them, like they were the ones under water. The fish were growing! A crab made it’s way past them, larger than even Sumo. Hank was there, now, replacing whoever had been petting Sumo. He said something and Connor didn’t hear it but he understood that Hank was hungry. They followed the crab.

Outside of the aquarium was the Chicken Feed. Hank went to order. Sumo went to order. Connor stood in the shade of a tree and looked up into the branches. The leaves on the tree were varying shades of white and green. Hank joined him because now there was a table there. There were many tables, all around, and they were filled with his coworkers. Some of them waved to him. Everyone was eating a burger and had a milkshake.

Hank handed him a burger. “Are you ready to go to sleep?” He asked.

“Yes, I’m very excited, Hank!” Connor knew Hank liked it when he expressed his emotions clearly. “What do you think I’ll dream about tonight?” Connor was seized with the desire to go home now. He’d been waiting for this for a while. It was nice that Hank had brought him to the aquarium to build up some dream fodder.

Connor took a bite of the hamburger and it didn’t taste like anything. He didn’t understand human food. He took a sip of his shake. It was cool but flavorless. Made of thirium. What a good idea! How had they gotten the consistency like this?

LAUNCHING WAKE MODE…

It did take a moment for Connor to realize he was awake. He mourned the loss of his thirium milkshake. Perhaps those actually existed? A quick search on the internet told him they did not.

Had… had he imagined them? From scratch?

Dreaming was even better than he could have imagined! He couldn’t keep his smile off his face and had to prevent himself from waking Hank early to tell him all about his dream. It was enough for him to tell Sumo—multiple times—about their adventures at the aquarium and about the thirium milkshake. He also wrote up an in-depth report to send to the android clinic, making sure to keep every detail in place and not to make up any extra. He saved a copy for himself so he could look back at it.

Connor was telling everyone about his dream. Hank had heard the story twice in full, once as soon as he woke up (“Slow down, Con, I want to hear it, but I won’t understand until I’ve had my coffee!”) and once in the car ride. And Connor kept explaining about the thirium milkshake, which Hank thoroughly agreed was a great product idea and that if he invented it he could probably retire early.

At the station he was too jittery to do any work right away. Officer Brown—Luke, Connor had to remind himself to use his coworker’s first names; the friendly ones preferred it—had asked if everything was all right and Connor had launched straight into telling him about his dream. He had a moment of feeling self conscious but Luke could tell that Connor was genuinely excited about it and encouraged the story to continue. Another of the police androids, a PM700 named Cresseida, overheard. She booked it over to him and Connor restarted his story so she could hear the whole thing. Both Luke and Cresseida agreed that a thirium milkshake was a great idea.

And from then on during the day, ever time Connor ran into a coworker he was friendly with, he made sure to tell them about his dream. The rumor went around that he had had his first dream and a few people even came up and asked about it.

He ran into Tina as she was getting coffee in the break room, Detective Reed with her. Connor and Detective Reed had become friendly with one another, but Connor wasn’t sure if it was the sort of friendly that meant it was okay to share his dream. But Tina loved talking, and she genuinely enjoyed Connor’s company, so he told her all about it.

“And you were in the dream! Actually, most of the department was, we were all eating burgers under the tree.” Connor glanced at Detective Reed. The man was watching him, face carefully neutral. “I think you were there, too, Detective,” Connor said. And he paused in his telling—normally this was his favorite part, because it was where he got to talk about his completely imagined thirium milkshake—because perhaps Gavin Reed had been in another part of the dream as well? It took less than a second to scan through his recall of the dream and to double check that against the report he’d sent in. There was a figure who he couldn’t remember who it had been—they’d been petting Sumo at the aquarium. He shook it away; why would he be dreaming about Detective Reed?

“The burger didn’t taste like anything,” Connor said. “But then I had a thirium milkshake!” He beamed at them, proud.

Tina was smiling, pleased with the story.

“I didn’t know there was such a thing as a thirium milkshake. Not that I’ve ever looked into it,” Detective Reed mused. He kept his voice even. Connor wondered if that meant the detective was annoyed with the story.

But this was the perfect opportunity to brag about his imagination. “They don’t exist. I came up with it all on my own.”

“That’s awesome, Con!” Tina slapped his shoulder in comaraderie. “Keep me updated on your dreams, won’t you?” He agreed to do it and left the break room, sparing a look at Detective Reed, maybe lingering a moment longer than necessary on the other man. He even took a picture, LED spinning yellow for a quick moment as he processed it. Just in case he had dreamt about him last night. Just in case he was going to dream about him again—he wanted to make sure he had all the details right.

PROGRAM READY

LAUNCHING DREAM SEQUENCING…

Connor was in the zen garden. It was much the same as he remembered it from his early days as an android—flush and full of life and color. He half expected to see Amanda somewhere, pruning the flowers, but he knew he was alone. He knew he wasn’t alone, because Hank was there. He was sitting on a patch of grass along the river. He was holding a gun.

Connor was standing in front of Hank, the gun pointed directly at him. “Is this android heaven?” Hank asked him. “Is this where you go when you die?”

Connor didn’t have an answer for that. He was afraid, he thought he and Hank had worked past this. Hank had let Connor move in with him, take the extra bedroom. Hank trusted Connor. What was Hank doing in the zen garden? But when Connor looked around, it wasn’t the garden, it was the park by the bridge. The one Hank used to take Cole to. The one where he had held a gun against Connor’s head, many months ago.

Connor was holding the gun, now. He was pressing it against Hank’s head. Hank was unflinching. “You won’t shoot, Connor. You already have too much blood on your hands.”

And they were dripping, dripping with thirium. Hank couldn’t see the thirium—it dissipated after several hours and was only visible to androids. But it was dripping off his fingers, into the snow. The snow was piling up, nearing his knees, and it was stained blue.

It was someone else standing in front of him, now. Many someone’s at once. Tina Chen, Markus, Rachel Hodds, Gary Woodfoot (a regular patron at the Chicken Feed; Connor only knew his name from a scan he’d done, and not because they’d ever spoken; Gary Woodfoot seemed like a good person), Micah Landling (he owned the corner store Connor like to get his thirium refills at). “Why did you shoot us?” They all asked at once. “Why did you shoot me, Connor?” They became one person, they became Connor. A version of Connor—RK800-60, who had be sent against him in the Cyberlife tower.

“Why did you shoot me, Connor? Why did you kill me?” He asked himself.

Had he killed him? Hadn’t Hank pulled the trigger?

“I never had a chance to live, Connor. I never had a chance to become a deviant.”

Connor was holding the gun again. He was pointing it at RK800-60. He was pointing it at himself. They had the same memories, even if their bodies hadn’t both experienced everything. Memories are what shaped a person, they were the important parts. 60 had never had a chance to go deviant, that was the difference. Connor had realized he was alive, 60 had died without ever experiencing one emotion.

Connor pulled the trigger. He killed 60. He killed himself.

LAUNCHING WAKE MODE…

It was early.

STRESS LEVELS 79%

STRESS LEVELS 80%

STRESS LEVELS 81%

Sumo was asleep next to him, his body rumbling gently. Connor threaded a hand through Sumo’s fur—he couldn’t feel it, per se, but he could feel the steady beating of Sumo’s heart, the regular breaths, the life that pushed forward.

STRESS LEVELS 81%

Connor’s LED was a steady, bright red. He knew because it was casting the whole room in its awful, bloody light.

STRESS LEVELS 80%

Hank had made Connor promise to wake him up if he had a bad nightmare. What determined if it was a bad nightmare? Connor wondered. It was too early to wake Hank, he’d be grumpy, surely.

But Connor was already on his feet, carefully moving out from under the covers so that Sumo didn’t wake. Hank had made Connor promise after all, and Connor didn’t want to break his promise with him. He could give Hank an out, let him know he’d had a nightmare, but he was dealing with it fine. He could function like a normal human.

STRESS LEVELS 81%

STRESS LEVELS 82%

STRESS LEVELS 83%

Standing outside Hank’s bedroom door Connor kept replaying the ending of his dream. He had memories of being killed, of being deactivated. This was like all those memories, except it was worse because he’d known, and he hadn’t known, it was a paradox, that when he pulled the trigger, when he killed 60, he was killing himself. He was killing a himself that had never really been himself.

STRESS LEVELS 84%

STRESS LEVELS 85%

STRESS LEVELS 86%

He pushed the door open. Hank didn’t snore so much as choke on air occasionally, but he refused medical help for it. He was a light sleeper when he hadn’t been drinking.

STRESS LEVELS 86%

“Hank?” Connor called quietly from the doorway. He didn’t want to go all the way in. He didn’t want to wake Hank up. He wanted Hank to wake up because he didn’t want to be alone with his nightmare. Hank didn’t stir.

“Hank?” He tried again, a little louder. He heard Sumo getting up from Connor’s own bed. The squeeze of the springs in the mattress, the sound of a big dog landing on the ground. Clicking from Sumo’s nails against the hardwood. He pushed past Connor and into Hank’s room. The dog looked over at Connor as if to ask why he wouldn’t just come further into the room.

STRESS LEVELS 86%

“Hank, wake up,” Connor said, a little louder. He knew, logically, that it wasn’t enough to properly wake Hank. He didn’t think he could make his voice much louder.

Sumo jumped onto the bed and Connor held a breath he didn’t need to take, LED whirring a quicker red as he took in Hank shifting over, muttering something under his breath, and Sumo curling up against his side. But Hank didn’t wake up.

STRESS LEVELS 87%

STRESS LEVELS 88%

STRESS LEVELS 89%

It was his fear of his stress levels climbing so high that actually prompted him to action. He slammed his hand over the light switch, bathing the room in a warm and creamy brightness. Connor couldn’t be sure if it was the sound of his hand connecting to the wall or the light turning on that caused Hank to jerk upright in bed, but he didn’t care.

“What’s wrong!” Hank cried out, clearly still gathering himself together. His blurry eyes connected with Connor standing in the doorway, he saw the way his LED was spiraling, he saw the way Connor stood there frozen.

“Hank I had a nightmare,” Connor said. It wasn’t a whisper, but it was too quiet for a regular conversation. He felt instantly childish, though.

“Okay,” Hank said. “Sumo, move.” He shoved the dog gently and got up, clearly still tired.

“I’m sorry for waking you,” Connor said, still softly.

Hank approached and touched his shoulder gently. “I’m glad you woke me up. Come on, Con, let’s turn some more lights on. Go out to the living room. Do you want to tell me about it?”

He ended up telling Hank in as few details as he could. He wrote a report to send to the clinic, again leaving out the details, and he deleted the report from his system after he sent it. Regardless, it seemed as if the memory of the nightmare was branded into his memory banks. It was all he could think about.

After he told Hank about it, Hank had turned on the television. He’d turned on a program where people brought items they’d found around their house, or had inherited, or bought at a yard sale, that they thought might make money, and showed the items to experts. Sometimes there were interesting stories behind the items. Most of the time nothing was worth much at all. But Connor liked the softness of the voices, and how kind everyone was, even the ones who were being told they had a piece of garbage.

Hank drank a lot of coffee. He went through a whole pot before they even got to work. On the drive over he bought a large from a drive through. Normally Connor would reprimand such a thing, but he was incredibly thankful Hank had stayed up with him, kept him company. Helped scare the nightmare away.

“It’s a little exciting, though, isn’t it Con? Your first time experiencing a nightmare. Humans get them, too. It’s a part of dreaming. It’s a part of being alive. It’s a part of that same imagination that came up with thirium milkshakes,” Hank said. He’d smiled out of one side of his mouth.

Connor tried thinking about the nightmare like that. It was exciting, he supposed. He hoped he never had a nightmare again, though he knew that was unlikely. “I’ll get better at dealing with them,” Connor said. Hank agreed.

“But you can come to me any time you need, Con.”

“When you have nightmares you can come to me, as well, Hank.”

Hank smiled widely at that. They were pulling into the precinct parking lot. “I’ll hold you to that, kid.”

Connor was feeling much better as they walked into work. There was a pile of paperwork they needed to get to, a few phone calls Connor needed to make. They planned to make a visit down to the court house for some records, as well, though they’d probably pair that up with lunch, since Hank hated leaving more than he needed to.

Unfortunately, after yesterday, when he had told practically everyone excitedly about his dream, he now had a lot of his coworkers coming up to him and asking how his dreaming went last night. He tried to keep the discomfort off his face, and to keep it lighthearted. He tried to look at it the way Hank had told him.

“I had my first nightmare,” Connor said. “It was an exciting experience! I hope I never have another.” He repeated these and similar platitudes throughout the morning.

When Hank had gotten through his coffee Connor went to get him a new one from the break room without being asked. On his way out he ran into Detective Reed.

“I, uh, heard you had a nightmare.” Again, Detective Reed’s voice was carefully neutral. Connor braced himself for whatever he might say next. “Um, well, whenever I have nightmares, when I wake up, I take a warm shower. Helps chase it away.” Detective Reed cleared his throat.

“Thank you for your advice, detective,” Connor said. His voice was steady, even though he felt that buzzing in his stomach again.

“Right, well, yeah.” And then Reed was brushing past him and into the break room. Connor filed his advice away for the next time he had a bad dream.

It was with a great deal of hesitation that Connor laid down for sleep that night. He’d pushed it back as far as long as he could; Sumo was already snuggled up on the bed. Hank had given Connor a sad look, like he was remembering how excited Connor had been the first time around. He tried to conjure up that same excitement, remind himself of how great his first dream had been. How proud he’d been of the thirium milkshake.

INITIALIZING STANDBY…

UPLOADING MEMORY…

SCANNING BIOCOMPONENTS…

BIOCOMPONENTS UP TO DATE

PROGRAM READY

LAUNCHING DREAM SEQUENCING…

Connor was at the precinct, sitting at his desk. Hank was across from him, eating a box of donuts. Connor reached out and ate one. It didn’t taste like anything and he wondered why Hank would be eating things that didn’t taste like anything. He reminded himself he didn’t have taste buds, and that maybe to Hank they tasted good.

Connor leaned back and scanned the department. Or tried to scan, nothing seemed to come up. That should have concerned him but he didn’t mind. He looked at his computer screen. There were fish swimming around on it.

Connor was sitting in the break room looking at the microwave where fish were swimming around. There were so many in there, he wondered if they were happy. Perhaps they were android fish. He got up to check and opened the microwave door. The water started pouring up and filling his shoes, but the fish kept swimming as if there was nothing wrong. He knelt down to take his shoes off.

Connor was kneeling on his bed. He wasn’t wearing any shoes and he wasn’t wearing a shirt. The door was closed. It was his room but it didn’t look like this room, there weren’t as many details. It was dark around the edges, but not in a frightening way. It was sort of like how the edges of a picture might be slightly darker.

Someone was on the bed with him. They were lying on their back. They also weren’t wearing their shirt or shoes. They were wearing mismatched socks.

Connor’s thirium pump seemed to skip a beat and he swallowed hard.

And then he was leaning forward and time seemed to slow. Leaning towards the other person. His right hand went to frame their face, fingers gently tracing down their cheek and jaw. The other person pressed their face against his palm, asking for more attention. Demanding more attention. Connor was so close now, his left hand brushing against the other person’s side. They arched up, closing the distance between their bare chests.

Connor didn’t know what his stress levels were. He couldn’t tell what color his LED was. The other person was cupping the back of his head, drawing him in closer, drawing him in for a kiss.

And then Connor was kissing Gavin Reed and Gavin Reed was kissing Connor.

He let go, let himself fall, press himself against the other man. Followed where his fingers had been with his mouth, mapping Gavin’s face with his lips and tongue. He felt where Gavin’s hands moved along his torso, dropping closer and closer to the waistband of his pants, and he mourned the fact that he couldn’t actually feel in the way that a human could. What he wouldn’t give for nerve endings and sensitivity.

But it was pleasure all the same as Gavin slipped his fingers below Connor’s pants, tugged them down slightly. And it was pleasure when Connor licked a stripe down Gavin’s neck and nipped at his ear, earning himself a growl and a moan and a flush face. It was a delicious response and Connor repeated the nip along the ear lobe. Gavin kept one hand below Connor’s pants, dragging them down even further, but he drew his other up so that he could fist it in Connor’s hair, pull him closer.

Closer, closer, Connor needed to close the gaps between them. He knew he was growing hard, especially with Gavin’s hand right there, almost there,

“Please, Gavin, I need you to touch me, Ga—”

LAUNCHING WAKE MODE…

“—vin!”

His thirium pump was racing, his internal temperature higher than it typically was (though not dangerously so).

STRESS LEVELS 62%

He was still hard. That had kept from the dream. Sumo was just waking up next to him, yawning, his morning breath stinking up in Connor’s face. That did a good job in getting Connor back to normal, softening him back to how he typically was. He’d never had much use for those functions before, and it was a strange sensation to feel so constricted against his pants.

Gavin had been going to take his pants off. He wasn’t so naive that he didn’t know what had been about to happen.

Detective Reed. His coworker. It was incredibly unprofessional of him to be having a dream like that, to be wishing it wasn’t a dream. Reed didn’t even like him. Okay, perhaps he’d gotten friendlier in the past months, but there was no world where Gavin Reed wanted what Connor had just dreamt about.

STRESS LEVELS 58%

Taking care of Sumo was helping to put Connor back in order. He let the dog out, got his breakfast ready, started on making a breakfast for Hank. He didn’t do this every morning, but he wanted every distraction he could get, plus he’d let Hank have too much coffee yesterday.

He debated sending a report to the clinic and decided against including any details. He merely wrote that he had a dream, not a nightmare, and that everything seemed to be working well.

(Secretly he wished he could have taken pictures during his dream. Certainly, he had a perfect memory, and he wouldn’t forget a single detail as long as he catalogued them. But he also wanted still images, wanted to have been able to capture the way Gavin’s face flushed, the way he’d lain on the bed, big eyes, expecting Connor to come to him. The way he’d looked wanting Connor to come to him.)

STRESS LEVELS 53%

Hank woke up just in time for Connor’s LED to return to it’s normal blue.

STRESS LEVELS 49%

He thanked Connor for the breakfast but still went directly to the coffee machine.

“Perhaps you’ll consider tea this morning, Hank,” Connor said.

Hank ignored him. “How was your dream last night?” He asked, sitting down with his warm mug and the plate of bacon (turkey bacon, 313 calories, 0g sugar) and eggs (scrambled, 91 calories, 0.8g sugar).

STRESS LEVELS 51%

STRESS LEVELS 50%

His LED blinked yellow for a second and then went back to blue. He knew Hank took notice of it but he tried to brush past it. “My dreams last night were very eventful. Thank you for asking.”

Hank eyed him up and down, taking a bite from the bacon.

STRESS LEVELS 51%

STRESS LEVELS 50%

“Yeah? Use that imagination of yours at all? Any more thirium milkshakes?”

STRESS LEVELS 51%

STRESS LEVELS 50%

“Yes, I used my imagination quite a bit.” Connor turned away from Hank to tidy the frying pan.

“Connor, hey, if you had another nightmare you can tell me. It’s okay. I wouldn’t have minded you waking me up again. Besides, I wasn’t that grouchy yesterday.” Connor didn’t have to see his friend to know just how worried he was making Hank. He tried a deep breath and then turned around to answer.

“Thank you, Hank, but I didn’t have a nightmare.”

STRESS LEVELS 51%

STRESS LEVELS 50%

“I just don’t wish to talk about my dream, if that’s alright.” Connor knew his voice was stiff sounding. Machine sounding. He hated that. Lighter he said, “In fact, I think I liked it. I’m still processing it.”

“Ah.” Hank took a long drink, draining his cup completely. He met Connor’s gaze with a twinkle in his eye. “So you had a sex dream, then?”

If Connor had been drinking anything (which he couldn’t really do; he could consume thirium orally, but that was the extent of things) he would have choked on it and spit it out, like an old sitcom.

“Eh, you don’t need to say anything, Con, they’re as natural as any other sort of dream.” And then Hank was chuckling. “Who’d have thought that’d be part of the dream programming? Don’t remember seeing reports of that. Good for you, kid.”

Connor laughed then, too, tension draining from him.

After his nightmare yesterday everyone seemed to get the idea that he’d approach them if he wanted to share his dream. Things were back to normal and he was even able to drop his stress levels to well below the 30% mark, even with the difficult case they were working on.

And then Gavin Reed came over to his desk.

Hank had stepped away to talk to Fowler about something related to their case and so Connor had turned his attention to reanalyzing the footage from the crime scene. He was shocked that Detective Reed would be there; he almost never came over to Connor and Hank’s desk. But there he stood, hands in his pockets, looking grumpy as he always did.

STRESS LEVELS 45%

STRESS LEVELS 46%

STRESS LEVELS 47%

“So, uh, any more nightmares?” Reed asked.

STRESS LEVELS 47%

STRESS LEVELS 48%

STRESS LEVELS 49%

“No, I, my dreams, they, it was just a regular dream,” Connor said.

“Yeah?”

STRESS LEVELS 49%

STRESS LEVELS 50%

STRESS LEVELS 51%

His LED blinked yellow.

“Connor! Come on, we got to go now!” Hank called, already speed walking to the parking lot.

“Thank you for asking about my dreams, Detective Reed,” Connor said. Not only was his LED blinking yellow but he knew he was probably blushing as well. “It seems the Lieutenant needs me.” He didn’t wait for Reed’s response, he just booked it out of there.

Had he looked back he probably would have noticed the light blush across Gavin’s nose and cheeks. He probably would have noticed that Gavin watched him the whole way out. He probably would have noticed that Gavin then coughed to himself, shook his head slightly, and went back to his own desk as if nothing had happened.

#detroit become human #dbh #rk800 #connor #dbh gavin #convin #reed800 #fanfic #connor and hank are family #slow-burn #a little angst #a little spicy

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ramblian · 4 years

Text

Jericho Thoughts

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okay so. i’m rewatching jericho. i first watched it sometime around 8th-9th grade, I think maybe somewhere in the first half of 2014. I basically remembered this: the main character was the black sheep of the family, he came back to town, and atomic bombs destroyed most of the US, and the show was about the town dealing with the aftermath. the guy from continuum and one ep of flashpoint played a character i liked named dale (eric knudsen) who liked a popular girl who ended up befriending him, and the asking-for-flowers flashpoint ep guy was the responsible brother. Someone used to be a teacher. The main character looked like Skeet Ulrich, but i didn’t know who that was, just the name.

turns out the main character WAS Skeet Ulrich, and 2 characters (heather and emily) used to be teachers, and i apparently forgot almost all of the major characters. I’ve been rewatching it with the knowledge of which characters die, so that’s good. the show is really good, and it’s really intense. I’m almost done, and it’s tough to keep watching both because it’s so intense and because i know a character i like is about to die tragically.

watching this show makes me so TENSE. i think it really got bad when goetz showed up and i knew bonnie’s death was coming up. i’ve been watching the same episode for like an hour and i started 6 minutes in from another viewing. i don’t know why i’m so stressed. well actually i do it’s because things in this show are AWFUL but i know that no one dies after bonnie.

i also really like that the plot is very much what drives the show. romantic relationships somewhat matter (eric/april/mary, dale/skylar, and stanley/mimi in particular get screentime, while jake’s relationships with emily and heather are there and meaningful but not something that drives the story or gets a lot of attention. dale and eric’s relationships have also been less important in season 2) but they are regularly sidelined while the character deal with the latest crisis. characters have backstories that aren’t always super expanded on, like johnston’s chaotic neutral dad or stanley and bonnie’s parents, because they don’t have a meaningful impact on the plot- how mimi grew up isn’t going to change how the Greens deal with food shortages.

also, i love that it’s a post-apocalyptic show where there’s a lot of fighting and lawlessness and not once have they used rape as a plot device. the closest it ever came to being mentioned was when maggie, a survivor pretending to be military to get towns’ supplies, said that ‘out there, men only want women for one thing’ and that’s IT. i respect that so much. way too many shows and books and movies are like ‘things are bad... and we can only express that through rape’ but this show never does

also the grey morality is very well done in season 1 (the bad guys are clearer in season 2). characters fight and do shitty things because everyone is just trying to survive. Constantino was wrong to start a war with Jericho, but i also understand where he was coming from. Ravenwood ransacked New Bern and left them with almost nothing, and Jericho never bothered to warn them. There were some people considering not honoring the deal to repay the windmills in food. New Bern was on the brink of destruction and Constantino tried to get the resources for survival where he could, by force. The thing with the refugees too. There isn’t really enough food for everyone, and it’s true that Jericho’s been getting a lot of refugees when it’s barely managing to sustain its own population. Some of the refugees have been stealing from them, and sometimes you have to make tricky decisions to survive. But the refugees are also probably going to die if they get sent away, and understandably they cannot accept that. they’ve been stealing food to prepare for this possibility, and they are willing to be violent to secure their place because jericho is much better off than just about anywhere else and they don’t want to die. Roger gets in a fight with Gray and accidentally shoots him, but then actively chooses to hold him at gunpoint and refuse him medical help unless he guarantees the safety of the other refugees. That’s obviously awful- but he’s also trying to protect the lives of the 50 innocent people he brought here. In the end, the refugees get to stay because some Jericho residents volunteer to share their rations, but Roger does not because he obviously committed a terrible crime. He’s not a bad person, but of course he can’t just be forgiven and integrated back into Jericho like nothing happened, and he accepts that and leaves with only a gun from Jake to protect himself because at least the others and emily will be safe.

also that emily and roger’s relationship wasn’t made meaningless in order to further her relationship with jake even despite their history as high school sweethearts.

oh god i just watched the scene where stanley’s talking to bonnie in the morgue and it’s so well done and i’m just in bed crying- not sobbing or anything, but plenty of tears. i don’t know what the last show to make me cry like this was; i’ve been watching so much youtube that i haven’t been watching a lot of hard hitting shows lately i guess. Barry was extremely Fucked Up, that might have made me cry, but it might not have- it had me fucked up for weeks, but i don’t know if i cried.

anyway the scene with stanley and bonnie in the morgue is so good. Stanley talking to her like she’s still alive the way they always did for their parents, and talking to her sign language bc that’s her language. Telling her to say hi to their parents. Letting her know that mimi is still alive, that she succeeded in protecting her, and thanking her for it. Still joking around a little even though he’s obviously heartbroken and just being so genuine with her. Neither of them deserved this.

wow can’t believe heather is a fuckin bootlicker, knowing that the government is extremely corrupt and that she and beck are destroying new bern and choosing to continue to work for that government.

oh beck just has to be some sort of a stupid son of a bitch. absolute goddamn buffoon. siding with the govt, arresting jake in the shadiest way possible in the middle of a crowd, choosing to torture jake (which if he knew a goddamn thing like hawkins did he would know was ineffective), and then thinking that after everything this town and those rangers have done to protect themselves and their loved ones that it was just going to work out for him like the others aren’t going to come for jake immediately and efficiently. i liked beck well enough before but any fondness or respect for him is fucking absolutely gone.

at least eric is really getting to show off his leadership skills now. johnston’s dead, jake’s been arrested/kidnapped, hawkins is busy with other shit. eric’s always one of the second-in-commands but this is one of the few times he’s just plain in command.

“your friends have escalated this to a level i will not tolerate” right but you dragging jake to a fuckin blacksite to torture him was fine???? YOU ESCALATED THIS YOU DUMB STUPID SON OF A BITCH. you have really been given so many chances this season to not serve an evil government and try to protect these people and you’ve failed almost every time, huh? he’d also have to be some sort of an idiot to think that a clearly faked note with jake’s signature saying ‘this bad’ would stop anyone. god i haven’t escalated to hating someone this much so quickly in a long fuckin time.

love how beck is leveraging the entire town of jericho and choosing to oppress them in order to get the rangers to turn themselves in <3 i love punishing innocent people to use them against others just like goetz did last episode <3 what a good guy

i dont know why there are so many beck fics on ao3 because this man fucking sucks. like, can you imagine refusing a whole town food, power, and lights as a bargaining chip, blaming someone else (”don’t forget, you caused this”) and then still thinking you have the moral high ground? incredible mental gymnastics when will beck be in the olympics

heather: your actions are so blatantly terrible that i am just now beginning to consider not defending you to everyone. take responsibility for what you do

beck: hmm. no. my choices are jake’s fault

i know beck is probably going to ‘redeem’ himself by the end of the episode but i don’t fuckin care. too late for him now he can’t just say ‘oops’ and pretend he hasn’t done all of this shit. wild how his actions are now literally being compared to those of nazis during wwii and people still like this guy.

hey do you think beck is an idiot asshole or just pretending to be one for fun

commanding officer: go ahead and destroy everything in the area

beck: 🤔 is killing all those people wrong?

oof rip eric sure is rough when you have to ally with the guy who tortured you and killed your dad to protect ur city but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. also where the hell has dale been? i’ll let it go bc the show isn’t consistent on when he shows up and is a major part of town but in universe it sure is fuckin weird, and you know beck would have dragged him in for questioning too

oh wow beck finally decided to actually try thinking critically and addressing the obvious evidence about cheyenne’s corruption. that makes up for everything and i can stan now /s

‘i’m no longer taking orders from the cheyenne government. i believe it’s corrupt at its core. its actions are criminal’ oh so like everyone’s been telling you this whole time? the actions like the ones you’ve taken, not even at anyone’s command? idiot.

lmao i’m not as opposed to constantino’s methods as the show thinks i’m supposed to be. a revolution against a corrupt, oppressive government is not peaceful. it cannot be. the only good fascist is a dead one.

#jericho #jericho spoilers #in case this shows up in the tags and someone sees it or smthn

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bigskydreaming · 4 years

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@seekingxanadu

LOL I think you and I aren’t likely to ever agree on the subject of Jason’s role in the show, xanadu, as I actually like him being present and would enjoy seeing him end up more integrated into the team in the future. Yeah, there are a lot more classic Titans that they still haven’t gotten to, but IMO there’s a lot of reasons for that (like Wally and Roy currently being used elsewhere, Vic with the Doom Patrol, others perhaps ‘on hold’ because there’s always any number of projects or potential projects in the works that aren’t even announced to the public yet, etc).

Personally, I think its likely Jason’s role in the show and mythology has been expanded instead of introducing more Titans in his place for the same reason Hawk and Dove are here despite never being hugely present in Titans stories for the most part: they’re cheap.

Like tbh, that plays SO much more of a role than most people realize with shows like this, where budget concerns are constantly an issue, and special effects tend to carry the highest price tags. As far as the showrunners are likely concerned, the more they can bring in non-powered characters and give them screentime, the better....because it saves money.

For that matter, superhero projects belonging to the various live action shared universes love to cheat special effects whenever and wherever possible....and roster choices are absolutely made with an eye towards if any existing properties produced by the same companies have special effects that can be repurposed and used with other characters. Like, creating the special effect for the first time tends to be the most expensive part by far, whereas its often relatively simple and cheap to reuse it in a variety of ways....so they all like to do this as much as possible.

Just as an example, take the X-Men movies (sorry if they’re unfamiliar to you, they’re just the instances I can speak to as a sure example of this).....to most people, a LOT of the mutant characters used in the various films seem random as hell....like Azazel in First Class, and Sunspot in DOFP, etc. Thing is...those two and other characters were picked primarily because of the special effects. Azazel’s similarities to Nightcrawler wasn’t a coincidence, it was the point. The studio already had the special effect they’d created for Kurt’s teleportation power signature, and it’d been easily one of the most positively received and talked about special effects of the original trilogy....so they wanted to use it more. Cheap and easy, compared to making new ones for characters with entirely different powers. So by making Azazel one of the primary villains, they just used Kurt’s special effects and gave it a slightly different tint. Same thing with Riptide, Shaw’s other henchman in that movie....totally random choice given he’s never been remotely associated with the Hellfire Club and what they showed in the movie isn’t even really how his powers work in the comics...but the way they portrayed him in the movies allowed them to reuse some of the tornado effects they’d created for Storm in the original trilogy. Havok’s power displays were just repackaged versions of Cyclops’ special effects, and for Sunspot in DOFP they just reused stuff they’d developed in the original trilogy for Pyro...even though again, what Sunspot was shown doing in that movie isn’t remotely how his power works in the comics.

So like....this is a very very big consideration for studios with any and all superhero projects, both film and TV...its why WB picks nonpowered characters to center TV projects around whenever possible, like Arrow and Batwoman and the reason Hawk and Dove were referenced as being looked at for a possible spin-off pretty much since Titans started...and its not a coincidence that the Flash was the first superpowered character they chose to expand their TV universe with, as superspeed has always been one of the cheaper effects to create (its also why Smallville utilized Clark’s superspeed even more often than it did his superstrength). Same thing why when picking another ‘powered hero’ to add to Arrow early on, they went with Ray Palmer and gave him basically just an Iron Man style suit to start...because even when they eventually had him develop his shrinking power....again, super cheap. Size changing effects just involve shooting a lot of different takes using scale models or messing with proportions in post. Compared to what’s required for a lot of DC’s more high profile heroes....that costs nothing to do.

Odds are, Jason was originally introduced in S1 purely because they could use him to advance Dick’s solo storylines in ways very few other characters could allow for, given a key point of Dick’s story arc in becoming Nightwing over the course of two seasons has revolved around touching on where he’s been and come from, and how he’s now grown past that. To really make the most of that, you need something connected to his past, to Batman, and given its notoriously difficult and complicated to secure approval to use Bruce in any and all live action projects, with the sheer volume of different people you need to get on board with it....Jason was a much easier alternative.

And then once he was relatively well received, they jumped on the chance to expand his role because he enabled them to expand their core cast of characters without dramatically inflating their budget at the same time. Just like that’s why Hank and Dawn were never going anywhere any time soon.

So tbh....he’s very likely not taking anything away from any other Titans’ chances of appearing...since the same hurdles and reasons to take it slow are still there for a lot of the other characters. After Arrow ends, it might be a different story with that freeing up Roy to start making appearances...and who knows with Wally because even though he plays an entirely different version of Wally, bet you anything they’re waiting to be sure Keiynan is definitively done playing Kid Flash or the Flash show is for sure never going to bring him back, before considering either Wally for use elsewhere. Like, I know he already said he was done playing Wally but actors change their minds, so I doubt anyone in the studios took that as an immediate green-light to launch a new Wally project elsewhere.

This almost certainly played a factor in their killing off Garth in just his first appearance....water effects are notoriously hard to make look convincing, and this one’s on the writers too given that I bet people in the writers’ room in general weren’t pushing really hard to make Garth a core character for the show....a lot of TV writers reeeeeally hate trying to write for characters who are intrinsically affiliated with say, the ocean, if they’re not otherwise an ocean-themed show already.....because its just another version of why a lot of comic book writers say they have a hard time showcasing Arthur in JLA books, due to a lot of his most thematic abilities being so location dependent. (I mean, personally I say in both cases this is just a lack of imagination and not a good excuse for not using Garth or Arthur more, lol, but like, it is what it is. This tendency among writers as is still already exists).

And the DC expanded universe and which production companies are affiliated with which properties and studios and stations and all that is a huge complicated mess, so I’m not even going to try tracing the connections to verify for sure, but I’d be willing to bet Titans has access to either some of Supergirl’s special effects or some of Superman’s movie special effects or both (or possibly just to Superman special effects developed for various projects that have come and gone over the years without ever making it to completion). Either way, bet you anything that has as much to do with the decision to introduce Superboy into this particular ensemble, as does just them wanting to have a Super-family character in the mix and Superboy was next on the list, not already being used elsewhere.

*Shrugs* But yeah. Never underestimate the power of the dime even with something as fundamental as picking a core roster. Actually, ESPECIALLY with something that fundamental, since that’s the foundation any and all budget concerns spring from. As much as I love the original Judas Contract storyline, I’m not at all bothered to see Rose kinda shoehorned into Terra’s role in a truncated variation of it here....because first, that story’s been adapted a ton in a variety of different ways, so its not really a huge loss to not have it fully adapted again, but second.....its less likely that Rose took Terra’s role here and more likely that Terra was never remotely an option for the show given how ridiculously expensive her powers would be to render well....so they looked at what else they could make fit a similar role and decided hey, why not bring Rose into this as well, even though she’s not primarily associated with this generation of characters?

And Joey was obviously always a strong candidate to add to the cast as early as this, of course. My bet is other than possibly Roy, depending on WB’s overall plans for him, like, I would guess the next most likely Titans to show up/be added to the cast are Lilith, Mal and/or Karen. Telepathy’s cheap and easy to gimmick up some power signature for.....tbh, I wouldn’t be surprised if the only reason Lil HASN’T shown up yet is because they’ve been saving her for after the Jericho storyline is done, given that her powers would cut through all the stakes and suspense and reveal Joey was riding shotgun in Slade’s head from the very first time the Titans encountered Deathstroke this season. For that matter, it’d be extremely difficult to write her as not sensing the sheer chaos going through Dick’s mind this entire season and cutting off that storyline early, and it does seem they’ve known exactly where they wanted to go with Dick this whole time so I can easily see them having decided early on they viewed this as a necessary part of his evolution into Nightwing, and Lil’s mere presence would throw a spanner in those works.

And as for Mal and Karen, again, the shrinking powerset is relatively easy to pull off and its likely more just not wanting to invest in Karen’s suit/flight just yet that’s been the delay there, and Mal’s sonic powers OR his teleportation powers are both relatively easy and cheap.

And of course, other non-powered characters not usually affiliated with the Titans are always a possibility. I’d put money on freaking Golden Eagle being a more likely contender to show up than some of the other powered Titans, for that matter.

Anyway, just my industry take on the matter in general, lol. You know I’d always be for Jason as a Titan as I think he would have ended up one eventually if he hadn’t died when he did, and I’d love to have just one adaptation that doesn’t stick to his death and Red Hood storyline. He doesn’t need it to be an interesting character, just good writing. Its not like Bruce or Dick are definitively chained to one specific storyline outside of their own origin stories, so no reason Jason should have to be either. (And honestly, in line with everything I was talking about here......IMO the nonpowered characters are always a degree safer from being killed off than the powered characters. Doesn’t mean they’re ever totally safe, and it doesn’t mean the show’s necessarily ‘at capacity’ for powered/expensive characters already, but at a certain point the cast list likely will end up sticking with just the powered characters they have until one of those powered characters is killed or otherwise written off...before adding another ‘expensive’ character to take their place.)

But yeah, anyway, lol. Don’t know if that might make you a little more positively inclined to Jason taking up a slot on the show....all things considered, I truly doubt that it was ever a case of them picking to make Jason a series regular OVER adding another classic Titans character in that place instead. It really is more likely IMO that the cast list we have this season was more or less already otherwise in place and they just looked at things and said “we can’t really afford to introduce an additional character on top of the other ones we want to add already this season, like Joey, Slade, etc, and especially not one with special effects heavy powers...BUT we can bring Jason in as more of a presence in the ensemble and bump him up to series regular without too much trouble.”

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mashitandsmashit · 5 years

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America’s Got Talent: Season 14 - Finals

Well now I feel like a jerk! I ranked Emanne and Benicio as my Bottom 2 in my “Rooting For” list last week (though to be fair, between them, VoS and DYC, the factors that ranked them in the order they were in were practically nonexistent, because it was too close to even think), but I had no idea that BOTH of them had birthdays this week (and that Emanne’s was tomorrow). I mean no disrespect to the birthday boy and girl...

And again, I must emphasize that I have nothing against any of the acts that made it this far (barring some not-so-great performances from some of them). But when there are several acts that deserved to be here more than several of the acts that ARE here (oh, how naive we were to believe that Marcin EVER had a chance), and almost every act just feels like part of a big mushy sap monster, it was hard to feel much excitement going into tonight...But I kept the most open mind I could...

Let’s do what the judges aren’t willing to do and compare everyone based on their pros, cons and overall experience...by doing a Top 10 list!

...Oh yeah, and...Whoop-dee-doo, Finals and stuff...Let’s just get to it...

10: Detroit Youth Choir. It’s their audition all over again, but with more Nazi salutes! ...I’m sorry, I couldn’t help myself...But seriously, they either didn’t have time to prepare a new song, or something happened keeping them from performing what they were ORIGINALLY gonna do...Either way, Macklemore is gonna be there tomorrow, so does that mean they’re gonna perform it a THIRD time!? Two nights in a row!? I guess I’m biased since this is the act that single-handedly ruined the Finals for me (just ONE guitarist in their place would have made all the difference in the world), but I really did honestly see a lot of potential in this act, and it’s kind of a shame that they fizzled out after they peaked at the Quarter-Finals...

9: Tyler Butler-Figueroa. It might be my anger at the Cowellization infesting these Finals why I’m putting Simon’s Golden Buzzer this low on the list after being overall positive to him throughout the game, but this one felt like a mess to me! The violin was scratchy and hard to listen to, it sounded like he couldn’t keep up with the backing-track, and there were no unique dances or staging to really help the entertainment value...At the end of the day, this kid really IS one of the acts that didn’t deserve to make it this far over other certain acts, despite how much I’ve enjoyed him overall...Brian King Joseph is coming back tomorrow; Maybe he’ll teach the kid a few lessons and help him hone his skills, because I know Tyler WILL be a great dancing violinist someday...He’s just not there yet...

8: Benicio Bryant. Well, the Benicio Bros are still by his side, even after he looked and sounded more lost than ever tonight! It’s a shame, because I still found his song to be fairly catchy...I mean, he’s no Robert Finley, but I see a lot of potential in him as well! He just needs to get over his stage fright is all...And maybe cut down on the Mr. Rogers sweaters...I WANTED to say Cosby, but I was worried about what that would imply about him...

7: Emanne Beasha. No real step up from before...She seemed a little shaky as well, but it didn’t bring the performance down as badly as Benicio...Uhhh, Happy Birthday to both of them?

6: Kodi Lee. Once again, this wasn’t his best! Is everyone just in denial or something!? I still stick by my opinion that he was at his best during his first two performances! But what do I know!? I’m just some schmuck writing countdown lists on a website that’s getting sold (yeah, heads up Frank, we might have to jump platforms again). Nothing I say is gonna stop Kodi from taking the win tomorrow night...

5: Ndlovu Youth Choir. I knew it was only a matter of time before they performed this song, and it was as fun and upbeat as I could have asked for! That being said, this didn’t have anything to offer that they didn’t give us before...THAT being said, they are definitely still the superior Youth Choir, regardless of which one gets more votes tomorrow...

4: Ryan Niemiller. Not the funniest material we’ve heard from him either, but I still love his energy and presence! I guess I’m committing a hate crime by not voting for him, but technically EVERYONE tonight qualifies for that...

3: Voices of Service. Maybe it’s because I came into tonight with a more open mind than last week, but whereas I quickly forgot about these folks before, tonight they were hands down my favorite singers! I guess I could go on about the same old stuff regarding their harmonies as well as their individual talents (I don’t even remember hearing much from the skinny guy before, but he might actually be the best singer of the bunch next to the lady!) It’s clear why they made it this far to begin with, but at least they have the talent to back up those cheap ‘n easy votes...

2: Light Balance Kids. THIS is the kind of creative, fun, well-choreographed, well-made performance I’ve been waiting for from these kids throughout the entire live shows! It had the same charm as their Judge Cuts performance, but with even more nicely-done effects! Kinda wish they put more focus on being this hip 90s-style youth group throughout the season...But either way, this should TOTALLY be the new “Let’s all go to the snack bar!” that plays before the movie...The goofy presentation with the food monsters would fit PERFECTLY with “It Chapter Two″! You’ll float too!

1: V.Unbeatable. They REALLY ramped up the crazy flips THIS time! Not much else to say...It’s good to know that they’re as popular as they are, but will it be enough to give them the win that they most definitely deserve...? Well, if nothing more they will DEFINITELY be in the Top 3 tomorrow...

You can tell Howie was trying to carefully dance around saying that this was the the “Best Finals Ever”, because he was contractually obligated to say it like he is every year, but I can definitely see why Simon would say that! These finals were everything he could have dreamed of! Oh, so many tear-jerking Cinderella stories...It’s enough to make a TV producer moan in ecstasy!

But when factoring in what actually MATTERS, tonight was about as lackluster as a line-up like this could have suggested...Only a few REALLY rose to the standards of the Finals...

My Votes: Appropriately enough, the two acts I was rooting for were also the best performers hands down tonight! For that, I used all three voting methods to give them as many votes as I could...

Result Predictions: There’s a case to be made for everyone tonight, but I do have a few observations...First of all, Ndlovu will probably be near the bottom in the votes, because they never had the support that the other Youth Choir had throughout the season...And I think the reason for that is the old factor of DYC being a group of dozens of kids, who each have numerous family members to vote for them along with all of the people giving them the sympathy vote...Ndlovu doesn’t have this luxury, not only because there are less of them, but also because the majority of their relatives are clearly still in South Africa, where they can’t vote for this show...This is why Ndlovu ended up in the Judges’ Choice TWICE, whereas DYC keeps getting easy passes in each round...

I’d like to think that LBK will get enough of that variety vote (that ESPECIALLY seems common in the Finals) to end up in the Top 3 like all acts of their nature tend to land...But they haven’t been as popular as the original Light Balance, and they might not have begged for nearly as many sympathy votes as say, Tyler or VoS...Chances are, the variety votes might end up concentrated on V.Unbeatable...

Which brings us to our main candidates for the Grand Prize: V.Unbeatable and Kodi Lee...It seems practically guaranteed that they will both be in the Top 3...I say Top 3, because there is a side of me that predicts that there may be an act coming between them for the Runner-Up spot! Whenever there are these two acts, one of them a cool variety act and the other some singer that’s been held up on a pedestal throughout the game, and they are BOTH being considered as candidates for the win...it’s usually not the both of them in the Top 2...Usually one of them gets a shock elimination in Third (and more often than not, it’s the cool variety act), and some dark-horse might end up as the Runner-Up...Who that might be is hard to call, but I’m actually considering Benicio being that act standing side-by-side next to Kodi at the end, because again, the Benicio Bros are ever dedicated, to the same degree that Angelica Hale’s fanbase was...

So I’m gonna go ahead and do what Frank usually does by predicting what I think the final rank will be...I’ll keep it pessimistic just to avoid being let down TOO much tomorrow...

10: Ndlovu Youth Choir

9: Emanne Beasha

8: Ryan Niemiller

7: Voices of Service

6: Light Balance Kids

5: Tyler Butler-Figueroa

4: Detroit Youth Choir

3: V.Unbeatable

2: Benicio Bryant

1: Kodi Lee

As for which guest performers will perform with who, I already made my guesses for Tyler and DYC, but I hear that Chris Jericho will perform with Ryan, and I’m willing to bet that Cher will be Kodi’s partner...I'll leave everyone else to surprise me, as opposed to what the final results will be...

(Sigh) Now let’s get this season over with...

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skycrystal23 · 6 years

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Markus x Leader!Reader

Summary: You are the leader of another major group fighting for android rights in Detroit. You had plans on how to go about a revolution until the leader of Jericho, Markus, shatters any plan you had by sticking his face on Stratford Tower’s news network. Now you would like a word with the famed deviant leader.

Characters: Markus, North, Reader

Warnings: Death

Words: 4 300 {approx.}

How did everything fall into your hands the way that it did? How did you become a reputable leader of an android refugee group? It boggled your mind as you sat in your small room in the abandoned factory, it used to be a closet, with your head in your hands. There were dozens of abandoned factories all across America. With the unemployment rate so low traditional factories like this one were left to rot. Androids replaced humans in many ways when it came to the workforce. They didn’t require food, water, sleep – they were perfect. The best part was that large companies could purchase androids and not have to pay them a salary to perform their job.

Your father, a fairly rich and arrogant man, had a very poor outlook of androids. He was a cruel man and treated androids worse than trash. Several things happened in your life that you wished could be erased that all led up to you abruptly running away. Of course, your father noticed your absence almost immediately the next morning. For a few months you laid low and kept out of the more populated areas of Detroit. The attention around your mysterious and sudden disappearance ceased as soon as that PL600 android held a little girl hostage at the edge of a skyscraper.

It was eerie how different you were from your father. Perhaps you got your more empathetic soft side from your mother? You never really knew her; she died when you were four in a boating accident when she went on vacation with some of her peers. You would remember how your father would speak of her after a few glasses of whiskey, “Your mother always thought that these things were alive y’know? I believe she was going nuts.” Your mother had a special place made just for her in your heart. Maybe once upon a time your father was a kind, chivalrous, empathetic man before your mother died. It was a belief you clung onto even this very day.

Somehow you ended up creating this refuge for androids and humans alike. There were still plenty of people who felt for the beings constructed of wires and biocomponents. Not everyone resented androids. Your group didn’t really have a name; people just knew this was a safe place. You were pulled from your thoughts when there was a loud knock at the door of your closet sized room. A sigh escaped your lips as you stood and opened the door to reveal Sara, a close friend of yours who just so happened to be an android. She was a PM700 android with short dark hair, hazel eyes, and mocha skin.

Ever since you first met her she has been constantly changing and carving out her own personality with every decision she makes. It was fascinating to watch someone you care for find out who they want to be and what they like and don’t like. “There’s been some talk around the city; our birds have been hearing whispers about Jericho’s next move in the revolution.” She said quietly, turning her head to see if anyone else was around. The ‘birds’ were actually a group of androids and humans you sent out to recruit, gain information and save those in dire situations. Ever since this ‘Markus’ individual caused an uproar after hacking into a news feed running out of Stratford Tower tensions have been high.

More and more androids were stumbling their way into the abandoned factory either lost, injured, or both. Jericho wasn’t the only group in Detroit fighting for android freedom. You knew of other groups that were significantly smaller when compared to your own group and Jericho. You also knew of people helping androids outside of the city, helping them across the border. The difference between your group and Jericho was that you had humans, like yourself, that wanted to help. They sought your group out themselves and volunteered in exchange for shelter and food. This factory wasn’t much but it was home to many androids and humans.

A good chunk of humans here were runaways like you. You weren’t exactly young anymore and were in fact an adult but that still didn’t stop your father from originally sending out search parties and broadcasts. After all, you were his heir and his only child; for you to suddenly act out and disappear like this certainly made him look bad to his inner circle of rich snobs. You wanted better for yourself and you knew your mother would be proud to see what you were doing if she was here now. “What do we know about Markus?” you asked as the two of you walked down a dim corridor.

“You would have to ask James. I’m not allowed access to encrypted Cyberlife servers but with the amount of time he spends on his computers I am almost positive he’ll have an answer.” Sara said rolling her eyes.

The two of you entered the main area of the mostly gutted factory. It was bustling with humans and androids trying to get a task done or figure out what to do with themselves. Up above there were suspended walkways that led to the main smaller building located in the middle of the factory. That smaller building within the building used to be a security terminal but was now used as both James’ room and the meeting area where you would discuss plans of action and how to deal with the slow increase of people. The two of you approached the old security terminal and pushed open the rusted doorway.

There was a small staircase that led upstairs to the main area of the operation. The steps squeaked in protest underneath your weight as you jogged up and into the larger room. There were windows lining the front wall that overlooked the gutted factory, large round table in the middle, a desk with a complex computer set up against the opposite wall of the windows, and a small makeshift bed pushed in the far left corner of the room. James was seated in front of the computer terminal, figure hunched over and face illuminated a soft blue light from the screen. He was a human, a very trustworthy one at that.

Everyone here had their fair shares of a dark and gloomy past and just like James, they weren’t all willing to share it. What you knew about him was that his name was James Porter and he was astonishingly good with computers and technology in general. He was a definite computer whiz and even set up his own algorithm to source out any material in the media about androids and the revolution. It was smart and he kept you updated on an hourly basis on the public’s opinion and law enforcement activities. “Do all you humans sit on your computer terminals all day?” Sara mused poking the young man in the back of the head.

“Nope,” he leaned back in his chair, “just me because I’m smart.” He grinned.

“Logically what you just said is flawed.” Sara said taking a seat on the edge of his desk with her arms folded over her chest.

“Isn’t everything what I say flawed?” he winked.

These two fancied each other and it was so blatantly obvious to everyone else around them. Sara and James, however, even with their brilliant minds were still so oblivious to the fact. “Have you found any information on Markus? Sara says she can’t access encrypted Cyberlife servers and I want to know –” James glided over in his chair and pressed his finger against your lips promptly shushing you.

“It’s actually funny that you mention that because the restricted Cyberlife servers are going crazy. They don’t know what Markus is and that makes Cyberlife just as nervous as Law Enforcement which can be interpreted as a good or bad thing, your choice.” He answered with his hands now behind his head.

So Cyberlife doesn’t know what model Markus is or where he came from? You couldn’t decide whether you wanted to feel happy or worried about that. The one thing you and your group used to your advantage was information. It was easy to do anything as long as you had the right information regarding said thing. Your face suddenly flushed red, I mean you weren’t going to do anything with Markus but you needed information to determine what to do if he does something terrible and – goodness gracious you needed to get your mind out of the gutter. Jericho started this revolution with Markus at the forefront and all you wanted was for it to go peacefully.

As soon as he threatened to use violence you’d have to take him down. You were fighting for the freedom of androids but if he had violent tendencies then you and your group would have to do something about that. Bloodshed was not the answer, it never was. Of course, you knew where Jericho was. A few of your birds have received the key from other androids to get there. Jericho was the name of a rusty old boat docked at one of Detroit’s abandoned shipping docks. It was smart but if they were to get raided they were ultimately painting themselves into a corner. The only way out would be through the main entrance to the docks but those would be blocked if Law Enforcement were there.

You knew for a fact that Jericho was very wary of humans whereas your group showed androids that there were humans that wanted to help and that not every human was terrible. Of course, you weren’t an android and you wouldn’t know what the people of Jericho would do to you if you just waltzed inside of their hideout. “Do we know where they’ll head next? They’ve already hit Stratford Tower so they would want to do something bigger for the next statement they make.” You said pacing back and forth. Being the leader of a rebellion was stressful.

“Yeah actually.” James said as he glided in his chair back to his computer.

His fingers glided across the glowing board that was projected out in front of him by the main monitor. In under a minute he had pulled up several different files, audio clips, and images. “I hope you don’t mind but I sent a bird into Jericho to see if we could gain more intel.” He said with a sheepish smile. Usually you would have swiped him in the back of his head for being so careless until you heard the audio clip. It was Markus’s voice and he and a few others were murmuring about a planned attack on several Cyberlife stores in the city. “James, do you know where Markus is going? Do you know which store he’ll hit?” you asked.

This was an urgent matter now. The last thing you wanted was for Jericho’s raid on the stores to turn violent. “Um...Capitol Park.” He answered, as soon as he did you left the room. Sara lingered for a moment longer giving the human a thankful smile before following you out. So Markus was going to the Cyberlife store located in Capitol Park? People gave you a nod or a smile as you walked past them and you tried your best to give one back as you hurried to your closet of a bedroom. “Hey slow down!” Sara yelled running up to you as she matched your quick pace.

“Sorry, I just need to get some air.” You muttered exiting the building.

Sara took the hint to leave you alone and watched as you pulled the tarp off of one of the old school motorbikes and climbed on. The engine revved and that familiar smell of gasoline invaded your nostrils as you sped off down the empty road. You needed some time to yourself to think. The air was frosty as it whipped against your face as you navigated the streets of Detroit. A few heads turned when the nostalgic sound of a rumbling engine of a motorbike as you weaved through the self-driving vehicles of the street. Gas fueled vehicles were discontinued less than a decade ago and instead replaced by electric self-driving cars and trucks.

You had a few hours to kill before they would need you back at the factory and if anything you had an earpiece in which was a direct line to either James or Sara. You shook your head at the thought of your friends and laughed. If anything were to happen while you were gone your friends could get a hold of you in an instant. The hours past as you raced up and down the streets of Detroit on your bike. When you arrived back to the old factory you were bombarded by several people both human and android. They were all talking over each other and you couldn’t make out a word they were saying.

Finally, Sara pushed through the small crowd and grabbed your hand. Her hazel eyes were glossed over by worrisome tears as she led you away from the crowd. “Sara, what happened?” You asked slowly as she pulled you to the side. People around you were murmuring and sticking close to one another. “Some android came in with two kids, brought their friend with them, a YK500 model. They, they aren’t going to make it.” She whispered letting her eyes close to try and keep her tears at bay. Screw everyone who thought androids weren’t alive. Without another thought you ran towards the makeshift medical bay to where you presumed the YK500 android was.

As you pushed past the white sheets hanging from the ceiling which corned off the area you realized how quiet it was. No one uttered a word as you walked towards the children in the corner of the room. One was human and the other one, the girl covered in blue blood with her stomach ripped open, they were sitting on a bundle of blankets and old clothes. You approached slowly with your hand out and kneeled in front of them. A hand squeezed your shoulder and you looked up at the man standing above you, he frowned. “Shut down is imminent.” He whispered. You drew in a breath and looked back at the kids.

These were children. The colour of their blood and the difference between their creation didn’t mean anything, they were kids all the same. “Please help my friend.” The little boy pleaded with tears running down his cheeks. How could something like this happen? “What’s her name?” you asked quietly.

“Harriet.” He sniffled.

“What happened to Harriet?” you asked.

“We were at the park playing and these big scary kids came up to us and started pushing her around. I tried to stop them but one of the boys pushed me on the ground and then they started hurting her!” he cried out.

You felt an invisible hand tighten around your heart. Your gaze moved down to the little girl he was cradling in his lap. The kids were about the same height but he was doing his best to keep her close. You could see just by the way he held her how much his android friend meant. Adults didn’t realize that to children it didn’t matter if you were human or android. The girl, Harriet, began to cry loudly. She became absolutely hysterical. The YK500’s were designed to act as if they were an actual human child. There was no difference between the boy and her besides her different body and lack of need to eat, sleep, etc.

In the end she was the same as any child. She was a kid unsure of what was happening and fearing what she doesn’t know. Her friend began to wail louder as well. They were scared out of their minds and you had no doubt that the boy would be scarred for life. He only looked to be about nine or ten, he wasn’t very old. You reached out and rested the palm of your hand against the androids forehead. For a split second her eyes flickered over to meet your gaze and then she went still. The boy wasn’t stupid and he knew what had just happened to his friend.

You cursed internally and stood up leaving the room. This gave you all the more reason to want to meet Markus. You had to make sure that you two were on the same page. Planning started immediately. If he was going out tonight then you were going to meet him and speak your mind. This madness, brutality, it needed to stop.

Hours went by.

James encouraged that you bring some people with you as backup in case things went awry. The only backup you needed was Sara. There were several small groups from Jericho littered around Detroit raiding Cyberlife stores. James made sure to get you the information you needed and Sara was making sure you would both get out alive. The two of you arrived upon Capitol Park five past two in the morning. Your long black coat was billowing in the wind as you crouched on the edge of the building and looked down at the park. There were dozens of androids running around the park.

The front of the Cyberlife store was destroyed with a construction truck idle inside of it. “If you are in fact wondering, security alarms to the store were cut, DPD drone destroyed, and road blocked making all autonomous vehicles reroute to go around the park.” James said in your ear. You stayed quiet, feeling the buzz of the small electronic piece in your ear as he spoke. Markus was smart you’d give him that. “He’s smart, made sure no one would see what they’re doing.” You said aloud. Sara nodded and narrowed her hazel eyes as she scanned each and every android scurrying about below. There was suddenly a burst of red smoke from below that caught your eye.

Snow was falling from the heavy grey clouds above as you and Sara climbed down to ground level. Your friend immediately drew her gun keeping it steady as the two of you moved past the busy androids. Some of them stopped what they were doing; LED’s turning red in alarm. Then you saw him. The famed deviant leader himself was standing in the middle of the blocked road with red smoke from the smoke bomb flooding the area behind him. “Markus!” Your eyes darted to the female a little ways away. Her voice was loud and her eyes were on the two of you. It seemed to catch his attention as he slowly turned to face you.

It was strange seeing him face to face. Until now you’ve only seen images of his face when it was broadcasted all over Stratford Tower the other day. Now here he stood heterochromatic eyes and all. “Who are you and what do you want?” he asked, his voice carrying over the organized chaos around you. There was no doubt in your mind that the police would be here soon. You straightened your posture and took a step towards him, hands clasped behind your back. That woman who called out his name ran over and halted when she was next to him. “I’m just a person who is fighting the same cause.” You answered after a moment of utter silence.

“I’m also the leader of a group that is quite similar to yours. We’ve been watching and now I’m here to see what your intentions are.”

“My intentions, my intentions for what?”

Sara scoffed; you could hear her from behind you. It was bitter cold outside and this icy conversation wasn’t helping the chills currently wracking your body. “Your intentions for this revolution that you’ve started. I had my own plans on how to go about this all but you screwed it to pieces when you pulled that stupid stunt at the tower.” You growled. This was it. This was all your pent up rage from today’s events beginning to spew out. “Markus she’s a human we can’t trust her.” The woman next to him said. She was speaking as if you weren’t standing in front of her.

Nonetheless, you continued and took another step towards the famed deviant leader until you were chest to chest. “Like hell you can’t trust her, she’s done more than you probably ever have.” Sara retorted to the redheaded woman. The deadly look the redhead gave both you and Sara was all she was willing to do. Then again, Sara did have a gun drawn and ready to fire if necessary at any moment. Before any other word could be spoken a drone suddenly flew overhead causing a number of androids to begin to run.

The cops were coming they all needed to leave if they wanted to stay alive. You knew what the cops would do if they found one deviant let alone more than a dozen or so. Your brain suddenly flipped and changed to worried-leader. “You all need to leave now or you’ll be killed.” You said gripping Markus’s forearm to gain his attention. He looked back to you and gave a curt nod before sending out a message. Everyone then started to run leaving just you, Sara, and Markus in the middle of Capitol Park. “Look, I just came here to hopefully start an alliance.” You said sincerely.

Markus went to speak when a number of loud ‘pops’ echoed in the park. Your head turned and you looked down the road behind you. The deviant leader brushed past you and ran you and Sara quickly following behind. The gun fire ceased after the first few shots leaving the park in an eerie silence. You halted and slightly skidded along the snow covered road and looked ahead. “This is bad.” You heard Sara say from behind you. Slowly the three of you turned the corner at the end of the street. You gasped and brought your hand to cover your mouth as you looked at the trail of bodies lying on the road.

There were at least six dead androids, electricity sparking from the exposed circuitry and Thirium gushing from the holes covering their bodies. You looked to Sara whose lips were slightly parted and hazel eyes wide as her gaze darted quickly back and forth between the bodies. Up a head you saw the redhead from earlier on her knees crouched in front of an android that looked identical to her. You could see the artificial tears running down her pale cheeks as she stared down at what could have been her twin. You’ve seen androids like her before, WR400 model that were typically found in the Eden Club.

You watched Markus approach her sliding up to her on his knees and grabbing her by the shoulder; you were too distracted by the number of dead bodies to listen to what they were saying. Once again it felt like an invisible hand was tightening its grip around your heart. You physically hurt for these poor androids that were shot down, slaughtered like animals. When you looked back ahead Markus and that woman were gone and actually by the crowd of androids up ahead. You reached them just in time to see Markus be handed a hand gun.

Two police officers were on their knees with their hands behind their heads whimpering. They were pleading for their lives, sniffling and crying. The red and blue lights of the police cruiser were blinding as you raised your arm to cover your eyes as you pushed through the crowd of androids. They were all demanding justice, calling out for murder. You pulled the hood up on your cloak-like jacket; the officers would surely recognize you otherwise. Markus looked troubled as he pointed the hand gun between the two quivering police officers. Before he decided on the more violent choice you put your hand over the gun. His eyes darted to the side as soon as he felt your fingers brushed against his hand.

You were a peculiar individual to him. He had only met you mere minutes ago yet the sight of you physically calmed his flare of emotions. It was like you doused the wild fire of crazy emotions inside of him. “Don’t do this Markus. I know you don’t know me and I barely know you but please – don’t do this. It will only make things worse.” You whispered, the hot air leaving your mouth in puffs of hot steam. Your eyes quickly darted to Sara who stood behind him with her gun poised at his legs. “Markus please.” You pleaded quietly. It wasn’t like you to usually plead but you thought you needed to take a different approach.

You were a strong leader that no one wanted to get on the bad side of. Right now you were maybe showing too much of your soft side. “You’re right. An eye for an eye and the world goes blind.” He whispers, mostly to himself. You released your hand from the hold on the gun and let him hand the gun off to a nearby android. You motioned with your free hand for Sara to stand down which she did immediately. “We won’t punish a crime with another crime.” He said, this time louder. You nodded to your friend and as the deviant leader turned around to walk away she grabbed his wrist. Sara’s dark skin peeled away revealing the plastic white underneath as she forced an interface with him giving him the location to your groups’ hideout.

Sara pulled her hand away letting the dark synthetic skin slide back into place over her exposed plastic shell of her hand. While Markus stood there processing the new information that was just forced into his mind the two of you disappeared. He would meet up with you when he was ready, hopefully he wouldn’t do anything stupid until then. A secret part of you was hoping that he would contact you soon.

A/N: Should I make a part 2? I know the reader didn’t interact with Markus a lot in this but surely they would interact WAY more if I did another part.

#detroit become human #detroit: become human #DBH #dbh markus #dbh rk200 #dbh fanfic #dbh markus x reader #markus x reader

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geekydane · 6 years

Text

More than a machine - Connor x reader - part 6

Part 1 • Part 2 • Part 3 • Part 4 • Part 5

“Who is this?” James threw a magazine on the table in front of you at work, as you were caught up in some boring powerpoint that had to be made for the next meeting. You were shook out of your working trance and looked at the screen of the magazine. On the front were some new pictures of the faceless android that was Markus. It was from the security camera in the Stratford Tower. If you didn’t know Markus there would be no way for you to tell that it was him, so you knew just how frustrating it was for the police to figure out who he was. And of course Connor. But the fact that they were looking for Markus had to mean that he wasn’t the one Connor ‘felt’ shoot itself in front of him. Markus was out there and alive. You tried to hide how it felt like a thousand kilos were removed from your shoulders, but you knew James saw through you as you talked.

“I don’t know.” You said and turned your head back to your computer. James stood there for a moment and you felt his eyes on you but you tried to ignore him until he bowed down so you could talk quietly to each other with no chance of anyone else hearing it.

“He is one of those you helped, right?” He asked in a whisper. You stopped typing all the useless numbers in an illustration and looked at him.

“Why is it so important?” You asked a little annoyed. He didn’t like them anyway, why did it matter?

“Because he is their leader now. He is your creation if so.”

“He is his own creation! All I did was covering up his bruises! I didn’t treat him any different than any other android I help.” You hissed at him but tried to keep your voice down.

“So you did help him. Funny.” James said and stood up straight again.

“Why is it funny?”

“You might have helped the android that lead all android into their dead. Because of the speech he made we don’t even have androids working here anymore. They get thrown away and I have seen that android graveyard! It’s not a nice place to end. Oh! And I had to empty the dishwasher myself today in the kitchen before I could get a cup of coffee this morning. Can you believe it?” James said and threw out his arms in frustration before leaving you to work again. The magazine was still lying beside you and you couldn’t help but stare at the faceless picture of Markus. You sure hope he knew what he was doing.

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When you got home and found another android in your garden you kind of hoped it was Connor as soon you saw it. It did have a very nice brown haricut but nothing could compare with the charming little lock of hair Connor always fashioned on his forehead.

“So. You are going to Jericho too?” You asked the male android that said he didn’t have a name. You applied some synthetic skin on his exposed electronics on his arm to stop the bleeding. He sipped of a bottle of blue blood you had given him, after the loss of blood that had happening in his escape. You never really asked them what happen and what they were doing before they got to you. Not unless the start talking about it themselves. You guessed that many of them wanted to forget their old life and wanted to start a new one as a new individual. They couldn’t have been happy where they were when they were willing to be damaged so badly to escape from there.

“Yeah. I want to help in the fight to get our freedom.” He said loud and proud. You couldn’t help but smile. It was so nice to hear the enthusiasm in the voice of the androids lately. The first ones that got to you were all shy and didn’t know what to do about themselves. But as the numbers of deviants grew, so did their will to fight for what they were.

“I wish I could see Jericho and all the deviants that have been here. See how they are doing, you know? But I have heard it’s only androids that are able to find it.” You said and sighed. Also wondering why the authorities haven’t found it yet, since they had androids like Connor on the case.

“You will see them all again as soon this is over I am sure that they will come forward and show their gratitude. But I can give them a message from you if you like?” The androids said politely.

“I don’t even know what to tell them. I guess just want them all to have a long and happy live in freedom.” You said after thinking for a while. The android lifted up his shirt for you to check his pump was okay, before you could leave. He wanted to join the others in Jericho as soon as possible and you were willing to spend another night going into the city and dropping him off. You knew that things were happening soon. It was like unspoken words that was fizzling in the air in ever little gust of wind that passed you. The president didn’t want to listen to what Markus had said on TV and they were ready to involve the military if necessary. But you had met Markus and he didn’t seem like a man who wanted to practice violence if not attacked first. You just had to hope that the military didn’t attack first.

As you neared the place you used to drop of the androids you could sense that something was happening in the city. The usual way you drove was block by road work but even in the dark you could see that Capitol Park nearby was full of life. It was only lightened up by dim light from a neon sign that flashed in different commercials. It was strange all the lights were out. You remembered how you used to see people on a midnight stroll when you went and dropped some of the other androids off. You stopped the car and asked the android to stay put. As you walked up the streets that were blocked with traffic cones you could hear people talk. They weren’t shouting like a protest would do it. They just walked around and drew something on the store windows facing the square. You couldn’t tell exactly what. As you entered the small park you could see that many of the people around wore the classic android clothes designed by CyperLife. They were all androids. What were they doing?

The first few androids saw you and stopped what they were doing. They didn’t attack you but they didn’t move their eyes from you either. You just kept walking toward the middle of the park as more and more eyes were on you. Should you approach them? Ask them what they were doing. You were afraid that they would misunderstand you asking. You didn’t get to ask anyone anything before someone grabbed your arm hard and turned you around with force to look at them. An android woman was looking angrily at you. By quickly scanning her face you could see she was beautiful. She was built with a perfect bone structure and the hair was neat even though it was mostly hidden under a beanie. There was no sign of any LED either. You could only imagine why she was built so beautifully and you understood why she was angry.

“What is a human like you doing here?” She hissed at you and squished your arm even harder.

“I’m on your side.” You said through the pain. You tried to loosen her grasp on you with your free hand but her fingers were locked tightly.

“I don’t believe you. You only say that so we don’t hurt you.” She spat at you and laughed very sarcastically. You screamed out as she squeezed harder on your arm and you were sure it would break if you weren’t interrupted by another android grapping her around the neck and forced her away from you. It was the male android you had told to wait in the car. He must have followed you anyway and you were glad he did.

“She’s telling the truth! She’s helping us!” He shouted as he struggled to keep the female in place.

“What are you? Her pet?” She screamed and tried to claw at his face, but he kept his arm tightly around her neck.

“Enough!” Someone shouted from behind you and you all turned around to see none other than Markus. He was dressed much more nicely than when you had left him, but he kept the coat. He looked with burning eyes on the fighting androids. They slowly let each other go and the female marched to stand next to Markus like an angry bulldog protecting its owner. But Markus didn’t look affected by the angry woman as his expression softened when look at you.

“Y/n.” He muttered before reaching out his arms. You ran to him and threw your arms around him and let him hug you for a bit. He smelled like old diesel fuel but it was so good to see the first ever deviant you ever helped. You couldn’t say you were close but he had stayed at your home for a few days long than any other deviant which meant that you knew him a little better than any of the other deviants that had passed your home since it all started. He was the face of the revolution and you had helped. It gave you a sense of pride to feel his arms around you.

“Markus. I’m so glad to see you.” You said breathlessly as Markus let you go again. The angry female android behind him snorted at the scene and crossed her arms over her chest. She clearly didn’t like you being anywhere near Markus.

“I can see you are here to drop another one of. Welcome.” Markus said and reached out his hand for your rescuer. The new deviant looked slightly confused – clearly not used to the whole hand gesture thing – but shook Markus hand.

“What are you all doing here? Why have you left Jericho? It’s not safe here in the city. They collect all androids and dispose them.” You explained and Markus nodded slowly.

“I am aware. A lot of deviants have come to us lately. Those who had time to escape at least. But we have to get the message out. We need more people to hear and understand us so we have to get out and show our points to the public. It wouldn’t hurt if the press saw us too.” Markus looked around the place where more androids peacefully wrote their statements on different surfaces. Sure it would be great to have the press showing up for this, but the military is as fast as the press in many cases.

“It’s really risky, Markus, but I understand. Is there anything I can do to help?”

“You can’t help with anything.” The female android interrupted, before Markus could say anything.

“North!” Markus hissed as some kind of alarm suddenly went off in the area. All the deviants looked around terrified to see where the sound came from. More and more alarms went off around them and it suddenly came to you that you had heard that sound before. It was not alarms; it was the sound of the Special Forces.

“They are coming.” You spoke out loud and Markus reacted immediately. He jumped up on top of the nearest car to get everyone’s attention as he waved his arms over his head.

“Everyone fall back to Jericho!” He yelled and the deviants threw everything they had in their hands and started running to oppose direction that you had parked your car. They must all know where Jericho was. Even the guy you just brought there ran along with the others.

“We sent a message without violence, just like you wanted!” North said to Markus as he came down from the car to you again. He just looked at her without responding.

“You’re reaching out to them when all they feel for us is contempt.” She spat and looked at you in the progress. You were about to defend yourself but Markus sighed and you knew that there were no use in discussing anything with that woman. She ran the same way as the rest of the androids, leaving you and Markus alone.

Drones suddenly filled the air over your heads and casted a strong light down on you. You had to cover your eyes not to be blinded. Markus grabbed your arm and dragged you to cover behind a car. He looked like he was going to say something to you as gunshots rang through the streets. Markus looked scared in a split second but it shifted to determination.

“I have to find North. Stay put.” He mumbled more to himself than to you. He left you behind the car to run in the direction of the gunfire and you started to panic. You could feel yourself hyperventilate and you sat down behind the car and closed your eyes for a moment to get everything under control. You didn’t know what to do. You never imagined yourself in the middle of a warzone and you knew that if you ran behind Markus you would see dead bodies lying around. Maybe even Markus’. But maybe… Maybe if you showed up and showed you were human they would stop shooting? They wouldn’t kill a human with cold blood like they wold with androids. It was sad but true. You took one last deep breath as you got up and ran in the direction you had seen Markus disappear the moment before.

As you turned the corner you had to stop for a moment. Bodies was scattered everywhere and the blue blood was turning the snowy street into a battleground. Markus stood over North that was examine a body lying on the ground. You had to force yourself to move further down the street as the gunshot kept going and more androids fell to the ground. You ran passed Markus and North and you heard them call your name, but you kept running. You had to stop this. You wanted to do something. The huge group of androids in front of you had stopped in front of a military van and two armed men stood there and shot the androids even though they didn’t even threat them. The androids just stood there and let the men shoot them one by one. You pressed your way through the terrified androids and showed yourself to the armed men.

“I am human!!! I am human!!!” You screamed at them and folded your arms out for them to see your full form. No electronics anywhere. One of the men didn’t seem to care and pointed his gun at you but the other one laid a hand on him. Your heart was racing and you could hear your pulse in your ears.

“We can’t do that. No civilians!” He yelled at the other one and they both lowered their guns. You lowered your arms with them but before you got to breathe out the air you didn’t even knew you were holding, a few deviants jumped the two armed men and took their guns away from them. They made them kneel on the ground with their hands behind their heads and took their helmets.

Markus and North forced their way through the now angry crowd and up next to you.

“Are you mad?” Markus asked you, but he didn’t sound like he was angry at you. More surprised about your behaviour. One of the androids that wrestled the men reached out one of their guns to Markus with a serious expression.

“They killed our people Markus. We want justice!” Another one called out and the crowd mumbled in agreement. You knew you couldn’t stomach to see any more spilled blood, so you turned away from the scene to see North smiling. She wanted this. She wanted them to die and that was equally disgusting.

“Please… please…” One of the men pleaded and you hugged yourself and closed your eyes. This was too much. You heard Markus sigh and the sound of a gun hitting the ground rung out in the street.

“We won’t punish a crime with another crime.” He mumbled loud enough for those nearby to hear. He started to walk away from the scene and you looked up to see all the gathered androids glare after him like he was a mad man. You decided to run after him and caught up with him, still holding your arms around you, as the cold quickly made its way to your bones. The adrenalin you had felt before was apparently enough to have kept it away until that moment.

“Markus.” You mumbled his name but he heard you and stopped.

“Mmh?” He answered.

“Will you take me to Jericho? I want to know what it is like. The place I send all the deviants.” You said and send him a sweet smile. It was hard to smile now that you still were in a street full of dead bodies, but you needed to know what Jericho was. You wanted to know what they were doing and if it was a nice place.

“It’s not a place for humans.”

“Please? Only shortly, of course.” You begged him. He frowned at you before nodded. You lightened up at him actually wanting to take you there. It meant that he trusted you. He took in your frame as you stood there shaking with cold and hugging yourself. He shook the same jacket off that he had always worn and threw it over your shoulders.

“I will take you there but we will get you home later tonight.” You followed Markus and the other androids. North came up on the other side of Markus and glared at you with a sour face. One side of you wanted to flip her off but the other side of you understood her reaction to humans. They haven’t really shown any act of kindness towards androids. So you descried to be decent and show her that human actually can be good.

Part 7

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tags: @black-and-white-eyes @vda-writes @mundane-cup-noodles @superanonymousreader @aya-fay @dragonempress123 @talle-2002 @jamiethenerdymonster @i-resent-this-hellsite @i-do-wat-i-want

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Soooo im back from my vacation and yeah... my computer died in Germany and i had to wait until i got home to get it repaired. I just got it back! I will forever treasure the auto-save function because it saved my ass with this fic omg.

And SORRY for the Connor-less chapter, but i have to build up to something here!

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kurara-black-blog · 6 years

Text

Human

Words: 1180

Date: 23/07/18

Never before the idea of humans helping Jericho had appeared in Markus mind. Not because he didn’t believe some of them weren’t bad, his father Carl was a human and the greatest man the android had the honor to love. But because no other human had offered to help, either afraid of them, or afraid of the androids. Afraid of the consequences of helping that new race. And Markus understood enough of that feeling to be even more afraid of them than he was of death. They brought doubts. And even the leader of Jericho, the hope of androids, wasn’t immune against doubts.

“I say we kill her,” North did not shy away from letting her opinions be known, as usual.

“North, no. She helped one of us! And she’s a mechanic, with her help we can fix the ones in need!” Josh was quick to argue. He was right, of course he was. Killing a mechanic who not only could but was willing to help was stupid.

“She can hear you both and wants to remind you she actually has a name and it is Y/N.”

Markus stared at the woman North insisted on keeping at gunpoint. Her body language was calm, like being a human in a ship full of deviants that had many reasons to hate her race was just another Wednesday for her. However, the eyes that stared at him told him otherwise. I don’t want to die, they whispered, I don’t want to die. He was almost convinced the irises were painted with fear and not color. He was convinced she wanted him to see it. The same look every single deviant he has seen had. The look that was almost a default of his people. I do not want to die.

The male looked then at the android the woman brought with her. Fear. Not for themselves, but for the human. I don’t want her do die, their eyes pleaded, I don’t want her to die. Overall, they looked fine, new even. Fully functional. Fully sentient. Freely sending the visitor gentle looks. Sending him pleading looks. For the first time Markus didn’t see one of his kin tell him they don’t want to die. And, by whatever deity, how he wished that was the case, for he had no idea how to deal with the situation. Markus did not know how to deal with humans. They were confusing. They made Markus wonder if some day androids would be just as confusing. If they would be like humans. If they would stop being androids.

“Markus, she could be a spy.”

“North, you think even human children are spies,” to think those were the first words the leader of Jericho said that day.

“Humans can’t be trusted.”

“I agree with your girlfriend, Markus, humans are shitty creatures. They even point guns at innocents, can you believe?”

Markus was sure North voice box didn’t had the capability to create such feral growl. He briefly wondered if he should be proud of her breaking the coding. Didn’t had much time to dwell on that though, however, for North tightened her hold on the gun, hands trembling so much if she had flesh her fingers would be white.

“Don’t compare me to you, you piece of shit.”

“Why not? You are me.” Y/N smirked, amusement swimming in the fear. “And I am you.”

Never before had Markus thanked whoever programmed his quick reflex more than he did on that moment. The bullet grazed the woman’s shoulder, enough to make her bleed. The gun was now in Josh’s hands as Markus hold back his companion. Y/N kept standing still, smirk even bigger than before, completely ignoring the wound and the red painting her cloak. She looked like a child at Christmas, like a student who had just won a debate, like a scientist who just solved another of nature’s mysteries.

“Let me kill her! Let me kill that goddamn human!”

“North, please calm down!”

Josh was staring at the weapon in his hands in a daze. As if he couldn’t believe what just happened, everything happening so quick his processor was still processing the situation. Markus was worried about him for a moment before the voice of the visitor came. Amused. Mocking. Fascinated. Definitely not helping to calm North’s anger or his own doubts.

“You look human. You sound human. You think human.” The RK200 was not sure if the shuddering breath that came out of her was filled with pain or bewilderment. “You want to be more than to just be alive. A plant is alive; a dog is alive. What you want to be, what you are, on this planet, has only one name… Human.”

North suddenly stopped struggling, her eyes widening in horror as Markus doubts were confirmed.

“You are afraid, the fear brings anger, anger feeds hate, hate justifies wrath and wrath tries to destroy what causes fear. I’ve seen it. I’ve been there. Humanity can pride itself on many things, consistency surely being one of them.”

Androids didn’t need to breath. If they did, the WR400 would have choked on her own breath. An almost inaudible whimper leaving her lips before she left, running away from the human and her truths.

“The only difference between you and I is our bodies. Organic and synthetic. Androids are just humans made of synthetic material.” The human sighed again, the smile now gone. “Which means everything we did to you we were actually doing to ourselves. Humanity’s consistency truly is something else.”

The PJ500 slowly made his way to stand by his leader. He too had a painful realization painted in his eyes.

“I wonder when it will all start. The blind pride, the greed, the insatiable lust for power…” Her eyes carried now pity. “The burden of acknowledging your existence and never understanding why, how… And for what.”

He needed to stop her. He couldn’t bear to hear more. He wanted to scream and cry and deny and beg and break. He wanted it to stop. Because she was right. He didn’t want her to be. She was right.

“Josh, take our newcomers to the others, one of them must know enough of first aid to patch Y/N up, then show her the supplies room so she can start fixing those in need.”

“… Please, follow me…” The other motioned the rusty metal door, the newcomer, a ST300 following him with no hesitation. Sadly, the same couldn’t be said about the human, who walked slowly towards them, eyes still glued on the leader.

“If you see Simon, tell him I want to talk to him.”

“Of course.”

The human was still on the door, he didn’t want to turn around and see her. The feeling of her eyes on him was already crushing enough.

“Markus.”

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry you and your people will have to carry the burden of a human existence.”

Y/N’s footsteps stopped echoing inside his mind after a few more seconds, but her words only stopped when Markus only had a few more seconds.

This is a reader insert because I didn’t really want to create a character and these are things I would’ve said to Markus if I had a chance. The oneshot may not be the best, but I’m quite happy. I don’t thing I’m going to do a sequel or anything, but, eh. *shrugs*

#Clara writes #detroit become human #detroit become human imagine #reader insert #detroit become human x reader #dbh markus #dbh josh #dbh north #dbh markus x reader #well not really #but the intention was there at some point

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ihavenoside · 5 years

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Tagged by: @saviour-in-disguise Tagging: @chloemodelrt600 @neverwither @parisian-eagle @stayhuman-genevieve @flawsinourcxde (corwin?) @fraegi @boundinmybones @forensiicanalysis @mikhailthefixer @strictauthority @hakamorraf @kyojin-daelko @replicantdeviancy @becameinhumxne and anyone else who’d like!

— BASICS.

▸ IS YOUR MUSE TALL / SHORT / AVERAGE? Connor’s heights unknown but the general headcanon is that he’s 6ft0. so tall.

▸ ARE THEY OKAY WITH THEIR HEIGHT ? Yes, he’s never been bothered but it and feels to be average height compared to other’s he’s been around. Aka Hank and Markus are taller.

▸ WHAT’S THEIR HAIR LIKE? Short, brown, a little longer on top so he’s hair to kind of hangs over like it does.

▸ DO THEY SPEND A LOT OF TIME ON THEIR HAIR / GROOMING?

Connor doesn’t sleep so he doesn’t have many reasons for his hair to be messed up. If it does, a little water and running his hands through his hair should fix it without much issue. so no.

▸ DOES YOUR MUSE CARE ABOUT THEIR APPEARANCE / WHAT OTHERS THINK ? He cares about his appearance and how he sees himself but he’s also not worn much outside of his Cyberlife attire. He didn’t seem very comfortable in his Jericho outfit and will probably continue to gravitate towards more business causal clothing because it’s all he’s ever known. If people don’t like it, he’s not to bothered by it.

Despite keeping his LED because it’s part of who he is, he’ll ditch the Cyberlife jacket or at least disable the identifiers on it until be can get/find something better. The only thing he really cares about when it comes to how others see him if they still see him as the Deviant Hunter. Which he knows some will and some might never see him as anything but that.

— PREFERENCES.

▸ INDOORS OR OUTDOORS? He’ll want to be outdoors mostly because I feel like he’s spent most of his time indoors. In Cyberlike, in the DPD, in a building. He’s not had much of a chance to adventure out and he’ll want too to see and discover new things.

▸ RAIN OR SUNSHINE? He likes the rain, it beings a sense of calm over the city. It’s often peaceful and storms are an interesting thing to watch. If he’s stuck outside in it, he’s waterproof so the rain doesn’t bother him.

▸ FOREST OR BEACH? Both, each would give a new opportunity and experience considering he’s not stepped outside of the city.

▸ PRECIOUS METALS OR GEMS? I think he would like gems simply because they vary a lot in colors, shape, and value.

▸ FLOWERS OR PERFUMES? Flowers would visually be more interesting to look at.

▸ PERSONALITY OR APPEARANCE? Personality means more than appearance but it’s also a trick question. Your appearance and personality can both make you look like a bad person but it doesn’t mean that's who they truly are. It's understanding why they are perceived that way, is where their true colors shine and Connor’s an example of that.

▸ BEING ALONE OR BEING IN A CROWD? I feel like Connors used to being alone or happiest in the company of at least one other person. If he’s in a crowd, I think he’s like to hang back and observe the conversation or event.

▸ ORDER OR ANARCHY? Order over anarchy. He’s programmed for order but with order sometimes comes with unfairness, which sometimes needs to give way to anarchy so order can be restored.

▸ PAINFUL TRUTHS OR WHITE LIES? Painful truths, whether people like it or not, facts are facts to him and doesn’t necessarily have a filter to know when he should tell a white lie unless he starts picking up on it.

▸ SCIENCE OR MAGIC? Both. There is a science to everything, in which he can understand but magic is the art of despection, which can be very useful.

▸ PEACE OR CONFLICT? Peace is ideal, he’d rather avoid conflict if possible.

▸ NIGHT OR DAY? Night. Again, it brings a calm over the city. Plus the city looks more interesting all lit up.

▸ DUSK OR DAWN?

Dawn, the same reason, most people are still asleep and most things are quite still. Plus the morning hues are nice to see.

▸ WARMTH OR COLD ?

Warmth. While the cold won’t bother him... generally. If he becomes cold or for some reason he can’t regulate his core temperature, he’ll become highly stressed and possibly prone to panic. He has a fear of the cold thanks to his AI almost freezing to death in the Zen garden after Cyberlife resumed control over his programming. While this was more mental, physical would feel worse because the cold would cause an instability in his systems, which could cause him to shake as it’s working harder to fix the instability, which is another form of losing control over himself and would just mess with his head. Please don’t let the boy be cold.

▸ MANY ACQUAINTANCES OR A FEW CLOSE FRIENDS? I think he’d have many acquaintances and would want to befriend all of them but he also knows not everyone’s going to like him so he’d appreciate those that consider him a friend. It’s a little weird because he’d want to be Gavin's friend but Gavins not likely to ever like him but if he finds out someone else considered him a friend, he’ll admire that more.

▸ READING OR PLAYING A GAME? Playing a game, it's a good distraction and because there is so much variety in them, he’d enjoy it a lot as well as be quiet good at them.

— QUESTIONNAIRE.

▸ WHAT ARE SOME OF YOUR MUSE’S BAD HABITS?

He’s reckless but often in a way that he freaks people out but he knows exactly what he’s doing. Like be able to run out into traffic and not die lol. which often leaves him confused to why people are upset.

He doesn’t know how to ask for help when he needs it because when he needed it, no one came so he’d basically learned he needs to handle things on his own and not rely too heavily on anyone.

It’s in his nature to ask a lot of questions, even if those questions should seem obvious or possibly inappropriate.

▸ HAS YOUR MUSE LOST ANYONE CLOSE TO THEM? HOW HAS IT AFFECTED THEM?

No, he hasn’t but Connor’s a new unit and hasn’t had much time to form strong bonds with anyone but he has lost people, even if they where strangers. That has still affected him on a deeper level the more he reflects on it. Emma, the little girl from the hostage mission bothers him the most. A human life was lost and he failed to prevent it. He also sympathizes with Rupert and the Traci's because of him, they’re also dead and they didn’t deserve that. He regrets having to kill 10 army men during the revolution, 10 more people who won’t return home to their families and feels guilty over it despite everything but also doesn’t know how to properly handle the grief he feels.

▸ WHAT ARE SOME FOND MEMORIES YOUR MUSE HAS?

Again, he’s a new unit so the list is short and simple. One would be the day he got to meet and pet Sumo, tied with that would be the day the DPD the officer he saved in the hostage mission pulled him aside and genuinely thank him for saving his life. Tied with that, is the day he learned Cyberlife hadn’t removed him from the expense account and bought a half a mill car because it was made in the year Hank was born.

▸ IS IT EASY FOR YOUR MUSE TO KILL?

It’s hard to say because he was built to hunt his kind and programmed to handle weapons. so I want to say yes and he hates it? He never wants to take a life but in the heat of the moment, it’s to easy for him to pull the trigger and go for the killing blow.

▸ WHAT’S IT LIKE WHEN YOUR MUSE BREAKS DOWN?

Connor hasn’t felt geniune loss to the degree that he’d want to break down and cry. Unfortunately, he deals with his grief, fear, anger and stress in the same way he’s seen other deviants and humans do, which is to isolate themselves and hide. He also has the added notion of being this state of the art machine but is showing to be no better than the deviants he was programmed to track down. So he feels like he should be in much better control of his emotions and he’s not.

This leaves him in a high stressed state while he tries to understand and sort through his emotions which will either end in him getting kicked into a sleep mode, become so physically/mental drained that he’s no longer able to focus on what had previously been bothering him, which is basically the state before he’s kicked into a sleep mode or finds a way to distract himself and evade the emotion altogether because he doesn’t know how else to handle them. His life basically dependent on how well he could portray being a machine so Cyberlife wouldn’t suspect him of deviating when he wasn’t even sure if he was deviating himself. It’s a habit he’s also not broken since becoming a deviant. So for the most part he can hide his stress well.

▸ IS YOUR MUSE CAPABLE OF TRUSTING SOMEONE WITH THEIR LIFE?

Yes. it’s more or less based on people not killing him when they had the chance too. This would consist of Hank, not shooting him at the bridge, Markus sparing his life twice and North considering shes capable of letting him deviate too. (this also applies to threads in which someone saves his life)

▸ WHAT’S YOUR MUSE LIKE WHEN THEY’RE IN LOVE?

No idea. He’s far too focused on working through his other emotions. He has no idea what love is because no one has remotely shown him love let alone genuine kindness. Hank in his case has more or less tolerated him up until the end of the game when Connor was willing to give up his mission so that Hank could live. Aside from that, the only time someone has shown him kindness was the officer pulling him aside and thanking him for saving his life. Connor’s so taken back by this, that he smiles and slightly nods at the thanks because he doesn’t know how else to respond.

#Software Glitch Detected: OOC #Installed Code: Headcanon #I Have No Side: Connor #i've done this before but i dont think i went to details lol #I've been working on and off this for like 3 days lol #long post

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woodworkingpastor · 3 years

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More lost things reclaimed -- Luke 18:31—19:10 -- March 21, 2021 -- Fifth Sunday of Lent

Zacchaeus was a wee little man -- and a wee little man was he -- he climbed up in a sycamore tree -- for his Lord he wanted to see.

And when the Savior passed that way -- he looked up in the tree -- and said, ‘Zacchaeus, you come down! -- for I'm going to your house today! -- for I'm going to your house today!’

Interpreting Bible stories in developmentally appropriate ways so that all persons can encounter Jesus in the text is a worthwhile endeavor. But as we grow older and more mature in our faith, we need to leave behind the simple interpretations of our childhood and grow deeper in our faith. The fact that Jesus might have come to any of our houses is an amazing thing to consider. What would that be like, really? Would it be as amazing as it sounds? How would my life be different for having Jesus sit at my dining room table?

As is the case with many Bible stories, the circumstances in this story are more challenging that the children’s song suggests.

Things you see when you’re passing by

Jesus is passing through Jericho. In Bible times, Jericho was such a prominent city that Herod the Great made it his winter residence. The city was situated on one of the major trade routes of the region; people and products from around the known world would have passed through the city.

But again, Jesus is only “passing through” Jericho—at least until he meets Zacchaeus, a man who is a “chief tax collector.” To earn this position, Zacchaeus had submitted the winning bid to the Roman government for the rights to collect taxes in this region. Having won the job left him needing to do several things:

collect the taxes that were due to Rome;

earn back the franchise fee that he paid to get his position;

pay the junior tax collectors who worked for him;

make a profit himself.

It is clear that Zacchaeus has done quite well at this because we are told he is “rich.” Zacchaeus is a big fish in a big pond. To paraphrase an old saying, “If you can make it in Jericho, you can make it anywhere.”

But Zacchaeus was also despised by his community. As a Jew, his neighbors would have held him in the highest of contempt for selling out to the Roman government and getting rich off of his own people. In his book The Upside-Down Kingdom, author Donald Kraybill says

Tax bosses were stigmatized. They weren’t allowed to be judges nor could they serve as witnesses in court. Like Gentile slaves, they were…denied [basic] civil and political rights…Money from a tax collector couldn’t be given for alms because it was tainted. Eating and associating with tax collectors would contaminate the righteous…It would have been unthinkable for a Pharisee to lunch with Zacchaeus…The rabbis and scribes would have joyfully spit in his face” (115).

In other words, it would have been socially acceptable to treat Zacchaeus with the height of contempt, and socially unacceptable to act decently and compassionately toward Zacchaeus.

I thought about this for a while this week. Things aren’t so different in our day than they were in Jesus’ day:

No so long ago I was somewhere in my van and passed a house with a flagpole in the front yard. The homeowners had chosen to wave a political flag from the pole; the flag contained two words: a certain four-letter obscenity and the name of a political candidate. The idea that someone would be so brazenly obscene was shocking. But there it was, for all the world to see.

And just this week we read of a young man who felt that an appropriate way to respond to a pornography addiction was to murder nine people, most of whom were Asian women. This is a young man who grew up in church yet felt that some people were disposable because of their job.

Contempt is the common language of our times, and there are still plenty of Zacchaeus’ out there on whom it remains acceptable to vent that contempt. As we dig into this story, we need to allow the details to serve as commentary for our own living, because clearly, the kind of discipleship that we proclaim as followers of Jesus is not the only kind of discipleship that exists in the world. There is a discipleship out there that shapes people to direct obscene language towards those whose political opinions are different from their own; there is another kind of discipleship that shapes people to think that buying a gun to kill people you feel threatened by is a rational choice to make. But let us be clear that this is not the discipleship that Jesus offers us; this is not what it means to take up our cross and follow Jesus.

And still, Jesus passes through Jericho.

There is one more detail we need to consider: God is at work in Zacchaeus’ life; he is curious about Jesus, but can’t see Jesus. Zacchaeus is short and the crowd is in the way. But Jesus sees Zacchaeus in the sycamore tree and invites himself over to his home. Jesus has gone from “passing through” Jericho to arranging a visit. It makes me wonder how many Zacchaeus’ are out there in the world today and if we ever see ourselves in the role of Jesus, just passing by—but perhaps we can take notice. Are we willing to take notice of the Zacchaeus’ of the world and put our plans on hold to be part of what God is doing in some unexpected places?

A dinner-time conversion

Another—somewhat unexpected—detail of this story is that Jesus doesn’t seem to be the only person who invited themselves over to Zacchaeus’ house; some of the crowd that had earlier surrounded Jesus has shown up here, too. They’ve brought their contempt with them; because it is socially unacceptable to show kindness to Zacchaeus, they begin to direct that contempt toward Jesus, grumbling that

he has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner (Luke 19:7b).

(Of course, if you read the Gospel you know that this isn’t a point of shame for Jesus; it’s the entire purpose of his mission!) It is at this point that the work God is doing in Zacchaeus’ life comes out; what Luke has included in his Gospel is another story of repentance:

Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, “Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much” (Luke 19:8).

Zacchaeus has been abusing the power and authority of his position as a chief tax collector to get rich; but his encounter with Jesus changes him; he will in some very specific ways make right any wrongs.

Repentance is not easy. There are two things that indicate the authenticity of Zacchaeus’ repentance. The first is that he does not offer any excuses to justify his behavior. He doesn’t suggest that while he was doing certain hurtful things, that those things don’t define who he really is. Pay attention the next time a public figure gets caught on video doing something inappropriate, and listen to the apology they offer. Listen to see if the apology is accompanied by a qualification: “I’m sorry for what I’ve done; this doesn’t reflect who I really am.”

Zacchaeus understands the Gospel—his getting rich on the backs of his neighbors was exactly who he is. As Paul would later say to the Romans,

there is no one righteous, not even one (Romans 3:10).

It’s much easier to be sorry we got caught than it is to say that these actions are a reflection of our true character.

Repentance is a very vulnerable act, almost like a kind of spiritual surgery. Think about the last time you had a procedure done—you take off all your clothes and allow someone to knock you out so they can cut you open and work inside you. You allow someone to cause you pain in in order to heal you. This is what Zacchaeus does—and he’s not only confessing his sins to Jesus, he’s confessing his sins to the entire community. Zacchaeus admits that everything they thought about him was true; he was that object worthy of contempt; but now he is opening his books for others to see and measure the authenticity of his repentance.

The second reason why Zacchaeus’ repentance is authentic is that it draws him closer to other people. A lot of people look at this story and they compare it with a story a few chapters back—the story of the Rich Young Man, whom Jesus tells to sell all his goods and then come follow. People compare the two and notice the discrepancy between how money seems to be connected to salvation. Zacchaeus gives a lot, but the young man is told to sell everything. But money isn’t exactly the issue here; how our repentance draws us closer to other people is.

One of the biggest heresies of our day is the idea that you can be a Christian and have no active relationship with a church. People say “I believe in God” all the time. That’s great, but how are you bearing fruit of repentance in your daily walk? The New Testament knows nothing of a lone-ranger salvation; western culture has become so hyper-focused on the rights and tastes and preferences of the individual that we can’t imagine opening our lives to other people like Zacchaeus does in this story. But that’s exactly what the Gospel does.

I will readily admit that there are some special circumstances: people whose health has left them home-bound would be one example. Another would be those persons who have been so abused by the church that they can’t imagine ever finding a place it in it. These are circumstance that need special attention, but they do not disprove the example of the New Testament gives that an authentic response to the Gospel will always move us toward renewed relationships with other people, including the Zacchaeus’ of the world.

Having Jesus over for dinner is no small thing!

Understanding the cross

Just before Jesus got to Jericho, he told the disciples about what was coming:

See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished. For he will be handed over to the Gentiles; and he will be mocked and insulted and spat upon. After they have flogged him, they will kill him, and on the third day he will rise again. (Luke 18:32-33).

The disciples don’t understand what Jesus is saying; Jesus’ encounter with Zacchaeus partly explains why. The kingdom of God is much messier than we are often willing to admit. It will be filled with people like the blind man along the road who won’t stop demanding justice until he is seen; it will be filled with people we want to be suspicious of until we find out that they’re more faithful than we are (and then we might want to be jealous of them). In Jesus’ kingdom, the old rules and gates and lists and relationships are no longer adequate for the times.

Do you still want to have Jesus over for dinner?

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dfroza · 3 years

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in the conservation of spiritual truth

some people in this world oppose it. but people keep sharing and protecting it anyway because it is the True message of grace.

and Paul does this in the writing of his Letters. continuing with Today’s chapter of the Scriptures from the Letter of First Corinthians:

Rather than power brokers, think of us as servants of the Anointed One, the Liberating King, caretakers of the mysteries of God. Because we are in this particular role, it is especially important that we are people of fidelity and integrity. It makes little difference to me how you or any human court passes judgment on me. I even resist the temptation to compare myself to the ever-changing human standard. Although I am not aware of any flaw that might exclude me from this divine service, that’s not the reason I stand acquitted—the only supreme judge, our Lord, will examine me in the proper time. So resist the temptation to act as judges before all the evidence is in. When the Lord comes, He will draw our buried motives, thoughts, and deeds (even things we don’t know or admit to ourselves) out of the dark shadows of our hearts into His light. When this happens, the voice of God will speak to each of us the only praise that will ever matter.

Right now, brothers and sisters, the best thing I can do for you is to apply these principles to the situation with Apollos and me. Maybe we can show you the meaning of the saying, “not beyond the things written.” If you learn that, perhaps none of you will swell with pride because you fall into the seductive trap of pitting one against the other. Is there any reason to consider yourselves better than others? What do you have that you didn’t receive? If you received it as a gift, why do you boast like it is something you achieved on your own?

Now let’s see if I have it straight. You suppose that you already have all you need. You already are rich and prosperous. And without us you’ve already begun to reign like kings. To be honest, I wish you did reign so that we could reign with you because it seems to me that God has put His emissaries at the end of the line, like convicts in their final walk to certain death. We have become a spectacle to the rest of the world—to all people and heaven’s messengers. We are nothing but fools for the cause of the Anointed One while you are wise in Him. Am I right? We are feeble and tired while you are mighty and full of life. You are well respected by others while we’re treated as contemptuous creatures by pretty much everyone everywhere. Up to this very minute, we are famished, we are thirsty, and our clothes are shabby, practically rotted to pieces. We are homeless, hapless wanderers. But still we labor, working with our hands to meet our needs because, despite all of this, when a fist is raised against us, we respond with a blessing; when we face violence and persecution, we stay on mission; and when others choose taunts and slander against us, we speak words of encouragement and reconciliation. We’re treated as the scum of the earth—and I am not talking in the past tense; I mean today! We’re the scraps of society, nothing more than the foulest human rubbish.

I am not telling you all this so that you’ll feel guilty or be ashamed of how you have acted. I am only trying to warn you, just as a father would warn his children. You may have 10,000 instructors in the faith of the Anointed One, but you have only one father. In Jesus the Anointed I have become your father through my efforts in spreading the good news. So as your father in the faith, I want to encourage you to live as I have lived. Imitate my life. This is one of the reasons I sent Timothy to be with you. He is my dearly loved and faithful child in the Lord. His mission is to remind you of the way I experience life in the Anointed. In all the churches everywhere I go, I teach the same lessons the same way, and I live out those lessons. But the reality is, some of you have put yourselves on pedestals and live like you are high above the rest—it’s as if you assumed I would not return to confront your misguided pride. But I am coming. Lord willing, I will be with you soon. Then I will know what power is backing those arrogant folks and their words. The kingdom of God is not a realm of grandiose talk; it is a realm of power. So tell me what you want. Should I visit you, rod in hand ready to discipline a crew of self-important people; or should I embrace you, love you, and gently teach you as we celebrate the blessings of God together?

The Letter of 1st Corinthians, Chapter 4 (The Voice)

Today’s paired chapter of the Testaments is chapter 10 of 2nd Samuel that documents an ancient battle and another victory of King David:

Sometime after this, the king of the Ammonites died and Hanun, his son, succeeded him as king. David said, “I’d like to show some kindness to Hanun, the son of Nahash—treat him as well and as kindly as his father treated me.” So David sent Hanun condolences regarding his father.

But when David’s servants got to the land of the Ammonites, the Ammonite leaders warned Hanun, their head delegate, “Do you for a minute suppose that David is honoring your father by sending you comforters? Don’t you think it’s because he wants to snoop around the city and size it up that David has sent his emissaries to you?”

So Hanun seized David’s men, shaved off half their beards, cut off their robes halfway up their buttocks, and sent them packing.

When all this was reported to David, he sent someone to meet them, for they were seriously humiliated. The king told them, “Stay in Jericho until your beards grow out. Only then come back.”

When it dawned on the Ammonites that as far as David was concerned they stunk to high heaven, they hired Aramean soldiers from Beth-Rehob and Zobah—twenty thousand infantry—and a thousand men from the king of Maacah, and twelve thousand men from Tob.

When David heard of this, he dispatched Joab with his strongest fighters in full force.

The Ammonites marched out and arranged themselves in battle formation at the city gate. The Arameans of Zobah and Rehob and the men of Tob and Maacah took up a position out in the open fields. When Joab saw that he had two fronts to fight, before and behind, he took his pick of the best of Israel and deployed them to confront the Arameans. The rest of the army he put under the command of Abishai, his brother, and deployed them to confront the Ammonites. Then he said, “If the Arameans are too much for me, you help me. And if the Ammonites prove too much for you, I’ll come and help you. Courage! We’ll fight with might and main for our people and for the cities of our God. And God will do whatever he sees needs doing!”

But when Joab and his soldiers moved in to fight the Arameans, they ran off in full retreat. Then the Ammonites, seeing the Arameans run for dear life, took to their heels from Abishai and went into the city.

So Joab left off fighting the Ammonites and returned to Jerusalem.

When the Arameans saw how badly they’d been beaten by Israel, they picked up the pieces and regrouped. Hadadezer sent for the Arameans who were across the River. They came to Helam. Shobach, commander of Hadadezer’s army, led them. All this was reported to David.

So David mustered Israel, crossed the Jordan, and came to Helam. The Arameans went into battle formation, ready for David, and the fight was on. But the Arameans again scattered before Israel. David killed seven hundred chariot drivers and forty thousand cavalry. And he mortally wounded Shobach, the army commander, who died on the battlefield. When all the kings who were vassals of Hadadezer saw that they had been routed by Israel, they made peace and became Israel’s vassals. The Arameans were afraid to help the Ammonites ever again.

The Book of 2nd Samuel, Chapter 10 (The Message)

my personal reading of the Scriptures for friday, October 30 of 2020 with a paired chapter from each Testament along with Today’s Psalms and Proverbs

A post by John Parsons about the hope we carry:

When Moses proclaimed the good news of God’s forthcoming redemption for Israel, the Torah states that the people could not listen because they were “short of breath” (Exod. 6:9). Interestingly, this phrase (i.e., mi’kotzer ru’ach: מִקּצֶר רוּחַ) can also mean “lacking in spirit,” as if in a paralyzed state of hopelessness. But how did the people become so downhearted? Had they forgotten the promise given to Abraham (Gen. 15:12-14)? Had they disregarded Joseph’s final words (Gen. 50:24-25)?

According to some of the sages, part of the reason for their “shortness of breath” (besides the cruel bondage and hard labor imposed on them) was that the Israelites miscalculated the duration of their 400 year exile, and therefore they began to lose hope. When members of the tribe of Ephraim tried to escape from Egypt some 30 years before the time of the redemption, they were all killed by the Philistines, and many of the Israelites began to believe that they would remain as perpetual slaves (Shemot Rabbah, 20:11). They became “short of breath” and could no longer receive the message of the Holy Spirit...

Indeed, life in this evil world can be suffocating at times. And though we may not be under the oppression of a cruel Pharaoh, we are affected by the "princes of this age" who spurn the message of the Messiah's redemption and love, and we are still subjected to bondage imposed by taskmasters who defy the LORD and who seek to enslave us by means of lies, propaganda, and threats of violence... The devil is still at work in the hearts and minds of many of his "little Pharaohs" that govern the world system... The Scriptures make it clear that we are engaged in genuine spiritual warfare: "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places" (Eph. 6:12).

It is evident that one of the central purposes of God's redemption is to bestow freedom and dignity upon his people. As the story of Pharaoh reveals, God does not take kindly to oppressors, dictators, and other megalomaniacal world leaders who deny the truth and who therefore seek to enslave (or kill) human beings created in His image and likeness. Just as God judged Egypt for its oppression and violence, so He will one day break the "rulers of this world" with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel (Psalm 2:9-10). Halevai...

To help us “catch our breath” during this time of waiting for the coming day, it is important to remember that the LORD redeems us so that we may become His children and therefore be clothed with everlasting dignity... Our redemption makes us heirs of the Kingdom of God and citizens of heaven. We must never regard ourselves as slaves - not to the State, not to the bankers, not to fear, and not to religion (Gal. 5:1). God gave up His Son for us so that we could be made free to live with honor as his dearly loved children.... All the threats of the world system - economic, political, religious, social, etc. - are ultimately made empty and vain by the glorious redemption promised to us in Yeshua our Savior.

There is an old story of the Maggid of Brisk who each year would bring proof from the Torah that the Messiah would come that year. Once a certain Torah student asked him, “Rabbi, every year you bring proof from the Torah that the Messiah must come that year, and yet he does not come. Why bother doing this every year, if you see that Heaven ignores you?” The Maggid replied, “The law states that if a son sees his father doing something improper, he is not permitted to humiliate him but must say to him, ‘Father, the Torah states thus and so.’ Therefore we must tell God, who is our Father, that by keeping us in long exile, he is, in a sense, causing injustice to us, and we must point out, “thus and so it is written in the Torah,” in hope that this year he might redeem us.” This same principle, of course, applies to those of us who are living in exile and who eagerly await the second coming of the Messiah Yeshua. We should continue asking God to send Him speedily, and in our day, chaverim...

The Scriptures declare that "we are saved by hope" (ελπιδι εσωθημεν), that is, we are saved through an earnest expectation of good to come on account of the promises of the LORD God of Israel. Amen. The LORD is called "The God of Hope" (אֱלהֵי הַתִּקְוָה), indicating that He is its Author and its End (Rom. 15:13). God both gives birth to our hope (tikvah) and is the satisfaction of our heart's deepest longings. For those with God-given hope, gam zu l'tovah – all things work together for good (Rom. 8:28). In light of God’s promises, hope is the one "work" that we are called to vigorously perform: "What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?" Yeshua answered, "This is the work of God, that you trust (i.e. hope) in the one whom He sent" (John 6:28-29).

Don’t let the world system destroy or impugn your hope, chaverim... If the devil can’t seduce you with illusory hope or counterfeit joy, he will attempt to oppress you with fear, outrage, and doubt. Fight the good fight of faith and refuse to succumb to despair. Run the race before you with endurance (Heb. 12:1). Look up, for the time of your deliverance draws near... God redeems us for the sake of His love and honor... It is the “breath of God” that gives us life and courage to face this dark and perverse world (John 20:22). May you be filled with the hope and strength that comes from the Holy Spirit. Amen. [Hebrew for Christians]

10.29.20 • Facebook

Today’s message from the Institute for Creation Research:

October 30, 2020

Blotted Out

“Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross; And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.” (Colossians 2:14-15)

The old ordinances have been “blotted out” by Christ, having “broken down the middle wall of partition between us; having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace; and that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby” (Ephesians 2:14-16).

The requirements of the Law were our “adversary” and must be eliminated before we could be “circumcised” by Christ (Colossians 2:11). The omnipotent Lord Jesus was the only One who could accomplish this. The arche (first ones) and the exousia (authorities) were “disarmed.” Jesus Christ has “gone into heaven, and is on the right hand of God; angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto him” (1 Peter 3:22). He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.

There is not much direct information in the Scriptures about the events in the heavenlies at the time of the Lord’s crucifixion. Bracketed by the agonizing plea of abandonment “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46) and the three hours of darkness (Luke 23:44), there are a few insights that help us grasp the wonder of His victory cry “It is finished!”

“When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive...he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth” (Ephesians 4:8-9). Whatever took place in those awful hours, all of heaven now knows that Jesus now sits “on the right hand of God; from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool” (Hebrews 10:12-13). HMM III

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truesportsfan · 4 years

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Chris Jericho’s beautiful view atop the wrestling world

Being the top guy has a specific meaning to Chris Jericho.

The pro wrestling legend is back at the summit of the business at age 49 as the first and only world champion in All Elite Wrestling history. Being the headliner and face of a major company for a significant period of time is a role Jericho has rarely had in his three-decade career. He never won the world title in WCW and only had a combined five WWE or World Heavyweight championship reigns in his nearly 20 years with Vince McMahon’s company.

Being a promotion’s standard-bearer, who carries the weight of helping it and the talent around him succeed, is a job he’s never been more ready for.

“Could I have done more in WCW in a headlining position? Would I have been good? I don’t know. In my mind I’d be great,” Jericho told The Post. “The first time I was put in a headlining position in WWF, I wasn’t ready, and in WCW, it was a couple years earlier. So maybe I wasn’t ready.

“And as the career goes forward, I can tell you the exact moment when I knew I had become a legit, headlining, main-event guy and the exact moment where I became the top guy, which was in New Japan Jan. 4, 2018 [versus Kenny Omega at Wrestle Kingdom], which led to [me] being the top guy here in AEW.”

Now that he’s been “given the baton,” Jericho’s goal is to help elevate others in the company to legitimate main event players, giving them their piece of the spotlight.

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In the more than 13 months since AEW launched, Jericho has had singles matches with Scorpio Sky, Jungle Boy, “Hangman” Adam Page, Darby Allin, Cody Rhodes and others. He cut a memorable promo with Maxwell Jacob Friedman (MJF), and has surrounded himself with Jake Hager, Sammy Guevara and Santana and Ortiz in his Inner Circle faction. He has been a big backstage supporter of Allin. Jericho described giving the hot upstarts the chance to beat the grizzled veteran heel as the “magic” that wrestling is about.

“We had a match a couple weeks ago where Isiah [Kassidy] from Private Party had such a great false finish, people thought Isiah was going to beat the champ,” said Jericho, the son of former New York Rangers winger Ted Irvine.

Most of the company’s younger talent had very little, if any, cable-TV time before appearing on “AEW Dynamite.” Now they get to share the ring live on TNT or on pay-per-view with one of wrestling’s most recognizable faces. Jericho said he wants to have a match with Orange Cassidy, a slow-moving comedy wrestler with a cult following, at some point, too.

“When you’re the top guy, you don’t hide and stop others from getting in there because then it just becomes stale and it dies,” said Jericho, who was at the New York Toy Fair, where AEW showed off its new action figures and ring sets from Wicked Cool Toys and Jazwares. The first series will be available this August.

“Your job as the top guy is to help everyone else up on top of the mountain so that there are 15 top guys and everybody is making money and everyone’s having a great time, people are enjoying the show and the product.”

AEW’s first series of action figuresAll Elite Wrestling

Wrestling legends are among those taking notice.

“Hulk Hogan called me a few months ago and said, ‘What you guys are doing is putting guys no one had ever heard of in a main-event spot and having them believe that they can beat you,’” Jericho recounted.

Jericho’s current rival is Jon Moxley, formerly known as Dean Ambrose in WWE. The two have a match for Jericho’s title set for AEW’s Revolution pay-per-view on Saturday. Jericho recruited Moxley to AEW knowing his talent level and understanding he was unhappy as he was transitioned into a comedy character in WWE. What Jericho didn’t expect was exactly what person and character would emerge in AEW. When Moxley debuted and attacked him and Omega at the “Double or Nothing” pay-per-view last May, Jericho saw someone who had “completely” changed.

“This is not the guy formally known as Dean Ambrose, this is a completely different person, a new character, performer,” Jericho said. “He’s totally different, not even the same guy. And that to me is another feather in our cap because it shows the creative freedom that you have in AEW that allows you to live and breathe and be what you know you can be.”

Moxley, also the name he used prior to joining WWE, is a violent, unpredictable badass babyface whose tendencies AEW announcer Jim Ross has compared to Stone Cold Steve Austin’s.

“I knew he’d be good,” Jericho said. “I didn’t expect him to just become this amazing. I say that with the utmost of respect. I don’t think anybody, including Mox, would have been able to predict that.”

Both Jericho and Moxley also recently wrestled for New Japan Pro-Wrestling, where Moxley is the promotion’s United States champion. When Jericho was in Japan for Wrestle Kingdom in January, he beat legendary wrestler Hiroshi Tanahashi in a match that would have given his opponent an AEW title shot with a win.

It led to Jericho being outspoken about wanting the two companies to work together in the future given the financial opportunities that would come, especially given the history he, Rhodes, Omega, The Young Bucks and other AEW talent have with New Japan.

He is willing to help make that happen, but Jericho noted that “in other people’s opinion, we shouldn’t” work together before floating the idea of an AEW/New Japan invasion a year down the line.

“I think it would be beneficial relationship,” Jericho said. “Do I think we need New Japan? No. Do they need us? Well, if they want to work in the States, they may want to think about it.”

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During that appearance in Japan for Wrestle Kingdom, the hashtag #fatjericho made its way onto social media along with pictures from the match that showed a heavier version of the Canadian star.

Jericho said the added weight was by design. He wanted to look more like the character portrayed by legendary wrestler Bruiser Brody, a pain-causing killer whom everyone feared. In Jericho’s experience, bigger-looking wrestlers are more respected in Japan. He likened it to Robert De Niro gaining weight to play the role of Jake LaMotta in “Raging Bull.” He has dropped some of that weight since coming back to AEW, posting workout videos to social media.

“When you see the online criticism, I love the idea of the fat Jericho because I can take my shirt off right now and I’ve got six f–king abs,” he said.

It’s all part of Jericho’s constant attempts to reinvent himself, creating new wrestling moments and catchphrases. Recently, the crowd at the episode of “Dynamite” taped aboard Jericho’s rock and wrestling cruise loudly serenaded him with his entrance song “Judas” by his band Fozzy — continuing to belt it out long after he first appeared. It’s continued at each show since.

“The next week, I went to the producer of the show, Keith Mitchell, and said, ‘Let’s pull the music down a little earlier,’ and I went to the announcers, Jim Ross, and said, ‘Don’t say anything,’” Jericho said. “When the music stops, let’s see what happens and let’s see if they continue to sing. We made it a thing.”

When it does, Jericho lets it happen, saying even as a heel, trying to tell the audience to shut up and don’t sing would spoil the vibe and organic nature of the moment.

“If they want to sing the lyrics to ‘Judas’ for an extra 30 seconds, that’s something that everyone’s talking about,” Jericho said. “People are going to go, ‘Wow, are you seeing this?’ It transcends good guy, bad guy. That [leads to] iconic moments in wrestling, which is what we strive for so much and when it happens organically, that’s a gift from the wrestling gods, so don’t mess with it.”

Chris JerichoAll Elite Wrestling

Jericho said the AEW talent is having fun backstage as well. In his opinion, there is no “snaky-snaky bulls–t” going on. The company continues to grow. “Dynamite” was renewed on TNT for three more years. A separate hour-long TV show is in the works, and AEW will run its first “Dynamite” in the Tri-State area on March 25 at Prudential Center in Newark.

“Dynamite” has consistently beaten WWE’s NXT show in the ratings each Wednesday and has had a headlock on the 18-49 demo. While not specifically correlating it with ratings, Jericho believes that AEW highlighting young stars such as MJF, Guevara, Jungle Boy and Marko Stunt is helping to attract a younger audience because “we don’t send them to the developmental league or whatever for five years.”

It’s helping the company expand into action figures and potentially video games down the road. Jericho said he has had around 200 different action figures over his career. The AEW line, which will debut with Jericho, Cody, Brandi Rhodes, Omega and The Young Bucks, stands out to him not only because of the figures’ detailed looks, but the story around them. As the company’s top guy, he’s been one of the biggest driving forces behind all of it.

“We’ve only been on TV since October and these will be coming out in August, so it’s a quick turnaround and the reason why the turnaround is so quick is because the product is hot,” Jericho said. “That’s of great pride to me because obviously when I came to AEW, there was a lot riding on my shoulders to make sure it was a success.”

He’s never been more ready to ensure it.

source https://truesportsfan.com/sport-today/chris-jerichos-beautiful-view-atop-the-wrestling-world/

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coniecoleman · 6 years

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CBS All Access Review: What’s This Streaming Service Worth?

You may have heard about CBS All Access when the new Star Trek show, available only on that service, first launched. The app is a unique approach to streaming, and we’re reviewing CBS All Access, the service, to see just how good it is. Streaming services like HBO, Showtime, Netflix and Hulu are pretty easy to understand: They offer a wide variety of content, movies and shows for you to keep up on the latest entertainment, some created by them and some licensed from other networks, etc. CBS All Access is part of a new crop of streaming services that forgo this model and offer only their own content (some when they launch some when it doesn’t) – in this case, the CBS shows that the network wants to stream. But how does this approach work, specifically with CBS content? Is it a worthwhile service to add to your streaming list, or is not worth the monthly cost?

We took a look. Here’s what we found.

CBS All Access Review

Pros

Original content you can’t find anywhere else: CBS offers original content on All Access, notably Star Trek: Discovery. However, CBS does have a few other original shows and is planning for more in the future.

Access to old shows: CBS All Access provides access to many classic shows that are hard to find elsewhere, including the Brady Bunch, the original Hawaii Five-O, the original MacGyver, and so on – a great bonus for those who love the classics.

Clean, usable interface: All Access may have its issues, but the interface isn’t one of them. It’s friendly, easy to use, and fairly speedy.

Live TV: CBS makes the most of All Access by offering Live TV viewing if you’re away from your home TV.

Cons

Questionable pricing: $6, with commercials, is pretty steep for what CBS All Access offers, unless you’re a big CBS fan or absolute need to watch that new Star Trek when each new episode comes out.

You can’t count on your favorite shows being available: For both current and past shows, CBS appears to have random rules about how many episodes to make available on All Access. Some very popular shows only get a season or so out of multiple seasons. Some shows aren’t available at all.

Many shows are available on Hulu: When it comes to current CBS shows, you can find many of them on Hulu for just a couple bucks more, plus access to a vast array of other shows and movies many times what CBS can provide. All Access doesn’t do well on the competition front.

Glitches: Network streaming services aren’t the most stable apps around, and CBS All Access seems particular prone to freezing up, and then making you watch all the commercials you just saw again. These glitches appear to have gotten a bit better in recent months, but may still happen.

CBS All Access Features

Naturally, content is limited to CBS, which may be all you need to make up your mind. It wasn’t for us, hence our review. But how that content is limited is also important, so we’re going to review and evaluate the main categories of shows available on All Access. Current CBS All Access Shows: CBS offers a number of its current network TV shows, including past seasons, to search through and watch as you want. This is a nice feature for getting caught up on shows you like, but it’s also very hit or miss – you may not be getting everything you want. For example there’s only 24 Big Bang Theory episodes out of the many seasons of the show, making it harder to catch up or introduce friends. Some popular shows, like 2 Broke Girls, aren’t on the service at all. These are weird, disappointing choices that make it seem like CBS doesn’t really want people watching All Access if they could be forced to watch network TV instead. It’s also important to note Past CBS Shows: You can also find a number of older CBS classic shows and shows that were canceled some time ago, which makes All Access a nice place to find your old favorites. That includes Cheers, 90210, a couple of the CSIs, Frasier, and the classic Hawaii Five-O. That’s cool, and adds a lot more value to the service. However, here too episodes are very unreliable. You may get all the episodes of Hawaii Five-O and Jericho, but only a portion of the 90201 or Brady Bunch episodes, for reasons that just aren’t clear. Original content: In other words, content that’s only available on All Access, and not even available on the traditional CBS TV network. That means Star Trek Discovery for most people. CBS does have other original content, including The Good Fight, Strange Angel, and No Activity. You probably haven’t heard about those, because no one really cares about them yet. Star Trek is the main selling point here for now. CBS is working to include other shows like a new The Twilight Zone which might make their original content more worthwhile in the future.

Live TV

You can watch live tv! Self-explanatory. Limited only to CBS, live tv of course.

Movies

CBS also offers a collection of movies available to watch as well. It’s pretty random – you get Pink Panther, Bullet Proof Monk, and Hotel Rwanda, all in the same section. There’s only 20 or so of these movies, and they aren’t really a deciding factor for the service unless CBS really, really expands the list in coming years.

Special events

This refers to all the big events that CBS will cover, like the Grammys. You typically get the ability to watch these events live or catch on them afterward if you were busy.

CBS All Access Pricing

CBS All Access offers a basic two-tier pricing structure.

The standard fee is $5.99 a month, and that includes commercials with all your shows.

The premiere tier is $9.99 a month, and doesn’t have any commercials at all. There’s no way to get CBS All Access free except for a brief free trial offerings (the free trial lasts exactly 1 week).

Here we see one of the biggest problems with these single-network streaming services: they just don’t have enough content to be worth the price of admission. During our review, we also discovered that for an equivalent price, you can get access to exponentially more shows in a wide variety of styles and target audiences, all without commercials – or with limited commercials, in Hulu’s case. And, frankly, access to shows like Game of Thrones or Stranger Things that are a bigger part of the zeitgeist than anything on CBS (depending on your feelings about Big Bang Theory). That makes it hard to justify paying this much for only shows from CBS. If you are a diehard CBS fan, then you’ve probably seen a lot of their past content, so historical shows won’t be much good for you. That means you’re primarily paying to catch up on current shows, which is a tough sell. If you don’t much care for CBS and only want to watch a show or two on All Access, it’s an even worse deal. This is why All Access membership goes up for events like The Grammys. People are willing to pay a one-time fee to see a big event in real time (similar to Boxing/MMA views), but then they just cancel afterward (or they just get the 1-week trial and then cancel). This doesn’t say good things about service longevity. Finally, check out the pricing for comparative services for on demand service to see where this $6/$10 pricing falls:

HBO: $15 per month:

Hulu: $8 per month with ads, $12 without

Netflix: $8 to $14 per month, depending on resolution quality you choose

ESPN+: $5 per month

DirecTV Now: $35 per month

Amazon Prime Video: $11 per month or with Prime subscription

Acorn (British shows): $5 per month

Fox Network: Free, with limited episodes

ABC Network: Free, with limited episodes

NBC Network: Free, with limited episodes

The CW and Original CW Seed Content: Free

CBS All Access Review Conclusion

Well, how big of a Star Trek fan are you? On a serious note, content does have different values based on user loyalty. If you are a HUGE Star Trek fan and demand to see the new show ASAP, then paying $6 per month for the ability may not seem like a huge leap for you. The same is true if you’ve been longing to watch old CBS shows from several decades ago and can’t find a good DVD set anywhere. However, if you don’t have this loyalty for any CBS All Access original content, we can’t really recommend buying this service. It doesn’t offer much, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to offer more in the future. Plus – and this is particularly damning – networks like Fox, ABC, NBC, and The CW offer similar streaming apps with collections of current and past shows (including original content), somewhat limited based on your subscription choices but all for free. Why is CBS charging a fee? It certainly doesn’t look good in comparison. On that note, keep in mind that you don’t have to go directly to CBS to get All Access. In other words, other services can bundle CBS All Access into the content you already stream from them, on their platform. If you love Roku, you can find CBS All Access Roku there. If you’re a big Amazon Prime fan, you can buy it through Amazon Prime and watch the content there. The pricing remains the same, but you don’t have to add another app if you don’t want to.

CBS All Access Review: What’s This Streaming Service Worth? is available on Gadget Reviews

CBS All Access Review: What’s This Streaming Service Worth? published first on http://www.gadgetreview.com/ CBS All Access Review: What’s This Streaming Service Worth? published first on http://www.gadgetreview.com/ CBS All Access Review: What’s This Streaming Service Worth? published first on http://www.gadgetreview.com/

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jennifernail · 6 years

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CBS All Access Review: What’s This Streaming Service Worth?

We took a look. Here’s what we found.

CBS All Access Review

Pros

Clean, usable interface: All Access may have its issues, but the interface isn’t one of them. It’s friendly, easy to use, and fairly speedy.

Live TV: CBS makes the most of All Access by offering Live TV viewing if you’re away from your home TV.

Cons

Questionable pricing: $6, with commercials, is pretty steep for what CBS All Access offers, unless you’re a big CBS fan or absolute need to watch that new Star Trek when each new episode comes out.

CBS All Access Features

Live TV

You can watch live tv! Self-explanatory. Limited only to CBS, live tv of course.

Movies

Special events

This refers to all the big events that CBS will cover, like the Grammys. You typically get the ability to watch these events live or catch on them afterward if you were busy.

CBS All Access Pricing

CBS All Access offers a basic two-tier pricing structure.

The standard fee is $5.99 a month, and that includes commercials with all your shows.

HBO: $15 per month:

Hulu: $8 per month with ads, $12 without

Netflix: $8 to $14 per month, depending on resolution quality you choose

ESPN+: $5 per month

DirecTV Now: $35 per month

Amazon Prime Video: $11 per month or with Prime subscription

Acorn (British shows): $5 per month

Fox Network: Free, with limited episodes

ABC Network: Free, with limited episodes

NBC Network: Free, with limited episodes

The CW and Original CW Seed Content: Free

CBS All Access Review Conclusion

However, if you don’t have this loyalty for any CBS All Access original content, we can’t really recommend buying this service. It doesn’t offer much, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to offer more in the future. Plus – and this is particularly damning – networks like Fox, ABC, NBC, and The CW offer similar streaming apps with collections of current and past shows (including original content), somewhat limited based on your subscription choices but all for free. Why is CBS charging a fee? It certainly doesn’t look good in comparison. On that note, keep in mind that you don’t have to go directly to CBS to get All Access. In other words, other services can bundle CBS All Access into the content you already stream from them, on their platform. If you love Roku, you can find CBS All Access Roku there. If you’re a big Amazon Prime fan, you can buy it through Amazon Prime and watch the content there. The pricing remains the same, but you don’t have to add another app if you don’t want to.

CBS All Access Review: What’s This Streaming Service Worth? is available on Gadget Reviews

CBS All Access Review: What’s This Streaming Service Worth? published first on http://www.gadgetreview.com/

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