#connor rk800

[cheshuiniza]

[loustilldraws]

Wow wow haven't been able to get this out of my head since I read it. Got me thinking a lot more about how each of these characters interact with their symbols in the game.

From the moment Markus enters the Manfred home, one of the first things he can interact with is the cage of robo-birds in the entry hallway. And what can he do? He can turn them on - he brings them to life in a sense. It's a microcosmic moment that encapsulates his entire role in the game as a change-maker and liberator. He sees through the cage and can reach beyond. And later when we get that cinematic slow-motion shot of him falling into Jericho, it's so clearly a flight in and of itself, calling back to the bird imagery that defines his experience with deviancy.

Of course, Markus isn't the only deviant android to be tied so intimately to birds. My boy Rupert comes to mind next, with the hundreds upon hundreds of pigeons he looks after, and how he takes flight all the same when DPD is coming for him. And then there's Ralph and the helpless violence inside of him bursting through not only with the dead man in the tub but the bird Kara can find. There's just so much. About deviancy - at least, typical deviancy - resembling that bird-in-flight emotional & psychological journey, even when the paths differ.

Then there's Connor and the fish, imagery that I have seen a lot but never thought quite so deeply about until now. How his atypical path toward deviancy is punctuated by a completely different symbol from the rest. What it means for Connor to either stop and save the fish or walk past it to fulfill his mission in the first chapter, beyond the surface-level. Yes, it's a gesture of compassion - or at least a thoughtfulness to life and living beings - that is not in his mission outline and causes software instability. But it's also the very first interaction you can have in the game that does this for him. And from that point, water is everywhere in pivotal moments in Connor's story, which I hadn't thought about before but it's so interesting to me! The fish in the tank is only the beginning. There's the moment with Hank and Connor at the bridge that forces Connor to confront mortality and whether or not he's alive. There's the pool at Kamski's where he has to either see a soul in the Chloe or kill her for his mission. All of the rain and the moody weather during the investigations, and how that rain eventually follows him inside his mind to the Zen garden as tensions mount...

Oh I'm talking myself into another playthrough, aren't I?

And that's not even diving into how Connor and Markus are connected to each other's symbols, albeit less directly. (This point is much less developed in my head, so I'd love to hear anyone else's take here!) I'm still thinking about Connor and his pursuit of the deviants, especially Rupert in The Nest; how his role is to capture those "birds" as they try to fly free, not seeing himself in them or realizing the depth of his own confinement. Something about seeing the startled pigeons flying away just before the chase sequence has always been such a striking, vivid image that latched onto my brain since I first experienced the game. Now, I feel like I'm beginning to understand why.

Then there's Markus and the water, with Jericho at the docks, and how in the end, this nest of all the deviants is the place Connor is fully confronted by the path be needs to choose for himself. He's finally over that bigger body of water and understanding his confinement, with Markus the liberator on his home turf and ready to push him to see it. Just. The confrontation between deviant leader and deviant hunter taking place over the water is the perfect example to me of how that save-the-fish moment becomes symbolic of Connor's deviant path entirely.

I don't know. Some of these ideas are probably only half-baked but I'm thinking about parts of the game that never stood out to me so much before, and I'm so jazzed about it! Analysis is one of the biggest things I love about fandom, so I hope some of what I said might add a little something to it too.

The Pets

[dada-ars]

only connor (´▽｀)

[palomalexa]

silly doodle of the android sent by cyberlife

recently replayed it and he's stuck in my head ughh i love him

[pewter-yellows]

tired of seeing people baby him bro he kills people and is a grown man 😭

[samishin]

hankcon having a lazy day in a pool, complete with floaties and summer vibes :]

@spensual☀️💖

[nablastria]

It’s raining in Detroit

[frenchublog]

[unholyscreechfrombeyond]

Had a very similar headcanon. Best explanation why most of the other androids rarely do this (and why tf Connor stumbles like a potato into Hank's kitchen). Love your reasoning about the constant recalibration.

(cough) I just realized smt, whenever Connor is connecting to an android or receives a case via digitally, he blinks and twitches rapidly—

^ (like in this scene-)

^ (and this scene with Hank.)

I don’t really have a built up expectation in my head but I was hoping maybe you could come up with one :> (edit: thought I could upload this anonymously 😭)

hello hello, tyvm for the ask bc i indeed have some thoughts about this very thing~!!!

so before we dive into headcanons, let's get clear about what the game's canon proposes. this rapid blinking by connor occurs first when he shares his authorization with the st300 and again when he receives a report at chicken feed. so we can extrapolate when he's sending and receiving data remotely, he exhibits this behavior.

do other androids exhibit this behavior when doing something similar?

not really. clearly the st300 receives the authorization, she barely bats an eye. when markus remotely pays for the paints at the store or calls the police, he doesn't blink like this either. when kara orders parts for the dishwasher the only thing blinking is her LED. so clearly, this is a connor-specific reaction to remote data transmission.

do other androids exhibit this behavior at all?

yes actually! the jb300s connor is interrogating at stratford tower rapidly blink when conducting a diagnostic scan. now, what can we presume from that information? well, a full diagnostic scan is quite an intensive process. for computers, it can take awhile because you're having to parse through all the data on a computer. for something as complex as an android to do it in a few seconds, it would take a massive amount of processing power.

i think the rapid blinking may be a byproduct of androids having their processors overclocking (basically going on overdrive). either it's a sort of glitch/bug that manifests itself when an android is processing a lot of information rapidly or it's a feature cyberlife included as a visual cue for humans to know that the android is in the middle of processing something and unable to respond until whatever it is processing is completed (kinda like a loading screen except the visual cue is the blinking).

according to this assumption, connor would exhibit this behavior when his processors are overclocked. but the thing about connor is that he's supposed to be cyberlife's most advanced prototype, right??? so why is he blinking like crazy over simply receiving and transmitting data that doesn't phase a st300?

it's because he's a prototype.

and as much as cyberlife touts him as being super advanced, i headcanon that cyberlife cut a lot of corners too. how else would they just have 10 bodies of this supposedly expensive android ready to go in case he got destroyed?

i think the r&d put into the rk800s was expensive and his software is super advanced, but his hardware... not so much. sure he's got the fancy mouth sensors for crime scene analysis, but just look at connor. he's clumsy (did you see him tumble through that window?? how badly you can fuck up his qtes???) he's constantly fidgeting with a coin for calibration purposes. basically they have this super advanced cpu but it's being bottlenecked by the rest of his hardware.

so what's that got to do with his blinking?

i just think connor's physical body can't keep up with his processing power so you get weird glitches and artefacts that don't show up in other androids. sometimes that shows up in needing constant calibration of his fine motor skills so he doesn't fuck up during combat. and sometimes it shows up in unnecessary blinking for a rudimentary data transfer. he's not quite at home in his body. it's new and his motor drivers don't move as fast as his processors think. he's out of sync with himself so he's not quite the perfect murderbot he's supposed to be (this is also the reason why i think markus who's lived in his body for so long can kick his ass despite being an older model)

at least that's just my headcanon! i could probably yap all day about stuff like this but i've yapped enough. thanks for the ask! love answering questions like this. apologies it took so long i wrote like 80% of this answer and then i disappeared from tumblr for a bit and forgot this was sitting in my drafts. sorry!

[furyjohnson]

POV: You go on a date with Connor

(Hank helped him dress up)

[connorology]

yeah

[ofsparksandstardust]

Lazy morning cuddles

[ojing-eo-don]

My biggest flex is i got this ending first time playing.

[maristrange221b]

🐶❣️

[dawndauce]

and nothing bad ever happened to them