#don't get me wrong i like this game

[nothinggathers]

So a thought I keep coming back to about Detroit: Become Human is how Connor is the only android to ever put his mission, his goals, and his existence on the line for a human.

Hear me out.

Markus loves Carl like a father, but he never stops what he's doing for Carl's sake. You can, without question, come to a conclusion where Carl is alive and have Markus use a dirty bomb. None of Markus decisions can come at the expense of a human he cares about. Markus can take the pacifist route and let his people get killed to refrain from hurting humans, but that's a tactical choice Markus makes about how to win over a watching population.

Kara should have had that potential for sacrifice in her story. She saves Alice, drags her around the city, can steal for her and threaten others for her and sacrifice herself and others for her. Except because someone thought a twist was more important, Alice is an android. So Kara's story is about an android family, and the lengths they'll go to for each other. The revelation that androids will fight and sacrifice for other androids is not a revelation at this point. It just is.

Daniel loves Emma, but when he might be taken away from her he threatens to throw her off a roof. He tells the player, about a dying policeman, "All humans die eventually. What does it matter if this one dies now?"

And then there's Connor. If Connor is a machine he can be ruthless and unforgiving and coldly calculating.

But Connor can also not be that. Connor can put his first mission on the line for a human he doesn't know, to save a policeman's life.

Connor can let a deviant escape to save Hank's life.

Connor can sacrifice his own existence, at least in this body, to shield Hank, or he can destroy the deviant he wanted to capture alive to save many more.

Connor does this despite pressure from his creators. He does this knowing that these failures could lead to his own destruction.

And in the end, the very end, if Connor does all this and becomes a fully fledged deviant, he can also put the entire android revolution on the line. His existence, the existence of all androids, the freedom of an entire species can be risked to save Hank. Everything Connor is, and wants, and set out to do gets put aside because another Connor puts a gun to Hank.

Nobody else gets to make those sacrifices for humans.

Connor does it for Hank literal minutes after murdering two guards in an elevator. Two dudes that were just hired to do a job and happened to be in the way get unflinching bullets put in them.

But not Hank.

And even if Connor doesn't go deviant, if he had a good relationship with Hank he can refuse to kill him. He can pull him back off the roof and let himself get killed instead of killing Hank.

No other android gets those choices.

[ghostly-kal]

Had a vision from the gods and decided to give the goddess of girlypop an outfit

[lucabyte]

On autonomy, and what it means to be Obliged to Help.

Bonus:

[moment-live]

I started playing the stupid mobile game

[starcurtain]

Hey! I apologize if this question has been asked before since it seems like a pretty obvious one, but where do you think the idea of Aventurine being a sex slave came from? Other than the obvious factor of it being something fun for the fandom to mess around with, I mean.

It's something I kind of took for granted as being true before playing his quest, but after finishing it I realized there wasn't really any indication. The only thing I can really think of is his master's comments about him having a good body. Is there anything in his behavior you can think of that would lead to this conclusion if it wasn't a popular fan interpretation already/kind of just an easy conclusion to reach with a slave character?

(also kind of related but what do you think of the idea that he sleeps around/with his clients to make deals? he's obviously willing to sexualize himself with the boob window, but that doesn't necessarily mean he goes further.)

As far as I can tell, the idea that Aventurine was involved in sexual slavery comes from three (maybe four) places:

First, the comment from the master about Aventurine's appearance. People were holding this comment up as refutable proof that Aventurine was used in sexual slavery on top of being tossed into the Hunger Games; however, the response from other players on this interpretation, especially the Chinese side of the fandom, was very mixed, with a lot of people pointing out that the context in the game probably meant the slave master was talking about Aventurine's ability to attract attention from fans watching the literal Sigonian Hunger Games, rather than having a direct sexual-slavery connotation.

Second, the comment from Sparkle about stripping naked and getting on his knees for Sunday. This one has way more implication in English than I think it might for an Eastern audience, actually. In English, this pretty much sounds like Sparkle saying Aventurine trades sexual favors for success in his gambles. However, I suspect the original intention in Chinese was more about humiliation. Western audiences don't have as much history with honor-based prostration, i.e. accepting corporal humiliation as a form of reconciliation that Eastern audiences might be more familiar with. And in any case, Sparkle is Sparkle. She probably just went for the lowest blow she could think of here.

Third, the general assumption that if Sigonian slaves were being chained, branded, beaten, sent to death matches, etc., it seems logical that they would also be taken advantage of in other ways. I honestly think this is probably the fairest take--many, many real slaves around the world faced (and still face!) sexual abuse, so if slaves from Sigonia were treated so poorly you could make them fight to the death for entertainment, it stands to reason they were probably also not safe from other forms of assault. We also have no idea what happened to Kakavasha in any of the years between his being a tiny child fleeing the massacre and then being purchased as a slave as a late-teens-early-twenties person. That's a very long time for a child to have to survive on their own on an extremely hostile planet and not face risks of all kinds or end up needing to do unspeakable things to survive. So I think this is at least not that far-fetched, although it's important to say there's nothing in the game that directly confirms this.

And fourth: I read a tweet semi-recently that stated that one of the Chinese (or maybe it was Japanese) names for a quest Aventurine was involved in was actually a reference to a book about a teenage sexual assault survivor. However, when I tried to verify this myself, I couldn't find any quest Aventurine was in that was based on a book about sexual assault in either English, Chinese, or Japanese. It's possible I just missed something, but I'm taking this one with a bit of a grain of salt currently, since I can't confirm it personally.

Regarding your other question, about whether I think Aventurine sleeps around to make deals...

I definitely think he does not, for one major reason.

First, I will admit that Aventurine is definitely willing to use his appearance to his advantage. This is pretty obvious. He wears incredibly flashy clothes, baths himself in cologne, overloads on glittering golden jewels, and absolutely calls attention to his appearance when working with clients.

We see him actively doing this in his Moment Among the Stars video, where he is clearly using his looks as an equal tool (to his wealth), to daze his target.

It's not an accident that he says things like "Use me as you wish," with all the explicit connotations preserved. The implication is there. However, unless he was absolutely backed into a corner, I think that implication is all it will ever be.

The reason I think this is that the devs go out of their way to give Aventurine three fairly noticeable physical behaviors in his in-game scenes:

For one, he has some of the most closed off body language of any character in the game.

Aventurine's default conversation pose is arms crossed directly and tightly in front of himself. This is like "Defensive Body Language 101." By crossing your arms, you put a symbolic barrier between yourself and the person you're speaking to, and also ensure that your hands are up and available in case you actually need to physically defend yourself.

Virtually all of Aventurine's conversations take place from this stance, no matter who he is speaking to (from the Trailblazer all the way to Topaz). He deliberately closes his pose off and tightens up his silhouette, which just sends a glaring "Don't touch me" message.

This closing off is also blatantly apparent when you compare it to the deliberately open poses he strikes while trying to make himself seem accessible to others (like tempting clients) or seem powerful (to intimidate):

Complementing this habit of closing himself off is a second noticeable aspect of his body language: He frequently avoids eye contact to the point that he even holds conversations while entirely facing away from the person he's speaking to.

I might be a bit lenient and say maybe he's doing this to on purpose to be mysterious, whoo~~ But... in all honestly, he just does this with everyone, even with Ratio while trying to talk about an actual important issue (wanting to look into Acheron's real identity). Hell, even the fake Aventurine does it to himself!

We can even say that wearing the rose-tinted glasses in the first place is another intentional barrier, one Aventurine deliberately removes in specific moments to give people the (false) impression that he's "letting them in" to his circle:

Now, this might be a bit more complicated in Aventurine's case, because eye contact has a whole extra meaning when eyes are the defining trait of your species and come with particularly challenging racial stereotypes. So it may be that Aventurine is simply used to conducting conversation while looking away to minimize racial prejudice against his eyes' unique appearance.

However, I'd also argue that the devs deliberately turned his entire model away in cutscene after cutscene to create a clear sense of being inaccessible, unapproachable, and unwilling to engage in the physical intimacy of standing closely, directly facing, and staring at his conversation partners.

While he faces away, he controls both the figurative and the literal direction of conversation, forcing people to keep their eyes on him while he is free to move as he pleases. Over and over again, it just says "I want to be the one in control. I'm not afraid to show my back to you, but you are not welcome to come near me."

And, in fact, that's a third aspect of his character's body language that I am sure the devs did not include accidentally: More so than other characters, many of Aventurine's conversations are conducted from weirdly far distances. Like, half the time he's talking, he's standing all the way on the opposite side of the room!

This habit of speaking from a-larger-than-normal distance is apparent in the first scene with Himeko...

And then in just about every other conversation too:

The bubble is twenty feet in every direction.

Like yes, he does approach and have conversations like a normal person... sometimes... But it is significantly more noticeable with Aventurine than with other characters that he often conducts whole conversations--even with his allies--from a distance. Just genuinely weirdly far apart.

Leaving space for Gaiathra, I guess.

And it's because these significant decisions were made with Aventurine's in-game body language that, when he deliberately alters his own behavior, it is instantaneously noticeable.

In 2.0, he closes the distance, the glasses come off, and he gets directly up in the Trailblazer's face.

It's uncomfortable not just because the player is suddenly being loomed over, but because this behavior has already been subconsciously established for the player as out of character for Aventurine.

The barriers the character himself was putting up are deliberately stripped away so that he can use physicality and demanding eye contact to intimidate his target. He has to reverse his own normal body language in order to come across as domineering (and, I guess if you're into that, appealing in a domineering manner).

And ummmm, just a tiny aside here because I can't resist:

This does mean that when the game goes out of its way to demonstrate Aventurine altering his own normal habit of distant and defensive body language, it is absolutely intentional.

Yes, this is a Ratiorine post in disguise. There literally isn't any other character in the game that Aventurine is shown being comfortable standing so close to and interacting with in this manner. This doesn't occur in every one of their scenes, but Ratio is the only character that this happens with repeatedly. It's not an accident that the devs literally added "They were walking side-by-side" as flavor text.

But look, I'll be fair: There's a great example of this in Aventurine's scene with Acheron too, where he closes the distance and attempts to make eye contact with her--seeking her guidance and closeness--and she is actually the one stepping away, speaking with her back turned, demonstrating her power and control (and issues with connection!) in that scene.

Anyway, this was a whole longggg tangent into analyzing Aventurine's body language, but my point is that, overall, the devs deliberately adjusted his model's actions in-game to give the impression of a person who clearly wants to be in control of every interaction he has with other people, who insists on distance over intimacy, and whose stances and habits suggest that he is significantly less accessible and open than his "Use me as you wish" motto might suggest.

Long story longer, I think that there is almost zero chance Aventurine is willingly ceding control over himself or the actions expected of him to anyone he isn't 100% comfortable with, and I think that using physical intimacy of any kind would be an absolute last resort for him. Frankly, he comes across as more likely to shoot himself in the foot than let someone he doesn't trust lay hands on him.

To me, he reads very much as "You may look, but you may not touch."

[embras-grace]

One thing I truly adore about Palia is the polyamory and general queerness. It's so nice that we can romance everyone so we don't miss any plots or items, but also its nice as a poly-queer person to see some representation in a game.

There is no jealousy. There is no hateful or painful breakups (as I understand it, if you break-up it is not mentioned and you restart the romance plot-line). No one makes negative comments about two pins or switching out pins.

It's so nice to see positive rep in a game and honestly such a breath of fresh air.

[mxfrodo]

y'all for fucking real. don't fucking write slave fics or x reader fics of aventurine's slavery??? are you guys out of your goddamn minds???

[bluecloudious]

P-Ranking Fake Peppino hasn't been going the best

Fakino is concerned over Peppino constantly baby-raging during their playfight each time he gets hurt, afterwards demanding a redo

[front-facing-pokemon]

[adobe-outdesign]

browsing through Pokemon fan discussions is so strange because people will insist that every time that "[update] will fix/improve the game" and then it doesn't happen and then people buy it and are disappointed and then they go "well [update] will fix/improve the game" and it's like buddy you're Charlie Brown and GameFreak is Lucy with the football

[whenthewallfell]

sharing a wip because I'm really pleased with how it's looking, but also I tried to incorporate some native american patterns with a capitol flair (headcanon is art nouveau) into Katniss' design and idk how well i've managed it...please lemme know if anything is massively Wrong

[rustytrident]

seeing all these mixed opinions ab nightbringer and here i am giggling and kicking my feet cause we get to rizz up the demons all over again

[knifefightandchill]

RESIDENT EVIL (2023)

we are just getting started

[somegurl8]

The Octopath Traveler II extra fights experience:

[edmunderson]

my dude for femboy friday. fashionwise, i leaned more towards fifth element's version of cyberpunk rather than cyberpunk 2077's. he really likes green :)

[antiqua-lugar]

sorry that fandom poll got to me and aside from being eternally sad that me:a will not get a sequel, i will never be over how great the reyes vidal romance is.

like he and ryder met once for a mission but that one conversation where they talk Kadara politics and flirt hard apparently was enough to go Yes, I Met The One, everyone around them is going "oh gods no" and it fucking works. they go through all the most dramatic movie plot twists - the evil ex! the date that actually was a heist! kiss as a distraction! local smuggler with a heart of gold is actually the secret leader of a whole planet - and then they settle in the most chill, comfy long distance relationship because the pathfinder and the charlatan are the only people who understand each other as being people and leaders and completely unhinged people. reyes is like "from now on I want to be honest with you" and ryder is like "when you gotta lie you gotta lie" and then they just carry on like that. reyes has known ryder for like a few months at best but love is real so he immediately writes ryder down as the charlatan's consort and everyone on kadara just has to live with it.

like it's not even a "I can fix him" kind of romance, all companions are like "Are you sure?" and Ryder is like "Yeah? He's fine". and he is