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I bring yet another Traci/North mod. I wanted to turn North into her concept character, Marla
I kinda frankenstein-ed North's and this Brown Haired Traci's face textures onto each other. I also borrowed the Traci's hair since it was the closest match to Marla's art
After all that, I edited the clothes to go with the other concepts I found
I ended up doing the clothes in post cause I'm not too sure that kind of customization would even be possible with the mod tools
D:BH Deleted Content: Possibly Zhora.
Back when I was first getting sucked into the fandom and browsing concept art last year, I had encountered a blog mentioning a 4th playable character. Albeit not dropping a name, the artist commented she was scrapped during development and her model was reused as an NPC at Eden Club.
Concept Artist Mikael Leger commented on the Eden models: "Tracy! Her initial story arc was amazing…" As well as: “Remember Zhora?”
So I looked further into the NPC’s at Eden Club. One of the models with closest resemblance to the concept of Tracy/Zhora would be this one:
Her facial template is fairly unique, as other models with her likeness can’t be found outside of Eden Club. Her face is noticably less textured than the other Tracis at the club, as if she was an early or last minute addition.
Her official Eden model is a brunette with green eyes, however she has a dormant platinum blonde swatch hidden in her texture file along with a reddish and pink swatch. In the pictures above you can see how “Zhora” looks like with her dormant plantinum and reddish swatches activated.
Unfortunately, the preset shaders coloring her hair are very oversaturated. Only the extracted facial texture itself shows the true honey blonde color originally intended for her model. On the side of her left ear you can see her hair being pulled up into a bun, just like in her concept art attached on the right.
Artwork Pack 05 in the official gallery contains this concept art of an android at Ferndale Station. She strongly resembles Zhora, same hair, same coat and black high heels.
It's also noteworthy that Zhora bears a striking similarity to Marla, who later evolved into North along with Markus’ human love interest, Riley. While Zhora and Marla sported long blonde hair, North ended up using Riley’s likeness (red hair and long braid). Since Zhora and Marla/North share their tragic backstory at Eden Club, it is possible they were intened to be the same person at some point during development.
I modded Marla/Zhora’s facial texture onto North’s more refined bone structure, along with her blonde hair and green eyes. For science, you know. I think both models look positively stunning.
I'm procrastinating on my Darkest Timeline North fic (and writing The Jigsaw Edit... and answering ao3 comments... and writing Konami Code) by working on The Void Yells Back and I'm realizing that this might have to become it's own essay series. Like, the section on Sexy!Kara and how she was probably involved in the creation of Zhora is going to able to stand on its own. So I'm thinking that I might post The Void Yells Back on tumblr in sections and then cross-posting the full thing on ao3, as I've learned from Hacking the Kobayashi Maru that putting a 21k essay on tumblr is a bit too much. 😅
Zhora: DBH’s 4th Main Character That Was Scrapped
HELLO. So. You might have heard the tidbit that there were originally 4 main characters for Detroit: Become Human. And it’s always bugged me that we didn’t know more.
I’ve heard that it was originally going to be Chloe, or North (whose name might have originally been Riley, which I heard somewhere, but can’t remember the source, so take that with a grain of salt)—but on the fan wiki it’s apparently confirmed to be Zhora, which, if that’s true, I cannot comprehend how this isn’t more well known, like—
I was shocked, and psyched, and so this simply HAD to be shared. Because not only do we have the information—we have concept art.
Hello hello? Another female protagonist? Who’s main purpose wasn’t to just be an amnesiac mother-figure and suffer trauma? Who apparently had an “amazing arc” we’ll now never know?
Which, in a way, I’m thankful Cage didn’t write this, because he most likely would’ve handling that Eden Club background very...insensitively. He’s got a very sketch rep, so it may be better the way the game actually turned out.
BUT ALSO GOSH DANG IT I JUST WANT A PLAYABLE FEMALE LEAD THAT ACTUALLY IMPACTS THE PLOT IS THAT SO MUCH TO ASK LASDFJADFAL;JF (which, no hate on Kara, she’s a Queen and I love her—but she was done dirty by Cage in several respects).
Anyway, you can totally see how she seems like a mix between Chloe and North. I can also see how they might have been planning to use Chloe’s actress for this, but even if not—y’all. Just imagine the (positive) possibilities of where Zhora’s story could have gone.
Just
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
THE POTENTIAL A:LDSFKJDS:LSKFJ:SDLFKJ LIKE WHAT IF WE GOT MORE WITH THAT PLOT THREAD ABOUT RUSSIA AND FIGHTING OVER RESOURCES IN THE NORTH, ZLATKO AS A RUSSIAN SLEEPER AGENT AND MORE STUFF GOING ON THERE AND ZHORA GETTING INVOLVED WITH THAT THREAD SOMEHOW AND JUST A;LDFJ;ALDSFJK LIKE AN INTERNATIONAL MOVEMENT OF DEVIANCY INSTEAD OF JUST THE AMERICAN STUFF AND MORE WORLD-BUILDING?
OR IF EVEN THO SHE WAS A ‘TRACI’ MODEL SHE REALLY WAS CHLOE INSTEAD AND MAYBE KAMSKI WAS JUST USING HER AS A TRACI which, blegh, I wouldn’t put it past him, BUT THEN WE WOULD GET TO SEE AN ENTIRELY NEW ANGLE WITH A LIL BIT OF ACCESS TO CYBERLIFE/MORE OF WHAT’S GOING ON WITH KAMSKI’S MACHINATIONS (and ik Kamski left CyberLife years ago but you’d still get more insight into that side of things, esp cause Kamski’s reappointed as CEO if everything fails so clearly they’re still in some sort of contact) BUT YEAH THERE ARE SO MANY WAYS YOU COULD TAKE THIS AND AAAA I JUST LOVE THE TANTALIZING POTENTIAL OF IT ALL.
(Also here’s the link if you want to see for yourself)
ship ask: jericrew!!
Hello! Thanks for your message!
When I started shipping it: Polycho kind of snuck up on me over time. I remember being surprised by how quickly the Lover!North arc happened following my first playthrough and being like, “Okay, so her romance arc probably just wasn’t written very well, but she’s a really cool character regardless. I wonder what Markus’s other romances look like? I wanna see him with Josh!” And just... being really disappointed by the fact that Markus not only had just one romance option in a choose-your-own-narrative game but that DBH had this great opportunity to give us an openly queer main character of colour and decided not to pursue it.
I did try looking into Markus POV centric fanfic for a bit when I started getting into the DBH fandom, but I kind of got discouraged by a lot of the fandom bullshit that I talked about in both the Simon and HankCon asks. I did check in every so often, either looking for good Norkus content or the slightest hint of Markus/Josh... and then I ran into my first Polycho fic.
Which... um, @pegasus143 I don’t think I’ve ever told you this before, but it was actually Never Have I Ever, which is why I got super excited when you started commenting on Konami Code. I didn’t bring it up at the time because I didn’t want to come across as weird, and then I just never had the opportunity to talk about it after the fact and... well, yeah. So I guess this is my way of saying that you’re the reason why I got into Polycho because I honestly didn’t realize it was something this fandom shipped until I ran across your fic.
My thoughts: Polycho is probably the most slept on ship in the entire DBH fandom. Like, it hasn’t even hit seventy-five fics on ao3 yet, which is a fucking tragedy. At the same time, I do understand why that is. Having a mainstream polyamorous ship is pretty rare outside of fandoms like Leverage, let alone a poly ship that has more than three members. And with all the fandom’s animosity surrounding North, the tendency for people to erase Josh, Simon being a fan favourite, and how Markus’s POV was written in this ham-fisted way that almost discourages interest and introspection, I’m not exactly surprised Polycho isn’t as popular as I wish it was. At the same time, Polycho has so much fucking potential because it’s basically the perfect combination of Found Family and True Companions with a dash of romance, and I love it so goddamn much!
What makes me happy about them: The teamwork. Spare Parts is really cool because it’s one of the few times when we actually see the Jericrew work together instead of just being Markus and North. It's also why I love seeing the various Freedom March endings or the bridge scene in Crossroads because we get these little glimpses of the Jericrew members actually functioning as the unit they were supposed to be. I just wish we had more of it in the game that we got, as we were given this squad where half the members sort of faded into the background so that Markus’s relationship with North could take precedence.
What makes me sad about them: (tw: sex trafficking, suicide, PTSD) How fueled by trauma each member of the Jericrew is. Like, North is implied to have spent the first two years of her life as a sex trafficking victim and has difficulties forming bonds as a result, Simon’s suicidally driven by something that happened to him during his secret backstory, and Josh is defensively angry all the time and it makes me wonder what exactly happened to him before coming to Jericho. And Markus is this perfect combination of all three of them. He’s got North’s fear of connection and Simon’s PTSD and Josh’s anger coursing through his veins, and it’s formed this perfect storm that they can all see themselves in.
So I guess what I’m trying to say is that all of them really, really need to have a sitdown with a therapist, but absolutely none of them would ever take that first step themselves.
Things done in fanfic that annoy me: The Josh erasure in this fandom is real. Quantic Dream let a dark-skinned black man be the angriest pacifist I’ve seen in media in fucking forever. And DBH doesn’t even actively demonize him for it at every turn like they do with North and the Violent Path - that’s mind-blowingly revolutionary! And yet... do you know how many times I’ve seen Jericrew fanart/fics that either put him on the back burner or ignore him entirely? Or on the rare occasion that I see him, Josh’s rage is just cut from his character to turn him into Fanon!Simon 2.0. Like, do you know many times I’ve seen ‘Polycho’ works feature just Markus, North, and Simon together as a triad and literally shove Josh off to the side? Or present Josh as ace as a way to explain why he isn’t included in their relationship as opposed to exploring what being asexual actually means? Because as someone who is ace themselves, there’s this one piece of pride fanart that comes across my dash ever so often depicting just that, and it fucking hurts every time I see it.
Things I look for in fanfic: I guess it would be a cop-out to say plot again, but... How about just moments where Simon, North, and Josh interact with one another without Markus present? Because the game never gives me a sense that they actually get along with one another, and fandom usually focuses on who they are in relation to Markus. Seeing these three interact and care for each other within fanworks really helps to build up their characters and personal history in a way that only showing them talking with Markus just doesn’t.
Who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other: I kind of already talked about Markus in my HankCon ask, as I’d love to see him and Luther together in a world where Luther and Kara are in an open relationship. While I don’t actively ship RK1K on a romantic level, I can see the appeal so I’m totally comfortable with Markus ending up with Connor. I’ve also seen some Markus/John works that really interested me. And obviously, I ship the fuck out of Markus and Zhora because I can make their romance as dynamic as I want to inside my head without being too concerned about what is and isn’t canon.
I’ve also talked about how I’d imagine North and Connor getting together in the HankCon ask, so if you want to hear about my Darkest Timeline verse, you can go check that out. I've read some North/Chloe fic that I really love and recently seen some fanart where she’s included in Echo and Ripple’s relationship.
The Simon/Leo ship has started to grow on me recently, as has Simon/Nines. And this is probably controversial because I don’t see people shipping Simon with afab (afaa? Assigned Female At Activation?) characters outside of North very often, but I like the idea of Simon and Hostess!Chloe together for some reason. Also: Simon could end up with any of the male Tracis from the Eden Club, and I wouldn’t be surprised.
And finally, Josh! @jerichogallery did a Luther/Josh mod a little while ago, and it changed my fucking life. I like the idea of him and Lucy being together. I think that Josh and Leo would get along famously and wouldn’t be surprised if they ended up hooking up while smoking a blunt (or whatever the android equivalent of weed is). I also wouldn’t be too against him and Hank going out a few times, if only because I like the idea of Hank having to look up to a partner.
My happily ever after for them: So this is kind of going to come out of left field but... space exploration.
Like, I’ve got this headcanon that after the revolution, the first big-ticket item on Jericho’s to-do list is to find a way to CyberLife’s planned obsolescence. And in doing so, androids actually find out that they can live for centuries or even millennia at a time. So there comes a day hundreds of years in our future where the Jericrew realizes that they’re okay. Because North hasn’t flinched at the touch of a human in decades and Simon’s stopped compulsively checking their security measures at night, and Josh isn’t rearing for a fight at every opportunity, and Markus can’t remember the last time he called himself an android because he’s so used to referring to himself as Terran and... yeah. They’re okay. And after literal centuries of doing what they can to help the planet recover from the wounds we inflicted upon ourselves, the world is going to be okay without them.
So they just... go out into space and visit new civilizations and do their best to help when they see a problem. And thousands of years later, when Terrans reach what they think is the farthest corner of the known universe, they find that they’re precluded by these legends that tell of four beings from a planet called Earth, arriving with the sole intent of being kind. And when we ask who these people were, they get one word in response.
“Jericho.”
Who is the big spoon/little spoon? So many combinations!
I see Josh as predominantly big spoon except with North, who’s adamant about being his ‘jetpack’ when they cuddle together during stasis. When this happens, Josh makes a point of sprawling out into the most absurdly shaped pile of limbs to affectionately annoy her because they’re both absolute shit disturbers, and nothing can convince me otherwise.
Simon isn’t so much a ‘fixed’ spoon, but he will position himself on the outside the cuddle pile so that his body is always the closest to the door. That’s because I think he’d always want to be able to react first in case of an attack. If he’s looking at the door, then the threat level is high enough that he’ll probably get in the minimum amount of recharging before going into guard mode. But on the nights where he feels safe, Simon will turn inward and let himself be held by whoever he’s with.
North is kind of touch and go with experiencing contact while in stasis. But on the off chance that she’s feeling up to it, North actually likes sleeping half on top of partner(s). If not, she’s usually alright with laying face-to-face with her bedmates so that they’re the first thing she sees when she wakes up.
Markus just likes being in the middle. He ‘sleeps’ the best when he’s sandwiched between Josh and Simon, with North just sprawled out on top of them all like a starfish. It makes him feel protected in a way that he’s never experienced before meeting them.
What’s their favourite non-sexual activity: Hijinks. Absolute hijinks. Someone suggests, “Hey! Let’s go for a walk!” And within the first half-hour, Josh has gotten into five different arguments with six different strangers, Simon has had to be dragged away from someone he’s convinced is following them, North is plotting a straight-up bank heist, and Markus has posted the entire thing on TikTok because you can’t convince me that he’s not addicted to social media.
I love these morons so fucking much.
For the ask game: 002 - Simon
Hey again!
How I feel about this character: Oh boy, I’m about to open a can of worms with this one, aren’t I? Well, let’s just get to it, shall we?
I like Simon in the same way that I like Supernatural.
That is to say... I’ve got this version of him in my head that I really do enjoy. That Simon is a jaded realist, who’s philosophy toward his newly found free will is “We didn’t ask for this, but we’ve still got to deal with it.” He’s depressed but stoically determined. He’s religious. He’s overly prepared to the point of paranoia. He’s lost people that he loves, people that we’re never going to meet because we arrived too late in his life, and hates the fact that he’s still here and they’re not. He doesn’t want to die, but he is ready to throw himself into a hail of bullets if it means his people get to breathe for another day.
And most importantly, this Simon is Jericho’s Leader until Markus arrives - but he’s specifically the Leader during a time where Jericho is barely managing to stay afloat. And considering that Simon is the oldest deviant in the entire game (seriously: he’s well into his third year of deviancy when we meet him), he’s probably witnessed Jericho’s degradation over a long period of time. And all of it has been because of his leadership, which just fuels his drive to keep Markus alive at all costs. Because Simon has seen Markus’s successes in contrast to his own failures and absolutely refuses to let Jericho slide back into what it once was under his command. And at the same time... this Simon is kind of jealous of Markus because he’s been trying to hold it together for fucking years, and then this guy just shows up fixes every problem Simon’s been dealing with by willing a solution into being. And I think that’s something Simon really needs to work through before entering a romantic relationship because having that resentment isn’t really something you want bubbling just below the surface when entering a partnership like that.
And then I venture out into the realms beyond my head, and I just... don’t see my Simon anywhere.
I’ve talked about it before in The Jigsaw Edit, but Canon!Simon bores me to death. Any characterization that he gains in Time to Decide is gone by the end of the chapter. After that, he’s kind of just waiting around to be a backup bullet shield for Markus, his true purpose only activating if the player doesn’t grab John in Spare Parts or fails to get North’s Relationship Stat high enough that she’ll sacrifice herself for him in Battle for Detroit. While I get that a lot of that was done to prioritize Markus’s relationship with North, Simon still doesn’t contribute to either narrative or gameplay in any way that lasts beyond the moment that it’s happening in and following what he likes usually ends up leading the player down the Failure Path. And I think I would have been content to leave Canon!Simon like that and just enjoy the version I have of him in my head if it hadn’t been for the fandom’s reaction to him.
“~Ooooh! Simon’s so sweet and soft! He’s the perfect sunshine boy!~” “~Simon’s so peaceful and everyone else is so violent!~” “~Simon should have been the Pacifist Lover!~” “~Simon’s so much better than North and Josh! I’m going to ignore them both and just focus on him instead because he’s written so much better!~”
Like, fuck, are we even playing the same game? Did I miss a Path where Simon actually gets characterization after his introductory chapter? Because I genuinely don’t know where any of this is coming from.
Well, actually... I do. Because I’ve been in and out of fandoms for almost fifteen years now, and I’ve seen this crap before. Stanning the most blandly written white male character while simultaneously shitting all over the women and characters of colour who actually contribute to the narrative has been around long before the word ‘stan’ was invented. And while I’m certainly not saying that everyone that ships Simon and Markus together is some secret misogynist or racist, it’s also one thing to talk about this shit on an individual level and another thing entirely to discuss it as a continued trend. I get that Markus’s surrounding cast wasn’t well-written (hell, Markus’s entire POV wasn’t well-written in general), but that’s not an excuse to treat North and Josh the same way that I’ve seen people doing to any character that’s not their male favs since 2005.
I don’t know, guys... My relationship with Simon is complicated at best. I do genuinely like the version of him that lives inside my head, but I just can’t vibe with the caricature that I see in fandom or the boring backup bullet shield I got to know in canon. And I think that all of that has really contributed to why I find it so hard to really enjoy his character full-time in the same way that I do with the rest of the Markus POV’s cast. I know that most of you aren’t going to agree with me about certain things, and that’s okay, but... yeah...
(But seriously: the whole “Simon should have been the Pacifist Lover” has to fucking stop. You don’t get to copy-and-paste some facsimile of Josh’s character over Simon and erase the contributions of a dark-skinned black man who is ready to die spitting in the faces of a government-funded execution squad twice over so that you can imagine the ‘ideal’ scenario for how you want your perfect sunshine boy to hook up with Markus. Because I get fucking war flashbacks to the mid-2000s Naruto fandom every time I see this crap.)
All the people I ship romantically with this character: Markus, North, and Josh - either within Polycho or individually on their own. I’ve seen a few pieces of Simon/Leo fanart, so that ship is starting to grow on me. Also: Simon/Nines.
My non-romantic OTP for this character: Him and Lucy. I really enjoyed fleshing out this relationship in Konami Code, as Lucy is one of the few people on Jericho that was alive before he was shoved into the Leader position by Aloe. And given that Simon is a believer in rA9 and Lucy is the closest thing we’ve got to a prophet, I think that they’ve meshed together quite nicely.
My unpopular opinion about this character: You mean other than the one I talked about in the first question? :P Regarding the cut Lover!Simon arc that was clearly supposed to take place despite Quantic Dream’s hilarious attempts to not talk about it... I honestly don’t think that he would be presented as an alternative Lover for the player to pursue if they had Markus go down a different Path. Considering how often Canon!Simon fills in for North if she’s dead, I think the original version of the script would have only triggered the Lover!Simon arc if the player had Connor kill Zhora off in her second chapter - and that’s one of the reasons why that script fell apart.
(One day, I’m going to write a post on what I think the original script/Zhora POV was going to look like... But today is not that day.)
One thing I wish would happen/had happened with his character in canon: Continuing off of the whole ‘Simon is used to fill North’s role if she dies’ thing, I’d love to have seen Simon offer Markus the detonator to the dirty bomb - if only because I want to see how the fandom would react to it. Because the bomb is used as ‘proof’ that North is a horrible, bloodthirsty person that wants to commit genocide upon the human race... which isn’t remotely what she says when she brings it up in Crossroads and Battle for Detroit, but the misogyny runs pretty deep in fandom, so I’m not really surprised. But if Simon also can offer Markus the bomb in a scene that perfectly mirrors North’s version, right down to the actual words that are said, then wouldn’t that mean that he has the same reasoning as North behind it all?
(I know, I’m probably just being vindictive at this point... But you just know that people would jump through hoops to justify Simon’s actions while still trying to vilify North in the same breath.)
My OTP: Polycho, all the way, baby! And not just with everyone only dating Markus. Simon is with Josh and North too!
My crossover ship: I’ve never really been into crossover ships much, but I’d love to see how Simon and Sakura from Naruto would get along.
A headcanon fact: It was Simon’s idea to rig Jericho to blow. Simon’s obsessed with the continued safety of his people, so I don’t think it would be a surprise that he’d be willing to destroy the physical ship to buy the deviants living inside a few minutes to evacuate in case of an attack. Also: considering that Simon is shown to be familiar with explosives (he hands Markus the explode-y thing that gets them through the door in Stratford Tower and might have been involved in the Zhora POV’s cut option to bomb the Tower itself), I wouldn’t be surprised if this moment was going to be a continuation of something that would have been set up throughout the combined Markus-Zhora POV.
