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10 Charachters, 10 Fandoms

Thank you @rowanisawriter for giving me the opportunity to fangirl about my fictional crushes.

Tagging @spacejammie-eimmajecaps, @ashamefulplace and @the-lastcall (and anyone who wants to tune in).

I wasn't sure if I should do this chronologically, or in order of how much I've simped for these people, so let's just get to it:

P.S.: you'll get kudos (and maybe candy) if you pick up on the common themes here.

1. Zuko - ATLA

He was my first fictional crush.

I would write self insert fic about him (which never saw the light of AO3 thankfully), and I would rewatch all of ATLA just to his character go from "I can fix him" brat to adorkable edgy brat.

2. Bill Cipher - Gravity Falls

He had what I at the time called the "sexy British accent". I never even joined the school of thought "he'd burn the whole world down but me". I was chill with burning.

3. Bucky Barnes - MCU

And the bad boy parade continues. I firmly believed that I could fix him, and going back to the (once again thankfully unpublished) self insert slash fics of the time, I realise that I had no idea what in him needed fixing.

4. John Hancock - Fallout 4

Nothing makes me fall harder for a sad meow meow than him going "I'm gonna stop bugging you with my problems, I know I'm too fucked up to love".

I have a save file right before that convo, and I like to revisit it every so often.

5. Egor Serling - Deathloop

While on the topic of sad meow meows, let me introduce you to mister "I've been invisible my whole life 🥺". He's pathetic and slightly unhinged, what is there not to love? ( y/n in my fic about him agrees).

6. David Sarif - Deus Ex

It's hard to pick only one character from the DX games, but I think "Daddy Sarif", as I affectionately call him whenever he's brought up in conversation, belongs here.

He is rich, smart, and believes the illuminati want to tear down his company (and has 0 evidence to back that up).

7. Crosshair - Clone Wars: the Bad Batch

A sad meow meow, a bad boy, and white hair? Can a man be more perfect? Well he's also a sniper ...

He's like Egor, but he'll talk back when you tell him to get on his knees, you know?

8. Billie Lurk - Dishonored

You know the jist by this point, sad, with questionable morals, daddy issues, and missing an arm.

My favourite thing about her is how she goes "this is a robbery" with an audible smirk, as she robs a bank. And also that she kept the creepy art project her girlfriend gave her a decade ago. How sweet is that?

I need to write a self-insert x her fic. But I don't have any Dishonored OCs :/

9. Alyx Vance - Half Life

She was my first girl crush. And I still remember the exact moment I went "damn that chick is cool". It was shortly after reuniting with Barney, when I had to shoot my way through some stupid combine stronghold, and Alyx just crawled through the vents and waited for me on the other side.

(She is the reason I have £500 saved to one day buy a VR set)

10. Bo-Katan Kryze - the Mandalorian (no this isn't cheating, it's a different sub-fandom XP)

Is she just a mommy version of Alyx? Maybe. But the Mandalorian (the TV series), sure helped with the popularity of her character... (I'm talking about that one ass scene).

She also has that sad kitty side to her, when she sits alone in her massive space castle after all her friends have left her.

Deus Ex | Augmented Eyes

Adam Jensen

David Sarif

Bob Page (MD)

Bob Page (DX)

Walton Simons

JC & Paul Denton

Alex Denton

Anna Kelso

DETAILS

Glowing eyes (with emission maps)

3D effect (with normal/bump maps)

Textures extracted from Mankind Divided (for Jensen and Sarif) and The Fall (for Anna Kelso) and modified to work with TS4 - the rest are edits based on those original textures

Genetics: Swatches display as additional eye color swatches in CAS

Tagged for Human and Alien

DOWNLOAD

Adam Jensen: Direct Link | SimFileShare David Sarif: Direct Link | SimFileShare Bob Page (MD): Direct Link | SimFileShare Bob Page (DX): Direct Link | SimFileShare Walton Simons: Direct Link | SimFileShare JC & Paul Denton: Direct Link | SimFileShare Alex Denton: Direct Link | SimFileShare Anna Kelso: Direct Link | SimFileShare

I may make more of these, generic ones with a spectrum of colour options. Drop me a message if anyone’s interested in something like that! UPDATE 19/03/23: Bob Page now has two eye variations, the MD one is based on his appearance in Mankind Divided, and the DX one is based on his appearance in the original Deus Ex. Walton Simons in the original Deus Ex did not have glowing eyes, however his HDTP mod model had glowing blue eyes, which is where I've taken inspiration from.

UPDATE 13/06/23: These are now combined into one package. I’ve also created an optional Child and Contact Lenses version. You can download these on ModTheSims.

wip roundup London Calling: for Odysseus Gambit And A Sweet Lie, A Poison Truth: for from Stars

London Calling is set just after the end of Mankind Divided. David's flown Sloane out from Prague due to the anti-aug backlash, intending to spend quality time with his daughter (which is causing some friction because he keeps thinking he knows everything from his surveillance of her, and he really doesn't, but Sarif, y'know?). And since Adam's also in London, David gets the bright idea to introduce the two of them. After all, he's been trying to get them together for months now and Sloane keeps blowing him off and he just doesn't understand why! (She keeps telling him, "you don't need to introduce me to your security chief". Just... like... that. Not her fault he hears "don't introduce me to him...")

This is very much a WIP, and will likely see significant revisions as I continue to work out exactly what happened behind the scenes at Apex, but the part I know that's going to stay is Sloane yanking Sarif up by the short hairs regarding his actions in Human Revolution...

David leaned back in his chair and looked at them with an air of pride. “And seeing the both of you here, hale and whole, I’m glad I did.”

The very last thing he was expecting was Adam’s sardonic, “’Whole’ is an interesting way to put it, but who am I to argue?” Sloane’s brow furrowed, and she glanced sharply between him and Adam.

“What are you talking about, Adam?” David was genuinely confused. “Look at you, son!”

“Yeah.” Adam sounded unimpressed. “Look at me. More metal than meat, your name plastered all over me.” He snorted. “Pretty sure I never asked for this.”

Sloane held up a finger. “Just a minute,” she said, and David watched Adam’s shoulders stiffen. “Adam, are you saying that you didn’t consent to your initial augmentation?”

“I was unconscious,” Adam said, quietly. “There was a clause in my employment contract making Sarif my legal medical proxy in the absence of my designated proxy.”

“That,” she said, very precisely, “is not a ‘no’.”

“I—” David fell silent as she levelled stormy eyes on him.

“Adam?” she asked, in a tone of exquisite courtesy that still failed to hide the anger simmering beneath.

Adam sighed. “My left arm, chest cavity, and parts of my head and face needed to be replaced.”

“I see,” she said, still staring at David. “Let me guess, you knew that Adam was a genetic fluke, that he wouldn’t need Neuropozyne, and that because of that, you could stuff him full of cutting-edge augmentations. A showpiece and a private army all in one package.”

David winced. It sounded so crass when she put it in those terms. “That’s not—”

Sloane placed both hands on the table and slowly rose to her full height, and somehow, she managed to fill the room with her voice without raising the volume. “Medical ethics, Sarif. Have you ever heard of them? How about bodily autonomy?” He opened his mouth to protest, and “—and don’t you even try to tell me that you had the legal right, because we all know that what is legal and what is right are not always the same.”

“HE ALMOST DIED!” Sarif was on his own feet. “Do you have any idea what that was like? I thought—our entire research team was dead, and half the security force besides! I had one chance to salvage something! Salvage him! I had to make a choice, and it wasn’t just Adam’s survival on the line, but Sarif Industries!” Sarif’s breath came hard and fast. How could she not understand? “We—he—needed to be able to survive if they came back.”

She took a deep breath, and then Adam placed a hand gently on her arm. “Sweetheart,” he said, roughly, “will you do me a favor and give us a moment?” Her eyes snapped to his, and he gave her a little nod. She glanced at David, briefly, then placed a kiss on Adam’s forehead—making her partisanship clear—and stalked out of the room.

“Adam—” David’s voice cracked.

“Before you ask,” Adam said, “I didn’t put her up to that. But I’m also not sorry she said it. It needed to be said.”

David stared at him in shock. “Et tu, Adam?”

Adam snorted bitterly. “Don’t try to pass yourself off as the one betrayed, Sarif. Everything about my time at Sarif Industries was a lie, from the moment I was hired.”

David shook his head. “That’s a little melodramatic, don’t you think? Believe it or not, I hired you on your own merits. The rest of it,” he waved his hand dismissively, “was just a bonus.”

Adam slammed a hand down on the table hard enough to make the china jump. “No. Stop trying to weasel out of it. You did this when I called you on the hole in the firewall, and again with Radford, and by god, for once you are going to take some responsibility for your actions.”

“What do you want me to say, Adam? That I’m sorry?” David spread his hands wide. “If I hadn’t given you what I did, you—and a hell of a lot of other people—would be dead right now. Am I supposed to regret that?”

“Ah. The utilitarian argument. Greatest good for the greatest number; too bad for the poor bastard that gets sacrificed for the rest.” Adam’s snort this time was less bitter and more contemptuous. “For someone who hates the Illuminati so much, you’re quick to adopt their methods.”

2015

Deus Ex.

My favorite game for 10+ years. I replayed it 10 times, too. Now Disco Elysium has joined it in the first place on my videogame top, and they get along nicely.

I love the fact that 'Sarif Industries' has a worker named Sevchenko (Shevchenko, an exclusively Ukrainian surname, and also the surname of the most known Ukrainian poet), and he was called "the russian" by some corporate in the game. At the same time, Sarif did not give a job to a real russian—according to the canon, the unethical scientist.

Request!

Coming back to this story seven years later. Hopefully someone is still interested.

dx animatic by the way!!!! frank-centric, contains vague spoilers for dxhr and black light

Deus Ex- Sarif's attack dog (revisited) + Post about how and why this revisit came to be aka some self-reflect (warning: long, ... OMG too long)

During Inktober2022, when I was forced to (as its part of the challenge) post daily, in some point I took a look of my 2022 postings in general. I found that I have taken my blogs title "Sketchbook and doodles" too literal. Almost all my works posted were... are... 1-2 day quick scribbles and clearly unfinished. Except 3. 2 of which were done in 2021 and still fit the 1-2 day filling and one work which I had done while recovering serious health related issue and was forced to focus only on recovery and I kept working on a singular piece the time without thinking about completing the piece itself (as my goal was just to fill the time I was awake and give my brain something else than health to think about) nor being stressed by war, bills, work. And out of those 3 remaining works that last is only one I wouldn’t know how to change, when I open its original file now. Also the other remotely almost passable as closer to complete works were done before war and illness. Why I have rushed like this – where was I hurrying to? Did I believe I improve better if I do more? Yet my best fan-work of 2022 is one I did, when I was physically so weak I was barely able to hold any objects like my pen (even eating and holding a spoon exhausted me to the point I slept hours afterwards), but just invested more time on doing something. Inktober was like a sum of the same – out of the 31 works I did, the best one in my opinion is the one I failed at original day and did bit by bit on other remaining days. Where am I running to? I should sit the f*** down. 2022 is trying to tell me something and I should listen. It 1st broke my graphics card few days in. Started a war close enough month after. Got me ill and almost killed me next month after that and then heatwaved me to heat-sickness soon as I started to do some recovery few months down. Canceled all my long planned events and activities for august and changed what-and-how in September. Only thing it did not cancel was me seeing my favorite band in July (in fact ‘universe’ in particular delayed the gig to be in 2022 from 2020). Maybe by November I should take the darn hint? … I finally sat down after Inktober. Meditated a few days, sitting back against almost ice cold-radiator in a 12C room (the machinery in basement shut itself off again and it was 12C outside as well). So I went back and took one the unfinished works and gave myself no time limits - „It is done, when it is done.” I told myself - “I am not running anywhere, no one gave me deadline. I do this because I love doing stuff like this. Do it like you just hired yourself and want your moneys worth. And above all – have fun. I must have fun again, like when I was 2 and scribbled believing I am greatest painter in the world and for my family I was.” Uh, and the widget in the basement started working after I had found calm in self as well worked on this piece a few days and is stable 21C now. If I’d believe in paranormal, I’d say this house is alive and is catching up my moods. But thanks, house, for the widget being back online. The gas company found no fault in the widget and its systems. Not in spring, when it stopped working 1st time after being just installed, nor this falls … Well… in this region we believe that old houses have their own spirits and personalities after all. Here’s “Sarif’s Attack Dog” as I wanted it to be 8 months ago. Just spent 5 times more time on it. Viewer, who wants, does find flaws in it and could argue about ‘its done, when its done’ part, but it is not about if someone else can do it better, likes it or does not like it or any other 100 problems, but its about how I wanted it to look-like in given moment and gave myself time to do it. Maybe it should be my 2023 years resolution? “Sit the f-down and take my sweet time on all things I do – including fan-art?” Provided 2023 doesn’t try to kill me again, like 2022 did… tehehe? PS! That lone fully completed 2022 fan-art of mine was Francis Pritchard hacking Adams computer in Prague

When your boyfriend beats up the guy who Surreptitiously Augmented you against your will, but you are trauma bonded, so you just stand there and.

Prompted by an obscure Jensen/Koller fanfic that I wrote (does not actually happen in the fanfic).

Deus Ex in Yuletide 2022

Did I mentioned the Deus Ex series is nominated in this year's Yuletide fic exchange too? And presumably there's at least a couple of others interested, because folks have nominated 14 different characters (and you can only nominated 4 each). My own request letter (assorted prompts, free to a good home!) is up over here.

Full list of every nominated character below, and there are still a couple of days left for sign-ups, if you're interested (though, y'know ‒ see rules, and everything, etc).

Alejandra 'Alex' Vega

Bob Page

David Sarif

Duncan MacReady

Faridah Malik

Francis Pritchard

Hugh Darrow

Jim Miller (Deus Ex)

Talos Rucker

Vaclav Koller

Adam Jensen

Eliza Cassan

Helios (Deus Ex)

JC Denton

The downside: now I have to actually pick between officially signing up to request JC/Helios or Jensen/Pritchard, because Yuletide matching doesn't really give you a good way of signing up for either/or when there are that many other nominated characters. XD Ah well.

Summary: A collection of drabbles about the further agents' life. A direct sequel to «And then, who knows…».

Type: Translation Rating: Mature Chapters: 9/9 Relationship: Adam Jensen/Hector Guerrero Characters: Adam Jensen, Hector Guerrero, Delara Auzenne, Vaclav Koller, David Sarif Additional Tags: Drabble Collection, Explicit Language, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Humor, Established Relationship, Slice of Life, Alternative Universe - Canon Divergence

Original Author: BloodStripe Original work in Russian: https://ficbook.net/readfic/10707870

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Deus Ex: Human Revolution Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Adam Jensen & David Sarif Characters: David Sarif Additional Tags: Unethical Experimentation, living weapon, Adam Jensen's Augmentations, Augmentations (Deus Ex), Dehumanization, Febuwhump 2024 Series: Part 18 of Febuwhump 2024 Summary:

David Sarif hadn't quite expected how much work went into making a human into a weapon.

Playing Deus Ex: Mankind Divided again and again delighted by how this series treats people's cyborg-ization (i.e. "augmentation"). The portrayal of societal effects of augmentation are, shall we say, a bit heavy-handed, but the personal/individual portrayals are really good.

One of my favorite scenes is early on. Adam's taken some damage and needs repairs from an expert, a happy-go-lucky machinist in a punk rock jacket named Koller. Adam has to be unconscious for this so he sits back in a chair and shuts his eyes while Koller goes to work.

There's no cutscene of the repairs. Instead your eyes drift blearily open. Koller is freaking OUT. He's scrambling and dropping his tools. He won't tell you what's wrong. Your HUD isn't showing up. He asks if you want some water. What a stupid question at a time like this. You accept, because there is literally nothing else you can do.

When you wake up you learn that there is a bunch of high tech shit inside your body that no one told you about before. Koller asks when it might have been installed, and Adam notes a period after his rescue from the Panchaea explosion from which he remembers little. This echoes the time in the first game after his rescue from the Sarif Industries assault when he had most of his body—including three healthy limbs—replaced with cybernetics by his employer, without knowledge (let alone consent) from Adam himself. Adam goes, "I'm starting to think I hate being unconscious."

It's a rather uneasy take on the whole "cybernetic superman" trope. Flesh is you, grows with you and changes with you. Cybernetics are built by somebody else and welded on by somebody besides that—people with their own goals and intents that don't necessarily align with yours, and who might very well have more control over your own body than you do. When it is much easier to disregard a person's bodily autonomy, of course it will be disregarded by those who can get away with it. The messy truth is that despite visions of a machine utopia, humans can never be entirely removed from the equation.

For the wip game, what can you tell us about ‘Enjoy the Silence’ and/or ‘My Heart Burned Open Wide’?

So I answered My Heart Burned Open Wide for @atonalginger, link:

But I'll happily talk about 'Enjoy the Silence'! That's a chapter in my Deus Ex fic, Odysseus Gambit, featuring Adam Jensen from the DX prequels and my OC Sloane Delacourt.

At this point in the story, they're both rather damaged people. Adam is trying to cope with missing a year of his life after expecting to die saving the world, and woke up a) to find he hadn't really saved it, and b) there's stuff in his head he doesn't understand. (Trying to keep this spoiler-light for those who haven't played the games and might be interested.) But the Illuminati's still out there and he's going to bring them down, dammit! Despite the PTSD he's trying hard to ignore and the nagging little voices in his head.

Sloane, meanwhile, is the daughter of a high-ranking Illuminata (though she doesn't know it), who pretty much had her to try and blackmail her father, David Sarif, into toeing the Illuminati line, and when it didn't work, tried to raise her as an emotionless copy of herself. Also didn't work, but Sloane is struggling with the emotional damage that went along with that. (And 15 years in the Special Forces, where she soaked up a lot of the military attitude toward managing one's feelings.) Hyper-rationality, inability to accept that she actually is capable of feelings (especially that L-word, no no no we don't talk about that at all), repression and the occasional bit of disassociation... you know, the usual.

So here they are, they're friends, and each of them is trying to deal with a healthy dose of attraction to the other, but not willing to show it. Then Sloane accidentally breaks Adam's cyber-hand while they're sparring. Their usual aug expert is out of town dealing with another problem, but fortunately Sloane's a Special Forces medic trained to repair augs as well as keep people alive, so it's no problem. She'll just put it back together herself!

But it doesn't quite go as expected, and they're both shocked into a realization that they can't just go on as they have been...

“That does it for the internal repairs,” she said quietly, as he gave the fingers an experimental flex. “Just need to fix the damage to the outer layer; won’t be too much longer and I’ll be out of your hair.”

“I appreciate your help,” he reassured her. “What else do you need to do?”

She dug around in her medical bag, extracting a small bottle. “Well, you know this—” she tapped gently on the nanofiber ‘skin’ “—was designed to be self-healing, given a little carbon?”

Adam nodded. “Yeah, Koller said something about graphite?”

Sloane chuckled. “Graphite dust gets everywhere. I have something better.” She poured a little out on two fingers, gently spread it on the back of his hand in long, slow strokes, then used her thumbs to massage it in around the joints.

Oh. He’d known the carbon “skin” was tough, but he’d never imagined it could be so sensitive. Her hands were pleasantly warm, and there was something almost familiar about the feel of her textured finger-pads on him. His throat tightened and his breath came short, and the intense wave of skin-hunger that gripped him at the sheer sensuality of her touch was followed by an equally intense desire to squirm beneath her attention. He’d run into too many people, men and women both, who looked at his augs and considered him just a cool toy to be used and discarded. It was almost enough to make him push her away… but one look at her face and he knew the truth. Her eyes were closed, and she was working entirely by touch; there was nothing acquisitive about her look, nothing possessive. Adam had never seen her look that gentle—or that unguarded. In silence, she traced the lines of titanium frame and myomer fiber, fingers listening for the least hint of reluctance or withdrawal, and he drank in her touch like a desert that had long forgotten rain.

Col. Young - Stargate Universe Ike Evans - Magic City Susan Ivanova - Babylon 5 Methos - Highlander David Sarif - Deus Ex Human Rev. Melanie Cavill - Snowpiercer John Sheridan - Babylon 5 Bertie Chickering - The Knick