fanstuff sewage pipe

The amazing @wake-up-lieutenant and I talk a lot about a lot of stuff, and once she said to me "hey, I think Connor's mind palace is actually a CyberLife server and it's not in his head".

And that shook me. But of course, that makes sense. No one else goes into the mind palace but Connor, who reports directly to them.

Then we started looking at more similarities. Both screenshots provided by @wake-up-lieutenant.

So, considering the alternative

Is it really that wrong of Connor to utilise his friendship with Hank to manipulate him in order to make him leave unharmed instead of beating the shit out of him and potentially killing? Isn't manipulating Hank in this situation is in a way more humane and beneficial for both of them, not only Connor? Can't it be influenced by somehow genuine desire to keep this human from physical harm/potential death? I don't think those things are mutually exclusive, that's all I want to say.

mostly sketches from frames and learning connor’s face >)

  I haven’t played Detroit until now… and it was wow This game left me with deep satisfaction, emotions, and a lot of thoughts to think about.

I was just rewatching The Matrix for the first time in about a decade and noticed some Very Clear style nods that Detroit: Become Human goes with for Connor.

I know fandom having become aware that Bryan Dechart has beautiful curly hair likes to project that on Connor (along with Bryan's more angular cheekbones). But I think there's was a clear and deliberate attempt to try to create in Connor a look that was somewhere midway between Neo and Agent Smith in The Matrix.

Which makes Such Thematic Sense, right? Connor functions like an Agent, hunting down aberrations in the machine world, but Cyberlife also wanted him to seem softer, more relatable, more empathic. And he becomes more human over time, so less agent-like.

It's understandable that they would look to an extremely stylish, massively iconic AI movie as one of their inspirations.

Just as Connor takes his name from both a machine and a human hero of the revolution in the Terminator movies (John Connor/Connor, T800/RK800), so we see a similar thing going on in his style references to the Matrix.

In The Matrix, style within the simulation is all sleek, and the more in tune you are with the system, the more slicked back your hair is. All the Agents have perfectly quaffed hair - to the point where they don't look real (except for Smith, as he becomes more human towards the end).

But it's not just the agents who are like this. Trinity's hair is practically dripping with product. And towards the end of the movie, as Neo starts to understand how to manipulate the Matrix, his hair is tamed, too:

But in the early parts of the movie, when he's still very much a ragged and confused human, he very noticeably has locks of hair hanging over his forehead.

And in the middle of the movie, while he's still on his journey, he's somewhere in between, and his hair basically looks almost exactly like Connor's:

It was hard to find a good shot from the side for completeness, but Connor it's really very similar, with the exception that Keanu's stray lock goes one way and Connor's the other.

And another note? The narrows ties and tie clips the Agent's wear?

Connor's tie reminds me of them a LOT. Especially given almost no one wears ties anymore even now, and most people don't in DBH either. This, and the suit jacket (even if updated) is a deliberate attempt to invoke the feel of a Matrix Agent in Connor.

And, as others have noted, he loses the tie at the end of the game, after he deviates - obviously it symbolises his freedom from bonds and literally not being 'tied' to Cyberlife anymore, but it also mirrors how Neo loses the suit and tie leaving the Matrix.

Speaking of... this outfit...

In which Connor goes to visit the deviants who are hiding out on the rusted out hulk of a ship, is not a million miles away from the outfit Neo wears on the Nebuchadnezzar:

Complete with Beanie. He only wears the beanie to lunch, so it was difficult to get a better shot as most of that is close-ups. But you can't tell me that Connor wearing a ratty grey jumper, and blue beanie and Neo wearing a ratting grey jumper and blue beanie, while each of them is in the process of visiting rebels and on a journey towards rejecting machines, is a random coincidence.

I also think they softened the angles of Connor's face (he doesn't look quite the same as Bryan Dechant in a way my brain finds a little confusing) in part to make him look a bit more like young Keanu Reeves as Neo. But that's by the by.

My grumpiness is for Tumblr, not ppl in the notes who are unsure about the analysis. I'm thrilled you were interested anyway.

This time I will say briefly and without images as I think that may have been the issue: hair over the face and especially the eyes has a long history of being used to imply the character is emotionally unstable and may not be seeing clearly.

An absolute belter of an example of this is Sarah Connor's long whispy fringe, which is completely over her eyes the entire time she's in the mental hospital in Terminator 2.

But yeah, that escaped lock of hair over Connor's forehead is absolutely deliberate symbolic coding and not just to make him look pretty (although he does) and emotional instability within rigid control is Connor's arc, whereas Markus is empathic and pretty chill with that from the start, and then deviates very early on.

The chosen one stuff is by the by. They are not drawing on that for Connor. The relevant symbolism is that he's BETWEEN machine/agent and human/neo.