starry's dbh side blog

Ancient ask I'm dragging out of the drafts box because NORTH IS STILL GETTING HATE IN THE GOOD YEAR 2026 TOO.

Let's be honest, she would be their absolute ride or die. No one can convince me that - for all that north gets on well with Markus in the game - that she wouldn't get on even better with Connor after the fact.

There are so many potential similarities and parallels between the two that I am 100% certain they'd end up as close friends.

And I can also a MILLION percent see her as being the reason they got together.

Hell, she probably noticed the direction those two were going in before even they did:

With Connor the clue is silence. When hes with north and other friends he is constantly yapping away, debating and arguing on every little disagreement or philosophical musing (Once Connor unlocks free will and free speech by GOD he abuses that power). But when Markus is in the room he becomes softer, quieter. Fully fixated on every word that comes out of the RK200s mouth.

But for Markus its the opposite. Usually he's more composed and reserved in friendly conversation - often burnt out from speaking and interacting all the time as the revolutions figure head - but at some point he starts talking to North about Connor and he Never. Stops.

She'll stop him in the corridor just to pass on one sentence of information and suddenly it's 10 minutes of "oh Connor said something like that earlier. You know Connor thinks- Connor said- Connor did this- Connor did that- Connor- Connor- Connor-"

And eventually it occurs to North what's going on.

And she's going to do something about it.

At first she thought Calling out Markus on how often he speaks about Connor would be enough for him to Get It but for as brilliant as their leader is he can be DENSE sometimes. Chalking it up to an interest in his models descendant "I guess"

Connor tried to brush it off too, "he's the head of the movement, it makes sense I hold him in high regard" As if Connor has ever been deferential to anyone in his LIFE after deviating. When she pointed out that Connor had literally called Markus a "massive idiot" and verbally torn apart one of his strategies not 24h but sat and listened in silence while he talked about types of paint for two hours he had nothing to say.

Eventually she has to pull out the big guns.

Lies.

So when rumour gets to Markus that Connor has been confiding to people that he was developing feelings for the RK200, and Connor hears the same in reverse, finally it clicks in their heads that they aren't just excited to hear about the others feelings but they DEFINITELY reciprocate.

It takes 6 months of their blooming relationship to figure out what North had done. They can't find it in themselves to be anything but appreciative though (however she will never let them live it down and the story is DEFINITELY going in her wedding speech).

this is why i always think canon jericrew is a bit toxic. they don't really see markus as a "person" but as an escape goat.

they want things to change for the better, but they're too scared to make the decisions. to take the blame. then markus drops in from the heavens (quite literally) and he's motivated and willing to take risks that they don't. he's courageous and fearless. so they push him into this role as leader.

when markus makes the "wrong" choices, they are immediately critical. they question his judgement but even then they still ultimately leave a large majority of the decision making to him. because if he fails, their hands are clean. it's markus' fault if jericho fails. it's because he didn't listen to us. he chose wrong. it absolves them of feeling guilty when things go awry because they can double down that they were following their leader and their leader messed up. the ousted route is particularly messed up bc they push him out bc he's been leading them "wrong" but THEY are the ones who left all the important decision-making to him. they had disagreements and qualms and they still left it up to markus so they could turn around and point fingers if it falls apart.

even when markus makes the "right" choices, they still have a twisted view of him. they put him on a pedestal that heavily places the burden of their entire species on his back. they sacrifice themselves for the sake of markus bc they quite literally say that the revolution dies with him. rather than being a team that support each other, they make themselves his pawns. to them, everything falls apart without markus. he's the savior of their people and they have this blind faith to follow his decisions. though josh does offer the most pushback to markus' decisions, if you save josh's life during the jericho raid, he stands down and goes along with whatever markus' final decisions is. and if josh dies, he places all the blood of the war on markus' hands. even when he's moving towards a path of liberation, he alone is forced to carry the weight of the dead bc they make markus solely responsible for all the choices.

the game pitches it as gaining jericho's trust when they all follow markus' final decisions for either a demonstration or a revolution (except if he's ousted), but that "trust" doesn't actually exist. it's all a lie bc they were always going to "trust" markus to make all the decisions. bc it wasn't about trust, but having someone be the one to hold all the responsibility and take all the accountability.

“I’m Not Afraid”

hello hello here is my day 6 of @rk1k-summerlovin!! more rk1k chibis bc they're so silly 🥹 also to my art critic, no their food isn't floating ITS A DESIGN CHOICE!!!!

in other news, very excited for day 7 and free day!! but i havent started on free day yet so i'm hoping i can finish it in time 🙏

Prompt: Amusement Park @rk1k-summerlovin

This took way longer than it should have, but it is done! I intend it to look like one Slash mountain mid-ride pictures. Don’t know if it came across but I was on a time crunch, luckily the rest of my week won’t be as busy.

Also here’s the physical sketch!