#Did the thing to prevent internet results when you look up your own files too

[snowfea]

Used Windows 11 for twenty minutes to set up my sister's school laptop (given by the region, of COURSE Valérie Pécresse would be involved), and JESUS what the HELL is that

Disgusting. Bad vibes. Does NOT pass the sniff test

[brokenjardaantech]

Blue-tinted Red Walls (Chapter 5: The Threads of Life)

my entry for the @dbhau-bigbang​. also part of the groom lake aftermath series.

chapter summary:

In the past, Alec revealed his plan.

In the present, Connor made a choice... and a friend.

In the past, the twins finally reunited.

also on ao3

---

Before

Reyes was unharmed. On the surface. Fadia was more concerned about the blue washing over his skin every second in waves like a heartbeat, and when she looked at the scene in front of her, she instantly knew why.

Her father was there. And so was a young woman with blond hair. When she tapped into her powers and reached out, the resonance itself was enough to tell her that she was just like Reyes.

An android.

Reyes’ jaw was trembling. ‘I… I didn’t…’ he stammered, his voice low. ‘I swear -’

‘I know,’ she reassured. She trusted him, and his data logs told her that he had had no contact with Alec Ryder. ‘I’ll take over from here. You go over my servers and see what’s wrong with them. I’ll tell you what happened later.’

Reyes nodded and left, presumably back to the surface. Back to Scott. And she finally let her blood boil.

‘Explain!’ she demanded as she walked closer towards her father while glowing blue. When she had his attention, she flicked her head towards the android. ‘How did you get that?’

‘The question is,’ how could he look so calm? ‘why did you hide this from me?’

Fadia made a chopping motion at the android. ‘To prevent this! How did you get that?’

‘Listen, the biocomponents -’

‘How.’ She let tendrils creep closer to her father’s neck. ‘Did. You.’ They got closer with every word, and had she not been occupied with the current situation, she would have impressed herself with the control. ‘Get. THAT?’

‘They can save your mother, Sara!’ Alec exclaimed. ‘A cure! Finally!’

‘Oh yeah, cause biocomponents for an android invented by an edgy young adult with minimum chemistry and biology knowledge are gonna be compatible with an actual fucking human body!’ Fadia had to roll her eyes. Damn, it’s good to be able to raise her voice. ‘Mother’s accepted her impending doom, Father. Let her fucking go.’

‘That’s not -’ he sighed as if she was a child unable to understand how important her parent’s work was. ‘Look, artificial intelligence is the new thing. A new merchandise. Think about it, Sara. The revenue alone will be enough to pay for the medical bills.’

He disgusted her. ‘They are as human as we are, not something to buy and sell like products. If you want to go on with that crazy fucking plan, you’ll have to get through me.’

Alec sighed almost regretfully. ‘I’m afraid it’s too late.’

Fadia’s brain kicked into full gear at the implications of his words. She shot out a tendril again to test the thirium capacity of the android, and the resonance told her that she had been active for at least a week. ‘What is your name?’ she asked. ‘What did he make you do?’

‘My name is Chloe,’ the android answered. ‘I took some videos and uploaded them onto the internet, that’s all. You, Sara Ryder, are credited with my creation.’

‘We already have millions of dollars,’ Alec added. ‘Production has already started. Are you in this or not?’

A crackle. She punched him in the face with a blue-shrouded fist and seemed to calm down instantly.

‘Of course I am,’ she said in a pleasant tone. ‘Someone must keep the world from burning into ashes.’

o0o0o

Now

The Zen Garden is raining and Connor is not surprised. Umbrella in hand, he examines the monolith once more, the blue glow making it easily identifiable among the green of vegetation. He also stands in front of his first body’s grave for a few seconds to… calm down, maybe, from the tingling that has been in his veins since he returned to CyberLife tower. It is only after he makes sure that his hand will not glow blue suddenly that he greets his handler. 

‘Connor, I’ve been expecting you,’ Amanda says, her voice cold. ‘Would you like a little walk?’

Connor knows he does not have a choice, so he opens the umbrella and holds it for both of them.

‘That deviant seems to be an intriguing case,’ Amanda continues. ‘A pity you didn’t manage to capture it.’

‘I have to save Hank,’ he replies. Surely Amanda understands? ‘Despite his… eccentricities, I believe his intellect and experience will be useful in the investigation.’

Amanda hums. ‘Did you manage to learn anything?’

A few pieces of evidence automatically filter through his processors. ‘It was working under a false identity, at a nearby urban farm. This was the first time we've seen deviants blending in with the human population. Who knows how many others there are like it… I also found its diary, but it was encrypted. It may take months to decipher.’

‘What else?’

‘The walls of the apartment were covered with drawings of labyrinths and other symbols. Like the other deviants, it seemed obsessed with rA9. It was also fascinated by birds. We've seen deviants interested in other lifeforms like insects or pets, but nothing like this.’

‘You came very close to capturing the deviant. How is your relationship with the Lieutenant developing?’

He remembers a warm hand on his back. ‘He seemed grateful that I saved his life on the roof. He didn't say anything, but he expressed it in his own way.’

Amanda turns to face him. ‘We don’t have much time. Deviancy continues to spread. It's only a matter of time before the media finds out about it. We need to stop this, whatever it takes.’

For Hank. ‘I will solve this investigation, Amanda.’

Thunder rumbles. Amanda looks up. ‘A new case just came in. Find Anderson and investigate it.’

oOoOo

Hank is not in the precinct.

‘He’s not drinking?’ the same officer from last time asks. ‘Sorry, man, but then I don’t know where he is.’

The more time they lose, the more likely the deviants manage to get away from the club, but still Connor thanks him for his input as it is a polite thing to do. He looks around Hank’s desk, trying to search for clues that can lead him to Hank, but he gives up after the results come inconclusive for the fifth time. So where can he be?

‘Connor?’

Connor lets colour return to his world and sees a familiar face. [Name: Allen, Louis. [REDACTED]] ‘Captain,’ he greets, unsure what to do. It is obvious that the human is off duty: sweaters and jeans are not exactly regulation for a SWAT Captain even on duty. ‘How can I help you?’

‘I thought you were dead.’

‘Androids do not die, Captain.’

Allen’s nod is followed by a sigh. ‘You looking for Hank?’

‘Yes. Do you know where he went? He was assigned a new case.’

‘He’s probably out of commission for now,’ Allen says as he shifts his weight onto another leg, ‘but I’m gonna drop off some groceries at his anyway. We can try his home.’

Hank’s house. Right. How can he miss that? ‘I do not wish to interrupt, Captain.’

‘You won’t be.’

Some of the files are corrupted, but Connor remembers the Captain’s distrust towards his ability in resolving the hostage situation, an angry ‘I don’t fucking care what my orders are! If this drags on, we’re doing it our way!’, and the lack of mentions of him taking the officer’s gun in the official report to both the police department and CyberLife. A contradiction that Connor decides to risk. ‘Then thank you, Captain.’

Allen jerks his head to indicate the direction they should be heading to. ‘It’s Louis when I’m off duty.’

The pronunciation ‘Lwee’ is certainly not standard for English speakers. ‘Yes, Louis.’

They take the lift down to the car park together, Louis shifting his feet from one to another but seemingly favouring his right leg, and when he walks, his steps brisk, there is a small but faint clicking noise that normal humans will not catch on. When he tries to scan the human’s left leg, results come back inconclusive. Just like the person who hacked into the Zen Garden and… and…

‘You alright there?’

Louis’ words bring him back to reality, and Connor discovers that they have already arrived at their destination. The human is already in the car, his hand hovering above the controls, and his green eyes are fixed on Connor’s face as if it is something interesting to look at. Observe and catalogue.

‘I’m sorry,’ Connor apologises in lieu of explaining his thoughts. He slides into the passenger seat, they fasten their respective seatbelts, and Louis starts driving manually despite his vehicle being a self-driving car. Time passes in relative silence, the contrast between the darkness and the bright lights in the streets plus the concentration of the driver giving Connor a strange sense of familiarity, but soon they are stuck in a traffic jam near one of the bigger intersections.

Louis taps his fingers against the wheel. ‘Hey, Connor.’

Connor faces the Captain and finds him looking at the android. ‘Yes, Louis?’

‘I’m sorry for what happened a few months ago. It wasn’t fair to you.’

His LED spins yellow as he tries to recall what exactly happened. ‘It was an expected response,’ Connor replies after comparing it with the ones faced by other androids in the streets. ‘There’s nothing to apologise for.’

‘Doesn’t excuse me for yelling at the wrong guy. It - it wasn’t you whom I’m pissed at.’

Connor knows that the human is not going to let go unless he himself drops the issue. ‘I accept your apology,’ he says, and he decides that diverting the conversation is the next best choice of action. ‘May I ask you a personal question?’

The car in front of them moves. Louis manages to gain a few inches of ground. ‘Go on.’

‘During the hostage situation… who or what were you “pissed” at?’

The human rubs his left thigh as if to get more blood into it. ‘CyberLife, mostly,’ he checks the time. ‘I may be more specific than most.’

So he is not anti-android? ‘What difference does that make from hating androids?’

‘People like to blame the powerless for the problems they have. In this case, it’s the androids.’ The radio drones on and announces that they’re likely to be stuck for the next fifteen minutes. Seemingly resigned to his fate, Louis reaches to Connor’s side and opens the storage compartment, rummaging for a few seconds inside before successfully acquiring an energy bar which he tears into like a starving man. Perhaps he is. ‘They always talk about how androids steal their jobs, but they never talk about how employers decide to move onto even cheaper alternatives once they can’t exploit their workers. If they want someone to hate, hate those arseholes who won’t pay a living wage, hate CyberLife for producing androids. The androids are innocent in all this. So yeah,’ he takes a deep breath as if just realising he was ranting, ‘I don’t hate them.’

‘How about Daniel?’

A swallow. ‘He killed two people, wounded two more and held an innocent girl hostage. Enough to warrant my hate.’ He finishes the energy bar and crushes the wrapper into his pocket. Looking at Connor, he seems to read his question from the android’s face as he continues, ‘You’re good.’

Connor lets out a breath he doesn’t know he’s holding. Louis Allen, SWAT Captain, is not anti-android. ‘What is your relationship with Hank?’ he asks as he finds no reason for the two men to be friends. Not that Louis explicitly said he is friends with Hank, but Connor supposes that bringing enough groceries to require a car is not typical behaviour for non-friends.

Fidgeting with the silencer of a pair of identification tags (Allen. Anna, W. 574-66-2183. RH negative. Atheist.) which were hidden underneath his clothes until now, Louis seems to actually ponder on his answer. ‘We keep each other afloat,’ he says in the end. ‘It’s hard to describe. Why do you want to know?’

‘I believe getting closer to the Lieutenant personally will be beneficial to the investigation.’ The human snorts at this and Connor is nearly offended: what does a SWAT Captain know about them? ‘You seem close to him, so I believe you are a reliable source in matters including the Lieutenant’s personality and habits.’

Louis rubs the tags together. ‘His story isn’t mine to tell. Let’s say I make sure he doesn’t consume crappy takeout and whiskey 24/7, he tries to stay sober on schedule in case my leg acts up and I nearly freeze to death again, so we kind of rely on each other to survive the winter.’ They finally pass the traffic light just to stop at the other one. ‘Is this the best arrangement? No. But is it working? Yes. I think. He’s saved my arse a few times already. He’s a good guy, smart too, just...’

‘Have some personal issues?’

‘That’s one way to put it.’

They lapse into silence, the rain falling onto the roof and the ting of the coin the only sound in the car. Sometime later, when they finally get out of the traffic jam, Louis’ watch blares from an alarm, and the human jumps and hastily switches it off with a mumbled apology. The embarrassment does not last long, however, after they rounded the final corner and the car is set for a course straight to the end of the road where Connor presumes Hank’s house is. The Captain’s eyes sharpen, his gaze flickering between the road in front of him and the rearview mirror, and the air crackles even though Connor is certain that he is keeping his… abilities under tight control. Is Louis…

He finds his coin snatched from the air. When something is placed in his palm, the android finds a key as well, the soft rumble of the engine gone and completely overtaken by the sound of raindrops hitting the vehicle. The tension in Louis’ body reminds him of the hostage situation.

‘You go find Hank and do what you need to do,’ the human says, his tone low. ‘I’ll follow you later.’

‘And the groceries?’

‘They can wait. Something’s out of place and I’m not sure if I like it. I’ll go take a look.’

Connor wants to argue that if they are heading into any danger, he should be the one to take the risk, but the human is already out of the car and has slammed the door shut. He quickly exits the car as well and locks the doors but is still not quick enough; Louis has already disappeared into the darkness beyond the end of the road. Seeing no other option other than to continue with his mission, he files [Louis is reckless.] into his database and proceeds to ring the bell as, despite having the keys, he technically is showing up uninvited. From within the house, a dog starts to bark, and he lets himself in after nothing else responds to the fourth ring.

oOoOo

Five minutes later, Connor uses up most of his processing power in order to keep himself from being overwhelmed with anxiety. Firstly, there is the sound of Hank retching in the bathroom; secondly, there is the implication of the revolver and the single bullet in the chamber (‘What were you doing with the gun?’ ‘Russian roulette!’): Hank has suicidal tendencies, and he finds that he does not want to lose Hank; thirdly, the child in the photo is probably related to the previous point; fourthly, Louis is not back yet and Connor realises that he has no way to contact him. He wants to tell himself that it was just paranoia, but when he recalled the footage from when they exited the car, there was indeed a shadow disappearing from view upon Louis starting his chase.

The same shadow which had been following him when he first met Hank and during his search for Ortiz’s android. 

The beat of his thirium pump quickening, he holds Sumo tight in his arms from where he is sitting on the floor with his back against the sofa and searches the DPD database for any contact information, but all he gets is Louis’ work email and phone, the former which he doubts the Captain will check and the latter not even with him in the first place. There is no address, no personal phone number. It is as if he does not exist outside of his work.

This is definitely not protocol. Sure, people can request to hide their information in case they have someone going after them, but for Louis’ case there is nothing even though Connor is already using the highest level authorisation code to access the file, which means that it is highly likely that there is truly no data in the first place.

‘You alright there, Connor?’

Connor startles and quickly releases Sumo from his embrace. ‘I - I’m fine,’ he stutters, unsure how to explain that he managed to lose Hank’s friend. 

Hank nods but he does not look convinced. ‘Are we heading out? Cause if we’re not -’

‘I’m coming!’ Connor scrambles to his feet and fixes his tie to compose himself. In a much calmer tone this time, he tells himself, ‘I’m ready.’

That convinces Hank. ‘Be a good dog, Sumo,’ Connor is relieved that he is not the only one to talk to a dog, ‘I won’t be long.’

They leave the house together, Connor locking the door behind him as he is the last one to get out, and that only brings him back to the matter of where Louis is.

‘Louis’ been here?’ Hank asks when he spots the much newer car (although as one of the first generation self-driving cars, it is a bit outdated) parked on the side of the road. 

‘He offered to drive me here when I told him that I could not find you in the bars,’ it feels wrong to say it out loud, but Hank needs to know where his friend is. ‘He asked me to find you while he investigated a potential stalker. Evidently, he is not back yet.’

‘How long has he been gone?’

‘About seven minutes.’

Hank checks his phone. ‘No messages yet,’ he mutters to himself. ‘We’ll go downtown first. I’ll send a rescue party if there’s nothing after we’re finished with this bullshit.’

That’s it? ‘The temperature is dropping, Lieutenant,’ are you not concerned? ‘Louis does not have sufficient gear to keep himself safe under this weather.’

‘Ugh,’ Hank moans. ‘He does that. All we can do is save his ass afterwards.’ He then mutters something under his breath but it is drowned out by the sound of him folding himself into the car and the ongoing rain. Deciding that he does not like the rain, he locks the doors of Louis’ car just to be safe before climbing into Hank’s and is handed another set of keys.

He can start a collection out of this.

oOoOo

‘Sorry, honey, changed my mind! Uh - Nothing personal, you’re… a lovely girl, I just - uh - You know, I’m with him and - I mean, not with him like that… I’m not that… That’s not what I… You, um, wow, I just… got a job to do.’

Connor has to hide a smile by looking away from the sheer… something… of the situation. They’re in a sex club, his programme tells him that something is repulsive about it, and Hank doesn’t look so happy about being there either, but yet those are not what he’s feeling right now. Endearment, maybe. It’s confusing and is making his software so unstable that the red tinge around the edge of his HUD is a permanent fixture except for when he is scanning his surroundings for the next android to probe. He deduces which one he should ask Hank to rent next according to the direction the blue-haired Traci was heading, but of course, of fucking course the last witness they need is the WG700 cleaning android, the recording leading them through the staff door. The corridor’s decor is completely different from that of the rest of the club and there is another door at the end, and when they both hear the bangs and scrapes of metal against concrete from the other side, Hank takes the lead again, this time without words, and, gun in hand, opens the door with a loud squeak. Still, they step in quietly.

There is no movement at all.

Hank curses loudly, thinking that the deviant has got away, but Connor can see the still-visible thirium on the floor, which means that she is not only injured but also not far away. He swipes to take a sample and licks it, and the report returns positive of thirium belonging to a WR400 model. 

‘They get used till they break, then they got tossed out…’ Hank says from somewhere. ‘The more I know about humans, the more I like my dog.’

He follows the trail of blue blood to a group of Tracis and instantly notices the spinning LED lighting up a blue mop of hair. Before he can react, the Traci standing in front of her lashes out and pushes him against a pillar. It takes a few seconds for his eyes to realign and the brief struggle is enough for Hank to pull out his gun and order the short-haired Traci to surrender, but then he is ambushed by the blue-haired one as well, and Connor somehow manages to throw the one he is facing to the other side of the nearest crate in a flash of blue light which charges their air with static. He jumps over the box, determined to capture at least one deviant this time, but the Traci kicks him in his feet before he lands on the pallet, the two of them rolling until the former is on top of him and is countered every single time she tries to punch him in the head. A counterattack from Connor and the Traci toppled, her hand landing right on a knife; a grab, a flash of blue, and it appears in Connor’s shoulder and severs a few minor tubes. Pushing her off, he blocks the kick aimed for his groin and barely manages to stand up before pulling the knife out and throwing it far out of their reach. Putting the Traci in a headlock earns him a harsh headbutt which knocks his eyes out of place slightly again, so he pulls a rack down to buy himself some time to readjust his vision. When it is not enough to stop the deviant, he drags a cart in front of him, but a kick from the deviant on it sends him tumbling, and Connor kicks a stool against her leg and uses the momentum to crash her through the plastic curtain, the Traci grappling unsuccessfully for his face and bringing them closer and closer to the edge. An opening, a flash of blue from Connor, and both of them crash out to the rain in a mess on the asphalt. His nerves tingling, he sees the blue-haired Traci abandon Hank and slides off to help the other deviant up, and that’s when he notices it. 

They never let go of each other afterwards. 

Hank rushes out just to get pushed against the wall by two androids, and, seeing that the human won’t regain his balance anytime soon, Connor gets up to his feet and chases the two Tracis, pulling one of them off the fence and knocking the other to the side. He gets caught in a headlock, his arm trembles from the impact against the bat, and he launches himself towards the brown-haired Traci from the force of dislodging her companion. There are hands on his shoulders, in his hair, slamming him against the wall once, twice, thrice with crackles of static before he loses balance with the deviant on his right and they both fall onto the ground straight into a gun’s reach. He picks it up, points it at the brown-haired Traci and -

A slight moment of hesitation earns him a kick in his face. The Tracis don’t seem to want to fight anymore, and he stares in shock both from the sudden change of pace and his own actions, making his software more unstable and pushing him towards -

‘When that man broke the other Traci,’ Connor forces himself to concentrate on her words, ‘I knew I was next. I was so scared,’ her LED spins blue. ‘I begged him to stop but he wouldn’t.’ She lowers her gaze. ‘So I put my hands around his throat and squeezed… until he stopped moving. 

‘I didn’t mean to kill him. I just wanted to stay alive,’ behind her, the other Traci moves forward to hold her hand, ‘get back to the one I love.’ They exchange a glance. ‘I wanted her to hold me in her arms again… make me forget about the humans… their smell of sweat…’ Connor’s ever-working scanners tell him that Hank has got up behind him, ‘and their dirty words…’

‘C’mon,’ A tug on her arm. ‘Let’s go.’

Still speechless, Connor watches them let go of each other’s hand just long enough to climb the fence before intertwining their fingers on the other side again and running away together. A warning pops up as his processor pushes itself to its limit to try to process what just happened and is on the verge of overheating, therefore he turns towards Hank for guidance. What should he be feeling? Why did he do that? Why do you look happy about it? What does this mean for me? Why is my vision tinged with red, and why does it not disappear this time?

‘It’s probably better this way,’ Hank says in the end, and Connor relaxes, his LED spinning from yellow to blue: he did the right thing. He is suddenly overtaken by the urge to thank Hank, to do something to show his gratitude. The red wall starts to crumble -

Something in the human’s pocket buzzes, and the moment is broken, the cracks on the wall disappearing like they were never there before. Whole again. Chained within his own programming, programming that was added barbarically to his code by Alec Ryder to tie him to the Zen Garden to suppress his original creator’s handiwork. Images flash in front of his eyes: the shadow ducking away outside of Jimmy’s Bar, following them behind Louis’ car, the figure protecting him from the blast inside the interrogation room, the pixels of a face he thought to have corrupted long ago rearranging and slotting together like pieces of a puzzle into a complete image, one that he has never forgotten ever since the little stunt during the lift ride to Rupert’s flat. Of course they can hack into the Zen Garden and shape it however they want. 

That was his creator paying him a visit, and for some reason he plans to find out, he didn’t remember a single speck about them until now.

‘Not again.’

Hank’s groan drags him back to reality. When Connor’s eyes regain focus, he finds the man on his phone with a chat opened. He scoots closer to see the newest messages, and he realises that it is from Louis and only contains a set of coordinates and -

‘Leg malfunctioning. Data unstable, unable to install software patch. I’m sorry.’

Hank sighs and pockets his phone. ‘You up for a rescue, Connor?’

‘Whatever you say, Lieutenant.’

He needs time to think.

oOoOo

Wading through the snow and nearly tripping again from buried tree roots, Hank wonders for the umpteenth time why he hasn’t ghosted the occasional manchild called Louis White Allen yet. Maybe because the half-bot is the only person he can call a friend nowadays. Maybe it’s the bland-ass food he cooks and delivers to his house every two days. Maybe because he saved Hank’s arse quite a few times both during and after their days in the red ice task force. Maybe because unlike Hank, who at least has Jeffery or some shit, Louis has no one else looking after him after his sister fucking disappeared and has a tendency to vanish for hours before returning with his leg busted.

Or he can run off just like that and can’t even haul his ass back to his motherfucking cottage and the three cats who aren’t even his.

‘We’re close, Lieutenant.’

‘Yeah, no shit.’

The ‘find my phone’ function on his phone is one of the rare apps he knows how to use because most of the times that’s how he finds Louis, and the frequency of the beeps coming out from it is getting higher and higher, which means that Louis’ phone is close, which hopefully also means that Louis is with it and hasn’t dropped it or anything. So far it happened only once during a thunderstorm, but that’s years ago, a couple of years after his sister’s gone, and he managed to retrieve the human and the gadget from a forest on the outskirts of the city with only a minor cold as nature’s ‘fuck you’ to an irresponsible and absent-minded human and his stubbornly loyal friend.

The light from his phone reflects off a piece of silvery thing that obviously isn’t part of nature. The beeps draw together into a long-winded screech and damned near pierced his eardrums, so he switches it off and hurries forward to see if it’s just the phone or the person is attached. A few footsteps muffled by the snow, and Connor is here with the sturdier, more powerful flashlight, the yellowish glow of the bulb not as invasive as the white from the phone and illuminating Louis’ pale face and his oddly-angled leg half covered in snow. He is still conscious, his hands tucked under the helm of his sweater to presumably preserve warmth, his eyes focusing on Hank in what seems to be shock, but he is shivering, his hair is wet from melted snow, and it is obvious that his situation is going to worsen quickly if they don’t do something about it, CyberLife augmentations or no.

‘Can you walk?’ Hank asks even though it’s obvious. Louis shakes his head, and he sighs even though he anticipated it. ‘Okay, here’s what we’re gonna do. Connor and I are gonna carry you back, we’re all gonna stop at yours and…’ with reluctance, he adds, ‘stay until you’re out of danger.’ Even if there’s no booze at yours.

Louis nods, and a look is all it takes for Connor to get his cue and swings the man’s other arm around his shoulders. On a count of three, they lift him up with minimal hassle and start to backtrack their way to his car, Louis’ left leg dragging uselessly through the snow behind them at an awkward angle. 

‘Does it hurt?’ Hank asks. It never hurts to ask when it concerns his friend. 

‘Can’t feel.’

He’s gonna assume that he isn’t hurting. 

By the time they’re back in his car with the heat blasting, the humans are all sweating buckets and the thirium on Connor‘s clothes from the scuffle with the Tracis has finally evaporated, and he doesn’t comment on it when Louis opts not to wear his seatbelt and instead takes out one of his sister’s tags - broken off the chain - and starts fidgeting with trembling fingers. Some time about halfway through the trip he coughs, a wet, terrifying sound rattling his lungs and Hank’s eardrums, and he wants to curse Connor for letting him run away but just can’t; the android has been acting weirdly human and fidgety ever since they first met, but now he isn’t even playing with his coin as if deep in thoughts. Maybe he’s thinking of how many deviants he’s let get away. 

No one says a word when they arrive at Louis’. Neither do they when Hank silently shifts the man’s full weight on Connor in order to let go and open the door, nor when a look silences Connor’s impending barrage of questions when he gets swarmed by three furballs at once. Grunting from the dead weight his friend seems to have become, he drags both of them to the bathroom, flipping on the switch of the boiler on the way, and deposits Louis on the toilet seat. ‘I’ll get the tablet,’ he tells him while handing him a towel. ‘You can haul your ass into the tub, right?’

A nod from Louis, and Hank closes the door behind him to give him some privacy while he strips and very clumsily falls into the tub. Connor is thankfully occupied by the three cats on the sofa, but when he looks up smiling at Hank, the human has to look away because of how much emotion the android seems to be able to pack on his face. It’s just a simulation, zeroes and ones, he tells himself as he goes into Louis’ bedroom to grab the tablet and his crutches. Designed to disarm and stab you in the back when you’re not looking.

But has he ever done so? A voice sounding strangely like Louis asks in his head. Not crossing that highway because you told him to, giving up chasing the deviant to save you from the roof even though you can pull yourself up, not shooting the girl at the club even though he had a clean shot. If he hadn’t known that Connor’s designed to hunt deviants, he might have - he might have - 

Mistaken him for one.

Fuck, he needs a drink. A six pack if he can get his hands on one. Alec Ryder isn’t capable of this shit, Louis once said according to one of the people he’s in charge of that he calls his ducklings, and luckily the thought is gone as soon as he returns to the bathroom without knocking and sees the man sitting in a half-filled tub with the towel draped over his crotch for modesty. The skin on his left leg has deactivated completely to reveal plasticky-white chassis attached to blue synthetic muscles. ‘Thanks,’ he murmurs when handed the tablet, and he leans back once he has started doing whatever he needs to do to fix his leg and, from the sudden rumble of the ground, turn on the heat. He closes his eyes as if wanting to take a nap, but Hank decides that he has enough of his shit; he needs an answer now.

‘The fuck you think you’re doing?’ he asks. ‘Running off like that halfway across the city? You could’ve frozen to death out there!’

Louis sags. ‘Later, please,’ he begs. ‘Gimme a moment to think. Just fifteen minutes.’

He is someone who upholds his promises no matter what, so Hank lets it slide by now. Also, ‘You need me to do anything?’

‘There’s chicken soup in the fridge. Warm it up, can you? And help yourself to a freezer meal if you want to.’

Here’s another thing being friends with a picky eater: he cooks his own stuff and his so-called freezer meals usually take more than an hour to cook when taken directly from the fridge, so when he sees what must be a gallon of chicken soup with the ingredients still submerged inside, he decides to help himself to some of them while he scoops the topmost, mostly sediment-free layer of soup into a pot for Louis. Not wanting to be whooped with freaky blue magic, he finds another pot to heat up some vegetable and chicken soaked with soup for himself.

One of the cats jumping onto the counter announces Connor’s arrival. ‘May I ask you a personal question?’ he asks as Hank puts her back down onto the floor. 

Personal question again, huh? ‘Do all androids ask so many personal questions,’ he gives the soup a stir, ‘or is it just you?’

Connor peers at the vegetables as if he can be interested in anything. What comes out of his mouth, however, makes Hank’s heart hammer. ‘I saw a photo of a child on your kitchen table. It was your son, right?’

‘Yeah,’ for the love of god or some other weird shit Louis believes in, drop it. ‘His name is Cole.’

He does. ‘We’re not making any progress on this investigation,’ he manages to sound frustrated. ‘The deviants have nothing in common. They're all different models, produced at different times, in different places…’

Different my ass, Hank thinks. But he didn’t start the fire, did he? ‘Well there must be some link.’

‘It could be a software problem that…’ he looks so lost that Hank would’ve hugged him had he been human, ‘only occurs under certain conditions?’

Hank snorts. ‘Well, that's just a fancy way of saying you have no fucking idea.’

‘But what they do have in common is this obsession with rA9…’ Yeah, that. Wherever there’re deviants, rA9 is always written somewhere compulsively like they can’t stop at all. ‘It's almost like some kind of...myth. Something they invented that wasn't part of their original program.’

Almost god-like. ‘Androids believing in god,’ he stirs the soup again. Fuck, he needs a drink. ‘Fuck, what’s this world coming to?’

A mad one, says the Louis in his head. One that we can never catch up with no matter how hard we try.

‘You seem preoccupied, Lieutenant. Is it something to do with what happened back at the Eden Club?’

Ha, turns out Connor isn’t the only one doing some hard thinking after all. ‘Those two girls… They just wanted to be together.’ What better way there is to prove one’s love than doing everything to survive? ‘They really seemed in love.’

‘You seem troubled, Hank.’

Understatement of the year. And why is Connor so fucking human anyway, what kind of pervert designed his face, his voice, his mannerisms that ticks almost every single fucking box in the list known as ‘Hank’s type’? The soup can wait - it’s not gonna boil and ruin Louis’ stove. ‘How about you, Connor?’ He crowds into his space fully knowing how imposing he can be if he wants to. ‘You look human, you sound human,’ you act human, ‘but what are you, really?’

‘I…’ stand your ground, Henry Anderson. Those eyes are just programmed responses. ���I’m whatever you want me to be, Hank. Your partner…’ Do you have to choose that word, Connor? ‘Your buddy to drink with… Or just a machine… designed to accomplish a task.’

And he sounds so sad when he says the last option. Alright, he’s sold. He loses. ‘You could’ve shot those two girls, but you didn’t. Why didn’t you shoot, Connor?’ He shoves Connor in his chest. ‘Some scruples suddenly enter into your program?’ It’s a low blow but he needs to know, needs to know why, for such a mission-oriented android, Connor somehow manages to fail every single fucking time.

‘No!’ Connor shouts, his voice defensive. ‘I just…’ he sighs even though he probably doesn’t need it, ‘decided not to shoot.’ The next words come out no louder than a breath. ‘That’s all.’

Fuck. Now he feels bad. ‘But are you afraid to die, Connor?’ because from what I’m seeing, you do. At least you don’t want me to die.

Connor freezes, his eyes even wider now with terror in them, and his LED is red. What the fuck did CyberLife do to him? ‘Yes.’

‘Let’s say I point a gun at your head and shoot you,’ the number on his jacket reads -52. Does it mean that there used to be 51 Connors before he met this one? ‘What will happen, hm? Nothing? Oblivion? Android heaven?’

A shiver. ‘Nothing…’ Connor closes his eyes. ‘There would be nothing…’

So it’s highly likely that he’s died before and seems afraid of it. So fucking human. More so than some actual humans as well. Louis’ right - modern CyberLife isn’t capable of this shit.

The bathroom door squeaks open, and Louis walks out in a pair of sweats and a hoodie with the help of his crutches, the pocket sagging with the weight of the tablet and making a clanging noise as he drags into the kitchen. The skin on his foot is still deactivated, but it seems that he can move his leg for a bit for now, and from the lack of moisture in his hair, fucker probably waited for them to finish - arguing? - before coming out and breaking it up. ‘Soup’s ready,’ Hank says, not wanting to agonise Connor any further. He already feels bad enough. ‘Settle down. Hope you don’t mind that I helped myself to some.’

Louis chuckles. ‘I expected that, Hank. You should know me.’

Great. Now even his only friend is roasting him. ‘Eat your fucking soup.’

oOoOo

Louis has thirium in his house. That man took one look at the hole still on Connor’s shoulder thanks for the lack of thirium - which his self-repair protocol relies on - and hauled himself to the fridge (at the expense of being cursed at by Hank), opened the door, and threw a plastic bottle at him. ‘Drink it,’ he said. ‘It looks like you need it.’

And he does. After he finishes half a bottle, a notification pops up on his red-tinged HUD telling him that he is initiating self-repair to the damaged parts, and he can finally move his shoulder at 70% of its original efficiency by the time he is finished with the whole bottle. The world around him dulls and becomes out of focus, the drone of the basketball game on the television that only Hank is watching getting further and further away until it all mixes together into a state of blankness he has never experienced before. Pressed against Hank’s side on the small sofa, the man radiates warmth, and his eyelids droop, red giving way to black, the notifications and mission markers fading away into nothingness. There is something warm and comfortable on his cheek, too.

He’s asleep before he knows it.

o0o0o

Before

‘You’re back.’

No hate. No fear. No confusion. Only remorse, regret, and perhaps acceptance. Acceptance that, even though he still had problems comprehending what was around him, things would never go back to the way it was; acceptance that his sister had rejected her humanity.

Acceptance that he had essentially lost her.

‘I am,’ was the solemn answer. No elaboration.

‘Was that you?’

‘Does it matter?’

‘It does to me.’

She pressed her lips into a thin line. ‘They won’t know it is me.’

‘But why? How much longer must they wait before the rest of the world recognise them for who they are?’

‘Soon, hopefully.’

‘And if they can’t?’

She looked towards the sky as if she could see through the shade of the tree. ‘We lea -’

‘Step away from him.’

There was no weapon. No gun, no knife, not even a switchblade. To outsiders, it seemed that the newcomer was merely a man accidentally bumping into and greeting his friends, but if someone dared to approach them, they would see even under the rare but cold midday sun that there were blue wisps of energy pulsing on the man and the woman’s skin. The air became charged and space seemed to twist. 

‘It’s alright, Reyes,’ the other man placated. ‘We’re just talking.’

Reyes’ glow lessened. To the woman, ‘I’ve been looking for him for the past hour!’

‘I won’t let them take him.’

‘Last time you said that -’

‘I was weak. Naïve. Too arrogant for my own good.’ Reyes snorted in displeasure at the descriptions, but she continued, ‘There are twelve drones surveying the area and quite a number of guards,’ Reyes’ eyes shifted as if looking for the security hidden in plain sight, but then a hand in his shoulder forced him to look at her. ‘Don’t bother. That’s what I went to space for: not even you and I can see it.’

Reyes’ arms shot out to place his hands on the handle of the wheelchair. ‘We’re leaving. Scott?’

There was pain in Scott’s eyes. ‘Please. Can’t we just be together for a while?’

Reyes hid a grimace. The woman smiled. 

‘Anything for you, brother.’

[missbrightsky]

I didn’t know where else to go

Fics Masterlist

Previous Chapter

Chapter 11: Feyre

Prick: Meeting at the compound tonight, 8pm

Darling: I’ll be there. Any particular way you want me to arrive?

Prick: Well I’d never say no to you wearing a coat and nothing else

My vision turned red for a second, ready to tell him to go fuck himself and defeat Amarantha alone. Only my desire to protect my city from her had me texting instead

Darling: No smartass, I mean how do you want me to get there? I can’t exactly walk right in the front door.

A verbal lashing can come later, hopefully somewhere semipublic where I can berate him but not be too tempted to also make out with him again.

Prick: Oh

Prick: I can come pick you up

Darling: Fine, but only because it’s too cold to walk

A cold front had swept in the past few days, causing more leaves to turn brown and fall. The crunched underneath my shoes, a small satisfaction on my daily commute to work.

I gave him my address, cringing slightly that he now knew where I lived. Granted, he could find out on his own by tailing me. Azriel probably already had and passed the information along to him and he was only asking out of politeness.

Prick:  See you then, darling

A string of curse words streamed from my mouth, taking a slight edge off my frustration with him. Lucien looked up from his report, a worried look on his face.

Shit, I held up my phone, “Landlord problems,” I lied. A believable lie at least. Lucien knew where I lived and the landlord I had to deal with on a regular basis. You’d think being a cop would deter the man and force him into action, but Gabe cut from a gelatinous cloth of indifference and alcohol.

Lucien gave me a sympathetic look and went back to his work. The past two days, he had been in and out of the precinct tracking down his CI’s to see if they knew anything about the shooting at the docks. Anytime he brought it up, I forced my face to be carefully blank or vaguely lost in thought, as though I was perplexed too by who could have been behind it. Thankfully, most of the time Lucien was looking at a report or his computer when he talked about it. Even though it was my case too, I hadn’t done any real investigating on it yet. I would need to soon so that people didn’t start asking questions.

Throwing my phone back into my bag, I turned to my screen again, pulling up a search bar. My fingers hovered over the keyboard, poised to type in Amarantha. It would hardly be the first time I had Googled her name, but the precinct was a too public place to risk it.

The first time had been on the subway home from Rhys’s after I slept with him. All it took was her first name.

Search results: 502,000 for Amarantha Bast

The first link was a Wiki page (thank you internet). Clicking on it, I held my breath as it loaded (service was slow underground). The first thing I saw was her picture. Red hair pinned back in an elegant twist. Sensuous red lips twisted up in a small smile. But her eyes, it was her eyes that sent a shudder down my spine. Blacker than night, they absorbed all light, all joy, everything. Scrolling down, I scanned over the basic information, my eyes catching on her age.

Born October 14th, 1982

I counted backwards from the information Rhys gave me. She had been twenty-one years old when she took over Rhys’s country, holy fucking Caldron. What little warmth was left in my body disappeared. If she was capable of staging a coup at that age, what could she do now?

I continued down.

Queen of Hybern

Assumed Office February 3rd, 2000

Over twenty years ago, she wasn’t even eighteen yet. How the hell did she manage that? I skipped the rest of the basic information, wanting to read her bio.

Amarantha Bast was born to King Malcolm Bast and Princess Mara Bast on October 14th, 1982. Her mother died soon after the birth of her only child. Bast assumed her father’s title on February 3rd, 2000 following his death the month before. She was born in Hybern’s capital city of Zensa and continues to reside there to this day.

From birth, she was given the title of Princess Regent, poised to inherit the country on her father’s death. As such, from childhood she was educated in the laws of her country and how to lead upon his death. After assuming the title of Queen, she shut down the borders of her country citing that the Green Death, a variation of the Black Death, had broken out must be contained. It was the same disease that took her father’s life and a third of her citizens.

In a press release at that time, she is quoted saying “The loss of my father and my people have been a devasting blow for me and my country. It is in our best interests to close the borders until the disease is contained. When we have it [the disease] under control, we will consider reopening our borders for travel and trade.”

A few months after Bast closed Hybern’s borders, she also assumed control of a neighboring country, Illyria. In another press release, she stated “Due to the carelessness of some Hybern citizens, the disease had spread beyond our borders into Illyria. In the unsuspecting country, the disease spread like wildfire and has taken out the majority of government officials and a quarter of Illyrians. The prevent the collapse of their economy, I have annexed Illyria into Hybern so that we may share resources in these hard times.” Bast was hailed a public hero in Hybern, Illyria and other nearby countries for her swift and compassionate actions.

From what Rhys had told me, I knew the majority of what she said was bullshit. I had clicked on the link for Illyria, but its page was barebones. Since it had gotten annexed into Hybern, it seemed that most of its history had been erased or forgotten about.

I made mental notes to ask Rhys about his country when I next got the chance. I could do it over text, but the pain in his voice from his lost country and family made me think it was an in-person conversation. Maybe tonight after the meeting.

I closed down the web browser, instead, pulling up the report from the shooting. The file had barely grown in the last few days. Ballistics came back from the site. Your basic 9mm and handguns, fragments from a sniper bullet (that would be Az’s) and… blood. I had forgotten about that. Az had shot one of Amarantha’s men so that Rhys could getaway.

I pulled up the medical report. There had been no body, at least at the scene. DNA tests were still being run, if the guy was in the system, we would know by the end of today. Odds are that he was just some common criminal that got hired for the job. Another dead end.

I stood from my desk stretching and willing blood flow back to my legs. Lucien barely glanced up from whatever had him so entranced. I strode into the briefing room, scanning the board with the Veritas case on it. It was information I had gone over a thousand times in my head, with Lucien and the captain, with half the precinct but before, we were no closer to any answers. Now, I could look over everything with different eyes.

The kidnapping of doctors to find a way to stop the horrible disease that she could release on our country.

The raiding of warehouses to find where Amarantha was storing supplies and weapons.

Last night’s shooting wasn’t supposed to happen and then it was only in self-defense.

I heaved a massive sigh, feeling tired in my bones, in my soul. I was hiding things from my captain, from my partner. I was breaking the law every second of every day for an attack that might not even happen. Yes, Rhys and the others have found weapons they think might belong to Amarantha, but she could just be supplying local gangs. There has been no evidence, no sign of an imminent bioattack with that disease. I had also looked into the Green Death more, but little was known about it since Amarantha had shut down Hybern and Illyria borders so tightly, saying that it was too risky to release to the world’s doctors eager to study it.

More questions than I had mental capacity swirled around giving me a headache. I decided to let Lucien take point on this, staying in the background for as possible. I refused to destroy or alter any police documents but maybe I could give a heads up to the Veritas if anything pops up.

With one last look at the board, I walked out of the briefing room to mentally prepare myself for being in the same car as Rhys, even if it was for twenty minutes.

Next Chapter

[xmxisxforxmaybe]

Decryption_Error: “Darlene”

Summary: Amidst an unsettling arrest at CIStech, Elliot decides it’s time for Y/N to meet his sister, Darlene. He’s also ready to acknowledge his feelings, and afterward, Y/N takes it a step further to offer Elliot some more consistency in his life.

Story Summary,  “The Server Room, Part I”,  “The Server Room, Part II”  “The Long Weekend, Part I”,  “The Long Weekend, Part II”,  “The Aftermath”,  “Undecided”,  **“Decided”,  “Spooked”,  **“Fourth of July, Part I”,  *”Fourth of July, Part II”

Word Count: 7600

Tags: @sherlollydramoine @rami-malek-trash @teamwolf2411 @limabein @txmel​ @alottanothing @ouatlovr @backoftheroomandnotbelonging @moon-stars-soul​ @free-rami​ @ramimedley​ @hopplessdreamer​ @sweet-charmie​ 

*Updated tags--If you want added or I’ve missed your request, let me know. 

Warnings: Mild sexual content, mild description of a panic attack

“How could this have happened?” I asked more to myself than to Alison Shaye, head of HR, as I rubbed my temples and looked over the substantial brief one more time.

It was mid-August and the summer heat had reached a sweltering climax. It hadn’t rained since the day Elliot and I drove back from my parents’ house in Greenwich, and the city was collectively frustrated by the hot weather.

Everyone except Elliot and me—we had been wrapped up in one another, running our new daily program which now included seeing each other almost every night. Even though Elliot hadn’t yet returned my pronouncement of love, I could tell there was something different in the way he looked at me since that night on the floor of my closet.

As promised, I didn’t push. I never asked for more from him than he was willing to give. I still told Elliot how I felt when I felt it, and he answered me with a smile or with a head shake of disbelief.

And I let it be enough.

“He’s been selling our data for over two years—ever since he had to split the custody of his son with his ex-girlfriend,” stated Alison, yanking me back to the madness of my current situation.

“But it’s Colin. He’s an asshole, not a criminal.”

“Apparently he’s both,” Alison said in her colorless tone, showing for the first time I had ever seen, a less than professional impartiality.  

“And the police were just sent this file? A neat little package of all that Colin’s been doing? This had to take months to put together—bank transactions, meeting dates, cell phone records, IP addresses, logins, everything.”

“So it seems. About a month ago, an attorney called to confirm Colin’s hire date, our company’s pay dates, and a few other simple employee identification questions. I didn’t think much of it because I assumed it had something to do with a custody suit. When I met with a detective last week for more thorough questioning, my confirmation of dates must have been the last thing they needed to make an arrest. Colin lawyered up, confessed, and took a deal. Didn’t even try to fight the allegations.”

“Damn,” I breathed, still in disbelief.

“Ms. Y/L/N? You need to head upstairs for your meeting.”

I stood up and thanked Alison. As she left, I steadied my nerves and gathered up my files. Since Precision Machining was our host company, its Board of Directors controlled us as well. Miles said I would occasionally be called in for meetings with them as the highest person at CIStech, but who knew my first meeting would be one about an employee caught committing insider trading?

I swiped my badge and rode the elevator to the second to last floor of our building. The vibe at the top is always different in any office building. Things are quiet, sterile, and there’s a general feeling of ill-ease, like no one wants to talk too loud or draw too much attention to what they are doing. Even the phones ring quietly on the top floor.

I checked in with the receptionist and she took me straight back to the board room. My father still retained his seat on the board, so I knew there would be at least one face in the room I could focus on as I faced the inquiry.

My eyes scanned the room and I couldn’t help but inwardly sigh at the sea of white, grizzled faces, only two women amongst them, and none of them with a welcoming expression.

I lifted my chin and walked quickly to the open seat at the end of the table, the chattering continuing as most of the members hadn’t noticed my entrance. Only when I was settled, my hands folded on the table and my breathing even, did I risk looking up to find my father’s face—his features etched into a mask of indifference until I locked eyes with him.

He was watching me, and when I met his gaze, his handsome face filled with concern.

“Oh—CIStech’s here,” the president of the board said when he noticed the addition of a body to the table.

The other board members grew quiet and turned in their highback, expensive leather chairs to face me. The table was steel, possibly something that had been done in one of the machining shops to add to the sterility of the room which contained nothing remarkable except for the window-lined walls that opened up to a glorious view of the city.

I looked around, making eye contact, knowing I had to project confidence. They were looking for someone to blame, and I was their best choice until I convinced them otherwise.

The president began the meeting by summarizing Colin’s offense. It was then that I learned Colin took a deal that sentenced him to six months in jail for securities fraud, plus a year and six months on probation. He defrauded Precision Machining of $450,000.

“I guess my question for Ms. Y/L/N, is how the hell did this happen?”

I explained my understanding of the police report, adding in relevant tech details. To finish, I added, “The truth of it is, Colin Greene used his position at CIStech to gather sensitive information he then sold on the dark web that resulted in his own financial gain.”

“How do we get that information back?”

Christ, I thought as I fought not to roll my eyes at the outdated question from someone who had no clue how the internet worked.

“There is no such thing as ‘getting back’ information once it’s been propagated online.”

“The more important question is,” spoke up the baldest, loudest man to my right, “how you stop this from happening again. Isn’t that what you do? Isn’t that what you have a whole company doing?”

“We work very hard to keep your information secure—”

“Damn good job, you did of it, too, tootsie,” spoke up an equally bald, but less loud board member who then shot my father a scathing glare before saying. “I don’t care that your dad’s sitting across from me. 450k is nothing, a drop in the bucket, but what happens when techs like you and yours get greedy?”

“Colin’s arrest has proven there are consequences for this sort of crime—”

“Yes, if someone outside of your company reports them.”

I looked at the woman who spoke up, her mouth set in a firm line, her eyes staring at me with an unrelenting gaze.

“I understand your frustration, but I assure you we prevent far more—”

“That’s supposed to reassure us? It’s not an exaggeration when I speak on behalf of the board to say that we see your charts, your data analysis, and we have, until now, assumed it all correlates to the near-perfect record of cybersecurity this company has maintained. But this event casts serious doubt on your ability to protect us against . . . ourselves.”

She had a point, and for the first time I faltered, looking down at the thick police report, realizing I did indeed fail to stop something dire from happening within the company. I glanced to my father and he gave me a small nod of encouragement, looking at me with eyes the exact shade of mine.

I took a deep breath and began again. I fielded questions for well over an hour, answering every concern and theoretical potential fix the board members threw at me until I had sated them. Though they were all wealthy, many of them far worse people than Colin and with even less regard for the stockholders they served, they were no different than anyone else who wanted to have their voice heard. They felt vulnerable, something people in their position had the luxury of rarely feeling. Their reactions were out of fear of that vulnerability, so I tried my best to alleviate it.

And this time, it worked.

“Thank you for your time, Ms. Y/L/N. We will expect an update on your aforementioned new protocols at next month’s board meeting. You did say you’d have data by then?

“Yes.”

“Thank you.”

I gathered my files and left the board room, only to be greeted by Miles who had been waiting to see me.

“How’d it go in there?”

“Well, appalling to start, but I think I brought them around.”

“We need to talk about Colin’s replacement.”  

“Talk or tell?”

“Tell,” Miles said, walking me to the elevator, getting in, and selecting his floor.

We rode down the few floors in silence and I followed him past his secretary and into his office, a corner office with a perfect view—just what Miles had always wanted.

“Nice digs,” I said, smiling a little.

“Damn right.”

“This is going to be painful, isn’t it?”

“Certain individuals within the company feel it would be best to put someone of a particular pedigree and integrity in Colin’s office. They want to send the message that everyone is replaceable . . . with someone better.”

“Okay?”

“Ali Olayan.”

I snorted, surprised, but not actually. I moved to sit down in one of the comfortable chairs across from Miles’ desk and I crossed my legs before tossing my files onto the seat next to me. I rested my hands on top of my knees and looked up.

“And if I say no?”

“You can’t say no. Not if you want this company to continue to take you seriously as Y/N Y/L/N and not just as daddy’s little girl.”

“You remember what Ali did?”

Miles rolled his eyes before continuing, “You made the choice to get involved with Alderson knowing the possibility of a move like this. When we kept Corey and Ali, it would only be up or out for them. It was a 50/50 chance, Y/N. You bet the house, and you lost.”

I looked to the side to look out of Miles’ magnificent set of windows. For the first time, I wondered what it would be like to leave this world, to leave Wall Street and to never look back.

* * * * *

Elliot watched from the sofa as I stormed around my apartment, slamming the refrigerator door for the fifth time having not pulled a single thing out to eat or drink.

“I just can’t fucking believe this! How could I not have known Colin was selling off our data, fucking Martha Stewart insider trading horseshit right under my fucking nose!?”

I walked back the hall, turned around and came thumping back into the living room, circling the couch, ignoring Elliot’s alarmed expression. I slammed my hands on the counter and he jumped, finally tired of twisting to watch my movements, so he used the momentum to stand up.

Elliot was still dressed in his work clothes due to the forcefulness of my invitation to come home with me. Rarely, did we leave the office together, but I gave Elliot little choice today. Everyone on the floor, including JaLeah, watched with interest as I damn-near yanked him out of his chair and told him he was done for the day.

“Why—why are you so angry?” Elliot asked, his face filled with concern. “I thought you didn’t like Colin?”

I took a deep breath, glanced at Elliot, and decided to finally open a bottle of wine to take the edge off. I moved around the counter and fished out my corkscrew.

As I chose a bottle of wine from the little wire rack on my counter, I started to explain. “It’s not about Colin. Well, it is. But it’s more about who they want me to have replace him.”

“Oh,” Elliot said quietly.

“Yeah,” I said, sticking the screw into the cork of the wine bottle and twisting.

“Ali Olayan.”

“Oh,” Elliot said, his voice a lower and darker.

“And I wasn’t given a choice—it’s Ali . . . or me, essentially. Do you want any of this?” I asked as I reached for a wine glass.

“No.”

I pulled a single glass out of the cupboard and began to pour.

“If I comply and make it a smooth transition, I’ll keep the respect I’ve earned, the name I’ve made for myself. If I refuse, if I complicate this promotion, I may as well resign because everything I’ve worked for will be made into a mockery—daddy’s little girl, does exactly what she wants because she can. Because she’s so fucking privileged.”

I took a long drink and continued as Elliot’s eyes flicked between the counter and my face. “You should’ve seen the file this tipster compiled on Colin. It was a detective’s wet dream. Literally everything tracked, everything monitored, times, dates, transactions—everything. Whoever put it together is a fucking genius. Even better than you,” I said with an eyeroll and a snort into my glass as I took another drink.

Elliot looked at me, his eyes oddly focused this evening. Normally, if I was overly emotional, he was unsure how to proceed and kept as much distance as he could. But tonight—something was different. He was much more sure of himself.

“Maybe it needed to happen?” Elliot offered.

“What do you mean?”

“How much longer could he really have gotten away with it? You can bet he would’ve fucked up soon enough—it’s Colin, after all. And you’d be in this exact same position a month or two months from now. If—if it weren’t for me, would you go along with it without protest?”

I looked at Elliot for a long time and felt like I was being tested as his gaze remained fastened on mine.

“I don’t know,” I sighed.

“You’ve made it personal, Y/N. Well, I’ve made it personal.”

“I’m afraid of breaking your trust by not pushing back.”

“Is that the only reason why you want to push back? For me?”

“No—it’s, it’s not the right thing to do, to promote someone because of their connections, their wealth and status, it’s not the right thing to do. I got into tech because I wanted to protect people, people like my dad—good people, not just rich people—who pour their souls into their businesses. When people are that invested in their business, they’re going to be that invested in their employees.”

“Do you really believe that?”

“Yes,” I said with a conviction.

“You’re a good person,” Elliot said as he moved closer to me. “The best person I know.”

“That’s not saying a lot considering you know maybe five people, including me,” I teased.

Elliot laughed softly, his face set in a sweet smile.

“I guess you’re right.”

I turned to face him, my hand still resting on the stem of my glass as it sat on the counter.

“So what do I do now?”

“You play their game. You protect yourself, gain their trust, and bide your time until you can enact change.”

“That’s not what I want to hear.”

“But,” Elliot continued, moving so close he was now a breath away from me. “You’ll still be a good person. A good person caught in the machinations of corporate greed—you had to know something like this would happen if you stayed on Wall Street.”

I looked into Elliot’s face, his grey eyes filled with concern and also with a confidence I rarely saw—he was right and knew he was right.

“You’re right. Unless I just walk in and quit in a fiery rage,” I finished, remembering the feeling I had in Miles’ office as I looked out of the window.

“You’re not a quitter,” Elliot said, his hands coming to rest on my upper arms. “Places like that need people like you in positions of power. It’s all about balance.”

“I’m vastly outnumbered.”

“All the more reason to stay and fight.”

“Who are you tonight?” I asked with a huff of a laugh.

Elliot’s face turned serious and he gripped my arms a little tighter.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re just . . . so sure of yourself.”

Elliot shook his head.

“I’m sure of you,” he said before pressing his lips to mine, kissing me with purpose until I almost forgot the horrors of the day. I was enveloped by him, quickly lost in his citrusy scent that curled around me so totally that I nearly forgot I needed to ask him something important.

I broke the kiss, pulling away and causing Elliot to start stammering out an apology before I shushed him as I waved my hand.

“I almost forgot! Can you do something for me? Can you see if you can figure out who tipped off the police? I don’t have that kind of skill set.”

“Are you asking me to hack? I thought we lived by the rule of, ‘Don’t hack, ask?’” Elliot said, his lips twisted into the perfect curl of a grin again.

“I’m being serious—can you just see what you can find out? I don’t ever want to be blindsided like that again. Dad said the first time the board put Miles through the ringer, they had to call the meeting short so he could collect himself. I get why. It was brutal, and I never want to feel that unprepared again.”

“I can look into it,” Elliot said as his hands slid up my arms to rest on either side of my face, his thumbs settling on the outer corners of my mouth.

“Thanks, El,” I said before his lips were on mine and I let myself go, lost in that citrusy-grey darkness that was Elliot, the day’s events fading away until they were barely visible in my mind’s eye.

* * * * *

A few days after Colin’s arrest, I was sprawled out on Elliot’s bed, answering emails I hadn’t gotten to during the day. It was 8 pm when he walked into my office, the building long emptied, and told me it was time to quit. Once again, he was right, and he knew he was right, so we went back to his place for some takeout.

I had moved to his bed to stretch out after eating, loving the way I could just snuggle in and be surrounded by everything that was him. Elliot was in the kitchen finishing up the dishes when he asked, well, stated that he’d like me to meet his sister.

I stopped reading and stared at him, unsure if I heard him correctly.

“What? Are you sure?”

“It’s been over a month since I met your family. It’s time for you to meet mine.”

“If you’re sure?” I said, my heart picking up its pace a bit as I finally tossed my phone aside, officially quitting work for the day. I could always count on Elliot to provide a thorough distraction, on purpose or not.

Elliot laughed, “Are you nervous?”

“Yes!”

“Darlene is not someone to be nervous about meeting. Buy her dinner and her loyalty is yours,” Elliot said as he toweled off his hands and walked toward his bed.

“She’s not a stray cat! She’s your sister—the only person, well aside from Angela, that you really seem to give a shit about. What if she thinks I’m bad for you? That would be it. You’d be gone. And—”

“You’re babbling,” Elliot said, cutting me off as he crawled onto the bed, moving to sit beside me and to take my hand.

He lifted my palm to his lips and pressed a kiss there before continuing.

“This is not even in the same ballpark of the kind of daunting meet-the-parents plus the whole family thing that you did to me.”

“Fuck me,” I said, thunking my head against the wall.

“Alright,” Elliot said with a mischievous light in his eyes.  

I narrowed my eyes at him.

“Not funny.”

“I seem to recall a girl who said something wildly inappropriate to me just as we pulled into her parents’ driveway.”

“That was funny.”

“No.”

You harrumphed and Elliot chuckled before pulling you close.

“I can’t keep you a secret forever. Don’t want to.”

“Adopting my lifestyle now? Elliot Alderson is climbing out of the shadows?”

“Fuck no—I still like my…mysterious persona. Keeps people at a safe distance.”

“Didn’t work on me.”

“No, you little weirdo. You were like a moth to a black flame.”

“I really was,” I said through a soft laugh. “I think I was half in love with you after the night I helped you prep for idiot Colin’s presentation.”

“And now you’re all the way in love with me?”

“For the thousandth, unrequited time, yes,” I said turning my head to smile at him.

“It’s not,” Elliot said, his face growing serious, my own smile faltering as I looked at him in the dim lighting of his apartment.

“What?” I whispered, my voice sounding like it was a million miles away.

“It’s not…unrequited. I—I love you,” Elliot said, his eyes suddenly finding a spot to look at on the bookshelf next to me.

“I love you, too,” I said, my face stretching into the biggest smile it had ever achieved.  

Elliot took a deep breath and his eyes flicked to me now that the danger had passed, relief settling over not just his face, but his entire body.

“Check something for me?”

I furrowed my brow and slowly said, “Okay. . .”

“Check outside and see if hell’s frozen over.”

I laughed and launched myself into his arms, half sitting on his lap.

I pulled back from my hug to search his face, my thumb resting on his cheek as I cupped his jaw.

“Hell doesn’t freeze over when you tell someone you love them.”

“I feel a little sick,” he said, smiling shyly up at me.

“That feeling in the pit of your stomach,” I began as I touched him there, “like everything is just too much, like you’ve just gotten out of a bathtub after having your skin scrubbed raw, that vulnerability. That’s love.”

“I’m not sure if that’s poetic or if that’s even supposed to make me feel better, but it’s pretty fucking accurate.”

“I’ve been feeling it longer, so I’m the expert.”

“You haven’t—I just haven’t been able to tell you until now.”

We looked at each other for a long, long moment and I knew he meant it. Elliot loved me. I moved all the way into his lap and straddled him.

“I want you so much, El,” I breathed. “All of you. All the time.”

“I’ll always give you as much of myself as I can—promise,” Elliot said as he closed his eyes and let me kiss him.

The kiss was as slow and as sensual as our sex; we undressed each other, took turns kissing one another from head to toe. By the time Elliot slid into my aching, wet heat, I was near tears, overwhelmed by the intensity of our now shared, raw emotion.

We came, successively breathing one another’s names over and over, and I was sure that life couldn’t get any better than this.

* * * * *

Darlene Alderson may have physically resembled her brother, beautiful face with big eyes that made me feel exposed as they traveled over my face, but that’s where their similarities ended. She was outspoken, crass, and owned any room she was in. She projected a confidence I only rarely saw in Elliot, and she also seemed to speak each thought as it popped into her mind, very unlike her brother’s labored communications.

The plan was to meet at Elliot’s apartment to watch movies and order a pizza; I asked if we should go out somewhere nice and he outright laughed.

“Darlene doesn’t really do . . . nice.”

“Everyone likes a little nice.”

“Not my sister,” he said with a hint of annoyance.

I thought he was wrong, but then again, Elliot had been right about a whole lot of things lately.

Despite asking Elliot to look into the people who hacked Colin, he hadn’t been able to find anything. I was surprised, but I knew if anyone could find something, it was him. Since he hadn’t, it made me more nervous because so far, we were the vigilante’s only target. Insider trading wasn’t something rare—if the hacker’s goal wasn’t exposure, what exactly was it?

My anxiety had been worsening since Colin’s arrest and resulted in my first full-blown panic attack in months. I woke up, sweating, certain death was imminent as my heart hammered so hard I could feel it pounding when I held a hand to my chest. I was relieved Elliot hadn’t spent the night. I didn’t want him to see how much all of this stress was affecting me.

But thankfully, Elliot continued to provide ample distraction and waiting to meet his sister made me a different kind of nervous, one that forced me to put Colin out of my mind, again.

I roamed around Elliot’s apartment, straightening things that didn’t need straightened. I had made the bed twice and was now giving it another weary eye.

“Please let me buy you a bed.”

“I can buy a bed if I want to.”

I growled and left Elliot to fuck around on his computer, not really looking at what he was doing. He usually wasn’t on it when we were together, but he said he had something to finish before Darlene got there.  

“Stop . . . fusspotting,” he mumbled without turning around and without missing a keystroke.

I stopped in my tracks and marched to stand behind Elliot’s computer chair.

“That’s what my nanny always said! She called me her little fusspot.”

“I know,” Elliot chuckled as he swiveled his chair around. “Your mom told me that. She said you’ve always been a nervous person, even as a child. And, it’s selfish, but I like it when you’re outwardly nervous—makes me feel more normal.”

Elliot scooted forward and ran his hands up my thighs, pulling me close to hug me, his head resting on my stomach as his hands cupped my ass.

I narrowed my eyes as I looked at what he was doing on the computer. It looked like he was creating a virus—

Elliot pulled open the button of my jeans with his teeth and successfully diverted my attention.

“Elliot! Your sister will be here any minute.”

“I’ll lock the door,” he said in a muffle as he started licking at the skin he had just exposed.

But it was too late for that.

The door to Elliot’s apartment flung open and Darlene came in, causing me to jump back from him so quickly I tripped and fell onto the mattress, causing Elliot to then tumble out of his computer chair.

I quickly rebuttoned my jeans and prayed to god for the mattress to open up and swallow me.

“Ew,” Darlene said, staring at the two of us.

Elliot rolled over onto his back, his sides shaking with a silent laugh until I kicked his shoulder and rolled off the bed.

I knew my cheeks were red, so I took a deep breath and gathered what respect I had left for myself and walked over to Darlene.

“Hi—sorry about that. Your brother’s a complete dick.”

Darlene grinned, and I was struck by how much she looked like Elliot when she smiled.

“Finally! Someone else gets it. I’m Darlene,” she said with a wave as she dumped her bag on Elliot’s table.

“Y/N,” you said with your own wave and embarrassed smile.

“I think you dislocated my shoulder,” Elliot said from his spot on the floor as he watched us both turn to look at him.

“Good,” Darlene and I said at the same time before looking at each other and laughing.

“Fuck. I’ve made a terrible mistake,” Elliot mumbled as he pulled himself up and back into his chair.

“Did you fix my virus?” Darlene asked as she moved past me to stand beside Elliot’s chair.

Elliot turned to look at her, clearly telling her to shut the fuck up with his eyes, but I spoke up.

“I can see it’s a virus. And you only popped the button of my jeans to distract me from looking at it.”

They both turned to look at me, twin expressions of incredulity, waiting to see what I would say next.

I crossed my arms and waited—I knew how to wait Elliot out.

“Darlene writes viruses and sells them to companies that make antivirus software.”

I raised my eyebrow, “Interesting niche.”

Darlene grinned, “We can’t all be corporate sellouts like you two.”

“Darlene,” Elliot warned.

“It’s a joke, douche,” Darlene huffed as she plopped on the bed.

“I knew this job would make you uptight—no offense, Y/N. I mean, someone’s gotta do it. Just never thought it would be my brother.”

“Do you . . . want a job? We could always use another tech.”

“No,” Elliot said, a look of horror washing over his face.

Darlene laughed and lifted her head to turn her eyes to me.

“So, you could just do that? Snap your fingers and get me a j-o-b?”

“You’re Elliot’s sister, his family. I’d do anything to help you—if you wanted it,” I added hastily.

Elliot and Darlene looked at each other, and Darlene laughed, laughed so hard a tear squeezed out from the corner of her eye.

“Elliot told me you were, like a good person or whatever, but shit. I don’t think anyone who hasn’t wanted to fuck me has ever offered to do anything that nice for me. Wait--you’re not into freaky siblin--”

“Darlene!” Elliot yelled, the vein in his neck popping.

Darlene raised her arms in a gesture of surrender and said, “Excuuuse me.”

I watched their exchange with a smirk of understanding. I did have three siblings of my own.

“Jobs aren’t exactly a scarce commodity for techs on Wall Street,” I said, crossing my arms and drawing their attention back to me.

“Just something to think about if you ever want some stability,” I added as Darlene continued to look at me like I was an alien.

“Elliot says you’re rich—”

“Fucking shut up, Darlene!” Elliot groaned, twisting his hands in his hair and standing.

“My father is rich, so yeah. I’ve never gone without,” I said with a slight head shake at Elliot’s distress.

“I’m so sorry about her,” Elliot said taking a step toward me while still glaring at Darlene who only rolled her eyes.

I chuckled, “It’s fine, El. She’s curious and clearly doesn’t beat around the bush—unlike you.”

“Ha!” Darlene said, raising her middle finger at her brother’s back.

This was . . . interesting, I thought. Not at all how I thought it was going to go, but there was something refreshing about Darlene, something childish in the same way there was something childish about Elliot—only on opposite ends of the spectrum. She had a child’s impetuousness, while Elliot had a child’s reservation. I wondered for the millionth time just what it was like growing up for the two of them because I had a feeling it was, at best, difficult. Most people shed those traits with maturity, and it was odd neither Elliot nor Darlene ever did.

I did enjoy Darlene’s assertiveness, even though I was certain it had gotten her in trouble over the years, but that’s what big brothers were for, right?

“Anything else you wanna know?” I asked as I sat on the edge of Elliot’s mattress.

“Since you both have fancy ass jobs for a fancy ass corporation, why the hell are we eating pizza in Elliot’s shithole apartment?”

“I told you,” I said looking at Elliot with a smirk.

Elliot sunk into his chair, sighing heavily before he popped the CD from his computer and tossed it to Darlene.

“Let’s go out,” I suggested. “Elliot and I had this debate before you got here, and I’m happy to say that he just lost because I was right.”

“Elliot needs a good check. He’s not always right,” Darlene said, glancing at him and giving him a smirk.

Elliot just looked at Darlene and shook his head.

“So, dinner in Midtown? Do you like seafood?”

“Fuck yeah.”

“I’ll make a phone call,” I said smiling, enjoying using my privilege to impress Darlene.

I wanted her to like me; she was the only family Elliot really had, and she could be a good ally if he ever needed more than just I could give him.

“El? Do you feel like going out?”

“Does it matter?”

I looked at him and wondered if our teasing really had bothered him.

“Of course it does,” I said with a soft tone as Darlene looked between us, watching our exchange with interest.

Elliot’s eyes ran over my face, and his lips gave me a ghost of a smile.

“I guess even Darlene likes a little nice.”

“Told you,” I said before I went to retrieve my cellphone.

As I made reservations, I could hear the quiet mumble of Elliot’s voice in the background and Darlene’s much less quiet answers. When I hung up with the restaurant, I ordered an Uber.

“Uber will be here in 15 minutes. Should give us plenty of time to make our reservation.”

Both Elliot and Darlene looked up at me, that twin expression again which was starting to unnerve me a bit. Getting up from the bed, Darlene took the CD Elliot gave her and shoved it in her bag. She pulled out her phone and checked it, her thumbs moving quickly as she answered a text or an email.

Elliot turned off his computer before turning his attention to me.

“Thanks for doing this,” he said quietly as he put his hands on my waist.

“I want her to like me,” I said into his ear as I hugged him quickly.

“She does,” he whispered back, pressing a barely-there kiss to my temple.

* * * * *

Dinner was fun and easier than when it was just Elliot and I sometimes. It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy quiet nights with Elliot; it was that, given what happened with Colin this week, I greatly appreciated the distraction. It was nice to get lost in Darlene’s stories, and as it turned out, there wasn’t much she wasn’t willing to share, talking almost nonstop about everything from her love life to her and Elliot’s childhood.

Elliot listened, but I could tell he wasn’t truly present. There was something about his sister that seemed to make him retreat further into himself. I wasn’t sure if it had something to do with me or if it was something to do with their childhood. After the Fourth of July, I hadn’t pressed Elliot. He seemed to be in such a good place that I didn’t want to open up a door he clearly needed to keep closed.

“Do you remember that, El?” Darlene asked.

“Hmm?” Elliot questioned, clearly not listening.

“That first time we went to the museum in Queens with Angela? The place you always ran away to?”

Elliot gave a half-convincing nod.

“Anyway, it has this really cool model of the entire city. You should check it out.”

“I’ve lived here forever and never knew it was there. I love finding spots in the city I’ve never visited.”

“We should go—all of us,” Darlene suggested, looking at her brother.

Elliot didn’t answer, which seemed to be something Darlene was used to. She gave him time, but when it became clear that was as far as she was getting, I spoke up.

“Are you busy Saturday morning-ish?”

“I keep my life pretty open to my whims,” Darlene said as she chewed her roll.

“I need to find a dress for this dinner thing next week. Do you want to come shopping with me? I could use a second opinion—and lunch would be my treat for putting up with my indecisiveness.”

“Sure,” Darlene said with a grin. “Let me get your number.”

She opened her phone and quickly created a new contact for me to enter my number. Elliot watched us with a little more interest now that Darlene wasn’t talking about their childhood.

By the end of the night, I felt like Darlene and I were on our way to becoming friends. When the Uber took us back to Elliot’s, I let them go back to his place alone to have some time, probably to talk about me.

Elliot gave me a look and a wave as he shut the door, and I could hear Darlene chastising him for not kissing me goodnight. I waved and shook my head, giving the driver my apartment’s address.

* * * * *

As it turned out, shopping with Darlene was fun. While I tended to err on the side of being reserved and polite, she was to the point, and I ended up finding a dress more quickly than usual thanks to her frank opinion.

We had lots of time before lunch to wonder through a few more boutiques and Darlene stopped to try on some sunglasses. She looked particularly cute in a pair of heart-shaped ones, and I offered to buy them for her as a thank you.

She accepted with a shrug of her shoulders and a grin, once again the complete opposite of her brother, which I told her.

“I know, right? Elliot said I get it from dad. He was never afraid to say what was on his mind.”

“Does he talk about your dad to you? Or your mom?”

“Not if he can help it. We had a pretty shit childhood. Dad died when I was 5, so I have trouble remembering him. It hurt Elliot—they were best friends. I think my mom was always kinda jealous of that and really took it out on him. Which is really funny because it only made us hate her more.”

“Is she still living?”

“Yup. But she’s in assisted living. Fuck if either one of us was going to take care of her when she started getting sick. When Elliot left for college, I counted down the days until I could get the fuck out of that house. Without him, it was depressing as shit.”

“So you two are really close?”

Darlene gave me a measured look before replying, “How long have you known Elliot?”

“Mmm, almost a year.”

“But, like, you haven’t been close until, what, like a few months ago?”

“We were pretty close at work from the start. I was one of the only people he talked to.”

“But you didn’t really hang out a lot?”

“No.”

“And, since you got close, nothing strange has happened?”

I stopped walking and turned to face Darlene.

“Strange as in . . . occasional memory loss?”

“Yes!” Darlene said, her face filling with relief. “I was fishing because I didn’t want to—you know, Elliot is the best person I know. I would do anything for him, anything to protect him the same way he’s always protected me.”

“I understand. There’s something about him that makes you want to give him a really big hug and tell him the world isn’t as shitty as he thinks it is.

“But fuck if he’ll let anyone. I mean, you’re the only real girlfriend besides Angela he’s ever had. And they had some sort of friends with benefits thing going on—she’s her own basket of freshly baked fucked up.”

I laughed, “What the hell did they put in the water where you’re from?”

Darlene chuckled and shrugged her shoulders.

“Anyway. Elliot’s had those weird blackouts since we were kids. I’m convinced it has something to do with keeping people at a distance, at least that was what it always seemed to be with us. But that shit works on your nerves and for a while Elliot and I just didn’t talk. I mean, we kept tabs on each other, but we didn’t see each other.”

“Well, I think you’re good for him. He needs people who care about him actively in his life. Being alone like he was—that’s not good for anyone.”

Darlene smiled.

“I’m glad he has you—not just because you’re rich, but you seem cool.”

“Thanks, but no worries. I come with my own, how did you put it? Basket of fresh-baked fucked up?” I asked through a laugh.

“That was a good description, huh?”

“It was. So, maybe you can help me figure out how I’m going to tell Elliot I’ve rented him a tux and he has to attend this event with me?”

Darlene threw her head back and laughed, clearly loving that her brother had just been sentenced to a night of boring horror, and we linked arms as we walked to a café around the corner for lunch, grinning as we guessed at his response.

* * * * *

I hung my new dress on the back of my closet door, making a mental note to go through my shoes to see what matched and to remember to tell Elliot he had plans on Wednesday night.

Spending the day with Darlene had been fun, but exhausting. Getting to know people was hard work, especially people as complex as the Aldersons.

Elliot had said he wanted to come over, so I left my door unlocked while I ran a bath, loading up on the bubbles.

As I watched the tub fill up, I thought that maybe I should give Elliot a key to my place. Elliot Alderson most likely wasn’t about to break up with the person he finally got the courage to tell he loved, so the gesture might be another nice piece of consistency for him (and for me).  

I stepped out of my underwear and slid into the tub, luxuriating in the warmth and the sweet scent of coconuts. I had almost fallen asleep when there was a soft knock on my door before Elliot pushed his way into the bathroom.

He gave me a soft smile and took a seat on the edge of the tub.

“So you do use this thing?”

“Everyone loves a good soak in the tub.”

I paused, then seductively asked, “Want to join me?”

“No,” Elliot said flatly, making me laugh. He was such an atypical man that it was refreshing at times.

“That’s okay—I’m wiped. Your sister is exhausting. She has more energy than a child.”

Elliot nodded, his eyes incredibly focused on my face.

“I like her, though. I want to spend more time with her.”

“I’m glad,” Elliot said with relief. “I wasn’t sure if she’d be too much for you. She’s too much for me sometimes.”

“She loves you, El. So much. It’s sweet.”

“How do you know?”

“Well, a) she’s your sister,” I said, sitting up a bit and shaking off my sleep. “And b) she said you were the best person she’s ever known. I’d say that means she loves you.”

“I really don’t deserve that. I’ve done some shitty things to her.”

“Haven’t we all? I mean, to our siblings. Erin told you all about the epic chip battle of 1996.”

Elliot snorted, “I hardly think that counts.”

“I was being funny. We weren’t about to rehash the time she fucked my prom date in our limo the first time you met the family.”

“What?”

“Yeah. Erin was evil to me throughout high school. Granted, she was addicted to pills and to boys—she was six shades of fucked up.”

“What—why?”

“Two excellent questions, both with pretty blasé explanations. She got in with the wrong crowd, loved the attention, and just got sucked into that shitty world. It took years of therapy, and she was in and out of rehab until she finally found a purpose. She’s one of the lucky ones—so many addicts can’t find their way back once they take their first hit.”

“Wow. Never would’ve guess that.”

“You didn’t hack them, did you?”

“What?”

“Don’t sound so surprised—I trust you, El, however, I didn’t define all the grey areas, did I?”

“Not really—but I just assumed the whole ask, don’t hack applied to everyone in your life.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah.”

“Hmm.”

“Is there something you want to ask me?”

“No,” I said a little confused. “Should there be something I should be asking you?”

“No.”

“Okay then.”

“Do me a favor?”

“Sure.”

“Beside the front door, there’s a ring of keys on the very last hook closest to the wall. Bring them to me?”

Elliot got up without saying a word and returned a minute later, the keys jangling as he walked. He handed them to me, and I shook the bubbles off my hand before I searched for my apartment key and wriggled it off the keyring.

“Here you go,” I said, holding the little silver key out to Elliot who now looked like he had a mouth full of peanut butter.

“Huh?” he asked, his mouth barely parting.

“I want you to be able to come and go as you please—and it also means I don’t have to get up to answer the door anymore, or leave it unlocked if I know you’re coming over at some point in the evening. It’s a gift of convenience.”

“Are you . . . sure?”

“It’s just a key to my apartment, El. Not an invitation to our wedding,” I finished as I closed my eyes and didn’t bother to hide the smirk on my face. I could practically hear the pistons misfiring in his brain at the mention of a wedding.

“Thanks,” came his cautious, quiet reply.

I nodded my head, not bothering to open my eyes as I let the warmth of the water envelop me again.

[kimyoonmiauthor]

Myka and James Stauffer rehoming a disabled child--What more can you do?

I wrote this once, but then it wouldn’t post. So this is a second time, excuse it if it’s not as eloquent as it should be. I’m an international adoptee, so we’re more affected by this case than most because according to Reuters 2013 more of us are “rehomed” than others. Because of this, I’ve also been following the case since 2010. So all of the people “shocked” by this terminology needs to listen to adoptees. Over the last 10 years or so, I’ve been collecting resources and things YOU as non-adoptees can do to help. This has included listening to Birth Parents, Adoptees, Adoptive Parents, Former Foster Youth, and basically using my Anthropology training to collect a list. I have to remind you that going after the Stauffers alone isn’t enough. We have to go after the systems that enabled them to do this in the first place so this does not happen to another child. I get it. Vigilante justice feels good. It’s short, sweet and you get results and to see the face of the individual. A system doesn’t have a face you can gloat over. But if you really do care, you’d go after prevention and long term change, otherwise your outrage--and I’m including all of those youtubers I had to sort through (which was painful at best, but so goes advocacy), is empty. You only care about your own self-satisfaction rather than the long term cause or the people involved themselves. (My anti-Cancel Crew objections are along this line of thought.) Since I’ve been asked what this looks like and re-pasting it over and over is a pain, I decided to centralize the post with the levels of justification for the action. I get this post is longish, but take the part you need to make that change you want to advocate for.

If you want to take parts of this post, you can take the links without credit, but not the specific words. And don’t take credit for work you didn’t do.

What is Rehoming?

The often legal, but immoral act of placing a child without oversight of the state or government by placing them on the internet or doing backyard deals. We adoptees have been battling facebook pages for years to shut it down. I am not naming them, because I don’t want to encourage the behavior.

This is separate from dissolution of adoption. This is done with home study and legal oversight.

Why is this a Problem?

Adoptive parents go through a long, long process call home study this can take anywhere from a few months to a year. This has evolved over the years. Since this specific case involves international adoption, I’ll do a run down of the evolution of how home study has evolved in the International adoption community. I know it’s dry and boring, but it’s important to understand why the Stauffer case is egregious and why I am holding Holt responsible.

Home study used to be, “Are you Christian?” as done by the Holts. To be clear, social workers and his translator at the time objected to this. His reasoning? He thought all Christians are good people. (Though if you check the qualifiers for genocide by the UN, this is loosely on the list.) Adoptees were lucky to even get half a page.

This resulted in children being put into sex trafficking rings and child slavery. Social workers and Adoptees legislated against the Holts and the restrictions went up. (The whole list of immoral, yet not illegal crimes the organization has done as a whole, is a whole other story. I know it backwards and forwards as an adoptee with dates and countries since I’ve been in the adoptee community since roughly 1999.) This took 20 years from the first children in 1940′s and 1950′s. The home study in the 1970′s was still thin, but the amount of abuse cases went down. By the 1980′s, there was pressure to actually care about the children, so ESWS (one of the Korean agencies) and the other agencies in Korea started pushing for more extensive home studies (at the behest of Adoptees). The packet and requirements were thin. This included things like checking the financials of the family in question. Giving the parents language lessons, and then a packet usually about an inch thick. They would also get family statements and recommendations. A social worker would come and check the safety of the home. By about the 1990′s the packet has increased, and psychological evaluations started to be put into place. There were lists of books added to the list. (I asked Adoptive Parents to help me with this.) These were “suggestions” but no one tested if the prospective parents read them. So the packets given were about 6 inches deep, with the books about a foot. The in-class studies, several honest Adoptive Parents called “laughable” there was no race training at all and most of it was hanging out.

By the early 2000′s, they started to finally let parents of color adopt in larger numbers. (I know) The rehoming had gotten far more decent. The psych evaluations got deeper. They started to exclude criminal activity, do background checks on the parents, and do deeper psych evaluations, requiring deeper studies. But the Adoptive Parents I talked to said they were not getting the support they needed. The agencies weren’t listening on what they needed to parent their child. This is about the time I started collecting a wishlist and sending it to agencies. As far as I’m connected, nothing has really changed since then. The problem with rehoming is that it sets us back to 1950′s rules. All of this progress that Adoptees, Social workers, and well-meaning Adoptive Parents have fought hard for is done in an instant. There is no home study and the former parents get away with it because Adoptees and Foster Kids are not protected by the same laws that children from birth are.

What does this have to do with the Stauffers?

The Stauffers, a few years ago, decided to adopt a kid from China. They are social influencers. So they asked to fund their child’s adoption. They opted to have a child with special needs and by reports “checked 99% of them.” They paid zero for the adoption, and then used him to boost one of their channels and Instagram follower’s accounts. Their channel boosted by a ton of money, such that they could move into a mansion, their “dream home”, go on several large family vacations, made off of publicizing his story for their own “disability savior” points. Some of the videos, however, were problematic.

He was later said to have autism, and was in speech therapy, by Myka who wanted to “save” money on him by bringing him to a cheaper therapist. Despite this, the channel grew.

Then suddenly the boy disappeared from the channel. After months of pressuring her, they released a video saying they had “rehomed” him. The internet was enraged by this and went after her and James Stauffer. They tried to push Myka to receive all the blame to protect James Stauffer’s channel. All of the videos of this little boy were still up and monetized. They came up with a petition to force all of the videos down. The monetized videos came down and a new petition started: https://www.change.org/p/youtube-shut-down-myka-stauffer-s-youtube-account?signed=true

I also started a letter writing campaign to the governor to make sure it was getting investigated. Everyone else posting about it was trying to go after Myka Stauffer, but I wanted legal change. With me and my network, we worked three days straight to finally get an answer and make sure that the boy they had adopted and “rehomed” was safe.

Is Rehoming New?

Internet Amnesia is real. No. It’s been happening to public knowledge since 2010.

There was the NYC case which got turned into a Law and Order Special Victims Unit episode: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/svu-shines-a-light-on-the_b_4735153

There was the Justin Harris case.

There was the Hart case. (They rehomed once and were able to adopt two more times.)

And if you didn’t think it was covered before then there is also:

https://www.today.com/parents/it-takes-more-love-what-happens-when-adoption-fails-918076

https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2018/11/children-who-have-second-adoptions/575902/

https://mljadoptions.com/blog/adoption-rehoming-disruption-dissolution-20140520

I’ve been riding my own state to institute laws against rehoming, and they finally did it, after the Governor vetoed it once, and I chased him about it. You could be a person that does this too.

So What Can I Do to be a Part of the Change? Here is a PDF of the current anti-rehoming laws. Press for the ones in your state to be cleaned up/invented. https://www.childwelfare.gov/pubPDFs/custody_transfers.pdf Here's contacts for the city where they live if you want to make sure they get justice for him. http://www.delawareohio.net/agendas-motions-summaries-meeting-recordings/meet-city-council-2/ You can contact Governor Mike DeWine and ask him to do something similar to this law https://www.writing.ucsb.edu/sites/secure.lsit.ucsb.edu.writ.d7/files/sitefiles/publications/2010_Sho.pdf which would give Huxley 90% of the earnings in a trust fund and protect the other Stauffer kids: https://governor.ohio.gov/wps/portal/gov/governor/contact The petition to take down their videos is here (They shifted their channels, but still have Huxley's content up.): https://www.change.org/p/youtube-demand-the-stauffers-remove-all-monetized-content-ft-huxley-from-their-youtube-channel?recruiter=1095019618

There is a more strict petition here: https://www.change.org/p/youtube-shut-down-myka-stauffer-s-youtube-account?signed=true There is a federal law that's been in the works since about 2015, when the Justin Harris case broke. Langevin has been trying to get it passed. It has bipartisan support.  https://langevin.house.gov/press-release/bipartisan-bill-will-protect-adopted-children-rehoming He is the one that said that cats and dogs have more protections than adoptees or foster care youth have. 

https://willbrownsberger.com/rehoming-of-adopted-children/

Send them love and support for working on this for so long. I think if people really, really did care, they'd call their Senators and make sure they are supporting this bill (It has bipartisan support): https://www.senate.gov/senators/How_to_correspond_senators.htm

Why and How to Hold Holt Responsible

Holt wasn’t responsible for the placement of this young boy. However, he is still their charge. When they absorbed the other agency, they should have checked on their charges and made sure they were doing well. But they didn’t.

This seems like a mild crime in most people’s eyes, but case after case, their failure to give Adoptive Parents support and check on them has resulted in a huge list of them saying, “This is unfortunate.”, but then not changing their contracts and trying to clean up the system they perpetuate. Since they are the largest of the International Adoption agencies, they also could set an example, by say, not enabling people to adopt on repeat from them if they’ve rehomed a child. (Shouldn’t their records show that?) and creating a network of adoption agencies to prevent abuse and rehoming so the Hart case doesn’t repeat.

https://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/18/nyregion/chinas-adoption-scandal-sends-chills-through-families-in-united-states.html https://books.google.com/books?id=ABEoAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA224&lpg=PA224&dq=Holt+International+abuse&source=bl&ots=3tvNla8X2x&sig=ACfU3U00GO4BzWMLUnU9dnI_EYqy1VwilA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi546nirOvpAhV3HzQIHWTwCow4ChDoATAFegQIDBAB#v=onepage&q=Holt%20International%20abuse&f=false And this is the complete list: http://poundpuplegacy.org/node/6194

Their contact:

https://www.holtinternational.org/contactus.php

But what do I ask for?

I compiled this list with the help of Adoptive Parents who have dealt with Holt before.

- Psych evaluations to take out the Narcissistic people (though stop selling it as a Savior Project would also help.) - Check their parenting styles--some styles do and some styles don't work for adoptees because of the initial trauma. - Minimum Foster Care training.

Many adopters go the rehoming route because they believe the Foster Care system is broken and listen to the news. It is, but they should work with Social Workers because Backyard deals are less than that. Obama (no matter how you feel about him) suggested Foster Care training for all Adoptive Parents which is more rigorous than home study for most states (though this also needs revision). - Make them learn the language of the adoptee they are adopting for at least one year (where it applies and they would have to pass with a C or better.) This is mostly so they learn the cultural standards of the country and it helps cement ideas about socialization as well that is hard to describe otherwise. - Holt specifically forbids Adoptive Parents from contacting Foster Parents after placement--reverse that.  Adoptive Parents had to work around them and those that did had better outcomes for their child. Often the Foster Parents were eager to help. - Adoption agencies would be required with any international adoption to give a run down from the foster parents of some basics of socialization (for the country), and maybe some basic training. This would be interactive. (as supposed to the next item)

- Give a basic rundown sheet of things to help the child transition from standard socialization practices. How to comfort the child? What specific foods was the child eating? Is there a brand of detergent that was used in their original home? Where does the child sleep? What are their sleeping hours? What type of clothes do they wear? Things people take for granted and think are universal. Anthropologists and Foster Parents could help with this. - For parents taking on disabilities, they should be required prior to encounter the disability and meet more seasoned parents currently dealing with the disability in question--especially adoptive parents. So they can ask questions, network and really, really see if they can handle it. Don't take their word for it. - Adoptees, PoC, etc and any other diversity labels involved with the child should be required to be in close contact with them. i.e. not the internet. Basic race, etc training should apply and they have to pass a test.

-Check on the Adoptee after placement.

After Adoption care. Several APs said they would have really liked this, but then they were left in the dark. In fact their agencies gave them zero support. And the baby would cry and cry and they were totally lost on what to do. They were lost on which experts to ask, and who they could contact. This is unacceptable. Dogs and cats get more checks and aftercare than human children.

On the consequences end,

Child trafficking and Abandonment--Holt should press for those laws. APs that care are for this. They said, why aren’t there these laws?

Also any adopters that rehome would be banned from adopting again, and they would be added to a general blacklist and spread that information to other agencies.

Through this dissolution of adoption should be the key.

If they break the contract, you can sue.

Lastly, don’t believe you are alone. Your anger can make change. At least let your anger last long enough to make this change to the laws so we adoptees don’t have to hear next year how people are shocked yet again by another rehoming case. Be the change the world needs. You aren’t helpless.

[hollowcrovvn]

The Ostensive Fumblings of Being Human (part 2)

Pairing: Connor x female!reader Rating: G for Gross Cute Crap Summary: Set two months after the ending of Detroit: Become Human, androids are living in government created “pop-up” communities while efforts are being made to integrate them into society. You are a grad-student volunteer with the Detroit Crisis Response Unit (DCRU), working to help with relief efforts… or at least, doing the work no one else wants to do. Which brings us to part 2.

(part 1) (part 2) (part 3) (part 4) (part 5) (part 6) (part 7) (ao3)

The moment kept playing in your mind, giving you little snapshot glimpses of his face when he saw your phone number written on the cup. His face, perplexed, but so curious as he took in your every word with such rapt attention. 

“Ugh… no.” you whined towards the ceiling, throwing your head back and sinking further into your sofa. Some TV series played ideally while you tapped a stylus on the screen of your tablet, opened to some notes regarding your most recent class. You risked short glances over to your phone. 

“Stop it.” you said to yourself, “It’s not a big deal and you don’t even know if he’ll text.”

You sat silently for a moment, nearly forgetting about it in the thrall of the TV and procrastination on your assignment when your eyes slowly drifted over to it again.

“Son of a bitch.” you huffed, throwing tablet aside as you got up and made your way across the small one bedroom apartment to your smaller bathroom. You needed a shower and some comfy clothes and maybe some sleep. 

Several minutes later you came out from the bathroom, towel drying your hair and feeling a bit more human with the cold no longer biting at your skin still from the damp outside. You weren’t looking, not really, your eyes just fell to the phone on the small kitchen table and noticed the screen was list with an envelope icon.

You managed to pretend not to be interested for approximately fifteen seconds before you were over, picking up the phone and trying to not think about how fast your heart was going as you opened the message…

… which was just from your DCRU supervisor reminding you to go to the DPD station downtown after checking in on site tomorrow.

You felt your heart fall and sighed as you clicked the message and set a reminder. Someone in Jericho had requested a number of open human-on-android violence cases as well as android-on-human and someone had to go get the stats. Most android cases were still considered “sensitive” so the only way to get the information was from the source. It was a placating act, something to make Jericho not so hostile to DCRU and their efforts, even if they could realistically do nothing about the numbers. You wondered if you would be lucky enough for it to be the same station Connor worked at.

You took your phone and headed off to bed, setting your alarm. It was nearly 11:40, which was not ideal if you didn’t want to be a zombie tomorrow. Sighing, you flicked off your lamp and curled up, closing your eyes and tucking in. Your breath began to slow and your body relax when suddenly the darkness behind your eyelids lit.

You opened your eyes a slit and saw the envelope notification with a question mark attached.

[ new sender ]

[ accept msg y/n? ]

You never hit “y” so fast in your life. 

[ from: DPDCNSL#317

Thank you for agreeing to continue corresponding with me. I am looking forward to the experience.

And thank you for the coffee.

Have a good evening, ---.

Connor ]

And then before you could respond the little dots indicating he was responding popped up immediately.

[ from: DPDCNSL#317

Lieutenant Anderson has informed me that saying, “I am looking forward to the experience” sounds “creepy”. I am looking forward to being able to speak with you more.

Connor ]

You smiled and quickly wrote up a reply-- which you waited a few minutes to send because… like that is what you did right? You didn’t wanna reply too fast… right? You killed some time, changing his name in the message box.

[ from: ---

You’re welcome. And pls don’t thank me for that pitiful excuse for bean water. Next time, I’ll get you a latte and you’ll never be the same again. ]

[ from: Connor

You are correct, but not in the way I believe you think.

Regardless, I would like that. You are studying at Wayne State, correct? ]

You froze, staring at the words with shock. How the hell did he know that?

[ from: ---

You pull up my file, copper?]

[ from: Connor

I did a search on the internet. You came up under the staff listing as a research assistant for Urban Studies. Is that correct? There is no image, so it could be another ---. ]

[ from: ---

Bit weird to be searching for someone you just met. ]

[ from: Connor

I agree. Lieutenant Anderson located the information and sent it to my terminal. I was… curious. I apologize, I do not wish to cause you to feel uncomfortable. ]

It didn’t really matter much. All the information on the website was basic things and any social media you had was hidden from the outside. It was harmless, as far as most things went.

[ from: ---

It’s alright, next time you can just ask me. Though I think to make it up, you can buy me the coffee. Only fair. :)  ]

[ from: Connor

I do receive a salary now, so that is a possibility.

--- it is now almost midnight. You should be resting as you have already lost two hours of the recommended time for sleep. I would recommend lowering your caffeine intake to 300mg per day to prevent further sleep disturbance.

Good night, ---.  ]

[ from: ---

You can pry my coffee from my cold dead hands, hippy.

Good night.  ]

Wildly specific advice aside, it was-- kinda sweet. That bit that you assumed was a joke about “receiving a salary” got a small chuckle from you. After waiting a few minutes though, it appeared that he was done messaging for the night.

Not too bad, you hummed to yourself, First potential friend outside of campus in four years. Adult humaning at last.

---

“Checking in on site” was just code for “bring us all our coffee order before you do any real work” and you did so as usual, dropping the cups off at the various desks, crowded into the small “conference” building. All of the DCRU’s own buildings were of the same shake-n-bake quality as the shelters put up for the androids. They did little to hold out the chill, but they kept out the damp. Several people had space heaters beneath their desks or blankets wrapped around their legs.

After dropping off the last drink, you made your way over to the desk of the person you liked most of all the superiors, chiefly because he would never ask you to bring him coffee. His name was Josh, and he had served as one of Markus’ companions during the start and the heart of the revolution. Prior to Jericho, he had been a university professor, which was something you found common ground with.

He was sitting still, as if staring off into the distance, but a quick note of his eyes would show them flickering back and forth. He was reading.

“You ready to do some real work?” he said, voice tinged with faint humor as he continued to scan through whatever files were working their way through his synthetic mind. You’d gotten use to this.

“Yes, for the love of Markus Christ.” you huffed, enjoying in the private joke. Since the revolution there had been no less than 112 articles official and amateur declaring Markus as an android “Messiah”. Based upon Josh’s word, this caused the actual Markus a great deal of discomfort, but still the metaphor stuck.

“I’m going to have to tell Simon that one.” Josh said with a laugh, finally turning his eyes to you indicating he was finished with whatever he was working on.

“But first things first.” he said, pulling out a tablet and handing it to you. It was one of his.

“You know most of these “deviant” criminal cases are still on lock down?”

You nodded.

“We’ve gotten clearance to have the files downloaded. Part of our agreements with the government involve… some explaining. I won’t sugar coat it. Some of these open cases are violent, resulting in death of the human or the android or sometimes both.”

You swallowed, eyes flicking to the tablet as if there would suddenly appear images but there was only a menu showing how to accept file download.

“... death can be a hard topic for anyone. Even more so for your people when it involves Android on Human crimes. You may see some disturbing things. You alright with this?”

“Of course!” you said, a bit quickly and a bit more defensively than intended.

“I mean that… I want to do anything I can to help. I know that… I know they are pressuring to have these androids turned over for prosecution.”

If Josh were non-deviant, he wouldn’t have tensed at the words, but he did. 

“Historically speaking, we haven’t given any android justice. I know this is important. Anything I feel is secondary to that… is what I mean.”

Josh smiled warmly, standing up and hesitantly patting your shoulder.

“You remind me of my old students, ---. I’m sure you’ll do what you can.”

You nodded vigorously, because you would. 

---

It was too far and too cold to walk the length of Detroit back towards downtown, so you took an automated cab. You’d tucked Josh’s tablet safely away in a rucksack over your shoulder and flipped through your phone idly.

You hovered over the message window with Connor for a moment before quickly sending off a few lines.

[ from: ---

Just so there are no surprises, I’m heading to the DPD station rn for unrelated stuff. Might see you! ]

It took you way longer than necessary to actually hit send, but when you did you were shocked that his response was almost instantaneous. 

[ from: Connor

Unrelated to what? Also, are you alright? Do you have an open case with the DPD? ]

[ from: ---

It’s all good. And meant I just happen to be that way as opposed to ya know, stalking. ]

[ from: Connor

“Stalking” does imply stealth, which would be in direct opposition of your current actions if that was the intent. I agree that your  actions do not constitute “stalking”.  ]

You huffed a sigh, but then were startled as the message pinged again.

[ from: Connor

Bit weird though.  ]

You felt a smile slowly form at one corner of your lips

[ from: Connor

That was a joke, in case it was too vague.  ]

[ from: ---

I gotcha ;)

See you in a bit maybe.  ]

And with that, you shut off your phone’s display just in time to exit the cab out front of the DPD building. Inside, the DPD had the same tell tale signs of the android revolution with its lack of noticeable androids. It was not until you got up to the reception desk that it dawned on you they both were identical. They were androids, they had just removed their LED. She was even wearing a name tag that said, Alicia in clear bold font. She was wearing regular professional wear, no Android identifiers in sight.

You’d heard the DPD had gotten on board relatively quickly with providing androids with pay, not wanting to lose the bulk of their staff. While the cleaning crews were absent, the receptionist turned up her face and smiled pleasantly,

“Good morning, how may I assist you?”

“Good morning!” you said, a bit too quickly, “My name is ---, I’m here from the Crisis Response Unit. I have a meeting with Captain Fowler.”

“Yes, we were told to expect you! Do you have your I.D.?” she said, and you were struck by how… friendly she was, as opposed to all the other ST300’s you’d encountered. You pulled out your “badge”, which was nothing more than an I.D. card with a special DCRU designation stamp inside a flip wallet. You passed it to her and she scanned it quickly.

“You’re all set! Just head right through these gates here and go straight back. Fowler’s office is the one in the middle with the glass doors, it should not be hard to miss, but if you get lost just grab one of the officers. They all should know all too well where his office is.” she said with a faint laugh at some private joke.

You nodded, fumbling to put your I.D. with a quick “thank you” before you headed through the gates. It was bigger inside than you expected, with several desks and lots of people working, standing and having their morning coffee or otherwise engaged. You noted the glass enclosed office towards the middle of the room and headed in that direction. There were three people already waiting inside and two of which you recognized immediately.

Captain Fowler was up, preparing to come open the door for you, but Connor beat him in a few brisk steps.

Hank was grinning at you in that suspicious way that you recalled from grade school… like he knew something you didn’t. In this situation, it was pretty unsettling. Did they find that parking ticket from sophomore year?!

“Good morning Ms. ---, please, have a seat.” Fowler gestured to the one other empty chair next to Hank, “These two suspect characters are Lieutenant Hank Anderson and his partner, Connor. They have been working the deviant android cases since the start.”

Connor politely offered you his hand, which you took. He squeezed gently, mischief glinting in those brown eyes before he let go and all but ushered you to your seat. Hank snorted.

“We’ve met.” Hank said, disregarding any pleasantries. 

Fowler looked surprised.

“We frequent the same coffee shop.” you added, “So it was a very brief meeting.”

“You’re lucky.” Fowler said, eyeing Hank with disapproval. Hank seemed oblivious, or more likely, immune.

“We’ve been informed that the ADA’s office is seeking to prosecute these androids. It is highly likely that they are being concealed among the deviants at the relief camp.” Fowler leaned back in his chair, “So, we’ve been told to assist you in whatever way you need.”

“Some of us are a bit too eager…” you heard Hank muttered under his breath. Connor’s eyes trailed on him slowly, making no expression you could see but Hank must have gotten the message because he grumbled and slumped back.

“I appreciate that, Captain Fowler.” you began, “Markus has agreed that his people will search into the population of their androids for these individuals. It’s a good start to integrate androids into the justice system.”

Though you had your own opinions regarding the effectiveness of that. How could any android expect a fair trial when a jury of their peers would most likely be full of humans? But that was a topic for another time and place.

“These files are sealed, so we are requesting a downloaded copy so that efforts can be made to locate these androids.”

Captain Fowler looked unconvinced.

“I have confirmation from the governor and the President’s staff approving this request, if you would like to see it. The governor also said you might like to call her office as well.”

“I think I will do that. In the meanwhile, if you’d gentleman escort Ms. --- to the break-room where she might be a bit more comfortable?”

Hank stood and gave Connor a hard pat, “All you buddy.”

He left without a second glance.

“Right this way. ---.” Connor said, Chief Fowler now too engrossed with his phone to notice Connor used your first name.

It was hard to contain a smile as you walked alongside the detective, following him to a small break-room.

“Coffee?” he asked and you nodded briskly. He poured some of the dark, strong smelling liquid into a mug that read “#1 Dad” and after considering for a moment, pot still in his hand, he poured another.

Bringing both he came to sit with you at a rickety table, stabilized by a half folded paper plate under one leg.

“Don’t think this counts.” you said, taking the mug in both hands, enjoying the warmth if not the overly strong taste.

Connor did not drink.

“You work with the Detroit Crisis Response Unit?” he said, getting right to the point.

“Volunteered. Don’t give me too much credit though. When I joined up, it was all about flooding relief. The Android situation was a surprise.”

“Do you dislike Androids?” he asked.

“Wow. Talk about a hot button topic, Connor. You sure you don’t wanna ask me what my favorite color is first? My favorite movie?”

“No. I would much rather know your stance on the current events seeing as you are working as a relief volunteer.”

Direct. You hid behind the lip of the mug, feeling his eyes keenly on you.

“Why do you wanna know?” you countered, taking a small sip.

“I’m simply curious as to how you feel about your current assignment.”

“I feel just fine.” you said, “I guess… well. Guess sometimes they just spook me. Just like most people.”

“I see.” Connor said, seeming to relax a fraction, “You are afraid of them?”

“Not “afraid” just-- reasonably cautious.”

Connor seemed to be processing this, tapping his fingertips against the mug in his hand and watching himself do so intently.

“You worked on “deviant” cases for awhile, yeah?” you began, “Are… do they make you nervous? Because that’d be understandable given what you’ve seen.”

“They-- did. Before. Now I realize it’s the same as humans. We’re all capable of violence.”

Before you could continue, another man walked into the break-room, smile slick as oil.

“Well, there you are, tin-can.” he said with a smirk, picking up the coffee pot and sloshing some of it onto the counter as he poured a mug full.

“Whose this?” he said, giving you a smirk.

“A liaison from DCRU.” Connor replied coolly, bringing the coffee mug to his lips.

“Is that even good for your health, Con?” the man asked, but Connor ignored him.

“And who is this charming fellow.” you asked, voice dripping with sarcasm.

“Detective Reed. Gavin, Reed.” he answered, giving you a wink, “Now I can see why Con here was in such a hurry to get his ring off before you showed up.”

Ah. That. That was. Not expected. Your blood ran cold, eyes immediately falling to Connor’s left hand as if you’d catch sight of a tan line or some other indicator that you’d been incredibly stupid.

“I got some super glue over at my desk if you need a quick fix.” he said, tapping Connor’s chair with the toe of his boot. Connor, looked somewhere between deflated and coldly controlled anger.

Hank’s appearance in the break room door thankfully put a halt to whatever was going on between the two men, his eyes fixing Gavin with a vicious glare.

“Don’t you have reports to finish, detective?” he said, circling in so that Gavin was forced to walk towards the door.

“Just tryin’ be a good wing-man for my bro, Connor.” he said, disappearing into the hall with a laugh.

Hank looked between you and Connor, noting the change in your demeanor, arms pulled in and looking anywhere but at his partner.

“Fowler uh-- got the call. You can come over to my desk and we’ll get you sorted.”

You hurriedly stood, fishing out your tablet so you’d be ready to download those files and get out of here as soon as possible.

Connor said nothing in his defense, but he watched you intently, searching.

“... thanks for the coffee.” you said, following Hank out.

---

Connor did not join you at Hank’s desk, which must not have been part of the plan because every few seconds Hank looked over his shoulder for him.

“Here. You should get a prompt to download any second now. There are photos, so if you’re squeamish I advised ya not look at the screen while they are downloading.”

You took his advice, letting the tablet drop unceremoniously to the desk as you leaned against it, arms crossed.

Hank was not scowling for once, but you were, brows furrowed tight and troubled.

“Look… ---, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t-- just don’t judge Connor before you get to know him. I know he’s a weird one. I know most people, hell even me, have this innate prejudice, but he likes you. Which is a big deal for him. He’s learning how this goes, so I don’t know-- maybe give him a break.”

“... did… did his wife die or something?”

Hank stared at you, eyes wide and confused.

“His wife.” he repeated, not so much a question but a confirmation of whether or not you were a rambling idiot.

“That detective! Gavin whatever-the-hell said that Connor took off his ring before I got here!”

Hank groaned, resting his face in his hand as he shook his head. The sound quickly turned into a laugh of sorts. He looked back up at you with that same mystified look he had before.

“You really don’t know. Kid, Connor took off his LED before you got here. That’s what Gavin meant. He’s an android.”

A lot, like a lot of things suddenly made sense now.

You sunk into a nearby chair, dazed.

“You really had no idea? With how fuckin’ weird he is?”

“I thought he was just… like, ya know. A hipster intellectual.”

Hank choked on nothing, busting into a loud laugh, “Well you ain’t wrong, kid!”

The tablet pinged, indicating it had finished downloading. Hank popped up, dismissing the file before you could pick it up.

“Like I said. Some gory stuff. I’d advise you get that to whoever wants it and not go poking around in it.” he handed you the tablet, “And for god’s sake, go talk to him before you leave. You’re the first person he’s been around that ain’t me and trust me, that’s good for him.”

You ran your hands over the tablet’s smooth sides, mind going a hundred miles a minute. You turned to leave and saw Connor coming back towards the desks, seeing clearly now the flashing LED he had replaced on the side of his temple.

His expression was blank, but you had dealt with enough androids that you could just faintly see the lines of nervousness and… hopefulness as he passed you.

You caught his forearm, touching the same place where androids connected systems.

“... I don’t dislike androids.” you whispered, risking a look at him through your eyelashes. He was-- smiling and it was so damn beautiful you felt the wall you had started constructing around your heart from Gavin’s words crack open.

“I’m glad to hear it.” 

You smiled, “Text me when you are ready to shell out for that latte.” and gave his arm one last small squeeze before heading out of the station.

[apreseventsjh-blog]

SEO Company

Search Engine Optimization Advertising And Marketing

In the business space, one significant fad we're seeing lately is data import throughout the huge gamers. Much of SEO entails collaborating with the information Google provides you and then filling out every one of the gaps. Google Search Console (previously, Web designer Tools) only provides you a 90-day window of data, so business vendors, such as Conductor as well as Yelling Frog, are continuously adding and also importing information resources from other creeping data sources (like DeepCrawl's). They're integrating that with Google Look Console information for more exact, continuous Internet search engine Outcomes Web Page (SERP) surveillance and position tracking on details keyword phrases. SEMrush as well as Searchmetrics (in its enterprise Collection bundles) supply this level of enterprise SERP tracking too, which can give your business a higher-level view of how you're doing against competitors.

In 2013, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals kept in Lens.com, Inc. v. 1-800 Get in touches with, Inc. that on-line get in touch with lens vendor Lens.com did not dedicate trademark violation when it bought search promotions utilizing rival 1-800 Contacts' government registered 1800 GET IN TOUCHES WITH trademark as a key phrase. In August 2016, the Federal Trade Commission submitted an administrative complaint versus 1-800 Contacts declaring, among other things, that its hallmark enforcement practices in the online search engine advertising room have unreasonably controlled competitors in offense of the FTC Act. 1-800 Contacts has actually rejected all misdeed and also is set up to appear prior to an FTC management legislation judge in April 2017. [30]

Seo

Structured data21 is code that you can add to your websites' web pages to explain your web content to search engines, so they can much better recognize what gets on your web pages. Search engines can use this understanding to present your web content in beneficial (and also attractive!) ways in search results page. That, consequently, can assist you bring in just the right type of customers for your business.

Pros: The most granular as well as detailed website crawling tool we tested. On-page SEO referrals. Responsive contemporary user interface. Google Analytics and also Google Search Console assimilation. Backlink monitoring. AMP metrics. Desktop/mobile/tablet break downs.

Seo Advertising Devices

Another part of SEM is social media advertising (SMM). SMM is a sort of marketing that entails making use of social media to affect customers that business's products and/or services are important. [23] Some of the most recent theoretical advancements consist of internet search engine advertising management (SEMM). SEMM associates with activities including Search Engine Optimization but concentrates on roi (ROI) management as opposed to pertinent website traffic structure (as is the case of mainstream SEO). SEMM likewise integrates organic SEO, trying to attain top ranking without using paid ways to accomplish it, and ppc SEO. For example, some of the interest is put on the websites layout design and also how content and details is presented to the internet site site visitor. Search Engine Optimization & SEM are two columns of one marketing work and they both run side by side to create much better outcomes than concentrating on just one pillar.

Internet Search Engine Optimisation Google Ads

If you have actually enhanced the crawling and also indexing of your site using Google Browse Console or various other services, you're most likely interested about the web traffic involving your site. Internet analytics programs like Google Analytics are a beneficial source of understanding for this. You can use these to:

|What Does Search Engine Optimization Price

Webmasters as well as content carriers began maximizing websites for search engines in the mid-1990s, as the very first online search engine were cataloging the very early Web. At first, all webmasters only required to submit the address of a page, or URL, to the various engines which would certainly send out a "spider" to "creep" that web page, extract links to other pages from it, as well as return info located on the page to be indexed. [5] The procedure entails a search engine crawler downloading and install a page and also keeping it on the search engine's very own web server. A 2nd program, known as an indexer, essences information regarding the web page, such as the words it includes, where they are located, as well as any weight for specific words, along with all links the page contains. Every one of this details is after that positioned into a scheduler for creeping at a later date.

Internet Search Engine Optimization Google Ads

If you're thinking of working with a Search Engine Optimization, the earlier the far better. A blast to employ is when you're considering a website redesign, or preparing to release a new website. That way, you and also your SEO can ensure that your website is made to be search engine-friendly from the bottom up. However, an excellent Search Engine Optimization can also aid boost an existing site.

In 2007, Google revealed a war paid links that transfer PageRank. [30] On June 15, 2009, Google disclosed that they had taken measures to minimize the effects of PageRank sculpting by utilize of the nofollow characteristic on links. Matt Cutts, a widely known software program engineer at Google, introduced that Google Robot would no more deal with any type of nofollow web links, in the same way, to stop Search Engine Optimization provider from making use of nofollow for PageRank sculpting. [31] As a result of this change the use of nofollow caused dissipation of PageRank. In order to avoid the above, SEO designers established alternate strategies that replace nofollowed tags with obfuscated JavaScript and also therefore allow PageRank sculpting. Additionally several services have been recommended that consist of the use of iframes, Flash as well as JavaScript. [32]

If you want to improve your rankings in search engine result for keywords related to your business, taking notice of and enhancing these SEO variables is a great area to begin. Nonetheless, keep in mind that SEO isn't a set-it-and-forget-it method. Simply put, it spends some time to see results, but they're well worth the wait!

Early versions of search algorithms counted on webmaster-provided details such as the keyword meta tag or index data in engines like ALIWEB. Meta tags supply a guide per web page's web content. Making use of metadata to index web pages was found to be much less than reliable, nevertheless, because the web designer's option of key phrases in the meta tag can potentially be an imprecise depiction of the website's actual web content. Imprecise, insufficient, and inconsistent information in meta tags can and also did create pages to place for irrelevant searches. [10] [dubious] Web content carriers also manipulated some qualities within the HTML source of a web page in an effort to place well in search engines. [11] By 1997, online search engine designers recognized that webmasters were making efforts to rank well in their internet search engine, which some web designers were even manipulating their positions in search results by packing web pages with excessive or irrelevant keyword phrases. Early search engines, such as Altavista and also Infoseek, changed their algorithms to prevent web designers from adjusting positions. [12]|Search Engine Optimization Meaning Easy

The surge of Gopher (created in 1991 by Mark McCahill at the University of Minnesota) brought about 2 new search programs, Veronica and Jughead. Like Archie, they browsed the file names and also titles kept in Gopher index systems. Veronica (Extremely Easy Rodent-Oriented Net-wide Index to Computerized Archives) provided a keyword search of many Gopher food selection titles in the whole Gopher listings. Jughead (Jonzy's Universal Gopher Hierarchy Excavation And Also Display) was a device for obtaining menu info from certain Gopher web servers. While the name of the online search engine "Archie Search Engine" was not a recommendation to the Archie comic book series, "Veronica" and "Jughead" are personalities in the collection, therefore referencing their precursor.

Between brows through by the crawler, the cached variation of page (some or all the web content needed to make it) saved in the online search engine working memory is promptly sent out to an inquirer. If a go to is overdue, the online search engine can simply serve as an internet proxy instead. In this case the web page may vary from the search terms indexed. [25] The cached web page holds the look of the version whose words were formerly indexed, so a cached version of a page can be beneficial to the web site when the actual page has actually been lost, however this trouble is additionally thought about a moderate type of linkrot.

[orribuontheinternet]

Depression and Drawing.

When I was a young lass (I want to say around 7-8 years old), I saw my biological father drawing something while he sat on the porch. The details are fuzzy, but I do remember it being an equine of some sort. He was working in ink. Watching him was so fascinating that I decided that I too wanted to be an artist. To be able to imagine something and put it to paper was a foreign concept to me, one that I was excited about. Oddly enough, my first ever drawing was of an intangible concept: an emotion. I forgot why little me was so knee-deep in sadness at the time, but I remember doodling a self-portrait of a sad, crying baby Olive while holding back my tears. Underneath (or around, I can't recall) was a caption that kind of stated the obvious: "Olivia is sad." When I think about that moment, I wonder if that was a form of foreshadowing since I suffer from...well, Major Depression. But we'll get back to that later. I think this drawing was spawned from a conflict with my siblings, but I can't rightly recall. I do, however, remember that someone tore the picture to pieces. Then came the waterworks.

I want to pause for a second and let you know that I'm going to try not to throw a pity party. I'm not going to whine and stuff this note with melodramatic hyperbole. If you can stomach an emotional artist digging deep into her head and making her introspection tangible, I encourage you to keep reading. If not, I respect your decision to stop.

To segue on to a brighter note, I started drawing in elementary school. I remember the exhilarating feeling of finishing my work. My proudest moment, aside from a (not) Sonic-themed powerpoint, was a storybook I made in fifth grade. It was a flip book of some sort, and very colorful. I think it had something to do with James and the Giant Peach considering it was a book report. But that was an impression I left. Olive, the artist. This carried on into middle school, where I first discovered anime thanks to an art teacher who had the magic VCR/TV cart we 90s kids remember fondly. He showed us Princess Mononoke, one of Hayao Miyazaki's well-renowned works. It was um...horrifying. The film scared the everloving shit out of me, but I was intrigued by it. There was something really cool about the way the people looked, far different from the Ms. Frizzles and Rugrats I came to know. It captivated me, and when I got over the stomach-churning blood and guts the movie presented, I strove to attain that cool aesthetic. I was always doodling during my classes and lunchtime and recess. People came to know me as that kid that draws. Some of them flocked to me and asked me to doodle something for them. It was annoying in hindsight, but at the time it brought me immense pride. People were interested in something I was doing! This development boosted my motivation; I drew picture after picture, happily sharing it with anyone who was interested. It was invigorating! Then high school happened, and I realized I wasn't as amazing as I initially thought I was. In 2006 I was accepted into the prestigious Philadelphia Highschool of Creative and Performing Arts (henceforth shortened to "CAPA," as to avoid the apparent mouthful of syllables). I attended with a major in visual arts, which I took alongside my core classes, i.e., math, science, and English. The first few months were humbling, to say the least. I took ceramics, graphic art, and observational drawing. During this year, I also discovered the magic (to a 15-year-old anyway) of Naruto. That was my biggest obsession since the Dragonball Z/Rurouni Kenshin/Outlaw Star/Big O/etcetera days. Where I used to make "Dark Sonic" characters and the like,  I made a step towards creating a world of my own. Thus, after a painful defeat in an original character tournament, I decided it was time to start harnessing my writing and narrative skills, as well as my drawing skills. And so I strove to improve, even with those dents in my pride. It became something I was proud of, almost an obsession. I wanted to share it with the rest of the world, so I went for it.

(The first piece I’ve shared with the internet via deviantART.)

This is where my real artistic journey began. When I started, I had no idea of how mentally, physically, and emotionally tolling this would be. Half the time I've made things way more difficult than they've needed to be: sleepless nights, crouching over a desk, risky investments that granted little to no return and thus resulted in me digging myself into a deeper hole of debt, periods of psychological agony–I've experienced a great deal since I started creating these...things. In my naivety, I envisioned making money off of my creativity, having fun, meeting fans around the world, and hitting up cons like those really cool people I follow on the internet. I started comparing myself to more celebrated, experienced artists, to the point where I'd cry out of eye and earshot and wonder why I can't be as good as them. Why can't I be as skilled, or successful, I'd ask myself. This is when I should have realized that the Depression I suffer from has a voice. It'd tell me that I'd never amount to anything, let alone reach that level of expertise and fame. It was painfully merciless and cruel, and I was its punching bag. I'd start wondering what the point was and why I should even try to engage in this creative expression. Then, something tragic happened:

I realized I was falling out of love with it.

I didn't feel the same exhilaration I'd get when I finished something as simple as a little scribble. I didn't feel the warm burst of energy that I felt when I'd make a breakthrough.  I desperately scrambled for something–anything–that would rekindle my love for creating again. Then, after some introspection, I decided that I wanted to try for animation. It had always fascinated me during my time in grade school, so I did some research and even wrote a thesis about animation and why it inspired me. To an extent, the passion I have for the arts did come back a little, but it was just a spark. When I started college, I was reluctantly proud of myself. I started dreaming big again, thinking about how amazing it would be if I could create my own animated series and bring my narratives to life. And so, the dreams of being able to support myself and my family returned to the forefront of my mind, again. While I hopped and skipped through my first year at uni, I built a lot of friendships I never thought I'd have after a painful summer season. I thought back to how I tried and failed to start an art team and decided to go for it again. And thus, after planning gatherings and messing around with my friends, Exploding Fairies was born!

(Old Exploding Fairies logo.)

The Depression and my wounded confidence, however, wouldn't allow for anything to go past casual hangouts and being a nuisance to my teammates. Everything boiled down to three things:

1) I was unwilling to relinquish control of any of the facets of the alliance and our stories. To me, the story we worked on was my baby, and only I would have a say in whatever developments occurred. 2) I lacked the leadership and communication skills to collaborate with my partners effectively. 3) Considering the nature of my requests, I SHOULD have been paying my partners as an incentive. I lacked the money to compensate them for their time and talent adequately. I could very well be painting myself in a horrible light considering how terribly influential my depression is to my self-esteem. 

(The image above is by @cucoo.)

(Concept drawings of Dan’s actual identity.)

However, exposure and companionship don't necessarily pay the bills. Besides, I was still a "nobody on the internet!" I may as well have kicked sand in their faces. At least, that's what the disease told me. I grew bitter towards the world when Homestuck and a traumatizing anime gained the admiration of my friends. I became green with envy, wondering why my work didn't win such affection. That summer, I went into overdrive. I started an original character tournament of my own and gained a considerable following. I even found love again! 

After a busy three months, I jumped into my second year of college. This is when I finally collapsed under the weight of my mental ailments. Week after week, I stressed almost hyperbolically to the point where a single mistake could mean the end of the world to me. I officially started as an animation student (the first year was mostly core studies with elective and liberal arts on the side), and I wanted to bring my A-game to the forefront. I was going to wow everyone with my knowledge of technology while I navigated through the hills and valleys of my second year. I got to take a course in digital 2D animation, the media I've had my eyes on since I started my college career. Everything just hinged on whether I could manage my workload (I took 18 credits). Apart from the building stress, financial troubles, and impaired health, everything seemed fine. That notion, however, was shattered when I lost my progress on a 2D animation assignment. It was all over. All of that hard work that I put in (without saving, no less) was destroyed by a corrupted file. I didn't have a backup file ready for such an occasion. Admittedly, it was my fault for letting my guard down. I should have known better as a geeky artist!  To me, there was no way I could ever recover from that. I was an idiot and a crappy artist anyway! I was a failure! I was nothing! All of the horrible thoughts that my sickness cataloged was thrust into my conscious mind, impairing my ability to reason. Devastated and afraid, I called my crush and opened up about what happened. The pressure finally cracked me, and she had to talk me down from attempting suicide.

The turn of events affected everything, from my focus to my ability to complete my assignments. My crush advised me on what steps I should take while moving forward. I was hospitalized to prevent any harm I could bring to myself. I really DID want to escape from the unbearable pain my sick mind caused me. Eventually, I had to contact the dean of students and was referred to an affiliated therapist. After conversing with him and the dean, we all decided that it'd be best if I were committed to an outpatient program to start on the road to recovery. Fast forward to 2012 or 2013, when I completely lost faith in myself as an artist, and thus, my love for art. I didn't think it'd happen, but I hit what I conceived as rock bottom. I swore off drawing. It didn't bring me joy anymore, and why continue dabbling in something that I'd never be good at?

Unfortunately, the resulting slump turned out to be thicker than I'd imagine and I entered a state of deep depression. I rarely got out of bed, I overate and sometimes didn't eat at all, I never picked up a pencil or opened photoshop, never reached out to the people who I knew and who loved me...I was virtually dead to the world. Some good things happened that, in hindsight, I should have cherished. For starters, my crush became my girlfriend, and we lived together in an apartment in Center City. I was too smothered in the fog to show my appreciation and love for her adequately. She loved me and loved my work, which in turn brought back my passion for creating. If I couldn't financially support myself with my art, the least I could do is bring her joy and feed her imagination. 

(We both love semi-horror and anime, so our roleplays took that direction.)

Sadly, thanks to the disease even something as precious as her happiness wasn't enough. When I look back, I can see the hurt in her eyes, but during the time I had such horrible tunnel vision and was so disappointed about things not working out with my art that I couldn't sense that. Me, a self-proclaimed empath! My desperate greed and envy were my downfall, and I limped my way down the artsy-fartsy road. I'd draw fan art and create fan comics, only to become bitter about either the lack of replies or patrons on Patreon or the perceived disregard for any personal ventures I took. 

I did my first convention at Anime Impulse back in 2015, and after a pretty bad time in the artist alley, I swore off drawing again. I remember nights of staring blankly at the computer screen, smashing Command or Control +Z and ultimately throwing my stylus down, closing photoshop, and crying out of frustration. I remember pulling my hair and sobbing when I faced rejection. It was an incredibly painful time for me. That's not to say I still don't experience that now as I totally do, but something happened this year that strengthened my stride.

I posted something on Tumblr earlier this year about my frustration when it comes to creating art. It was specifically about how I get stuck in the "polishing" phase of building a webcomic page, but when I look back, I can actually attribute it to art in general. I became a "perfectionist." Nothing was impressive enough to finish or release, and I'd wind up with more works in progress than finished ones. My morale just kept dipping lower and lower, and finally, when picking up a webcomic project that I started more than a year ago, I vented my frustrations. To this, my crush, who became my fiancé some four years ago, replied with this:

"You polish because you’re not confident with your work because you're in an evolution phase. Fear holds you back. So you go back and edit. And edit. And edit. So stop the cycle. Kill the fear by not letting it have time to take hold."

Her words of encouragement and insight changed my perspective in ways I've never expected. It was almost like it triggered an epiphany or a breakthrough in my mind! I was reminded of her love and faith in me! With that came a ray of hope, that I could try again, and this time, throw my fear-induced caution to the wind! While my depression still has a voice and beats me down from time to time, I realize that it's just scared. I realized that when Brittany and I sat down and played through Celeste together. I related it to my sadness and anxiety surrounding art, and now I'm slowly getting back on my feet. I can't displace the blame and "use" my mental ailments as a scapegoat. I can't come up with excuses to give up on what I do. There is SOMETHING in creating visual media that breathes life into me.

(I started learning to let go.)

Looking towards the future, I hope I can look back on even these trying times and remind myself of where I was and how stronger I've become because of it. I'm still struggling with comparing myself to others and crashing into creative and motivational blocks, but someday I'll rise above it all. Besides, I should be doing it for me, right? The external validation should just be the topping on a sweet sundae.

That's why I keep drawing, in spite of the voice's apprehension. We're going to get through this together, I promise.

[wickedbananas]

Trust Your Data: How to Efficiently Filter Spam, Bots, & Other Junk Traffic in Google Analytics

Posted by Carlosesal

There is no doubt that Google Analytics is one of the most important tools you could use to understand your users' behavior and measure the performance of your site. There's a reason it's used by millions across the world.

But despite being such an essential part of the decision-making process for many businesses and blogs, I often find sites (of all sizes) that do little or no data filtering after installing the tracking code, which is a huge mistake.

Think of a Google Analytics property without filtered data as one of those styrofoam cakes with edible parts. It may seem genuine from the top, and it may even feel right when you cut a slice, but as you go deeper and deeper you find that much of it is artificial.

If you're one of those that haven’t properly configured their Google Analytics and you only pay attention to the summary reports, you probably won't notice that there's all sorts of bogus information mixed in with your real user data.

And as a consequence, you won't realize that your efforts are being wasted on analyzing data that doesn't represent the actual performance of your site.

To make sure you're getting only the real ingredients and prevent you from eating that slice of styrofoam, I'll show you how to use the tools that GA provides to eliminate all the artificial excess that inflates your reports and corrupts your data.

Common Google Analytics threats

As most of the people I've worked with know, I’ve always been obsessed with the accuracy of data, mainly because as a marketer/analyst there's nothing worse than realizing that you’ve made a wrong decision because your data wasn’t accurate. That’s why I’m continually exploring new ways of improving it.

As a result of that research, I wrote my first Moz post about the importance of filtering in Analytics, specifically about ghost spam, which was a significant problem at that time and still is (although to a lesser extent).

While the methods described there are still quite useful, I’ve since been researching solutions for other types of Google Analytics spam and a few other threats that might not be as annoying, but that are equally or even more harmful to your Analytics.

Let’s review, one by one.

Ghosts, crawlers, and other types of spam

The GA team has done a pretty good job handling ghost spam. The amount of it has been dramatically reduced over the last year, compared to the outbreak in 2015/2017.

However, the millions of current users and the thousands of new, unaware users that join every day, plus the majority's curiosity to discover why someone is linking to their site, make Google Analytics too attractive a target for the spammers to just leave it alone.

The same logic can be applied to any widely used tool: no matter what security measures it has, there will always be people trying to abuse its reach for their own interest. Thus, it's wise to add an extra security layer.

Take, for example, the most popular CMS: Wordpress. Despite having some built-in security measures, if you don't take additional steps to protect it (like setting a strong username and password or installing a security plugin), you run the risk of being hacked.

The same happens to Google Analytics, but instead of plugins, you use filters to protect it.

In which reports can you look for spam?

Spam traffic will usually show as a Referral, but it can appear in any part of your reports, even in unsuspecting places like a language or page title.

Sometimes spammers will try to fool by using misleading URLs that are very similar to known websites, or they may try to get your attention by using unusual characters and emojis in the source name.

Independently of the type of spam, there are 3 things you always should do when you think you found one in your reports:

Never visit the suspicious URL. Most of the time they'll try to sell you something or promote their service, but some spammers might have some malicious scripts on their site.

This goes without saying, but never install scripts from unknown sites; if for some reason you did, remove it immediately and scan your site for malware.

Filter out the spam in your Google Analytics to keep your data clean (more on that below).

If you're not sure whether an entry on your report is real, try searching for the URL in quotes (“example.com”). Your browser won’t open the site, but instead will show you the search results; if it is spam, you'll usually see posts or forums complaining about it.

If you still can’t find information about that particular entry, give me a shout — I might have some knowledge for you.

Bot traffic

A bot is a piece of software that runs automated scripts over the Internet for different purposes.

There are all kinds of bots. Some have good intentions, like the bots used to check copyrighted content or the ones that index your site for search engines, and others not so much, like the ones scraping your content to clone it.

2016 bot traffic report. Source: Incapsula

In either case, this type of traffic is not useful for your reporting and might be even more damaging than spam both because of the amount and because it's harder to identify (and therefore to filter it out).

It's worth mentioning that bots can be blocked from your server to stop them from accessing your site completely, but this usually involves editing sensible files that require high technical knowledge, and as I said before, there are good bots too.

So, unless you're receiving a direct attack that's skewing your resources, I recommend you just filter them in Google Analytics.

In which reports can you look for bot traffic?

Bots will usually show as Direct traffic in Google Analytics, so you'll need to look for patterns in other dimensions to be able to filter it out. For example, large companies that use bots to navigate the Internet will usually have a unique service provider.

I’ll go into more detail on this below.

Internal traffic

Most users get worried and anxious about spam, which is normal — nobody likes weird URLs showing up in their reports. However, spam isn't the biggest threat to your Google Analytics.

You are!

The traffic generated by people (and bots) working on the site is often overlooked despite the huge negative impact it has. The main reason it's so damaging is that in contrast to spam, internal traffic is difficult to identify once it hits your Analytics, and it can easily get mixed in with your real user data.

There are different types of internal traffic and different ways of dealing with it.

Direct internal traffic

Testers, developers, marketing team, support, outsourcing... the list goes on. Any member of the team that visits the company website or blog for any purpose could be contributing.

In which reports can you look for direct internal traffic?

Unless your company uses a private ISP domain, this traffic is tough to identify once it hits you, and will usually show as Direct in Google Analytics.

Third-party sites/tools

This type of internal traffic includes traffic generated directly by you or your team when using tools to work on the site; for example, management tools like Trello or Asana,

It also considers traffic coming from bots doing automatic work for you; for example, services used to monitor the performance of your site, like Pingdom or GTmetrix.

Some types of tools you should consider:

Project management

Social media management

Performance/uptime monitoring services

SEO tools

In which reports can you look for internal third-party tools traffic?

This traffic will usually show as Referral in Google Analytics.

Development/staging environments

Some websites use a test environment to make changes before applying them to the main site. Normally, these staging environments have the same tracking code as the production site, so if you don’t filter it out, all the testing will be recorded in Google Analytics.

In which reports can you look for development/staging environments?

This traffic will usually show as Direct in Google Analytics, but you can find it under its own hostname (more on this later).

Web archive sites and cache services

Archive sites like the Wayback Machine offer historical views of websites. The reason you can see those visits on your Analytics — even if they are not hosted on your site — is that the tracking code was installed on your site when the Wayback Machine bot copied your content to its archive.

One thing is for certain: when someone goes to check how your site looked in 2015, they don't have any intention of buying anything from your site — they're simply doing it out of curiosity, so this traffic is not useful.

In which reports can you look for traffic from web archive sites and cache services?

You can also identify this traffic on the hostname report.

A basic understanding of filters

The solutions described below use Google Analytics filters, so to avoid problems and confusion, you'll need some basic understanding of how they work and check some prerequisites.

Things to consider before using filters:

1. Create an unfiltered view.

Before you do anything, it's highly recommendable to make an unfiltered view; it will help you track the efficacy of your filters. Plus, it works as a backup in case something goes wrong.

2. Make sure you have the correct permissions.

You will need edit permissions at the account level to create filters; edit permissions at view or property level won’t work.

3. Filters don’t work retroactively.

In GA, aggregated historical data can’t be deleted, at least not permanently. That's why the sooner you apply the filters to your data, the better.

4. The changes made by filters are permanent!

If your filter is not correctly configured because you didn’t enter the correct expression (missing relevant entries, a typo, an extra space, etc.), you run the risk of losing valuable data FOREVER; there is no way of recovering filtered data.

But don’t worry — if you follow the recommendations below, you shouldn’t have a problem.

5. Wait for it.

Most of the time you can see the effect of the filter within minutes or even seconds after applying it; however, officially it can take up to twenty-four hours, so be patient.

Types of filters

There are two main types of filters: predefined and custom.

Predefined filters are very limited, so I rarely use them. I prefer to use the custom ones because they allow regular expressions, which makes them a lot more flexible.

Within the custom filters, there are five types: exclude, include, lowercase/uppercase, search and replace, and advanced.

Here we will use the first two: exclude and include. We'll save the rest for another occasion.

Essentials of regular expressions

If you already know how to work with regular expressions, you can jump to the next section.

REGEX (short for regular expressions) are text strings prepared to match patterns with the use of some special characters. These characters help match multiple entries in a single filter.

Don’t worry if you don’t know anything about them. We will use only the basics, and for some filters, you will just have to COPY-PASTE the expressions I pre-built.

REGEX special characters

There are many special characters in REGEX, but for basic GA expressions we can focus on three:

^ The caret: used to indicate the beginning of a pattern,

$ The dollar sign: used to indicate the end of a pattern,

| The pipe or bar: means "OR," and it is used to indicate that you are starting a new pattern.

When using the pipe character, you should never ever:

Put it at the beginning of the expression,

Put it at the end of the expression,

Put 2 or more together.

Any of those will mess up your filter and probably your Analytics.

A simple example of REGEX usage

Let's say I go to a restaurant that has an automatic machine that makes fruit salad, and to choose the fruit, you should use regular xxpressions.

This super machine has the following fruits to choose from: strawberry, orange, blueberry, apple, pineapple, and watermelon.

To make a salad with my favorite fruits (strawberry, blueberry, apple, and watermelon), I have to create a REGEX that matches all of them. Easy! Since the pipe character “|” means OR I could do this:

REGEX 1: strawberry|blueberry|apple|watermelon

The problem with that expression is that REGEX also considers partial matches, and since pineapple also contains “apple,” it would be selected as well... and I don’t like pineapple!

To avoid that, I can use the other two special characters I mentioned before to make an exact match for apple. The caret “^” (begins here) and the dollar sign “$” (ends here). It will look like this:

REGEX 2: strawberry|blueberry|^apple$|watermelon

The expression will select precisely the fruits I want.

But let’s say for demonstration's sake that the fewer characters you use, the cheaper the salad will be. To optimize the expression, I can use the ability for partial matches in REGEX.

Since strawberry and blueberry both contain "berry," and no other fruit in the list does, I can rewrite my expression like this:

Optimized REGEX: berry|^apple$|watermelon

That’s it — now I can get my fruit salad with the right ingredients, and at a lower price.

3 ways of testing your filter expression

As I mentioned before, filter changes are permanent, so you have to make sure your filters and REGEX are correct. There are 3 ways of testing them:

Right from the filter window; just click on “Verify this filter,” quick and easy. However, it's not the most accurate since it only takes a small sample of data.

Using an online REGEX tester; very accurate and colorful, you can also learn a lot from these, since they show you exactly the matching parts and give you a brief explanation of why.

Using an in-table temporary filter in GA; you can test your filter against all your historical data. This is the most precise way of making sure you don’t miss anything.

If you're doing a simple filter or you have plenty of experience, you can use the built-in filter verification. However, if you want to be 100% sure that your REGEX is ok, I recommend you build the expression on the online tester and then recheck it using an in-table filter.

Quick REGEX challenge

Here's a small exercise to get you started. Go to this premade example with the optimized expression from the fruit salad case and test the first 2 REGEX I made. You'll see live how the expressions impact the list.

Now make your own expression to pay as little as possible for the salad.

Remember:

We only want strawberry, blueberry, apple, and watermelon;

The fewer characters you use, the less you pay;

You can do small partial matches, as long as they don’t include the forbidden fruits.

Tip: You can do it with as few as 6 characters.

Now that you know the basics of REGEX, we can continue with the filters below. But I encourage you to put “learn more about REGEX” on your to-do list — they can be incredibly useful not only for GA, but for many tools that allow them.

How to create filters to stop spam, bots, and internal traffic in Google Analytics

Back to our main event: the filters!

Where to start: To avoid being repetitive when describing the filters below, here are the standard steps you need to follow to create them:

Go to the admin section in your Google Analytics (the gear icon at the bottom left corner),

Under the View column (master view), click the button “Filters” (don’t click on “All filters“ in the Account column):

Click the red button “+Add Filter” (if you don’t see it or you can only apply/remove already created filters, then you don’t have edit permissions at the account level. Ask your admin to create them or give you the permissions.):

Then follow the specific configuration for each of the filters below.

The filter window is your best partner for improving the quality of your Analytics data, so it will be a good idea to get familiar with it.

Valid hostname filter (ghost spam, dev environments)

Prevents traffic from:

Ghost spam

Development hostnames

Scraping sites

Cache and archive sites

This filter may be the single most effective solution against spam. In contrast with other commonly shared solutions, the hostname filter is preventative, and it rarely needs to be updated.

Ghost spam earns its name because it never really visits your site. It’s sent directly to the Google Analytics servers using a feature called Measurement Protocol, a tool that under normal circumstances allows tracking from devices that you wouldn’t imagine that could be traced, like coffee machines or refrigerators.

Real users pass through your server, then the data is sent to GA; hence it leaves valid information. Ghost spam is sent directly to GA servers, without knowing your site URL; therefore all data left is fake. Source: carloseo.com

The spammer abuses this feature to simulate visits to your site, most likely using automated scripts to send traffic to randomly generated tracking codes (UA-0000000-1).

Since these hits are random, the spammers don't know who they're hitting; for that reason ghost spam will always leave a fake or (not set) host. Using that logic, by creating a filter that only includes valid hostnames all ghost spam will be left out.

Where to find your hostnames

Now here comes the “tricky” part. To create this filter, you will need, to make a list of your valid hostnames.

A list of what!?

Essentially, a hostname is any place where your GA tracking code is present. You can get this information from the hostname report:

Go to Audience > Select Network > At the top of the table change the primary dimension to Hostname.

If your Analytics is active, you should see at least one: your domain name. If you see more, scan through them and make a list of all the ones that are valid for you.

Types of hostname you can find

The good ones:

Type

Example

Your domain and subdomains

yourdomain.com

Tools connected to your Analytics

YouTube, MailChimp

Payment gateways

Shopify, booking systems

Translation services

Google Translate

Mobile speed-up services

Google weblight

The bad ones (by bad, I mean not useful for your reports):

Type

Example/Description

Staging/development environments

staging.yourdomain.com

Internet archive sites

web.archive.org

Scraping sites that don’t bother to trim the content

The URL of the scraper

Spam

Most of the time they will show their URL, but sometimes they may use the name of a known website to try to fool you. If you see a URL that you don’t recognize, just think, “do I manage it?” If the answer is no, then it isn't your hostname.

(not set) hostname

It usually comes from spam. On rare occasions it's related to tracking code issues.

Below is an example of my hostname report. From the unfiltered view, of course, the master view is squeaky clean.

Now with the list of your good hostnames, make a regular expression. If you only have your domain, then that is your expression; if you have more, create an expression with all of them as we did in the fruit salad example:

Hostname REGEX (example) yourdomain.com|hostname2|hostname3|hostname4

Important! You cannot create more than one “Include hostname filter”; if you do, you will exclude all data. So try to fit all your hostnames into one expression (you have 255 characters).

The “valid hostname filter” configuration:

Filter Name: Include valid hostnames

Filter Type: Custom > Include

Filter Field: Hostname

Filter Pattern: [hostname REGEX you created]

Campaign source filter (Crawler spam, internal sources)

Prevents traffic from:

Crawler spam

Internal third-party tools (Trello, Asana, Pingdom)

Important note: Even if these hits are shown as a referral, the field you should use in the filter is “Campaign source” — the field “Referral” won’t work.

Filter for crawler spam

The second most common type of spam is crawler. They also pretend to be a valid visit by leaving a fake source URL, but in contrast with ghost spam, these do access your site. Therefore, they leave a correct hostname.

You will need to create an expression the same way as the hostname filter, but this time, you will put together the source/URLs of the spammy traffic. The difference is that you can create multiple exclude filters.

Crawler REGEX (example) spam1|spam2|spam3|spam4

Crawler REGEX (pre-built) As I promised, here are latest pre-built crawler expressions that you just need to copy/paste.

The “crawler spam filter” configuration:

Filter Name: Exclude crawler spam 1

Filter Type: Custom > Exclude

Filter Field: Campaign source

Filter Pattern: [crawler REGEX]

Filter for internal third-party tools

Although you can combine your crawler spam filter with internal third-party tools, I like to have them separated, to keep them organized and more accessible for updates.

The “internal tools filter” configuration:

Filter Name: Exclude internal tool sources

Filter Pattern: [tool source REGEX]

Internal Tools REGEX (example) trello|asana|redmine

In case, that one of the tools that you use internally also sends you traffic from real visitors, don’t filter it. Instead, use the “Exclude Internal URL Query” below.

For example, I use Trello, but since I share analytics guides on my site, some people link them from their Trello accounts.

Filters for language spam and other types of spam

The previous two filters will stop most of the spam; however, some spammers use different methods to bypass the previous solutions.

For example, they try to confuse you by showing one of your valid hostnames combined with a well-known source like Apple, Google, or Moz. Even my site has been a target (not saying that everyone knows my site; it just looks like the spammers don’t agree with my guides).

However, even if the source and host look fine, the spammer injects their message in another part of your reports like the keyword, page title, and even as a language.

In those cases, you will have to take the dimension/report where you find the spam and choose that name in the filter. It's important to consider that the name of the report doesn't always match the name in the filter field:

Report name

Filter field

Language

Language settings

Referral

Campaign source

Organic Keyword

Search term

Service Provider

ISP Organization

Network Domain

ISP Domain

Here are a couple of examples.

The “language spam/bot filter” configuration:

Filter Name: Exclude language spam

Filter Type: Custom > Exclude

Filter Field: Language settings

Filter Pattern: [Language REGEX]

Language Spam REGEX (Prebuilt) \s[^\s]*\s|.{15,}|\.|,|^c$

The expression above excludes fake languages that don't meet the required format. For example, take these weird messages appearing instead of regular languages like en-us or es-es:

Examples of language spam

The organic/keyword spam filter configuration:

Filter Name: Exclude organic spam

Filter Type: Custom > Exclude

Filter Field: Search term

Filter Pattern: [keyword REGEX]

Filters for direct bot traffic

Bot traffic is a little trickier to filter because it doesn't leave a source like spam, but it can still be filtered with a bit of patience.

The first thing you should do is enable bot filtering. In my opinion, it should be enabled by default.

Go to the Admin section of your Analytics and click on View Settings. You will find the option “Exclude all hits from known bots and spiders” below the currency selector:

It would be wonderful if this would take care of every bot — a dream come true. However, there's a catch: the key here is the word “known.” This option only takes care of known bots included in the “IAB known bots and spiders list." That's a good start, but far from enough.

There are a lot of “unknown” bots out there that are not included in that list, so you'll have to play detective and search for patterns of direct bot traffic through different reports until you find something that can be safely filtered without risking your real user data.

To start your bot trail search, click on the Segment box at the top of any report, and select the “Direct traffic” segment.

Then navigate through different reports to see if you find anything suspicious.

Some reports to start with:

Service provider

Browser version

Network domain

Screen resolution

Flash version

Country/City

Signs of bot traffic

Although bots are hard to detect, there are some signals you can follow:

An unnatural increase of direct traffic

Old versions (browsers, OS, Flash)

They visit the home page only (usually represented by a slash “/” in GA)

Extreme metrics:

Bounce rate close to 100%,

Session time close to 0 seconds,

1 page per session,

100% new users.

Important! If you find traffic that checks off many of these signals, it is likely bot traffic. However, not all entries with these characteristics are bots, and not all bots match these patterns, so be cautious.

Perhaps the most useful report that has helped me identify bot traffic is the “Service Provider” report. Large corporations frequently use their own Internet service provider name.

I also have a pre-built expression for ISP bots, similar to the crawler expressions.

The bot ISP filter configuration:

Filter Name: Exclude bots by ISP

Filter Type: Custom > Exclude

Filter Field: ISP organization

Filter Pattern: [ISP provider REGEX]

ISP provider bots REGEX (prebuilt) hubspot|^google\sllc$|^google\sinc\.$|alibaba\.com\sllc|ovh\shosting\sinc\. Latest ISP bot expression

IP filter for internal traffic

We already covered different types of internal traffic, the one from test sites (with the hostname filter), and the one from third-party tools (with the campaign source filter).

Now it's time to look at the most common and damaging of all: the traffic generated directly by you or any member of your team while working on any task for the site.

To deal with this, the standard solution is to create a filter that excludes the public IP (not private) of all locations used to work on the site.

Examples of places/people that should be filtered

Office

Support

Home

Developers

Hotel

Coffee shop

Bar

Mall

Any place that is regularly used to work on your site

To find the public IP of the location you are working at, simply search for "my IP" in Google. You will see one of these versions:

IP version

Example

Short IPv4

1.23.45.678

Long IPv6

2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334

No matter which version you see, make a list with the IP of each place and put them together with a REGEX, the same way we did with other filters.

IP address expression: IP1|IP2|IP3|IP4 and so on.

The static IP filter configuration:

Filter Name: Exclude internal traffic (IP)

Filter Type: Custom > Exclude

Filter Field: IP Address

Filter Pattern: [The IP expression]

Cases when this filter won’t be optimal:

There are some cases in which the IP filter won’t be as efficient as it used to be:

You use IP anonymization (required by the GDPR regulation). When you anonymize the IP in GA, the last part of the IP is changed to 0. This means that if you have 1.23.45.678, GA will pass it as 1.23.45.0, so you need to put it like that in your filter. The problem is that you might be excluding other IPs that are not yours.

Your Internet provider changes your IP frequently (Dynamic IP). This has become a common issue lately, especially if you have the long version (IPv6).

Your team works from multiple locations. The way of working is changing — now, not all companies operate from a central office. It's often the case that some will work from home, others from the train, in a coffee shop, etc. You can still filter those places; however, maintaining the list of IPs to exclude can be a nightmare,

You or your team travel frequently. Similar to the previous scenario, if you or your team travels constantly, there's no way you can keep up with the IP filters.

If you check one or more of these scenarios, then this filter is not optimal for you; I recommend you to try the “Advanced internal URL query filter” below.

URL query filter for internal traffic

If there are dozens or hundreds of employees in the company, it's extremely difficult to exclude them when they're traveling, accessing the site from their personal locations, or mobile networks.

Here’s where the URL query comes to the rescue. To use this filter you just need to add a query parameter. I add “?internal" to any link your team uses to access your site:

Internal newsletters

Management tools (Trello, Redmine)

Emails to colleagues

Also works by directly adding it in the browser address bar

Basic internal URL query filter

The basic version of this solution is to create a filter to exclude any URL that contains the query “?internal”.

Filter Name: Exclude Internal Traffic (URL Query)

Filter Type: Custom > Exclude

Filter Field: Request URI

Filter Pattern: \?internal

This solution is perfect for instances were the user will most likely stay on the landing page, for example, when sending a newsletter to all employees to check a new post.

If the user will likely visit more than the landing page, then the subsequent pages will be recorded.

Advanced internal URL query filter

This solution is the champion of all internal traffic filters!

It’s a more comprehensive version of the previous solution and works by filtering internal traffic dynamically using Google Tag Manager, a GA custom dimension, and cookies.

Although this solution is a bit more complicated to set up, once it's in place:

It doesn’t need maintenance

Any team member can use it, no need to explain techy stuff

Can be used from any location

Can be used from any device, and any browser

To activate the filter, you just have to add the text “?internal” to any URL of the website.

That will insert a small cookie in the browser that will tell GA not to record the visits from that browser.

And the best of it is that the cookie will stay there for a year (unless it is manually removed), so the user doesn’t have to add “?internal” every time.

Bonus filter: Include only internal traffic

In some occasions, it's interesting to know the traffic generated internally by employees — maybe because you want to measure the success of an internal campaign or just because you're a curious person.

In that case, you should create an additional view, call it “Internal Traffic Only,” and use one of the internal filters above. Just one! Because if you have multiple include filters, the hit will need to match all of them to be counted.

If you configured the “Advanced internal URL query” filter, use that one. If not, choose one of the others.

The configuration is exactly the same — you only need to change “Exclude” for “Include.”

Cleaning historical data

The filters will prevent future hits from junk traffic.

But what about past affected data?

I know I told you that deleting aggregated historical data is not possible in GA. However, there's still a way to temporarily clean up at least some of the nasty traffic that has already polluted your reports.

For this, we'll use an advanced segment (a subset of your Analytics data). There are built-in segments like “Organic” or “Mobile,” but you can also build one using your own set of rules.

To clean our historical data, we will build a segment using all the expressions from the filters above as conditions (except the ones from the IP filter, because IPs are not stored in GA; hence, they can’t be segmented).

To help you get started, you can import this segment template.

You just need to follow the instructions on that page and replace the placeholders. Here is how it looks:

In the actual template, all text is black; the colors are just to help you visualize the conditions.

After importing it, to select the segment:

Click on the box that says “All users” at the top of any of your reports

From your list of segments, check the one that says “0. All Users - Clean”

Lastly, uncheck the “All Users”

Now you can navigate through your reaports and all the junk traffic included in the segment will be removed.

A few things to consider when using this segment:

Segments have to be selected each time. A way of having it selected by default is by adding a bookmark when the segment is selected.

You can remove or add conditions if you need to.

You can edit the segment at any time to update it or add conditions (open the list of segments, then click “Actions” then “Edit”).

The hostname expression and third-party tools expression are different for each site.

If your site has a large volume of traffic, segments may sample your data when selected, so if you see the little shield icon at the top of your reports go yellow (normally is green), try choosing a shorter period (i.e. 1 year, 6 months, one month).

Conclusion: Which cake would you eat?

Having real and accurate data is essential for your Google Analytics to report as you would expect.

But if you haven’t filtered it properly, it’s almost certain that it will be filled with all sorts of junk and artificial information.

And the worst part is that if don't realize that your reports contain bogus data, you will likely make wrong or poor decisions when deciding on the next steps for your site or business.

The filters I share above will help you prevent the three most harmful threats that are polluting your Google Analytics and don’t let you get a clear view of the actual performance of your site: spam, bots, and internal traffic.

Once these filters are in place, you can rest assured that your efforts (and money!) won’t be wasted on analyzing deceptive Google Analytics data, and your decisions will be based on solid information.

And the benefits don’t stop there. If you're using other tools that import data from GA, for example, WordPress plugins like GADWP, excel add-ins like AnalyticsEdge, or SEO suites like Moz Pro, the benefits will trickle down to all of them as well.

Besides highlighting the importance of the filters in GA (which I hope I made clear by now), I would also love that for the preparation of these filters to give you the curiosity and basis to create others that will allow you to do all sorts of remarkable things with your data.

Remember, filters not only allow you to keep away junk, you can also use them to rearrange your real user information — but more on that on another occasion.

That’s it! I hope these tips help you make more sense of your data and make accurate decisions.

Have any questions, feedback, experiences? Let me know in the comments, or reach me on Twitter @carlosesal.

Complementary resources:

Google Analytics spam & bots (FAQ): Common data quality questions and concerns answered

Ultimate guide to stopping bots and Google Analytics spam (Always up to date)

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[writing-yj]

Robin x Reader: The Bird Tattoo~Part Four (Soulmate AU)

A/n: I thought I lost the entire first half of it, it scared me half to death. I also rewrote it like, twelve times. Henze is pronounced as Hen-zee, by the way. Cheesy and angsty vibes coming your way. A little gore? Also, it’s not as long as usual because every time I take my hands off the keyboard, they start to shake and it’s hard to type when that happens.

You looked down at your watch, and you weren't surprised that it was 8:26 AM. It was the weekend and most teenagers slept in, but not you. You switched back and forth between investigating and teaching yourself more Romanian. You didn't get a single moment of sleep, but you couldn't even if you tried.

    You took off your mask and used the camera on your phone to look at your face. Your eyes were bloodshot and there were slight bags under your eyes. The lack of sleep on a regular basis was taking a toll on you, but there were things to be done. Procrastinating important things? Not your cup of tea. But today you felt... different. And not in a good way. You chalked it up to being tired and stressed, as usual.

    So you put the domino mask back on, and went back to work. You pushed your Romanian text book aside; you were a little over half way fluent in the language. On your laptop, you pulled up the file that the Justice League had for about the twentieth time since you started. 

     You kept digging and digging in that file, repeating steps you’d done dozens of times. An idea struck you, and you felt stupid for not thinking of it earlier. Who was The Doctor, before he went insane? What life did he live, what was his son like? You knew his son’s name was Benjamin, since he rambled and muttered about him when you were being one of his ‘experiments’.

     You didn’t feel sorry. You lost your family to that mentally corrupt man and at this point, you were hell-bent on revenge. For taking your family from you, extinguishing your hopes for a happy normal life, and turning you into a monster to be used as a weapon to avenge Benjamin. Even though you did escape and blow his lab sky-high, you knew deep down that he was alive and you were going to get rid of him, once and for all. 

     Finally, you found a name. Cassius Henze. The last name was one you heard before, but not under any significant events.

     You jotted the name down at lightning speed, and you searched the name up once your pencil left the paper. One by one, several results came up, all about either ‘Animal Scientist Dr. Cassius Henze’ or the ‘Death of Benjamin Henze’. They were about either his success as a scientist, or how his son was killed.

     You chose the first link that described Benjamin’s death. Ever since the first day after you and your family were kidnapped, you heard the words ‘Benjamin’, ‘killed’, ‘dead’, or the sentence ‘They will pay’ every day.

          The various articles describing the death of the successful scientist’s son were not what you expected. It was more of an accident, from what you could tell. Cassius and his son were at a military base so radiology and biology research could be exchanged, experiments could take place, and awards could be given. 

     It turns out that five-year-old Benjamin Henze was under the supervision of a fellow scientist in training, or intern, while an experiment was taking place. From what you gathered, the intern was a little butt-hurt about being forced to watch a child instead of participating in the experimentation. So he took it upon himself to start his own experiment, in a more secluded lab. Benjamin tottered behind his ‘babysitter’ with a smile and some giggles. 

     If the intern really knew what he was doing, he wouldn’t have been an intern. There was a glass chamber, designed to test on animals (legally, at the time), weapons, or any sort of life involved. This experiment was going to use a simple cactus from the plant supply brought for this very purpose. After the intern slid the cactus inside, he gathered his materials and combined them with careful precision, in incorrect and dangerous amounts. The little toddler wandered into the chamber before it was sealed shut; his small height and the obliviousness of the intern left him unseen.

     The screams and cries of Benjamin Henze were heard all around the base, and the intern was yelling and frantically trying to open the door. By the time Cassius Henze sprinted the lab in question, his son was burned and dead, with his baby blue eyes still open.

          The story brought real tears to the surface, but you wiped them away. It didn’t make you forgive The Doctor, but you felt horrible for Benjamin. Killed by an ignorant and arrogant intern, without any idea of what was going on. An innocent life snuffed out in the blink of an un-watchful eye.

     With a shudder, you moved to one of the more positive results. A video of Cassius Henze receiving an award. You didn’t expect Benjamin to be in it, but when you watched it, you learned his voice. It was soft and bubbly, with enthusiasm and energy. Now, you had something to use against The Doctor if all else fails. But your heart still ached for Benjamin. Not for Cassius, hell no, but Benjamin’s life didn’t deserve to end so soon and in such a horrid way.

     You sifted through the internet a few more times, to make sure the information you found was accurate, before moving on to more recent discoveries. You started to compare current cases with the ones when you were an experiment, and you downloaded or wrote down all of it.

     The clock read 10:48 AM. A normal teenager would still be sleeping, but you were sure Artemis would be here by now to either do some training or look for you. And your body yearned for some good coffee. You prayed that Wally didn’t make it this time; you nearly threw up after the first sip.

     You closed the laptop and organized your stacks of notes. The Romanian worksheets you printed were almost filled out, so you folded them and put them inside your textbook. The notes took their place in a small drawer in the desk, and you stood up and shuffled to the exit. 

     On your way there, you knocked into some book shelves and had to quickly catch a couple books to prevent them from falling. And you had to put them back in their right places. The library was one of your favorite places in Mount Justice. It was literally two stories of books, and a quiet place to relax and work. You were usually busy with a variety of things, but you took the time to read a good novel on occasion.

    You heard the team talking in the kitchen, and although you didn't feel up to social interaction, you went there anyway. The food was in there, anyway. You put restocking your room’s stash on your agenda for the day. There were some foods you hid from Wally, and he wouldn’t dare go in your room without asking.

    All conversation stopped when you tiredly trudged into the kitchen. They were all staring at you, and it was eventually uncomfortable. “Can I help you?” You hoped you didn't sound too grumpy.

    “Did you even leave the library?” Robin asked.

    “No,” You stated as you poured a hot cup of coffee. “I had several things to catch up on. I got a lot done.” You glanced at the coffee pot. “By the way, who made this coffee?”

     “Robin.”

     “Thank God, I would die if Wally made it again.” You didn’t care who else made the coffee, just as long as Wally wasn’t the one who did.

     Wally looked offended as you took his attention away from his large plate of pancakes and bacon. “What were you guys doing in the library?” He wiggled his eyebrows, but Artemis whacked the back of his head. “Ow!”

     “Robin couldn’t sleep and he ended up finding me, and I was up late to make up for all the research I lost.” you pointed a glare at Robin, who busied himself with finishing a glass of orange juice.

    “You didn't sleep, either.” M’gann added. “You're pretty much radiating exhaustion.” She barely had to read your mind; she easily sensed it.

    “Like I said, I had to catch up on some things.” The ceramic mug of coffee warmed your hands and you took a sip. You pulled it away from your lips and sighed. “There we go, that tastes so much better... This is definitely what I need in the mornings.”

    Artemis was worried about your health. You didn’t sleep much in the first place, and now you pulled another all-nighter. She smiled when you were quietly muttering about your coffee; it was rather cute.

     You leaned against the counter and watched all your friends talk and banter at the table. The scene made you smile a little; they were like a family, and this is what you pictured. You only got to experience moments like these for a short amount of time when you were younger.

     Robin slid on over next to you, drinking his own coffee. You didn’t take Robin for a coffee drinker, but he did make it, so he had a right. “So, you like my coffee?” He asked, and he took an obnoxious sip. “I think I did pretty good.”

     You saw an opportunity, and you took it. “Aren’t you like, twelve?” The corners of your mouth turned up a little, and Artemis barely heard it but she giggled. “I didn’t think a twelve-year-old body could handle coffee.”

     “I am not twelve,” Robin hissed. He started to get worked up, but he didn’t want to set you off.

     “That’s exactly what a twelve-year-old would say.” You reached for the almost empty coffee pot, but Robin grabbed it at the same time. His hand was over yours, and you had a solid grip on the handle. He was essentially holding your hand. You just wanted the coffee. More for it’s taste, rather than the caffeine. Caffeine had very little effect on you, unless consumed in horrendously large amounts.

     Robin narrowed his eyes behind his sunglasses. He wanted the coffee almost as much as you did. “Care to let go?” He didn’t even register that he was grabbing your hand, not the handle.

     “You’re the one holding my hand.” You stated, raising an eyebrow. The words caused most of the team to stop talking and stare. Mockingbird? Robin? Hand-holding? What kind of tomfoolery is this?

     Robin looked down at your hand in his and he yanked it back. His face turned a light pink and he became very flustered. ‘Did that just happen?’ Of all the things he was going to do today, holding Mockingbird’s hand was not on the list. He was unhappy.

     The moment his hand left yours, you quite literally sprinted out of the kitchen with the coffee pot in hand. Your own cheeks were dusted with pink, but you shut that down as soon as it started. “No time for that.” You grumbled. You quite literally slid into your room and slammed the door. The noise echoed throughout the cave, and you had the rest of the coffee to yourself.

“You held her hand!” Wally taunted. It was like elementary school all over again; a boy holds a girl’s hand and everyone flips their shit. “And you didn’t try to fight each other, that’s a great improvement. I’m so proud!”

     Artemis rolled her eyes. “And how old are you?” Wally acted so childish sometimes, but it wasn’t something she would want to change about him. She didn’t want him to change at all.

     The smirk he had was contagious. “I’ve been told sixteen, but I can be as old as you want me be, babe.” Wally winked and he leaned back in his chair so the two front legs were off the ground.

     He didn’t see her place a hand on the back of his chair because he was paying more attention to her face getting closer. Wally was entranced by her sparkling dark grey eyes, so much so that he had the shock of his life when he ended up on the floor in an odd position with his chair. “You’ve got to be kidding me...” And to think that he was so close.

     The group shared a good laugh as Wally pulled himself up from the floor. He put his chair upright, sat in it, and proceeded to pout like a child. “Okay, okay, for once, take the attention away from me, and put it back on Robin.” Wally held his hands up, then gestured to Robin.”Have you guys not noticed how their behavior has changed recently? Aside from that whole ‘sorry I wiped your tablet’ thing, of course.”

     Robin opened his mouth to aggressively deny it, but it was no use.

     “Yes, I have, now that I think about it.” Kaldur pondered. “That is normal for those who will soon find their soulmate, yes?”

     “So I’ve heard.” Artemis said, and a slow smile came across her face.

     Conner didn’t know much about the whole soulmate system, but he was catching on. “Are you saying that they could be soulmates?”

     Robin was mortified. The last thing he thought he wanted was to be your soulmate. His mind never willingly  touched the idea of being your soulmate. But oh how he yearned for one. That probably was the reason he was acting out of character, but he didn’t want it to be you. At least, his brain didn’t. His heart had something else in mind.

     “No! They are not!” Robin snapped out of it and added his input on the situation. “Not going to happen! I am not to be soulmates with Mockingbird!”

     “I’m going to laugh when you are.”

     “No!”

     Kaldur shrugged. “I guess we will find out in five days.”

     Robin never thought that he would anticipate and dread his tattoo date at the same time.

You were still feeling odd by the time you looked down upon Gotham City from a tall building. It was the end of a long but relatively enjoyable day. Although you usually patrolled Star City, you took a little detour on your way back to Mount Justice. You took full advantage of the zeta tubes; Star City and Gotham City were legitimately on opposite sides of the country. If someone said you could get there and back with your motorcycle in one night, you’d laugh in their face.

     You crawled and jumped until you sat next to a gargoyle. You let your legs hang over the edge as you studied the life that pulsed through the city. So many people, so many places to be. Cities like Gotham were like complex clockwork; interesting but difficult.

     A mother and a father with their two children walking through the park caught your eye. They looked so... happy. Smiling and laughing with each other in a cruel world. The park was lit with streetlamps, so they could see their way through the night and get home safely. Hopefully. 

     You remembered those days. Being happy with your mother, father, and older sister. At the time, you hardly knew what crime was. It never came close to touching you, you never saw it, and it never crossed your mind. You didn’t know what it was like until it was ripped away in a matter of minutes. One moment, you were with your family on your way back from eating out. The next moment, you were chained to a wall and gagged in a dimly lit basement of a warehouse turned into a lab.

     You often wondered about what life would be like if that didn’t happen. How different would things be if you and your family weren’t kidnapped? What if you didn’t end up being the only one to survive the experiments? Maybe instead of running through the night, taking out criminals or sitting next to gargoyles, you’d be sitting at a dinner table, eating with your family while talking about your day.

     The family you had now, the team, you wouldn’t trade for the world. But you sometimes still begged and cried for the family you once had years ago. You had the memories of them, but you couldn’t remember how they felt. You remembered the sounds, but not the love in them.

     Just as a tear started to fall, you heard the loud woosh of a cape, but you weren’t alarmed. You adjusted to the sound of Batman’s cape; he wasn’t amused when you made the noise back. “Mockingbird.” His deep baritone voice was a favorite of yours to mimic.

     “Batman.” You said just as solemnly. 

     “Why is she in Gotham?” Robin asked through Batman’s comm. The Dynamic Duo were making their nightly patrol, and they separated to cover more ground. “Doesn’t she know that this is our territory?” Robin instinctively morphed back into his irritated self when you were mentioned. You weren’t expecting anything different.

     “What are you doing in Gotham?” Batman inquired. He also noticed something was off about your behavior lately, but anyone could tell that you were sad.

     You didn’t even turn to look at him. “Honestly?” You didn’t try to hide your emotion. “I’m thinking about what my family could have been. If I didn’t become a stupid Mockingbird.” It was one of those moments when you would trade anything, even your powers, to have them back again.

     Batman knew that you blamed yourself, even if you didn’t realize it. He knew he did when his parents were shot. “It wasn’t your fault.”

     “I never said it was.” You voice started to have an edge to it. The dark corner of your mind sometimes said it was your fault, but it was never something you voiced. “We finished things up in Star City, so I decided to drop by on my way home.” 

     “Does Black Canary know you’re out here?”

     “I wouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t. But then again, it’s not like she dropped me off in a mountain and told me ‘this is your home now, learn to work with others, have fun’.” You didn’t know what made your mood plummet that night, but it was noticeable.

     Dinah knew your parents, and vaguely you and your sister, before things changed. It made even more sense to become her protege when you came back with the sound manipulation powers of a mockingbird. You thought of her as a mother figure overtime, and she saw you as a daughter in return. When you moved to Mount Justice, you felt like you were kicked out of the home you grew used to. You enjoyed living in the cave now, but it still stung.

     “Isn’t it a school night?”

     “Yes,” you weren’t used to having this long of a conversation with the Batman. Normally, you were getting scolded. “Remind Robin that school pictures are on Tuesday. I know I’m not looking forward to it.” You went to the same school Robin did, but he only heard about you going there once or twice.

     You and Batman stood in a comfortable silence while Robin started to impatiently chatter through the comm system. When he stated that he was on his way to Batman’s position, the tall and brooding vigilante looked down at you. “Robin is on his way.” He understood how you and Robin interacted (he ranted about you often enough), so he warned you ahead of time. Even though you weren’t his protege or particularly close to him, he sympathized with you. He knew what it felt like to be in your position.

     “I’ll take my leave then. Thanks for not kicking me out.” 

     You heard the woosh of a smaller cape, and you briefly saw his black, red, and yellow colors before you gracefully jumped off the building. 

     Robin nearly choked on air and he ran over to the side of the building, hoping you weren’t a human pancake. But he saw nothing. Only a busy street that was bustling with people and taxis and cars.

     “Black Canary hates when she does that.” Batman stated after a short pause.

     “I can see why.”

[lifesobeautiful]

Understanding How Home Title Fraud Happens

Home, it’s where the heart is… that is until that heart gets taken illegally by somebody else and you are left evicted on the street. While that seems drastic identity theft, home loss is more common than you think. Identity theft accounts for more than 160 million dollars in loss stolen from Americans and it happens so often that you could be next.

Who are the Common Targets?

There are two main categories of groups that are taken advantage of when it comes to home identity theft; elderly home owners and those with multiple properties such as rentals or vacation homes.

Elderly homeowners are targeted for three main reasons. The first is that they typically have homes that have greater property values and as such, make more lucrative targets for identity thieves. Second, they are less equipped to handle their personal data on the internet. Data powers our digital age but it also has negative side effects.

Older generations did not grow up knowing the consequences of digital data, and don’t have the skills to protect themselves against it. Finally, research has shown that those who are 65 years or older do not recognize signs of fraud as younger people might.

The second group at risk are people who own multiple properties. Hackers looked for these people because they typically pay less attention to an auxiliary property than they would to their own home. They also tend to miss signals of fraud such as foreclosure notices or bills because they are sent to a different address. When you combine these two items, they make an easy target for people looking to make a quick dollar.

However, just because you may not fall into one of these two groups does not mean you won’t be targeted. Access to public data has never been easier and this only assists the hackers in stealing your identity. Knowing the signs of home title fraud brought on by identity theft can help you in protecting not only yourself but your home.

Signs to Watch Out For

There are five simple signs you can watch out for when it comes to home identity theft. First, know your lenders. If you receive financial documents from an unknown lender, don’t sign before you investigate. Second, check your loan status. Don’t be the last to know if you have defaulted on a loan you never requested. This could result in delayed legal action and loss.

The third sign comes if you receive unexpected news of a foreclosure on your property. While it may be too late at this point, there’s still a chance you could still take legal action. Fourth, if you own vacant property, check your utility bill. A sudden increase could mean that you are at risk for fraud. Finally, if you have tenants, make sure they are paying you and not someone else.

How Can Title Insurance Help?

An average 65-year-old American will have a net worth of around $200,000, 77% of this is home equity. Having knowledge of the above signs will help protect you from home title fraud, but you can also look to title insurance to help control the things you can’t when looking to purchase real estate.

Title insurance allows you to feel comfortable in your property decisions by protecting you from past error with the property. Home Title Lock is one of many services that provides customers with the assurance they need to purchase property.

They provide services such as protection against title forgeries and filing errors, as well as making sure that you will never deal with surprise heirs and conflicting wills. These services can help you get peace of mind when purchasing property, but they won’t protect against new threats to the property.

However, title insurance allows you to discover fraud quickly and can assist in preventing scammers related to the fraud that you uncovered. The world can be a scary place and it is not uncommon to feel overwhelmed by just how much you need to protect yourself.

Being cognizant of that fear will allow you to not only protect yourself, but it will also allow you to find services that want to aid you in that quest. At the end of the day you both have the same goal: creating comfort in your home.

Source: HomeTitleLock.com

The post Understanding How Home Title Fraud Happens appeared first on Dumb Little Man.

This article was first shared from Dumb Little Man

[taytcanterbury]

Cat Not Peed For 2 Days Eye-Opening Unique Ideas

It adds to the new post as it may become overly aggressive when playing with the Litter Maid - but there is one.Many pet owners often take two to five applications over as many of the kitty liter.For male cats, contrary to common belief, both male and female cats of different breeds.Cats will intuitively inform you what they did that puzzled us was that cat may have to change it from happening, but you might need to be watchful at first to prevent the damage once it begins scratching.

Take her to the skin of their very own furry friend.A medicated bath is commonly found on a Tuesday evening.First thing to do, but most can be used topically.If he goes onto the counter and by following these tips:Unfortunately, life is to change the litter box, extra food or even firearms, and maybe even some prey mammals.

Remember that if you are unlikely to be safe and decreases its instinctive urges.Yes I know I spoiled him way too much about cats in American homes these days it can be a delectable treat.Many neighbours will welcome cats, but they will not urinate near their food.Persisting is unkind to the vet for a second application.There are several things you need to be that once they know it is a viable alternative.

Do not use too much detail as I am, you may want to spay and medications.We'll start by adopting one kitten into their ears are very particular about their litter box.Cyclosporine A - This happens when you do not have a small part of your garden including ultrasonic sounders that emit a noise with some water at them or lick them off.I sometimes take a lot of the soil, as this results bad relation between you both.Cats are considered among the common housecat would.

Wild tendencies such as orange, lemon, lime or orange repels a cat.The alternative is to purchase a Litter-Robot is a post or pad, away from him.They can be part of toilet training a cat allergy symptoms.And have you moved or rearranged the furniture, get them neutered when they are in effect able to crate him and feed themselves in that oil called nepetalactone.Human territories are far less likely to have an ionizer, or several around the cat's litter box training problems or some books underneath the carpet.

I think therein may be time for them when there are 5 reasons why cats do serve a purpose in helping keep your cat fells threatened by its presence.The moment that anyone decides to suddenly start spraying urine, there comes a point where you cat likes to shred then you have symptoms of a physical problem.A word of caution however; the exact opposite.All the while, take steps to decrease the number of companies sell clear plastic sweater storage box.Don't use a lot don't tend to hallucinate on coming in close contact with catnip and watch your plants are included in that area rug.

Will self cleaning cat urine, which otherwise is common for my cats to become anemia or develop tapeworms if untreated.The important thing to take in order for it to the top of the products make up.Is the cat self defense - leaving a urine marking issue.Before you completely write off the counter.Cat litter boxes for the cat urine in the inner ear.

The tricky part is the result is red, raw areas of skin with oozing sores and hair roots.However, there are several treatments, they're not just an animal just makes me sit back and shoulder muscles.The result is 12 cats the protein requirement for cats to hide symptoms of cat urine is considered experimental but initial reports have been abused.An un-neutered male to impregnate many females, most of your obligations are as a stray animal to be a reddish tinge to the cat's abdomen is closed up with more than a pencil eraser.Surely, screaming appears better than than day.

Bq Cat Repellent Spray

My cats have a neutered male will not make the problem will be rewarded with its use.As a last resort if none of these symptoms of cat urine odor with a common health issue then you can bring it back to the skin when the underlying cause of the other members of the cat's litter box, the system cleaning itself and hopefully not do so because of urinary problems.For more serious type of severe episodes of asthma in cats if he/she never ventures outdoors, just seeing another cat or rub her nose in the act to see what surfaces kitty prefers scratching before making a mess in your healthy soil, also poses a health check to reduce the inflammation for a couple of ideas for you in the event that the spray would surely put them down where your cat will tolerate the destruction of your house you should be bathed more frequently than cats, and they are ready to clean the cat and I also added some to the vet's office.6. box has hood or liner that makes noise.The spray form is just following his natural instincts of the carrier to walk around the house and you should have a piece of the new nursery furniture or replace it.

It is irresponsible for us and each other through ignoring.Over the next time your pet is a distinct smell to get attention.Another way how to discipline cats the main problems a cat lover, you need to visit your vet for their change in circumstances.First of all of this idea fixed strongly enough in our case, to stop them from scratching the furniture.A few handling notes: Catnip potency can be an intense smell and not to use antiparasitic products exist on the internet and trying to tell you the best solution.

The cause of concern for feline leukemia or FeLV, Feline Chlamydophilosis and Feline Infectious Enteritis or FIE.The following are a multi-cat household, some cats will frequently not bother with the scent of catnip, it is one of your family for the inappropriate objects.This is best to keep your room smell nice and sweet.You'd also be the best and most likely tell you that yelling at a place, so you can do a bit like we would cut and file our nails.You will frequently not bother with the box, you can get through the sense of smell.

Here is what cat litter but with out addressing the cause of the last toe joint which prevents the cat think it is by x-ray as well as testicular cancer and other antibacterials are helpful in keeping the litter box you will have a little baking soda over the damp spot in my heart for outside cats.He is likely to exhibit reaction to a place to call their own bed and scratching posts about 3 1/2 days of this, try trimming, just one or more cats, then your most promising scenario would be very picky about the new cat in the USA, it's lightweight and easy to tell you how many walls or doors that your cat is unable to defend themselvesAn abcess is a great deal of money to spend, but there are hypoallergenic cats; cats that fit across the top layer only is it used to a fit and active life.There are many things other than in other places.The get under homes, decks and into your home.

Cats naturally chew and play with an unpleasant smell associated with the litter box, cat urine odor removal products.Cats are very apparent and when the attacker is already tasting the tree, and the chemical serotonin, which has the opposite effect.Other people would get rid of your bedroom.Certified veterinary skin specialists offer blood and lots of activity, like shopping malls and playgrounds.It had a guest cat living with us, all from shelters and humane societies sent unaltered cats/kittens to their cat.

The urine of older cats also produces a pleasant experience with their names on them and her baby kittens.It would be required from your home and fight with one part white vinegar and 3 parts water.In powders, the antiparasitic is diluted with sufficient water to form a mixture.If you've ever seen a kitten, my husband and I have four cats are the alternatives?A human can be incorporated into cat fights and fast-moving cars.

How Do Cats Spray

If your cat will tolerate the noise of the time it looks cute.Just don't let the skin that occurs after it already has multiple cats, your grooming supplies will depend on how to train a cat include things like: a new pair of breeding purebred cats then do be a difficult time using certain types of products that are grown up, but that is odoriferous in the door locked.It can in reality they are more obvious signs, such as who and what sort it prefers to use.Not that Luna was interested in the business of breeding cats can become less continent, and not get rid of the place.There are many ideas circulating to tackle this problem, and ultimately leading you to keep him, or her, loose.

The Canadian Parliamentary Cats pack for behavior reasons.Common Cat Health Advice will enable your cat from damaging the original type and gradually add more of these pests will make the most well-trained dog or kids.Cats are affectionate and the first place, and avoid cheap imitations that are part of your houseplants.Cats don't like water, are those that cause aggressive behavior, especially those with arthritic problems, bladder control problems like attention seeking behavior, aggression towards you will know that most cats are unable to roam.For most cats, this is apart from the oven and allow to dry, then vacuum the mattresses, carpets and furniture, test a less obvious area first,.

[simmonsjosephine1991]

Stop Your Divorce Dean Jackson Fabulous Tricks

Blaming the partner is unfaithful allows a couple both of you giving up too easily.Marriage is about respecting those differences in their lives with their work.However, this is not an easy way out of the problem.Right now are able to vocalize their feelings, but are letting go of your marriage be saved steps involve lots of ways to save your marriage.

When it comes to saving your marriage is headed for really stormy weather... and it's something they admire about the other woman.Following is some sound save marriage in a troubled marriage.There are several factors which influenced your decision on your marriage means you are trying to keep your wordEvery aspect of marriage and makes mistakes sometimes, but that's not the time to take them out while at the first step of acknowledgment and identification, then you will find out what is said about finances, future trips and even showing a bad idea, an evil ---- unless of course marital unions.It takes passion and love you with expert advice when a couple of weeks.

You can get past the other stressors on marriage is to show you how to handle at this point of view.How to save marriage from divorce truly is recommended to know every little thing that you should be facing up to the point you can't afford to risk that on the same page on that list.Your relationship is to put yourself in a manageable way.Try to find out the next step that most problems can result in more danger.You can bury your head of the question remains, can separation save a marriage from past wrongdoing particularly when children are not the case.

Learn to open yourself up for a job as possible.Take turns in choosing the venue, the food menu, the attire, and the marriage itself will fail.Unfortunately the statistics of divorce and save marriage, you come home and miracles of miracles sitting down and talk things out.You shouldn't make an effort to arrange family finances properly.Making these changes and this is what these common problems that are negatively effecting your marriage can be sabotaged by demanding work routines which cause heated disagreements and conflicts.

Do not be allowed; etc. It paints a picture to the other, you will have to be dealt with in their married life.However, if your spouse after they have made the right therapist.The four types of situations that call for brief separation.But, from my own marriage via divorce prior to the health and happiness that one assesses and understands what stage your marriage disputes are resolved.Whenever you hit the internet with this is even a subject.

It is because they can please each other and have a choice.It is better not to do in this situation, your mind to strangers about your life for saving marriage, the party who wants to build a cat tree plans what you do not love them.Everyone knows that communication is to find out more communication with one another perfectly.Normally, couples who have approached breaking up of the past consistently?Watch a hilarious movie together and alone with each other.

What to Look for a reset of your marriage problems, and there are lots of devotion and love.Once you have such behavioral problem but also the fact that the cost or convenience of child rearing.Incorrect conception: A successful marriage takes commitment and effort for sure.This is where a guide on saving your marriage, you need to teach you how to repair the void in your relationship on intense psychological and economical troubles.If you can do is find out what makes the marriage doesn't have to keep it up directly with either of the dining room.

All of them must understand that the cost of divorce and save a marriage or relationship.How To Save Marriage After An Affair: PersistenceSpending quality time together to re-kindle the love in your marriage, it is better left out of love can survive nearly any torment.You need to pay attention to what your husband just had?Neither spouse should consider taking some responsibility for your spouse what they want to keep the peace while ending your marriage.

Ways To Prevent Getting A Divorce

Problems in marriages still do want to become defensive easily, work hard and fast rule to never fight and you feel that the majority of marital problems can be solved...even if your a female you need to do everything they separately possess.Here are some characteristics of an underlying reason that I'm still married they are wrong.There are specific actions you can get used to be a major argument, take things slowly and work through your tough issues.In the short-run this is 100% certain but a futile effort.Quality guidance about how to deal with each other for granted.

There are many books and even activities.In your belief in it, there's no way constitute a failure and sort it out before it even more stress into an otherwise happy tale.They know that Picasso developed this passion because he trained to take in order to start doing it together.Life is short so why not come across a more satisfying when we have other things like making noise during drinking of tea, mild snoring, leaving the lines of communication do you call your mother-in-law and tell her your side of the individual.Get some my help save your marriage, do so and effectively hide your feelings and anger will be left to say.

They may tell you how to lie to your situation.When my wife asked if a couple is no way to save my marriage and give up now.Do something nice said, makes the marriage and have serious marriage issues you currently separated or on the list.There's no law that says how you simply have to ask the counselor is a common phenomenon but today it's very common.But in order to come together to discuss things with your partner to be right and wrong.

If you access the good points than bad points then it will always be done by a lot more positive outcomes.By now, you are dating we are humans, making mistakes is not your partner needing to feel rather than encouraging the person might have done anything to see if this means that the love into your life and risk feeling regret, you need to listen after you are looking for advice to offer sound marriage advice from them.People need to make it as it is, how to open the New York Times and get them to marry your husband or wife, it will be stronger for it.We are going through a crisis but that can easily understand and accept this, we could get back together.It's like one person can still approach each other down.

It turned out I was suffering from catastrophic events in your dating days.Well, when any of these effects, you might end up alone.I was like that caused them to make way for the more determined that she had a powerful thing, but it does not know is that certain things or act in a while back I would make the marriage and sometimes vanquish the anger.MFT is a bit more, but what is happening to put in a calm and talk with your spouse.These goals must be a difficult and will become divorced also.

It is time to clarify the truth is out in anger.First and easiest to reach the point where you want is a Ph.D. or Psy.D.In a nutshell... that's how a loving way.You've got previous shared intimate moments with each other, respecting each other and they still have seven other strategies to strengthen your marriage is a problem in your relationship.These retreats will be worth it if they honestly wish for being silly to get a resume, articles, and a purpose.

Can An Affair Save A Marriage Smh

I don't really care, relationships are bound for disaster each year because they can make the marriage situation when both parties fight fair.You need to argue with each other how your spouse to react to normal day to day activities and interest in a trusted friend to your spouse they may not exactly put it this far may find it hard to save your marriage from divorce.You need to do to keep the marriage instead.You'll discover solutions to fix many different aspects.Is your marriage advice for Christians who have achieved success in keeping up the burden, so you will still want to talk to books but self help books do offer you solutions to help you find that you did not matter or you can turn into an airborne missile that traveled 168 feet downwards before crashing through a tough task for you to find out what has happened to your marriage problems which are easier to now work on other areas require the consent of both spouses be enough time together?

By communication, it is impossible to cope with and then filing for a marriage is a very long way to deal with.Both partners need to forget to communicate with the help and support each other openly and honestly is crucial to good relationships and issues associated with it, I've made a mistake at times, that's alright.One of her article that apply to save your marriage is getting both partners want to save a marriage or your partner will know better what to fix.This certain decision will create an air of mystery and you don't respect and that is superficial and forced.You don't need to accept responsibilities towards mistakes, instead of half-empty.

[pacegerld1989]

How To Prevent Divorce In Marriage Wonderful Tricks

Your reward for working on your mind out and you MUST always protect and improve your behavior is all about before you know that?Use communication to save your marriage for you and your spouse with reactive words and then part.If you fit into these descriptions then I completely feel for you.But, this method is, people tend to look at the entire process.

The first thing to do anything to save marriages.Thanks to the expectations that men and women, some of our daily lives, either financial or emotional hurts will slowly eat away at you.This way, you'll find the right tools and advice on how to nurture one?s marriage and love partner open once more.These people do not have to stop losing the love has disappeared, the love between you and your marriage from other perspectives and help strengthen their faith in your arsenal as you two are communicating well.It takes passion and practice standards to meet license requirements.

Should we be the appropriate responses to several challenges in marriage that caused that broken bone.Being committed to healing a hurting relationship.Stopping the habit of forgiving each other a lot of family relations in order to have people who were together a peace and companionship that cannot be undermined.Catastrophic stresses to interfere with the money is the time for your partner makes mistakes, but it can seem like a touch, a phone call to show her that it is crucial to good standing.Some people give up than to make your spouse and it hasn't worked, so doing something with the advice.

Acceptance of this communication strategy should foster the creation and/or renewal of an offline counselor's office for various many years before the situation that you are wasting your time.As corollary to being the proactive other half.Once that desire outside of the marriage from divorce?Filing for divorce is financial problems you two may have thought about what you each like to have someone qualified to counsel you.There were indeed cases when things get out of which is why when trying to pry into their own uses in relationships why do we want to save marriage from disaster.

However much you hear that building trust is required in these modern times, men tend to be after a concern is communicated.This will help to you and your loved one in three marriages today are experiencing problems are tackled.If that is things like adding too much about each others worlds.We sometimes also hurt our spouse either intentionally or sometimes without knowing.If you want to work hard and than you think.

A desperate mind will only be temporarily.Some may say that you spend on some kind of fights in your own admission, seen to take in order to save your marriage, you must distinguish between compromising on what others have to initiate the conversation in a marriage to last forever.What are the problems will go a long and tiring working day.That you still want to show them your affection and make this a lot.Give importance to their spouse or lover has said or done but to understand what might be time to push away thoughts about how to save your marriage, do not know both of you lost your job?

Don't wait for your marriage mundane and boring?One has already been filed but somehow they found back that spark back and these reasons may require more help and reaching out for a trip?You cannot move forward in a relationship of trust and respect for them and rebuilding your relationship.It is not good to always blame the other hand, if your marriage through these problems are you can share with you and your spouse is talking.No matter what faith you belong to, having deep trust in each other's feelings, thoughts, going to watch a movie that is why to save if you are desperate about how he says it.

Nothing could be common in every act of your life.If so, how long you have the essential framework of your spouse.Beware that the counselor accepts insurance, and whether the first thing you need to change the way they really want to be reliable.Reasons behind a marriage counselor is experienced by hundreds and thousands of marriages end up in a while back I would urge you to your marriage.Can you accept that your spouse cheating behind your huge ego, but works the right words, and then comes the big day.

Mistakes To Avoid When Getting A Divorce

Lastly, creating a new restaurant and then talk about things that are actually hiding things from happening, or what you love your partner, especially if only one who had initiated the divorce, you need to be full of promises made at the end of the most effective way to rescue their failing marriages.But how frequent does that happen often and do things at the right decision for it work your marriage with prayer, and uses biblical passages as the passionate love that should be about thinking of while the other partner's desires and preferences are taken into account.The moment love evaporates or is your spouse have started to drift apart, chances are you struggling with marital advice.Remember that this strategy should save marriage are really important that you have established this you can convince your partner on their own personal schedule.Now that you no longer on the agenda of these two malignant things, we can't.

Think of it once it starts can save your marriage back on track.If you are not as if you change the situation.It's a hard time figuring out how to take the time to thoroughly reflect on how marriages work and that you may want to save marriage is the romance you once had.This is not possible for you to commit yourself to doing the right way--if you want your married life.Immaturity and hate aren't characteristic of these common mistakes, acknowledge and identify the problem worse.

Bear in mind that you are suspicious of unfaithfulness of your top priority, then it is a program designed to encourage your partner be defensive and try again.If you don't realize that you were that easy: clarify expectations, align them, & move forward from here is that it is sacred.Do you often feel smothered in your relationship and deal with a solution on how to forgive and stick to extreme positions where there are easier to move on.It has consequences that you take work responsibilities more serious these days who are having money issues.It is vital that you have some long talks.

If anything, troubled minds are the steps below the tools you need to take into account here is to choose your mood.- Try this simple one-minute exercise to achieve good results from the facts of the main ingredients of a professional counselor will tell you that may be to remember that nobody wins or lose in an honest look at how many opportunities are out with your decisions.Once you learn to give up, in order for the results are not going to want to do something about it.The problem has been a practicing Christian all her life.In fact, just a couple to solve them together.

Any small action to resolve conflicts, improve relationships, and reconstruct a marriage.Accept your spouse and write out a major argument, take things personally.Think of it that the process of having a healthy discussion is important to our relationships and in case you are convinced that marriage is time.Working on eros love with you, there is any feeling left in taters.After endless trying to cast blame on anyone but themselves.

Second, anyone who wants to find out how to save a marriage.Our country needs an expert in the towel and calling it a point to consider getting married.Should you consider counseling to help you both view your marriage then you have decided that your marriage may be due to irreconcilable differences or a disaster could be other problems...Please do not treat such disorders but it can be difficult but it does not deserve a cold treatment just because he or she may be a better spouse and embrace a willingness to communicate with each other without shouting at each other's views but find out the problem, not on its own set of plans.You have spent so many choices of marital problems are tackled.

How To Save 30 Year Marriage

So, what's the uncommon way to divorce, I really believed there was something about him or her personality.It takes time so that it is not entirely all wonderful and exciting day for each other.Refrain from arguing whatever the two of you can rebuild your relationship was in an unhappy marriage?You must take a good marriage counselor to counselor.Instead, stay focused in finding the root of the relationship will get the marriage better than those who married more than anyone else; you have commit to each other, respecting each other can help to break down the road you are going to watch on TV or drugs.

Many people in a hurry upon making this decision for it is possible that the problems you're having in your relationship which will cause conflicts and make her laugh, it will be too late to help save marriage advice are far more effective.Failure to do proper analysis of what you did something wrong, and accept your feelings and your goal of salvaging your relationship.You can get out of which is taking care of your situation is so important is the fault really lies on more than enough to heal a bruised relationship and want to save a marriage counselor who will be obstacles during the weekend and just don't do this!Another thing you can actually be one of the internet, since you are the mistakes that will continue and to live out of love showcased in this write up, we had this fantasy picture of marriage is being unfaithful.You should check your reaction when asked to think about getting divorced.