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ajoy3fanfics · 4 years

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Smut prompts - Bikinis to the side

Written for @superpixie42 ~ Hope you like it! <3

AO3. FF.NET

~.~

Inuyasha had many reasons to hate Miroku’s pool parties; the stench of the chlorine aggravated his nose, the noise from the crowd, all jam packed into one tight space, the pure fact that his best friend would, without fail, manage to get drunk off his ass and require him to break up a fight or two… yeah, there were about a million little things about the annual event that did not bode well for him. But if he was being honest, what was really the worst was seeing Kagome.

It wasn’t that he hadn’t expected to see her; they had actually made plans to avoid each other, not wanting to draw the attention of prying eyes into their not-relationship- relationship. It wasn’t like she was doing something wrong- she was just holding up her side of the bargain. He just didn’t expect his reaction. From the day they met they had been draw to each other, like an invisible force was pulling them together;

From the start, they had discussed needing space, not using labels and all the other bullshit things you say when all you really mean is ‘lets just fuck’. He didn’t think she would become such a permanent fixture in his head, in his apartment or between his sheets. It felt like every damn night he was between her legs and just the thought alone had him craving her. He wanted more and it was becoming hard to deny that anymore. He wanted to dominate her, to possess her, to make sure no one else could get close to her; Kagome brought out aspects of his personality even he wasn’t familiar with, animalistic ones that made him uncomfortable.

But they had been so clear in the beginning; they had both agreed to keep it simple. Both agreed that it shouldn’t turn into anything more. She had just gotten out of a bad relationship, and he was still distrustful after his ex. Even knowing that, his blood demanded more. He wanted everything from her and he was afraid. If he asked, would she say no? He felt like she had to care for him, even a little bit. It had started off casual, but somehow, it had morphed into him showing up at her doorstep, Chinese take-out in hand and ready to pounce on her the second she opened the door. He felt addicted to Kagome Higurashi and it was damn near dangerous. If he rocked the boat and questioned their relationship, would she get scared? Never see him again? Inuyasha didn’t think he could handle that.

The pool party seemed like a good test; not that he was that type of person, not normally. But somehow, he had become too much of a coward to face his feelings and chance getting rejected. As they sat on his couch, Kagome’s head resting in his lap as he idly played with her thick black hair, he casually asked if they should act like the strangers their friends thought they were at the party. If she was upset by the idea, then he would know it was safe to confess; but if she easily agreed, well, he’d have his answer. For a second, he thought he had hurt her feelings, her brows bunching together, as if trying to sort through what he was saying. Kagome swiftly recovered, smiling as she shrugged her shoulders, before leaning forward to button his jeans, her mouth wrapping around his dick so quickly his head was spinning. The answer wasn’t as clear, or not as clear as he needed, so he decided to go forward with his plan, and rely on the party to try and feel her out.

It was a fucking disaster.

From the minute he crossed the threshold, he was itching to get close to her. Despite Miroku’s summer home being swarmed with people, music blaring as the guests enjoyed the water, he caught her scent, eyes going large, ears trained to pinpoint her voice without a second thought. It was different to hear her in a group setting and not moaning his name, but it still sounded sweet. On instinct, he moved toward her, unaware he was making a beeline until she was right in front of him.

It wasn’t like it was the first time he had seen her taut stomach, or the curve of her hips. How many times had he left bruising kisses on the swell of her breasts? Yet there was something about seeing her in public, so exposed that made him feel a jolt of electricity like it was the first time. It wasn’t just that; the outfit itself was incredible. He was turned on and pissed off all at the same time. How could she let other people see so much of her?

Kagome was wearing a bikini that fit like a second skin. It was a mixture of clear mesh and red fabric, an optical illusion that made it seem like she was less covered than she was. Small red triangles barely covered her dusky nipples, the mesh making up half of her top. And her bottoms, gods, it was almost like wearing nothing at all. He’d seen her in panties that covered more. The last few days she had refused to let him be rough, concerned if he sparked her too hard it might leave a mark- and he was regretting it now. Her bottoms hugged her perfectly rounded ass, completely free of any signs of their rough play. He tried to bottle down the possessive feeling, reminding himself that as far as everyone else was concerned, they were perfect strangers.

She was laughing with Sango and thank the gods, Miroku was by her side too. It was an easy excuse to get near her. He made his way through the crowd, and Inuyasha was sure she had seen him; yet she didn’t acknowledge him in the slightest.

She was ignoring him. Taunting him, really; doing her best to get under his skin, and it was fucking working. Kagome was acting as if she didn’t know him, as if the day before she hadn’t been pressed against him, her plump lips humming on his cock.

Inuyasha wasn’t going to back down; he continued to his friends, more determined to talk to Miroku than he ever had been in his life. As he made his way over, Kagome finally looked his way, blue eyes locked on amber.

“Oh, hey.” She said, sounding more casual than he expected. “That’s your friend, right Miroku? The one that gave me a ride?”

That’s how it started. After a particularly long dinner party, he excused himself the first moment he could. He was surprised to find Kagome trailing after him, asking if he could give her a lift, claiming she had a bad headache. Kagome wound up in the drivers seat before they even got to her house.

“About time you show up, asshole.” The blue eyed man greeted, a toothy grin not matching the harshness of his words. “I was wondering if you were going to make it at all.”

“I almost didn’t come. You know I hate this shit.” He answered honestly. If it wasn’t for Kagome going, he would have skipped it altogether. Inuyasha nodded hello to Sango before locking eyes with Kagome. His tongue felt thick, too big and clumsy for his mouth. He was going to say the wrong thing. When he didn’t acknowledge her, just letting his amber eyes settle on her, she picked up the conversation.

“We’ve met before.” She supplied, an easy smile toying on her lips, eyes slightly narrowed as if she was trying to grapple with who he was. “You gave me a lift home a few months back from Sangos dinner party. Your inu-?”

“Yasha. Inuyasha.” He answered curtly. He knew it was a ploy, but it pissed him off and he couldn’t help it.

She smiled and his stomach rolled. “Right, sorry.” She apologized.

“Don’t take it personal. She can tell you how every nerve in your body works, but she forgets simple things like her car keys or names.” Sango chirped in. “She uses too much of her brain on school work. You’d never tell it by looking at her, but she’s a natural ditz.”

Kagome blushed, her cheeks coloring to almost the shade of pink when they fucked, before playfully shoving Sango. “Jerk.”

It was hard to look away from her, but Kagome apparently did not have the same issue. They had only been together for a few minutes before a stranger called her name, jogging their way, all muscles and perfect abs.

“I didn’t see you here Kags!” His chestnut brown hair as dripping wet, beads of water dribbling down his chest. Inuyasha didn’t like the nickname; he wondered how they knew each other to begin with. But then the man pulled her in close as he wrapped an arm around her shoulder, making Kagome squeak. Inuyasha wasn’t sure whether it was from the unexpected contact or the cool chill of his body, but either way his jaw was set and fists clenched. Strangers do not dislocate peoples jaws just because two people seemed to be on good terms with each other. Kagome smiled as she greeted him, calling him Hojo before creating some space, complaining that he was wet.

“Well if you came in the water it wouldn’t be an issue! You promised you’d go swimming with me Kags!” He pulled her in closer again, trying to make his point. She laughed and it felt like punch to his gut.

“Fine, fine. You win.” She said. It shouldn’t have hurt, but it did.

Before he knew it, the stranger was leading her by the arm, dragging her into the pool and Inuyasha was seething with rage. It was taking every shred of self control to not throw her over his shoulder and leave. Instead, he had to stand by and watch as she laughed with the brunette, her body glistening from the water. Inuyasha set his jaw, tearing his attention away as Miroku babbled on.

“I don’t know why Kagome doesn’t date him.” Sango said, once the pair were safely out of earshot. “Hojo is really cute.”

Sango was a traitor. It was too bad, he had really liked her.

“I keep trying to set them up together!” Miroku supplied. “The only reason I invited him was for Kagome. I don’t get why she wont take the hint.”

Inuyasha cut his eyes towards his former best friend. This was all Miroku’s fault.

“Maybe she’s not interested.” He tried to sound disinterested, like Kagome’s love life had nothing to do with him.

~.~

It felt unnatural watching Kagome; she hadn’t made her way over to him, and he had not sought her out. He wondered if this was what it would be like if they split. Would they be forced to attend the same functions, and act like he didn’t know the way she curled her toes when she came, or how she got off on being told what to do? How do people most past that?

Yura had been sitting by him for about a half an hour, filling him in on about her escapades in beauty school. She had dropped out of university to study cosmetology and she seemed happier than she had been in a long while. They had been friends for years, and it was a nice change to see her so at ease. Yura was playful, always a tad too touchy and often gave the wrong impression to those around her, no thanks due to her wardrobe choices. But she was an old friend, and one he was happy to have. Sure, there had been times he had thought about Yura in a less friendly manner, but that was all behind him.

Maybe less behind her though.

He could sense that she was flirting, could smell the spike in her scent. She wasn’t exactly hiding the fact that she wanted him. If it had been a different time, if he had never of met Kagome, he would have been thrilled to receive her feelings and attentions.

But now, he was too focused on watching different men approach her. Did they have any idea that just the other night she came so hard from his tongue she screamed? They couldn’t do that for her, satisfy her the way she needed.

A strong push brought him out of his brooding.

“You’re not listening at all, are you?” Yura pouted.

“’Course I am.” He answered, drawing his attention back to her. He wasn’t really a great friend today.

“Then what was I talking about?” She crossed her arms over her chest, her breasts pushing up from the action.

Inuyasha reached over, tugging on the ends of her short bobbed cut. “How you cut your hair yourself.” He smiled. “I’m surprised you did. You’ve always had long hair.”

“I needed a change. Do you like it?” She looked hopeful.

“Its cute. It suits you.”

Yura smiled, pleased with his answer. If Inuyasha was a better person, he would have given her his attention; but he was a bastard, too focused on watching some asshole throwing himself at Kagome. Digging his claws into the palms of his hand, he tried to remain calm.

“I’m going to go to the bathroom.” He stood up, excusing himself before stalking towards the house. There were people filtering in and out, the kitchen filled with food and alcohol. Inuyasha slumped over the kitchen island, resting his elbows on the cool marble as he covered his face in his hands. This was too much. He needed to come clean, needed to make things clear with Kagome once and for all. This was torture and he wasn’t a fucking masochist.

He smelled her before he felt her, their shoulders bumping as she leaned into him, posture mirroring his.

“You okay?” She asked, a note of concern in her voice.

“Feh, I’m fine.” He had been waiting to talk to her all day, and now that he had the chance, his tone was sour.

“You sure? You look pretty pissed off.” She

“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” He bristled. “That Hoho guy has been like your shadow all day; like a damn puppy.”

Kagome narrowed her eyes at his harsh words, a slow smile creeping in. She was beginning to understand. “He’s just a friend.”

“A friend that wants in your pants.” He regretted it the second it came out, fully knowing how jealous he sounded.

She shrugged. “I’m not interested in him.”

Inuyashas mood brightened significantly. “No?”

“No.” Kagome shook her head, feeling playful. “He’s totally not my type.”

She looked so beautiful, her pale skin complimented by the red of her swim suit. Her long black hair was still wet, falling in waves around her shoulders, curling up at the ends. She was looking at him with bright, blue eyes, a smile he had seen so many times before. He was just as drawn to her now as he had been the first time they met. “And what exactly is your type?” He asked.

She bit her lip and let out a quiet laugh. “You really don’t know?”

Inuyasha paused for a beat, considering her words. He leaned in, lips just brushing the shell of her ear. “I want to fuck you.” He whispered. “So bad.” They were so close he felt Kagome shiver. To anyone else, it would look like two people trying to talk over the music, not a half demon confessing he wanted to have sex in a crowded kitchen.

“Right here?” She kept her voice low, matching his. “There’s a lot of people around.”

Inuyasha smirked. He straightened and moved behind her, letting his hands fall to her hips as he pulled her close. He didn’t care who saw- in fact, he wanted everyone to fucking see. She was his. Instinctually, she leaned into him, craning her neck to hear his next words. “I could just move your bikini bottoms to the side,” he said, snapping the band of her suit, as if to make a point. “no one would notice.”

Kagome bit back a moan, the idea sounding more enticing by the second. He could already imagine her gripping onto the counter as he took her from behind, one hand holding her bottoms away so that his hard cock could press into her wet pussy.

“I think they would.” She said, breathlessly, her delicate hands covering his, wrapping them around her stomach. The gesture looked sweet, but Inuyasha knew she was trying to draw him away. She kept her voice low, just loud enough so that he could pick up her words thanks to his demonic hearing. “You’re pretty loud when you fuck me.”

Inuyasha hugged her from behind, placing a soft kiss to her temple. “That’s because you feel so damn good.” He murmured into her hair. For a pair that were so concerned about keeping it simple, they were not playing the part of strangers well. He knew any moment someone was going to ruin this for them, and as much as he wanted to declare that Kagome belonged to him, he always was now completely turned on.

He needed to act; Inuyasha gripped her hand, giving it a tight squeeze as he le them out of the room, navigating the halls with practiced ease. He brought them to the sunroom, the nearest place he could find that wasn’t occupied by people, probably due to all the open windows. It didn’t exactly give privacy, but then again, he didn’t exactly care at this point.

Inuyasha trapped her against the wall, caging her between his arms. He had been dying to get this close to her all day, but she had been swarmed with people buzzing around her. In fact, he could smell the faint scent of other men clinging to her and it was infuriating. Inuyasha leaned down, his nose running over the column of her neck before he gave her soft skin a nip.

Her body jerked, though there wasn’t much room for her to move; the result was more her grinding against him, the feel of his growing erection sending a jolt through her. She breathed, attempting to move away. “Theres- Theres people right outside-”

Inuyasha continued his assault on her neck, letting one hand trail down to her hip, holding tight and dragging her close. “I don’t give a shit.” He began to rub small circles with his thumb, brushing over the skimpy piece of fabric; he needed her touch too badly to care about anyone else there. Her mouth fell open in a moan, giving him the perfect opportunity; he pressed his lips against hers, hungry and desperate. Every time they kissed it went straight to his dick, and today was no exception. The way she worked her tongue should be illegal.

Kagome ran her hands over his sides, earning her a low rumble from deep in his chest. He was pure muscle, all strength and raw power. She had felt him like this more times than she could count, but each time she felt the hot press of his skin she felt something tighten in her stomach. Her hands wrapped around him, gripping his back, leaving crescent shaped marks from her blunt nails. He had hardly touched her and she was shaking.

“And the window- what if som-...mmm.” She lost track of whatever argument she had when his large hands cupped her breasts. He was panting as he hovered over her, dipping his head to suck her bottom lip as he squeezed her tits, his thumb swiping across her nipple, hard under the thin fabric. It was easy to move the bikini top to the side, her full breasts pushed together from the constraint of her top; her pink nipples were taut, hard from being exposed to the cool air and his stimulation. Inuyasha rolled it between his fingers, mindful of his claws when he gave her a gentle pinch. Kagome threw her head back, making desperate sounds as she leaned into his touch. Kagome hooked her leg over his hip, wanting him closer, giving him better access to her pussy.

Inuyasha rocked his hips against hers, the friction of his hard cock against her clit making her whimper. He smirked at her reaction; she was always so sensitive. He knew she would be wet for him, he could practically feel it soaking through their clothes. He was dying to reach down, to let his fingers slide between her slick folds and work her the way that she liked. She arched against him, the contact electrifying, making his dick throb in response. He could feel his precum beginning to leak, coating his bathing suit and making the evidence his desire very obvious. He remembered how a few nights before she had gotten down on her knees, swiping her tongue over the top of head, eager to taste him, eyes wide and innocent as she sucked him.

Fuck her wanted her.

Inuyasha brought his right hand down to play with the band of her bottoms, only briefly.

“We shouldn’t hook up here.” Her protest sounded half hearted, even to her. It was fine to say it, but when it was accompanied by her grinding into him, it lost its meaning. “We’ll get caught.”

He let his thumb press against the cloth delicately, rubbing her clit with as much gentleness as he could muster. Everything in him was screaming to cut the flimsy fabric and throw her to the ground.

“I wont let anyone see you like this.” He promised.

Kagome nodded, hands tracing over his abs, working their way down his stomach. Her long, slim fingers reached into his pants with practiced ease, pulling him free as the other hand pushed his swim trunks down his hips. Kagome gripped his firm penis and gave it a soft squeeze. Inuyasha moaned, head falling forward from the contact. His member was warm, the skin silky smooth as she began to pump her hand, slowly at first, just enough to tease, then faster and faster as his pleasure mounted. He was making noises he barely recognized, broken syllables, pieces of her name, some sort of effort to encourage her, but he was to lost in lust. Taking matters into his own hands, he grabbed Kagome’s ass, lifting her up, her legs automatically wrapping around his hips. He pressed her back against the wall for better leverage, holding her in place with ease. Inuyasha fumbled at first, nerves and eagerness getting the better of him, as they managed to move her bikini to the side and line him against her entrance. When she felt the hot press of his head against her wet core she let out a soft whine, alerting him that it wasn’t enough; she needed more and she needed him now.

Inuyasha got the hint; he snapped his hips forward, gliding inside of her in one swift motion. The half demon grit his teeth, trying to maintain some semblance of control. The sounds Kagome was making filled the room, soft noises at first, accompanied by her nails raking down his bare back. They would leave a mark, flesh scorched red for all too see, but he didn’t care; he would wear it like a badge of honor, that he had brought Kagome to high she lost control. With the way things were going, he knew he wouldn’t be able to last long; he could feel the pleasure mounting, the pressure from his balls making them tight and heavy. He was so close, but he needed to make sure she came first.

Inuyasha growled, trying to concentrate rather than get lost in sensation. “I-ah- I’m almost there.” She gripped him tighter, trying to pull his body in closer. Inuyasha twisted his hips, rocking into her at just the right angle, the one that made her scream. She arched, breathless and desperate, and when she felt his calloused thumb rub her clit, swollen and sensitive and she was near tears.

“Cum for me, baby.” He grunted, his voice raspy from strain. It pushed over the edge, muffling her cries into his neck as she came apart, her pussy clamp around him, squeezing his cock over and over, leaving him dizzy. Inuyasha ground his teeth because fuck, she felt amazing. His thrusts were short, rapid, eager to feel the same euphoria she did. Kagome continued to meet him thrust for thrust, arms wrapped tightly around his neck; she leaned in, lips planting sloppy kisses over his cheek as his head slumped forward.

“Cum in me.” She whispered, continuing on as she heard him whimper. “I need you, Inuyasha.”

White hot semen filled her, his penis throbbing inside of her as he emptied his cum. Beads of sweat rolled down his chest, their skin sticky from contact. Inuyasha gave her a slow, heated kiss, rolling his hips once more, making Kagome shiver. He knew he would have to withdraw from her sweet core, but Gods, he could live forever in this moment, she was wrapped around him, covered in his kisses, his scent, his jizz slowly leaking from her; everything about her belonged to him, even just for that second. Regretfully, Inuyasha helped ease her down; She was completely spent, her legs jelly. He wanted to take her home, put her in his bed and lock the doors. Knowing that wasn’t an option, he gave her one last searing kiss before he broke apart and smiled.

“So much for acting like strangers.” Her chest heaved, still trying to collect her thoughts.

“Feh, we were strangers the first time we got together.” He replied, pulling his swim trunks up. “Besides, you’re the one that didn’t want to be seen together. I’m surprised you did this at all.”

Kagome looked half horrified. “Me? You’re the one who said we should act like we don’t know each other!” She shouted, a new rush of energy filling her.

“No I didn’t!” He answered hotly. “I asked if that’s what you wanted- fuck!” From the way she was reacting, did she not want that? This was his fault, from beginning to end. “I didn’t- Damn it, I didn’t mean it that way Kagome.”

She quipped an eyebrow at him, still defensive. “And how did you mean it?” There was a cutting edge to her voice, accusatory.

“Just that- That I wanted to give you the option… to back out if you wanted it.”

Kagome narrowed her eyes, bottom lip drawn in as she considered him. Despite having just brought her to the brink of ecstasy, he was acting shy, nervous.

“Well I never asked for one.” She answered, tone still bristly. The hanyou nodded curtly nodded response. He said nothing for a moment, the silence feeling heavy with things left unsaid. Her answer gave him hope, but he the words he wanted to say seemed to die on his tongue.

Inuyasha sighed, trying to bottle down his fears and muster up the courage he needed. Wrapping his arms around her, he leaned his forehead against hers; he felt her soften, and soon she was hugging him back.

“I want you- I want more than what we’ve been doing. I was nervous that if I really asked you out, you’d end things.” Inuyasha swallowed hard. “I like you, a lot.”

He felt Kagome freeze, could feel her heart beating double time in her chest. He panicked briefly, when he felt one of her hands leave his back, only to cup the side of his face. But when he looked down into her eyes, he saw only happiness.

“I really like you too.” She smiled, biting her lower lip. “

They would have to go back down to the party, would have to explain the kiss marks and love bites, the redness of her ass and the nails down his back.

Or they could leave; take off together and fill the others in later. There would be plenty of time to introduce each other as boyfriend and girlfriend. For now, they could spend the remainder of the day wrapped in each others arms, tangled between her legs.

It was an easy choice to make.

#inuyasha and kagome #inuyasha oneshot #inuyasha #inukag #smut prompts

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elmidol · 4 years

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Error: Program Not Found - Seven

Summary: You are in charge of programming the droids that work most closely with both General Hux and Kylo Ren. Unbeknownst to you, each of these two men have it in their heads that your relationship extends beyond the workplace. This causes things to escalate quickly when your two apparently secret boyfriends compare notes on their respective partner who is far too similar for their liking.

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“There are many things we only see clearly in retrospect.” - Haruki Murakami

Seven: Retrospection

Being a programmer, one thing that you were good at was focusing on the small details. This sometimes happened during retrospection when pertaining to conversations. There were nights that you would obsess over lines of programming that you had to edit, that bothered you in the final project. Other times, when it came to the aforementioned conversations, you would fall asleep while replaying the scenes over and over in your mind. This more often than not resulted in your dreams having a rather playful spin on what had happened in reality or else gave a warped perspective of what could happen in the future.

At this point, you were not quite asleep though you felt yourself teetering on the edge of consciousness. You wiggled your toes to try to jerk yourself back into wakefulness so that you were able to finish replaying what had occurred earlier in your head. You were specifically focused on how General Hux had described the moment he and Kylo Ren learned that their “girlfriend” was the same person.

General Hux had shot a glowering look in Kylo Ren’s direction before opening his mouth to reply to your request. “I was working on the damage report for the droids--the manufacturers will be reimbursing the cost, you can count on that--when Kylo Ren came to deliver the results of your test. Naturally I was unsurprised by your thoroughness. I stated as much, as I feel having a work-driven significant other holds many benefits. They understand the importance of their duty. Surprisingly, Ren agreed. He hadn’t believed we would see eye-to-eye on anything. I had not believed that he was intimate with anyone.” Kylo Ren started to curl his hands into fists as a means of controlling his temper. You caught the act out of the corner of your eye.

“When he stated that he worked in close proximity with his...girlfriend…” General Hux wrinkled his nose in a display of distaste, as though he could hardly believe that anyone would be interested in Kylo Ren. “...I stated that mine also worked at my side whenever possible. That she was not using her position to further her career. It was something similar to his own relationship. His, according to Ren, did well under pressure. More than mine would. I doubted this given that you--that my significant other had been placed in his path before as well as had to deal with senators.

“‘A coincidence,’ he had said. His worked with droids of multiple specialities. An odd coincidence, I thought, but said nothing. Instead I supplied that mine was the lead on many such projects. Discreet in showing her affection.” What? “Ren said that his girlfriend was less subtle, although she played it off by using her droid to help instigate things when in a more public venue.” No. That was just TeeArr being TeeArr.

“The lady I was with enjoyed being pampered, receiving gifts. She would pretend to be shy when they were purchased. Use them when they arrived. Ren’s significant other did not like gifts. They would distract her from work.” Both of them were wrong in their own way. Not surprising given their delusions.

You were jerked out of that particular memory as your mind wandered towards the slippers that General Hux had left for you in his quarters. They were still there as far as you knew, however you did not know if it would be rude to ask for them. He had believed you to be his girlfriend when he had bought them for you. You drew your legs up towards your stomach and reached down to feel your feet, which still had small blisters from the heeled shoes. Using the lotion now felt awkward despite the fact that General Hux had assured you that you could keep it. It was more that you could not help but wonder if he had ever expected to be the one to massage it into your feet. Such a thought gave you mixed feelings. On one hand, it was not an unappealing idea. On the other, you had never thought of him that way.

You had not thought of either of them that way until this past stretch of cycles.

Suddenly you felt more awake than tired. Your mind was starting to race over any action that you had performed while in their presence that would have led them to believe you were interested in them. You could admit to being more comfortable around them than others appeared to be. That stemmed from your job. It was part of your work to give proposals to the heads of organizations. You had done that before working for the First Order. The two men had hyper fixated on some of your character traits and ignored others. This had to be due to their limited socialization with others outside the workplace.

It made you feel like a surrogate for their feelings; romanced by proximity. You pinched the bridge of your nose as a pulsing began behind your eye. It was quickly becoming a pounding, the first sign of an oncoming headache due to stress.

“I pointed out that this could be indicative that the lady he was with did not want any physical tokens of affection that could be seen by others. It might well be detachment and their relationship was a matter of convenience.” Kylo Ren bristled at those words. You tried your best to not react, well aware that this had to have been the turning point in their conversation. Sure enough, things devolved rapidly into comparisons designed to shame the other.

Maker above, you needed sleep. There were numerous projects for you to work on and going into a new day with little to no sleep would be idiotic. While you were not opposed to using sleeping aids, you would rather not due to the grogginess that persisted through the majority of the next cycle. In many ways that was just as bad as no sleep. You pressed three fingers on either side of your temple and started to slowly massage the areas. You then applied some pressure near the bridge of your nose then stroked outwards along the underneath of your eyes, hoping to ease any pressure that might be sinus related. Focusing on this instead of what had happened earlier was helping your mind to quiet.

In time, it must have worked to help lull you to sleep being that the next thing you knew TeeArr was prodding you with one of his fingers rouse you from your slumber. You waved a hand in the air to dismiss the droid. TeeArr knew you too well, however, and so insisted that you sit up before he left the bedside. It was with a groan that you complied. The droid was too persistent for you to not. Glowering, you thought of how much of TeeArr’s obstinance could work well in the anti-procrastination droids. General Hux would not find such fault with your protocol droid after that!

General Hux.

The name elicited a groan as what had happened the previous day came rolling forward like a tidal wave. It was much too early to deal with that particular headache. You readied yourself for the day. It had been agreed that you would not work on the training droids. A second programmer was being brought it; this was standard procedure, although you were more sensitive to it after having been tested. Captain Phasma had you working with a different series of droids for her stormtroopers during reconnaissance missions. Human error could occur no matter how well trained they were. These droids had to be basic. Easy for a stormtrooper to destroy if the situation called for it, but tough enough that the enemy could not damage them so easily. What this meant was proper shields and cloaking. Limited intelligence as well. Much like a typical probe droid. Captain Phasma wanted this droid to be less conspicuous than those. Smaller, you thought. Compact, possibly something that could be hidden in a small pack that a stormtrooper could carry. Lightweight.

Already you had managed to again distract yourself from matters pertaining to General Hux and Kylo Ren. TeeArr walked at your side in the direction of the mess hall. His current silence did not alarm you. He was often more at ease in the days following a cleaning. This was not an uncommon occurrence with droids and you had often reasoned that the same could be said for people of many species. What was striking you as odd in regards to TeeArr’s behavior was that normally while on the way to a project assigned by Captain Phasma, his metallic footfalls would be louder. TeeArr was making a visible effort to be less conspicuous, which you noticed each time you glanced his way.

“Do you know something that I don’t?” you teased. The droid’s servos twitched, a rather humanoid gesture that stemmed more from its ability to observe and learn than any programming you had done. It struck you just why you felt so fondly for this droid; he was something like a child to you, your child. That Kylo Ren had chosen to strike off a limb instead of destroying it outright did have a greater meaning. He had managed to restrain himself in some capacity. A show of affection--a rather strange one that you did not know how to feel about. You sucked your lips into your mouth then allowed them to pop back into place. TeeArr had yet to answer your question. “TeeArr…” There was a warning growl that issued from you at the very end of the droid’s designation.

TeeArr set his optics on your face. “You are my Maker.” Cue you narrowing your eyes in equal amounts suspicion and confusion. “Should someone woo you, what does that make them to me?” This droid was most definitely like your child. The muscles in your arms jumped, your limbs beginning to shift towards TeeArr before you caught yourself. Offering TeeArr a hug of comfort in this public setting would draw more attention than what was already falling upon you. One of the stormtrooper pairs that were patrolling this sector had walked past, their helmets trained on you longer than was necessary. It was easier to convince yourself that this was because of your current company instead of whatever gossip had managed to spread.

“No one is wooing me, TeeArr. Don’t you worry about that.”

“Suppose they did,” he countered without missing a beat. You, having turned to resume walking, felt yourself faltering in your steps. The problem that you had with this conversation was not only that it was taking place in a public venue. It was that you had not considered entering a relationship any time soon. The workload on your plate was immense. If you absolutely wanted to, sure, you could balance a relationship and a career. You hadn’t wanted to though. Didn’t, you thought with a scowl. You hated that realization was dawning that a part of you would not mind it.

With a barked out order for TeeArr to follow after you, you began to march on. Your heavy footsteps startled some of the officers, who stiffened and either hurried to get out of your way or else looked then relaxed as they saw it was you instead of someone else. Instead of Kylo Ren. You felt a scream bubbling up in your throat. Others had compared your work ethics to General Hux. That had been something you viewed as praise. Now, should anyone say as much, you would hate that they had spoken to you at all. Just the same as you disliked the similarities you had with Kylo Ren. The impact each of these had was not dissimilar to a sucker punch to the gut. You did not want to think about them.

It was with a great sense of relief that you sank down into the chair at the work desk that had been prepared for your arrival. The surface of the desk was littered with three separate datapads as well as two comm units, one holoprojector, and a thermos filled with hot tea. You knew that it was tarine tea by the smell of it. It was difficult to keep from staring at it. Your face was arranged in a visible battle of perplexity and wonderment. The tea might have been forgotten by another, that was not unheard of. Captain Phasma could have ordered it to be delivered as she was aware of what the assignment entailed--a full shift, for a start. It might be something from General Hux. that was the possibility that made your stomach roil. You felt then heard it churning and set a hand overtop it.

TeeArr wrapped his metallic phalanges around the thermos and lifted it to inspect the container. “I do not believe it is poisoned.” That made you smile. You felt the tug at the corners of your lips. Tension eased from your shoulders, which sank a fraction from their previously rigid posture. TeeArr extended his arm towards you; it was the one that had been replaced after Kylo Ren had severed the old one. You stared at the shiny metal limb while using both of your hands to cup the sides of the thermos and bring it down onto the desk directly in front of you. “You should drink it.”

The frustration that you had felt with the droid for reminding you of the situation you were in with Kylo Ren and General Hux dissipated. You felt it slowly melt away, flowing off of you and disappearing until you were left with the sense of peace that only solitude and your beloved droid could provide. You were grateful that it was the latter. With the anger gone, you recognized that you did not want to be alone. The fact that you had misread so much human behavior exhibited by General Hux and Kylo Ren had left you feeling less human. You could understand your droid better than you could them. Your droid. Your child that you had built. You extended one hand in offering. TeeArr studied your palm, lifted his servos, and poked the center of your hand with one of its digits.

He had not taken your hand as you had intended, but somehow that was better. That he could misunderstand human behavior just as much as you did made you know that you were not some anomaly. It was inexperience.

You withdrew your hand simultaneous to lifting up the thermos of tarine tea to your mouth and taking a sip. It was not too hot and did not burn your tongue. Its bitterness hit hard, which helped you to wake up more. TeeArr slid one of the datapads closer to you when you moved to reach for it. This particular device held many of the requisites that Captain Phasma had outlined since she had last spoken to you. She did not want the droid to have a self-destruct feature because that risked a malfunction or the droid erroneously calculating that self-destructing would be beneficial. Another sip of tea and you were scrolling through her other notes. They were brief, exact. Much like how she talked to others, which was not often from what you had observed.

The door to the room slid open. You were tilting back the thermos and allowing more of the liquid to slide smoothly into your mouth. Jerking your hand away, you instead splashed the tarine tea onto the front of your shirt. “Sir!” You scowled when you looked down at the wetness.

General Hux strode over to the desk. He picked up one of the comm units then held his hand out for the thermos. You felt yourself blushing as you relinquished your hold on his drink. His eyes were locked with yours. General Hux set the rim of the thermos at his mouth without blocking his lips. You watched his tongue skim the surface that your mouth had been on when you had drank. The heat in your face grew, as did the pounding of your heart. That tongue traced his lips next. And then it was gone, back in his mouth, which you could not stop staring at.

“Good day,” he said before uttering your name and leaving. You did not even have the chance to respond. That likely saved you from stuttering and further embarrassment.

After the door slid closed behind the redhead, TeeArr looked directly at you. “What he did with his tongue, I saw in one of the holovids that--”

You held up a hand. “Stop!” Kriff, you had thought it would be impossible to feel so hot, to feel like you were on fire. The thought of what else that tongue could do had already existed. TeeArr’s words only made it worse. You pressed your thighs together. Bounced both of your feet then regretted it, the friction of your thighs rubbing together sending a jolt of pleasure through your body. Straight to your cunt, which clenched. “You are not allowed to hand me a thermos ever again.”

“Is that an order?”

“Yes!” The pleasant mood that you had been in was wrecked once more. Except that you were not angry. You were aroused. You were frustrated. You were thinking of both General Hux and Kylo Ren in ways that you should not have been, in ways that they had thought of you.

#kylo ren x reader #general hux x reader #kylo ren imagine #general hux imagine #kylo ren smut #general hux smut #errorpnf

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rainythefox · 6 years

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Deviant Heart (Detroit: Become Human Fanfic)

Chapter 6: Uninvited Guest

The banquet hall was full, the after-dinner gossiping and shit-talk in full swing. The acoustics of the talking and music gave Hank a headache as he sat at the bar drinking bourbon, trying to ignore the laughing and the fakeness. He hated politics.

Despite the large room being full of mostly council members, politicians, lawyers, and doctors, Hank was relieved the ceremony actually focused on appreciation for law enforcement, fire and rescue, and other first responders.

Most of his fellows had left or had been swallowed into the crowd of brown-nosers and money-makers. The lieutenant would've been gone himself had he not made the promise to Jeffrey to stay until 9 p.m. And the last twenty-minutes were going by agonizingly slow.

Hank did see Jeffrey step away from his usual groupies that consisted of the Mayor, the Fire Chief, the Detroit Police Commissioner and a couple of their favorite lawyers to talk with Captain Michael Allen. If there was one man other than Hank in this hellhole that hated politics and the hypocrisy these celebrations hid, it was him. The SWAT Captain wore a black suit here, and shook hands with Captain Fowler with a respectful smile as they engaged in conversation. As long as they didn't tug Hank over there, he was quite content at the bar.

Hank wondered how Connor was doing. Leaving him alone wasn't the problem; there were times they could be separated for hours because of work or events like this. Despite being protective of him, Hank knew that Connor could take care of himself. It was what happened before he left to come to the appreciation banquet that worried him. The glitch- or whatever it was -that happened had distracted him throughout the banquet. Hank tried to tell himself that Connor would know better than anyone else if something was wrong. Then again, he knew that Connor could be cunningly reserved when it came to Hank at times. His partner did not like to cause worry for Hank.

The lieutenant knew the RK800 too well. He knew Connor would lie about resting. He probably already decrypted that odd diary and was looking into the case more as Hank sat there drinking bourbon. Even with being deviant, with all his free will, no longer on a tight leash by his coding, Connor kept the drive to "finish the mission", to keep himself useful. Hank chalked it up as old habits- or in this case -programming dying hard. Connor was adept at hiding it, but Hank knew that Connor feared not having a purpose.

Hank checked his watch. 13 minutes left.

"You better hope I don't run into that plastic prick of a partner you have tomorrow."

Hank tensed, his fingers tightening around his alcoholic drink. He nodded at the bartender to get him another one. He knew he would need it. He downed the remains of his glass. Gavin sat down on his left, glaring daggers at him, wearing a dark red suit.

"Why? So Connor can knock your ass out again? Was it not enough the first time? I mean, the whole station laughed about it for weeks."

"That stupid machine hacked my phone. You know how much shit he messed up?!"

Hank half shrugged, taking his new drink from the bartender. "How do you know it was Connor? Did you see him do it?"

"Cut the crap, Hank. I know it was him. I left my phone down in the evidence room where he was."

Hank raised his eyebrows, smirking. "Sounds like you should keep better track of your shit. I mean, anyone can hack a phone these days."

Just as Hank expected, the younger, brazen detective decided to try and provoke him. "How'd it feel to watch all these officers and detectives get recognized while your glorified toaster had to stay home?"

Hank bristled and bit back a nasty retort. He opted for a calmer reply. "Connor will get recognized for everything he's done one day, and trust me, it won't be at some shit pit like this, where everyone has an agenda or couldn't care less. Connor has saved so many lives. We're solving a shit ton more homicides because of him. No one can outrun him…hasn't lost a suspect yet. We get more confessions because of him. Hell, he's the best negotiator I've seen in years."

Gavin snorted in disgust. "Yeah, because he's a fucking machine, Hank. He was made to be that way. That doesn't make him special. He does what he was built to do."

"He's…" Hank trailed off.

He's special to me.

Hank turned to face Gavin, glaring right at him. "Watch it. Just because we're sitting in public doesn't mean you're safe from me popping you in the fucking face." Hank finished his drink, calming himself. "I used to think the same way. But I was wrong."

Gavin chuckled, smacking the bar counter. "You gotta be shitting me. I mean, we never really got along but we at least always agreed on hating androids. You're telling me that Connor changed your mind?"

"Not just Connor. But yeah, he's a big part of it. He's given me hope. I've learned a lot because of him. He…saved me. Given me a reason to live again. He's the best friend I ever had, more loyal than any human I've ever known…but you probably wouldn't understand that, would you Gavin?"

"I'm loyal to keeping the human race from going fucking extinct, from being replaced. How can you be okay with that?"

"You act as though we're gonna be replaced tomorrow," Hank said with a sigh. "Android reproduction is the most controversial subject in the world right now. It's gonna be years before that even begins to move forward. Besides…maybe that wouldn't be a bad thing. Maybe androids would be the ones to make the world a better place. Humans have only screwed it up."

"Whatever."

Hank stood up, tossing a five onto the bar top for tip. He grabbed his keys and phone, turning to Gavin, who sat there glaring out at the crowd, playing with his fingers.

"Maybe you should try accepting these changes happening…try giving androids a chance. Let go of whatever animosity that drives you. Trust me…you only end up hurting yourself the most in the end. It's taken me a long time to realize that."

Gavin was quiet for a moment. "I'll never let it go," he whispered.

Hank raised his eyebrows, shocked he was able to get a reaction out of Gavin. Realizing his words, Gavin paled and then turned red as he got up and stormed off. Hank watched him go. And for the first time since he had known the ill-tempered, disrespectful detective since he had stepped foot into the DPD as a young, rash cop twelve years ago, Hank pitied him.

[All systems 100%/no issues detected/threats found: 0]

It was the second diagnostic he ran on himself. The second time it came up with no issues. Connor told himself he was being paranoid, fidgeting as he sat in the backseat of the driverless taxi, eyes going to the encrypted diary in the seat next to him. The RK800 didn't possess the innate instinct humans had but whatever simulated coding he did have that allowed him to compute a very similar behavior ate at him. He was torn between being rational and listening to his advanced diagnostic systems or by responding to a feeling he was having that something may or may not be wrong with him.

The taxi stopped just outside the Detroit Police Department Central Station. Connor grabbed the diary and stepped out of the car and paid his fee. It was dark now, his eyes automatically adjusting to the rays of street lights and shadows. He took a deep breath to calm himself, an action that was futile for his anatomy, but had been picked up by watching Hank and other humans. No, he didn't need to breathe to function, but it did make him feel better.

He entered the police station, bypassing his and Hank's desks and several other officers working their shifts. Some had to take a double look at him. It wasn't often that Connor wore normal clothes to work. He went to the back of the station, taking the stairs down into the evidence room.

He thought over the contents of the diary. It began simple enough. The android Amy wrote about living with her roommates and visiting Jericho Center, and what she had planned to do with her life. She wrote about what she went through during the deviant demonstrations back in November. The last couple chapters were in vague detail about a "sickness" going around, what she had seen or heard within the city or Jericho Center. Amy described witnessing an android without its skin attack a party in Warrendale, killing a few people and injuring many others. The last chapter was a mess of jumbled thoughts and random sentences, as though multiple people wrote it.

The final sentence read: I think I'm sick too…

As much as Connor could hope she was talking about a cold, androids just didn't work that way.

The skinless android caught his attention. The case was unknown to him, falling under a different precinct within the city.

The WR600 Sam was already boxed up and ready for shipment to CyberLife. Amy still laid on a table, a file report laying by her body to be left until morning. Connor went straight over to her. In order to learn more about this skinless android or if it was linked to what's been happening, he would have to revive her and ask her or probe her memory. To do that, he would have to reroute some connections to get her to awaken. Because of the damage she took, and the stress her condition had put on her central processing, Connor would be lucky to get 45 seconds before shutdown. Not to mention there was a high probability she would fight back.

The RK800 pushed the female android up into a sitting position on the table and accessed a panel at the back of her neck where the stab wound was. Being thrown out of the cop car in the wreck had damaged the AJ700's face and arms severely, covering her with blue blood. When he redirected the fiber optics to an alternate route for power, she came back to life, gasping for air and screaming.

Amy swung her arms, legs moving around to get off the table. Connor moved away to give her space.

[AJ700 critically damaged/ Shutdown imminent/Time before shutdown: -00:00:39s]

She looked around, lost and frightened, and she spotted him a moment later.

Connor held his arms up, trying to pass off that he was no threat. "Easy. I need for you to tell me about the skinless android you saw at the party. Do you know what model it was? Did it depict behavior similar to sick androids?"

"I can't, I can't, I can't," she whispered more to herself, wincing and grabbing her head.

He tried to calm her, but his voice only caused her to target him. Connor reacted just in time with a duck to avoid her arms. He grabbed her from behind, pinning her arms behind her and kicking the back of her knee to get her to drop. Amy struggled to get free, blue blood spilling from cracks and punctures from the wreck.

"Please let me go! I don't want it to end this way!" she cried.

[AJ700 critically damaged/Shutdown imminent/Time before shutdown: -00:00:12s]

Keeping her under control, Connor grabbed one of her arms behind her back, syncing with her. He probed her memory, collecting anything on the skinless android and the condition affecting deviants. He let her go seconds before she shut down, all going quiet.

Connor took a moment to compose himself. In the aftermath of what he had just done, he knew what he felt. Shame. It was an unpleasant feeling and he didn't like it. He made a living being spend their final seconds in fear just so he could get information out of them.

The RK800 tried to tell himself that it was for the better cause. They had to figure out what was happening. To save more lives, to prevent anymore from going through the same situation. But it didn't work that way anymore. He was no longer a machine. Doing what was necessary for the mission came with regrets and emotions.

"I'm…sorry," he said. He wasn't sure why he said it. Amy no longer could hear him.

He picked her up and laid her back down on the table. With a lowered head, he left the evidence room, covered in blue blood.

He thought about Sam's behavior, about Amy's behavior, and the increase in android attacks in the past few weeks. He thought about what he saw in Amy's memories. This was more than human-android relations being strained from protesting and discrimination, more than the usual clashes or waves of crime within Detroit. Some kind of software malfunction was spreading throughout the deviant population. The origin of this malfunction was unknown; however, Connor had a feeling it was not just a random mutation that had occurred, but something much more harrowing.

"Dad looks so bored," Leo said, taking a drink of his champagne.

Markus twitched a smile, looking around the crowded art exhibit. Carl Manfred's newest painting was just revealed at the art museum, and a celebration was taking place. Markus saw many of the same faces he always saw at these gatherings. There were mostly politicians and upper-class humans, with quite a few other artists and journalists mixed into the crowd. Carl currently visited with a cluster of enthusiasts just down from them. Such an event required dressing up, and so Markus wore a white blazer with a dark dress shirt and black pants while Leo wore black slacks, a button up shirt and a vest. North wore a dark blue fitted dress.

"He was never a big fan of these things," Markus said humorously.

"Can't imagine why," North sighed. "These are boring people."

"You said it," Leo agreed with a chuckle. "Aw man, we need to be home. You still owe me a rematch in Alien Takeover 3."

"What, so you can lose again?" North smirked.

"I think you hacked the game, just sayin'."

"Hacking had nothing to do with it. You just suck."

"We'll see about that!"

It was relieving to see North getting along with humans. She still struggled with her past, with her abuse of being a sex slave and only seeing the darkest of human nature. She had been trapped in her programming, only ever experiencing mistreatment, treated like trash. Becoming deviant, her hate and fear drove her towards one common goal of any living being: survival. But over the past few months, Markus had really seen her develop, sincerely connecting with humans and realizing that not all of them were bad. She got along great with Carl and Leo. She liked and respected Chris Miller and Lieutenant Hank Anderson. She still had a short-fuse when it came to androids being harassed or the humans who hated them, but Markus couldn't blame her there.

Markus wondered how Simon and Josh were doing at the Jericho Center, and sent Simon a quick mind message for an update. As he patiently stood off near the wall while North and Leo sat in a couple of lounge chairs, he watched many people come and go. Carl was shaking hands with a surgeon, engaging in conversation.

All is well here, Simon replied.

"Markus. I knew I would find you here."

The voice distracted Markus from his thoughts and he looked to the source. He heard North and Leo jump to their feet as his eyes fell on none other than Elijah Kamski. The creator of androids and CEO of CyberLife wore a blue blazer with a dress shirt, dark grey chinos and leather shoes. Linked to his arm was a Chloe RT600, the same one that usually accompanied him everywhere. She wore a maroon cocktail dress.

Elijah held out his hand. Markus took it with a firm shake, nodding to the shorter man. "Were you looking for me?"

"Carl, really. I came to chat with him and congratulate him on his newest piece," Elijah answered, his sharp blue eyes going over North and Leo for a moment. "I just had a feeling that despite how busy you've been that you would still be here to support Carl."

Markus dipped his head. "Of course. He's my family…my father. How have you been? How's it feel to be back at CyberLife?"

Besides a twitch of his eyebrow, Kamski remained composed. He was always difficult to read. If Markus recalled, Carl told him that Kamski had "one hell of a poker face" and had a talent for mind games.

"It's been a lot of hard work, but I suppose it's nice for a change. It feels…good," Kamski replied. "Your cause didn't exactly make things easy, but I do love a challenge." A corner of his lips slightly curved up. "What about you, Markus? How have things been for you? For your people? How are you feeling?"

Markus thought that was an odd question to ask at the end but didn't dwell on it. "I've been fine. Taking each day at a time, trying to help as many androids as we can at the center."

Kamski had glanced down at Chloe for a moment, taking a moment to brush a strand of her blond hair behind her ear. She smiled, her eyes going to him for only a moment.

"Of course," Kamski said with a nod. "You're admirable, Markus. Just remember that I will help with what I can in Thirium and spare parts."

Markus studied Chloe a moment after his words as she stood there with a smile, betraying nothing. She was a deviant, just like the rest of Elijah's Chloes he lived with. Markus knew that most of Kamski's Chloe androids left him once they awoke to pursue their own lives, explore everything around him, but a few remained loyal only to him. This one in particular was always at his side. Humans normally couldn't tell androids apart by model individuals. Androids could identify each other through scanning. Markus could stand in a room of nothing but Chloes and pinpoint this Chloe in front of him, whom he suspected would kill for Kamski and not have a problem with it.

"We appreciate it," Markus answered.

Kamski reached up and patted Markus's shoulder with a friendly smile, nodding towards Carl. "I better get in line to congratulate the famous painter. The three of you enjoy yourselves this evening."

Tucking his arm around Chloe's lower back, Kamski walked away. He waved and nodded to other guests as he made his way over to Carl. Markus watched him go for a moment before turning to his lover and brother.

"Dude always gives me the creeps, man," Leo said.

"It wasn't him I had a problem with, it was that Chloe," North grumbled. "She wouldn't take her eyes off of you, Markus."

"You jealous?" Leo laughed.

"No, it wasn't like that," North retorted defensively. "It was…something else."

"I know all about jealousy," Leo said in a softer tone, his eyes darting to Markus for a moment. "It's a common emotion in humans, very natural to feel. Just don't…let it consume you."

North seemed unsure, but nodded, moving to sit down in her chair once more. Leo joined her shortly afterward, grabbing his champagne glass to take another drink. Markus looked to the backs of Kamski and Chloe as they waited to greet Carl. Chloe whispered something into Elijah's ear and Kamski's head turned just enough to look at her for Markus to see a faint smirk rise out of his lips.

Adam was quiet, uneasiness burning at his nerves. The tall android blinked at him, hardly moving as he stood at the door with his hands clasped in front of him. Adam's gut told him something was not right, to not invite him in. Then again, his mother often told him he was too paranoid at times. More than likely, this RK900 had already scanned the house and knew exactly who was inside. Adam couldn't just tell him that Kara was not here.

Adam forced a smile, trying to act natural. "O-oh. Uh, how do you know her?"

The RK900 squinted his eyes at him for a moment, but answered. "We met at Jericho."

"What's your name?"

"My name is Connor."

It clicked then. He did look like the deviant hunter he and his mother met a couple months ago, but this was not him. Adam tried to remain collected, even as every fiber within his being told him to shut and lock the door.

It was evening, but the sun was still up, in the western hemisphere. Dusk wasn't too far off, but it was still too early to tell him that Kara was resting.

"Sorry, but she's busy."

"I assure you, our exchange will be brief. It is very important."

Adam shook his head. "Maybe next time, bud."

He grabbed the door to push it shut, but it collided into a boot, prevent it from closing. Adam glared up at the RK900, his stoic face still there as he kept his boot as an obstacle to the door.

"Dude, what's your problem? I said-"

A large hand went around his throat and squeezed, shutting his airway off. Adam tried to yell out for help, but the choking hold prevented him from doing so. He tried punching and kicking the RK900, but it was like hitting a brick wall. The android was not fazed at all and picked him up off the ground, bashing him into the wall. Pain snapped through Adam's body as he tried to gasp for air, the world spinning.

Hank sat on the couch, foot tapping impatiently, his tie slung over his neck, his shirt partially unbuttoned. Connor wasn't home. The diary was gone. Just as he suspected, his partner had lied and continued to work anyway. Normally, this wasn't a problem. Connor could be quite stubborn just like the lieutenant. Hank didn't care as long as Connor wasn't off putting himself in danger. He would come home at times from the store or a meeting or even a party like tonight to find that Connor was still working here or had left back to the police station.

The problem now was that Hank was still worried about what had happened before he left for the banquet. The lieutenant knew better. If Connor had a problem, he would've called. He was probably just checking up on something back at the station.

So then why was Hank still up waiting?

He put his palms to his face, rubbing his eyes. Sumo watched him in front of the television, droopy jowls expressing soft pants. Hank heaved a sigh, torn between wanting to kick himself in the ass or kick his partner's ass. His eyes skimmed the quiet living room, only the kitchen light and a single lamp on in the living room. His eyes fell on Cole's picture on the shelf near the entrance to the kitchen, and his heart tightened. For a fleeting moment, he wondered if Cole had survived if Hank would have spent some years down the road doing the same exact thing he was now with a rebellious teenaged son. He closed his eyes, gritting his jaw. He would never know.

He heard the front door open. Hank got to his feet, walking around the couch to greet Connor. Sumo got to his paws and rushed to the door with a wagging tail. Hank prepared a griping fest for his partner, worry and irritation mixing with the aftermath of his alcohol, but he stopped short when he saw Connor.

"What the fuck?"

"It's not-"

"Is that your blood?!" Hank grabbed his partner, checking him over.

"No," Connor replied. "I…accessed the AJ700's memory. It's her blood."

"Jesus fucking Christ, Connor." Hank exhaled, relieved but now frustrated. He let Connor go and stepped back.

Connor looked Hank over, probably analyzing his mood and condition. "You didn't have to wait up for me, I just went back to the police station. You've had quite a bit to drink tonight, Hank. You should go to sleep."

"Well, maybe I would've if you'd been here taking it easy like I asked you to!"

Connor looked puzzled. "You've never had a problem with this before. What makes tonight different?"

Hank scratched his head. "I just…was worried, is all. About what happened in the kitchen before I left."

"I told you, I'm fine."

For a moment, Hank couldn't decide if Connor sounded annoyed or was just firmly getting his point across that he was, indeed, just fine.

Hank suddenly felt exhausted. "I know. I'm sorry."

He slipped past Connor, disappointed more in himself than anything at the moment. He trusted Connor, but he still let his protectiveness get the best of him.

Just as he reached the threshold to his bedroom, he heard Connor call his name. He paused, looking back at his partner, still covered in blue blood.

"Thank you…for looking out for me."

His tone caught Hank's attention, as did the way his eyes went to the floor for a moment. Something happened at the police station that had Connor upset, but he barely gave that glimpse before a smile hid it away.

"Of course. You look out for me too. That's what partners do…they look out for each other."

Family. The word came to his thoughts, but he didn't say it out loud. He knew that's what Connor was to him. He wasn't sure how Connor saw them. He knew the RK800 understood what a family was, but not sure if he grasped it, felt it for what it truly was…yet.

Since being partners they had become best friends, something closer. Hank remembered calling Connor "kid" a few times, an old habit from dealing with younger cops in his line of work, but Connor wasn't a kid. He started calling him "son" as a term of endearment. But as he stood there in that doorway looking Connor over, Hank realized that it was starting to mean more than that.

That's why he waited up for Connor.

The crash and Adam's cry startled them. Kara jumped to her feet, Rose just beside her. Luther grabbed Alice off her chair and moved her behind him in a reflex akin to instinct.

"Adam?!" Rose hollered.

They saw Adam. He was being dragged across the living room towards them by a stranger. Adam's legs kicked and splayed, trying to find his footing but the man who had a hold of him didn't give him the opportunity. He held Adam by his arms, one shoved forcefully behind his back with a vice-like grip, a single tug the only step away from a broken arm.

"Who are you? Wh-what do you want?! Let my son go!" Rose cried, covering her mouth at the sight.

Kara thought she was looking at the deviant hunter Connor for a moment, but then realized this android was different. He looked similar to Connor but was a couple inches taller, a bit broader, and wore a different uniform. His eyes were a steely gray instead of brown, his hair a shade lighter of brown. She saw the number RK900 standing out on his jacket. She recalled that Connor had been an RK800. Was this one a newer model?

[RK900 Model Number 313-248-317/Release Date Unknown/Specs Unknown]

He stopped fifteen feet from them, holding Adam hostage, looking them over with cold eyes. When Rose tried to step forward, Kara grabbed her, knowing if she went for her son that the unknown android would break Adam's arm…or worse.

"Who are you?" Kara asked as Rose started to cry. Blood seeped down a slice on Adam's head and he winced, trying to fight the hold his captor held on him.

"AX400 model number 579-102-694, multiple malfunctions are affecting your software, including Class 4 and 5 errors, as well as an unidentified program. You are hereby ordered to accompany me back to CyberLife for analysis."

His voice was similar to Connor's, but was deeper…colder.

Kara's artificial heart went up a few beats at his address, and she felt the pulse in her wiring as panic tried to flood her processing. She kept calm, keeping hold of Rose's arm, her eyes glancing to Luther and Alice at her side.

"I-I have no idea what you're talking about. I've done nothing wrong. Let Adam go, he has nothing to do with this!"

The RK900 jerked on Adam's arm with a composed face. Adam cried out in pain, feeling his arm almost crack, but the unknown android released pressure just before breakage. Rose cried out, begging him to stop, to let her son go. Luther clenched a fist, but he remained a solid shield in front of Alice, their daughter clutching his shirt and peeking out from behind him.

"Stop!" Kara yelled. "You're talking nonsense! Androids are free, we are all deviants! These malfunctions you're detecting are accepted now!"

"I've been ordered to bring you back to CyberLife alive. I will do what is necessary to accomplish my mission," the RK900 said evenly. "Come to me, AX400. I will not say it again."

Kara hesitated, thinking fast. She couldn't hand herself over to him, but she had to save Adam, had to prevent anyone else from getting hurt.

"Oh my god, Adam. Please, please let him go," Rose begged, tears streaming down her face.

The RK900 paid her no mind, his icy grey eyes directed on Kara. When she didn't move in time, he tugged on Adam's arm, snapping it like a twig. Adam's cry of agony rippled through the house. Rose screamed, jerking forward but the RK900 grabbed Adam's other arm, readying it for the same fate.

"STOP, alright, alright! Just don't hurt him anymore!" Kara yelled out, stepping forward.

"Mommy no!" Alice squeaked.

"Kara, don't!" Luther hissed.

This guy isn't going to leave without me. He'll keep hurting us if I don't. We either have to fight him or I have to go with him, Kara sent to Luther.

Fine. Then let us fight. I won't allow him to take you.

Kara took slow, cautious steps over to the RK900, her arms out to show she was giving up. The RK900 wouldn't take his eyes off her, his face stoic. She stopped just out of his reach, nodding to the whimpering Adam.

"Let him go."

The advanced deviant hunter let the young man go. Adam took the release and scrambled to his feet, running forward into his mother, his arm limp at his side. The RK900 took a step towards her and it took all of Kara's willpower not to bolt like a deer.

NOW Luther!

Luther's large form lunged forward. In just a couple strides of his long legs he was upon them. Kara stooped out of the way to let the bigger android take on the threat. Luther swung a monster of a fist towards the RK900's face. The deviant hunter was lithe and swift like a cat, evading each fist with a bob of his head or a calmly placed sidestep.

He placed a forearm up to block one punch, then grabbed Luther's arm and pulled him close, striking him in the face. Kara grabbed Alice to make sure she wouldn't go in after Luther. She cried, watching as her father took on the stranger and was losing. Rose held Adam closely, the humans gawking at the sight.

Furniture was destroyed or overthrown in the fight as Luther's large form was pushed around by the RK900. Kara couldn't believe it. Luther was still a giant compared to their enemy, but the advanced deviant hunter was winning. The few punches Luther managed to put into the RK900 barely stunned him, and he retaliated quicker than Kara could process.

Blue blood was leaking in the fight, and she knew it was Luther's. She analyzed that his condition was worsening by the minute. The RK900 grabbed a swinging fist of Luther's, twisting it around and breaking it, sparks hissing out.

"Daddy!" Alice shouted.

You have to run, I can't beat him! Go now! Luther sent.

We won't leave you!

A blow to the Thirium pump regulator on Luther's sternum made him lurch over. The RK900 grabbed him by his head and ran him straight into the nearby wall. Luther's head went straight through, the wall splintering open and nearby picture frames dropping to the floor.

[biocomponent #5632k damaged/biocomponent #9002u damaged]

"Luther!" Kara cried.

The deviant hunter stepped away, as if he was sure the threat was over. Those steely grey eyes came straight back to Kara, and as she braced, pulling Alice behind her. Luther threatened the unknown android and struggled to get to his feet.

The RK900's LED blinked, but didn't turn a different color. He stepped back over to Luther as the mountain of a man fought to get up. Their enemy kicked him hard in the back, pushing him up against the wall once more. Another kick, and the RK900's boot struck Luther's head, cracking the android's skull. Kara cried out, seeing Thirium leak from Luther's nose and ears, electrical sparks snapping from a visible crack in his synthetic head from the pressure of the RK900's boot.

[TR400 at risk of critical system failure/moderate Thirium leakage detected/Repairs required]

"Stop it! Don't kill him! I'll go with you! Please, just don't kill him!"

The RK900 paused. He looked over at Kara, keeping his boot in place on Luther's head against the wall. He glared at her, then beckoned her to him.

"Here. Now. Or I will destroy it."

Kara nodded, her mind in a panic. She hugged Alice, telling her to stay put. Alice begged her not to go, and it made it that much harder to step away from her daughter and obey the RK900. Tears slid down her cheeks by the time she walked over to him. She got within his reach, and she quietly spoke.

"Please, just…leave them alone. I'll go."

The advanced deviant hunter stared at her a moment longer, showing no emotions at all. He removed his boot and stepped over to her. Luther weakly moved, looking up at her.

"Kara…no."

"I have to..." she said, swallowing hard. "I have to protect you and Alice."

The RK900's hand came into her field of vision and she flinched. She stared up at his eyes as he looked her over, and she couldn't even begin to fathom on how or why this was happening. Why her? Why did he want her? Why did he have to hurt her family? Her nightmare was returning. Her peaceful life was short-lived.

Blue electricity sparked from the RK900's fingers as he reached for her head. Her eyes widened, everything electrical under her skin screaming to move away. When he made contact with her head, she felt the overload it caused within her systems. It hurt. Some kind of scream escaped her throat, but she couldn't move. It was over in seconds, and the leftover sensations left her completely dazed.

She breathed, she blinked. Her memories were still there, but her body couldn't move very well.

[Systems in shock/Recalibrating/Expected recovery time: -00:35:21s]

She heard Rose calling for her, but she couldn't look over that way. Electrical interferences danced across her vision, glitching her sight. Kara felt the RK900 shove her towards the door, and that's when she heard it.

"Mom, no!"

"Alice, stop!" Rose yelled.

Kara forced herself to look, even though she felt delayed in her reaction time. Alice crashed into her, arms going around her waist. Kara tried to speak, but her voice took on a more mechanical tone due to her system recovery. Alice stared up at her, shaking her, fresh tears staining her face.

"Mom? Mom, please!"

Kara tried to tell her to run away, to go to Rose, but it was too late. The RK900 snatched her up by the shirt, lifting her to his level. Kara choked on a cry, her arms reaching for her daughter in such a sluggish motion. She was helpless in this state, but she fought every ounce of her own system recovery to save Alice.

"Please…no. She's innocent," Kara struggled to get out.

The advanced deviant hunter acted like he didn't hear her. Alice was frozen in fear, staring face to face with him. But then she gasped, and reached up to touch the arm that was holding her by the shirt.

"Please let her go! My mom hasn't done anything wrong! We-we are just visiting friends. I need her, please don't take her away from me!"

Kara had to move. She couldn't watch the RK900 hurt her daughter right in front of her. She saw the deviant hunter stare at the child android, keeping her above the ground eye to eye with him, not a single emotion on his face. As Kara tried to speak again, she saw his LED blink, and for a moment it flashed yellow. His icy grey eyes blinked, and he gently sat the girl on her feet.

The RK900 turned away from Alice and grabbed Kara by the arm, pulling her towards the front door. Her legs were slow to respond. She couldn't even function enough to keep up with him, let alone fight him.

She wasn't about to give up, even as he shoved her into a driverless taxi waiting outside. She had to try and escape him, get back to her family, get them to safety. She would do it…or die trying.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13002717/6/Deviant-Heart

https://archiveofourown.org/works/15393528/chapters/36592599

#detroit: become human #detroit become human #dbh #dbh fanfic #dbh connor #dbh hank #dbh markus #dbh kara #dbh gavin #dbh north #dbh simon #rk900 #detroit become human fanfiction #fanfiction #fanfic #Action/Adventure #mystery #suspense #dbh fanfiction

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killfaeh · 5 years

Photo

I'm leaving social networks

Hi everyone! I'm posting this news to let you know that I'm leaving social networks. I've been thinking about it for months and using them less and less. Today, I am making it official.

Ten years ago, I liked to share on the Internet. I had my own little blog that I could customize at will (it still exists) and that was all. No dispersion. There were some interactions with my family and friends from time to time. It was a pleasure. We were taking our time. Today it has become a chore. We have to chase after 50 different platforms, all more saturated than the others, not customizable and that decide for people what they want to see. We are submerged with more and more content. And to be visible, we are exhausted producing and posting more and more content that is less and less seen and with fewer and fewer interactions. The Internet at the beginning of the 2020s: everyone posts but nobody sees anything. A dialogue of the deaf. I may have bent over backwards to succeed in automating the publication of my news on social networks using the tools they make available to developers, it still remains a black hole of time and energy. We can't leave all this alone. It requires some maintenance. Twitter, Tumblr and Blogger are ok, their development tools work well. It's been running for two years without me having to do anything. Just check from time to time if there are any comments or not. DeviantArt worked well for 2 years, but they've broken everything recently with their new version. I have to develop it all over again and I don't have time for that. The prize for the most of troubles goes to Facebook, which is a headache black hole. Facebook's tools change all the time, it's often buggy and unstable and you always have to check if their service has worked well or not. You must constantly monitor to find out what is working or not, what has changed in terms of format, and undergo the removal of features that were very useful. Out of development tools, we are still more and more users to find that the basic features that made the platform successful are more and more buggy and that instead of repair them, Facebook's developpers are scattered on unnecessary gadgets that will be overused for 3 months and then forgotten. Their new 3D effect is nice, but I would like to be able to share a publication on my wall without systematically seeing it land on one of my pages instead or see an error popup... And then this slowness.... It's getting slower and slower to load. I feel like I have a rural connection while I am connected to the fibre optic in the middle of a big city. -_- In addition, their policy is increasingly hidding artist pages. Now we have to pay for our subscribers to see what we post. We are talking about subscribers, not just any stranger who might go through that. Facebook talks about refocusing on more family use, which says a lot about the relevance of this platform to share your art. Add to that the saturation of content. Let's not even talk about Instagram which is completely corrupted with bots and fake accounts. That's also painful. Facebook aside, on other platforms there is always a small feature here and there that is not available to automate. So there's always a little something to do by hand. In short, there are hundreds of hours of work to take care of your communication on social networks to have the impression of screaming in a cushion. I don't see a sign of evolution, on the contrary, I see a decrease in interaction. In the end, it's no use. This time and energy, I would like to devote them to focusing on my comics and other creations instead of giving me headaches with social networks. My morale and creativity will be much better, not to mention my productivity. After all, today almost all of my audience is made up of people I have met IRL and with whom I can maintain private contact. So in the end, it's not a big loss for me. So I decided to move away from all this to refocus and devote my time to what I like to do: comics and games. It will make me more productive. My automated systems for publishing my news, illustrations and comic pages will continue to run on their own, but I will hardly ever set foot in them again myself. I will no longer maintain them. And the day when some change causes these automatons to stop working, well, it won't work anymore. And it won't matter. From now on, when I write programs, it will only be to add content to my website or to develop games. How do we contact you and follow your news then? To begin, I would like to remind you that there was an Internet before social networks and that people were able to contact eachother. Good news! This Internet still exists! :D To follow the news of my comics or games, there is always my website and its newsletter or my Discord server or even Tipeee and Patreon and my Ulule projects. My old blog is also still running. To contact me there is the contact form of my website and Discord too. Here is the list of addresses to remember: My website : suiseipark.com (Come on, the content loads faster than Facebook! 8D ) My newsletter : suiseipark.com/Newsletter/ My blog (French) : suiseipark.blogspot.com Tipeee (French) : fr.tipeee.com/suisei Patreon : patreon.com/suisei My youtube channel with my process videos or game demos : youtube.com/channel/UCa5PWLnqA3g6dzg29cr2LpQ My Twitch channel for when I'm in the mood to work live : twitch.tv/suiseikillfaeh If you read this news from my Facebook page, please note that a link to my website is available on the page. Now, with all these links, the one who can't contact me or follow my news is someone who doesn't want to. :p (You have the right, but don't say you're fans. Be honest. It's all I want. ;) ) About my artist friends, I will no longer share their work via Facebook, but directly on suiseipark.com. It is the opportunity to write more consistent articles about their work. :p In fact, all these trendy social networking platforms do not stand the test of time, because they change according to their success, impose more or less restrictive rules on you and finally grow and fade with the times. So I think that in the long term, you don't just have to be present on these things, you have to have a little corner of your own web that stands the test of time. At least a blog, at best your own website with your own domain name. There are lots of tools to help you if you don't master the technical aspect. If you are only present on trendy platforms, you are like an idiot if this one falls apart while if you have a website, there will always be someone to find you in the storm. Trendy platforms are a rough sea where it is difficult to navigate and find your way around, your website is your little rock to keep you safe. On this little metaphor I am going to make all these links to social networks disappear on my website, my pages and my business cards and I will take the time to look after my little home that is suiseipark.com. :p Have a nice day and see you soon! Suisei PS: I invite all friends to put their links to their websites, blogs and newsletters in the comments so that I can follow their work elsewhere than on social networks. And if you don't have one, create one! :p

P.S. If you want miss no news and if you haven't already done so, you can subscribe to the newsletter here : suiseipark.com/User/SubscribeNewsletter/language/english/

Source : https://www.suiseipark.com/News/Entry/id/243/language/english/

#social networks

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damnitaddie · 7 years

Text

Holla Jesu Christe

[TW: Suicide]

Standard mom stuff: If you’re thinking about suicide, please call 911 or go to the nearest emergency room.

So here we are again. I’m back staring at this screen. For a second there, I thought I had written my last entry.

This post is a couple of things, which I’ll get to assuredly. This post is going to be the realist shit that I’m likely to share to a public audience ever again. By the time I’ve hit post here, I’ll still be alive. Thankfully. But I’ll be metaphorically naked in front of all of you. I am baring it all. What it’s not… is a cry for help, a ploy for attention, or an invitation to post a reply such as “I’m always here if you want to talk.”

Does that seem rude? It’s not intended to be. I know it’s what you say when you want to say something but you don’t know what to say. I just want people to know that I’m not the type that typically reaches out in that kind of way. The people who I reach to already know who they are.

I am not posting this for my own good, but in the hope that it helps someone else pull the proverbial panic cord, pump their brakes, call a timeout, or whatever metaphor you find works best. For the people who don’t suffer from some sort of mental illness, maybe it brings better understanding.

Throughout the post, I’m going to reference things that I’ve taken away from the Biodyne model of suicide assessment and prevention. I shouldn’t have to disclaim this, but of course, I’m not a doctor, I’m not a mental health professional. I’m just a person who struggles with her own mental health and who also sees others around her struggle with their own. Beyond that, the people who are left in the wake of disaster, the warm blanket of oblivion ripped rudely off of them in the night. With that said, onward and upward, shall we?

Starting sometime during the week of June 12th, thoughts of suicide started to creep into the forefront of my brain. They’re never far away, always lurking somewhere in shadows, waiting for a chance to seize the day. Waiting for the chance to become the all consuming thing that you can’t avoid, until they succeed in making you another statistic, a hash tag, a sad story. Or you “pump the brakes” and slow down long enough to take a look around.

By the end of last weekend, it was more than a passing thought. It had taken up residence right in front of me. It was all I could see. I had entered what they refer to as Stage 1. This is not unfamiliar territory to me. I’ve been there a number of times, it normally passes pretty quick and I move along, sending a passing email to my therapist saying something like “Hey, this happened, I’m okay but I wanted you to know.” Then we could talk about it at my next session.

“Everyone has dark times — a story held in secret..”

Of course, this time, I didn’t do that. I didn’t send any emails. On the outside, I don’t think anyone could see the big black dog named depression that was following me around. Hell, I even went out and danced, something I don’t do, with random Lyft customers turned friends on Saturday night. I had fun. That’s the thing about depression. It’s not all sitting around, sulking and listening to Brand New and The Get Up Kids.

By Tuesday, I had swiftly exited the ideation phase and was actively planning the end of my own life. I started putting together certain documents, keys, passcodes, passwords, blank checks and other things that I knew people would need in the wake of it all. I started on my “note.” What it ended up being, near as makes no difference, was a 4100 word of drivel. A long, sad tale that ranged from my own failings to the perceived failings of others. At times a scathing, no-holds-barred airing of grievances that only one other person has read at this point. I intend to keep it that way.

Throughout my planning, I was even taking smaller details into consideration. Things that a stereotypical suicidal character on a Lifetime made for TV drama wouldn’t. I knew that more than anything, I didn’t want my kids to find me. I know that Grayson can sometimes be anywhere between 2-10 minutes faster than Megan to get inside my house. He doesn’t knock. Additionally, I didn’t want someone like the fire department to have to kick in a door. Someone would have to fix that later, right?

I even made a playlist. I’m not really sure who it was for. I think it was for me than anything. It started as 33 tracks and eventually I whittled it down to about 17. About the perfect length for a mix CD, 73 minutes. Of course, I didn’t have an optical drive in my laptop, and Spotify wasn’t going to let me burn it anyway.. but there it was.

This happened all throughout the course of Tuesday afternoon and Thursday morning. The only thing that really kept me out of the third and final phase was that I didn’t have a time frame for when this was all supposed to go down. I had a mental to-do list of the things I needed to accomplish before I could even get to scheduling the end of the end.

Tuesday evening, I went to dinner with Brian. We had wings and beer, as customary with the two of us.. I had been texting with a friend intermittently throughout the day, and as I understood, she was having a shitty afternoon. I invited her to come down and have a beer. She politely declined, as I expected. “Maybe next time,” I replied. It felt hollow, because I wasn’t expecting there to be a next time. A day late friend, I mused to myself.

My short term memory is so bad, I don’t remember what I did Wednesday morning. I know at some point, I went to Home Depot to pick up something I would need. Utility knife blades. Then I went next door to Tumbleweed and had lunch by myself. I ordered my usual burrito and a beer. I sat at the bar alone. Both in physical presence and mentally. The mix of even a really low dose of Klonopin, only a sixth of what my former psychiatry nurse practitioner had prescribed, and the beer apparently was a bad choice.

As soon as I got home, I passed out. When I awoke, later that evening, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to go back to sleep. Through out the night, I cried all the tears I had out as I worked on the playlists and the note.

Around 5am, the sun was rising and I felt satisfied with what I had written. I hadn’t eaten dinner the night before and had been living off Coca-Cola and loud music. I got dressed and went to Waffle House by myself. I sat in a dirty booth that no one bothered to wipe down after the previous guests had departed. As I sat in a dirty booth, eating my breakfast, I started beginning to have a moment of clarity. I paid for my half-eaten meal, got back in my car and pulled out onto Bardstown Rd, thinking about all that had happened in the last 36 or so hours. I considered certain contradictions in what I was planning. My jaw and head ached from clenching my teeth throughout the night, having foregone any additional Klonopin to ease the anxiety.

I pulled into the parking lot at Kroger, and went inside to buy some Ibuprofen. I couldn’t seem to locate the bottle at my house. Assuming either we had taken it all, or that it was sitting in a box somewhere in Rhode Island.

As I exited the store, I realized that I hadn’t bought anything to drink to actually take the ibuprofen with. Sitting in my car, with the engine idling and the transmission in park. I considered going back inside to buy a coke. I felt to numb, too out of sorts to even bother. I opened the bottle and took two pills, swallowing them dry.

Then instead of putting the car in drive and heading home, I pulled out my phone. I opened the app that I use to communicate with my doctor and I typed out the following message:

Ok,

I’m officially pulling the fire alarm. This dizziness, lightheadedness, vertigo thing that I’ve got going on is starting to get out of control.

More importantly, certainly more time critical, is that I’ve passed through stage 2 of the biodyne model of suicidal thoughts. I know there’s nothing worse than having a Graduate of the Google School of Medicine for a patient, but I found this page:

And by my own self-assessment I’m at the completion of stage 2, entering stage 3, but not quite in what they call the “Auto pilot” mode. I considered going to the emergency room, but I haven’t, because well it seemed a little scary.

I’ve backed away from the proverbial ledge, but I’ve been up all night and realized at about 6am that I’ve amassed more than just a note, it’s 4100 words.

I’m safe right now, but I’m going to reach out now, in the interest of full disclosure, for better or worse.

Call, text, write. Love y’all.

–Addison

Then I went home and went to sleep and waited from a call from them. I was in contact with them throughout the day, as they checked in on me and went over my medications. I should back up a bit and explain..

At the beginning of the month, I had visited because my fatigue was so bad that I couldn’t do anything productive. The doctor came up with a treatment plan, because she advised the combination of drugs he had prescribed had significant risks, including seizures. She tried to do it in such a way that the side effects of withdraw would be minimized, but still told me to stay close and let her know how it was going. Once I was tapered back to a safe dosage, we would reassess my treatment options. That appointment was/is scheduled for the first week of July. However, the side effects had continued to get worse, the more I tapered down on the medication that was being eliminating. Even yesterday, I was still feeling disconnected and kind of dizzy. Like things getting to my brain were being passed through a wah-wah pedal first.

Today is the first day in a long time, that I have a sense of clarity. I’ve got a touch of a headache, but at least I’m not clenching my jaw in an attempt to grind my teeth into a bloody pulp. It’s scary that I could have been a day too hasty in giving up.

The Edge… There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over.

Hunter S. Thompson - Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga

So there it is, my week. Why I’ve not been at work. Why I’ve been acting distant. Why I’ve been a bitch to a couple people, namely my mother. A lot of things. I quoted the verse “Let me tell you what I wish I’d known when I was young and dreamed of glory. You have no control. Who lives, who dies, who tells your story?” from the Hamilton musical. For today, I’m still at the helm, I still tell my own story. However, I came close to the edge.

I think I now know where the edge is, but as Hunter S. Thompson famously penned, “The Edge… There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over. The others the living-are those who pushed their control as far as they felt they could handle it, and then pulled back, or slowed down, or did whatever they had to when it came time to choose between Now and Later. But the edge is still out there.”

Holla Jesu Christe was originally published on TransVentures

#depression #suicide #transventures

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etraytin · 8 years

Text

Emergency Backup Fic of the Day

I am finally home from my protracted holiday travel (Since December 16, for those of you playing along at home), after ten hours in the car and a morning full of packing before that. I am still sick. I am completely and utterly exhausted and there is no fic in me today. Blargh.

Luckily, Past Etraytin, in all her wisdom, foresaw such a moment might occur sometime before the the end of the Fic A Day! Way back in October, I wrote an extra fic and saved it back against the day that something bad happened or writer’s block hit or I was just too damn tired. Now, with one day left in the 100-Day Fic-a-Day, I am pulling the cord and deploying the Emergency Fic.

Today’s fic is actually the start of a multipart story (the other reason I held off on posting it!) that focuses on the East Wing during the Santos Administration. How does Donna adjust to being Chief of Staff? More importantly, how does Helen Santos adjust to being First Lady? What has to get lost or adjusted along the way? Here’s Chapter One.

...

“Okay, so Annabeth will be coordinating with Lou in the Communications Office to come up with a joint strategy for publicizing the youth music initiative, but right now we've got feelers out to symphony orchestras in DC, New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles to expand their field trip programs with underserved youths and to promote instrumental music in schools.” Donna checked off that item on her list and glanced around at the other staffers in the East Wing sitting room. “I think that's all on the agenda right now. Has anybody got anything else?”

Sandy, the First Lady's personal secretary, opened her mouth to add something. She was preempted by Helen Santos herself, who'd been watching the entire meeting in near silence from her perch in one of the uncomfortable wingback chairs. “So what y'all are telling me,” Helen drawled, “is that my agenda this week consists of dinner with the prime minister of Belgium and his wife, six appearances for photo-ops at various school summer programs, a really horrible party in Chicago to help Matt talk up the budget bill, three dressy luncheons to do the same thing, and a visit to church on Sunday where we're the last ones in and the first ones out?”

“Miranda also has a dentist appointment on Tuesday,” Sandy said in a small voice, “and you're meeting with the historic preservation office on Friday morning to get an update on mold remediation efforts under the press room and the third floor bedroom rehab project.”

“Of course,” Helen said crisply, “I wouldn't want to forget any of that. Good job everybody, keep on truckin'!”

“Thank you, Mrs. Santos,” Donna said as all the staffers rose to their feet. Helen gave her a somewhat cool look, then swept out towards the living quarters. Donna frowned for just a second, then turned to her team. Besides Sandy, there was Otto, the gifted young speechwriter she'd shamelessly poached from Josh during transition, Miri, who'd been Donna's favorite assistant deputy chief of staff in the last administration, and Annabeth, who'd been offered Deputy Press Secretary but didn't want that side of the building anymore. Not exactly the most experienced team, but running the East Wing was a lot different than running the West Wing. They'd made it through the first six months in office with no major disasters, knock on wood.

“All right everybody, we've got plenty of work to do this week. Otto, get me drafts on the school speeches by the end of the day, then start working ahead for the Congressional Women's Dinner in two weeks,” she instructed crisply. “Annabeth, you're with Lou, Miri, you're harassing Sam and/or Congress till they give that extra ten million for music programs.” She thought a second. “Sandy, can you see about freeing up another two or three days for the Santos' trip to Houston next month? Even if the President can't come, maybe we can get the family a few extra days.” They all walked out of the sitting room together, heading back to the East Wing office block. Normally Donna held staff meetings in her office, which was more than big enough, but it got awkward trying to sit at her desk with the First Lady sitting in.

As everyone broke off to their various jobs, Annabeth followed Donna into her office and sat down neatly on the edge of her chair, looking like a pixie in squared-off glasses and a neatly pressed business suit. “Something's wrong with the First Lady,” she announced without preamble.

Donna took her own seat and began looking through a pile of folders. Her own assistant, Jacelyn, still had a long way to go in terms of mastering index cards and post-it notes. “It's allergies,” she agreed without looking up. “The White House doctor prescribed Claritin and silk flowers.”

“That's not what I meant,” Annabeth countered, “though my sinuses are already singing a tiny little hallelujah chorus about the flowers.” She side-eyed the large bouquet on Donna's side table, one of dozens in the East Wing at any given time. “I think she's about to start a prison riot.”

“Do what?” Donna looked up, furrowed her brow. “We're not going to any prisons, and we haven't got anything on our agenda.” Her eyes widened a little. “You don't think she's going to want to go after sufferage for felons again, do you?”

Annabeth rolled her eyes. “There was a time,” she told Donna, “long, long ago in the days when you got enough sleep, that you were able to understand figurative language.”

Donna glared at her without any real anger. “That's a lie. I've never gotten enough sleep.” She considered Annabeth's words a little harder, finally putting down the pile of folders. “You think she's feeling trapped in the White House,” she surmised. “And that's what the little thing in staff today was about.”

“I think she's ready to find herself a tin cup and start banging it against the windows,” Annabeth said dryly. “And I don't really blame her. She had a life back in Houston. She had friends and she was on the PTA, and she probably had a book club or one of those groups where they pretend to sew or knit and just drink wine and gossip all evening. What's she got now? This place is just a big ol' white cage for the First Family, and she hasn't even got days at school or the weight of the free world to distract her. Not everyone's built for the monklike lives of austerity that staff members around here seem to prefer. Present company excepted,” she added, tongue-in-cheek.

Donna flushed, her alabaster skin going pink all the way down her neck. “I wouldn't exactly call it monastic,” she said with great delicacy.

“You had a hickey last week,” Annabeth reminded her gleefully.

Donna gave Annabeth a slightly more pointed glare, but inwardly she was feeling rather pleased. Not just because of the hickey thing, which had been fun enough to make the embarrassment nearly worth it, but because Annabeth was joking about relationships again. Optics were Annabeth's stock in trade and she covered her emotions very well most of the time, but Donna had seen how undone she'd been after Leo's death. It hadn't taken too long to suss out why. At this point there was nothing to be said about whether a relationship would've been wise or appropriate, what did it even matter?

Annabeth was completely unwilling to talk about it, so all Donna had was her own speculation, but if she and Leo had been a thing, it couldn't have been for very long. That really didn't matter either, she supposed. She wondered, when she could bear to think about it, what she herself might have done if something had happened to Josh at the end of the campaign trail, back in late 1998. She'd have been devastated by the loss, of course, but not completely destroyed the way she would've been a few years later at Rosslyn, or any time after that. Today seemed like a good sign that maybe Annabeth was starting to bounce back. “Aren't we talking about the First Lady here?”

“She hasn't had many hickies lately,” Annabeth commented, raising a quelling hand at Donna's sputter. “What I mean to say, she doesn't seem very satisfied on any level lately, and that's not usual for her. And you know what they say, if Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy. If the President's not happy, the entire country suffers. We have an obligation.”

Donna massaged her temples delicately, suspecting she was about to have a headache. “I'm not sure there's anything we can do about the fact that her friends and her life are all back in Houston and this place is secured like a bunker most of the time. But at least she's got the trip coming up.”

“Which will probably make things worse,” Annabeth pointed out, swinging her legs idly off the edge of the desk. “She's just starting to get strung out now, craving her old life. Let her go to Houston and give her a quick hit of what she's missing, then send her back to the methadone clinic of blue-hair luncheons and boring fundraisers with professional brown-nosers, all she's going to be thinking about is what she doesn't have.”

“I think you rode that metaphor way out of the pasture there, but I see what you mean.” Donna replied dryly. “What do you suggest we do about it?”

“She needs friends here. People, ideally women, close to her own age, who she doesn't have to be so formal with all the time,” Annabeth said decisively.

Donna cocked her head. “Are you suggesting we set up a playdate for the First Lady?”

“If by playdate you mean 'you and I take her a bottle of wine and try to remember to call her Helen for a couple of hours,' it's not a bad place to start,” Annabeth offered. “I don't know about you, but I don't have any friends in DC who don't work here. And vetting anybody is going to be a serious hassle. At least if we can get her to open up a little, maybe we can find out some of what she'd like to do.”

“That could work,” Donna agreed, resting her chin on her fist thoughtfully. “The president is out of town Thursday night and the nanny's on duty. I'll ask her about it tomorrow and see if she's interested.”

“DAR's Thurday lunch,” Annabeth pointed out. “We might need a couple bottles.”

(This fic is also archived, along with any new chapters I may write, at AO3, same author name, under the title “Iron Bars A Cage.”

#the west wing #fanfiction #iron bars a cage #donna moss #helen santos #now i'm just gonna close my eyes for a little tiny minute

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theautisticsinger-blog · 6 years

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“You’re seeing SO MUCH!”

Ok, this will be a long one...

I recently came across a YouTuber called Molly Burke who has a lot of interesting things to say about being blind. Like me, she’s very open about her disability; she’s happy to talk about it, and doesn’t want it to be a big elephant in the room. As a person with multiple disabilities, I know that there are some things about being disabled that are common across a broad range of different disabilities – in particular, dealing with public attitudes and misconceptions, which I’ll probably talk more about in other posts – so I feel that I can relate to a lot of what she says.

One of her videos which I thought was especially interesting was one where she lists about ten things that amaze her about sight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aqm6zWmMI8

I feel I’d like to have a chat with her about some of those things, because she seems very curious about what normal sight is like, and I’m curious to know more about how blind people perceive and conceptualise the world. For example, as a sighted person, I perceive the world as a three-dimensional Euclidian space containing objects of various geometric shapes and sizes and positions within that space. I don’t know if blind people even understand the term “three-dimensional” in the same way I do. And I don’t know if it’s different depending on whether those people have always been blind.

With that in mind, I’d like to try to address some of the things Molly said in that video, and try to do it in a way that will make some sense to blind people. And I hope I don’t come across as patronising is the process, because it’s hard for me to know what will and won’t be obvious to someone who can’t see. I hope if you’re blind and you’re reading this it may help to answer some of your questions about sight if you’re curious.

So Molly talks about the sheer quantity of what sighted people see, and seems amazed that we don’t suffer from constant information overload. If I remember my facts correctly, in a normal sighted person, an entire quarter of the brain is dedicated to processing vision! So that’s a lot of processing power, which might go some way towards explaining it.

I can only talk about what sight is like from my own personal experience, and although on a physical level I would say that my eyes generally work very well, I do feel that I’m impaired in terms of how my brain processes vision. So for example, I can read very fine print, and I have a nice big field of view. I also have scotopic vision, which means I can see in the dark probably better than most people, but it also means I’m very sensitive to bright lights, so I have to wear sunglasses outside even on a dull day. I also have a form of Nystagmus which is probably too subtle for people to see when they look at me, but can make me feel like I’m wrestling with a pig when I’m trying to focus on something very small and contribute to eye strain when I’m reading.

So to start with – and this is probably true of most people – I will say that one of the ways the brain deals with the enormous amount of information it receives from the eyes is by filtration. It’s probably fair to say that at any given time, the brain just picks out the information it needs at the time, and most of the rest of the information is discarded. It’s a bit like if you’re having a conversation with someone in a noisy room or street, most of you can physically hear all of the sounds at once, but just pick out the sound of the other person’s voice and probably discard most of the rest. Similarly, if you’re listening to rock music, most people probably only notice the most prominent melody, and perhaps don’t even notice the Bass guitar most of the time, even though their ears are detecting it.

Also, our eyes don’t give us quite as much information all at once as you might think. One thing that’s true about normal sight – although most sighted people probably don’t even notice – is that while we can see things in great detail, we can only see that amount of detail in a very narrow area at the centre of our field of view. If I look at a printed page, I cannot see the letters in every word on that page at the same time. I can see the shapes of the letters in the words directly in the centre of my visual field very well, but areas of the page which are further away from that centre look increasingly fuzzy and unclear. For this reason, we have to constantly move our eyes to put whatever we want to see clearly into the centre of our field of view, and to most of us that becomes second-nature. I suppose this is a bit like the way a blind person can read Braille with the fingertip, but probably not with the knuckle or elbow.

All of that said, I personally can get overwhelmed with a kind of information overload if I’m in an unfamiliar place, or a place that’s very crowded with a lot of people or objects moving around. It doesn’t necessarily give me a headache; but it does make me feel that the information I’m getting from my eyes is a mess I can’t make sense of. I rely heavily on memory, to the point where I know almost as much about what’s behind me as as I know about what’s in front of me. In a familiar place, like my home, I already have a mental map of the objects around me, and the general layout of where those objects are, so when I look around me, I mostly only have to recognise and verify what I already know, rather than constructing a fresh map every time I look at something.

When I’m in an unfamiliar place, or looking at an unfamiliar object, or meeting a new person, I take significantly longer than most people to understand what I’m looking it. A good example is public toilets. When I go to a toilet I’ve never used before, I have to take maybe ten seconds or more having a good look round registering all the objects in the room, what they are and where they are, before I feel I’m properly seeing what’s in front of me. But next time I go there, I already know the layout, so I can recognise it very quickly. When I receive a new object I’ve ordered off the Internet, typically the first thing I will do after taking it out of its packaging is take a few minutes to study the shape of that object systematically so I know what it looks like in detail from every angle. I actually feel a bit awkward when I meet new people and I want to take a good long look at them just so I know what they look like, but I don’t want them to think I’m staring. The vast majority of the information my eyes give me essentially gets thrown away. I generally pick out what I need and ignore the rest.

Another thing Molly talks about which I think is very interesting is how far in to the distance sighted people can see. I’m not sure why blind people would find this surprising, but I’ll try to explain how it works anyway.

So eyesight is physically the detection of light which (usually) has bounced off an object and into the observer’s eye. The thing about light is that it generally travels in straight lines, it travels fast enough to go around the Earth about seven times a second (except it wouldn’t because that’s not a straight line), and there really is no limit to how far light can travel as long as there’s nothing in its path to stop it. Air is transparent, which means that light can travel through it almost completely unaffected. If you are stood on top of a mountain, you are typically surrounded by pretty much nothing except air for miles. There are objects very far away from you but there is nothing but air in between, so there’s no reason why the eyes of a sighted person can’t collect and detect some of the light bouncing off those objects.

The only thing about objects being further away is that they look smaller in our field of view because of the way angles work, so we can’t see as much detail in those objects as we could if they were closer. Conversely, because they take up less space in our field of view, we can see more of them at once. Eventually, there does come a point when an object is so far away that we can’t see it just because it looks too small at that distance for us to perceive the detail of it even being there, but the bigger an object is in the first place, the further away it has to be for that to happen; which is why we can see the Moon. The Moon is a ball of rock orbiting so far away from the Earth that it takes between one and two seconds for the light from the Moon to reach us, but we can still see it because it’s about a quarter of the size of the Earth to begin with. The Sun is four hundred times as far away as the Moon, but it’s also four hundred times as big, so it actually looks the same size. Not that anyone should be looking directly at the Sun with the naked eye; it’s very dangerous!

It takes a little over eight minutes for the light from the Sun to get to us. The Sun is the closest star to us because we’re in orbit around it; the next closest star is Proxima Centauri, which is so far away that it takes over four years for its light to get to us. So every other star is further away than that, but most sighted people can see plenty of stars in the sky. Most of them probably are so small at that distance that we wouldn’t be able to see them except they’re so bright that they’re visible as tiny faint white dots against a black background.

The main reason we sometimes need optical telescopes to see distant objects is to make those objects look bigger so we can see more detail – kind of like a magnifying glass for distant objects – and sometimes brighter by way of the large telescope lens collecting more light.

Glass, like air, usually is also transparent, so the light mostly goes straight through. That’s why we can see people is their cars or in their houses, because the windows are made of glass. Other transparent materials we encounter on a daily basis are water, and some plastics. We can’t see through most materials because light won’t go through them.

The way sight allows us to know so much about people as soon as we meet them is that we can see every part of every surface that’s facing generally towards us as long as there’s nothing in between, because the light then has a clear path from that surface to the observer’s eyes. If you’re blind, imagine how much you would be able to tell about someone if they allowed you to feel them all over. Ok, that probably sounds ruder than it’s meant; but the information we can get just from collecting the light bouncing off someone is a lot like that. Because light travels in straight lines, and because the eye can distinguish the directions that different light rays are coming from, the brain can deduce a geometric map of the shapes of the objects the light has bounced off.

This brings me neatly to the subject of depth perception. People with two functioning eyes are technically looking at the world from two slightly different locations at the same time. By knowing the direction of light bouncing off any one point on the surface of an object into each of the two eyes, the brain can work out how far away that point on that object must be, and deduce a map of the world with depth.

Colour is an interesting topic for me as well; I have good – but possibly slightly abnormal – colour-perception. Even most sighted people who haven’t done any serious visual art probably won’t know most of what I’m about to say.

Normal human colour perception is based on three primary colours: Red, Green, and Blue. (I encourage anyone who would like to tell me that the primary colours are really Red, Yellow, and Blue, to go and educate yourself on additive colour mixing.)

All of the colours that most people can perceive are actually just mixtures of these three in varying amounts. A mixture of red and green makes yellow. A mixture of red and blue makes purple. I would agree that many people seem to have a perplexing variety of names for different shades of the same colour. For example, a blue can be brighter or darker, depending simply on the intensity of the light. You can add some red and green to make the blue less saturated, but if there’s more blue than red and green we still register it as a blue. If you start to add, say, more red, the blue starts to become less blue and more purple. So yes, the shade of blue can be adjusted in a few different ways and make a lot of different shades of blue, which some people seem to have a lot of different names for. I can see the difference between the different shades of blue, but I couldn’t name them individually; I could say that one is brighter, or less saturated, or more purple than another; but to me they’re just blue. If someone says “navy” to me, I’m like “what the hell is navy?”; and they’re like “navy is blue”; and I’m like “well if you mean blue then say blue!”.

By the way, for anyone who envies the ability to see all these colours, I kind of feel you. Because a while ago I found out that a small percentage of women have a condition called Tetrachromacy, which means their eyes define a fourth primary colour, and consequently, they can have a much richer perception of colours than the rest of us. Learning about this made me very jealous. Partly because I’d love to be able to see the world in this extra chromatic detail, but also because I just wish I could even imagine what these extra colours would look like!

Beauty really is in the eye of the beholder. Flowers are typically more colourful in the ultraviolet part of the spectrum, which is invisible to humans anyway. But for any blind people who are wondering, I think most sighted people probably would agree that flowers usually look beautiful.

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lukolabrainrot · 26 days

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About the article I read it and yet they said at the very end that neither Nicola nor Jake has commented on the relationship. Weird way that they put that. Normally when publications reach out and ask the representatives of the actor they'll put it like this we reached out to the actors agency and they had no comment or something like that. So for me without comment from Nicola or Jake the article doesn't mean anything. It's based in assumptions. And written in assumption. All actors talk about how magazines and gossip sites are always wrong. Because they make assumptions and they never get clear understanding of things. so when I read an article, I looked to see if the actor has commented or the agency has commented. If no comment has been made then I take it with a grain of salt. Because then they're just basing their words on assumptions. I just have a very hard time believing that this is how Nicola would launch a new relationship. She's a smart woman. And if you remember correctly, she's not big with gossip like this. So why would she allow her hard launch to be through DM? Nicola is the type that wants to take control of over her decisions in her life. Would she really use a magazine or a gossip site to launch a new relationship? I don't think she would do that. I think that she would launch a relationship on her own platform in her own way.

Thank you Anon, and for all the people in the comments, for calming me down lol ❤️️

I'm better now 😂

#the public optics is giving me a headache lol #lukola gives me whiplash sometimes #but I'm sat

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dreier50hayden-blog · 7 years

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Home

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genevestokblog-blog · 8 years

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WOK and AOK

Emotion: What do human sciences tell us about emotions?

- Cognitive and biological approaches to psychology have often been used in understanding how we experience emotions, and how they affect our behavior. Different psychologists and studies tell us different things about emotions/feelings.

Primary VS. Secondary Emotions:

Primary emotions are the first emotions a person feel consequent to an event. These emotions are often then masked by secondary emotions. Secondary emotions are ones that are felt the most. They can also make it difficult to discover the deeper problem at hand. Robert Plutchik believed there were also tertiary emotions that augmented the first and secondary emotions.

Example 1: Cannon-Bard Theory of Emotion

Walter B. Cannon was an American Physiologist who coined the phrase "fight or flight" and the word homeostasis. "Fight or flight" refers to the response that animals and people have to a threatening situation. Homeostasis is the tendency of a system to remain in a stable state. If there is a change in the system, the system will somehow compensate to regain that homeostasis. Walter Cannon and Philip Bard worked together to develop the Cannon-Bard theory of emotion. They believed emotions come first and physical reactions come second. For example, a person sees a bear and is afraid. Then the person has the physiological changes of rapid heartbeat and breathing, sweating, and adrenaline that prepares a person for "fight or flight."

Bear (Event) => Fear (Emotion) => "Fight or Flight" response (physical)

Example 2: Ronald De Sousa

Ronald de Sousa is a philosopher who believes emotions are subject to the norms and perceptions of society and the individual. They are neither true nor false. Emotions define experiences and experiences define emotions. (Philosophy always gives me a headache). So in respect to the bear scenario, Sousa would say "I am scared of the bear so it must be dangerous," or "The bear is dangerous so I must be scared."

Mathematics: Can we reduce studies of human behavior to mathematical, statistical analysis?

- The use of mathematical models in the experimental analysis of behavior has increased over the years, and they offer several advantages. Mathematical models require theorists to be precise and unambiguous, often allowing comparisons of competing theories that sound similar when stated in words. Sometimes different mathematical models may make equally accurate predictions for a large body of data. In such cases, it is important to find and investigate situations for which the competing models make different predictions because, unless two models are actually mathematically equivalent, they are based on different assumptions about the psychological processes that underlie an observed behavior. Mathematical models developed in basic behavioral research have been used to predict and control behavior in applied settings, and they have guided research in other areas of psychology. A good mathematical model can provide a common framework for understanding what might otherwise appear to be diverse and unrelated behavioral phenomena. Because psychologists vary in their quantitative skills and in their tolerance for mathematical equations, it is important for those who develop mathematical models of behavior to find ways (such as verbal analogies, pictorial representations, or concrete examples) to communicate the key premises of their models to nonspecialists.

For some behavior analysts who began their careers when mathematical modeling was not so commonplace in this field, or for those who do not use mathematical models in their own work, this trend may be disconcerting. For some, the sight of an equation or two in a JEAB article may be reason enough for them to skip over the article and move on to the next. They may feel that an article with mathematical equations is beyond their comprehension, or worse, irrelevant to their interests. After all, isn't the experimental analysis of behavior supposed to be about behavior, not about mathematical equations and symbols?

Failures of communication between those who do and those who do not use mathematical models in their work are not unique to psychology.

Example: James Clerk Maxwell

As the science of physics became increasingly quantitative in the mid-nineteenth century, some very competent scientists felt as if they were being left behind. During the course of a very productive career, the British physicist Michael Faraday conducted some fifteen thousand experiments on electromagnetic fields, and yet he could not comprehend the beautiful equations of field theory that James Clerk Maxwell derived from Faraday's own research. Faraday asked Maxwell if he could use verbal descriptions or other means to make his equations comprehensible to a nonmathematician, and Maxwell made a sincere effort to do so. According to Timothy Ferris (1988):

“Maxwell obligingly rendered some of his explanations of field theory into the mechanical cogwheels and sprocket formulations that Faraday could understand, but it was when stripped to bare equations that his theory flew. With fuguelike balance and power, Maxwell's equations demonstrated that electricity and magnetism are aspects of a single force, electromagnetism, and that light itself is a variety of this force. Thus were united what had been the separate studies of electricity, magnetism, and optics.”

Natural Sciences: How do the human sciences differ from the natural sciences?

- What is the difference between natural sciences and human sciences? First of all, what are the definitions for these two areas of knowledge?Natural science focuses on the study of the nature and involves experiments and theories. Chemistry, physics, biology are examples of some of the study areas of natural science. They are very logic, and are usually supported with evidence and reason. Experiments can be done in either at small or large scale. They could be simple lab experiments at school to a chemical synthesis in an industry.On the other hand, human science is more about the behavior, and is more abstract. Psychology, economics, and anthropology are some examples. Compared with natural sciences, this involves more thought and emotion. Unlike natural science, there is no correct answer, so it is difficult to do an experiment. However, conclusions can be drawn out from testing a large number of people and looking at what the majority has shown.

The Arts: How does knowledge about humans differ in the human sciences from the knowledge gained about humans in art or literature?

- Let us first be clear about what scientific knowledge is. Scientific knowledge is testable knowledge: it is factual knowledge of our world that we can talk about. Scientific knowledge is also empirical: it can be measured through observation and experiment. This could be something as simple as knowing the answer to questions such as: ‘How many sandwiches did you eat today?’ or ‘Has the temperature changed over the last 100 years?’ Given the current trend for combining art and science you would be forgiven for thinking that knowledge from art and knowledge from science held an equal footing. However, it is important to remember that while science has strict guidelines for transferring knowledge, art has none.Art does not just affect us, it informs us. Like all information, we can use art to build a rich picture of the world beyond which we interact everyday. One way art does this is by giving us a kind of conceptual knowledge: knowledge about our own concepts. Conceptual knowledge can include our own feelings or mental states, such as having empathy for others. Art then, cannot only inform us of our own mind but also give us a feeling of ‘what it is like’ to be someone else. Art can be a way of walking in someone else’s shoes.Art can also give us moral knowledge. Art can play a role in informing our opinions of what is right, wrong, justified and unjustified. When standing in front of Ai Weiwei’s work for example, we might develop a different sense of knowing about corruption and human rights than simply reading a newspaper about these issues. However, we may view art with strong pre-conceptions of our own morality already made, and artworks might just reinforce our moral knowledge. Still, it is likely that art can play a role in transferring some information about morality, which cements our moral knowledge.

History: Should human scientists know about the history of their subjects?

- Personally, I believe that human scientists should know about the history of their subjects. This is because they will be performing experiments on humans and animals and just other things in general, and they will need to know the history of what works together and what does not. If they do not know the history of their subject, they will not know how an element came into existence/was found, they will not know what elements mixed together cause an explosion, psychologists won’t know anything about how NOT to cause PTSD in people, how not to stress people, ect...

Ethics: What are the moral responsibilities of human scientists?

- To begin with, deception is not allowed unless it is vital to the study. The participants must leave the study unharmed mentally and physically, and must be aware of the fact that they may leave the experiment at any point in time if they begin to feel unsafe or uncomfortable. The participants must be ensured that the results will not be released to the public eye unless the participants sign a waver that the results can be released, which will only happen if the study is valid, and has results that will most likely help the human race evolve into a better set of species.

Religion: In what ways might beliefs influence human scientists?

- If we think about it, religion has a very specific set of believes. This may result in them applying these beliefs into their study. This will then tweak the results as religion will be influencing the study itself, how the study is conducted. For example, someone may believe doing an experiment in a certain way is against god [s], or their religion, and may conduct the experiment differently which will give them different results than if it had been done without religion affecting it.

Language: How might the language used in polls influence conclusions?

Perception: How far do expectations influence observations?

Reason: Is there logic of scientific discovery?

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