#connorank

[iwonderwh0]

So I'm doing hostile play-through, and you know, I think this scene hits different when it has a context of Hank shooting Connor the night before.

Hank says about how Connor saved human lives here, including Hank's own to which Connor just gives him a dead stare and then leaves without saying a word. Hank took Connor's life the night before, and yet here he is, alive today thanks to him.

I like to think it's a face of involuntary guilt and regret or at least self-reflection.

Within this context this short interaction just gets so gut wrenching it makes me feel physically sick. And I think it makes this scene so much better than it is in any other context.

[pls-explodingstars-pls]

I’m not a Hank+Connor expert but I know there are there are a few other tags the DBH community uses for them

#platoniconk

#connorank

I’m not sure how well know these are but I figured I should share these as well

#platoniconk is just that, a platonic interpretation of hank and connor's relationship. It's neutral, not romantic or familial, much like what we see in game.

#connorank is another term that can be used to describe one of the in game relationships we see. Unlike the platonic tag, connorank is used for negative feelings the two can have. This can be as enemies or just being a bit hostile to each other.

It’s really cool we have all these different tags for the many interpretations of these guys! I hope all these tags become more popular in the fandom.

[incomprehensible-phasmid]

Just a short angsty, introspective fic about Hank going to the rooftop (to kick Connor's ass)! That I was meaning to write for like 2 years, but it's here now! 😅

[iwonderwh0]

It'd be a completely different media and wouldn't work for a multiple-choice game, but both Hank and Connor would be in such a completely different light if it was Hank-POV narrative.

You as a viewer would also think Connor is fucking annoying and you'd feel like breaking his nose the first time he brings up complaining about you to your superior. Like wow what a fucking capitalist dystopian police state is that where a fucking robot threatens you. And if he spills your drink? You fucking paid for it, and now it threatens that you'll have to pay for him too if you damage it? "Androids are there to serve humans" your ass, as far as you can see it's humans who are serving androids and CyberLife. Regular humans who pay for android's existence with their jobs, taxes and loved ones who prefer androids to them. CyberLife is holding the whole country hostage by their fucking things, and you even heard that some of their robots go crazy and recently one of them took a literal hostage? A kid?? The FUCK, how does things like that even happen?

You wish Cyberlife would be at least held accountable, but well, you lived too long to believe that they ever will. You know it from your own personal experience. Even if CL was made to pay some financial compensations, how can it be ever enough to "compensate" for the loss of someone who is fucking dead now, and what does a fine do to a multibillion dollar corporation? No one gets punished, nothing is done to prevent it in the future. For CyberLife nothing is changed, but for the people they harmed — nothing will ever be the same again.

You get assigned to android cases, as if you give a shit. As if anyone at all gives a shit. As if investigating any of this shit matters, as if it'll lead to some changes or get someone punished for letting it happen. Now you're forced to look at countless examples of this corporation fucking people over without repercussions. You don't even care to open those reports, they just make you feel too angry and hopeless. If after all those examples of harm they can induce androids are still allowed to be produced and owned what's the fucking point of looking into those cases? What is it you're supposed to do about them anyway, lay an egg?

Okay, fuck, you were dragged into looking at them despite your will, and now you are kind of confused what to make of it. You know those fuckers are made to look human, they are even made to laugh and joke to win your sympathy. But still, those androids you see don't really give you an impression of being broken, instead they look...

Maybe that's a stupid idea. And yet it won't leave you alone. It makes you angry because you genuinely don't know if you're just being a gullible fool or you're onto something.

The android that was assigned to you acts like your typical office Joe, the kind of people who even before the invention of androids gave off the impression of not being quite human. The kind that speaks like they've read way too many positive thinking books about success. The kind that describes themselves as "goal oriented" in a casual conversation and suggests colleagues to have a pointless team-building meetings.

You hate those guys even in their human form, so when you first expressed to that plastic Joe a desire to throw a bunch of them in a dumpster you're not entirely sure whether you're talking about just androids or this specific type as a whole.

While all the deviants you see appear to be really human that just happened to be in a bad place at the wrong time and make you feel doubts, the plastic Joe makes you feel fooled again whenever you look at it. Sometimes it does something that fills you with doubts, but then it goes back to rambling on about its task. It gets on your nerves, you wish you could just get a solid evidence of whether or not this thing feels something. You get real drunk and try to provoke it, to see if it'll react to a threat of death like other deviants you saw. It doesn't give you an explicit answer to your dilemma. You're left with your doubts on your own. Maybe this plastic Joe doesn't realise he's anything more than what he claims, or maybe he's perfectly aware and is just fucking with you. Maybe you just imagined a bunch of nonsense. Maybe that plastic Joe isn't like those other feeling androids you saw, and unlike them he's indeed exactly what he claims to be.

He gets killed right in front of your eyes. You can't help but feel bad -- after all, he still looks like a human and you feel like you "knew him" as a person in your life. Granted, one of the most annoying ones you ever met, but to even the most annoying Joes out there you don't actually wish death, even if sometimes you say you do.

You don't get to feel sad for long -- the next day the plastic Joe walks right back as if nothing happened, and ACTS as if nothing happened. It makes your blood boil and your eyes feel hot. It simultaneously makes you feel like a naive fool for ever bothering about it at all and like tearing it up with your own hands again so you wouldn't have to be next to it. Because you know you can't help but feel like it's a living person purely for how human-like it looks and acts, even when you know it's not.

Also it makes you think of how utterly unfair it is that something soulless can be brought back and keep "living" after a fatal accident as if nothing happened while so many actual and much more deserving people can't nor were ever given a chance. Nor ever will be.

It makes you even angrier to see how indifferent it acts to the fact of its own death, while you, a fool, felt like shit about it all this time and STILL feel like shit about it now. If you used to find yourself occasionally liking him before, whatever warm feeling you had are gone now that he's back after something that should have been a final stop. You can't stand looking at it, you wish to get as far away from it as possible, and yet you cannot stand the idea of it seeing it getting "killed" if front of your eyes again because you know that your human gut will twist all the same. But the way he acts, completely deprived of self-preservation instinct, as if at part intentionally trying to torture you, It just makes you hate him more. You try to grab him and stop him from what can potentially end in his destruction whenever you can. Not so much for his sake as for the peace of mind of your own.

The androids are marching on the streets chanting about being alive. They hijack a tv station and send their demands. If Connor didn't give you enough proofs to convince you, this finally does.

The question remains of whether all androids are just as the one you're stuck with. You spend the most time with it so, unintentionally, you project everything it does on all the rest of them. And if the only thing it reminds you of is this terrible nauseating injustice of the world that depresses you so much you already felt like disappearing from existence before you ever met and impunity of all those in power, maybe it's time for you to pull the plug already because there's nothing you want to see or stick around for anymore and only everything you hate that is left. And it will only ever gonna get worse, and you're too tired and helpless to do anything about it. And even if you weren't, perhaps it's just not worth it.

[iwonderwh0]

You know what would be cool? If in case Hank shot Connor in the bridge chapter, Connor could bring this up later after shooting Chloe.

"You shot that girl for fuck's sake"

"It wasn't a girl, Lieutenant. It was a machine that looked like a girl."

"You put your gun against her head and you blew her fucking brains out!"

"Exactly like you did. You didn't spare me, Lieutenant, so why should I? I did what I had to do to advance the investigation, but you didn't even need a reason. You just wanted to see me dead."

[iwonderwh0]

Yes, Yes

EXACTLY

Tags are so nice when they're working for what they're intended, I can't stop repeating it. It creates space for appreciation of specific things for people who like them while also makes them avoidable for others who don't.

And it's so nice to have agreed upon tags for specific things, I'm still so glad to see greyed out posts that tell me that "you'd hate it so it's hidden", like it's so nice to have this feature working when people are specific with their tags

Also

Maybe it's wrong place for promoting this tag, but I use "#connorank" for hostile/unfriendly interpretation of Hank&Connor. There are not many people who'd find this tag useful, but anyways. Just another thing, another tag, that (in my opinion) is nice to know that it exists. There was no such tag before, as far as I know, but now there is.

Question for the Platoniconk tag, does this include familial as well, or just friends? I draw purely platonic/father-son Connor and Hank, but I want to make sure I use the right tag if so. (Friendship is cool too, I love y'all.) EDIT: Found my answer! "Platoniconk" is for friendship only. Looks like "Anderfam" is the go to for father/son!

[iwonderwh0]

[iwonderwh0]

In a hostile play-through, it's kinda surprising how Connor doesn't snap at Hank the moment he's got an opportunity and instead avoids confrontation up until he's left with absolutely no other choice. It's often talked about how he's so wicked for using Hank's son as a manipulation tactic to make him leave, but it's rarely noted how he can spare the man in a couple of different ways in this really scene despite all the shit Hank potentially put him through previously. From his side it really was just him trying his best to do what he was made to do, believing it is necessary "to save humanity", all while threatened, physically attacked and verbally belittled by the really human he's trying to keep alive, sometimes actively, sometimes in expense of his own lives or mission.

Seriously, Connor have a whole list of reasons to hate the shit out of him, it would appear as if the opportunity to FINALLY hurt him back would be something he'd be only glad to go for. And yet he doesn't, not until there's no other way out to handle it otherwise, and even then he hesitates.

[iwonderwh0]

I had this snippet in my notes for a really long time. I hoped maybe I'll figure how to write more things around it, but ultimately today I decided to set it free and post it. It's part of my multibodied au that I post about sometimes under "single mind multiple bodies" tag

----------------------------

Hank never liked androids, although he wouldn't be able to answer for sure, whether it was really the androids he disliked or rather what they represented.

A multibillion-dollar corporation, disguised as a pretty face, a fake promise, but so appealing and convenient it was easy to grow dependant, get too used to the level of the never-ending entertainment and patience to tolerate another human, suddenly too imperfect to complete with a dopamine trap of a CyberLife substitute. That's what it was, a substitute, but most of all — it was an attempt to steal human connection. Steal and sell it back for profit. A precious resource that should have only been shared with other people but was now wasted for nothing. A toy, not even an animal like a pet.

At some point, Hank wasn’t even sure if it was really the androids that were getting progressively "more human" or people who were rapidly becoming less so. It was entirely possible, he thought, that the change was proportional, as if humans strived to assimilate themselves among the new crowd of soulless imposters.

The thought of it never failed to make Hank angry, sick. It made him sick to his stomach to think about an entire generation that was doomed to become the lonliest history has ever seen, denied a chance to fully experience probably the only thing actually worth living for.

And they won't even know it.

Hell

Hating androids instead of those who brought them was no more productive than being angry at the rock for being thrown. Still. Hank couldn't help but feel the surge of hatred every time he saw them. Irrationality, he wanted to see them destroyed, to be the one to destroy them personally, as if the damage could in any way be translated back to CyberLife.

He hated Connor. Despite agreeing to take the job by his own decision, he couldn't help it. He thought he knew enough about what he was going to be dealing with to be prepared to ignore all the attempts at fooling him. It wouldn't work, not on him. He wouldn't let it make him forget about what it was. Or rather, what it wasn't. That's what he told himself. That's what he kept repeating.

But working with Connor kept challenging him in ways he didn't expect.

Most of all, it made him suddenly aware that he had absolutely no idea what androids actually were because whatever he had imagined them to be, Connor was not.

Just as Hank imagined androids would, it tried to be nice to him, talking to him with that bubbly attitude that Hank so hated, the one he had learned to associate with a phony act. That much was true. The thing was, Connor stopped acting this way fairly quickly and switched instead to finding new ways to get on Hank's nerves. To annoy him. Provoke a reaction.

He caught him smoking once, and as Hank palmed his own coat, searching for his pack, he realized that the android must have pickpocketed him at some point. He didn't even notice when or how.

"Aren't you afraid of getting some cyber-cancer?" Hank asked him, approaching.

Connor eyed him, unimpressed.

"I've already got you," he said.

Hank snorted, surprised.

"Was that funny?"

"Yes," Hank shook his head. "That was a good one."

"Oh, sorry. I meant it as an insult." Connor said in a voice that might as well have said 'I think there was a misunderstanding'.

Hank laughed again, and for a moment, he almost found himself liking Connor.

It surprised Hank at first, before he got too used to it to care. On another thought, he pondered, it might still have been a part of the android's programming. If Connor couldn't provoke positive emotions, he would still try to provoke some.

Another thing that rubbed Hank the wrong way about Connor was his ability to fake emotions, specifically, the unconventional choice of them. They were not what Hank expected an android to imitate. But then again, he had never owned one to know if it was common or not. Connor pretended to be annoyed when Hank didn't want to follow his suggestions and frustrated when he was unable to get an expected outcome, be it a task of his own or an attempt to provoke a reaction. He would get angry at Hank for doing something wrong -- even if it was just incorrectly pronounced word -- but devastated and anxious when he did something wrong himself.

It went against Hank's conviction that androids were agreeable and indulgent, not to mention flawless. But, if he thought about it, Connor wasn't a companion android. His intended function wasn't to appeal to anyone, especially not to Hank, but instead to pass as human and accomplish specific tasks by any means necessary. Which, Hank realised, happened to include emotional manipulation.

This makes it worse.

Hank was stupid enough to fall for it. He shouldn't repeat his mistakes.

God, did he hate androids.

Surely, the damn thing couldn't feel anything.

There still was a doubt. It was lumping in Hank's throat when he saw the android checking itself in their shared bathroom mirror, spending a wasteful amount of time doing so, a weird kind of worry written on its face.

Maybe he's doing something else in the process

It pried at him at the sight of an android stopping at the mall to take a closer look at the fish inside the hall aquarium.

This could be his attempt to evoke your sympathy.

It was pulsing in his head at the memory of the android leaning into his own tight embrace of his other body in an action no androids should be doing on their own. There was no reason for him to do that. And yet he still did.

Surely, Hank could further hypothesize about being the intended audience in a well-planned performance, but unlike other sound explanations, this one made no sense at all. There was nothing to gain from it, or at least, Hank couldn't think of any potential use for it.

Could he just want to do it? Not for anyone but for himself.

Could he be alive?

The thought scared him. Not so much because of the possibility of it being correct, but because the implications of what this fact would mean in a wider sense.

If Connor is alive, are other androids too?

Could they all be?

Have they always been?

It would, however, be a lie to say that the thought wasn't unnerving in its own. Although talking to an android, it was easy to forget that Hank was talking to, essentially, answerphone, he had never once before fully considered, that he might be actually judged — not just by an algorithm trying to decide which ad to feed him next time he goes online, but by something that could actually see him, think about him, form an opinion about him, be in any way affected by his words.

There was always this sense of permissiveness in talking to an android. It was a crime with no witnesses to recognise it as such.

And then, suddenly, there was one.

[iwonderwh0]

Man, I love fictional scenario in which Connor and Hank's roles shift in such a way that Hank is getting really vividly aware of being "only a human" standing against something that is really clearly not.

Canonically he's this "You don't fucking scare me, Connor." which honestly is probably one of the biggest reasons to love Hank as a character, like this is a bold as fuck statement given the circumstances. But at the same time it just makes me wonder. What would it take for him to be, in fact, scared? What is it Connor would have to say or do in order for Hank to feel a spark of genuine fear or anxiety within him?

If you have ideas, please let me know, I've been thinking about it for literal weeks.

[iwonderwh0]

You know, in a scenario where Hank slapped Connor for chasing Rupert, Connor's later decision to slap Hank with unnecessary force when he was passed out drunk may have been personally motivated. Secret revenge under convenient circumstances. Plausible deniability makes it hard to link two events directly to come to some accusations. But, you know, what if?

[iwonderwh0]

This is a reminder that if you like Connor&Hank within purely platonic, neutral interpretation of their relationships that are neither familial nor romantic, there's a tag for that seemingly non-existent territory

#platoniconk

And if you like them as enemies or just in a hostile key, there's also

#connorank

If you, like me, would love it if those interpretations were more visible and searchable, I invite you to use those tags as well to help create that space of appreciation, free of both the ship and father/son posts. Those interpretations understandably aren't everyone's cup of tea while at the same time appear to be absolutely unavoidable and sometimes appear as if you must pick one or it is automatically another as if you can't really pick neither, which IS NOT TRUE! Neutral ground exists, we're just bad at making it visible.

[iwonderwh0]

Idk, I just kinda like the angst in a universe where Connor ends up becoming deviant but he and Hank absolutely hate each other in the meantime

Like, when Hank constantly calls Connor a fucking machine that doesn't feel anything but fakes, all while Connor develops really genuine and strong feelings of hatred towards him, Kamski, and humans overall.

Then turning to deviant side and being personally accepted and validated by Markus who...is sympathetic towards humans.

Like in a situation where both Hank and Connor end up respecting and even willing to die for what Markus's stands for but in the meantime are completely hostile towards each other.

[iwonderwh0]

"Body is just a transport, temporary housing."

"So you're a tenant, then. Who owns it?"

"CyberLife, of course."

"Of course...What if one of those days CyberLife decides to evict you from your 'temporary housing'?"

"Why would they do that?"

"Say, you disappoint them," Hank picked up a big apple pear from a bowl and inspected it closely for any impurities, "Prove yourself as a complete waste of time and resources that fails to reach set goals to justify its costs."

The fruit was flawless, Hank decided and took a bite. It was just as he expected it to be – crunchy and full of juice, but completely tasteless.

"Well," Connor started, a momentary frown crossed his face before it bounced back to its usual expression,"I don't have to worry about that — those bodies are single-use. I can be erased from them before they expire, sure, but that would just be a waste. They're useless without me! Not even good for organs. And besides, in that case," his eyes narrowed, "you'd lose your job too."

Hank nodded, "I can live with that."

Androids watched him silently as he took another bite of a tasteless fruit. "You know, I think you're right," he said, chewing. "It's not like a corporation like CyberLife would ever trow away anything of value. I mean, clearly, not before using it to its fullest potential. Who would do that? "

Hank looked at his apple pear, only two bites taken from it — the first, and the last. He eyed Connor and threw the fruit into the waste disposal.

"It didn't taste good," he explained and grinned, as the android kept his silence.

[iwonderwh0]

I like the idea of Hank discovering about Amanda not as something new and unexpected, but rather the missing piece of information the existence of which he kinda deducted himself from all the evidence in Connor's behaviour that is really evident of there being someone to cause it to be the way it is. At first Hank just takes a note of some weird reactions like excessive defensiveness when questioned about something that Connor himself for some reason assumes to be worthy of feeling guilty about and over-explain himself even when it's something neutral, in fact, like getting distracted from something "more important". Same with completely "unmotivated" attempts to hide something, him stopping himself from talking when he has, in fact, a lot to say assuming ahead of the time that he won't be listened as it's not important enough if it isn't directly affecting some of his actions towards their current "main objective". Taking blame for things outside of his control as well as getting frustrated about them on some really personal level as if genuinely believing that he's somehow responsible and Hank must be angry and disappointed with him for those things happening. Unprompted "confession-sessions" and on the contrary lie about things that don't really make much sense to lie about.

Basically all the evidence of behaviour of someone who was in really toxic relationships with huge power imbalance. Something that although ended still followed him into the way he perceives all the relationships he's a part of and his role in them. Even when it's completely different he still holds some kind of expectations from what was learned before.

So, Hank gradually builds up his suspicions about there being someone important in Connor's life before instead of just abstract idea of CyberLife, and when he finally learns that, yes indeed, he's internally like "I knew it. I fucking knew it."

[iwonderwh0]

Machine Connor in denial and hostile Hank, but instead of believing Connor to be just a machine he acknowledges him as a person who is however severely indoctrinated by a hateful ideology whose leaders will dispose of him the moment he fulfils his designed purpose and is no longer useful. Hank's resentment for him, therefore, is coming not from a fact of Connor being an android anymore (something he cannot change), but from the fact that Connor is stubbornly clinging to this belief system (something he won't change) and acts all defensive in his desire to shift the attention to Hank's "personal issues" whenever he tries to confront him about it instead of acknowledging that actually he himself has his own. And that he, himself, responds to the act of Hank pointing at them with outbursts of aggression, annoyance and sarcasm.