jedibuttercup

These are the fifth and sixth of my Five Things answers, for beatrice_otter and emony2 respectively.

It's been years since I watched more than scattershot episodes of TNG, so I hope these work! (Also, a TMI moment here: I may have scarred myself for life Googling the phrase "Data smiled" for canon references for this entry. I didn't know Geordi/Data slash even existed!)

Five Things Deanna Troi Pretends She Can't Sense

1) No matter how careful humans are to minimize their tells, they can't suppress the flare of emotion that occurs when they draw a new card or evaluate the state of their hand. There's no such thing as a poker face when playing poker with an empath. She'd be doing a poor job as a counselor and a friend if she let it affect her play, however, so she pretends not to notice.

2) Ever since she grew old enough to recognize the feel of sexual interest in another being's mind, she's grown used to it intruding on a significant portion of her interactions with men, and some women as well. It's a natural biological reaction; she shunts it aside and continues as though it had not happened. Otherwise, she'd have difficulty looking the rest of the command staff in the eye every time she changes uniform styles.

3) For months after Beverly's brief relationship with the Trill ambassador, Odan, the doctor has trouble keeping her eyes off of Commander Riker. Deanna considers bringing it up more than once, out of both professional and personal concerns, but ultimately decides she isn't the best person to do so. She doesn't want Beverly to think she's at all jealous, because she isn't. Jealous, that is. She and Will had both agreed that they are completely free to see other people, after all!

4) Ever since his stint as a powerless human aboard the Enterprise, Q's emotions have been slightly transparent to Deanna. She keeps silent about this, however, as she doubts very much that the Captain wants to know what the entity is really feeling every time he shows up to annoy his favorite representative of the species.

and... 5) Her mother. Whenever she can get away with it.

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Five Times Data Smiled

1) The first time Data's lips ever curved upward of their own accord was at the behest of the being known as Q. It would be many years before Data experienced another genuine emotion; though he did not understand Q's motives for temporarily gifting him with laughter, he backed up that particular moment even more redundantly than usual in his positronic memory.

2) Data's attempt at a dating program, activated when Ensign Jenna D'Sora kissed him unexpectedly, suggested that smiling more frequently at the object of his simulated affections was an expected response when in a romantic relationship. It proved no more effective at retaining her romantic interest than any of the other alterations the program made to his usual behavior.

3) Similar interaction programs suggested smiling at one's pet-- without showing teeth-- was a means of signalling approval of its behavior. However, none of his facial manipulations at Spot ever produced as much response as did a dish filled with feline supplement 74.

4) Over the years, Data accumulated a considerable volume of experiences suggesting that attempting to model his own behavior after others often produced mirth in those around him. Clearly, he was doing something improperly, though he knew of no other means of learning how to behave in a more human fashion. Still, on occasion, he launched into yet another experiment with something akin to anticipation; as he spread his mouth wide and attempted jovial "small talk" modelled after Commander Hutchinson at the officer's reception, he noted considerable improvement in the moods of several of his colleagues and judged the event a success, regardless of whether or not it brought him personally any closer to his goal.

and... 5) "Life forms... tiny little life forms..."
~