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kedreeva · 6 months ago

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#we spoke of this a LOT at work after that one tech was murdered and hidden in a wall

hi!👋 hello! kedreeva! i’m going to need to ask you to explain this!!!!

So back in 2009, a lab student named Annie Le was murdered at Yale university. Cameras saw her going on into a building, but not out again and it was like, the eve of her wedding (or close to? I don't remember) so clearly she had places to be and people waiting for her so they immediately started looking and the next day (or so? Anyway on the day of her wedding) they found her body in a recess in a wall, down in the areas where the research animals were kept. It turns out, a tech had killed her, but since there were cameras like EVERYWHERE, he just, I guess, left her there. Well, hid the body where it was. I don't remember how they caught him, but they did. It was a horrifying story. It still is.

And it was a huge news story among the folks at my workplace because, at the time, I was working at a different university, as an animal husbandry technician. As you can imagine this was a kind of intense time to be in that situation. They started offering, like, I'm not gonna say counseling but it was "if you need to talk we would prefer you talk to us about something wrong rather than kill anyone about it" and as techs (even if we were not even the same kind of tech, the killer was a lab tech and we were husbandry techs but I think a lot of people assumed it had been a husbandry tech since she was in an animal area), we were kind of getting the side eye from lab people for weeks afterwards. Like they thought we were gonna go "wow that's a fantastic idea, you're next!" or something, idk. And I mean like, people would freeze when you were alone in a hallway, or turn and walk the other way, or duck into the nearest room and watch you walk past, and they were all being super nice/civil to us when they did have to interact. It was very atypical behavior for lab people. Like not all of them, some of them had always been nice and weren't worried, but some of the people who had been unbelievable dicks previously were walking on eggshells. And the people who had friends in other universities reported this was happening at their jobs, too.

And instead of talking to The Man (because all the higher ups were garbage at the time), we just. talked among ourselves. It was a lot of "I may say I feel like strangling lab people sometimes when they do things that drive me up a wall but I don't MEAN it you know that right" and it also led to group discussions of what would be a theoretical *better* solution to hiding a body than what happened, with clear disdain for doing things like hiding bodies in walls, which is a terrible idea and one we would never do (looking at the people who think we might have decided this was a great idea actually).

Which consequently led to a lot of supervisors and/or managers that happened to overhear us bringing us donuts or arranging pizza for lunch in like, some kind of bid to help us feel appreciated, I guess, so that we wouldn't murder anyone, even though none of us were going to do that anyway. But also none of us were in a position to turn down free donuts or pizza or whatever.

And then after a few weeks, maybe a month or so, people just kind of forgot and moved on and things went back to normal like fifty people hadn't spent every lunch hour for weeks talking quietly among themselves about how human bodies would definitely fit into a carcass disposal barrel or that you'd have to crush hip bones and/or skulls before incineration. Hypothetically.

Like I said, it was a VERY weird time to be at my job, and every time I remember it happening feels like a fever dream. I can't even imagine what it was like at Yale.

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bowelfly · 6 months ago

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Is it difficult to become an entemologist? Do you know if any other fields of work with insects that may not require like? A whole degree in it

Just asking for curiosity sake since… bugs are a special interest of mine ahaha

It really depends! There are a lot of possible careers within the entomology field, which have wildly different duties, education requirements, and so on. I think when a lot of people think of entomologists, they think specifically of insect taxonomists, the people who do the work of describing and identifying insect species, and often teasing out the phylogenetic relationships between them. These are usually the people working as curators for museums and large institutional collections. But there are also insect ecologists, medical entomologists, integrated pest management entomologists, forensic entomologists, etc.

The above all generally require advanced degrees, but many of them also need lab or field technicians, which generally don't. Field positions are usually seasonal but I know a lot of people who've been doing seasonal insect collecting work for various agencies for many years and are happy with that life. Entomology museums are pretty much always in need of workers to do the grunt work of sorting, labeling, etc, but they're also in my experience usually short on funds so a lot of people get their foot in the door through volunteering until a paid position opens up.

IDK if any of the at was helpful but it's about as good as I can offer. You might also check my entomolgy tag on this and my more bug-focused blog since I've answered similar questions in the past on both.

#entomology

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metamatar · 1 year ago

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After the first nuclear test at Los Alamos

Many of the scientists and technicians who understood the destructive potential of the atomic bomb felt that the U.S. should first conduct a peaceful demonstration to warn the Japanese of the consequences of refusing to surrender. Szilard and several other Met Lab scientists had collaborated on the Franck Report, issued in June of 1945, which called for a demonstration. However, the Franck Report was rejected by the scientists who served on the Interim Committee’s Scientific Panel – J. Robert Oppenheimer, Enrico Fermi, Ernest Lawrence, and Arthur Compton – who wrote, “We see no acceptable alternative to direct military use.”

[...] Szilard toned down his rhetoric over the course of several different drafts of the petition. Between 65 and 150 people signed the various different drafts that he proposed at the Chicago Met Lab and Oak Ridge project site [...]

The petition fared better at Oak Ridge than at Los Alamos. Another Hungarian-American physicist, Edward Teller, brought the petition to that site with the intent to gain signatures there too. However, at the advice of J. Robert Oppenheimer, he ultimately decided not to do so. “Oppenheimer talked me out of it, saying that we as scientists have no business to meddle in political pressure of that kind. We know too little about that. I am ashamed to say that he managed to talk me out of the right intention,”

From the Nuclear Museum

#oppenheimer

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writingquestionsanswered · 2 years ago

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do u have any sort of website that can tell me jobs in a small town? trying to write a story set in a small town but i cant come up with any ideas for jobs apart from the essential ones like police or hospital

Jobs in a Small Town

Government: mayor, city manager, city council member, city attorney, city clerk, code enforcement officer, customer service representative, finance director, fire chief/firefighter, paramedic, human resources manager, information technology department, librarian, municipal court clerk/administrator/judicial specialist/court security officer, parks and recreation director, planning and zoning director, police chief/officer or sheriff/deputy, public works director, utilities clerk, wastewater plant operator

Business: business owner/operator or employee (such as a clerk, receptionist, manager, or administrator) at a shop, restaurant, cafe, gas station, mechanic, tow truck, locksmith, landscaper/lawn care, handyman, florist, funeral home, pool cleaner, daycare center, grocery store, feed and pet store, car dealership, clothing boutique, ice cream parlor, liquor store, bar, nightclub, community theater, "big box store" (like Walmart), warehouse store (like Costco), movie theater, mini-golf course

Medical Services: hospital (administration, doctor, surgeon, nurse practitioner, nurse, nurse's aide, respiratory therapist, anesthesiologist, orderly, receptionist, lab worker, security, etc.) Doctor's office or urgent care (administration, doctor, nurse, nurse practitioner, receptionist, etc.) Dentist or orthodontist (administration, dentist/orthodontist, dental assistant, orthodontic assistant, receptionist, etc.) Nursing home/assisted living facility (administration, doctor, nurse, orderly, etc.)

Random: country club employee, dog walker, babysitter/nanny, home nurse, museum director/curator/specialist/employee, town archaeologist (if area is rich in history), industrial jobs (mining, factories/manufacturing, farming/crop production, fishing/fisheries), wedding coordinator, convention center director, attorney, judge, taxi driver, utility repair technician, railway worker, bus driver, school jobs (principal, teacher, teacher's aide, librarian, cafeteria worker, counselor, security officer, custodian), airport jobs (administrative, security, service provider/employee, airline worker, pilot, flight attendant, plane mechanic)

That's all I've got at the moment, but keep an eye on the comments in case others come up with ideas! :)

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mostlysignssomeportents · 5 months ago

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The reverse-centaur apocalypse is upon us

I'm coming to DEFCON! On Aug 9, I'm emceeing the EFF POKER TOURNAMENT (noon at the Horseshoe Poker Room), and appearing on the BRICKED AND ABANDONED panel (5PM, LVCC - L1 - HW1–11–01). On Aug 10, I'm giving a keynote called "DISENSHITTIFY OR DIE! How hackers can seize the means of computation and build a new, good internet that is hardened against our asshole bosses' insatiable horniness for enshittification" (noon, LVCC - L1 - HW1–11–01).

In thinking about the relationship between tech and labor, one of the most useful conceptual frameworks is "centaurs" vs "reverse-centaurs":

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/17/revenge-of-the-chickenized-reverse-centaurs/

A centaur is someone whose work is supercharged by automation: you are a human head atop the tireless body of a machine that lets you get more done than you could ever do on your own.

A reverse-centaur is someone who is harnessed to the machine, reduced to a mere peripheral for a cruelly tireless robotic overlord that directs you to do the work that it can't, at a robotic pace, until your body and mind are smashed.

Bosses love being centaurs. While workplace monitoring is as old as Taylorism – the "scientific management" of the previous century that saw labcoated frauds dictating the fine movements of working people in a kabuki of "efficiency" – the lockdowns saw an explosion of bossware, the digital tools that let bosses monitor employees to a degree and at a scale that far outstrips the capacity of any unassisted human being.

Armed with bossware, your boss becomes a centaur, able to monitor you down to your keystrokes, the movements of your eyes, even the ambient sound around you. It was this technology that transformed "work from home" into "live at work." But bossware doesn't just let your boss spy on you – it lets your boss control you. \

It turns you into a reverse-centaur.

"Data At Work" is a research project from Cracked Labs that dives deep into the use of surveillance and control technology in a variety of workplaces – including workers' own cars and homes:

https://crackedlabs.org/en/data-work

It consists of a series of papers that take deep dives into different vendors' bossware products, exploring how they are advertised, how they are used, and (crucially) how they make workers feel. There are also sections on how these interact with EU labor laws (the project is underwritten by the Austrian Arbeiterkammer), with the occasional aside about how weak US labor laws are.

The latest report in the series comes from Wolfie Christl, digging into Microsoft's "Dynamics 365," a suite of mobile apps designed to exert control over "field workers" – repair technicians, security guards, cleaners, and home help for ill, elderly and disabled people:

https://crackedlabs.org/dl/CrackedLabs_Christl_MobileWork.pdf

It's…not good. Microsoft advises its customers to use its products to track workers' location every "60 to 300 seconds." Workers are given tasks broken down into subtasks, each with its own expected time to completion. Workers are expected to use the app every time they arrive at a site, begin or complete a task or subtask, or start or end a break.

For bosses, all of this turns into a dashboard that shows how each worker is performing from instant to instant, whether they are meeting time targets, and whether they are spending more time on a task than the client's billing rate will pay for. Each work order has a clock showing elapsed seconds since it was issued.

For workers, the system generates new schedules with new work orders all day long, refreshing your work schedule as frequently as twice per hour. Bosses can flag workers as available for jobs that fall outside their territories and/or working hours, and the system will assign workers to jobs that require them to work in their off hours and travel long distances to do so.

Each task and subtask has a target time based on "AI" predictions. These are classic examples of Goodhart's Law: "any metric eventually becomes a target." The average time that workers take becomes the maximum time that a worker is allowed to take. Some jobs are easy, and can be completed in less time than assigned. When this happens, the average time to do a job shrinks, and the time allotted for normal (or difficult) jobs contracts.

Bosses get stack-ranks of workers showing which workers closed the most tickets, worked the fastest, spent the least time idle between jobs, and, of course, whether the client gave them five stars. Workers know it, creating an impossible bind: to do the job well, in a friendly fashion, the worker has to take time to talk with the client, understand their needs, and do the job. Anything less will generate unfavorable reports from clients. But doing this will blow through time quotas, which produces bad reports from the bossware. Heads you lose, tails the boss wins.

Predictably, Microsoft has shoveled "AI" into every corner of this product. Bosses don't just get charts showing them which workers are "underperforming" – they also get summaries of all the narrative aspects of the workers' reports (e.g. "My client was in severe pain so I took extra time to make her comfortable before leaving"), filled with the usual hallucinations and other botshit.

No boss could exert this kind of fine-grained, soul-destroying control over any workforce, much less a workforce that is out in the field all day, without Microsoft's automation tools. Armed with Dynamics 365, a boss becomes a true centaur, capable of superhuman feats of labor abuse.

And when workers are subjected to Dynamics 365, they become true reverse-centaurs, driven by "digital whips" to work at a pace that outstrips the long-term capacity of their minds and bodies to bear it. The enthnographic parts of the report veer between chilling and heartbreaking.

Microsoft strenuously objects to this characterization, insisting that their tool (which they advise bosses to use to check on workers' location every 60-300 seconds) is not a "surveillance" tool, it's a "coordination" tool. They say that all the AI in the tool is "Responsible AI," which is doubtless a great comfort to workers.

In Microsoft's (mild) defense, they are not unique. Other reports in the series show how retail workers and hotel housekeepers are subjected to "despot on demand" services provided by Oracle:

https://crackedlabs.org/en/data-work/publications/retail-hospitality

Call centers, are even worse. After all, most of this stuff started with call centers:

https://crackedlabs.org/en/data-work/publications/callcenter

I've written about Arise, a predatory "work from home" company that targets Black women to pay the company to work for it (they also have to pay if they quit!). Of course, they can be fired at will:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/29/impunity-corrodes/#arise-ye-prisoners

There's also a report about Celonis, a giant German company no one has ever heard of, which gathers a truly nightmarish quantity of information about white-collar workers' activities, subjecting them to AI phrenology to judge their "emotional quality" as well as other metrics:

https://crackedlabs.org/en/data-work/publications/processmining-algomanage

As Celonis shows, this stuff is coming for all of us. I've dubbed this process "the shitty technology adoption curve": the terrible things we do to prisoners, asylum seekers and people in mental institutions today gets repackaged tomorrow for students, parolees, Uber drivers and blue-collar workers. Then it works its way up the privilege gradient, until we're all being turned into reverse-centaurs under the "digital whip" of a centaur boss:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/11/25/the-peoples-amazon/#clippys-revenge

In mediating between asshole bosses and the workers they destroy, these bossware technologies do more than automate: they also insulate. Thanks to bossware, your boss doesn't have to look you in the eye (or come within range of your fists) to check in on you every 60 seconds and tell you that you've taken 11 seconds too long on a task. I recently learned a useful term for this: an "accountability sink," as described by Dan Davies in his new book, The Unaccountability Machine, which is high on my (very long) list of books to read:

https://profilebooks.com/work/the-unaccountability-machine/

Support me this summer on the Clarion Write-A-Thon and help raise money for the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/02/despotism-on-demand/#virtual-whips

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

#pluralistic #bossware #surveillance #microsoft #gig work #reverse centaurs #labor #Wolfie Christl #cracked labs #data at work #AlgorithmWatch #Arbeiterkammer #austria #call centers #retail #dystopianism #torment nexus #shitty technology adoption curve

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ivfcourses · 1 year ago

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#infertility courses #embryology courses #iui training courses #hysteroscopy course #lab management for lab technician

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heyitsme1040 · 1 year ago

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When It's All Too Much [l.l]

summary : Loki’s been gone for a month to Asgard, and his return home gets delayed. You miss your boyfriend, and it is during the extinction of his mission that everything becomes too much. All your pent up emotions from the last month come bursting out. You’re surprised that Loki is there to comfort you as you’re crying. He helps you feel better from your emotional turmoil.

pairings : Loki Laufeyson x Reader

warnings : One use of y/n, crying (if I missed anything let me know!)

word count : 1,030

AO3 (x)

a/n : Day ten of Comfortember is here! The prompt was ‘sadness’.

Today was one of those mornings where everything seemed to go wrong. You’d missed your alarm, broke your favorite mug, and misplaced your phone. Not having the time to look for it, you rushed out of your apartment and to the meeting room Steve was debriefing everyone in. You slipped in the door just as Steve was assigning everyone missions for the week. While you worked with Tony in his labs, you were also the Avengers’ go-to lab technician for mission equipment. You needed to know where they were going to make sure the correct equipment would be sent with them.

“Y/n, we need you to modify Redwing’s stealth frequency,” Steve informs you.

“Of course, Cap,” you nod, “I can have that done in fifteen minutes.”

The meeting continues, and you write down the two other modifications the team needs on its equipment. You’re quick to enter your lab and get everything adjusted. You manage to adjust the frequency of Redwing’s stealth mode, adjust the plates of Bucky’s arm, and finally begin working the adjustments to the comms systems. Most of the team had already left for their missions when you finish adjusting the comms for their next missions. It’s quiet when you begin the walk to your apartment, and you feel yourself relax at the thought of Loki arriving home tonight.

You are surprised that the apartment is still empty as you enter. You turn the lights on as you walk through. Changing out of your work clothes, you trip over your phone next to the bed. You sigh, picking it up, having forgotten you couldn’t find it this morning. You quickly scroll through all your notifications. Replying to the most important emails, you pause seeing a message from Thor. Tapping the text, you feel your mood drop a little more reading that Loki’s business on Asgard is going to take an extra two days to finish.

You trudge your way out of your room, wishing he’d be home already. He’d already been gone a month, and you missed him. There wasn’t any way you could talk to him when he was back on Asgard, but you were grateful Thor was able to give you updates when Loki was gone. Having nothing left to look forward to for a few days, you head back to your lab feeling glum. You knew you were close to finishing your most recent invention, you just needed to figure out the final calculations to make it work.

The repeated failed attempts at a solution did nothing but sour your mood further as the hours passed. You were tired of everything going wrong recently. Everything was becoming too much and you couldn’t fight the tears welling in your eyes. You knew you wouldn’t be able to keep everything inside for much longer. Quickly you rushed to your room, hoping that you’d manage to get there before the tears fell.

Slamming the door behind you, you didn’t even register that the lights in the living room were turned on unlike how they were when you left. You leaned against the door, slinking down as the tears began to pour out. Your chest aches at the lonely feeling you’d had ever since Loki left and your brain focused on all your recent failures at the job you were supposed to be good at. Vision blurred by tears and head pounding at the intensity of your crying, you don’t register the dark figure that was coming toward you. It isn’t until you feel arms around you and smell Loki’s familiar linen and mint scent that you realize he’s home.

His presence is like a balm to your sadness, taking away the sharpest pangs of sorrow. He holds you tightly, stroking your hair while rocking the two of you. You cling to him tightly, grateful he’s here to hold you.

“I’m so sorry darling,” Loki says into your skin. “Everything’s okay, I’m here now. Let it all out.”

You cry harder knowing he’s got you. The feelings you tried so hard to keep at bay rise to the surface as you register he’s home.

“You’re supposed to be gone for another day,” you force out between sobs.

“I finished my diplomatic duties faster than I expected,” Loki calmly explains. “I didn’t want to be without you another day, darling.”

“I’m glad you’re home.”

“I’m elated to be home, darling. I just wish you’d had a better time in my absence.”

You shrug, knowing it was out of both your control. There had been a lot of small issues building up on top of you missing him. Everything was better whenever he was home. You slowly managed to calm down your cries, matching your breathing with his steady breaths. You pulled away from where your face was buried in his chest to look up at him. Loki’s hand cupped your cheek as his thumb swiped away your fallen tears.

“Hi my love,” Loki softly kissed you. “I’m sorry you were without me for so long. Do you wish to tell me what happened to make you so sad?”

“It’s dumb,” you mumble.

“Nonsense, whatever it is that made you feel that way is anything but dumb.”

You sigh letting the bitter emotions escape you, “It wasn’t one thing. It was a lot of minor things, and I missed you, so I guess I just let it all stay pent up for too long. I’m sorry this is what you came home to,” you sheepishly admit.

“Darling, I love coming home to you. No matter the state you are in, I am never anything less than happy to see you.”

You nod, convinced by his tone alone. You watch as he stands, offering his hand to you. Taking it, you allow him to pull you to your feet. He wraps his arms around you once again, embracing you properly.

“Thank you for helping me,” you kiss his neck, unable to reach his face.

“Thank you for allowing me to help,” Loki kisses your lips. “Now then, let’s lay down. I want to hear everything about the past month I’ve missed here.”

You smile, grateful he knows exactly how to take care of you.

Author’s Note : Reblogs are appreciated, likes are welcome, and if you want to read more of my fics then maybe follow.

©heyitsme1040 If you find this post on any platform under a username different than heyitsme1040 it is not their work.

#fanfiction #fanfiction writer #fanfic blog #marvel fanfiction #comfortember 2023 #comfortember #marvel #comfort fic #loki x reader #loki fluff #loki fanfic #loki #loki x you #loki x y/n #loki laufesyon x reader #loki laufeyson

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whatcha-thinkin · 6 months ago

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#polls #poll #daily polls #i love polls #polladay #space travel #science fiction #scifi #spaceship #spaceship crew #star trek

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max1461 · 9 months ago

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I've talked before about how scientific knowledge assumes a robust body of everyday knowledge. When you do a scientific measurement, you need to trust that your instrument is giving you the right reading instead of an error, for instance. You probably don't know the ins and outs of how the instrument works yourself—you're trusting technicians to be able to do their job and make the instrument work. They may use a mixture of formal knowledge and informal knowledge to do this. You hear all kinds of stories of technicians saying things like "this machine's a little finicky, if it doesn't give a reading just give it a couple of whacks" or whatever all the time.

You use everyday, "common sense" reasoning of various sorts to determine if your instruments work and if your technicians are trustworthy and capable and so on. You can bolster this knowledge in other ways—for instance, if another research group on the opposite side of the world gets the same result as you, that's some evidence that your readings weren't a technical error. But trusting this research group requires all sorts of other informal knowledge, which you get through e.g. your professional network as a scientist and so on, about whether they're working in a reputable lab and whether the journal they published in is reputable and so on and so forth.

I'm not saying that this makes scientific knowledge untrustworthy. Far from it, I think scientists' ability to manage these epistemic hurdles is generally quite good, although certainly not flawless. They're an occupational hazard of being a human and trying to collaborate with other humans to figure stuff out about the world, there's no way you can get around it. But I do think it means that if you want to consider yourself, you know... epistemically virtuous, a good skeptic, you need a working model of how everyday knowledge is and should be obtained, an epistemic theory applicable to "folk knowledge" not obtained through the scientific process. Not only because you use folk knowledge all the time in your everyday life and should probably be thoughtful about whether it's bullshit or not, but also because the scientific process itself relies on it in a straightforward way.

Anyway, I can't do a rigorous scientific study to figure out... how I should respond to my friend when they're down, or how to throw them a good birthday party, or whatever. And I would be dubious of any psychology study which claims to answer these questions in a general sense. But that doesn't mean that I don't know how to do these things for my friend! My specific, "folk psychological" understanding of who my friend is as an individual, what they care about, how they respond to things, these are more reliable guides than the psychological literature would be on this issue! That viewpoint is not "anti-science". The alternative view is so patently ridiculous that basically no one hews to it, not even scientists.

On second thought I'm sure there are like, some podcast guys who believe it...

#navel gazing #triv this is not about your psych/antipsych posting this is about a much dumber discourse

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waytooinvested · 4 months ago

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Forgotten, Not Forgiven - Chapter 26

This and previous chapters are also on AO3

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lena was perhaps unreasonably proud of the small cup of lime jello she had managed to get her hands on, and bore it back to Kara with the air of a conquering hero bringing home the holy grail.

In her defence, it had been a mission to find. At L-Corp all she would have to do would be to buzz the request through to Jess, and within 15 minutes she would have had half a dozen different brands and flavours on her desk to choose from, but here at the DEO she had to do it the hard way. It turned out that surprisingly few of the very serious field agents, scientists and tech geniuses that worked at this particular top secret government organisation brought jello to work with them for lunch, and even fewer still had it untouched at 2.30pm. In fact, this applied to exactly one person in the entire building, as far as Lena had been able to ascertain: Ms Ewa Jagoda, alien toxicology specialist, jello enthusiast, and Lena’s official new favourite DEO lab technician.

She had intended to present the jello with a dramatised retelling of her misadventurous quest, both to keep up her own distraction and to make Kara laugh, but in the time she had been gone it seemed visiting hour had opened up. On one side of the bed J’onn was talking to Kara with a paternal expression that mingled stern and concerned in equal measure, while beside him Kelly gently combed the last traces of dried blood and street dust from her hair. Across from them Nia and Brainy were good naturedly bickering over the ideal placement and wording for a leg cast signature, passing a marker back and forth between them without stopping their debate long enough to actually write anything down. It was such a familiar scene, all of them talking over each other and cracking jokes, that it took a moment for Lena to work out what was wrong with it. Then it hit her: Nia, Brainy, J’onn, Kelly, Kara, but no Alex.

She was here, in the room, but rather than being gathered in by the bedside she was standing off to one side, leaning up against the wall with Kara’s chart in her hand. She had washed the tear tracks from her face at some point since they’d talked, but it did nothing to disguise the lingering redness around her eyes or the ragged scabbiness of a lower lip chewed to the point of bleeding one too many times. She was ostensibly making medical notes, but the fact that her gaze remained fixed on one point and she never actually put pen to paper suggested otherwise. Alex was clearly not okay.

Lena glanced briefly over at Kara, the part of her heart that always tugged in that direction urging her to move towards the bedside, to claim a place beside her, take hold of her hand and never let it go. Today of all days with her fear and shock still roiling just below the surface the instinct was difficult to ignore, but Lena managed to hold back. Kara was in the midst of a game of tic tac toe with Kelly on her otherwise still unsigned cast, and seemed happy with the company of her friends. She didn’t need Lena right now, and after a second or two more of silent internal wrestling, she made her way over to the elder Danvers sister instead.

‘Hey. All okay?’ she murmured, keeping her voice low enough not to draw anyone else’s attention to the question.

‘Huh?’

Alex stopped tapping the end of her pen against her teeth and looked at Lena distractedly, blinking slowly back from whatever thoughts had been absorbing her.

‘Oh, yeah, it’s all fine. She’s doing as well as we could reasonably hope for at this stage without you-know-whats, and there’s no internal damage to speak of. She should make a full recovery.’

‘That’s great news, but I actually meant you… no offence Alex, but you look awful.’

Alex snorted.

‘Thanks a lot Luthor. Do you actually know what no offence means?’

For once Lena hadn’t actually been trying to be provoking, but Alex had clearly taken the comment as part of their usual banter and huffed back at her, giving her a little poke in the ribs with the chewed end of her pen as if the comment had been a dire insult. Lena briefly considered apologising, but it was good to see the vague, distant expression transformed into Alex’s comfortably familiar trademark Luthor v. Danvers snark-battle scowl.

If she had been talking to Kara, or Jess, or even Sam, Lena probably would have gentled her approach at this point even so. She was concerned for her friend, and wanted to take care of her as best she could in their current circumstances. But she suspected that despite her protestations Alex, like Lena herself, would not want to be coddled right now. Breaking down in a roomful of people (even people you loved) was humiliating, and there was nothing that could bring down walls so effectively as someone being sweet to you when you were trying to be strong. So Lena wasn’t sweet. She folded her arms and met Alex’s glower with an unyielding look of her own.

‘Well, I’m not wrong.’

Alex narrowed her eyes, preparing to argue, but then apparently decided she didn't have the energy for it. She hugged the chart to her chest like it might somehow shield her, and let the scowl drop.

‘Yeah.’

‘Do you want to talk about it?’

‘There’s nothing to talk about, really. It just- it feels different this time, you know? I’ve been here so many times before it should just feel like another day at the office, but it never does, and somehow this one’s worse than usual. For all the… incidents… we’ve had, they’re almost always in the midst of world ending fights where a certain amount damage is expected, and most times the injured party is back to normal within a few hours. But this- it’s not meant to be like this. I know we’ll find a way to fix it eventually, but what if-’

Alex broke off, unable to say more with the risk of being overheard so acute, but Lena didn’t need to hear the rest of the sentence to know what came next. Alex was scared that Kara would hurt herself again before they found a cure to return her invulnerability, and that next time this happened she wouldn’t be so lucky. Lena was scared of that too.

‘I know.’

They stood together in silent solidarity for a few moments, then Alex nudged her again.

‘I was going to return the compliment and point out in great detail all the ways you look awful, but you actually don’t. You look… weirdly unruffled. Like, unnaturally so. And as much as that makes me want to rough you up a little to even things out, I’m guessing this is just that thing you do, and at some point it’s going to break and become a full on freak out?’

Lena could have denied it, insisted that she really was totally fine: another day, another near death experience for herself or a loved one; but at some point in their re-aquaintenceship and without her noticing it happening, things had shifted so far with Alex that bluffing would have been pointless. She knew her too well for that now. Besides, after their afternoon of breaking things together there was an element of camaraderie to their shared turmoil, and Lena found she didn’t even want to lie about it. So she shrugged.

‘That’s the plan, yes. It’s on my to do list for when I leave here, actually.’

‘On your- y’know, if anyone but you or Brainy said that I’d assume they were speaking figuratively, but-’

Lena pulled out her phone and navigated quickly into her personal calendar, smirking as she held it out to show Alex the 15 minute block labelled ‘Feel Things’ she had entered for this evening. It wasn’t serious, obviously. She might be a Luthor, but even she couldn’t plan her emotional breakdowns quite so precisely. It was more like a promise to herself, and a reminder that while she needed to keep a handle on herself right now, maybe putting everything into a box and never looking at it again wasn’t how she wanted to deal with things anymore, and at some point that meant she was going to have to feel it (later though. Much later. And alone). It had also been a whim that she had only indulged in order to kill a few extra seconds while she waited for the elevator to carry her and her newly acquired jello back to this level, and one she probably would have deleted in embarrassment given another hour or so. Now though, as Alex choked on her laughter at the sight of it, she was glad she hadn’t.

‘You actually did. Jeez Luthor, the inside of your brain must be really-’

‘Lena, hey!’

Up until now they had been conversing barely above a whisper, but at the bright peel of Alex’s laughter Kara had looked up from her game and at last realised Lena was back in the room. Her bruised face lit up with a lob-sided, swollen lipped grin that could equally have been for Lena or the vibrantly green dessert she was holding. It was painfully endearing, and like a moth to a flame Lena took an automatic step towards it, then paused and turned back to Alex.

‘Hey… if you want to get drunk about this later, I have a $2000 dollar bottle of scotch with our names on it. Just say the word.’

Alex blinked at her – she was usually the one to reach out to make plans, while Lena was the one being coaxed into them, it had never happened this way round before. She smiled, a quieter version of Kara’s surround sound beam, and a little of her weariness seemed to fall away.

‘Yeah, okay... I’ll text you.’

‘Do.’

Then Lena gave in to Kara’s magnetic pull and made her way swiftly to the bedside, jello cup held out in front of her like an offering.

‘I can’t believe you actually found this for me! I realised after you were gone that the pain meds were maybe making me a bit loopy and there was no way you could actually get jello without trekking a mile out to the nearest grocery store. But you did! You are officially the best.’

Kara balanced the pot on the edge of her cast, freeing her good hand long enough to give Lena’s a grateful squeeze, their fingers curling together so naturally that the idea of letting go seemed impossible. But then Brainy held out the spoon that he had apparently (inexplicably, since no one had told him Lena was off looking for jello) thought to bring with him into the room, and the moment passed.

It would have been ridiculous to feel a little pang of loss as Kara withdrew her warm fingers from hers, so Lena didn’t. She looked round at everyone else and used her empty hand to wave at them all instead, as if that was why it had been held out in the first place.

‘Hi.’

J’onn and Brainy responded with smiles, nods and murmured greetings, and Kelly pulled Lena into a quick hug. She was just relaxing into it when Nia followed up her friendly ‘hey’ with ‘aren’t you meant to be out of town until tomorrow though? Did you cancel your big press thing?’ and Lena stiffened.

As one everyone in the room turned to look at her, Kelly’s arm going slack around her tense shoulders and Kara freezing with a heaped spoonful of jello quivering just outside her open mouth. The question was clearly well intentioned, but Lena still wished Nia hadn’t asked it. It made it hard to keep ignoring the twisting in her insides that was determinedly trying to remind her just what a big deal this might have been for L-Corp.

‘I didn’t cancel. They didn’t need me for the product demo anyway, and I had someone step in to give my speech. It’s all taken care of... But if anyone asks, I’m currently recovering from an emergency appendectomy.’

She forced a chuckle, trying to break the tension and make it a joke, but it fell flat, and Kara dropped her over-laden spoon back into its pot with a soft, dismayed splat.

‘You told them you had appendicitis? I’m so sorry you had to do that for me when I’m not even badly hurt, and it was all my own stupid fault. I feel awful.’

‘Oh no, Kara, this one was all me.’ Alex finally abandoned her post by the wall to reassure her sister, stepping in to stand beside Brainy and casting guilty glances between Kara (bruised and now slightly jello spattered but very much alive and more or less well) and Lena (still dressed in her presentation outfit and probably wearing a fixed grimace of discomfort from all the attention, though apparently not enough of one to divert it).

‘Lena, I’m the one that asked you to come back without thinking about what else you were in the middle of. I’m sorry for putting you in a difficult position when we didn’t even know how bad it was yet.’

Lena frowned. ‘If you hadn’t told me I would be plotting where to bury your murdered body right now, as I’m sure you would me if our positions had been reversed. It was my choice to drop everything and I’m glad I did, so please, don’t worry about it.’

She meant what she said, but it didn’t diminish the unease that still writhed in her belly at the reminder of just how abruptly she had abandoned the press conference. She wondered how Jess had gotten on without her, and whether Raj and Amanda had managed the product demo as smoothly as they had in previous events. Had there been questions they couldn’t answer? Had anyone pressed the issue of Lena’s sudden non-attendance? She hadn’t talked to many people ahead of the event, but enough of the staff had seen her looking not at all like someone about to collapse with a ruptured appendix that it was possible her story was going to be interrogated.

Still, there was nothing she could do about any of that right now. She needed to focus on Kara for the moment, and when she got home later she would start on damage control. She’d call Jess to check she was alright after being thrown to the metaphorical wolves. She’d make sure her bonus was processed right away, and maybe order a muffin basket or something as an extra thank you. Then she would go through the conference footage and draft something for the press to smooth over anything that needed smoothing. Whatever had happened, Lena could deal with it. And even if the whole thing had been the worst PR disaster imaginable, she was still glad she had made the decision she had. If Kara had been more badly hurt, if she had died without her while Lena was off talking to the press, she would never have been able to forgive herself.

She did her best to focus back in on the conversation the others were having, which had thankfully moved on from Lena to the best flavour of jello (black cherry, or else anything with a bit of zing to balance out the sweetness. Strawberry was also acceptable, but Brainy’s assertion that it was berry blue was preposterous, and frankly objectionable), and what exactly it was about it that made it so satisfying to eat (the jiggles, obviously).

After twenty minutes or so Alex said that Kara was looking tired, and as her doctor she thought they’d better all leave her to rest now, so one by one the others hugged her (carefully), told her how glad they were that she was alright, then filed out the room. Lena reluctantly made to do the same, but Kara held on when she moved to straighten from the hug.

‘Stay with me a little while longer? I’m not too tired for you.’

She shuffled over on her mattress as best she could, patting the space beside her invitingly.

‘I should probably at least sit on the chair, I don’t want to hurt you.’

‘You won’t hurt me. Besides, being in pain makes me kind of needy, and I want to be held… if you’d be okay with that?’

Lena felt her lower lip tremble slightly with the request. There was nothing in the world she wanted right now as much as she wanted to hold Kara, but it wasn’t going to make keeping her feelings in under control any easier…

But maybe it didn’t matter.

Maybe she didn’t care anymore.

Screw her carefully scheduled slot to feel things only once she was safely alone. Kara had nearly died today, and they both needed this too much to deny it.

Lena kicked off her stilettos, taking a beat to savour the sudden reduction of pain as her feet dropped back into their natural position and her toes wriggled gratefully against the cold linoleum. The small concession to comfort felt so good that after a moment’s consideration she followed it up by shrugging out of her blazer, untucking her shirt and loosening her tight chignon before finally easing herself into the space Kara had made for her, moving slowly to avoid jostling any injured parts. As soon as Lena’s arm was in place around her shoulders Kara relaxed into the embrace, a long, quiet breath escaping her lips in a sigh that could have been pain or relief or simple exhaustion.

‘Thank you. I know you probably have other places to be right now, but I’m really grateful for you staying here with me like this.’

Lena pulled her in a little closer, the physical contact making her feel suddenly, absurdly protective, as if she could somehow retroactively keep Kara from getting hurt just by holding her close enough.

‘Forget other places to be, I don’t want to let you out of my sight. Look what happened last time.’

‘Well, I don’t think I’m very likely to get in much trouble from here.’

‘I wouldn’t put it past you after what happened today. What if you decide hospital bed stair surfing would be a good idea next?’

It was meant to be a joke, but the tone came out all wrong and it didn’t feel like one to Lena. At this point she wasn’t sure she could put anything past this version of Kara who seemed to have all of Supergirl’s recklessness and none of her invincibility, and the thought made her simultaneously sick with worry and hot with anger that Kara could treat her life so casually. It was one thing when she was saving the world, but this risk had been so pointless.

Kara however either missed or willfully ignored her tone, taking what she’d said at face value and grinning the mischievous grin that would usually make Lena melt, playing along as if their situation was perfectly normal.

‘Now there’s an idea. I bet if you took a run up and pushed I could get up enough speed to make it all the way down without rolling.’

‘KARA!’

Lena’s voice cracked, and Kara’s smile faded as she finally noticed the tears glimmering on her lashes.

‘Hey… Lena, I’m just kidding.’

She knew that, of course. Downplaying and making light of traumatic events was Kara’s default coping mechanism, and she hadn’t even really been the one to start it this time… But still, it tore at the walls Lena was maintaining around her feelings and grated at her frayed nerves. The anger she had been trying so hard to tell herself wasn’t there stirred again, hot and desperate insider her, and she snapped:

‘Don’t. Not about this.’

She met Kara’s eyes as the expression in them finally began to lose its playful twinkle, but it wasn’t enough. She needed her to feel it, and Lena poured every ounce of sincerity she dared to express into her next words.

‘Kara... I’m furious with you for jumping off that roof. You understand that, right? I’m too relieved and you’re too hurt for me to yell at you about it, but I also can’t listen to you joke like it’s nothing. If you died it would break me. And if you died because of something so stupid-’

‘I won’t.’

Kara’s interruption forestalled the rest of Lena’s admonishment, but she wasn’t quite ready to leave it at that. She needed to hear her say it properly.

‘You won’t what?’

‘I won’t joke anymore. You’re right, it’s not fair on you. I can’t even imagine how I’d feel if it was the other way round, if it was you who had-’

Kara broke off with what probably would have been a shudder if not for her sore muscles, and nudged in a little closer against Lena’s side.

‘I promise I won’t do anything like this again. I really am sorry for what happened, I swear I never meant to cause all this trouble.’

‘So... why did you do it? I know you’ve been enjoying climbing and paragliding and the rest, but you must have known how reckless this was. What got into you Kara?’

‘I’ve been asking myself that ever since I woke up here, and the answer is… I honestly don’t know. Looking back I can see that it was a stupid thing to do, but it didn’t feel reckless to me at the time. I can’t explain it in a way that makes any sense, but when I was doing it, it just felt like I couldn’t fall. Like gravity wasn’t even an issue for me, and the air would catch me and carry me where I needed to go. Up on that rooftop I felt so close to- I don’t know, something. It was like if I just went on a little bit longer, jumped a little bit further, everything would click, and I wouldn’t need to keep chasing that feeling anymore… Urgh, that sounds so crazy. Maybe I am crazy.’

Lena softened at once.

‘Oh darling, of course you’re not.’

Actually, the explanation made far too much sense, and she couldn’t even really blame Kara for it (well alright, she could. Kara was still an adult supposedly capable of rational decision making who had jumped off a damned roof. But maybe it wasn’t just her fault). After all, Lena was the one that had poked a hole in her mental barrier without understanding how it worked and let just enough of Supergirl leak out to make Kara feel like she could fly without any of the actual accompanying powers to back it up. She was also the one that had made Kara promise to wait until they’d researched proper abseiling techniques, then failed to follow through and help her find a safe outlet when it was obviously something she badly needed. And she was the one who still, after months working on the problem, hadn’t found a way to bring back Kara’s memories and physical invulnerability to make sure something like this couldn’t happen to her in the first place.

Kara must be so confused...

‘It was probably just the adrenaline high, you got carried away. I’m sure you’re not the first person to experience that, and you won’t be the last. And as long as that was your last, I won’t keep going on about it anymore. I’m just glad you’re going to be alright.’

‘Me too. And it’s definitely the last, I’ve learned my lesson.’

The remains of Lena’s anger at her best friend drained away, and she let her head fall back into the pillows behind them in relief.

‘That’s okay then.’

#supercorp #kara danvers #lena luthor #supercorp fanfic #my fic #kara x lena #supergirl fanfiction #multi chapter fic #Forgotten Not Forgiven

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