#the unexpected human problem part 20 | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

wandixx · 2 months ago

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You'll never find the aswers ch.1

Words in this part: 5 842

Story summary: M'gann was having an amazing day. She met with her civilian friends, drank an amazing smoothie, saw a cute dog. For a few hours, she didn't have to think about problems that took more than 20 minutes to solve. For a few hours, she could just be Megan.

And then there was a scream of a woman, mother, who thought too loud and faded too fast and M'gann wasn't enough to save her and it made her whole world come crashing down

And then Danny found her, with a soft smile and patient voice. He kneeled beside her to pick up the pieces.

And shards cut them both in the process.

This part summary: It was a good day. And then The Accident happened

Trigger warning: brief mention of self image issues and dysphoria, brief mention of eating disorder, blink and you miss it mention of tranphobia, Character Death (quite graphic I think), dissociation

“So, Megan, sweetheart~” Penny started with genuine glee, throwing her arm (and herself) on Megan’s shoulder with enough fervor to somehow smack her friend with her chocolate brown hair, despite being significantly shorter. “I’m sure you have your preferences, and I and Ha-Yun’s wallet respect that, but you can’t leave ‘The Cosmos’ without eating The Universe! The best desert in Detroit.”

“It’s the ultimate pavlova,” Janine chimed in to explain, excitement clear in their emotional projection. It mixed well with overall happiness that was present in this place enough to permanently soak into the walls. It was thanks to that that the whole place was warm and welcoming even on a psychic level, which was unexpected. “After you eat it, you’ll hate every other pavlova for not being even half as good! You can only get it here, the cooks have to sign an NDA before they even see the kitchen. Some people say that magic is involved and that's why nobody has said anything yet, can you believe it?!” they squealed. She could, in fact, believe it, it was hard not to after fighting Klarion every other week and that time with Doctor Fate. Jay squeezed Megan’s arm just a bit too much. According to their thoughts, Universe was a ridiculously expensive cake, so even with Ha-Yun’s funds at their disposal, they weren’t buying it outside of very special occasions. Megan liked the idea that her visit counted as such.

“And it looks like a tiny universe too,” Ha-Yun added, delighted. “It has almond powder for stars and berries for colors and taste. Look!”

It really looked mouth-watering and it seemed like something Danny would love. Frankly, he would love this whole place with its dark wooden furniture, old looking sky maps and golden tools she couldn’t name but recognized from trips to museums. They had been used by humans to observe stars. The ceiling was painted to look like space too and the whole place was nicely quiet despite being almost full. It was all really relaxing. And judging by the thoughts of people around, The Universe had to be really good. Unfortunately…

“I can't,” Megan confessed with an apologetic smile- and all hell broke loose.

“What do you mean, you can’t?!” Penny shrieked with disbelief, grasping her hand so hard it would leave marks on a normal human.

Jay looked like she had just insulted their dog (an adorable ten year old labrador, which was apparently pretty old for a dog) and Ha-Yun just looked confused.

“I’ll pay for it though?”

The people around glanced at them a bit weirdly, but they weren’t too annoyed yet.

“I still can’t. I have a pretty hardcore egg allergy, it wouldn’t end up pretty.” Megan grimaced- she had been sure she would die at the time she learned it, and Conner still broke every law of physics when her heartbeat or breathing got weird in the kitchen.

“I learned I had a nut allergy because of this cake. I needed an ambulance straight to ER,” Ha-Yun confessed with a solemn look on her face and then shrugged “Still worth it,” she added with a lopsided grin that made her dark eyes narrow a bit. Penny put on a thoughtful expression that Megan had learned to fear during the last few hours of face-to-face interactions.

“Since then you always have an Epi-pen on you, don’t you?”

“Penny, no!”

It took M’gann a moment before she understood what the shorter girl had even suggested.

“I’m not going to eat a potentially lethal poison just because it’s tasty!” she yelled, appalled. She wasn’t Wally .

Jay tensed and their emotional projection soured. It was out of place in the otherwise cheery shop. M’gann had to fix it.

“Alright, you share a vegan menu with me,” they suggested nervously, before she could say anything. They were suddenly standing straighter, with their hands intertwined behind their back.

“Sounds great. What would you suggest?” she agreed easily because she wanted to just be happy and not fight over some reckless choice of words.

In the end, she got something called The Sunlight Jello, a refreshing, glimmering(?) lemon and orange dessert with minty cream in it that looked like little clouds. It was a great choice.

Penny got The Universe- it looked like colored photos of the Ring Nebula (Danny talked about NASA photos enough times that Megan could recognize it on the spot)- and tried really hard to make her try at least a small bite.

“Come one, it’s not enough to trigger an allergy, is it?” she said, while waving and accidentally smearing at least ten times the lethal amount on her pale cheeks. Martians really didn’t need much. After some tests her other friends were told it affected her cyanide- whatever that was.

But Megan did get to try Ha-Yun’s dark chocolate cake that had black hole in the name. In her opinion it was too heavy and dense, but black haired girl was stuffing herself with it like there was no tomorrow. It had some modified cherry juice in it.

It was actually a whole slice because Ha-Yun bought five of it and a coconut and something Neptune themed a la lollipop (that was, like, three inches in diameter, was it more like an apple in syrup?) just to share with them.

Penny dug into her lollipop with a vengeance, muttering something about her scale being mad at her and her having nothing to its opinion, not even respect. Then she said something along the lines of ‘plus size, fun size’ a bit nervously. She was trying to make them believe she thought that as much as she wanted to convince herself. Megan had trouble understanding that. Yes, she knew Penny was chubbier than average but still. She was beautiful.

Jay got two slices and rolled their eyes about it.

“I’m not underweight anymore, stop with the smothering,” they grumbled.

“Your BMI is 16, which still counts as underweight, darling, it’s much better than it was a year ago but you’re still just skin and bones. Eat more. I’ll get you a binder when you’re back to healthy weight but not sooner. I know dysphoria is a bitch but I want you to be safe,” Ha-Yun explained, somewhat apologetic.

Megan got one slice but was assured it didn’t mean less love, just that she was one of the two among them who was normal about their appearance. Then Penny said “gym in May and June,” looking at Ha-Yun pointedly. Apparently, Megan was only one normal about her appearance after that.

She hadn’t seen her White Martian form since she revealed it to the Team. She wasn’t normal about it either.

Speaking of Jay, they picked ice cream, a three scoop dessert inspired by Mars and its two moons (she couldn’t remember their Earth names). The Mars flavor was a blend of two kinds of cherries while the moons were coconut. M’gann had to come up with an excuse when she burst out laughing hearing her choice- unfortunately the truth being ‘I’m Martian, it’s hilarious to see my home as ice cream’ was off the table. Jay let all of them try a bit too, but they kept a firm hold of the spoon, grumbling something about Ha-Yun eating half of it if left to her own devices.

All of them had frozen chocolate drinks, dyed dark blue like the night sky. Penny’s base chocolate was white because she had a very mild cocoa allergy. It just made her throat a bit scratchy and caused some acne so she sneaked chocolate sweets sometimes anyway.

Wasn’t that making Megan jealous?

Not really, she was there to have a good time and not fight over something she had no control over. She was just ecstatic to finally meet her friends face-to-face.

She would be vibrating from excitement if she wasn’t trying so hard to keep it cool.

It was the first time she was meeting them, after all. She had been in constant contact with them since her second week on Earth, but it was hard to organize a meeting since they lived in different states. Plus, the Team had a pretty intense reaction to the idea of meeting internet buddies… People lied in on-line chats all the time, apparently. When she first mentioned it, Wally started yelling, while Artemis almost tackled her, before stealing her phone to “politely” decline the offer. Later, all of the non-human Team members had been forced to listen to two hours worth of cybersafety lectures conducted by Robin, Black Canary, Red Tornado(!) and Batman(!!!). Danny only escaped by pointing out that he was raised in human society and knew ‘his internet.’

It turned out that Red Tornado had used dating apps to learn more about human interactions. If gossip and Conner’s ears were to be believed, he got his own lecture afterwards.

Anyway, after The Talk™ everyone got banned from meeting anyone from the internet and sharing any personal or otherwise potentially identifiable info until further notice. Megan didn’t mention how upon her face reveal her friends just laughed and said that she could just say she didn’t want to share instead of sending a screenshot from the series they all saw. Megan could take a hint.

The ban against meeting almost escalated to no-contact-at-all, but the Team was good at annoying the Justice League until they understood it was not worth it, so that idea got quickly dismissed. Also, ‘until further notice’ turned out to mean ‘until Robin and Batman learned everything there was to learn about every internet buddy any Team member had, including birth certificates, social security numbers and other important sounding documents.’ She suspected they had also stalked everyone for a week or so, because the whole process took weeks and Robin needed a maximum of five minutes to hack all of Watchtower’s speakers to play We Are the Champions after a successful but unauthorized mission. It wasn’t important. Two soothed paranoia’s, one decent cover story on why she was in Michigan if she lived in Rhode Island, and a three day long explosion on the ‘All-hail-Megan-Wheeler’ group chat which included prolonged brainstorming of what they could do while having Megan for just-over-just-over-just five hours, and there she was! Sitting in an exclusive booth at a cute cafe with her friends, who all shared her love of Hello Megan! and were mourning the lack of more seasons with her!

Could this day be any better?

Apparently yes, because while they shared their desserts the conversation moved smoothly, like always and like never before. It wasn’t awkward or stilted like she had feared, but flowing like a quick water current in the sea, dragging them away from all the negativity, leaving only light enjoyment.

She felt a bit odd with her hair brushing and curling around her jaw, which had a much rounder shape than usual. She didn’t have a problem with looking like someone else, but these minor differences when she was supposed to be herself made her skin crawl if she thought about it for too long.

So she didn’t. At least her human skin freckled instead of getting sunburnt, like Penny’s.

Though it got a bit weird when she mentioned that she had to invite Danny here because he would love the place. Penny actually squealed so high it could probably break some thinner glass and jumped at her with a grin worthy of a mad woman. Jay spat out their chocolate and looked at her with falsified hurt written all over their face. They asked if she couldn’t wait until after they had swallowed before she dropped a bomb like that, and then they smiled this one sided way of theirs that got people swaying. At least from what she was told- and what she saw when Jay started talking with the cashier who got beetroot red. He seemed a few years older than them and after the initial shock started flirting, but quickly thought better of it when he saw Ha-Yun in all her if-Wonder-Woman-was-teenage-and-Korean glory. And had shoulder length hair. But all that was really unimportant when she was radiating the vibes of a protective, angry, mother bear so hard that something got reflected in her projection as literal image. She was formidable with her almost six foot athletic build and stormy expression. It was enough to send shivers down the spine of anyone who didn’t interact with Batman on a semi regular basis.

She looked the same way now, with her phone open on some weird browser.

“Name and alias on all socials you know about,” she demanded.

“Why?” Megan asked, projecting confusion out of habit.

Penny almost fell out of chair from the booming laughter. Jay leaned forward a bit with a more serious expression. Megan still thought the whole ordeal made no sense.

“Ha-Yun, sweetheart” they started in a low, comforting tone “I know you worry, but it’s not the moment. You can find his social media at home, you’ll have better security. Even if I think you can’t stalk everyone we talk to. I mean, I know you can, but you shouldn’t. Megan trusts this Danny guy, so he is probably a good person. But if you have to, please do it at home. If you do, then you can reference everything you find with what Megan has told us about him. Now is not a time for your protective streak.”

“Damn Jay Jay, that was more masculine than my brother gets!”

“Your brother is thirteen, Penny,” they deadpanned, keeping their voice low. Their emotional projection indicated that they were far more bashful than they let themself show.

“He’s started mutation though, and he sounds distinctly boyish now, when his voice doesn’t crack, at least. Take the compliment, Jay.”

They openly beamed.

“Thanks, I’ve practiced a lot lately!” Despite artificially lowering their voice, they managed to emote with it quite well. Or maybe she just could tell how proud they were from their emotional projection and assumed it was clear.

“That’s so cool,” she whispered anyway, because it was. Even with her shapeshifting, which allowed her to literally change her biology (having round pupils instead of horizontal was definitely a learning curve), she had yet to pull off a boy voice convincingly… or at all, to be honest. It just felt so weird in her throat. “How did you do that?”

“You’ve doomed us for hours. They won’t shut up about it,” Penny whispered with exaggerated despair. She smiled right after, there was no need to be an empath to know she was faking it. Ha-Yun looked every bit like a mother whose child just did something amazing.

Jay whipped to look at Megan so fast it was a bit concerning, with a somewhat unsettling gleam in their eyes. Megan always thought this sort of look was reserved to ghosts Danny, when stars were brought up.

“You see…”

As Penny predicted, they were stuck for the next hour listening to Jay’s lecture on voice deepening techniques, which included a lot of sources they promised to send links to later. Then they moved to flattening the chest with clothes and posturing and how they made their hair almost twice shorter without cutting it. Apparently their mom couldn’t stand the idea of her “daughter” having short hair, so they used tons of pins and beanies. Though it kept heat too well to be practical on hot days, and pins looked natural only on curly or coily hair, like theirs.

Megan was sure they could go for much longer if not for the alarm Ha-Yun had set up. The three of them needed to leave for their cheer practice before the finals of some volleyball tournament at a local youth center. It took place every summer, ending just before school started.

That’s right, Megan had befriended not one, but two cheerleaders and an ex-baseball player. Jay had had to stop playing when their anorexia made them too weak. They were getting better though, which meant they could potentially return next season. How cool was that, as Danny often liked to put it.

They bid their farewells right out of the door, after they got used to the absolute boiling heat of late August reflected by Detroit architecture. Penny seemed a bit uncomfortable with the idea of letting Megan go back to her ‘motel’ alone, which was equally adorable and troublesome. She had a plan for that but it would be really awkward to explain and she couldn’t just lead them to Zeta Tube. She managed to get out of that relatively easily though.

She was walking down some crowded street that looked way worse than the places her friends had shown her, doing her best to see everything while also checking her map often enough to not get lost. She didn’t really get a chance to just sightsee often.

She turned the corner and onto a street with far less people around. It was beautiful in the same way Gotham was.

Some part of her brain started playing the intro to Hello Megan! and she had to say, the upbeat melody was the perfect soundtrack for the moment. She really felt like she was just a girl, whose biggest problems were relationship troubles and school drama.

The owner of a really fluffy, really small dog let her pet it.

She just felt light. Like she would start flying if she didn’t focus on staying on the ground.

She even considered outright singing- when the screech of tyres and a scream brought her back to reality.

***

Heels were horrible shoes. They weren’t new to her, she had over twenty years of practice under her belt, but there was a reason she did her best to avoid them. But it was an important day and that called for important shoes. The only thing she could do now was curse herself for not bringing another, more comfortable pair to work so she could put the heels on much later.

Her feet were in agony as she shoved her way quickly through the crowded, uneven pavement, trying not to break her ankles or tear her skirt. Fucking heels. Fucking tight fitting, “elegant” clothes. Fucking rush hour business. Fuck her boss, who held her past her normal working hours, as usual, even though she had warned him at least thrice today that she needed to leave on time, if not fifteen minutes earlier.

Her hands were flexing, as if it was a way to work out her seething anger. Fucking once she didn’t want to open her fucking arteries for this godawful company. The polish on her nails still felt weird, and she wanted to wash it away but, again. It was an important day.

Eric had finally gotten a role in the ballet performance his troupe was staging this quarter. It was minor thing, since he wasn’t dancing all that long, but his proud smile had made something warm burst in her chest when he announced it; and again, later, when he delivered the invitation for the premiere night, made with yellow paper (“your favorite color, mom”), various blue and green crayons (“like your gray eyes, they’re really pretty!” well, there wasn’t much to be done about her son’s colorblindness) and lots of enthusiasm. She had it in the pocket of her suit skirt, ready to present it at the entrance if they wanted to play security. It was her best suit, and she hadn’t dusted off the dress she wore at her best friend’s wedding only because she couldn’t go to work in *that*, and there was not enough time to change, even if she had left on time.

Which she hadn’t, because fucking Brian and his last-fucking-minute it-has-to-be-done-today tasks that he wouldn’t pay her for if she had any less bite and self respect.

Fucking Brian. Fucking heels.

She checked the time on her phone and clenched her teeth, consciously loosening her grip on the device before she could accidentally break it. She wasn’t in the position to buy a new one at the moment, even if it was a used one. She pocketed it, using the movement to brush her fingers over the beautiful, flowery, expensive brooch hidden there. It was her family heirloom, worth more than the majority of things she owned. She put it on only on special, good occasions. Like a lucky charm. Weddings, high school or university graduations, the first time meeting a new family member, newborn or to be married in. Her sister’s divorce party. But never truly bad ones. Never funerals.

Eric had asked her if his first performance was “a brooch worthy occasion.” She hadn’t even thought about that, but since he asked, it couldn’t not be.

She had five minutes until the performance began and was seven minutes away, if she ran. She couldn’t run since she was wearing heels that she couldn’t safely walk in, and she couldn’t run with them in her hands unless she wanted her feet to be a bloody mess after a jog on layers of broken glass. Detroit was a truly beautiful place.

She sped up as much as she could, trying to focus on something other than cursing Brian and the inventor of heels and both of their families, four generations each way. With cousins, aunts and those thrice removed randoms that you only ever met at funerals included. There was no point though. It would do her no good if she arrived at the performance already pissed. She would rather not snap at Eric again, it always came too easily when she got like that.

She had gotten like that a lot lately. She had a lot to make up for.

She took out her phone again, to check ice cream vendors near the community center. Her son was never too keen on walking, and she doubted it would get any better after the exhausting performance. Normally she could carry him if he got too tired, but again, heels. She would prefer not to break her ankle, especially not while holding her baby, thank you very much. So close by they went.

The screen got a bit hard to focus on, too dark and blurry for a good moment. She rubbed her eyes with a sigh. She was exhausted. Absolutely and utterly wrung out, ready to collapse and not get up for the next two days. But she couldn't because she was an adult and had a little son to take care of. A son who hadn’t gotten as much of her attention as he should have in the past few we… some time, and she had to fix it fast. After a moment of consideration and a quick budget count, she added a visit to McDonald's to her mental list for activities after the performance. Her boy would sell his soul for three Happy Meals if he could.

Her phone pinged.

Eric had sent photo of his ballet group, everyone in full costume for the fairytale they were playing (she felt horrible about it, but for the life of her, she couldn't remember which one it was) with following messages of:

Hey mom Where u sit?

She frowned, her anger renewed. It wasn't quite directed at anything anymore, just bone deep frustration at circumstances.

Still, fuck you Brian.

She barely threw a quick, unnecessary look at the empty road before crossing it where she was, fully focused on going as fast as possible and writing back to her son, both without breaking her ankles.

Running a bit late sweetheart but not even dragon could stop m—

Sudden light, a car horn, the noise of tires squealing on the asphalt in an attempt to stop.

Only some of the pain registered at first, when her body hit the ground. She couldn't quite move, but it wasn't too bad. Sure it sucked and she could kiss goodbye to any idea of hugging her baby for a few weeks at least but it wasn't too bad. Maybe she could even escape the absolute capitalistic nightmare of the hospital bill.

She couldn't not move, her son was waiting for her. She tried to get up, even if determination was the only thing to keep her going, but her chest exploded. Her chest exploded and she was in sudden and utter agony.

She couldn't breathe, her whole rib cage feeling like a cracked eggshell.

She couldn't breathe.

There was chaos of noises around her, but she couldn't breathe.

She couldn't breathe and there was a crying maroon headed girl. She couldn't breathe and the girl brushed her hair out of her eyes. The girl said something in a calming tone but she couldn't breathe, let alone listen.

She couldn't breathe and her whole body was in agony.

She couldn't breathe and– she was dying, wasn't she? She got hit by a car.

She was dying and the last time she hugged her son was that morning before school, but it felt like too long. She was dying and her baby would sit behind the scene, waiting for her to show up, maybe even delay the performance, and then think she abandoned him before he got the news.

She was dying. She did abandon her son.

***

When Megan turned around, the woman was already lying on the ground, a yard or two from the pistachio green van. One of her shining, black heels was lying discarded, the other was nowhere to be found. Her foot was at a weird angle. The girl wished that it was the worst of the injuries that would come from an accident.

Before M’gann fully registered it, her legs were taking her to the side of the victim. Her body was desperate to help, whatever said help would mean.

The woman twitched as if she had tried to get up, but lost all strength a few inches off the ground. Maybe she had pulled some muscle?

Miss Martian used her telekinesis to help her assess the damage. It was tricky, sensing different parts of living organism, but she wasn’t going to move it, just che-

She stumbled as projection of utter agony hit her, as if she was hit by a van and not-

She was close enough to hear wheezing and rattling coming from the woman, or if she was guessing correctly, her chest.

Her telekinetic hand ran across the ribs, broken like measly matches. Two were at a weird ang-

No, no, no no nonononono…

My baby

Miss Martian was already on her knees, ready to help however she could when she heard that and her heart stopped.

“Second commandment: Read not the dying minds unless they ask.”

“On Earth it’s a great violation to read someone’s mind.”

My beautiful lovely baby. He’ll think I left him, I ignored him. He was so proud. My baby, my sweetheart

Tears dulled Miss Martian’s vision. She racked her brain for anything useful in this situation. She felt the woman's torso with her hands to learn what was wrong, while her brain was swamped with images of a sad little boy with coily hair and a cute tooth gap, thinking his mom left him. She was doing her best to ignore it, without cutting the woman off completely. She needed to know her thoughts if they turned more towards what was wrong with her body.

She couldn’t cut off the dying person when they were already talking.

The woman’s rib cage felt so wrong that the girl was sure she remembered the first aid course backwards. It couldn’t be this bad. Of course it wasn’t this bad.

I can’t breathe-

Alright, it seemed to be that bad. What could she do? What could she do?

WHAT COULD SHE DO?!!!

Tilting her head backwards a bit helped, right? Eased air flow in the throat. Could she do it if the victim most likely had spinal damage?

Could it help if the ribs had punctured the lung?

M’gann brushed the stray hair that probably was in a tidy updo not even five minutes ago, out of the woman's eyes. Her irises were so dark that unequally blown pupils were almost lost. She had a bit of glitter make-up that nicely contrasted with her skin, a little lighter than Kaldur’s, slightly darker than Jay. She was a beautiful woman.

She was dying and all her thoughts were focused on her son or her inability to breathe.

Miss Martian gently put two fingers under her chin, the other hand on the woman's forehead and carefully tilted her head to ease at least the second reason for the woman's panic.

It did nothing to help.

Unconsciously M’gann’s fingers moved towards the pulsepoint on the neck.

My little angel, my little dancer, my little artist, my little collector, my baby, my baby, my baby. He’ll think I abandoned him.

M’gann’s mouth was speaking, spewing lies that everything would be alright, that the mother would see her son soon and she’d be able to hug him and cuddle him and do everything she wanted to, that she just needed to stay awake, as the woman’s breathing slowed down. M’gann had never understood the phrase “the light leaving their eyes” but she understood now, knew the exact moment when mother stopped seeing her, stopped seeing the sky above them, stopped hearing all of the commotion, stopped feeling heat from asphalt, stopped hurting.

I did abandon my son.

And then there was a weak heartbeat and a shaky exhale.

And then everything stopped.

Her mind was silent but in a different way than human minds were when they were simply unconscious, when it was never fully soundless with wordless buzz of lower brain functions that made their heart beat, stomachs digest, and lungs breathe. It wasn’t something she could even hear the same way she heard thoughts, but she could always sense it because there was always something and she was a powerful psychic so of course she sensed it. But she couldn’t hear or sense anything and it couldn’t end like this so she kept babbling, begging the woman to wake up because she couldn’t just die there.

She couldn’t, she couldn’t, she couldn’t.

She had to survive, had to go see her son, she had to applaud his first public dance and take him for ice cream and, and, and…

Miss Martian tried to use her power to restart the woman’s brain function. She knew humans didn’t consider it possible and had decided that death of the brain meant death of the person but there were many things humans didn’t consider possible that she found trivial.

It didn’t work.

The whole world went quiet for a moment, as if it knew that a wonderful, meaningful life had been lost.

M’gann stayed frozen.

She couldn’t be dead, she couldn’t be dead, she couldn’t be dead.

M’gann was right there. She was a powerful hero. She should be able to help. She should be able to prevent it. She had fought against so many terrifying people, with incredible powers and unbelievably advanced technology; for Goddess’ sake, there were tanks in Bialya that one time. Preventing a car accident should be a piece of cake.

And yet, she had a dead body almost in her arms, a thin trail of blood seeping out of its mouth, its grayed cheek to the small puddle on the almost boiling asphalt.

Later she would feel bad about how little she felt at the moment. Soon after the woman’s thoughts had quietened for forever, emotions were raging inside like a storm, pushing tears to her eyes and a tremble to her limbs so that the body slipped out of her grasp and she hid behind the mental wall. She could still feel it a bit, in the beginning, in a disconnected way similar to looking at her feelings out of the window, witnessing but separated. Soon she lost even that, clear window turning into impenetrable stone. She was completely numb.

She just stared at the pair of unseeing, brown eyes and couldn’t even pray for them to twitch, proving her wrong. She wasn’t even sure if she’d realize if they actually did. She wished so deeply she was wrong.

Would her prayer save the woman? Would the prayer to M’gann’s gods help a human? Did Martians and humans even share an afterlife?

There was something freezing cold in her hands, and this weird heating foil on her back. A paramedic, who had showed up at some point she didn’t know, was talking to her, one hand on her shoulder. It was warm and big, comforting when paired with their gentle, compassionate smile.

Why did the ambulance arrive too late?

The paramedic kept talking, but she couldn’t force herself to even understand English at the moment.

They stopped talking and waved their hands at someone behind M’gann with a frustrated look on their face. It wasn’t aimed at her, so she just focused on the ice pack in her hands, moving her fingers along it to keep them from freezing in place.

The paramedic smiled again and spoke. She understood them this time.

“Are you back with me?” their voice was warm and deep in this truly effortless way that Jay couldn’t emulate yet. M’gann nodded, still fidgeting with the ice pack.

“That’s great. Could you- Shit, wait here for a moment, I need to help someone real quick. Then I need to check if you’re alright and call your parents to pick you up, okay?”

They got up and ran off as soon as she moved her head to nod. M’gann squeezed the ice pack and took a deep breath. She realized just then how loud it had gotten. There were at least two vehicles with sirens that were still blaring like there was no tomorrow, someone was yelling, the hot asphalt was smelling in its characteristic, suffocating way, she was getting all hot and sweaty and a bit of blood had gotten on her shoes and skirt and the light was suddenly too bright and it all was way too much and someone came too close to her and she needed to be out and she needed to be out now.

She was sure on her mad dash to the Zeta Tube she caught some corners with her shoulder and maybe tripped some people and almost got hit by a car herself, but it all didn’t matter because the world was too much and she wanted to puke and she needed to be alone and safe and, and, and…

Her brain got hazy again.

She curled up somewhere, breathing in cool, Mountain air. She was in shapeshifted clothes and some stolen hoodie. She couldn’t control it, the fabric worn soft separate from her, unchanging, indifferent to her manipulative powers. It was comforting. She carefully didn't think how the little bit of blood that got on her clothes disappeared when she changed.

She was safe.

The woman was still dead.

*************

It took me some time but, here is the first chapter of the fic. People have spoken so here it is hah

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next chapter

#dpxdc #dc x dp #dp x dc #dcxdp #g&g24 #dpxdcbang2024 #unlike the “ghost of fries and hero of cookies” this fic won't have jokes in tags #it's not the vibes #but I can do some lore dumps if you want #idk period cramps hit hard I don't know what to write here #sorry #anyway #danny fenton & m'gann m'orzz #wandixx writes #have a nice day dear stranger who got to this part

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justforbooks · 10 days ago

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Jimmy Carter

US president whose subsequent decades of tireless humanitarian work brought him the Nobel peace prize

The former US president Jimmy Carter, who has died aged 100, achieved a far more favourable reputation after leaving the White House than he ever secured during his single term of office. Following his electoral defeat in 1980 – when Ronald Reagan beat him by 489 to 49 electoral college votes – his sustained efforts to improve life for the deprived people of the world won him the 2002 Nobel peace prize.

Carter left a mixed heritage from his presidential term. He put human rights firmly on the international agenda, persuaded Congress to cede US control of the Panama canal, demonstrated that peace settlements could be achieved in the Middle East, and completed the second strategic arms limitation treaty with the Soviet Union.

But he was not cut out for the White House. He became the 39th president because he was not Gerald Ford: he was ousted after one term not only because of his administration’s inept handling of the Iranian hostage crisis but because he was overwhelmed by the job.

Carter came into office faced with the continued economic aftermath of the Vietnam war. To meet its burgeoning costs, President Richard Nixon had abandoned the fixed international exchange rate agreed after the second world war and allowed the dollar to float. That immediately imported inflation into the US, exacerbated by the 1973 Yom Kippur war in the Middle East, which provoked Arab oil-exporting nations to quadruple the price of their oil. Carter arrived in Washington with inflation running at 7%. Within 18 months it had climbed to 11.3%.

Oil, which had been $20 a barrel, surged to $107. Carter’s response was to ask the US to curb its profligate use of energy. The plea fell on deaf ears. He then nominated Paul Volcker as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board to deal with the problem. Volcker arrived proclaiming that the US “could not inflate itself out of a recession” and embarked on a ferocious campaign to kill it. The interest figures tell the story: in June 1979 America’s prime rate was 11.5%, by November 15.5%, by March 1980 18.5% and by the end of that year it peaked at 21.5%. During his election campaign Carter had devised what he called the misery index, combining unemployment and inflation. It stood at 13.5 when he was elected. He left the White House with it at 19.9.

He eventually retrieved his reputation by founding the Carter Center in his home state of Georgia and embarking on a vast range of activities designed to defuse international conflict and to introduce democracy and a decent standard of life across the globe.

This took him to countries ranging from Zambia to Peru and from Sudan to Guyana, for such disparate projects as mediating in civil warfare, encouraging sustainable agricultural development, establishing a proper judicial system, or installing a clean water supply. He became a familiar figure at election counts around the globe, part of the international team that sought to ensure that where skulduggery could not be prevented, it was at least well publicised.

With the agreement of the Clinton administration, in 1994 Carter took up an invitation to visit Kim Il-Sung in Pyongyang, and out of their talks came the Agreed Framework, by which North Korea undertook to suspend its nuclear weapons programme in return for increased energy aid from the US. Initial progress was not sustained, and by 2003 relations between the two countries were openly hostile again. In 2008 he was criticised in the US and Israel for urging peace talks involving Syria and Hamas. In August 2010 he returned to North Korea to secure the release of a US citizen, Aijalon Gomes; he visited the country again in 2011, and six years later indicated his willingness to do so once more if called on.

Carter acknowledged that much of the energy he brought to the Carter Center had stemmed from the unexpected frustration of his presidential career. “I don’t think that if I had had two full terms in the White House, I would have launched so ambitious a new career. I would probably have become a professor and written some books.”

Born in Plains, Georgia, Jimmy (James) was the eldest of four children of Lillian (nee Gordy), a nurse, and James Carter, a peanut farmer. He planned a naval career, graduating from the US naval academy in 1946. Then he became involved in the design and development of nuclear power for ships, and later with training seamen to serve in them. This was apparently when he acquired his dogged interest in organisational and functional minutiae.

In 1953, however, the death of his father obliged him to resign his commission to take control of the family business. This sparked an interest in politics and, in 1962, he was elected a state senator. At the end of his four-year term, he ran unsuccessfully for the governorship of Georgia. In 1970 he was elected at his second attempt and began to plan his presidential campaign.

His ambitions coincided with the Watergate scandal and the enforced resignation of Nixon in August 1974. Ford, a Republican congressman from Michigan, had been hand-picked by the beleaguered incumbent as his successor. The electorate, initially neutral about the constitutional niceties of this procedure, erupted in fury when the newly sworn-in President Ford announced an unconditional pardon for his patron. The stage was thus set for Carter’s bid, on the basis that he did not belong to the Washington establishment and that he espoused the simple moral and religious values that the electorate was then seeking.

In the 1976 primaries he easily outpaced his Democratic rivals. But his presidential victory was uncomfortably narrow: he won only 23 of the 50 states and secured less than half the popular vote (excluding Washington DC). His arrival in the White House arose more through the quirks of the electoral college, where he predominated by 297 votes to Ford’s 240. His election showed plainly what became even more starkly evident as his term progressed: that support in the country was marginal and could be eroded by almost any setback. The honeymoon lasted long enough domestically to get the Panama canal treaties ratified in 1978 – no small achievement – and internationally to bring Israel and Egypt to a widely applauded peace settlement in 1979, brokered by Carter.

But the very nature of his electoral campaign quickly rebounded on him. He chose to emphasise the shift from previous administrations by appointing a group of inexperienced assistants to senior posts. Within a short space of time, his budget director, Bert Lance, was forced to resign amid allegations of impropriety – charges that sat ill with Carter’s repeated emphasis on probity. His chief of staff, Hamilton Jordan, became notorious for his poor handling of influential figures on Capitol Hill, a vital factor for any administration, but even more critical in the post-Vietnam, post-Watergate climate in Washington.

Congress, in its own eyes, had been bulldozed into the expansion of the Vietnam war by Lyndon Johnson, grossly affronted by Nixon’s constant claims of executive privilege and eventually by his illegalities, and circumnavigated by Ford’s accession. It had fettered the White House with the War Powers resolution of 1973 and came within a whisker of impeaching the president. It was singularly unimpressed by the arrival of a man whose experience was as a one-term southern governor.

It might have been easier had Carter arrived with a clear political agenda, but he seemed geared to the politics of symbolism rather than substance. In an effort to focus his compatriots’ attention on their profligate use of energy, he addressed the nation wearing a woollen cardigan, which simply drowned the message in derision. His national energy policy was barely recognisable by the time it emerged from Congress.

The international community also found itself with problems caused by the amateurism of the White House. Within six months of taking office, Carter requested funds to develop neutron warheads for missiles deployed in Europe, particularly West Germany. There had been no consultations within Nato, and a row erupted in Europe. The Dutch defence minister resigned and Chancellor Helmut Schmidt of West Germany, faced with demonstrations and parliamentary dissent, publicly dissociated himself from the move. The furore continued for months, until Carter suddenly announced that he had abandoned the idea, having exposed serious rifts within the Atlantic alliance to no useful end.

In spite of alarming the Kremlin with unsignalled proposals for huge cuts in strategic weapons (later abandoned), his administration did manage to negotiate the Salt II (strategic arms limitation talks) agreement, a complex, phased programme of strategic disarmament. But it aroused deep suspicions in the Senate, which had little liking for the president anyway, and the treaty was consequently never ratified.

By now it had become evident to the country that its chief executive was becoming impotent through his insistence on bogging himself down in detail to the extent that he even insisted on drawing up the playing rota for the White House tennis courts. With his popularity waning steeply, particularly after a disastrous television address in which he seemed to saddle the nation with his own uncertainties, Carter was hit by the twin crises that doomed his presidency – the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the fall of the shah of Iran.

Long after he left office, it emerged that much of the blame for the Afghan crisis could, in fact, be laid at his door. In February 1979 the US ambassador in Kabul, Adolph Dubs, was kidnapped and died in a botched rescue attempt by the local police. The Soviet Union was alleged to have been behind the kidnapping and, in retaliation, Carter signed a secret directive on 3 July 1979, authorising the CIA to fund and arm Muslim opponents to the Kabul regime, which the Soviet Union supported.

This decision was later described by Carter’s national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, as “giving the Soviet Union its own Vietnam”. Its consequences, including the rise of the Taliban, have clanked unpredictably through the ensuing decades. As US-funded fighting spread rapidly across Afghanistan, the Kabul regime tottered and Moscow decided that the only answer to the destabilisation of its strategically vital southern border was to invade.

Carter, already in deep trouble over the fall of the shah, responded to the Soviet invasion by shooting himself in the foot. With domestic political attention focused on the impending 1980 presidential campaign, he announced an embargo on a portion of US grain exports to the Soviet Union, the prime victims of which were America’s midwestern farmers rather than the USSR.

He did manage to see off the internal party challenge of Senator Edward Kennedy, but slipped badly in the broader race for re-election. He had been unlucky in inheriting the brewing Iranian crisis, but he handled that no better. The shah was entirely the creature of successive US administrations. It was, therefore, self-evident that the dethroned monarch would turn to his patrons in his final crisis and that, conversely, the new Iranian regime would stoke the anti-Americanism built up by his autocratic reign.

The US embassy in Tehran sent repeated warnings of the likely Iranian reaction if the terminally ill shah was allowed into the US, but they were ignored by the White House. Within three weeks of his arrival for medical treatment, the embassy had been seized and 53 of its staff held hostage. A bad situation was made far worse by an ill-conceived and ultimately disastrous attempt to mount a rescue operation. Its chances of success were always slight and were wholly nullified by the combination of equipment failures and excessive interference from above.

Had Carter been held in greater confidence by his countrymen, they might have had more sympathy for his dilemma. He had nothing to bargain with, and it became evident that for Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the fundamentalist Shia cleric who had overthrown the shah, the crisis had become a personal contest. He released the American hostages only at the moment when Carter was succeeded by Reagan.

Carter’s political ambition far outreached his experience or capacity, but his brief sojourn in the Oval office at least gave him the international standing to carry out the humanitarian work for which he will probably be best remembered. With his wife, Rosalynn (nee Smith), whom he married in 1946, he visited more than 140 countries.

He wrote 30 books, including A Call to Action (2014), which addressed discrimination and violence against women, and A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety (2015). Having turned 100 last October, he fulfilled his aim of voting in the presidential election.

Rosalynn died in November 2023. He is survived by their four children, Amy, Jack, Chip and Jeff, 11 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren.

🔔 James Earl Carter, politician, born 1 October 1924; died 29 December 2024

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

#just for books #Jimmy Carter #in memoriam

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longlostlorian · 10 months ago

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I don't want to add on to that good webcomic post with what I'm p sure is just my own fruitless navelgazing, but I started doing webcomics as a kid in the mid-aughts and the scene was basically unrecognizable from what it is now. I would come home from school and post sketchbook comics scanned in with minimal touchups, and I don't think I've ever gotten as much engagement on anything in all the years since. I didn't know how to implement a comments section (I was hardcoding everything in html on a domain my dad helped set up for me, lol) but I got tons of emails from excited/curious readers every week! A phpbb board (early internet forum) with 300+ human members (and all the fun of viagrabots I had to cull by hand)! People were just excited by what it was possible to see online. And that was for a bad comic made by a kid with minimal skills that nobody remembers today!

For better or worse, the grand majority of readers live on apps now. Webtoons and tapas host hundreds of the most niche, beautiful passion projects you can imagine, better than nearly anything available 20 years ago, but there's just as many stories that were literally churned out by content farms (studios with large teams producing a groupthink product they aim to sell/IP farm - in other words, something that's nobody's baby). And by and large, the userbase is simply too young to discriminate. They've literally been trained to view webcomics as content. Does that mean readers today are the problem? No, of course not! And it's hard to complain about greater access to free, often queer art that's technically better than it ever has been before. I'm glad young readers have easy access to things like that.

But webcomics have become subject to the same level of scrutinization as any other aggregated content. Don't post for two weeks and people will talk about you like you've died, and a week later they stop talking about you altogether. The culture that I grew up with by and large doesn't exist anymore, though remnants of it struggle bravely on. Part of this comes as the "wild west" aspect of the internet circles the drain. When comics are produced with the knowledge that they will go up on webtoons/tapas - sites with strong censorship requirements - people dull down their work. They have to. Anything that goes on those sites automatically becomes a product. And so the truly weird, the unexpected, the indie, and the unapologetically, freely, charmingly bad (and messy) aspect of webcomics is systematically sucked out, both by the exacting standards of a captive consumer base and by the requirements of the platform.

I don't know that I view wt/tapas as net evils or anything like that. I use them myself. And I've heard things about places like comicfury that make it sound like a great substitute for the culture that used to exist around smackjeeves, drunkduck, etc. I also think it's more accessible than ever before for creators to monetize their work, even if for most of us, passion projects never come close to paying the bills. So maybe what I really miss is the early internet and I don't think it's ever coming back.

#webcomics #idek what to tag this as because i rarely longpost like this #so...#longpost #?#I find it hard to express myself/organize my thoughts in posts like this so i'll prob delete i just like to have my grandpa moments #reminiscing about the good old days!!!#(I still love webcomics)

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bluef00t · 1 year ago

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Finally collecting these in a post—Atomic Robo robotswap ideas. This was more of a character design challenge than a real AU, but the concept kind of got away from me.

Rambling design notes + a couple panel redraws + some ideas I had for Helsingard and ALAN 1.0 under the cut:

This idea spiraled out of an old sketch by Wegner of real-boy Robo as a genetics experiment. I'm interpreting that as basically Wolverine minus the animal motifs (and generally much more well-adjusted).

I tried to mimic more elements of his bot design; for example the hair silhouette and the thick blue-tinted glasses, swapped for goggles as his lifestyle got more active. I guess sensitive eyes are a side effect of his mutations. (The classic superhero forehead curl on babyrobo has no design justification, I just couldn't resist.) His appearance would make the public of the '20s a little uncomfortable with seeing him as Tesla's son. Which feels very thematically appropriate.

I'm still calling him "Robo" because it feels weird not to, though it would be a nickname. Appropriate for a guy who never sleeps; plausibly derived from Robert/Ratko. (The American name would be how he's introduced to the public; the Serbian one used casually by Tesla.*) Honestly, it seems in-character for him to put down Robo as his actual legal name when he finally got that chance.

*Things I found out after picking these names for their superficial resemblance to "Robo": Robert means "famous, shining" and Ratomir means "defender of peace"; literally "war for peace". Definitely an affectionately ironic moniker for a son so determined to be an action hero. Though dear monolingual Robo probably wouldn't catch on until decades after Tesla's death... Well, now I've gone and made myself sad.

The action scientists are mostly an excuse to still draw robots. Let's say they're Robo's big midlife crisis project after realizing he was going to outlive his entire first team and not think about it too hard.

Vik (inspired by Robby the Robot) is the oldest of the models. He's optimized for processing power, which is how you get a robot that will try to suggest purely hypothetical (but mathematically sound!) solutions to urgent real-world problems. And enjoys TTRPGs of Turing-complete levels of complexity.

Lang (inspired by Robo) came shortly after, more optimized for the "action" part of action science. Being made of metal does wonders for your recoil management. (I know she hasn't had the hair buns in 10+ years, but that's what I was trying to do with the "antennae".)

Foley (inspired by Alan) is the newest model, optimized for human-robot interaction. Getting wifi installed in her head early on had the unexpected side effect of making her really good at understanding networks of all kinds.

BRN-3 wasn't built to be sentient. He's just a lab geological survey bot that began showing signs of sapience one day and attributes his own "enlightenment" to the "crystals" he'd been studying. This is obviously bullshit but nobody can give a better explanation, so...

Jenkins is literally just the Terminator, except his evil future is vampires instead of AI. He was sent back to kill Robo, which clearly didn't work, so they talked it out and now he just hangs around Tesladyne on high alert for anything that might kick off the apocalypse.

(I have no idea where Ada, Ben, and Koa fit in here, but I might come back to them later. Using their Agents of CHANGE power suits as android designs felt like cheating.)

Not included in these drawings are Helsingard and ALAN, but I'm considering switching around parts of their premises, too.

Helsingard was a Nazi supercomputer meant to calculate the perfect world-conquering strategy. Instead, it realized that Germany's loss was imminent and hid copies of itself around the planet. Every once in a while, someone accidentally boots up a copy and it tries to take over. In the modern age it's a total dice roll as to whether this will be horrifying (what major infrastructure isn't computerized these days?) or just kind of pathetic (it's too old to understand the internet and can easily get itself trapped in an office printer spitting toner and stacks of paper that read BEHOLD HELSINGARD).

ALAN (potential rename pending; the Turing connection is rather lost in the version I'm going with for now) is the world's second successful "unkillable" genetic experiment, a govt project during the Cold War to ensure that the last man alive in a nuclear winter scenario would be British. But it turns out telling a guy he's the next stage in human evolution and sealing him in a bunker for decades to await a chance to inherit the earth which doesn't come isn't great for his sense of compassion or morality. Eventually, ALAN decides to hurry things along before we inferior humans end the world in a less convenient way, and Robo has to... well, you know this part.

It turns out there was a secret phase 2 to this plan, which would have been to populate the solar system with perfect immortal mind-networked clones of himself. The single under-baked clone that it does manage to spit out before being shut down is our Alan :] He needs someone to look after him while his crazy healing powers fill in the missing chunks of his body and brain, and he didn't get a full memory upload from ALAN, so it's free son boy!

No changes were made to Dr. Dinosaur. He's already perfect.

#atomic robo #robotswap #bluef00t art #the part under the cut is pretty long I've been turning this over in my head for a while #there's definitely bits of continuity that don't quite work (even Wolverine would have trouble with the head-in-a-box-for-130-years thing)#but this isn't really about rewriting something coherent. this is about how fun it is to do panel redraws as warm-ups #000

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alias-sam · 1 year ago

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Pierced by a Golden Soul JJBA x reader fic Masterlist

Finally decided to crosspost a fic on here, we'll see how it goes!

The full fic is already finished and posted to Wattpad

Summary: Fate is a bizarre concept with countless more bizarre implications. In life sometimes such extraordinary events happen that the only reasoning left must be fate. The tragedies that constantly befall the Joestar bloodline for example may be the unluckiest series of cards drawn in human history, or perhaps the work of a greater power. There is no way to tell for sure. Had Dio Brando or Jonathan Joestar moved slightly on a divergent path the world itself would be left very different. The fate or luck of the noble Joestar bloodline has led to destruction of evil likes of the Pillar Men and DIO. This story is of a similar caliber to that of the other Joestars (as I am sure you are familiar with them). This is a story of lost souls, compassion, hope, and above all fate.

A Normal Day in a Normal Life

2. A Less than Normal Day in the Life of a Stand User

3. High School Never Ends

4. Know Your Enemy Part 1

5. Know Your Enemy Part 2

6. Close Call

7. Getting Patched Up

8. Familiar Figure

9. Punching Can't Solve Every Problem

10. Elecrifying

11. Fiesta Time...?

12. Picture This

13. Video Killed the Radio Star

14. J-Jesus?

15. Jigsaw

16. Blueberry Blast

17. Alfred Hitchcock Can Bite Me

18. Sleepless Nights and Suspicious Minds

19. Bug Boy

20. Cum On

21. Feel the Noize

22. Quiet Riot Part 1

23. Quiet Riot Part 2

24. The Crushing Weight of Guilt

25. Under the Radar

26. Late Night People

27. Unexpected Accomplice

28. Close Encounter

29. Welcome to the Jungle

30. An Enemy's Offer

31. Cutthroat Company

32. Wide Awake

33. Pompous Pricks and Portals

34. Eavesdropping

35. Enemy Encounter

36. Mother Knows Best

37. Dodgeball is a Cruel and Unusual Punishment

38. Spot

39. (Don't Fear) the Reaper Part 1

40. (Don't Fear) the Reaper Part 2

41. (Don't Fear) the Reaper Part 3

42. Sleepover

43. Little High, Little Low

44. Stand Users Assemble

45. Blueberry Blast Strikes Again

46. Coming Through, Coming Through, Coming Through Now

47. Sethan

48. Coral Pink

49. Foggy

50. Bubblegum Bitch Part 1

51. Bubblegum Bitch Part 2

52. Bubblegum Bitch Part 3

53. Bubblegum Bitch Part 4

54. SPW Snooping

55. Enemy Ally

56. Child of Divorce

57. Mannesh Vita

58. Loli ho~ Part 1

59. Loli ho~ Part 2

60. Loli ho~ Part 3

61. Brioche

62. By No Means an Artist

63. Early Morning Excursion

64. Bite the Bullet

65. Stronger (What Doesn't Kill You)

66. Whipping Post

67. Julius Rossi is a Protective Brother

68. The First Cut is the Deepest

69. Put Out the Lights

70. Mourning

71. All Apologies

72. The Noiz Returns

73. Punching Can Solve Certain Problems

74. House of Memories

75. The Last Place Anybody Would Look

76. We Didn't Start the Fire

77. Seeing Double

78. Oblivion

79. Who Lives Who Dies

80. Justice

81. A Normal Day in the Life of a Stand User

<- To Be Continued

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eruden-archives · 2 years ago

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The Unexpected Human Problem

fanfic yautja x human chapters: 31 Complete

Summary:

The night her abductors die, Rayelle finds herself running for her life. She doesn’t know where she is, what is following her, where to go. All she knows is she’s not on Earth any longer and the thing chasing her has the capacity to kill.

Tai'qdei never anticipated finding a human when he took the job of tracking and subduing a small contingent of smugglers. It was only when the human attacked and fled fled, Tai'qdei - hopped up on the euphoria of a successful hunt - gave chase, instinct burning at his center.

Will sense return to Tai'qdei before he catches Rayelle? Or will Rayelle be subjected to the yautja’s natural inclinations?

And what happens afterwards?

Links under cut

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

🛒Buy From the Following Retailers:

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

Walmart

Books a Million

📚 Read (the original draft) on Tumblr

🛸 Part 1 🛸 Part 2 🛸 Part 3 🛸 Part 4 🛸 Part 5 🛸 🛸 Part 6 🛸 Part 7 🛸 Part 8 🛸 Part 9 🛸 Part 10 🛸 🛸 Part 11 🛸 Part 12 🛸 Part 13 🛸 Part 14 🛸 Part 15 🛸 🛸 Part 16 🛸 Part 17 🛸 Part 18 🛸 Part 19 🛸 Part 20 🛸 🛸 Part 21 🛸 Part 22 🛸 Part 23 🛸 Part 24 🛸 Part 25 🛸 🛸 Part 26 🛸 Part 27 🛸 Part 28 🛸 Part 29 🛸 Part 30 🛸 🛸 Part 31 🛸

📕 Read on Ao3

🎨 Supplemental Art

Attempted Rayelle and Tai'dqei

Revamped Rayelle and Tai'dqei Trials

Quick wip of Rayelle and Tai'dqei

If you like my content, please consider supporting me on:

*:･ﾟ✧ Patreon or Ko-Fi *:･ﾟ✧

#yautja #fanfic #yaujta x human #alien x human #alien #enemies to lovers #misunderstandings abound #ongoing #tai'dqei #rayelle #aliens #science fiction #sci fi

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esotl · 2 years ago

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Performance - Chapter 11 (Part 20)

Writer: Akira

Season: Spring

Characters: Hokuto, Wataru

Translation Directory

It's known as a tragedy, and yet, I can't agree with that assessment.

Location: Inside a Train

Wataru: In actuality... I've never once come across one, a person who declares "I want to be like Hibiki Wataru!"

Which is to say, I am indeed still half-baked.

Hokuto: That's because you're out of the norm... No-one can even dream of being like you.

The more I come to know you, the more I feel that distance, too.

Wataru: Eh~ even though I'm close enough for you to touch? Please do your best, Hokuto-kun!

When I first saw you, I was a bit inspired.

"Aah, he's imitating my hairstyle," I thought... "Perhaps he wants to become like me."

Remembering the previous conversation, I held an interest in you...

Your mother must have predicted that, and tied your hair in a braid.

That's why I said she's discerning.

Her preparation is flawless, she knows all about a performer's weak points. Because if you're faced with someone imitating you, there's no way you could be unhappy.

Though, with just a few minutes of talking to you, I could tell you had no interest in me at all...

You only think of yourself, don't you?

Hokuto: Should I not? I don't have time to think about other things right now, and aren't I the one who thinks of myself the most?

There's no-one who thinks of me, of Hidaka Hokuto, so... I'm the one who has to consider me, to produce me.

Wataru: Right. That's the natural and correct answer, people don't really think about others often.

Though I personally don't have much interest in myself~ that seems to be rather unusual.

I'm always thinking about the characters in works of art, and the people surrounding them.

"Hibiki Wataru" is the means by which, the point of contact for interacting with those kinds of lovely things.

Hokuto: You're pretty distorted, aren't you... Are all "geniuses" like that?

Wataru: What do you think? Geniuses, no, all people are slightly different from each other.

You can't analyse all of humanity on an individual level using inflexible interpretations or common consensus.

That's why. You, who is captivated by such things, is rather laughable.

Hokuto: Hmph... I feel like I'm being made fun of by a clown.

Wataru: What a fitting phrase! Ahaha, chatting like this is fun...☆

Hokuto: Isn't this is strangely conceptual for a "chat"?

Wataru: Perhaps it is, by common consensus' standards! You're still restraining yourself, is your braid a chain or something, Hokuto-kun?

Be more flexible!

Relatedly... I just so happen to have tickets for a play being held at a theatre near the next stop!

Would you care to join me?

It's a rather intriguing stage, quite avant-garde... perhaps your sense of values will change upon seeing it!

Hokuto: I refuse. School is starting soon, I shouldn't skip.

Wataru: Isn't it fine every now and then? Let's be bad boys together~♪

Even if you do as your parents say like a good boy, it's not like you'll be rewarded for it, will you?

Hokuto: Don't interpret me like a character from a story.

Wataru: Apologies, it's an unconscious habit! This is troubling though, I didn't imagine you'd refuse.

Even after I went through all the trouble of moving you onto a different train without waking you?

Hokuto: So you're the reason I'm going to be late for school? I thought it was strange for me to sleep past my stop.

Wataru: Apologies, I just love tricks like that!

When faced with unexpected developments, humans always reveal some sort of interesting reaction without fail!

Getting mad, losing their cool, being bewildered, speaking unfavorably of me...

They confront me without hiding their true face behind a mask, or at least, they don't ignore me.

Hokuto: Did your parents not care about you as a kid?

Well, whatever. I already studied the contents of today's lessons last night, so it won't be a huge problem if I don't attend.

Even if I'm not there, I doubt anyone would notice.

I'll accompany you, President. But only for today - it'll be a problem if I'm constantly getting kidnapped to places I don't know.

Wataru: "Kidnapped" makes it sound scandalous... But I'm glad, let's have fun watching a play together.

Both acting and viewing are lonely when done by yourself. Let's snack on popcorn and excitedly discuss our thoughts with each other.

Japan has strict theatre manners, but plays have been that sort of event since time immemorial. Like in Shakespeare's time.

Hokuto: Don't speak like you were there for it, President.

Wataru: I've been doing my research you know, Shakespeare's a classic after all.

As is the play we're going to see today, "Romeo and Juliet"♪

It's known as a tragedy, and yet, I can't agree with that assessment.

Hokuto: ? Isn't it a standard tragedy?

Wataru: If you think about it using the common rules of this fleeting world, yes. But they were surely united after death, no?

One committed suicide, the other committed murder, so they certainly both fell into hell together.

However, "wherever you are is Heaven"... is what's conveyed in the play.

Because they went so far as to repeat such a sentiment over and over, time after time, the ending is not a tragedy.

Death is not the end, nor is it hopelessness. It is proof that they were finally together.

It's a connection, a blessing. That is how I interpreted the story's meaning.

If it's not true, then... Ah, God, Shakespeare, for what purpose did you document the suffering of this man and woman?

To sneer at these pitiful two, or else, to feel self-satisfied in your pity for them?

No - "Romeo and Juliet" is a congratulatory address for the two being united for eternity!

[Chapter 10 • Directory • Act 8]

#enstars translation #ensemble stars #hokuto hidaka #wataru hibiki #enstars #ensemble stars translation #performance! the tragicomedy of romeo and juliet

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laratheladyofthenight2006 · 2 years ago

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Headcanons of Wolf triplets up to 2 years old part 1:

• The birth of the triplets was a miracle. Diane and Wolf are from different species, so they know that they have never been able to have their children biologically, so a few months after they got married came the unexpected news that Diane was pregnant.

• At first, Diane and Wolf were scared. They had the desire to become parents, but now that it was becoming real they were extremely scared, mainly because they didn't know if the baby would come with any health problems because of their species.

• The class was extremely excited by the unexpected news. Tubarão and Piranha had a party as soon as they found out; Tarantula at first was incredulous and discreetly (or not so much) searched the internet to see if it was possible or if it was a joke by the couple, he was only convinced when he saw the pregnancy test and only after that did the party with Tubarão and Piranha begin; Cobra congratulated them and pretended not to care much, something that turned out to be in vain as time went by when he started to worry about Diane.

• As fox pregnancies are different from human pregnancies (53 days), it didn't take long for Diane's belly to start growing in a not-quite-normal way. It was in the fourth week that Diane discovered that her belly was too big because she was expecting triplets.

• Both Wolf and Diane were a mixture of worry and happiness when they found out about this.

• Wolf always talked and kissed Diane's belly every morning and night. Secretly he was afraid he wouldn't be a good father, and Diane was afraid she wouldn't be a good mother.

• They found out they were having two girls, but the last baby was a problem seeing the gender, so the doctor said that since he couldn't see anything it must be another girl. They were very confused about what names to name the babies, there were so many names for girls that they had no idea what to name them.

• The idea of the name Luana was Diane's, while the name Luiza was Wolf's. The last name was a problem because they wanted something that matched, so Piranha came up with the idea of putting Lyra.

• Wolf told Cobra that despite being happy with his daughters, he wanted to have at least one boy.

• In the fifth week Diane found out that her pregnancy was high risk, which worried Wolf and the gang. She tried to stay strong so as not to make this worry worse, but actually she was scared.

• Wolf and the boys prepared the baby's room.

• On the night of July 26th, during the ball where The Bad Guys will receive the Golden Dolphin, Diane goes into labor.

• The triplets were born around 11:20 pm, the first to be born a girl and the last, to everyone's surprise, a boy.

• Wolf cried when he met his children.

• Tarantula, Piranha and Tubarão cried when they met their nephews. Cobra almost refused to do this, but failed miserably.

• It was Cobra who named the male cub Lucas.

• The first few days after bringing the puppies home were very difficult. The routine had completely changed, all the couple's attention was focused on the triplets, they spent hours and hours awake at night and barely had time to take care of themselves.

• They opened their eyes 20 days after birth. Luana and Luiza revealed to have their mother's green eyes, while Lucas showed to have inherited his father's eyes.

• Luiza had inherited almost everything from her mother, the color of her fur (being a little darker), her tail, her ears, her eyes, her only difference being her muzzle which was a little bigger than her mother's. Lucas was the exact copy of his father, same eyes, same fur color, same muzzle, same ears, same tail, basically Mr. Wolf cub. Luana, on the other hand, was the perfect mix of Wolf and Diane, she was the only one of the puppies to have a brown coat (mixture of colors from the parents), eyes and ears from the mother, tail and muzzle from the father.

• Luana, the first to be born, was also the first to manage to crawl. Lucas, the last son, was the second to get it, while Luiza was the last.

• When they learned to "walk on all fours" they started trying to climb on everything.

• The real problem started to emerge when the teeth started coming in, the triplets started biting everyone and everything. Snake has a scar on his tail made by Lucas to this day.

• The pups were always together, and they cried when they were separated.

• The three learned to walk together helping each other.

• That was the second problem, as soon as they learned to walk they tried to run everywhere, moving away from the family at the first opportunity.

• Once Tubarão, Piranha, Snake and Tarantula lost Luana in the market. Wolf came up with them because of that.

• Stopped breast at 4 months of age.

• Luiza was the first to speak when she was just 7 months old, while Luana was only able to speak when she was 1 year and 2 months old. Lucas went to speak shortly before turning 2 years old.

#diane foxington #los tipos malos #the bad guys #mr wolf #os caras malvados #mr wolf x diane foxington

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kimberlychapman · 16 days ago

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Also, working with the canonical female characters at any depth level means addressing not just those unexplored issues with those characters, but the unexplored issues more pertinent to women throughout that universe.

Kirk and Picard have both had plots where unexpected potential offspring have come back to them as adults. Beverly Crusher raised her child.

Kasidy Yates says outright that she remembered to get her birth control shot, so she's pregnant because Sisko forgot to get his. But even there, we get precious little other discussion about what birth control is in this whole Trek universe.

Even before Mirena coils and other period suppression medications started becoming available, I've long wondered if menstruation is even a thing to be suffered in the Federation. I mean...it sucks, it's painful, it's rife with problems, so going back to TNG in my 20s I've had it in my headcanon that nobody in their world even has to have a period, at all, ever.

But then we keep getting these oops-babies plots, because this is shit male writers just don't think about until they need a suprise!baby as a plot device.

So okay, in my fic I'm giving Picard an actual suprise!baby in my OC. But that means I have to define why, at least in the backstory. We have SO MUCH INFORMATION about how Picard didn't want to parent, but in later life seemed willing to accept adult oops-babies. So I figure this "shot" Yates and Sisko refer to is a birth control shot, apparently annual by their conversation. So I figure Picard had his very, very regularly, right?

But apparently it takes two to be sure, because Yates has Sisko's oopsie while he goes off to be SpaceJesus (which is irksome given that his original character arc was supposed to dispense with the absentee-Black-dad stereotype).

So okay if I want Picard to have an adult suprise!baby, I have to construct a whole element to this world where his lover at the time could deliberately not have her shot in the hopes of getting his baby, because the show never deals with this other than as part of male stories. FFS even in my own story it's still a male story!

And this is part of why PIC S3 pissed me off, because there's no fucking way Beverly would hide an oops-baby from Picard like that, to the detriment of all involved. That's only done to let Picard be a victim at the expense of Crusher's moral standing.

The fact that basic human medical needs like menstruation and birth control are barely mentioned in this series that regularly takes on other bio-sci-fi journies tells you exactly how few uterus-owners have been in the writing room and senior on production teams. "Oh I know, let's cover up Visitor's pregnancy as some magic scifi bio stuff where she's actually carrying Keiko's fetus!" says a writer somewhere, and another one goes, "Hur hur hur let's definitely include some episodes were Miles gets horny for her as a result hur hur." All of that but still no basic addressing of procreative medicine in this world.

TL:DR systemic misogyny is woven deeper into these things than you realise.

It just kills me when writers create franchises where like 95% of the speaking roles are male, then get morally offended that all of the popular ships are gay. It’s like, what did they expect?

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maintenancesoftware · 24 days ago

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A Practical Guide to Maintenance Tools for Construction Assets

In construction, well-maintained equipment is the lifeblood of operational efficiency. Yet, many companies struggle to keep their assets running smoothly, leading to unplanned downtime and escalating costs. Research shows that unplanned equipment downtime can increase project costs by as much as 20%, impacting profitability and timelines.

This guide focuses on clue’s construction equipment maintenance software, a powerful tool that simplifies upkeep by automating schedules, tracking equipment health, and providing real-time insights. By adopting the right software, construction managers can save time, reduce costs, and extend the life of their machinery.

Understanding Construction Asset Maintenance

Maintenance is more than fixing problems; it's a proactive approach to asset management. Here are the three main types of maintenance strategies and how construction equipment maintenance software plays a vital role in each:

Preventive Maintenance: Scheduled servicing to avoid breakdowns.

Predictive Maintenance: Using analytics to predict and address issues before they occur.

Reactive Maintenance: Emergency repairs after a failure.

Maintenance software bridges the gap between these approaches by centralizing data, automating processes, and reducing human error.

Key Features of Construction Equipment Maintenance Software

Modern maintenance software offers several features tailored to the construction industry:

1. Automated Maintenance Scheduling

Schedule and track routine servicing with automated reminders.

Avoid missed maintenance tasks that can lead to costly repairs.

2. Real-Time Equipment Monitoring

Use IoT-enabled sensors to monitor equipment health 24/7.

Receive alerts about issues like overheating, low fuel, or irregular performance.

3. Maintenance History Tracking

Access detailed records of past services, repairs, and inspections.

Ensure compliance with regulatory and safety standards.

4. Spare Parts Inventory Management

Monitor spare parts availability and automate reordering.

Prevent delays caused by missing components.

5. Integration with Fleet Management Tools

Combine maintenance data with fleet management systems for a holistic view of equipment performance and usage.

Benefits of Construction Equipment Maintenance Software

1. Reduced Downtime

Proactive maintenance minimizes unexpected equipment failures, ensuring projects stay on schedule.

2. Cost Savings

By addressing issues before they escalate, companies save money on repairs and replacements. Predictive maintenance alone can reduce costs by up to 30%.

3. Improved Equipment Lifespan

Regular upkeep ensures machinery lasts longer, maximizing return on investment.

4. Enhanced Safety

Software helps track and document compliance with safety regulations, reducing the risk of accidents.

5. Data-Driven Decision-Making

Advanced analytics provide actionable insights, helping managers allocate resources efficiently and identify patterns in equipment performance.

Practical Steps to Implement Maintenance Software

1. Assess Your Current Maintenance Strategy

Identify gaps in your process—are you missing service deadlines? Struggling with unexpected breakdowns?

2. Choose the Right Software

Select a platform that aligns with your needs. Look for features like real-time tracking, automation, and scalability.

3. Pilot the Software

Start with a small group of assets to evaluate the software’s impact before full-scale implementation.

4. Train Your Team

Ensure your team is familiar with the software’s features and benefits. Many vendors provide onboarding resources to simplify this process.

5. Monitor and Optimize

Regularly review the software’s performance and adjust settings to better suit your operations.

Future Trends in Maintenance Tools for Construction Assets

1. AI-Powered Predictive Maintenance

Artificial intelligence will make predictions more accurate, reducing the margin of error in identifying potential failures.

2. Automation and Robotics

Autonomous systems will handle inspections, lubrication, and even minor repairs without human intervention.

3. Sustainability Integration

Tools will track fuel consumption and carbon emissions, helping companies meet eco-friendly standards.

4. Cloud-Based Solutions

Maintenance software will offer seamless, real-time collaboration between teams in different locations.

Conclusion

Investing in construction equipment maintenance software is no longer optional; it's a necessity for companies that want to stay competitive in a demanding industry. From reducing costs to improving safety and efficiency, the benefits are undeniable.

Take the first step today: evaluate your current maintenance strategy, identify your needs, and choose software that aligns with your goals. With the right tools in place, you’ll ensure your construction assets are always ready to perform, no matter the challenge.

#construction #equipment maintenance software

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nickgerlich · 3 months ago

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C Is For Change

There are many things we can learn by studying consumers. We crave consistency, yet can be fickle. We can be all-in with some product categories, but couldn’t care less about others. We can be predictable to a fault, then turn around and do something completely unexpected. We differ between genders, age groups, income, education, geography…pick your demographic, but there is one thing that practically everyone demonstrates to some degree: Resistance to Change.

And I like to use capital-C Change, because it is a force more powerful than just the incremental progress we see day to day. Change, you see, can be very unsettling, no matter where the Change is happening. It can be a new boss, new minister, even new President. It can be shifting gender roles, marriage, and family. And it can happen in every avenue of business, from products and services to physical stores and e-commerce.

Naturally, there is variation between individuals too. Some people are quick to embrace the Change around them. It doesn’t matter, though, how open or closed we are to Change. There will always be some degree of friction when Change occurs, primarily because we become accustomed to a status quo. When that status quo is no more, then we have to adapt.

Which…drumroll, please…is what the folks at Sam’s Club will be watching in Grapevine Texas with their new prototype store. The 150,000-square foot retail bazaar has seemingly everything except one thing: checkout stands.

You shop, you scan, you go. Period. If you can’t handle that, then don’t even bother going.

Sam’s Club, which is owned by Walmart, sees this as the store of the future. That future, though, depends completely on how well this new concept is embraced by customers. Given that there are more than 20 other Sam’s Clubs in the DFW Metroplex, members have a choice and could shift their purchases to stores that still have checkouts. Those other stores offer a mix of Scan and Go, self-check, and traditional. I’m sure they will be watching the numbers closely.

But there are also other numbers to note, and that’s the data associated with those who have been using Scan and Go up until now. Scan and Go is experiencing rapid growth and adoption. Thus far, those people spend three times as much as others shopping at Sam’s, and are more loyal. This translates to more membership renewals as well. That’s another way of saying this is a great group of shoppers, perhaps so great as to bet the farm on them.

It’s all part of parent company Walmart’s push into all things digital, and they are crushing it between all of their retail formats. But Sam’s, with 600 stores and annual sales of $84.3 billion, pales in comparison to rival Costco, which has 614 stores in the US but sales of nearly $250 billion. In other words, Costco is selling three times as much as Sam’s with practically the same number of stores.

No wonder Sam’s wants to court its Scan and Go customers, because…in case you already forgot…they purchase three times as much as others in the store. The disparity could smooth out pretty quickly if the new store format is a success.

The big question is what would happen to those shoppers who still want to check out among the other ways, but could no longer do so if Sam’s commits to Scan and Go only. Would they fail to renew their membership? Would they shop elsewhere?

Remember, Change can be very painful for some people. There are many among us who refuse to do any kind of self-checkout, either because of technology fear, virtue signaling their support of labor, or just a personal preference for human interaction. I can already think of one family member—my brother—who would have difficulty with this. Too much Change, too fast.

Me? I want to see this, and when I do my December Tour of Texas photography junket, I will make sure to go through Grapevine. I don’t have a problem with this kind of Change, but more importantly, I owe it to my students to stay on top of things like this.

What about you? Are you part of the resistance, or would you give this a go? The folks in Bentonville Arkansas will be watching and waiting your verdict.

Dr “Play It Again, Sam” Gerlich

Audio Blog

#marketing #retail #SamsClub

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wandixx · 2 months ago

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You'll never find the aswers ch.3

Words in this part: 5155

And then there was a scream of a woman, mother, who thought too loud and faded too fast and M'gann wasn't enough to save her and it made her whole world come crashing down

And then Danny found her, with a soft smile and patient voice. He kneeled beside her to pick up the pieces.

And shards cut them both in the process.

This part summary: Team watches an action movie (it goes wrong), M'gann trains, Conner would like to not hear stuff sometimes and Danny explores Ghost Zone

Trigger warnings: Flashbacks, Panic Attacks, Self-Hatered (I think? M'gann blames herself for the death from frist chapter and it's prominent in her internal monologue), Self-Harm (in form of overtraining), Sensory overstimulation, Mentions of death and afterlife, Infinity

first chapter, previous chapter

They were having a movie night. Danny wasn’t there, but it wasn’t unexpected. He often couldn’t make it to the training. Relaxation, like movie nights, was obviously out. M’gann wasn’t sure what they were watching. She wouldn’t be there too, forcing her telekinesis past its limits, if it wasn’t too out of character for her and therefore would without a shadow of the doubt worry everyone. She told Danny not to tell anyone specifically because she wanted to avoid that. They had better things to do, especially since she was fine. She couldn't eat, sleep, or bring herself to do many things, but she was fine enough so that nobody should be inconvenienced. Fact that Danny found out was unexpected, and she was a little mad at herself that she was glad it happened. He probably had the most on his plate among all Team members, he didn’t deserve to be burdened with her mess too.

But it was nice to have someone listen to everything. It was freeing.

There were three enormous bowls of popcorn on the table, each already half empty. From experience, M’gann knew someone will need to make more at some point during the movie. They had Wally on the crew, after all.

She usually liked the smell of popcorn, it was quite nice and somewhat soothing, but that day it just made her nauseous.

She was trying to focus, really. It wasn’t like she had much else to think about. She shouldn’t struggle with following the simple storyline of an action movie about some guy going out of his way to get revenge because of something, something. But her mind couldn’t get on with the program.

She refocused again, just as the music grew louder and first gunshots exploded from speakers. She should look at least a little bit engaged, and from the years of experience with human media she learned some little tricks they used. Loud music meant Important MomentTM.

The hero of the story, whose name M’gann still didn’t know, looked younger, in an artificial, CGI way. Not wrong enough to make humans feel wrong, probably, but enough to be seen. He was surrounded by The Bad People. Man was fighting, three versus one, as if he tried to be a knock-off Batman. At some point, one attacker broke off and kicked down the door to the other room. Someone screamed and despite its clear fakeness, M’gann tensed. Too close, too close. The Bad Guy dragged someone outside by the hair, one person in each hand. Protagonist's wife and daughter. There was some yelling, but the world started slipping again so M’gann didn’t remember what was being said. Main character threw himself at the man with a gun, ignoring the knife lodged in his shoulder.

BANG, BANG.

Hero punched the gun out of the bad guy’s hands, but it was too late. There were no blown out brains or anything because the movie was PG13, but it was clear enough. Wife and child were dead. M’gann couldn’t breathe.

She too had been a few steps away, then she held the cooling body like a heartbroken man on the screen and- and-

“I‘m going to make more popcorn,” she stuttered, gripping tightly onto the edge of the bowl. She almost flew out of the room with her haste to leave before anyone had a chance to respond.

She crashed into the first room she found, falling to her knees as soon as the door started closing.

Scream pierced her ears, high and terrified before the noise of the body hitting something at high speed.

She should’ve seen it coming, she should’ve saved them, she should be better.

She couldn’t breathe.

Her hands spasmed, letting go of something. It clattered on the floor.

She barely felt her head bang on the door when she flinched.

She flinched away when the woman gurgled, when she tried to say something.

She couldn’t breathe. There were dark spots blinking and racing around her.

Hot asphalt was burning her exposed knees when she brushed hair away from the woman's eyes.

She was watching life leaving her eyes, and she couldn’t do anything. Nobody and nothing held her back, but she was too weak and blind to save this one life. So precious and important.

Her forehead touched down on the cool, rough floor, warm breaths forced her to blink. She wrapped her hands around her stomach as if the pressure would change anything.

Her cheeks were wet, tears creating patches of water on the tile.

She wondered if the little boy, too, was crying right then. She could ask when they meet. If he would look her in the eyes after she confessed to killing his mom.

The chill spreading through her face and her numbing legs brought her back a bit. Busy streets of Detroit were quieter, August's overwhelming heat let go a bit, so Mountain’s cool air brushed against her sweat-covered skin. She wasn’t suffocating on the stench of overheating asphalt. She remembered grounding techniques Black Canary taught them. She started breathing in a long forgotten, long ingrained pattern. It wasn’t hard. She could do it. She could at least do this.

In, 2- out-

In, 2, 3- out, 2-

In, 2, 3- out, 2, 3-

In, 2, 3, 4, ho- out, 2, 3, 4-

In, 2, 3, 4, hold, 2- out, 2, 3, 4, 5-

She was getting better, she could at least do this better. She could at least breathe.

That woman couldn’t anymore and it was all M’gann’s fault.

In, 2, 3, 4, hold, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, out,2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

She got this. She was alright.

She stood up, her legs a bit wobbly from the long sitting. With a surprise muted by unexpected exhaustion she realized she crashed in a conference room, one of the only left, that was insulated against superhearing. It was good that she did. She didn't want to unnecessarily worry Conner.

She raised the plastic bowl from the ground and opened the door. She was alright.

She went to the kitchen, already calling a pack of microwaveable popcorn to her. She had to make a fresh batch. That's why she left after all.

She returned to the Team, smiling like her chest didn’t still feel too small for the breaths she needed to take. She was alright.

She had to be alright.

***

Thud, thud, thud

Her hands ached from repetitive attacks on a Kryptonian grade punching bag. It would be reduced to shreds if it was any less durable.

It was dark around. She turned light off when they became too grating for her eyes. Around hour and a half into her training if she recalled correctly. A little over two hours ago if the blaring red clock on a far away wall qnd her ability to count were to be believed.

Big, fitting five people without a trouble, couch was flying up an down, like a ball tossed by a bored kid.

She was right under it.

Her control began to be shaky. She used her telekinesis for too long. She couldn't stop now. She needed to push harder. There was some nice human metaphor or something for it, she remembered from her English classes. Impending doom of a dead thing, sword probably, right over ones head.

There was no part of her that wasn't in pain. Good. Training was supposed to hurt. She deserved it. She deserved much worse than that. Muscles needed to break to regrow stronger anyway. She needed to be better.

If she'd been good enough before, this woman would be safe. Would be alive. So she needed to be faster. Stronger. She needed to be better.

Thud, thud, thud

Her breathing was heavy, labored. There were spots in her vision and sweat on her brows.

Couch slipped from under her control and started falling.

She caught it before it crashed into her.

Thud, thud, thud

Right hook, left uppercut, sidekick, sidekick, sidekick, left hook.

Tapes on her hands have gotten bloody at some point. She stopped punching to flex her fingers for a moment. They trembled from exhaustion and ached when she moved them. Her whole body did. She took a deep breath.

She didn't deserve a break yet. Not until she was good enough.

Thud, thud–

“Meg?” a quiet question rang from behind her, muffled by the closed door.

–thud

Go away, she was busy.

Thud, thud, thud

“Hi Danny“ she called out, not stopping her exercise.

“I know you didn't expect me but I had a moment so I dropped by,” he continued, failing to hide strain and shakyness of his voice. She knew he was lying even without feeling his emotions. He came specifically for her, because she was a mess and couldn't even handle it properly on her own. He forced himself to use Zeta Tubes if she had to guess.

Thud, thud, THUD

“Meg? Can I come in?”

No. No, he couldn't.

She would prefer he didn't. He would try to stop her, tell her it wasn't her fault and bunch of other lies. And she would snap at him like she snapped at Wally for simple sin of being in the same room as her, and then she would yell and force Danny to spar and–

THUD, THUD, THUD

She didn't deserve a friend like that. She didn't deserve friends at all. She just kept lying to them or forcing them to lie for her or hurt them even though she didn't want to.

She didn't deserve friends. She was just going to ruin them all.

“Meg, I can’t hear your answer. Are you alright in there?”

Why did he keep being so nice?!

THUD, THUD, THUD

Couch slipped again. She caught it much lower than before. It probably was some sort of sign to her but she was content living it unread.

“Meg, you’re worrying me, I'm coming in!”

She twisted to face door so fast she couldn't see anything other than colorful dots for a moment. It was a miracle she stayed upright. Before she could yell “No!” the door opened with a low hiss.

There was bright, cold light in the corridor. Danny was just a frozen, dark outline surrounded by it, in a narrow rectangle of doorway, looking every bit like angels she saw in some movies. Eternal, delicate, helpful, good. A being of heavens.

After so long in the darkness, white glow sent a strike of unimaginable pain all the way from her eyes. Her brain cleared, leaving only an agony, burning along her nerves. Her eyelids moved, her hands tried but couldn’t, to shield her but it was already too late.

Somebody screamed.

“M'GANN!“ another voice yelled in panic but all she could focus on was how it was too bright and now it was also too loud and everything hurt so much and she couldn't even raise her hands to protect her eyes, or squeeze her temples or do anything about it and she kinda wanted to cry and–

Somebody slammed into her, fast, tackling her to the ground. She yelped, bracing for a new pain of crashing into training mats but it never came. Whoever attacked her twisted so she ended up on top. There was a low grunt from under her on the impact.

Thunderclap shook the floor from somewhere behind them.

She turned her head, much slower this time and forced her eyes to open. It was harder than it should be. She stared at the remnants of the couch with disbelief.

She had been standing there few seconds ago.

Breath got trapped in her throat and couldn't escape. She nearly died. She was almost crushed under a goddamn couch.

“Hey, Meg, are you okay? I'm sorry I rushed like that, I kinda panicked when I saw a couch falling. Why was it even up there?”

“Training,“ she answered distantly, still straing at the ruined furniture. Broken wooden frame stuck out of mess of plush and fabric. Whole thing was almost unrecognisable. Even engineering genius like Danny wouldn't be able to fix. Anger started to stir deep inside her. Why did he even come?!

“Okay… this is certainly an efficient technique, but it's freaking dangerous, you realized that, right?”

“I would be fine if you didn't distract me,” she snapped, rolling off of him and standing up. She needed to wait out some minor dizziness but after that she was ready to continue her training.

Confusion flashed across Danny's face before he also got up with a resigned sigh.

“Sorry, I was worried because I couldn't hear you”

“You have literal super hearing! You didn't need to come in!” she yelled. He could at least be honest with her, if he had to be overbearing.

“I di–”

“You called out Wally on the bluff based on his heartbeat literally yesterday! You liar!“ she threw the first punch. If he had to interrupt her, he could at least spar.

“Base has been ghost-proofed recently so my powers don't work in different rooms,” he said tiredly, dodging her without much effort.

“Why would it be ghost-proofed inside?!” If he had to lie, he could at least come up with something that made more sense. She knew he could so it was just insulting.

“Officially to make any enemy infiltration harder but unofficially I'm almost sure Batman just didn't like when I scared the shit out of him when I phased through the wall right behind him,” he explained with a cheeky grin. Insufferable.

“Stop joking around you idiot!” she screamed, throwing a piece of destroyed coach at him.

“Now, chill the hell out, M’gann“ he dropped down to dodge it and tried to swipe her.

“I was doing something important and you came in like it was nothing!” She floated and tried to kick him in the head but stopped her with his forearm. His limbs were trembling even before her shin connected to them.

“I didn’t–”

“You almost broke Artemis’ arm and she just tried to wake you up fro a nap, you hypocrite!”

Danny froze for a moment and then yelped when she managed to kick him in the ribs. It wasn't a strong kick but it surprised him anyway. He deflated like a punctured tyre.

“I didn’t want to and I was barely sane from exhaustion,“ he admitted, barely louder than a whisper, as if he shared some secret.

He didn’t say anything after that and didn't try to punch back. She punched and punched and punched. And he just dodged or blocked or went intangible like it was a game. M’gann screeched, wordless and furious, throwing all her weight at him. Danny caught her out of the air and restrained, keeping her close to his chest. She tried to break free, lashing out and screaming and whipping her head in fruitless attempts to smash his nose.

“I'm worried about you, Meg” he whispered, so full of concern and sadness and M’gann just wanted to scream again because she just had to do better and there was nothing to worry about and she was still too weak to evade simple hold and, and, and–

“Get off my back Danny, I'm fine!” she yelled back, trashing with more vigor than before.

“Are you?”

M’gann froze. She was fine, she knew it and she should say ‘yes, of course, I can take care of myself, who do you think I am’ but words couldn't leave her mouth. She took a breath, deeper than she did in long time but normal from outside perspective. Her fingers began aching again, adrenaline fading way faster than it should.

Danny released her from his hold and gently turned her around, raising his head a bit to look her in the eyes.

“I need to train more.”

“Later” Danny murttered, carefully taking one of her hands in his “Muscles grow when you let them rest. Same with neuronal connections responsible for learning. Rest” His fingers were freezing, way cooler than they usually were, as he swiftly unwrapped her hands, cold trail easing some pain and preventing bruises from forming.

M’gann didn’t deserve it. She didn't deserve it so much.

It took her a long moment to realize that a sob she heard came from her throat. In the meantime, she wasn't sure when, Danny freed her other hand and now held her palms in his, gently rubbing her knuckles.

“I got you Meg. I got you. You can cry now”

So she did.

***

Conner felt like sometimes his teammates forgot he could hear things. He wasn't too mad about it, they sometimes forgot their own powers (just Danny actually) or walked into walls hoping they would unlock powers they had no reason to believe they would get right then (just Wally to be honest).

Anyway, since he lived in the Team's Base full time, he heard quite a lot of stuff he probably wasn't supposed to hear. Shared secrets, ‘that one person at my school’ discussion, talks about insecurities… he was privy on everything. School was obviously hundred times worse in this regard but also, nobody could expect them to know they should keep their voices low. Even if sometimes he really wanted to yell in the middle of the corridor or break into radiostation (if his school had one) to make such announcement. He knew far more about cheerleaders’ and baseball players’ bodies than he'd like to. But he couldn’t because secret identities and stuff. But Team should know better. It wasn't something he held against them, afterall he forgot about some things Danny could do too, but one would think they'd be better at it.

But what brought this onto his mind wasn't another ‘keep it under the hat’ type of conversation. It was repetitive, migraine inducing thudding from the training area that had been going on without a break for the last two hours. He held back a sigh and tried to focus back on his homework. Wally dropped by for a study session so they weren’t in blessedly soundproofed rooms. M’gann’s training and her sobs were beginning to be a bit too much, especially when combined with electric current innthe walls, and dishwasher working through all the plates speedster needed to fit his snacks, and upbeat music redhead played on the speakers to “lighten up” the mood and help himself focus, and heartbeats and whatever he called life sounds of Red Tornado in his work room, and rush of everyone's blood and sound of air in the lungs, and AC and whatever festivities were happening in Happy Harbor city center and–

Pencil snapped in his hand. He stared at it for a moment, his mind still trying to comprehend what actually just happened. Wally turned off his music and ran off for barely linger than a blink, returning with Fenton-made, Bat-approved headphones that let him rest, making him hear a little bit worse than a healthy human teenager would (“I'll fix it” Danny muttered after the first roundnof tests). Speedster also brought him new pencil. Conner grunted because speaking felt like really bad idea despite world being already blessedly muted. They both knew he was grateful.

“You still up to homework?“

He nodded and read the question again, finally able to focus enough to understand it.

As he worked through his question sheet he wondered what he should do about M’gann. Obviously with headphones on he couldn't actually hear her but there was no doubt she'd keep going until someone told her to stop or she collapsed. He knew she wasn’t realy good at taking breaks since she started her intense routine few weeks ago. He heard it. On the other hand, he wasn't really good at this whole people interaction stuff and Wally with his fast mouth and unrestrained cheer wasn't good for this situation either. She was crying, it wouldn’t do any good if either of them messed up.

It was probably time when he should go to Black Canary and snitch. Or call Danny. He seemed to be really helpful all the previous times. M’gann would probably use talking with either of them.

Yeah, he would tell whoever he would meet first. It was probably not good for M’gann to keep going like that.

***

“Excuse me, has this lady appeared here lately? She died about two weeks ago”

Danny was sure that here was where he'd find her. He had all he'd need, her photo name, and photo of her grave, because apparently some ghost found it more helpful. He'd find her here. He was su–

“No, I don’t think anyone like that appeared here lately“

Alright, but it had to be it–

“Never seen her”

Here–

“I don't think she would be around here, have you tried Akhirah?“

“Yes, I did”

There was no way she wasn’t–

“Nope”

He had to find her, she had to be–

“Unfortunately no, have a good luck though“

It wasn't likely but–

“Fuck off punk before I make you”

“I don't want to fight you, I just need to find her, is she here?”

“Does it look like a place for someone with such basic-ass grave?”

Danny carefully didn’t think about the implications of the existence of the grave shaming culture among some ghosts. He carefully didn’t yell that this woman's family (just her son and wasn't that absolutely awful) didn't have money for the funeral so it was funded by whoever was legally obliged to do it. He carefully didn't cry that yet another place turned out to be fluke.

“–Another useful tool hides under the NURSE acronym. Each letter stands for Name, Understand, Respect, Support, Explore. Name means identifying the emotion–”

Level voice of the podcast lady grew more and more frustrating with each following hour he spent listening but he needed to get through it all before he met M’gann again. He couldn't mess it up and he would do it if he continued navigating the situation completely blind. He needed even the littlest amount of actual knowledge he could get.

It didn't meant that the urge to get the earphone out of his ear and chuck it somewhere in the bottomless green wasn't there or wasn't strong. He would risk losing his phone though, he wasn't sure whether hold of his pocket was stronger than the hold of his earphones wire on his phone.

At least it was good halfa-biology-kinda-sucks day (week, to be completely honest). His lungs didn't forget to breathe, his heart kept beating, his core hummed at the correct frequency instead of mimicking his heart, his ectoplasm kept in shape, his digestive system didn't get major failure… His body, no matter what form, didn't actually sabotage him in some time. It didn’t feel particularly well either, but he was going to cling to these silver linings like his sanity depended on them. Maybe it really did.

His finger twitched. Pencil, which he used to cross off potential places where he could probably find the victim, creaked in a slightly concerning manner. He hid it in the same pocket that he put his notebook in mere seconds earlier. It would do him no good if he lost either just because he forgot he was holding it (which happened embarrassingly many times in the last few weeks). He had approximately two and half hours before he arrived at his next-guess location, according to directions from the last helpful (but really annoying) ghost he met, who spent about an hour talking his ear off about how fascinating Ghost Zone geography was and, on the less annoying note, helped him sort all remaining places so he wouldn’t fly back and forth.

There was nothing around him. Ghost Zone, despite how lawless and chaotic it seemed, was fairly similar to space. It had rules that were often just hard to grasp by small human mind, had lots of beauty, once you managed to get over the constant threat of death, and had empty spaces. Tone of empty spaces. Space seemed crowded from the surface but as a nerd Danny was, he knew mostly it was void of anything. Closest star other than the Sun is as 4.25 light years or 24 984 092 897 479 miles away from Earth, closest planet, Mars is 140 000 000 miles away, Sun is as far as 92 955 807 miles and light, the fastest thing in the universe, travels it in eight minutes. Observable space is a sphere with radius of approximately 13,5 billion light years because these distances were so great that even light with its unimaginable speed needed all the time since Universe started, to travel from its source to the Earth. And it still haven't met anything on its way so it could hit humans telescopes or eyes.

Ghost Zone was really similar. Danny knew he was traveling through relatively densely inhabited area, designated Earth Sector where every dead of every race, religion, culture and generation had their own little place to spend their afterlifes. But it was still so empty at times. There were places like the one he was at the moment, where for miles and miles, as far as he could see there was nothing and no one. They were unsettling in a way, making him feel too small and dangerously exposed which was stupid because what made him feel that way was the fact that there was nobody who could make use of this fact. For miles and miles and miles. He tried to fly as fast as he could he was too exhausted to make it really matter and it wasn't sprinting distance anyway. He needed to preserve his strength. He wouldn’t make it to the Mars sector without Speeder anyway especially if Ghost Zone kept the proportions for distances between planets. Dang it, if only he could contact Wulf and get his help with teleportation. But alas, werewolf went into hiding and wasn't likely to just conveniently pop up into existence.

Danny thought he deserved at least one ‘convenient coincidence’ for all the bullshit he's been through lately.

Since he was only being for many, many miles, he let himself drop a few frustrated tears and voice a quiet sob.

First, since they didn't know anything about the woman, he had to go through way too many necrologies, where he searched for everyone with “Loving mother” but not “Beloved grandmother“ and was in right age group to have eight to twelve years old son. There were distressingly many women like this. After almost two weeks of work, he managed to narrow his search down to five ladies. Then he accessed accident reports from Detroit's Police Department. He send himself in catfish email to do it and he still found it… telling, that it actually worked. He shouldn't be able to do it, without too much problem. He should be in enough mess to need Tucker's help and be annoyed he couldn't get it. Team matters were supposed to stay between the Team after all, and he had no way of explaining why he needed to hack anything in the freaking Detroit of all places without bringing up at least some Team matters. And Robin was out because M’gann specifically asked him to not tell Team about it and, again, how else was he supposed to explain that he needed to find this one dead woman who coincidentally died the same day M’gann visited. Anyway, while he committed his minor cyber crimes he saw many things he didn't want to see ever again. Homicide. Rape. Fratricide. Clinically described stories of people dead, injured, traumatized, abused. Many without resolve because of lack of evidence or cop's negligence. Some part of him wondered if he should try solving some of them with the help of ghosts before more people got hurt. It would be a good, heroic thing to do.

And then he realized that he would have to sacrifice his remaining three hours of sleep to pull it off and he was already sacrificing it with this trip because Ghost Zone was empty like Dash’s brain and he wasn't going to make it home to eat breakfast before school probably, but he needed to check it out asap and Speeder was in repair for some reason, that was probably just his parents adding next safety hazard of the Ghost weapon on top of it, and he was tired of it, and tired of the traveling and searching, and he found right victim’s info, and of course it was three days after the funeral and now he needed to find her find her, and he only knew her name, how was he supposed to know which afterlife she’d go to, so he was flying around like a headless chicken and the idea of letting it all go and falling for eternity to the bottom of the Zone was more and more tempting with every second, fighting vehemently his fear of infinity and he had no idea how this lady would even react to him asking her for this favor and if he found her soon and she was mad about her death, he didn't even have an energy to talk her down or fight or anything really and why was it even his responsibility, why had he promised M’gann to keep jer secret, why hadn't he snitched to Black Canary first time he saw her amd podcast lady kept saying smart, useful things that he didn’t even register and he wanted to both crank her voice up so she'd make him feel less alone and drowning and crush his earphones or phone to never hear her again and, and andandand–

He screamed so loud it would break things if there was anything around it wouldn't, it wasn't his wail but he needed to feel powerful at the moment and ruffled his hair for a good thirty seconds, scratching scabs on his scalp in both painful, uncomfortable and somehow soothing manner.

He needed out. He needed out.

He needed to just not be in this situation for a moment, to close his eyes and don't think, he needed someone to help him out because he was drowning.

He needed an out.

He didn’t have an out. He fucking didn’t have and out.

He let himself cry a bit, curled as small as he could, surrounded by an unforgiving vastness of th3 Ghost Zone that seemed to press on him from every direction as if he was under high pressure and stared at despite him being so utterly alone.

“–Explore part aims to understand what our interlocutor finds the most important, what they need and what they fear–”

He dried his tears. He had a task to complete and school to attend right after. Mr. Lancer was getting really annoyed by his English naps.

“Excuse me, have you seen her around?“

“No, sorry”

******

I need you all to understand, to me at least partially the reason why Conner is so pissed in season 1 is because world is so overwhelmingly loud. 'm sure that Cadmus was somewhat soundproof, otherwise Superman or someone would find them much earlier. So now he is out and it's wonderful and so much better than he thought it would be but also he suddenly went from hearing everyone in a building (though pretty big one) to hearing everyone in the city and it's not something you can just brush off. Hence, the headphones. He doesn't wear them all the time though, because he wants to get used to noise.

As for Ghost Zone, for the purpose of this fic it's kinda like crossroads between various afterlives. You can't go to where you're spending rest of your infinity without getting through Ghost Zone and ghosts we meet in dp are either too scared to leave, designated administrators or actually in their afterlives and technically it's not a Ghost Zone anymore. So, in this fic Ghost Zone and nfinite Realms are not synonymous. In this scenario Ghost King (not Danny) isn't boss of all bosses as I've seen in few places, but more like a guy in control of Sues Channel or some other important trade road. They aren't an outright physical danger to your territory and citizens nor are they someone you'd think about often but if they freak out for some reason you're fucked.

AO3 link

Next part

#dpxdc #dc x dp #dp x dc #dcxdp #g&g24 #dpxdcbang2024 #danny fenton & m'gann m'orzz #you'll never find the answers #wandixx writes #have a nice day dear stranger who got to this part

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