#miscalculations

It was definitely one of those oof moments, especially with how sharply everyone turns to face Kara once she says it.

I mean, it is a high-stress situation, so I'm willing to cut her a little slack for that, but the way she worded it was still pretty harsh.

Obviously, Brainy does pride himself on his intellect, and usually his calculations are very accurate, but there have been instances in the past where he's made mistakes due to all sorts of external factors, so he is by no means incapable of making them.

I think the reason it felt so jarring was because we as the audience know exactly what Brainy has been through over the last few months. Being without his inhibitors has caused a lot of second-guessing and distractions for himself. With that in mind, Kara saying so point-blank that Brainy shouldn't be allowed to make a mistake just feels wrong, and a little uncomfortable, and it's apparent that the rest of the Super Friends felt the same - even Lena who had shared a worried look with Kara not a second prior.

Kara did need to get everyone's attention, and considering time was running out, she certainly came across as unintentionally blunt to achieve it.

It was in the cadence. It fucking.  Provoked me.

"Are you going to have a tune-up?" My father would ask, more often than not when my face was already flushed and splotchy from whatever my discomfort was.  I used to have a very strenuous relationship to crying, my childhood plight was being sensitive to the point of tears and then coping with that by being sensitive about my tears.  We're getting into Sappy origins now...

My father shares that emotive composition, we agree on the script that part of our previous dissonance was related to these similarities in temperament.  In any case, we've each been doing some measurable growing over the last eight years or so.  I was really looking forward to our trip to Austin together, we locked the dates in place in late July.

By the week of our Pecan Grove retreat I had it in my mind we were leaving Thursday afternoon, I was going to go into the shop for a partial day and then we'd embark early afternoon.  All I've got is a wifi connection at work, and on Wednesday when I was driving home to change before Jiu-Jitsu I see I have a series of messages from my father going from items to consider packing and ending with "hello?" I respond that those were good ideas, I'll be sure to bring along and that I can't wait for tomorrow!

My phone rings, it's him, and nearly 6 pm.  "I thought we were supposed to leave today at 2," he states and my stomach drops.  I think he might be right and here I am his daughter and aware of my great fuck up.  I confirm our reservation and that he is correct.  I can hear how irritated he is and I'm not impressed with myself either but I find composure enough to ask how he would feel with a late departure and giving me twenty minutes to throw my bag together and call my boss to own to my miscalculations.  He agrees and cancels the dinner plans we had with my younger sister meanwhile.

By the time I'm boarding his recreation vehicle, he is completely in vacation character, not the scornful and domineering mood I was bracing myself for.  I would have liked not to feel so rushed and engaged with my sympathetic nervous system quite as much heading out the door, however, as a result of my mistake I got to be greeted with pride for both my father and myself in the way we maneuvered through the hiccup.

The last evening of our trip a few cocktails into an exquisite dinner I mentioned this to him, my pride and it positively impacting the quality of the trip all together then he added "Oh yeah.  There would have been a time when I would have canceled it right there."

Miscalculations

Genre: Angst

Words: 868

Summary:

Or, the three times Jemma Simmons realized that she wasn't the problem, and one time she became the solution.

Excerpt:

The wind whips through her hair as she watches him struggle to open the door. He's too late, though. She took care of that. She takes a moment to smile at him, at the way he still reaches for her even when she is past saving, at the way he calls her name with such desperate affection. She is still smiling when she lets the wind take her.

As she falls, she allows herself to recoil as she remembers the thud of the fire extinguisher against Fitz's neck, and she wishes there had been a better way. She wishes that she didn't have to make that choice for both of them, that she wasn't a time bomb with seconds fading into zeroes. But, in the moments before Ward appears to slow her descent, she is proud of the choice she made. She is destined to fall. And now she knows that they won't fall with her.

(Later, when she's running analysis in a black lab coat, it occurs to her that if she'd waited a full sixty seconds, Fitz would have told her that she didn't have to jump at all.)

BEIJING: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Friday with Chinese President Xi Jinping and senior Chinese officials, warning of the dangers of misunderstandings and miscalculations as the United States and China butted heads over a number of contentious bilateral, regional and global issues.Blinken met with Xi in Beijing after holding talks with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Public…