#supersons era!! | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

dickheadcanons · 2 months

Note

Your brain is literally gynormous. Do you think Damian's and Dick's relationship is paternal? Because, as someone who has actually had to raise their sibling (do not recommend) it looks more like a guy that had too much in his plate trying to be the best caregiver he could, but not really being a parent, if that makes sense. I feel like the idea of him wanting to adopt him feels like kind of a retcon, couldn't really see it in the og run. But of course, it could be because it's not exactly the same as my experience (abusive father, incapable mother, yknow the drill). What do you think? All your posts are so good.

Also while you're at it, what do you think of Dick as a parent? Some elseworlds have played with the concept, and main continuity did something too with Olivia but T*m Tayl*r fucked that up too. I also wonder how Damian would be as a dad, but I don't think I've ever seen any stories with it.

omg anon thank you and thank you for asking!! this is literally one of my favorite topics!! i was thinking about making a post on this and now you gave me the excuse for it!!

Long story short, I don't think that “parental” is a binary thing. I mean, I know several bio-parents who are just guys with too much on their plates, trying to be the best they can, you know? And people can see parent figures in all kinds of relationships that aren’t blood or traditional moms/dads, especially with people who didn't know each other from birth. There are a million ways to be parented, and a million ways to act as a parent.

The way I think about it is, is Dick Damain's John Grayson? No, I don't think so.

But is Dick Damian's Bruce Wayne? Yes. Totally. Absolutely.

More under the cut bc I have a lot of thoughts.

I think to talk about Dick and Damian, we have to start with Dick and Bruce. So much about Dick and Damian is a reflection of the original Dynamic Duo, and I think that's very much the case with this element as well. From the start of their very long comic history, Dick and Bruce have been dancing around their relationship. We get early comics that say they're "like" father and son, we have Bruce saying he couldn't care about Dick more than if he was Bruce's son, but we also have places where they call each other their best friends, where they act more like brothers, etc etc.

When it comes to who our parents are, I think there is the responsibility, and the result. Certain people have the responsibility, the duty, to be our parents, and sometimes (because death or illness or being shitty people), they aren't able to meet those responsibilities. That never removes the responsibility; they don't stop being the parent. But they aren't able to create the result of us becoming good stable adults. That's where other people can step in, where the parental figure appears, and those are the people that we actually point to when we say "they made me the person I am today."

In fandom, we see a lot of Dick not wanting Bruce to replace his father, of him asking not to be adopted. I think this is a fine characterization that works with who Dick is, but Bruce is actually the one to say that he is not going to replace Dick's father. He says it completely unprompted, too. This is withholding the responsibility of being Dick's parent from Bruce, keeping him at a distance and reserving it as an honor for someone who can't hold it anymore, even as Bruce demands responsibility for literally everything else about Dick.

And I think that it's very telling of what Bruce's idea of a father is. The thing about having a dead parent at a young age is that the person of your parents is still tangled in the role of parent in your life; Mom is mom, not Martha, and because she's dead, the image of both Martha and "mom" is frozen. For Bruce, the relationship of father and son is frozen in the relationship of specifically his father and him. Of course Bruce is not Dick's father; Bruce himself is so different from what his conception of a father is. And as a fellow son, for Bruce, someone who just got back from 7 years abroad studying to be Batman, for whom the nearly 20 year old wound is still fresh, the idea of even wanting another father doesn't make sense, particularly for a boy that Bruce identifies with so hard that he becomes the third person ever to know who Batman is.

This looming memory is even worse when it's Dick's turn to be Batman. While Bruce looks at Dick and sees the memory of his own loss, the shadow of his own grief, Dick is looking at Damian and seeing Bruce. Dick knows very well who Damian lost; Dick is grieving what Damian lost more than Damian is. Bruce couldn't conceive of replacing a father, but Dick is struggling to imagining himself replacing Bruce at his job, much less who he was in his personal relationships.

But even if Damian isn't Dick's responsibility, Dick doesn't hesitate to care about Damian's future. "Who's going to save him if we don't?" At the start of the DickBats era, Dick isn't looking at Damian as a family member, really. He's looking at Damian as a victim, abet a very involved, very dangerous one. It's how Bruce looked at Dick too, before he had any reason to know that this kid would become something more to him. But, like Bruce, what Dick does to save Damian is bring him into the thing that is most precious to him; Batman. The mission. Saving people. A way to live in the world.

I know saying someone is the Batman to their Robin is like, a joke at this point. Something unbelievably cheesy. But you google "iconic duos" and Batman and Robin are one of the first responses. There's a reason for the joke. So imagine you are Robin, and your Batman is dead. And you have to go and find a new partner. Dick making Damian his Robin is heavy, just as heavy to me as adoption papers. Bruce made Dick his partner without any idea of what that meant. Dick, and the audience, had 70 years of expectation on what Dick and Damian could be. Dick making Damian Robin was a very specific claim, far stronger imo than just claiming him as a son would have been.

Because, to be honest (and speak to your other question), I don't think Dick thinks a lot about being a parent. I don't really think it's that important to him. Dick is a leader, a mentor, he deals with a ton of teenagers and kids through his vigilante work, he goes to Tim's sidekick parent's meetings and takes Jason skiing and more than that, he's also young. He's in his 20s. He should be at the club. I think he probably thinks he'll have kids in an abstract way, but it's not something he's looking for, consciously or unconsciously. He's not searching for connection, or to fix his mistakes or his past, the things that lead Bruce to adopting sidekicks. He'd be a great dad, and I think we see him being pretty good with his Elseworlds kids, but Dick is a very practical person, and him taking a kid in (vs finding somewhere else they can go) is not really the practical choice.

Except for one kid. There's just been one kid with legitimately no where else to go, where Dick is truly the only option, because going home meant only bad things for him. Dick made Damian part of his family in the ways that mattered to them both in that moment. With their lives, adoption doesn't really make a huge material difference on custody (if Damian wanted to leave, Dick couldn't have stopped him; Damian has access to basically unlimited money and can feed and clothe and wash himself. and possibly already has a phd.), and Dick wanted Damian to choose, anyway. If I recall correctly, Dick says he didn't think about taking Damian with him until Bruce comes back. He thought about taking Damian with him, thought that Damian might be better with Dick (his partner!!!!) than even with Bruce, his dad, the person Dick loves so much, only in the face of them being separated.

Meanwhile Damian, for all his blustering about how Dick needs to "earn" his respect, warms up to Dick startlingly quickly. For Damian, who had never known a father, who in his initial run hadn't even known his mother for more than two years, whose other male family is Ra’s al Ghul, his father is Batman. Even in Tomasi's kinder depiction of Damian's childhood, Damian only knows the Bat. And when he meets Bruce, the first thing he expresses is disappointment. Bruce the man is underwhelming and then goes and dies. So much for the mythic hero!

And then he meets Dick. Who manages to teach Damian something, who doesn't discount his skills even when he's wrong. Who proves that he is better at being Batman than Damian, and shows that he wants Damian around. And, even more importantly, who doesn't die. Dick is stable in a world constantly in flux. Damian screws up a lot in that run, and he leaves for long stretches of it, but Dick is always there when he gets back. There's no blame here, but the truth is that Dick is the one who stays.

Bruce was Damian's father, but what does that mean to someone whose never met a father at all? Bruce might have tried to connect with Damian before he died, but he doesn’t do it in a way that works. He doesn’t give Damian trust, he doesn’t encourage him in the ways Damian finds important…the first person to do that is Dick. Dick gives Damian responsibility, makes him part of the team. It could be argued that Damian didn’t deserve it, but we’re not talking about deserving. We’re talking about what worked. It sounds like as good an idea as making a tiny 8 year old acrobat a sidekick, but it undeniably worked for both Damian and Dick. Does that mean that either of these relationships were parental in the way that we think of it in the real world, in the way that a child psychologist would say is good and healthy? I have no idea. But they are the most parental in the absence of any other parents, and I think that means a lot.

Unfortunately, we don't get to actually see the dissolution of Dick and Damian's partnership. DC conveniently skips over showing us Bruce coming back and Dick becoming Nightwing again; preNew 52, Dick is still Batman with Damian even when Bruce returns, and in the New 52, he's been Batman "Before" and we don't really see the end, just a vague aftermath. But if it did take that kind of change to make them realize their relationship had a flavor of "parent and child", had the makings of something like a father and son, well, they'd just be following in the original Batman's footprints.

#asks #dick grayson #damian wayne #bruce wayne #this is a fucking essay #batman meta #And I didn't even manage to talk about John #Sorry John #I think there is the more traditional caregiver side of parenthood #the part that makes sure the kids are fed and dressed and ready for school #but the magic of comics is that none of the bat characters really need that and damian in particular is not receptive to it #They kind of regress Damian to it a bit after the supersons era #but he is extremely assured while Dick is batman #he doesn't need a parent in the caregiver way he need a parent in the believes in you and gives you somewhere to call home way #it just turns out that its really hard to have someone love you and watch out for you and get super invested in your development #and not think of them in some kind of fond paternal way #also i may need to make a real post about dick and children because i dont know if i was really coherent here lol #also if there are any issues that show something i missed lmk #i have definitely not read everything

45 notes · View notes

fake-gamer-boy · 2 years

Text

Just saw a damian x bruce nsfw art on twitter damn near killed myself what the fuck was that

#damian looked mad young too #yall are sick #damian legit looked like his supersons era #dc #anti batcest #batman #bruce wayne #the user was reblogging superbat stuff and i was like hell yeah and then there it was just randomly i hate it here

34 notes · View notes

masedolo · 2 years

Text

7ebirth.

#supersonic #5am #wtf #revenge era #yk #solo dolo #evil twin #asthetic

1 note · View note

wheelsgoroundincircles · 13 days

Text

1956 Oldsmobile Golden Rocket

Bullet on Wheels: The 1956 Oldsmobile Golden Rocket

Easily one of the wildest General Motors dream cars of the Motorama era, the Olds Golden Rocket was the epitome of Jet Age design. Let’s take a closer look.

Throughout the 1950s, Harley Earl and his forward-looking crew at the GM styling studios frequently turned to aircraft and space travel for their inspiration. There might be no better example of the automaker’s guided-missile design theme than the far-out Golden Rocket, Oldsmobile’s Motorama dream car for 1956. “The Supersonic Age comes to automobile styling!” the company proclaimed.

1956 Oldsmobile Golden Rocket

Constructed in fiberglass on a shortened Oldsmobile passenger car perimeter frame with a 105-inch wheelbase, the Golden Rocket was essentially a bullet on wheels in side view (above.) But under the skin, the show car was fairly conventional with a 324 CID, 275-horsepower Olds Rocket V8 up front, Hydra-Matic automatic transmission, and leaf-spring rear suspension. The custom wheels employed integral brake drums, and a pair of fuel tanks were housed in the rear fenders. Note the “dotted-line” segmented whitewalls, a novel feature that never went any further.

1956 Oldsmobile Golden Rocket

At a little more than 200 inches long but less than 50 inches tall, the Rocket sported an impressively low silhouette, which required some ingenuity in the packaging of the two-seat cabin. For easier entry and egress, a roof panel popped up when the door was opened on either side, while the steering wheel rim swung upward and the bucket seats rose three inches and pivoted on their mountings. Upholstery was blue and gold leather, while the speedometer was housed in the steering wheel hub. The lap belts and driver pedals display a strong aircraft influence.

While the Rocket seems to be one of the more obscure GM dream cars in current times, it did include some ideas that turned up later on the General’s production models. The stubby rocket-type tailfins would adorn some memorable Cadillacs of the early ’60s, while the split-window teardrop rear window is extremely familiar. It was next tried on a dead-ended 1958 Corvette styling proposal, then famously appeared on the 1963 Corvette Sting Ray coupe. As with a number of GM Motorama dream cars, the fate of the Golden Rocket was not officially documented, reportedly, but it hasn’t been seen or heard from in years and is presumed destroyed.

1956 Oldsmobile Golden Rocket

#Oldsmobile Golden Rocket #Oldsmobile #car #cars #Golden Rocket

117 notes · View notes

honeyandthmoon · 3 months

Text

ranting about wonder woman's daughter (spoilers ahead)

I gave tom king the benefit of the doubt so many times and i liked some of his most controversial stories... i have lots of his books in my shelf, but that's just insane to me, wonder woman is my favorite one, this is just garbage.

retconning the contest/trial just to have diana punch her mother? to have lizzie punch diana?

it still sucks for me that his idea was to create the sovereign, a "joker/lex luthor" type of menace as if she doesn't already had villains powerfull enough to give her a hard time. it still sucks that he decided to give diana a daughter even if fury still exists (somewhere in the multiverse). and it's not her first child in recent years too! who remembers that one justice league story from a few years ago when they gave her a son that she supposedly abandoned because he was a boy? oh in the same storyline where hyppolita became a mindless monster (also called the sovereign!). that's just recycling of bad ideas. but he probably didn't even knew about that. probably just a bad coincidence. and that's me again giving him the benefit of the doubt.

it still sucks that lizzie is not her biological daughter. it still sucks that she's called wonder woman's daughter when diana herself doesn't see herself as a mother. it still sucks that she's called wonder woman's daughter when diana didn't even raise her? what is up with those weird stories of jon and damian raising her? wonder robin? a mural of batman and superman in themyscira? with batman front and center? IN THEMYSCIRA???

if she's not her biological daughter and was saved by diana and trained as an amazon, what differs her from donna? and why aren't donna and cassie part of her upbringing? why are the supersons responsible for this child?

what's the point of giving diana a daughter if you strip her of every aspect of motherhood?

I defended g willow wilson against people online who hated her run, i thought she was so great, even if she didnt knew much about her at the beginning but she at least was able to reconcile diana and veronica (sort of) and bring her back to themyscira, continue previous plots from the rucka's run and bring ares back (bonus point for putting steve always shirtless and in need of saving)

i was even one of the few that actually enjoyed becky cloonan and michael's run. the stories sure could've been better planned but they got the spirit, build a strong wonderfam in activity and set the ground for a more modern structure of amazons in this new context. they gave me etta and diana acting truly as friends, they gave me three founding mothers for themyscira, they gave me doctor psycho stories (he is really fun to read).

I defended james robinson (!), he at least knew diana was strong enough and had her defeat darkseid and free the gods by herself

i've been reading wonder woman for years. i still have some runs i hadn't had the chance to read fully but basically everything in the past 20 years + perez era formed my love for this character. i hate how out of character she is right now. they should bring back that one rule if you wouldn't do this to batman or superman you shouldn't do it to wonder woman, that's truly disappointing.

#wonder woman #trinity #elizabeth marston prince #lizzie prince #diana of themyscira #tom king #i'm just so done with that #what's left of wonder woman media for us? the suicide squad game where they're still yapping about daddy zeus?#no animated movie. no secondary ongoing. no animated series. almost three years without any news about her solo game. no movie announced.#NO NOTHING #and she is supposedly one of the big 3

53 notes · View notes

themidnightcrimson · 1 year

Text

Halloween. | w. maximoff

summary: in which a happy halloween in westview turns into something truly horrifying.

warnings: top!wanda, oral (r receiving), dubcon, mind control, agatha being a nosy neighbor, wanda being her usual crazy possessive but hot self

this post is for 18+ only. minors: do not interact.

masterlist.

The night was crisp and alive. All the children seemed to finally get out of their houses to dress up and run around the neighborhood streets, collecting candy and laughter. You had almost lost hope in this generation, as you hardly ever saw any kids outside in Westview, assuming that the technological era had gotten hold of them and locked them up in their rooms with their video games and television. You were fearful for the 90’s children across the globe, but Westview was sort of an anomaly.

You were so excited for Halloween this year that one could’ve believed you had never even experienced Halloween before. In fact, now that you think of it…

A child suddenly zoomed past you in seemingly supersonic speed, nearly knocking you off your feet. “Hey!” you yelled at the kid, turning around to see the boy with his foot smashed into a pumpkin in the yard next to you. He looked up at you with wide eyes, dressed in some sort of strange blue costume with his hair sprayed blonde and gelled up into spikes like lightning bolts. You weren’t sure how you knew, but you knew that he was Tommy, the son of your neighbor, Wanda.

“Sorry!” he said guiltily, his air of rambunctiousness fading as he took his foot out of the decimated pumpkin, guts stringing from his shoe.

You eyed his costume and tried to figure out what it was. “What are you supposed to be?”

“Uncle Pietro!” he said proudly, scuffing the pumpkin guts off his shoe and onto the grass.

You sewed your eyebrows. “Is that a comic book character or something?”

Tommy shrugged before turning around and speeding off. As soon as you could blink, he was gone.

“That kid should do track someday,” you mumbled to yourself, straightening the witch’s hat on your head. You really couldn’t think of anything else to dress up as, being a fully grown adult, so you opted for the classic witch. A pointy black hat, a black skirt, and a corset that was admittedly revealing. You must have bought the costume far ahead in preparation because you couldn’t quite remember when or where you had bought it.

Everyone seemed more cheery than usual that night. There was chatter and laughter all throughout the streets, and you decided to walk them for a while to just take in the gleeful atmosphere.

It was a while before you got to the edge of town, the last neighborhood before the city line: Ellis Avenue. You noticed that the Halloween cheer seemed to radiate from the heart of Westview, and out here on the edge of town, there was less of it. In fact, it was completely silent. You noticed people out in their yard, some kids dressed as skeletons with trick or treat bags in their hands. They seemed to just be standing, and as you passed them you expected to see them whispering to each other about some prank they were planning. But as you looked at their faces, their eyes were open. Their mouths were open as if they were trying to get a word out. They weren’t just standing—they were entirely frozen.

Besides technology being a threat to children, you knew drugs were, too. It wouldn’t be untypical for some teens to take drugs on Halloween, so you stopped and took a few steps closer to them.

“Excuse me,” you gently spoke as you looked between their faces. “Are you kids alright?” They made no movement. They were like statues, ones that were crafted with looks of terror on their faces before they were turned to stone. They were entirely inanimate. Was this just a decoration? A hyper realistic decoration made to look like real trick or treaters? You didn’t notice any wires or buttons, but there was an unsettling feeling in your stomach telling you to keep walking.

As you kept down the lit but quiet street, a fog blew in through your feet. Some crickets were chirping from the woods nearby, and you could hear the electronic whoosh of blown-up and lit-up decorations on almost every house on the street, but other than that, it was quiet. Yet there were people. There were people in their yards frozen in the start of the celebratory night, like they had stepped out their house to join in on the festivities but weren’t able to get very far.

“What the hell is going on…” The street looked like memory of life, like you were walking through a 3D snapshot left to dust.

As you neared the very end of the street, you looked beyond the road to a section of field in front of the woods that served as the Westview boundary. You were about to turn around and go back to investigate more of what was going on, but suddenly you noticed a glimmer in the air and stopped. Were your eyes deceiving you? Were you the one that had taken drugs and was tripping out of your mind?

You noticed a strange glimmer in the air again, and then a sort of colorful glitch. “What…” you whispered, walking closer to whatever it was in the air right in front of you. You stepped past the concrete road, your witchy heels walking in the grass as you noticed the glitch appear again. Was it a strange reflection of light from the streetlight? Was it fireflies in the air playing a trick on you?

The glitch appeared in the air again, and you stepped closer to it, raising your hand. It was right in front of you now, illuminating in your eyes, and you could hear some strange buzzing noise right in your ears. A sort of fatigue passed you all of a sudden, like you were a machine slowing down. Nonetheless, you raised your hand, bringing a few fingers to touch the light. As soon as your fingers felt a strange thick energy in the air, a burst of red flashed before your eyes before you were pushed back, propelling all the way backwards onto the street and hitting the concrete hard.

Your breath was knocked out of you with an involuntary huff, and you groaned from the ache in your back as you slowly sat up, your hat having fallen off and rolled a bit away from you. As you opened your eyes, they widened at what you saw. The small glitch of light you had seen before had morphed into a nucleus of red that was pulsating outwards as if spreading itself over a wall. It hummed and throbbed, as if offended by your touch, before it began shrinking into itself and snapping shut, disappearing and leaving nothing but the pure air in front of you. You noticed a few smaller glitches appear on this strange invisible boundary before they stopped all together.

You nearly shrieked when you heard loud noises come from behind you. Turning your head, you saw that Ellis Avenue was alive again, with kids running all around and the parents continuing their duties of passing out candy to them. Even the group of skeletons were sprinting now, chattering and talking loudly. Ellis was alive again.

Sitting in the middle of the road, you shrieked when you saw headlights coming fast towards you. This strange fatigue still lingering inside you prevented you from being able to scramble up, and you were practically accepting your fate as this car barreled towards you. Raising a hand over your face, you winced and waited to feel the car smack into you. Instead, you heard the loud squealing of brakes and the shrieking of rubber tires against the road. The noises came closer to you until it was right in front of you, but then they stopped suddenly. You could hear the hum of an engine in your ears, and the smell of exhaust, and when you finally opened your eyes, all you could see was bright whiteness. Blinking, your vision cleared, and you saw that the bumper of the car was right in front of your nose, headlights blinding your eyes.

“Oh my gosh, I am so sorry, hon!” yelled a womanly voice as you slowly picked yourself up from the ground, grabbing your witch’s hat and putting it on as if it would protect you. You shielded your eyes from the headlights and saw a woman poking her head through the driver’s side window. It was Agatha, your neighbor.

“Hey, I know you!” she called, pointing your finger in the air. “Oh my gosh, you’re one of the neighbors! Two doors down, right?”

You nodded, feeling confused and strange and slightly dizzy. It wasn’t because you nearly got hit by a car—it was because of the strange invisible wall that felt like it was watching you now.

“Get in! The least I can do is give you a ride after nearly turning you into roadkill,” she said sarcastically before giving out a shrill laughter that made your ears hurt.

Too confused to deny and a little scared to walk home by yourself, you walked to the passenger side of the car and got in. Once you closed the door, the nervous feeling in your stomach seemed to shrink deeper. Agatha propelled the car forward and turned it into a U-shape, turning onto Ellis Avenue.

You hadn’t even noticed, but Agatha was also dressed as a witch, wearing a nearly identical pointy hat like yours. “Well, I guess witches must be in season!” she exclaimed when she noticed your costume. “Although your costume is much more on the edge than mine—look at that corset!” she exclaimed, reaching over and dragging a finger down the waist of the corset. You jumped, having been too absorbed in watching how lively Ellis was now. “Mine is a little more vintage. I was going for a more Salem coven vibe, if you know what I mean.”

You weren’t even listening to her. “How are they alive again?” you whispered to yourself, noticing that not a single person in the neighborhood was frozen like they had been only minutes ago.

Agatha stopped talking, looking over at you with a polite grin but concerned eyes. “What’s that, honey?”

You pointed out the window. “These people… They were all frozen like… like statues…” You were too flabbergasted to realize how crazy you sounded.

“My, I sure hope I didn’t bump your head back there!” Agatha giggled, pulling a strange face that you didn’t notice.

You remained quiet as Agatha started talking about how her husband, Ralph, never wanted to celebrate Halloween. You were thankful that you were still in a daze when she started talking about how she even tried to dress up as a sexy nurse for him.

Finally, you made it back to your own neighborhood. Agatha pulled the car into her own driveway, given that your house was only two doors down. Once the car was turned off, you started to get out, wanting to just go to your bed and sleep after the strange things you had experienced. Agatha’s voice stopped you. “Would you like to come inside? I make a great dirty apple cider. One or two of those and you won’t remember a thing the next day! See, I do about one fourth cider and three fourths bourbon, and—”

“No thanks, Agatha,” you told her with a weak smile. “I’m not feeling too well. I need to just go home and sleep.”

She looked slightly disappointed, but she quickly recovered with her characteristic charming smile. “Oh, no worries, dear! You go rest up, and I’ll make a batch to bring you tomorrow.”

“Thanks, Agatha,” you smiled, getting out of the car and feeling refreshed by the cool air. Walking to the sidewalk, you began the walk to your house. Between Agatha’s house and yours was Wanda’s house. Although you often saw her out and about around town, you hadn’t talked to your neighbor very much. You honestly couldn’t even remember when she moved in.

You were almost past Wanda’s house when you heard a door open. Looking up, you saw Wanda stepping out of her house. Shock filled you at the sight of her—you weren’t sure what she was dressed as, but it was an outfit that made your breath catch. She was dressed in an all-red leotard with tight pink tights and a strange sort of crown on her head. You assumed maybe it was some sort of comic book character, given Tommy’s costume from earlier, but it was incredibly breathtaking.

“Y/n!” she called, and even from there you could see her wide grin. “What a surprise running into you!”

You gave her a polite smile, but your eyebrows threaded. Strange running into you? She had opened her door right as you were walking by it—it didn’t seem like a coincidence.

“Why don’t you come in!” she called, waving you towards her porch.

“Sorry, Wanda,” you yelled as much as you could with how tired you felt. “I’ve had a strange night. I’m just going to—”

“Come in,” she said again, this time the smile on her face fading. Suddenly, you found yourself sharply turning towards her driveway and walking up it. Why were you going to her house? Why had you obeyed her? Why couldn’t you stop your feet from walking?

Wanda watched you with a sort of satisfied smirk as you robotically walked up her steps. She stepped aside to let you pass through the door, and you involuntarily did. You had never been in Wanda’s house before. It was nice and normal like every other house on the street, and you noticed a video game console connected to the TV. The living room was a little messy, with soda cans and candy wrappers everywhere.

“Sorry about the mess,” she apologized while she closed the door, and you could’ve sworn you heard a lock. “My brother Pietro has been staying here and he’s… not very tidy.” She clasped her hands together and stared at you.

You turned to look at her, waiting for her to say something or offer you a reason why she wanted you to stop by, but she only looked at you. “Where’s the kids?” you asked politely.

“Trick-or-treating, of course!” she said obviously. “With Pietro.”

You nodded, realizing it was a pretty stupid question. “Is Vision out with them?”

You noticed Wanda’s eyes dart to the side as she opened her mouth and hesitated before speaking. “Probably. He’s out, is all I know. Don’t know when he’ll decide to come back,” she said with a nervous giggle. “Can I get you something? Water or juice? We’re not really drinkers, so I don’t have any—”

“Sorry, Wanda,” you interrupted her as you felt a pounding reside in your brain. It felt like a headache was coming on, an intense one that made you pinch the bridge of your nose and squeeze your eyes shut. “I really don’t feel good. I may be getting sick and I wouldn’t want you or the kids to catch whatever it is.”

“You’re fine,” she said, and although there was a smile on her face, her voice was firm. “Why don’t you sit down?” She gestured to the couch, but then realized it was a mess from Pietro crashing on it. “Well, actually… How about we go upstairs? You can lay down on the bed while I—”

“Wanda, I need to go home,” you interrupted her again, feeling nervous as to why she was insisting that you stay there or that you go lie in her bed when you have your own bed just next door.

Her smile slowly faded as she fiddled her fingers. “Are you alright, y/n? You seem a little pale.”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you!” you exclaimed, not meaning to be harsh with her but feeling irritated and dizzy. “I’m sorry, I just…” You rubbed your face with both of your hands. “I need to get away for a while, I think. I’ve been so out of it.”

“Get away?” Wanda echoed, her eyebrow lowering in a subtle manner. “What do you mean?”

“Just a vacation or something. I feel like I’ve been in this town forever.” You started to hear that strange humming in your ears again, chocking it up to a weird side effect of your oncoming headache. “I can’t even remember the last time I went on vacation. I can’t remember what I ate for breakfast this morning, or where I got this costume, or when I started working at my job, or when I even fucking moved here. I can’t even fucking remember what happened before I got in Agatha’s car…” All you could remember now was red light in your eyes and energetic humming in your ears.

“Oh, honey, come upstairs,” Wanda urged you. “You look like you’re about to fall over.” She pressed a hand to your lower back, and a few moments later you found yourself walking up the stairs with Wanda. Then, you found yourself sitting on her bed. Were you dissociating? Was your body going on autopilot and just doing whatever Wanda told it to do?

“Wanda…” you mumbled, glancing to her to see that she was closing her bedroom door, and you watched her hand linger on the handle before you heard a click.

Wanda was always so neighborly. Always inviting you over, which you politely declined, always bringing you casseroles and cakes for no reason other than that she wanted to be nice. In fact, you had never seen anything other than a cheery smile on her face. Now that she was slowly turning around to face you, something was terrifyingly different on her face. Her eyebrows were lowered, her red lips bent in a sort of scowl.

You felt the human urge to flee, to escape, to run away, but some weird force kept you sitting there on the bed. As you looked at Wanda’s darkened green eyes, and her scowl that turned upwards into a smirk, you managed to connect the dots. Was she controlling you? Was she in your mind, messing with the controls of your brain to operate you like her little puppet?

“Smart girl,” she whispered, and your face dropped in terror as your questions were answered. “What were you thinking? Going out all by yourself on the edge of town.”

“I… I…” Your mind was blanking.

“Were you trying to leave?” her voice lowered two octaves as she stared you down like a lion. You were trembling under her gaze as the altered reality you had been living in started crashing down around you.

“You know that leaving is not allowed, honey,” she continued, taking a calculated step closer to you. “Why would you want to leave me—Westview?” she corrected, but you felt like the word choice was also calculated.

“I wasn’t trying to leave,” you told her. “I was just walking around town. I got to Ellis Avenue and I saw…” you trailed, trying to focus through Wanda’s hand in your brain to remember what you saw.

Wanda took another step towards you, and she was standing in front of you now. She brought her hand to your chin, her smooth fingers cradling it and lifting your face up to look at her tilted head. “Saw what, honey?”

Before you could say anything, her hand slipped down to your throat and gently clasped it. Wanda pushed you backwards slowly, placing her knee on the bed and crawling over you as she moved you so easily to your back. You laid on the bed, staring up with wide eyes at your neighbor who was kneeling between your legs.

“You can’t leave, y/n,” Wanda huskily whispered as her other hand rested on the middle of your stomach, feeling you inhale and exhale fearfully. “I won’t let you.” Her hand lowered, swiveling around the crescent of your hip before slipping under your skirt and landing between your legs, cupping you. Your breath hitched at the feeling, and although panic was quickly rising within you, heat blossomed from where her hand was.

“What do you mean?” you breathlessly asked as Wanda lost focus, trailing her eyes over your skimpy corset and your short skirt that was raised over your hips now. She licked her lips, her fingers hooking around the hem of your panties.

“Walking around town at night, during Halloween, wearing something like this?” She clicked her tongue, her wild eyes flashing back to yours. “If only I didn’t give you the costume myself, I would be punishing you over my lap right now.”

She gave you the costume? No, no, you found the costume in your closet. You bought it yourself at… You couldn’t remember where you bought it. You couldn’t remember it ever even being in your closet until hours before when you were scrummaging for something to wear. Did she sneak into your house and put it there?

More important matters were on your mind. “Wanda, what do you mean you won’t let me leave?”

“Hush, kitten. Mommy’s waited so long to have you.” She started to drag your panties down your thighs, breathing through her teeth as her eyes focused in between your skirt.

Wanda was the most attractive woman in Westview, although you had never thought of her that way because she was married and had children. Still, you wondered why you weren’t trying to leave, why you were letting her drop your panties to the floor.

Her hands took the underside of your knees and bent them upwards, spreading them so you were wide open for her. She lowered herself down between your legs, and before you knew it, her mouth was on you.

Your lips fell open as Wanda began to devour you, moaning into you as her tongue rolled over your clit. Your mind was hurting from confusion and from Wanda messing with it, but it started to fade away as she pleasured you. There was desperation in the way she ate you, like she had been dreaming for years to spread your legs and have just a taste of you. You couldn’t remember Wanda ever flirting with you or showing anything other than neighborly care, but her desire was clear in the way she hooked her arms around your thighs to keep you still as she tasted you.

“Wanda,” you breathed, your chest arching off the bed as your hips bucked towards her mouth. You glanced down to see her locks of red hair sprawled across your thighs, her cardboard crown poking your thighs. You were growing dizzy, a pressure forming in your lower abdomen as your thighs squeezed around her head. She gave a guttural moan right against your clit that pushed you over the edge, throwing your head back in a high-pitched moan as you came. Wanda continued to lap at you through your climax, her fingertips pressing into your thighs so hard they left bruises.

Wanda carried you through your high until you fell back against the bed, panting and feeling the tingly feelings linger within you. You felt a sort of guilt for what had just happened, how you had let a married woman put you on her bed and put her head between your legs, until Wanda rose up and placed a leg outside of yours, keeping one between your legs as she cupped you again, this time touching you bare. Your juices were glistening on her lips, her lipstick not as smudged as you thought it would be. You tensed when you felt her fingers reach your entrance but then stop suddenly. Her dark eyes flickered, and she took her hand away.

“No,” she whispered to herself. “I want to savor you.”

She got off of you, placing your skirt back over your legs with one hand as she sucked your wetness off the fingers of her other hand. You were weak as you sat up on your elbows, looking at her in confusion. She was going to savor you? Was she going to ask you out again or something? How was she going to assume that you were going to say yes, or that you were going to let her touch you again?

“I don’t have to assume,” she answered for you, and she stretched her hand out towards you. You saw a flash of red and heard that loud buzzing sound in your ears before you fell asleep.

You were in a strange place when you woke up. It was a bedroom, an unfamiliar one that was decorated strangely. There was some sort of TV hanging on the wall, except it was wide and completely flat. As you sat up from the bed, feeling dizzy and sore, you looked around the room and noticed that it looked familiar.

It was Wanda’s room, but it was decorated completely different. It was more modern, with a strange device the size of your hand sitting on the nightstand. It looked like a mini version of the strange TV hanging on the wall.

“Oh, you’re awake.”

You jumped, not having seen Wanda standing there in the doorway. She was wearing a blue plaid robe with a gray shirt and sweatpants. As you looked down, you were also dressed differently in sweatpants and a plain t-shirt. You knew that you had went to sleep wearing something different. Did she change your clothes?

You glanced to a calendar on the wall beside the mirror, and for some reason you didn’t gasp in shock to realize that you were in an entirely different decade. You only smiled at Wanda and told her good morning, completely involuntarily. Wanda grinned and tilted her head, and in the look on her face you realized that she was controlling you and that she had been all along. You were in her forcefield that she built around you, and she certainly was never, ever going to let you leave.

#wanda maximoff #scarlet witch #lesbian #lgbt #wanda maximoff x reader #nsft #smut #marvel #elizabeth olsen #lizzie olsen #wanda maxmoff x y/n #wanda maximoff x f!reader #dark!wanda #crimsonween

547 notes · View notes

runwayrunway · 8 months

Text

Miss Conenginality No. 5 - Tupolev Tu-134

So most planes I've talked about so far on this blog have been modern Boeing, Airbus, Embraer, Bombardier, and ATR models. These are now ubiquitous basically everywhere. Occasionally I'll bring up an old Douglas or even a Lockheed airliner. But back during the cold war Soviet airplanes were a thing, and by modern standards they're really different from what we're used to.

As someone of Soviet extraction I have a weird amount of pseudo-nostalgic fondness for these planes, many of which were out of service before I was born. So let's take a look at one I've looked at a lot in preparation for an upcoming post - the Tupolev Tu-134.

I would not say the Tu-134 is my number one favorite of the assorted weird-looking Soviet planes out there, but I would definitely say that I enjoy it a lot and I think beyond that it's a good starting point for weird-looking Soviet planes. It was common, with the better part of a thousand produced, and you could consider it the rough counterpart to something like a BAC One-Eleven or an earlier DC-9 - a nice and reliable plane to carry a relatively small number of passengers a short-to-medium distance, with a t-tail, two rear-mounted engines, and swept wings. It's just...a lot spikier.

The Tu-134 was introduced in 1970. It was built because Nikita Khrushchev took one flight in a Sud Aviation Caravelle and was so impressed by the quiet cabins of rear-engined planes that he demanded one be designed immediately. (This becomes funny when one realizes that by modern standards the Tu-134, as is true of most planes of its era, is so loud it's banned from many airfields.) Like the other handful of planes that Soviet leaders decided needed to be designed because they saw a Western plane and went "hey, I want something like that", the Tu-134 was designed by Tupolev, who had also designed the Soviet Union's first jet airliner (the Tu-104) and the Tu-144 supersonic airliner. I find that even by the standards of Soviet planes Tupolev models, while they might not be the weirdest-looking, might be the weirdest-functioning in their own little ways.

A lot of Soviet planes have at least a handful of design features that are pretty off-kilter. To begin with, a lot of these planes are designed to work on unpaved airstrips, presumably because Siberia. This is extra true of a model like the Tu-134, which has engines located higher off the ground, reducing the necessary clearance from rough terrain and the chance of foreign object damage while on the ground.

The Tu-134 is a different sort of beast, though. It's the equivalent of a Soviet DC-9 or BAC 1-11, with the rear engines and t-tail, but it looks like it's trying to hunch in on itself due to its wing sweep being a spectacular 35 degrees. That's around ten degrees more swept than comparable designs. Why? Tupolev.

(Presumably the increased efficiency in high subsonic flight regimes was considered worth the risk of uncommanded pitch-ups, which feels in keeping with Soviet design principles of the time, which favored designs which were high-performance but very unforgiving. Maybe the tail and engines were heavier than on comparable models and thus required the higher sweep. Just my guess, though, and I know very little.)

I just love the spikiness of this plane. The sweep on the wings means that no matter what angle you see it at it looks a bit silly, and the forward spike on the tailplane is just awesome. This entire plane looks like an arrow, or like a paper airplane model that nobody bothered to make less pointy when they scaled it up. Even the tapering of the fuselage up near the tail feels needlessly aggressive. It feels like an airliner dressed up as a fighter jet, or potentially a missile.

This is a plane which looks like if it struck another, much larger plane in midair it would simply go through it like a needle. This plane looks like you should be able to shoot it out of a very large bow. The wings are slightly anhedral (another reason for the excessive sweep may be to balance this out, as anhedral wings, or wings which slope downwards, sacrifice inherent roll stability for controllability, but this stabilizing effect is also conferred by swept wings. Yes, that is an oversimplification, but this post is about the visuals of the plane.) This always kind of makes the Tu-134 look like it's midway through flapping its wings, or like it's starting the process of folding up its wings via a hinge in the fuselage. It's almost a bit uncanny to be able to see the underside of the wing from angles that you normally definitely wouldn't. Anhedral wings are also a common feature of Soviet aircraft, but most of those are high-wing. It's sort of rare to see a low-wing anhedral aircraft in general aside from fighter jets. Those use computers to reduce the inherent instability of the configuration, but the Tu-134 was analogue. Very, very analogue. It actually ran on direct current. Why? Tupolev.

image: Vitaly Kuzmin

One thing I really like about Tupolev planes is that their cockpits were painted a delightful teal. This is not a unique Tupolev feature by any means (actually, the DC-9 had it) but they're the most consistent about it of any manufacturer I'm aware of. This apparently was meant to calm down pilots, presumably coming in useful during the uncommanded pitch-ups. (Extra nasty on a plane hypothetically able to deep-stall, though I can't find any record of a Tu-134 ever deep-stalling and its safety record was actually pretty good for its era.)

I have no idea what's up with that spike on the tail. The 707's tail spike was an antenna for high-frequency radio, so this might be something similar, but I'm not sure. (Check out the sweep on those horizontal stabilizers, though!)

Edit: the tail spikey is an anti-shock body, it seems!

There are two main models of Tu-134. How do you tell a Tu-134A from a Tu-134B? If you're a pilot, you'll probably be clued in by the lack of an APU (...the ICAO apparently thought this was fine, which worries me) but that's a bit hard to notice for a passenger. Thankfully, it should be easy to tell on landing, because the Tu-134A didn't have engines capable of producing reverse thrust. This is very uncommon (for good reason) but not unheard of. Does it solve the issue like the BAe 146, with an air brake and giant spoilers? Absolutely not, this is Tupolev.

DROGUE PARACHUTE.

These are both the earlier Tu-104. I couldn't find any pictures of the Tu-134 using its parachute. Shame they didn't seem to bother adding liveries to them. Also, they're reusable, don't worry. And by 'they' I mean the parachutes, though the planes usually also are.

This does, surprisingly, have some actual advantages, in both high-speed emergency landings and in situations where the wheels can't find adequate purchase, like excessively gravelly or rainy runways. The earlier-mentioned BAe 146 was intended for operation on similarly rugged or short runways and, while it was generally safe, the margin for error was significantly reduced, with multiple fatal crashes related to overrunning runways in poor weather. Still, if I were the pilot of a plane which used one of these I would be perpetually terrified about the possibility of someone else running over my parachute. That would be potentially dangerous, not to mention incredibly awkward.

(That sounds like something you'd say to condescendingly ask a Tu-134 pilot why they're in a bad mood. Aww, someone run over your chute today?)

It's almost a bit bizarre seeing a Tu-134 next to a regular Western plane.

The main way to tell them apart at a glance, though, is the nose.

That little chin they've given her is where the radar is stored. Other airlines tend to keep this in the nose, but the Tu-134A used the nose for a much more important purpose. That's right, it's the

SOVIET NAVIGATOR PIT.

Soviet designs tended to use more flight crew for longer than Western ones, with planes retaining a dedicated radio operator and navigator in many cases. While this is a mostly innocuous design feature (you get severely diminishing returns for every flight crew member past the second, and risk breakdowns of communication by adding potential points of failure, but you do still have more brains on board to distribute tasks to) it has the pretty awesome result of the

SOVIET NAVIGATOR PIT.

This is to an extent a vestigial feature from the Tu-134's origin as the Tu-16 bomber (by way of the earlier Tu-124 and Tu-104 jet airliners, the latter of which was the second ever to fly). Still, this feature in Soviet planes isn't limited to Tu-16 derivations or even bombers, and can be found in planes like the Il-76.

Just think about flying on one of these. I get that it would be a nightmare for a lot of people, and I'll admit I don't love looking down at clouds from conventional cruise altitude myself, but I would love nothing more than to sit by one of these for a nice overland flight at a scenically suitable altitude (even though the glass seems like it might get cold).

Unfortunately, my hopes are not only dead but stillborn, as the Tu-134A is fully out of service. My hopes of flying on a Tu-134B are nearly as dire, but it's technically - very technically - possible. There remains one single operator of the Tu-134.

Air Koryo, the flag carrier of North Korea, still has two Tu-134 in its fleet. This poses a major problem, because currently my only passport is a US one, and US passports can't be used to enter North Korea. This ban is on the US's end rather than North Korea's, so if I could get a second passport from literally anywhere other than South Korea this would cease to be an obstacle, but even though I'm hypothetically eligible for a Russian passport there has never been a time I've wanted to get one less. You know, just in case I want to go to Poland or Latvia sometime. That is all to say...it's a race between Air Koryo retiring their Tu-134s, and me successfully getting another passport (and being able to afford a trip to North Korea on top of it). So unless any Irish citizens are eager to spend at least one year in a greencard marriage that dream is also quite dead. Sorry, sweet girl. It just wasn't meant to be.

Get a good look at those little raised bits on the wing, by the way. That's the old Soviet trick for keeping highly swept wings from doing that awful 'just kind of pitching up and losing control when close to stalling' thing, wing fences!

I just can't help but love this strange little pointy critter. Nobody ever designs planes that look quite this weird anymore, and I get that that's because the shape of an airliner has been more or less engineered to perfection by now, but it's still sort of a shame. This really was purely a Soviet thing - modern Russian designs like the Sukhoi Superjet and the Irkut MC-21 sort of just look broadly like 737s. The era of weird airliners seems to be largely over.

But at least when I review liveries, sometimes I'm able to gaze back through the rolled-up newspaper tube of history and see what planes looked like in a more imperfect time, when thrust reversers were an optional design choice and sometimes a plane was just very very pointy, because Tupolev.

#miss conenginality #double sunrise

90 notes · View notes

sanctus-ingenium · 8 months

Text

i answer your asks vol 4

I'm not american. I HAVE heard back from Inprnt re: the $180 i requested a withdrawal for in july. They say that this has been a common issue lately (no kidding). They cancelled my withdrawal request and made a new one, saying it was some sort of issue with paypal. Yeah idk I think I'll wait for this new request (and the final withdrawal too) to be fulfilled before they start to earn back any amount of goodwill from me.

I think that's an interesting progression for the technology but I don't believe it's the logical next era, even centuries down the line. What I see potentially occurring is the democratisation of smaller engines. The majority of Mercury enginesmiths make small engines - and bear in mind that an 'engine' can be thought of as a catch-all term for any magic device that runs on dragonsblood. Things like long distance messaging, basic calculators, astronomy tools, Sir Victory's arm, that sort of thing - any of these magics are built off the back of a small combustion engine. And these are far more easy to pass into the hands of the public (as many already are) than something huge and specialised that requires an army just to maintain it.

Think about the supersonic bomber aircraft race during the cold war that brought about planes like the valkyrie - incredible technology, sure, but it wasn't replaced by a faster better plane, it was replaced by long-distance missiles that fulfilled the role better. It is more feasible that the Mezian church would develop more efficient ways to get their dragonsblood fuel than using holy beasts at all. The holy beasts are more likely to be made obsolete by some kind of, idk, harpoon with siphon kind of thing than a zoid type beast.

I can't speak about the conservation status of dragons but one of the main duties of an alchemist within the church is to handle fuel, and lately there have been new orders to synthesise a viable alternative to dragonsblood. Not because of a dragonsblood shortage (although there is one, this order came before that) but because dragonsblood is still too accessible to everyone else. A fully proprietary fuel even more absolutely under their control would solve a lot of problems for the church.

Church doctrine states that it is bone ;)

if you mean Krokodilos/Crocodile, no, the size difference between Guinefort/Nosewyse and croc was huuuuge and their heads couldn't be interchangeable. Krokodilos is the longest (though not the tallest) holy beast and he's not a dragon, he is a crocodile :)

Saint Guinefort was beheaded for an unrelated reason.

Here I can make a little diagram. When I say Nosewyse is tiny I mean it is tiny.

Croc's head is small for his body size though. His skull was recovered only in fragments and the rest was artistic interpretation on the part of the armoursmiths who made the chassis.

I also discovered that Krokodilos's tail is exactly 1 Pantera long. The huge tail was shielded without the vertebrae left bare because it had to serve as a counterbalance for the rest of croc's body, so it had to be very heavy.

ngl Krokodilos was originally a joke holy beast because i saw that drawing of a crocodile where it looks Like That and went haha funny... I'm glad to get a chance to actually write some solid stuff about him.

#setting: mez

77 notes · View notes

topgunreacts · 9 months

Note

please share your thoughts on canon ice with the peanut gallery. character analysis i beg of you. this funky little guy has been shaking in my parlor like a sopping wet chihuahua and i cannot understand him by God. break him down for me. explain him.

what are your thoughts. feelings. complaints, concerns. rude remarks. who is Iceman what’s he about

Omg I'm so bad at these. Please take everything I say with a grain of salt. I will try my best. My real character dissertations are in my stories.

Thots

Tall

Moist

I don't give a shit what color his eyes are; it's running gag of mine (and only funny to me) to switch up his eye color between stories

Stop wearing sunglasses indoors

Great bone structure in the fingers

Fuckable but not by me

Misunderstood

Gum problem

So fucking tired

Incredibly bad at talking about his feelings. So bad. But god he tries his best to make Maverick feel better after Goose goes to the Untitled Game in the sky.

Too smart for his own good

Afraid of emails

Home of sexual

Every time I give him anxiety, I also give him a huge cock as a consolation prize. It's what he deserves.

Could use a good consensual caning. He could learn from Chance Engagement Ice.

Goes to bed at 9 PM

From California or Hawaii or Michigan or Canada or somewhere, a place definitely, with a location that is real

Is NOT a rule follower. Look at his fucking hair. He says YO to Viper. He is unapologetically Doing His Own Thing. Werk.

Concerns

Iceman is regarded as a shallow villain-antagonist by many people. This is very silly. Just because Maverick is The Hero doesn't mean he's right about everything or that what he does is justified. Each and every time Ice calls Maverick out on his behavior, he's (1) correct and (2) motivated by a desire to go home alive at the end of each day. Maverick IS dangerous. He IS unsafe. His behavior SHOULD be regarded with suspicion re: his intentions by his supposed allies. These people are flying around in high-speed metal triangles. Have you ever seen the end result of a mid-air collision between aircraft that AREN'T going mach speeds? Here is an example! [image depicts plane crash debris, no bodies, but...nobody survived this] [TCAS wasn't invented until after the 1956 Grand Canyon collision!!!!!] The DC-7 was the faster jet in the incident, with a max speed of 406 mph (653 km/h, 353 kn). Those little regional jets you might have flown on for short domestic hops can hit speeds of 600 mph in the modern era. A Tomcat, remember, can go supersonic. Ice would become confetti. I'd fucking say something, too!

At no point does Ice come across as cruel when he makes these comments about Maverick's performance, also. He shit talks (cough cough bullshit) but it always struck me as standard issue locker room talk crap. It's not Personal. He's not trying to throw Maverick off his game or anything. Ice isn't there to make FRIENDS he's there to WIN is at TOPGUN ready to do his job and kick ass. And he also, you know, wants to survive to graduation without getting slammed [aerially] by the guy who thinks it's fun to break aviation regulations over an ACTIVE AIRFIELD. People like to compare Ice to Hangman in terms of attitude. A lot. And Ice is not even remotely like Hangman. Asking Maverick whose side he's on after Maverick demonstrates careless piloting--behavior that directly endangers Ice and others--is not the same thing as bringing up somebody's dead dad as like, a dig.

Feelings

Spoonable.

Val Kilmer's little mole is cute.

Complaints

Needs more gay

Needs more lines

Needs more ass shots like the ones Miranda got in Mass Effect 2*

Rude Remarks

Take off your fucking shades in tha club, you absolute square.

*(Did you know the person who made the ME2 mod to remove Miranda's ass shots made a mod for the legendary edition to re-add the ass shots? The studio took out the ass shots on their own for legendary. To be modern and corporate-approved feminist or something. And this modder was like no. Only I can do that. They took Miranda's ass out of this world and they're going to put it back in.)

Conclusion

pussy shot.

#iceman kazansky #top gun #in depth character analysis worthy of academic journals #ask #iceman #top gun iceman #top gun iceman kazansky #top gun shitposting #feel free not to have opinions about this post I certainly don’t

57 notes · View notes

clambuoyance · 10 months

Note

Hey, I just finished the Young Justice 1998 comics (it was very good, I enjoy it a lot) and wanted to ask what should I read next? (I have some ideas but am not entirely sure since I haven't read a lot of DC's stuff)

Young Just Us Gang:

You can read any of the three solos for Tim (Robin 1993), Bart (Impulse 1995) and Kon (Superboy 1994), but Bart's is probably the most similar in tone to the YJ books.

If you want to continue seeing these characters together, then you can read Young Justice/Titans: Graduation Day (2003) and then Teen Titans (2003). Cassie never really gets a solo but she is a major player in that run which has 100 issues. Superboy gets a mini story in Adventure Comics: Boy of Steel (2009) and then another short solo called Superboy Vol 5 (2011). Tim obviously has a very long Robin solo, but you can also read Red Robin (2009) .

They also have Young Justice (2019) that features a lot of other characters, and currently Bart has been showing up a lot in the current Flash run (he has a story dedicated to him in Flash #800). Tim appears in a lot of runs like Tim Drake: Robin (2022) and such. Kon also has a mini solo called Superboy: The Man of Tomorrow (2023) !!

(I really havent read anything from the 2011-2016 era)

Other Recs:

If you're interested in more characters with similar age ranges, then Cassandra Cain and Stephanie Brown books are really fun! Just as a basic list: Batgirl (2000), Batgirl (2009), Batgirls (2022)

Or Supersons (2016) for younger characters like Damian Wayne and Jon Kent. These characters both have a lot of runs as well if you are interested.

There's also the old Teen Titans runs you can read with Dick Grayson!

So yeah there's a lot!!!! I could go on and on haha

If you're curious the main things I'm reading right now are mostly marvel but got some dc stuff too. Im reading Superboy: Man of Tomorrow, all of Kate Bishop and America Chavez's comics and basically the whole young avengers gang, hoping to get through Booster Gold's solo, and I wanna read Nova (Sam Alexander) and the Champions run.

#clam answers #dc #comic talk

68 notes · View notes

supersonicart · 1 year

Text

Megan Ellen MacDonald's "Wet Dream."

Currently on view until January 7th, 2023 at Hashimoto Contemporary in New York City is artist Megan Ellen MacDonald's solo exhibition, "Wet Dream."

Utilizing 3D software and virtual reality to create intricate scenes, the artist reinterprets these compositions via traditional oil painting techniques informed by historical still life painting of the Dutch Golden Era. Continuing the exploration of contrasting themes of objectification and power, MacDonald expands on how these themes relate to the femme experience through coded iconography.

For Wet Dream, the artist depicts distorted, opulent tableaus of natural elements filled with flowers, skulls and fruit, which allude to the commodification and seduction within an elaborate inner world; one that clumsily mimics elements of ours but maintains its own unique aesthetic. Glossy, overly ripe fruits and flowers hang from delicate stems, drooping heavily from the weight. Shucked oysters tantalizingly call to the viewer, holding a shimmering pearl at it’s center. MacDonald’s saturated palette is slick and full of shades of pink, what is considered to be a traditionally femme color.

About the latest body of work, the artist states, “each work serves as a memento mori and love letter to the complexities of nature that we take for granted. While the work explores feminine identity and the dichotomy of gender and power, the narratives in the exhibition include references to the fragility and beauty of the natural world.”

Seductive yet unnerving in their surreal nature, the artist paints scenes which allude to the impact of human intervention with nature, and our inclination to replace real world experiences with more curated, commodified existences.

THE SUPERSONIC ART SHOP | FOLLOW ON INSTAGRAM

#art #painting #megan ellen macdonald #hashimoto contemporary

163 notes · View notes

usafphantom2 · 9 months

Text

Of course the Sabre was the most important Cold War aircraft, here’s why

Hush KitSeptember 27, 2022

The Cold War took a brief rest between the early 1990s and the 2010s, but serious tension between the largest former Soviet nation and the West has now returned. At the forefront of the original Cold War was air power, and this fearful age sired a multitude of incredible and often long-lived warplanes. In the second of a series of articles written by pilots and subject experts, we consider the question of which Cold War military aircraft was the most important. Let us turn start to Peter E Davies case for the F-86 Sabre.

In 1954 the massive Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada, later to host Red Flag and other spectacular USAF training activities and projects, was already an exciting place for new pilots. It hosted the F-86 Sabre, the world’s premier fighter at the time and one which became a seminal influence on most subsequent fighter designs. Sabre pilots had roundly defeated communist MiG-15s over North Korea, and many of those wartime pilots (including seventeen aces) were now instructors at Nellis. For new trainees the chance to join that exclusive fraternity was compelling. The Sabre’s reputation as the West’s first true jet dogfighter was well established. Before technology took over the combat cockpit it was also the last fighter in the tradition of the Spitfire and Mustang in which the pilot had full manual control. During the Cold War the Sabre and its pilots kept alive the dogfighting tradition at a time when caution and cost-cutting in training programs actually prevented many trainee pilots from indulging in realistic air combat manoeuvres. That continuity paved the route for a later generation of versatile air-fighters including the F-15 Eagle and F-16 Fighting Falcon. Conventional late-1950s wisdom advocated aerial combat with large aircraft firing missiles from long distances.

The Sabre’s outstanding combat record was founded in its design’s many technical advances at a time when most designers were still simply adding jet engines to WW II-style airframes. In 1943 North American Aviation (NAA), decided to avoid direct competition with Lockheed’s straight-winged F-80 Shooting Star, the USAF’s first successful jet fighter. The company initiated a new German-inspired wing in 1945, swept at 35 degrees. It was a bold step as the few previous swept-wing designs had exhibited instability problems. Large, automatic wing slats and hydraulically boosted ailerons were the innovative NAA solution, giving superb transonic handling. A unique blown plastic cockpit canopy gave all-round vision unequalled in fighters until the advent of the F-15 Eagle. NAA developed manufacturing techniques for a thin wing with machined-plate, double layer skins. The F-86E version introduced the now-universal powered, ‘all-flying’ tailplane.

Sabres retained gun armament, either the standard six .50 calibre machine gun fit or (in later Sabres) 20mm cannon. Guns disappeared from many other Cold War fighters in favour of missiles, but the Vietnam war showed that to be a mistake. However, the Sabre also pioneered the use of air-to-air missiles in the radar-equipped, all weather, rocket firing F-86D version (added in 1949). It included an early afterburner and a complex Hughes E-4 fire-control system. It became the most prolific Sabre variant with over 2,500 manufactured, pioneering radar-based interception in many air forces of the Cold War era.

Early jet engines of the time were often unreliable, but NAA designers chose the best available option, the Allison J35 in the F-86 prototype which first flew on October 1, 1947 and achieved supersonic flight in a shallow dive the following year as the first service-capable fighter to achieve that speed safely. The engine was replaced by the General Electric J47, also selected for the B-47 Stratojet bomber. It became an outstanding powerplant in Korean combat and effectively proved that jet fighters could be as effective and reliable as their prop-driven predecessors – and a lot faster. Cold War fighter designers throughout the world benefited from that bonus.

When the Korean War began in June, 1950 the small Allied air forces in South Korea relied on WW II propeller-driven aircraft and early, straight-winged F-80 and F-84 jets. None matched the Soviet MiG-15, a broadly similar swept-wing jet to the Sabre. F-86As were urgently deployed to counter this unanticipated threat. Despite the MiG-15’s altitude advantage and its pilots’ proximity to their home bases the outnumbered, but better-trained Sabre pilots soon regained air superiority. It was a scenario to be repeated in many respects in Vietnam over a decade later.

The Sabre’s success and influence are demonstrated by its unusually widespread use. Overall production ran to almost 9,000 aircraft, with licence production in Canada, Japan, Italy and Australia. No fewer than 35 air forces used Sabres, making it the most numerous Western Cold War jet fighter and giving many of those users entry to the jet age. It equipped many NATO nations, including Great Britain, to face the growing Soviet threat following the Berlin crisis in 1949. Some continued in service, and occasional combat until the mid-1980s.The US Navy’s used F-86 derivatives, culminating in the very capable, long-range FJ-4B fighter-bomber. They equipped 22 USN and USMC squadrons up to 1962. In US Navy training sessions a well-flown F-86 regularly beat F-4 Phantom and F-8 Crusader pilots in dogfighting practices.

An F-86 pilot allegedly achieved supersonic flight shortly before Chuck Yeager’s official sound barrier-smashing flight in 1947, but it was the success rate of twelve-to-one against MiG-15s (later to be scaled down to a still creditable 4:1) that lent the Sabre an almost legendary status and reminded future fighter designers that manoeuvrability, ease of operation and gunfighting capability were still relevant in the supersonic era. While some might champion aircraft like the Hawker Hunter, F-4 Phantom or MiG-21 as the most influential Cold War fighters there is no doubt that the F-86’s wide range of ground-breaking achievements in design and worldwide service easily give it that accolade.

Peter E Davies. September 2022, Peter Davies is based in Bristol and has written or co-written 16 books on modern American combat aircraft, including four previous Osprey titles and the standard reference work on US Navy and Marine Corps Phantom II operations, Gray Ghosts.

39 notes · View notes