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just-another-josh · 6 months

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Romance

Kara had the best of intentions.

She really, really did.

But let’s be honest, she didn’t stand a chance. She was setup to fail since childhood. During her time on Krypton, she never saw an actual, honest-to-Rao wedding proposal; not anything resembling Earth standards, mind you. No, it was basically your parents marching you down to the local council building when you came of age and submitting your DNA to the Matricomp to find a genetically suitable partner. The nobler the house, the better. It was no different than an arranged marriage on Earth.

On the off chance you did meet someone you wanted to bond with, the process was the same, save for your DNA was only tested against your potential mate’s. When Kara reached adulthood and reflected on the matching process, ‘cringy’ was the best way she could describe it. She was honestly happy the ritual didn’t survive Krypton’s destruction and by extension was not practiced on Argo. She loved keeping her culture alive and all, but she had no interest in telling Alura and Zor-El to “piss off” if her parents ever had the audacity to suggest she of submit her name.

Her exposure to proposals on Earth were limited, at best. Sure, she’d seen her fair share of people popping the question in the multitude of rom coms she’d watched and books she’d read, but her sample of real-world proposals was…sketchy. Eliza never shared the story of how Jeremiah proposed to her simply because it brought up too many bad memories. Kal and Lois were always vague when sharing the story of their engagement. As for Alex and Sam, their proposal took place immediately after destroying Al’s bar fighting Lex and Nyxly for the Love totem; any guidance they had to offer lacked credibility.

Without any authentic, trustworthy examples available to her, Kara decided to forge ahead on her own when she made the decision to propose to Lena. She convinced herself she didn’t need any help; she’s the editor-in-chief of CatCo magazine, hell, she’s Supergirl for Rao’s sake. She could come up with the perfect proposal that would blow the CEO’s mind! Something that would ooze love, devotion, and romance.

Kara spent a month coming up with the perfect set-up. She’d already forged the bonding bracelet in the Fortress and, with a little help from Sara Lance and Iris West-Allen, had purchased the perfect engagement ring (she didn’t involve her sister in the process; Alex had a big mouth whenever she hung out with Lena). She had a special box created to house the bracelet and ring for an optimal presentation; lining it with blue felt on the exterior and red felt inside.

As for the location, she decided to keep it simple and propose at their penthouse. She would fill the living and dining areas with candles to set the mood; sparing a few for the bedroom in case they decided to celebrate their pending nuptials in a more intimate setting.

She wanted to look particularly radiant that night, and with Nia’s help, Kara found the perfect dress at an upscale boutique. Not wanting the Naltorian to know why she was getting the dress (much like Alex, Nia also had a big mouth), Kara told her that she and Lena were going to dinner at a fancy new restaurant. Kara was nervous and disappointed when she was told the color dress she wanted had to be fitted and altered and couldn’t take it home that day, but the sales clerk assured her it would be ready before their “special night”.

Kara planned the perfect meal for her zhao. It would be a magnificent dinner filled with her favorite Irish foods. The Kryptonian knew she wasn’t the best cook, but she felt confident she could prepare Irish stew, soda bread, Colcannon Mash, and traditional Irish apple cake with custard sauce after watching a few YouTube videos.

Last but not least, Kara spent weeks preparing the speech she would give Lena when she proposed to her. The first draft went through multiple edits before she scrapped the whole thing and rewrote it. After rewriting the speech from scratch four more times and dozens of edits, Kara was finally satisfied. The hero thought it was the greatest piece of writing she’d ever done; in her mind, eclipsing even her Pulitzer winning expose on Lex and Red Daughter.

The plan was simple: Kara would propose to Lena on a Friday night. The CEO always got off in time for dinner on Fridays; a compromise the CEO made with the hero when they moved in together. She would meet Lena at the door wearing her very expensive dress; dinner already platted and on the dining room table. They’d enjoy a candlelit dinner with her and Lena’s favorite sappy playlist playing softly in the background. Once dinner was finished, she’d ask Lena to dance with her and when the playlist hit their special song (Safe & Sound by Taylor Swift, of course), Kara would produce the box that she had strategically hidden under the coffee table, get down on one knee, and propose. If Lena said ‘yes’ (Kara was at least 90% sure she would), her and her new fiancé would enjoy dessert and later head off to their bedroom to make love the rest of the night.

“Easy-peasy, lemon-squeezy” as Winn would say.

Right?

The first indication that things were not going to go smoothly was a delay with the alterations to her new dress. The clerk at the boutique called her three days before the big night saying that the seamstress had been ill and was behind on her orders, but before Kara could hyperventilate, the clerk assured her it would be ready Friday morning with plenty of time to spare before dinner. Kara spent the next fifteen minutes doing controlled breathing exercises Eliza had taught her when she first arrived on Earth, reassuring herself that everything was going to be okay.

The rest of the week passed without further complications; it wasn’t until Friday morning that everything started going sideways.

Kara received word from the clerk at the boutique that her dress had been destroyed in a sewing machine mishap. Kara tried to roll with the punches and asked if they still had the dress in the color that she initially tried on. Unfortunately, the clerk informed her that that style of dress had sold out. After receiving a half-assed apology from the clearly disingenuous clerk, Kara poked her finger through her phone as she ended the call. The Kryptonian rushed to her private bathroom and spent several minutes doing breathing exercises again. Kara quietly mumbled to herself between breaths, “Everything’s going to be okay. This is just a minor setback. It’s okay. I’m okay. I’ll just dig out that dress I wore when we crashed Morgan Edge’s party. Yeah, that’s it, that’ll work. Everything’s going to be great!” She got up, splashed some water on her face, and went back to work.

Fortunately, Kara was able to escape CatCo in the early afternoon. With her personal phone taking up residence in the trash can, Kara grabbed her seldom used work phone, shot a text off to Lena telling her that she’d be using it the rest of the day, and flew (literally) out of her office to pick up the ingredients for the night’s special meal. The hero hated that she had to wait until the last minute to hit the grocery store, but between EIC and Supergirl duties that week, she just hadn’t had the time. Luck seemed to be on Kara’s side as she had no issues finding the supplies she needed and getting out of the store swiftly.

She returned home around 4pm and began fixing dinner in earnest, super-speeding through prepping the ingredients. She boiled potatoes, sliced up beef, apples, and veggies, whipped together dough, and sauteed some of the chopped vegetables in olive oil. She had everything prepped and ready to cook within twenty minutes (the potatoes took forever to boil, and she didn’t trust speeding up the cook time with her heat vision).

Kara didn’t realize the stew would take three hours in the crock pot before it was ready, creating a slight problem; Lena was due home in two hours. Kara turned the heat up to its highest setting to speed up the process. The bread, Colcannon, and apple cake would only take a half hour in the oven, so she moved on to the next phase of her plan.

Placing the candles throughout the penthouse was simple enough, but she ran into a bit of an issue when she went to pair her phone with the built-in sound system. Her work phone did not have the playlist she wanted downloaded on it and she couldn’t download it from the Cloud. Lena refused to connect any phone that didn’t have her personal encryption software installed, hence the reason why Kara never used her work phone. The Kryptonian for a generic YouTube playlist to stream directly into the living room speakers.

After speed cleaning the penthouse, setting the dining room table, and checking the progress of the stew (it was lukewarm at best), she readied her other dishes for the oven. A slight hiccup with the remaining dishes: each had to be cooked at different temperatures for different lengths of time. Unfortunately, the penthouse only had one oven, but Kara had prepared for this. Her plan was to average out the cooking times of the three dishes and repeat the process for the cooking temperatures. Bubbling with pride at her ingenuity, the blonde put the remaining dishes in the oven.

Her tasks completed; Kara noted she had forty-five minutes before Lena was due to arrive home. She used the time to take a shower, get dressed, and do her hair and make-up. As per usual, she kept her make-up light, save for using a darker shade of red lipstick. She styled her hair in a pompadour-style updo reminiscent of the way she wore during her exposure to Red K. Although she would never admit it to another living soul, she actually liked her wardrobe and style choices while she was infected; her fondness for that awful experience ending there.

Twenty minutes later, Kara exited the bedroom looking (and more importantly) feeling sexy and confident. She spent the next five minutes lighting the candles spread about the penthouse. Sadly, she had to light each candle at human speed; the candles would be blown out if she went any faster.

With twenty minutes left before Lena walked through the door, Kara walked into the kitchen to inspect her still-cooking food. Everything in the oven looked like it was progressing as planned; nothing was burned, smoking, or on fire, a win in Kara’s book. Much to her chagrin, the stew was still undercooked. Starting to panic, the Kryptonian decided to take a risk and use her heat vision to heat the stew to the appropriate temperature. Focusing on the simmering meal, Kara released two narrow, blue beams of heat vision. She had to use the utmost control to ensure she didn’t incinerate the stew (or the crock pot for that matter). She was reminded of all the times Eliza had had her finish cooking the Thanksgiving turkey in a similar fashion. Heating up a turkey was easy in comparison to what was essentially a thick soup; the slightest slip up could result in a boiling cauldron of inedible slop. As she slowly brought the hearty meal to temperature, she could smell a delicious combination of meat, vegetables, and spices. She couldn’t help the beaming, congratulatory smile on her face.

As far as Kara was concerned, she was killing it.

As if the universe had decided that Kara’s cockiness needed to be tempered, the alarm from the smoke detector roared to life causing the hero to lose focus; an intense burst of heat vision blowing the crock pot and its contents throughout the kitchen. Kara screamed as she was covered in thick, viscous brown chunks. The startled hero backed away from the oven and collided with the food prep area; the force of the impact crushing the lip of the marble counter with a loud crunch. Kara spun around to inspect whatever damage she’d done to the counter and in the process smacked the bottle of olive oil she’d used earlier. The oil splashed in all directions; some ending up on the candlelit dining table. The highly flammable oil ignited when it made contact with the candle’s open flame which resulted in bright flames springing to life on the tabletop; increasing its intensity quickly when the cloth napkins turned to kindling.

Seeing the mini-inferno spreading across the tabletop, Kara released a panicked yelp. “No, no, no, no, no, no!” she cried. She swiftly positioned herself near the table and extinguished the flames using her freeze-breath. The force of the artic blast knocked several candles off their perches: some landing on the floor and some on the furniture. Luckily, the candles were extinguished by the same force that knocked them over, but hot, liquified wax splashed onto the carpet and furniture indiscriminately.

With the table fire quelled, Kara turned back towards the kitchen to identify what had set off the smoke detector. The blonde zeroed in on a plume of smoke billowing out of the oven and rushed back into the kitchen. In her panic-driven haste, the Kryptonian ripped the oven door clean off its hinges and carelessly flung it away. The freshly launched door smashed through the glass sliding door and landed with a loud clang when it landed on the balcony.

Kara peered into the now doorless oven. “No!” she bellowed when she saw the soda bread burned to a crisp; thick black smoke rising from its charred corpse. The apple cake was well on its way to becoming charcoal but had yet to transition into a gaseous mess. The Colcannon resembled a Jello mold.

Kara, a crushed look on her stew-stained face, stepped back from the oven and doused the still smoking dishes with a quick burst of freeze-breath. She slowly became aware of the obnoxious shriek continuing to be emitted from the smoke detector. The Kryptonian removed the glass dish containing the Colcannon from the oven and flung it at the detector, smashing both to pieces.

Mercifully, the penthouse fell silent.

“Miss Zor-El, there is an incoming call from building security.” Hope’s soothing but indifferent voice broke the silence.

“Okay,” Kara quietly responded, clearly in a haze.

“Miss Danvers, this is Chet at the security desk. We’re monitoring a smoke detector activation coming from your unit. Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, just a little accident. Everything’s fine,” the hero flatly responded.

“Another issue with your toaster oven?” the guard said jokingly.

“Something like that.” She let out a shuddering breath at the guard’s playful ribbing, but the joke fell flat as it was just another reminder of her past cooking failures and compounded the gravity of her current situation.

“No worries, Miss Danvers. I’m glad everything’s okay. Please contact us if you need anything. Have a good night.” The guard hung up without a response; not that Kara really cared at this point.

Kara surveyed the penthouse; slowly taking in the scope of the damage. The kitchen counter and dining table both sported large scorch marks; the counter also showed a Kara-size indentation. Chunks of crushed, white marble littered the floor. The front of the oven sported black smoke residue that made a trail up to the ceiling. She turned towards the living room and saw that multiple candles were strewn about the carpet. Their white couch and loveseat bore splashes of now-cooled wax. The shattered sliding door and the severed oven door lying on the balcony floor added the finishing touches to the carnage.

Kara’s eyes filled with tears, but she refused to cry. She turned away from the damage and nonchalantly made her way to the bathroom. Once inside, she robotically wiped the brownish, caked-on stew residue off her face with a wet washcloth. Her face clean, she stared at her reflection in the mirror. Her once well-quaffed hair had wild strands hanging loose, her dress had crusty brown splotches running from top to bottom, and, turning to look at her backside, pieces of plaster and crushed marble covered her ass.

Kara squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head in disbelief. She exited the bathroom without making any other attempts to clean the remaining muck out of her hair or off her dress.

Kara returned to the living room and sat on their wax encrusted couch and the very edge of the cushion, her body ramrod straight. After a few minutes sitting quietly, the Kryptonian reached under the coffee table and retrieved the blue box containing the bonding bracelet and engagement ring. She set the box on top of the coffee table and longingly gazed at it. She closed her eyes and, as if finally giving permission to break free, a trickle of tears began to slide down her cheeks.

This is how Lena found her when she entered the penthouse.

The CEO mindlessly glimpsed at the mangled penthouse; mere seconds passed before her brain caught up to what she was seeing. “Kara!” She moved quickly to the couch, a look of panic in her eyes. “What happened? Did someone attack you?” Kara gave no indication that she was aware of Lena’s presence, let alone respond to her questions. Lena sat on the edge of the couch next to Kara, grabbing her by the shoulders and turning the seemingly catatonic Kryptonian’s body to face her. Lena closely examined her stunned girlfriend. She focused on the brown stains littering Kara’s dress, going so far as to scrape some of the crusted substance off with her fingernail.

After a brief examination of the unknown substance, a perplexed Lena gently cupped Kara’s cheek and ever so slowly turned the hero to face her. Lena saw a smattering of tears running down her cheeks. “Darling, what happened?” she asked with all the gentleness she could muster.

A look of pure anguish fell over Kara’s face and the floodgates opened. The hero pulled Lena into an almost too tight hug and buried her face in the CEO’s shoulder; uncontrollable sobs erupted from her. Rage, disappointment, embarrassment, and a litany of other emotions poured out of the blonde as her body was racked with an onslaught of tears. Muffled wails soon followed, the hero’s body quaking with each mournful cry.

On the verge of tears herself, Lena kept her composure as best she could. Her girlfriend needed her to keep her shit together and, although the CEO had no idea what was going on, she intended to support the hero in any way she could. She squeezed the blonde as tight as she could and ran her fingers through her hair, periodically planting chaste kisses on her forehead and softly whispering reassurances that everything would be okay.

After fifteen or so minutes, the Kryptonian’s cries were reduced to shuddered breaths and occasional sniffles. Taking this as a sign the blonde had finally calmed down, Lena decided it was a good time to get to the bottom of her girlfriend’s meltdown. “Are you feeling up to telling me what happened?” Kara’s body briefly stiffened, but the hero nodded into the brunette’s shoulder, nonetheless. She slowly extricated herself from Lena’s embrace and situated herself on the couch so she could properly face her.

Lena took one look at the bloodshot and puffy eyes on Kara’s tear-streaked face and her heart broke. “Oh, my giehrehv-divil, please tell me what happened.” Lena tucked a few strands of wet, matted hair behind the blonde’s ear.

Kara nodded and took a deep, shuddering breath. “I…I tried to plan a…a special evening for us. I ordered a special dress from Matti D and…and…I…was going to make some authentic, Irish food…and…and…so we could have a nice candlelight dinner…and then I was going to put on our favorite playlist…so…so we could dance…and then…and then…I was gonna…gonna give you…” Kara glanced at the blue box on the table and let out a painful, hiccupped whimper. “But everything got ruined!” she said with an angry stutter. “The seamstress destroyed the dress…so I had to put on this…this old rag which I know you like…but it’s four-years-old…and then…and then I broke my phone when they called me, so I didn’t have access to our playlist…” The intensity in Kara’s voice began to increase, as did the intervals between stuttered breaths. “…and…and I tried to cook dinner…but everything burned…and then…the table caught on fire and…and…I broke the counter…and…I ripped the door off the oven and threw it through the sliding door…and the wax on the couch…” Kara choked on a sob. “I wrecked everything!” she howled before crumbling into heaping mess of tears.

Lena deftly pulled the hysterical Kryptonian into her arms and began rocking her. She rubbed small circles on her back and planted more soft kisses on her forehead. The hero didn’t take long to recover but Lena refused to release her. Instead, the CEO slowly moved herself and Kara into a lying position on the couch; Kara readjusting her body so Lena could spoon her. The brunette planted soft kisses behind the Kryptonian’s ear, Kara melting further in her embrace.

The couple stayed cuddled together for an indeterminant amount of time before Lena broke the silence. “Is that for me?” she asked, indicating the blue box.

Kara somberly sighed. “It was supposed to be.”

“Now I don’t get it?”

Kara scoffed, “I don’t think you’d want it.”

“And why is that?” Lena asked, eyebrow raised inquisitively.

Kara sat up and turned to face the CEO. “Why?” she said incredulously. “Look at me…look at all this.” Kara waved her hand indicating the living room and kitchen. “Lena, I’m a dumpster fire!” the Kryptonian pleaded.

Lena sat up and grabbed ahold of Kara’s hand, lacing their fingers together. “Is that really what you think?”

Kara shrugged. “It’s how I see myself sometimes. Especially after I do shit like this,” she said as she motioned towards the kitchen again.

Lena thinned her lips as she carefully considered how to respond to Kara’s unfair assessment of herself. “So, because you see yourself as a dumpster fire, I should reject whatever’s in there.” Lena pointed at the box.

“You would if you knew what was in it,” Kara whispered defeatedly.

Lena chuckled. “Oh, my sweet, sweet, darling. I’m fairly certain I already know what’s in there.” The CEO confidently smiled, a glimmer of warmth in her eyes.

Kara gasped, her shoulders slumped, and she looked away; attempting to avoid the certainty in her girlfriend’s gaze.

Lena pulled at Kara’s hand. “Hey, don’t run away.” The Kryptonian turned towards the brunette but refused to make eye contact with her. Lena cupped her chin and gently guided Kara to face her. “I need you to look at me and listen,” Lena said with conviction. “You say you see yourself as a dumpster fire. Do you want to know what I see?” Lena asked rhetorically, not giving the blonde any time to reply. “When I look at you, I see a loving, considerate, romantic, and giving woman who…I don’t know…for the quadrillionth time since I met her, went out of her way to show me just how much she loves me…no one has ever gone to the lengths that you have to make me feel like I’m cherished. Honestly, you could accidently destroy our entire penthouse and I would still love you.”

Lena laid a soft kiss on Kara’s hand. “We’ve been through hell and back to get to where we are. I would be a damn fool if some broken appliances and a few scorched furniture made me question how what we’re trying to build here.”

“But I had this perfect plan…” Kara whispered.

“Darling, I can’t imagine how disappointed you must be, and I’m so sorry all this happened.” Lena squeezed her girlfriend’s hand tighter. “But please understand, I don’t need perfect, Kara. I just need you, imperfections and all…especially the imperfections…they’re what made me fall in love with you in the first place.”

Kara minutely nodded, still not looking convinced. “I just…I sometimes feel like I’m not good enough for you…like…somehow I’m not worthy of your love,” the hero said, averting her eyes.

Lena couldn’t help the astonished gasp escaping her lungs. “Kara. How could you say that? How could you ever think that?” she said with a hint of anger in her voice. The CEO lightly grasped the Kryptonian by the shoulders and made sure she had her attention. With a pained look on her face, Lena calmly said, “I’m sorry for raising my voice. I of all people understand how you can feel like that sometimes. When it came to you, I felt unworthy for years. I thought to myself ‘There’s no way I’m a good enough person to have Kara in my life’. And don’t even get me started on where my head was at when we started dating. I felt like a fraud. I convinced myself that I didn’t deserve your friendship, let alone your love.”

Lena’s eyes were filling with unshed tears. Kara noticed and mirrored her girlfriend’s painful expression. “But I don’t feel that way anymore, and do you want to know who finally got me out of that spiral?” Lena leaned in to rest her forehead on Kara’s. “You, my giehrehv-divil. You spent years showing me that I not only deserved to be loved by you but loved by our friends and family. You never gave up on me. I spent those same years doubting everything you tried to show me. Until one day, one day I started to believe it. There was no special event or earthshattering circumstance that opened my eyes. I just remember one day I was looking in the mirror and came to the realization that I was good enough, that I was deserving of your love, and that I was worthy of you.”

Both had tears cascading down their cheeks. Kara leaned in and gave Lena the gentlest of kisses, the blonde grinned into her girlfriend’s lips. The couple broke apart and Lena filled Kara’s hands with her own. “And let me tell you something, if that box has in it what I think it does, you, Kara Zor-El, are more than worthy enough to ask me the question that goes with it.”

A light dusting of pink appeared on Kara’s cheeks. “Promise?” she said bashfully.

Lena softly smiled. “Promise.”

Kara slammed the brunette into the arm of the couch with a bone crushing hug; almost knocking the wind out of the surprised billionaire. The Kryptonian ended up atop her girlfriend and buried her face in the crook of her neck. Lena could feel Kara’s smile tickling her skin, the blonde adding a hum of contentment once they were comfortably settled.

After enjoying a few minutes of happily snuggling with her girlfriend, Lena, staring contemplatively at the Kryptonian curled up on her side, brushed her lips against the blonde’s forehead and asked, “Kara, do you know what the odds are that, out of all time and space, the two of us would end up here, on this couch, in each other’s arms?”

Kara thought a moment before mumbling “no” into Lena’s neck.

“Well, in the interest of saving me the trouble of rattling off an obscenely long number, let’s just say a person would be more likely to be randomly struck by lightning...” Lena paused to let her words sink in.

Kara removed herself from Lena’s neck and leveled a raised eyebrow at her; clearly unimpressed. “That’s not a big…”

“…25 times,” Lena interrupted, sporting a mischievous grin. Kara’s eyebrows flew to her hairline, and she let out a low whistle. Lena nodded in agreement. For the first time since she arrived home, Lena was treated to her girlfriend’s trademark, radiant smile. The CEO cupped the Kryptonian’s face and slowly ran the pads of her fingers down the baby soft skin. The brunette’s features softened into a look of adoration and something akin to awe. “I don’t know if it was fate, a cosmic coincidence, or hell, even Rao that brought you to me, but I cherish every moment I get to be with you.”

Kara’s eyes began to well up again. She swiftly captured Lena’s lips with her own, her kiss desperate and hungry. They kissed until Lena had to come up for air. Kara leisurely moved off the brunette and sat up straight. She glanced over at the kitchen and frowned; a frustrated sigh followed. “Well, I guess I better get to cleaning up this mess.” Kara moved to get up but was quickly stopped by Lena’s hand grabbing her wrist.

Lena scoffed, “The hell you are. I didn’t triple the insurance coverage when you moved in for nothing. I’ll have a clean-up crew in here tomorrow to deal with this.” Kara reluctantly nodded in agreement. “No, you and I are going to order some take-out because I’m starving…as are you, I’m sure. While we’re waiting for dinner to be delivered, we’re going to get you out of that dress and into the shower, hopefully we can wash that goulash out of your hair.”

“It’s Irish stew…or it was supposed to be,” Kara said with a hint of embarrassment.

Lena’s face lit up. “Darling, that’s so sweet of you!” She sat up and gave Kara a quick peck on the cheek before continuing, “The food should be here by the time we get out of the shower, so we’ll eat, and then it’s straight to bed so I can show you how much I love you.” Lena seductively bit her bottom lip and wiggled her eyebrows. “Multiple times.”

Kara giggled excitedly and rose from the couch. “I’ll go get your phone out of your purse, I have no idea where my work phone ended up and I have no interest in finding it right now.” She had barely taken a step before she felt Lena’s hand grip her wrist again. She looked down at the seated CEO confused.

“I think you’re forgetting something,” Lena said, eyeing her girlfriend with an expectant look.

Kara scanned around the room; not finding anything that needed to be attended to immediately, she asked, “What am I forgetting?”

“Didn’t you have something you wanted to ask me?” Lena motioned towards the blue box on the coffee table.

The Kryptonian followed her girlfriend’s eyeline and when she realized what the brunette was alluding to, a deep blush and a look of shock overtook her features. “Oh…yes…right…okay!” She let out a long breath and shook her arms to loosen them up. Kara took several deep breaths and rolled her shoulders. “I can do this…I can do this,” she not-so-quietly told herself.

While Kara was having a mini-nervous breakdown, Lena sat silently trying her best not to laugh at the Kryptonian’s panic induced calisthenics. The brunette could not hide how much she was enjoying watching the blonde come unraveled.

Appearing to have psyched herself up sufficiently, Kara lifted the box up and cradled it in her hands. She opened her mouth as if to speak but stopped short. The Kryptonian set the box back on the table and began patting at her chest with both hands. Having not found what she was apparently searching for, she slid her hand into the top of her bra and, after digging under the cup for a few seconds, removed her still empty hand. She repeated the process with the other cup, once again coming up empty handed.

“Kara, what are you doing?” Lena said, leveling her girlfriend with a perplexed look.

The Kryptonian smiled sheepishly and held up her index finger. “Ummm, be right back.” She super-speeded out of the living room leaving a bewildered, windswept Lena without answers. Kara reappeared in front of the CEO within seconds, her face reddening and her jaw clenched. “I left my speech at the office,” Kara said through gritted teeth. “I worked on that speech for weeks.”

A small giggle escaped Lena’s lips, but she quickly slapped her hands over her mouth trying to quiet herself.

Kara threw her hands up in defeat, her body completely deflated. “Seems to be the theme this evening. Well, I guess I’m gonna have to wing it!” she said in exasperation. She aggressively swiped the box off the coffee table and unceremoniously plopped down on one knee.

Lena smiled, took Kara’s hand into her own, and lightly kissed it. “Relax, darling. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

#supercorp #supercorptober2023 #kara danvers #lena luthor

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eluminium · 2 years

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Useless Facts about ImpulseSV: the post

Welcome to “Useless Facts about Impulse”. The title says it all. I am Eluminium, that one fuck who decided to watch every single Impulse hermitcraft season and actually fucking did it, and I have a bunch of completely useless knowledge from it now. AND I SHALL SHARE IT WITH YOU SO YOU TOO MAY ALSO BE ENLIGHTENED! Also cuz i’m bored as shit (Btw i’ll probably keep adding onto this post as I remember or gain more useless knowledge) People who’ve blessed this post with more facts: @bucket-of-amethyst @tsukinouta LET THE FACTS BEGIN! First addition of facts: August 7th 2022

-Out of every single base Impulse has constructed on Hermitcraft, 3 and a half of them have featured water as a major design element. These would be the City of Atlantis (S5), iBay (S6), The Pyramid (S7), and the half is his “starter base” temple (S3). (I count it as a half because he spent a considerable amount of time designing it but it isn’t his main base so to say.) -Impulse has two seasons of Hermitcraft that are the exact same lenght in terms of episodes, these being S3 and S4, both having 57 episodes. -Impulse’s longest season is S6 with 113 episodes, and his shortest is S8 with 35 episodes -Out of every base Impulse has built, only 2 of them do not feature his logo on the inside or outside in it’s final design. These are iBay (S6) and The Pyramid (S7)

-Impulse is shorter then Bdubs IRL. Bdubs claims to be 5′10 while Impulse claims to be 5′8. This makes fanon extremely hilarious

-In S4, the safe rooms Impulse and Tango constructed in the Wither Skeleton farm were called “The Sissy Room”, but only for one episode. After that it’s never mentioned again.

-Impulse’s wife (Ms. Impulse) has never touched Minecraft because she’s an interior designer and would most likely disappear off the face of the Earth if she ever let herself play the game. It hasn’t stopped Impulse from trying a few times though.

-Impulse has a habit of biting off more than he can chew. In 4 out of 7 seasons he’s been in there have been obvious projects that were never finished. These are in order: The roof of his and Tango’s shared Mega Base (S3), A fair amount of The City of Atlantis (S5), The missing farms on the Phinias Board (S7) and the interior of The Candy Factory (S8)

-Impulse’s current keyboard (At the time of writing) was custom made by his son

-In both S3 and S7, Impulse used the exact same floor desgin and armor stand gimmick for his Patreon Monument.

-One of the reasons Impulse and Skizzleman remain such close friends today was because he found a book on networking on Skizz’s bedroom floor when they were both looking to go to a new collage. They both went to the same Networking class after Impulse suggested it and have been glued together ever since. -They absolutely hated that networking class though

-Impulse has had 4 piercings in total. One in the tongue, one eyebrow one, one nipple, and one in the ear. Both the eyebrow one and the nipple one were taken out after they got caught on various zippers, and the ear one was something he did together with his drumline. None of them survived to the present day though.

-Impulse has sold enchanting related things in 4 out of 7 seasons (S4 S5 S6 S9)

-Impulse used to be completely bald and beardless until he grew out his hair and a beard for a No Shave November challange and people said it fit him. He hasn’t returned to baldness since that (At the time of writing) -Every since their introduction, Impulse always carries a totem on him. Although he has a resource pack that makes the totem invisible in first person so it won’t block up the screen as much.

-His Guardian Goodies shop building in S7 is an exact replica of a Guardian “shop” (everything was free) xB designed in S3

-Impulse has won every single “How to Kill” compitition, and with the exact same concept to boot. In “How to Kill a Doc” he made a bunch of traps that looked like the final blow but weren’t, instead having the killing strike be deliver by Impulse himself. In “How to Kill a Tango” he did the exact same thing, although the final blow should have been delt by a Magma Cube instead. Both of these killing machines also share similar surprises. Both involve fire charges (One from dispensers, one from a live Ghast), anvil launchers and TNT. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it i suppose?

-Impulse actually bought the “copyright rights” to the “i” brand from Iskall in S6 so he could keep iTrade open without confusion. Never got something similar from iJevin thought.

-When S6 updated to the villager update, Impulse managed to obtain a glitched Farmer Villager who never locked up his trades no matter how much you traded with him. Although he did lose a fair amount of villagers in iTrade too, so it was more a soul for a soul.

-The only season Impulse was part of that never had Elytras was ironically S3, the one with amplified terrain.

-The first time Impulse properly tested out the Elytra, it lagged so bad he died from fall damage by falling into Xisumas Guardian Farm. The elytra refused to open.

-Impulse and Tango has had an agreement since Impulse joined in S3 that they can take certain resources from each other’s storages and farms without asking before hand. They call this “Mi casa, Ti casa” or “My house, your house”.

-In 4 out of 7 seasons, Impulse has had at least one entire video that centers around either a request from xB, or featuring xB himself. (S3 S4 S5 S7)

-The “SV” in impulseSV could be read as “impulsive” but it actually stands for Impulse’s IRL initials

-Impulse was introduced to Minecraft via his son, who wanted to get into gaming. Impulse mostly played shooters but he didn’t want his kid to play those types of games at his age, so a coworker suggested Minecraft. Although his kid didn’t know anything about the game, so he had to hop on and learn too.

-Impulse plays Minecraft with an inverted mouse. This is because he got so used to flying helicopters in various shooters it made more sense to his brain that dragging the mouse down means up, and pushing it up means down.

-Impulse started out as a fan of Tango’s until he learned that he and Tango are pretty similar in age and in video style. So he e-mailed Tango about a collab and he accepted. Later they learned they lived incredibly close to each other and went out for some “sodas” (aka BEERS). The rest is history.

-The name Impulse along with the black and yellow colour scheme is something Impulse stole from his drumcore’s name and colour scheme. His favourite colour is actually purple.

-Impulse and Skizz live in the same neighbourhood (at the time of writing)

Second addition of facts 9th of August 2022

-Impulse has a dog (specifically a Border Collie) named Prim and a cat named Luna. Luna was a gift for his older daughter. Impulse wasn’t the biggest fan of cats until his wife got one, and he fell in love as well.

-He and Skizz have been best friends for over 25 years (at the time of writing)

-Impulse has a collage degree in computer information systems, because he was too spooked by a full on computer science degree.

-Despite being born in Iowa. Impulse has lived in Arizona since he was 5 years old.

-Impulse was born in 1981. Skizz is 2 years older. You do the math.

-Impulse ain’t no single child, he has a sister who once saved him from drowning. This was after he had colided with a boat on a Jetski as a kid.

-Impulse is a father of 3, his oldest is heading to collage (at the time of writing) and his youngest is 10.

-If any government or HOA people asks what Impulse’s new studio is (at the time of writing), it’s totally just a guest house. nothing else. nothing to see here.

-He met his wife in collage.

-His channel was originally made to be a sort of memory box of him and his son playing games together.

-His wife has a Etsy store where she sells custom made jewlery. It’s called Desert Medows Design (it’s actually pretty sick ngl)

-Impusle is a pretty big “sportsball” (aka Sports) fan and usually brings it up in streams. Not for long though considering he recognises that most people who watch him aren’t that into sportsball (his words not mine. honestly though it is pretty cool to listen to, could be just a me thing.)

Third addition of facts 12th of August 2022

-Impulse has a back injury that appearenly reappears to cause problems sometimes. He got it from playing Volleyball one time and messed up a muscle in his back when jumping. According to the man himself, when that pain flares back up it can leave him stranded on the couch with ice packs and heatpads for a fair while.

-According to Skizzleman, Impulse doesn’t handle blood very well. He got hit in the face with a pizza box once and the bleed he got from that made him serverly nauseous.

-Impulse has a slight gluten intolerance Fourth addition of facts 18th of August 2022

-Impulse has back teeth retainers.

-Impulse hates olives. Like “Will throw up” levels of hate. He shares this hatred with Tango.

(thats enough for now but i’ll probably add more as i think them up)

#el speaketh #dose of impulse #El's Impulsive Impulse Journey #impulsesv #hermitcraft season 3 #hermitcraft season 4 #hermitcraft season 5 #hermitcraft season 6 #hermitcraft season 7 #hermitcraft season 8 #hermitcraft season 9 #hermitblr #hermitcraft #i do not have a problem what are you talking about #Impuse list of facts

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disfrutalakia · 7 months

Text

Brain still melted but, I wanted to share general thoughts that I have of an scenario where Forever comes back. Yeah let's say he has the eggs with him, cause I don't want to think of the no egg world now

Under a cut so I can ramble <3

First, Forever would look fucked up coming back from the nether okay? He is not a fighter and yet, he had to fight daily for survival, kill monster that he never even dreamed off. He exploded so many things.

His hair that once was long is now a bit burnt, all uneven at the tips and you can see a single black streak in the middle of the blonde ones. His braid has been unmade long ago, he fights with his hair loose, all around his face and sometimes sticking to wounds, he hates it but can't bring himself to cut it.

His suit is torn and somewhere along the way he lost the jacket, only the shirt underneath is left, you can see golden scars going up his arms from the amount of totems he had to use. And you can see burn scars on his hands, neck, face from all the explosions he had to make to keep monsters away from him and from the eggs.

When he comes back though... He is weak, his body doesn't seem to deal well with the fact that he is not on the nether anymore, he suddenly feels all the wounds crash at him at once, his vision is dizzy and he can vaguely see people coming towards him but when they try to touch him he just backs up, the fear and instinct for survival taking over. He passes out after that.

After waking up on the order infirmary, at the exact same bed he was during his last coma, Richas is sitting at his bed, also covered in bandages and doodling on a cast on Talullah's arm, all the eggs are also in the infirmary, some of them with more bandages then others but they are all THERE and that's what matters really.

#qsmp #qsmp forever #qsmp eggs #qsmp fic #kinda #more like a little drabble

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intimidating-fettuccine · 2 years

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“It would be so easy.” He urges you on.

“You’d never have to worry about anything ever again. Money, food, clothing, shelter, safety. I can provide all of it for you.” His words are sugared and thick like honey as you try to process them.

“All you have to do is sign the contract and follow it, and you’ll have everything you ever wanted.” Sure.

Everything you ever wanted except for your freedom.

It was unfair. You’d fallen into hard times. You’d been laid off, and when you’d turned to people for support, they’d abandoned you in your time of need. All of them except for Slender.

He’d been your rock for the whole situation, winding around you and giving you comfort when you needed it, support, money, all of the things you needed, on the condition that you repay him, of course. How do you repay him, exactly?

With your very being. He wanted your attention, your affection, your time, your own comfort and support. One of the most successful and richest businessmen in all of the Underworld, fawning over you and ready to give you anything your heart desires, but all at the cost of your freedom, as per the contract.

You were to reside in his home, never allowed to have contact with another person ever again, only to speak to him, eat with him, sleep with him, touch him, love him. You were to essentially play house with him for an eternity, only to be rewarded with safety and any possessions you desired.

It was cruel. It was cruel and he knew it.

Humans were so weak in the Underworld, the very bottom of the totem pole. With you no longer having a contractor employing you it meant you weren’t safe. Nothing was preventing the demons around you from harming you anymore, from killing you, from sinking their teeth into you as a midnight snack. Their once happy smiles directed at you were now far more sinister, and he knew.

That bastard knew, and he was holding it against you. You had nowhere else to go, nobody else to count on, and after so many sleepless nights hiding out in shitty sketchy areas and eating scraps you could scrounge up, a night in his luxurious bed with the best food you’d ever taste sounded like heaven. An eternity of all of that sounded like heaven. The only hellish aspect was that you’d be chained here forever.

He knew you’d be worn down, he knew you’d be tempted. That’s what he was waiting for. For you to be so weak and desperate and starved that you’d be willing to take any salvation. He hadn’t even been subtle about it, strolling up to you where you hid between two trash cans and handing you the contract, giddiness rolling off of him in waves as he presented you with what he told you was your guaranteed plan at getting your life back. What a joke.

As he leans over you, his hands gently and comfortably placed upon you, although they truly felt like a vicious beast waiting to tear you to pieces, you trembled as you stared at the finely printed contract before you, so irritatingly thorough it made you even more angry. But what else could you do? Where else could you go? Would it truly be alright to risk another night on your own? Another week? Another month?

Flashes go through your mind of your friends being killed, mauled, slaughtered like a feast by other demons and your shaking increases as you hiss and clench your eyes shut. Really, the best thing to do to guarantee your survival… The option that had the beast behind you cooing at you, hugging you, nuzzling into you, urging you on…

Was to sign the papers before you, and sign your soul away to the devil… And what a happy devil he’ll be.

#yandere slender because I’m still in this funk and I think this would be an interesting take #yandere #yandere creepypasta #yandere slenderman #creepypasta #creepypasta headcanons #creepypasta headcanon #creepypasta x reader #slenderman #slenderman headcanon #slenderman headcanons #slenderman x reader #slenderman scenario #creepypasta scenario #creepypasta scenarios

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qsmpconfessions · 5 months

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When people (Soulfire supporters and some Soulfire members in game) were claiming Bolas didn't care about the eggs cause they were deadset on winning but when it all ended, Foolish wanted to give Leo a totem, Etoiles wouldn't leave Richas, and Cellbit and Baghera stayed for the eggs.

A day or two before that, people were saying they should've given eggs to Tubbo, Bagi, and Tina cause they cared more but??? They aren't egg parents, that's why they had their views! Not even getting into the "who's the cursed team" debate (I personally think it's Bolas and Soulfire was just never supposed to be there and thus was erased by the narrative, or there was never a cursed team it was just to get into their minds) why would Bolas trust Soulfire, their tormentors for majority of the event? Why would they trust they'd save the eggs they're protecting when they've tricked Bolas before with the enchantments. And you might say it was only a few members and majority of Soulfire kept their word, but Bolas sees themselves as one entity. They make decisions together, they're always in VC together, they think other groups are like that too. They think what one member of Soulfire does, the entirety of Soulfire agrees on.

Besides, the eye said the winner could pick who to save. Why would Bolas trust that Soulfire would pick their eggs? Bolas wants, needs, to win to ensure they picked. They fought so hard for these eggs— no, they survived for these eggs. People talk about how Baghera, in a moment of breakdown, said she'd rather they just killed her egg but most fail to mention that just a few minutes before that she was telling the entire team they had to continue for the eggs. These are egg parents, some of the best in the server, and they were doing everything they could to ensure that their eggs were safe.

So when q!Tina was wailing "They don't care!" after Phil won and Bolas was celebrating? No, they care so much. Not only did the entire team win against all odds they felt were stacked against them, against all the insanity and deaths, they thought they had the choice to pick which eggs and they were surely picking their own. They lived and died for those eggs.

#qsmp confessions #qsmp #qsmp purgatory #qsmp discourse

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fourmula1 · 9 months

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Hi! I just read your Clan of Aurochs fic and first I must say it was so cute and I loved every second of it. I was wondering if you maybe had more thoughts on the world? If Daniel and Max have more children? Or maybe when Max will rise to be the leader of the clan? Just curious so no pressure to answer! Regardless it was a great fic which made my heart warm 🫶🏼

thank you so much for asking this! i love that fic so much. it's very dear to me! 967 words below ♥

The cave’s energy had been a-buzz all day.

A turning of the tide was coming and everyone could sense it. They’d been through transitions of power before; some of their clan were old enough to recall when Max’s mother’s mate had been clan leader, and the nomination of Christian to fill the roll when Jos had been killed.

That, too, had been a particularly exciting day. No one would dare say a word against a clan leader, but Daniel knew there had been a sense of relief when Christian stepped up.

Now, the energy was more anxious.

Max had a strong sense of duty to his clan, to his mate, to the role of clan leader, and Daniel knew how seriously Max would take it. But he also knew that Max was a forward thinking alpha who would welcome changes.

It would be hard for the clan to embrace, Daniel knew. Things had been the way they were for all of their lifetimes, and their mothers’ lifetimes, and the mothers before them, and beyond. Things had been done the way they’d always been done, because they had always been done.

Max, Daniel knew, would need to find a balance of the old, familiar, comfortable ways of the clan, and his more liberal ideas about things. Max valued the contributions of the omegas to their clan. Omegas’ work and skill were as valuable as the most fearless of hunters, and just because things had always been done some way didn’t mean they’d have to stay that way.

The clan Memories were tied back to generations of survival and change, doing things differently, was hard to comprehend. Even for Max, at times. He was as much Clan as the rest of them, and his Memories dictated how things should go, too. He’d be fighting some of his own instinctual, intrinsic ideas about their society.

But Max valued and loved his mate, and felt a lot of appreciation for clan omegas, and his transition to leadership meant change.

“We have to be ready,” Daniel explained to his son as he straightened the little amulet around the boy’s neck. “It will be a big day for all of us,” he said, wanting to make sure things were just so. His son was in his fourth summer and without a sibling. Daniel’s badger totem was a strong fighter and never succumbed to Max’s cave lion again. He’d always hoped for another child, but Daniel trusted that the spirits knew what was best.

“Do we have to move hearths?” The little boy asked, glancing around the place that had been his home for his whole life. Daniel offered a sympathetic smile, cuddling his little one into his arms.

“Clan leader should live at the leader’s hearth, no?” Daniel asked, knowing change would be hard for them all but some customs couldn’t be broken. He tickled his fingers into his son’s ribs and delighted in the giggle that escaped him.

The other omegas had helped Daniel pack up their belongings and clear out the hearth they’d lived at since their mating ceremony. It was time to move on, especially because their would be new mating ceremonies at this summer’s Clan Gathering which meant new members of their clan when available alphas brought mates home from the Gathering.

Daniel knew they’d be called away to the ceremony soon enough. Lewis would perform the Mog-ur’s magic and ask the spirits to bless their new leader, to bless their new clan structure, and the clan would offer gifts of sweet grasses and carvings to receive the spirts’ blessings.

Daniel couldn’t deny that he was nervous, perhaps more so than Max. Max had been clear that his Clan leadership would include Daniel, and Daniel’s ideas and thoughts and choices. Omegas were deliberately excluded from Clan politics – it was the realm of Alphas and that made Daniel nervous, but he would do what his alpha, what the leader of his Clan, asked of him regardless. He knew Max would never lead him, lead them, astray.

“Come now,” Daniel said as he helped his son out of his lap, standing and taking his little hand. His son was blonder than ever due to the summer sun, something that baffled their clan members to this day. Children tended to look like their parent and it had been confusing to everyone to see a child that was so clearly of the essence of the parent’s mate.

Max had expressed to Daniel his thoughts that it was as if Daniel’s son could be his own, and Daniel couldn’t deny that he’d thought something similar. But it was impossible. Daniel grew and birthed his son, and no alpha as far back as Clan memories extended had ever had his own child. Preposterous and impossible.

And yet.

Gio’s blonde hair and blue eyes and stocky, chunky little body defied all the clan believed to be true about babies. Daniel wished the spirits would give him another baby, for Gio to have a sibling, but also to test Max’s ideas that maybe Daniel’s babies could be Max’s, too. Somehow. If Daniel had another baby that looked like Max it would be hard to deny, even if he couldn’t piece together how.

Padding their way out of the cave and into the summer evening, Daniel held Gio’s hand as they headed to the ceremonial grounds. Max would be leader. Daniel’s status would change in the clan, as well. More respect and authority – as much as an omega could have – would be his.

“One day that will be you,” Daniel whispered to his little boy as they watched Mog-ur, Clan holy man, draw the red ochre paint ceremonially over Max’s collarbones.

Daniel stood proud watching his mate, ready for Max’s inherited power to pave the way for change.

#clan of the aurochs #my ficlet

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imaginedreamwrite · 2 years

Text

Brave New World: Part 7

“A perfect solution for a dire problem.”

It was the motto that they’d lived by, the solution to a complication that had put the world in a state of overbearing stress. A problem that had risen when the world was catatonically experiencing a loss that transcended all the rights of omegas.

It was powerful alphas and rich men who had come up with the solution, who had decided that omegas would be the ones to bear the heaviest weight. They had decided that it was omegas who would suffer the consequences to provide for the world.

It started slow the first few years, it started with controlling the life habits of the omegas who were within the age range they had allotted would have the best success. The first few changes were bans on food or work avenues, recreational activities to not put a strain on omegas.

It was a treacherous slope that led to unfair treatment and control of your everyday lives.

What had started as small fragments of control had rapidly devolved into chaotic means of a complete overtaking of omegas’ rights.

You were restricted to the bare societal functions of the world. Every omega got an education until high school, and then they were placed in a specialized program wherein they could get the serum injected and be prepped for their futures in their basest functions.

Omegas were no longer given the right to freedom of choice rather they were controlled for the ‘greater good’.

Omegas would be used for breeding, omegas would be used for boosting the population of the world that was suffering immense loss.

Omegas would be given a serum that was akin to the kind of injections that made it impossible for an omega to have a weakened heat. The serum had strengthened the omegas’ ability to not just carry pups but make them stronger and healthier.

Omegas were used as tools, told so by alphas and men who had bared no weight upon their shoulders.

A few ‘soft solutions’ had become a nationalized and internationalized order that shot omegas down the totem pole to the very lowest place.

All it had done was empowered alphas to overtake and control the designation that needed protection the most. The omega population had no longer been considered capable of making decisions for themselves and had every ounce of choice taken away from them.

The only avenue of hope that had been given to omega like yourself had been a minority of people and organizations who were willing to risk everything to save as many omegas as physically possible. They had risked everything they could, they had helped take omegas away from the dangers of their keepers while transporting them to safe havens that had been set up under false pretences.

Some omegas like you had been sent to various realities where you would finally be cared for like you were meant to be. Some omegas who could physically and mentally make and survive the shift from one reality to another would find hope and security out of the clutches of the elite men who had decided what little rights omegas could receive.

“You have someone waiting for you,” Dr. Stephen Strange had been one of the men who helped start the process, and it was his immense guilt that made him want to fix as much as he could, “you’re going to be safe, you’re never going to have to fear for your life again.”

“He could have never undone what he had started, he could never fix what he started.” You relayed the truth to this version of the man who had both cursed and saved you even if he had already known, it was the truth from your lips that had to be spoken.

“Omegas haven’t been around since 1964, maybe it was a punishment this reality had to face to make up for the aggressions of the other.” It was a sentiment you hadn’t shared alone, it felt like a stark fact that one reality had to be punished for the sins of another.

Or maybe it wasn’t a fact at all, maybe there was some natural change of fate that had rid the world of omegas.

“You have a haven here,” Dr. Strange had relayed the intention with assurance, “until Steve and Bucky get here, and even beyond that.”

The private room you had been given was closed off to the masters of the mystic arts, a safe recluse for you to come and go from as you pleased. You weren’t free to wander beyond the gates of Kamar-Taj, not that you would have wanted to anyway, but you were free to wander the grounds and experience freedom that was allotted to you within some confines.

It was the easy and slow integration into free choice and having the ability to create your own experiences without being lorded over that aided in your adjusting and healing in the new reality.

You had made discoveries about yourself that had long remained hidden, resurfacing under the protection of the walls of Kamar-Taj and the watchful eyes of Strange and Wong. The few pleasures you had endured in the hours of your stay since you had first arrived, had been enjoyed outside.

Feeling the sun on your skin while you read a book gifted to you was the first you enjoyed. The taste of Dadaghare, a Nepali wine, had been first introduced to you by one of the beta mystic arts students who had left the grounds to gather a few things in a nearby town. It was something new, something you would have liked to do again.

You had discovered little things in your surroundings while waiting for Steve and Bucky to arrive, an internal countdown to meet the alphas who had done nothing but keep you safe.

A perpetual moment of returning to the two alphas you had primordially recognized as yours, and you as theirs. You had missed the comfort of their scents, the integral warmth they exuded that seeped under your skin to give you the perception that the world as you knew it would be okay.

Even the sound of their voices had been a comfort to you and while you were relieved to be away from the prying eyes and speculations that you were a problem for their agency to solve, you had almost wished to be back with there, if for no other reason than to be with them again.

“They’ll be here within hours,” the promise was made and you were set on distracting yourself while waiting, even if your mind had kept returning to thoughts of them.

You couldn’t keep your mind off of the two older super soldiers, nor had you wanted to.

Steve had been watching the titular information on the screen in front of him had shifted and change as the data was uploaded and analyzed.

There had been a few copies of the material made for the betterment of their cause to convince the few suspecting alphas and agents that you were no more of a threat than Steve or Bucky had been. It was the data being analyzed that he had his eyes on however it was you and Bucky that his thoughts had turned to.

You were in Kamar-taj, Steve and Bucky had been informed late last night that Dr. Strange had taken you to the stronghold to allow you to feel freedom without being constrained.

It was a place wherein you didn’t have to worry about accusations from Tony Stark or worry that any agents would try and corner you into submission to put you through tests the other doctors wanted to conduct.

“What are we looking at?” Bucky had finally broken the tentative silence in the room, standing by Steve with his arms crossed over his chest and his blue eyes dimmed with exhaustion.

The two super soldiers were already affected by your presence and sudden departure, the quick moment you had been here was enough for the three of you to become connected. They had been mated for years even bonded for longer and when you had arrived, it had been the missing piece they had wanted and needed.

Even within the short time, you had been at the Compound with them, your presence and your scent had infiltrated their entire beings. You were their omega, you were their mate and there had been a surreal surge of protectiveness within them that had nearly driven both Steve and Bucky to the brink. Their basest urges and drives to protect their mate, their omega, was stirring symptoms that were akin to restlessness and fatigue.

“We took samples from Y/N when she was put under after she had been found the first time. I’ve been running tests and we’ve made some very…surprising discoveries.” Bruce had come to stand near the screen that was in near constant motion with graphs and charts, DNA sequences and statistics that had seemingly gone over Bucky and Steve’s heads.

“The first thing we noticed is that there’s a kind of super soldier serum that’s running through her veins. It was administered by whoever in her reality and we can postulate that it affects her heat by making them more intense and powerful, given the intensity-“

“A single heat could spark your ruts within moments, even if you had just gone through your cycles.” Natasha had spoken over Bruce, her arms crossed over her chest just like her ankles were, as she sat on a desk not far from Bruce. “We also think this super soldier serum has been given to omegas for them to be able to carry stronger pups without greater risks.”

“This serum at its core is the same kind of serum the two of you had been injected with, however, it’s tailor-made for omegas. It’s been tailor-made for her.” Bruce’s lips had pursed, and he had stared at the data in front of him with furrowed brows. “What they were doing to them, we have no idea what she went through and we can only guess-“

“She’s got super soldier serum running through her?” Bucky had spoken slowly, working his way through a bought of disbelief.

“She’s untrained, she needs to be taught how to handle her strength. When and if she wants to come back, she’s going to be put through training to be able to contend with the strength. She knows she has it, but she needs to contain it.”

Natasha lowered her arms and jumped from the desk, wiping her palms on her thighs before she sighed. “And of course, we have to deal with Tony-“

“I swear to God, I would kill him.” Bucky’s aggression had spiked when the topic of Tony had come up, the protective desire to rip him in two was passing back and forth between the two of them with neither one willing to make the other back down.

“We can keep doing as many tests as we can to figure out exactly why the serum was needed if her reality already had omegas but it would be better to ask her ourselves.”

“She’s not coming back here unless Tony and Sharon, until all the agents fuck off. She won’t be coming back here to be made a fucking criminal-“

“She won’t, Bucky.” Natasha had crossed the distance and rested her hand on his shoulder, her green eyes catching and holding his gaze. “I’ll kick his ass myself.”

“Natasha and I have been assembling a team, of sorts-“

“What kind of team?” Steve had cut him off, his jaw clenching and his fingers flexing by his sides.

“-to help her heal and move past whatever trauma she suffered in her reality. A team that will help her adjust to the world now, and Natasha-“

“You have your place outside of the Compound. It’s a few hours upstate in a quiet town, a place where no one asks questions.” She conferred, digging in her back pocket to retrieve her phone before she had tossed it toward Steve. “Take a look at it. It’s private, it’s quiet and it’s a place where she can adjust and slowly be integrated.”

“It’s not our decision, it’s hers.” Bucky had grabbed the phone from Steve when it was held out to him, scrolling and swiping through the pictures of the house Natasha had already set up, admiring the space surrounding the house that would give all of you space.

“Talk to her about it,” Bruce had turned the screen off and set the small remote down on the edge of the table, clearing his throat to bring rise to another question, “and if she’d be willing to give fresher samples?”

“Bruce-“

“Quinjet is waiting, let’s go get your omega, boys.”

Permanent Tags List: @jennmurawski13-writes @beardburnsupersoldiers @daydreaminginthechaos @rebekahdawkins @supraveng @bookfrog242 @old-enough-to-know-better73 @valsworldofcreativity @rainbowkisses31 @loveitorleaveit20 @alexakeyloveloki @socalgem1124 @mogaruke @dreamlessinparis @frisky975 @dispatchvampire @hereforbuckyandsteve @jesgisborne @fairybnha3 @hallecarey1 @tang082646 @mrslokibarnesrogers @deputy-videogamer @posionivy0061 @loving-life-my-way @kaylamcd2000 @mercyy98 @undecidedsworld @rootcrop @whatinthestyles @slutforsteve @cornmousequeen @rededfoxy @yagurl-snow @glimmering-darling-dolly @patzammit @buckymydarlingangel @missusbarnes-rogers @andy-is-gay @nervousfandom @rileyloves5 @emi11ie @carelessreadersstuff @readingandwritingandreading @cynic-spirit @inkedaztec @gh0stgurl @mansaaay @cats-and-sheep @pono-pura-vida @seitmai @teambarnes72

#silverfox!alpha!bucky barnes #silverfox!alpha!steve rogers x omega!reader x silverfox!alpha!bucky barnes #silverfox!alpha!stucky x reader #alpha!stucky x reader fluff #stucky x reader imagine #Silverfox!Stucky x reader #stucky x reader imagines #stucky x reader angst #stucky x reader fluff #stucky x reader #a/b/o #alpha/beta/omega #Silverfox!Steve Rogers #Silverfox!Bucky Barnes #brave new World Series #brave new world masterlist #brave new world #brave new world part 7

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borzoilover69 · 11 months

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> BORZOI: Read HOMESTUCK like its 2011 (part 2)

I'm back. My barber made me look like Jake English deadass.

Page 4149 i s a neat callback to page 629. I just realised the adjustment of what he's holding, since Egbert replaced him in Janes timeline, which is so interesting.

AND OF COURSE ONE OF THE BEST FUCKING BOOKS KNOWN TO MAN. Pony pals. Detective pony. So awesome. So cool. That's all there really is to say about it. I read the thing on AO3. Janes right it was heavy handed but incredibly intriguing. You remember lolcat Jane? You remember lolcat? Yeah I remember lolcat. Its so cute that the recipe for it is a combination of tiny maplehoof, wise guy, and dirks sweet shades. Its such a neat little combination. A wise horse guy qith an affinity for ponies and sweeeeet fucking shades.

But anyways, I'm getting offtopic. Comparing and contrasting these two Andersons, we also draw parallels of our characters learning valuable information for their session later. In Egberts case, after reading through wise guy, Egbert gets the idea to overlap two cards and create a new totem lathe, alchemising and creating one of the first items. In janes case, she goes to check out the gristwidget and show how it can convert cards to grist, something the kids will find incredibly useful later on in their journeys. The Betas session was about creating and adventuring and finding something new (keeping with the spring theme, you see?) via the kids alchemising loot to make them further overpowered and giving them character. The betas session had BREATH. A lot of it. It was centered around their leader, and gave them all the freedom to go fuck off and do their personal quests with their troll guides and alchemise and learn as they go.

Meanwhile the alphas, again, stick with that autumn theme. The gristwidget is going to prove useful later, because all the enemies and consorts are dead on their planet. Their session is not meant to spring life anew, but to conserve, to survive, not thrive. I guess it's why reasonably we never saw them doing an alchemising session together. It just didn't fit the theme. They were not meant to thrive, they were meant to wait for the end of the long dead winter, to survive off of what they could conserve, for spring. Their leader as stated by Dirk is not Jane, nor Dirk, and heaven forbid Jake, but ROXY. Their leader was Roxy, keeping them together but also essentially setting the stage for the stagnant and obscure nature of their session, one that would test and strain their relationships to the furthest they'd ever been strained.

4154

Don't mind me, just enjoying the subliminals in the background. This shit looks like what I assume a tiktok page looks like.

4155 oh neat!

And here we get another flaw from the get-go. The flaws of the alpha kids are so prominently stated just from the get-go, how opinionated and stubborn and *wanting* to do their way they are but begrudgingly having to put up with others to some extent. Jane getting pestered by Jake, who has no time for japery or mild fun in his quest to deliver the package to Jade who will go on to give it to John and getting downright passive-aggressive. Roxy, in another quest to give a gift but not so urgently, being absent (They had plans) ignoring nor apologising for her absence. She ignores and seems unaware. We start off seeing Roxy at sort of her worst, while others are more reasonable, and then shit flies off the deepend and Roxy straightens herself out (as a leader does) and everyone else sort of catapults into things fucking up. But i'm getting ahead of myself.

Reading this conversation just grates me honestly. Both sides are being pretty inconsiderate and I have to watch through my fingers and let out a breath as they get frustrated at each other. Janes reasonable in feeling chagrined about the whole thing, she's 15 dealing with a friend who's underage drinking and making generally bad decisions and Jane is no therapist by any terms of the words. The alpha kids rely on needling others for getting across things they cant really say upfront because they lack emotional maturity. Going "hey im doing xyz just letting you KNOW just making you AWARE." And it always always allllways backfires on them!! Just be upfront for once you idiots!! I'll put examples as I come upon them, but Jane is the most prominent.

Speaking of Jane, I always headcanonned her voice as either Velma from Scooby Doo Mystery Incorporated. Velma reminds me of Jane very much, from crushing hard on a clueless and albeit not really fit for guy wearing green to ( and this is just my thoughts ) realising they're both lesbians and avid mystery enjoyers with relatively skeptic if wellmeaning airs behind them. I think seeing Jane in a vein similiar to Velma makes me fond of her.

It's good to see them winding down a little as their conversation comes to an end. At the end of the day they're girls whove been friends for a very long while for better or for worse and i feel like a fair deal of early friendship with the others per Roxy was when she was inebriated which left them in a limbo of "hey what the fuck do we do" especially with Jane, who seems moreso trying to spur Roxy on via comparing how good her life is and how motivated she is in a push for action on Roxys side, to Dirk, who leaves it to his autoresponder to deal with her illadvised advances on his personhood.

Its great to see them while down after they sort of passive aggressively aired their annoyances at each other. At the end of the day its so important to know that despite it all, all the ribbing and nudging and stuff, the alpha kids work to try and spur the others on to be better and take care of them in their own ways, wellintentioned but not always hitting home base, you know?

4160 Here she is playing pretend and giggling over her cute little detective get ups pretending to be a guy with an especially dashing mustache. Meanwhile Egbert in the beta session simply said "This disguise is stupid" and left the premises. But Jane is having FUN with it damnit shes so LOVEL-

Ok. Well yeah you have a point but can you go back to roleplaying.

Well thats the end of janes interaction. Moving onto Jake!

4166 ANNND theres Jake talking about wearing a generally feminine thing and considering it genuinely how he pulls it off. Gender nonconforming as fuck really. Both Jane and Jake. Like daaamn go for it i know what you are. Wear whatever the fuck you want to wear!

Man. Looking at all these movies as a movie nerd its so insane. They revolve around curses from thousands of years ago, green menaces and demons, and blue lady femme fatales that guide the protagonist figure. Also Weekend at bernies 2 SUCKS. Wait holy cow is that smurfette.

Anyways the thing that stands out i guess within these pages is how Jake doesn't exactly cherrypick here. hes pretty upfront with some things and hypothesies.

You think your bed is some sort of electronic gadget. You're pretty sure those bedpost globes are supposed to glow like light bulbs under certain circumstances. But you've never been able to figure out what purpose it serves.

You have never seen a movie you didn't like, you are pretty sure. People give you a hard time for that though.

This is your collection of beauties. But you don't call them that to anyone but yourself in private, because somehow even you are aware of how dorky that sounds.

I guess Jake strikes me as the type to know quite a lot but never know exactly what to do about it. Live and let live while it lives.

You are oft-times the recipient of a good ribbing from Jane on account of your peculiar fascination with blue movie ladies. You don't have to justify yourself to her though. What is even her deal?

Hmm. I don't have anything to say it's 12 am i should probably sleep. So with page 4171 of Jake kissing Neytiri, mirroring a wish to be the hero that Egbert had on page 223, I bid you all adieu- hey whats with these losers and kissing their damn posters.

Jake: Stop kissing stupid poster.

Yes, that was a waste of time. Definitely. It's definitely not something you spend much time doing whenever you are alone, which is always.

Here he is being aware again to some regards, and trying to brush stuff off by showing how aware he is of what others think and how stupid some bullshit is. Which is intriguing to me. The way Jake talks about himself and his internal dialogue and thoughts is so intriguing to me, that often he brings up what he likes, what he thinks, vs relaity, vs others expectations, etc. Hes rather introspective and aware of things, and it's jsut. It's just interesting. Anyways I'm going to pop off to bed now. Goodnight all. I will be thinking about Egbert is so very forthright with whats good and whats not and Janes general deal for theatrics on her thoughts and Jakes more observant nature and write something tomorrow. Leave me a nice reblog or comment or drop a letter in my anon box.

#homestuck #hom3stuck #homestuck meta #borzoi talks #borzoi meta #borzoi reread #jake english #jane crocker

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siriannatan · 1 year

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Ghost of Tumble Town - one shot

Yeah... @doodleshrimps' Bandit AU inspired me to write something about this idea of mine.

Warning, it is a bit sad at the start.

AO3 link for anyone who prefers to read there.

Canon differences (might contain spoilers):

warden wasn't brought to Tumble Town by fWhip,

it killed Jimmy, respawn is not a thing in this au, not for most. Joel and Scott can respawn but that's a god/fae thing and Scott's keeping it a secret,

totems are a thing and can stop you from dying. Very valuable and rare,

Norman and Flick returned as ghosts with Jimmy and the rest of the citizens.

Jimmy missed the hermits' 'visit' while dead/ getting used to being a ghost, not wanting to freak them out.

Scott didn't care how many jabs Joel tossed at him for still visiting Tumble Town even after Jimmy was gone. It wasn't like the 'god' knew Scott was a fae and how distant and foreign concept death was to him. Fae are immortal. He would never die. As long as he had access to magic it is… But that wasn't really death. Not how mortals understood it. A fae without magic just fades away until there are just faint memories of them left. Why Scott was so careful with keeping his real identity a secret? Being known as a weirdo with llamas was better than being known as a powerful fae. Especially with a witch around. As un-witchy as Shubble was it was better to be safe than risk his wings.

Jimmy, the sheriff was probably the only one who figured him out. Shockingly, considering how dense he was. And didn't treat him any differently. Mostly. He did keep iron away from places Scott would visit in town. Would put his badge away when Scott was around. He did not mind how particular Scott was about specific order of things, and names, and greetings and… and all the fae stuff. Even if Scot never showed him his wings.

Which is probably why he never hid them when visiting Jimmy's grave. It was nothing special. just a mound of mesa sand with a crude cross marking the stop. No one wanted to stick around after the Warden just out of nowhere, seemingly, showed up and wrecked the town. Killing all the citizens and the sheriff. Vanishing without a trace soon after. Only then did the other emperors dare to come and check for survivors. There were none. Not even Jimmy's cats…

It was nearly two months ago. Before the rift business happened. And yet, despite never caring much for mortal races, humans even less than others, Scott found himself coming back again and again. To leave fresh flowers and take away the dry, ruined by howling wind old flowers from the last visit. And quietly tell the silent grave what has happened in the past week. Followed by sitting quietly until the silence and lack of colour drove him almost insane.

Just to repeat it next week.

And so, Scott sat, his wings covering the grave in pretty colours with the light of the setting sun. Thinking it's about time to go back to Chromia. Not that they couldn't survive one night without him. Owen shouldn't be too much of an issue for some time…

"You brought poppies today…"

A sudden, familiar but impossible voice had Scott jolting to his feet and looking around. No one was on the ground so he looked at the full of holes ruin of Jimmy's house. There, on the roof, sat Jimmy. Looking almost as he did the day he died. But not quite. There was something off. Something unnerving but Scott ignored it. Too happy to see him.

"Jimmy? But you…" if he wasn't a fae and didn't have complete control of his emotions he'd probably crumble down crying. "You said they're your favourites once…"

Jimmy shrugged and jumped down. There was no sound as he landed, and Scott could swear he saw him sink into the ground a little bit. "I got better, I think…" he hummed. There was this weirdly distant quality in his voice. Like he was both here and somewhere else. "You weren't kidding, your wings are really pretty," Jimmy hummed going to touch Scott's wing but… his hand passed right through the fae. "Yeah… still figuring that out…" the sheriff chuckled taking a step back.

Scott didn't need to be told what 'that' was. What Jimmy was now. He did die. And now was back, as a ghost. And not just some ghost. As the blonde idly floated a few inches off the ground, likely forgetting to keep himself on the ground, Scott could see the magic radiating off of him. Cold and dry, neither good nor bad. Death didn't take sides. It just took people away. The good, the bad and all in between. "It's okay. I was a bit lost and overwhelmed when I left fae realms," Scott shook his head, smiling a bit. He was just happy to talk to Jimmy again. "It's good to see you again," he said reaching out to at least try to touch Jimmy's face.

It worked and he could feel Jimmy's face. It was like cold wax. Not budging in the slightest under his touch. Scott met a few ghosts before settling where Chromia is now but Jimmy was different. Slightly translucent but not at all see-through. And much more present. Most of the other ghosts Scott knew would already forget who he was and move on to different things. Not Jimmy. He was staring at Scott even if his glassy, dead eyes occasionally glanced at the simple grave.

"Must have been a chock with how much you like colours…" Jimmy hummed tearing his eyes off the grave.

"Eh, winter fae's lands are always covered in snow, all in shades of white and grey with some green at best," Scott shrugged making a bit of snow whirling in one hand. "How are you feeling?" he asked letting it disperse. "We saw the aftermath… it was even worse than now…"

Jimmy shrugged, forcing himself to the ground. "I saw it, I think… the just after is a bit fuzzy, I was being pulled away but… something kept me here… It felt like the after is not meant to me for some reason…" he hummed walking out into the ruined town. Slowly more and more ghosts appeared, greeting their sheriff as if they were not all dead. "Like this was the end and there was nothing more…" he carried on talking as Scott silently followed. Watching the ghosts clean up the rubble.

The biggest shock was when two cats ran out of the sheriff's home, through a solid wall, and meowed, in that distant ghostly undertone. Rubbing against Scott's legs. They always liked him. Part of being a fae is being loved by all animals. Alive or dead, it turns out.

"Should I tell others you're…back or give you some more time to settle back into things?" he asked glancing at the sun. It was getting really low. Maybe he could stay the night now that the sheriff was back in town?

"Maybe wait a few days? Until this place isn't as much of a mess?" Jimmy grimaced stopping in front of the bank. It was pretty ruined, but, shockingly, nothing that was inside when the Warden attacked was missing. Scott heard some of the other emperors whisper about the place being cursed. "You can stay the night… if you don't mind all the ghosts…" Jimmy offered saving Scott asking.

"I don't mind," Scott grinned. "It's still the same Tumble Town, and it's not like I can die anyway," he shrugged as a dead bird flopped right next to him.

They were silent for a second, staring as the ghost of the bird left the body and dodged the ghostly cats that wasted no time pouncing at it. And laughed as it flew to a tree. They probably should have been worried about it but at the moment watching Norman and Flick chase it was funny. And fae had a rather unique sense of humour anyway and found dead birds very amusing even when they didn't leave ghosts behind.

#my stuff #my stories #fanfiction #fanfic #empires smp #empiresshipping #flower husbands #empires jimmy #esmp jimmy #empires scott #empires au #ghost of tumble town

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autisticsupervillain · 1 year

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Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to Stats Equalized!

The show that equalizes speed, strength, and durability to see who would win in a battle of pure versatility and skill.

This Month's Fighters...

Oz vs MSPA Reader!

Rules:

The Reader from Pesterquest is used.

The Reader hasn't yet absorbed the Green Sun and the Transcendence Path is ignored.

Scenario:

Oz and MSPA Reader are both competing for the title of Most Eligible Monster Fucker. When the votes run dead even, management decides the only way to settle this is via gladiatorial death match.

Analysis: Oz

Ask yourself this: what does the ultimate embodiment of fear look like? What nightmarish, unholy abomination coukd inspire the phobias of all mankind?

Stop thinking, because you're wrong. Fear looks like a shy, awkward high schooler who is desperate for a date to prom.

Well, okay, high schooler is being generous. In the Monster Realm, everyone who goes to High School is 21 at the youngest and today's combatant is actually older than time itself. Meet Oz, the inky-dark embodiment of fear himself. His primary concerns in life are, as you might expect, passing his classes and getting laid, as is the same with everyone at Spooky High. How Oz ended up in this situation is actually rather ambiguous. It's implied that their origin story might be similar to Zoe's, that being that they were an eldritch abomination created by The Nothing meant to destroy all life who eventually saw the beauty of life and choose to live as a regular person, but the details are currently unclear and this is only our closest guess.

What is clear, however, is that Oz's otherworldly power hasn't diminished any, despite their more mundane occupation and goals. They still posses an extraordinary wealth of abilites worthy of a timeless god. Firstly, Oz is remarkably difficult to put down. Not only have they been unaffected by damage done to their soul, but they can regenerate from fatal injuries as well. They can regrow severed limbs, regenerate vital organs, and even revive from being completely ripped to shreds, provided that someone stitches them back together.

What's more, they're remarkably durable to match. His stomach can contain the Totem of Z'gord, which is powerful enough to cause earthquakes all across the school, he can trade punches with Damien, who survived punching the sun, and was completely unaffected by the game itself crashing, able to act to reverse the problem even as reality comes crashing down around his ears abd his friends and narrator are corrupted beyond the ability to even move.

See, Oz has something of a Deadpool thing going on... or maybe Gwenpool more specifically. He is, to a certain extent, aware that he's in a video game and a stort and can leverage that to his advantage on occasion. For example, he can interact with characters from seperate video games entirely (even if he can't actually see them, do to their character models not existing in his game), he can move outside the boundaries of the game map to exit reality, and even turn the game off and on again at will, reducing reality to nothing and then restoring it with a thought. This awareness does not equate to perfect immunity, however. He ultimately can never escape the game and the revelation of such gives him an existential crisis in one of the endings, though he can interact with the world outside it some degree, such as interacting with the narrator or creating a website in the real world that can interact with the audience.

Even when they aren't breaking the laws of the game over their knee, Oz still has some absurd powers in their arsenal. They are fully aware of the fact that they have plot armor, which is what gets them into their constant unlikely shenanigans in the first place. They can give this plot armor away to other people, making it so no one will pay any attention to them and they'll be ignored by any major characters as unimportant. Then, they can steal this plot armor back just as easily. He can become one with the entire universe at will, becoming everywhere at once, and can summon abstract concepts to fight on their behalf. This concepts csn be anything, from the concept of Biology to the concept of they themselves, and these concepts can destroy other abstracts, erasing the ideas they represent from existence. For example, he once summoned the concept of Biology and had it kill the concept of math, erasing math from existence and making it impossible to calculate anything. And canceling math class.

So, if Oz is this powerful, how does he struggle with anything? Well, because it's a dating sim, really. None of this really matters as far as getting a date to the Prom is concerned and all of his powers are only useful if they help with the current social situation. Why did he become one with the universe? To get inside a really high monsyer truck, of course. Why did he destroy the concept of math? To get out of math class. Hell, the school has a backup generator to restore the concept of math if it's destroyed, so no one really cares long term. Why did he hone his mind to make it immune to horrors that otherwise drive men mad? To go on a date with Zoe inside a realm that does exactly that, naturally. Does it matter that's he's unaffected by demons altering the fabric of reality? If that means they can join his rave then sure!

What matters is his social stats. Luckily, Oz has plenty of those two. He can start a rave of over 200 people in seconds, trick two angels into thinking he's God with his ventriloquism act, and become chairman of an international corporation in a single day. And if their stats aren't high enough for some reason, they can just rip them out of you, either by eating your organs, mocking you until your social skills become his, or just by enhancing his own character traits with magic spells.

There's also their outright weaknesses. First of all, Oz is willing to do almost anything to get laid or impress their friends, including basically all the bullshit mentioned above. They are a desperate people pleasure with a really bad case of both depression and social anxiety, so the opinions of others mean a lot.

Despite that, however, they are every bit the eldritch monstrosity you would expect from the embodiment of fear in raw power if not in personality.

Analysis: MSPA Reader

Sometimes, when you're reading a work of fiction, you have to ask yourself something. What does the author think the average fan of their work looks like?

Andrew Hussie seems to be under the impression that we're all nonbinary gods wjo are desperately horny for trolls. They're mostly right on that front, I'd wager.

The MSPA Reader is you. Literally. The Reader of MS Paint Adventures, the website that houses Homestuck. Or used to before the site just became Homestuck dot com. And you've been thrust completely out of your depth and thrown into the hellish world of Alternia.

Luckily, the MSPA Reader has something buried deep in their sleeves to help them survive on this hostile hell planet: a neverending thirst for friendship.

It is this and this alone that keeps them going against impossible odds. Even as they struggle to stand under the weight of countless broken bones, they will happily march through the heat of Alternia's burning sunlight, or fight against a giant killer alien bear just on the off chance that it might land them a friendship with whatever hapless alien they find next.

You'd think that such a wreckless and naive creature would get themselves killed rather quickly, but let's just say that they've got someone looking out for them. Doc Scratch, the First Guardian of Alternia, is the one who brought them to Alternia in the first place, as a part of some long term plan. Once the Reader had outlived their usefulness, Scratch locked them away in his mansion for potential later use, a choice the nigh omniscient would soon come to regret.

See, all this did was put the Reader in position to get their hands on the Treasure, a legendary weapon that removes them from the constraints of causality, fate, and even the plot itself. This means the Reader can teleport themselves to anywhen and anywhere in the multiverse at will, becoming completely exempt from the very laws of time travel and fate that govern Homestuck's reality.

Using this new power, the Reader would continue to follow their befriending instincts, trying to form attachments with all the main characters of Homestuck before their story even began. In doing so, however, they begin to do irreparable damage to the very fabric of reality, to the point where their meddling ran the risk of blinking reality, the entire multiverse, out of existence entirely.

To prevent this, the Reader decided to use the Treasure's power to absorb the Green Sun, becoming powerful enough to hold the universe together and bubble their timeline, allowing all their friendships and alterations to remain without risking reality itself. The Reader became a First Guardian, the most powerful one in Paradox Space at that.

Sometimes, all you need to do the impossible is the power of friendship.

Throwdown Mashup:

youtube

Throwdown Breakdown:

Oz far and away has more variety than his opponent does here, but this advantage is limited by his lack of proper range.

Oz's plot manipulation wouldn't effect anything, as the Reader exists outside the boundaries of the plot entirely, leaving the universe merging and the conceptual destruction as their two major win conditions. The problem is actually hitting the Reader and I don't see that happening.

The Reader can just... teleport outside of the universe and back again whenever, allowing them to move outside of Oz's range freely. As such, nothing stops them from teleporting Oz outside of the universe where he can't get back or teleporting him to the Green Sun and vaporizing him. If Oz becomes one with the universe, then the Reader can just teleport to before he did that. And while Oz's summons can kill the Reader by erasing them conceptually, Reader can just teleport to before they were summoned at all.

In other words, the Reader's one option, teleportation, is versatile enough to allow them to avoid Oz's win conditions, whilst giving them a good amount of win conditions themself.

This Month's Winner is...

MSPA Reader!

#fictional throwdown fridays #monster prom #homestuck #mspa reader #oz yellow #stats equalized #Youtube

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usafphantom2 · 1 year

Text

MAY 8, 2022

Life and death in the ‘Delta Queen’: My time on the B-58 Hustler supersonic bomber

B-58 (modified).jpg

Fast, accurate and survivable, the Convair B-58 Hustler was a sexy Cold War totem. Its glamour belied the grimness of its intended role as a strategic nuclear bomber, a task it thankfully never performed. As we find out from Colonel George Holt Jr – a Navigator/Bombardier on this Mach 2 monster – the Hustler was a brilliantly engineered and utterly potent aircraft retired in its prime. Holt was part of the B-58–equipped 305th Bomb Wing at Bunker Hill AFB (now Grissom AFB) close to Peru, Indiana from 1960 to 1969.

What was the best thing about the Hustler?

It had a very high probability for penetrating enemy defenses and accurately delivering its weapons on assigned targets.

..and the worst?

My brother, Tech Sergeant John Holt was assigned to B-58 maintenance from 1963 to 1968. He noted that the B-58 experienced excessive downtime after a mission, as discrepancies had to be cleared before the next flight. Before any maintenance could begin on the aircraft, a ground air conditioning unit had to be hooked up and cooling air had to be supplied to the aircraft before he could turn the power switch on. Unlike most bombers, the Hustler was a very tight aircraft and panels had to be removed before most maintenance could begin.

Then there were the ‘Hangar Queens’ those few aircraft that had numerous repeatable maintenance problems that no one could figure out. Quite often, those problems were associated with the Bomb/Nav system. Lt. Colonel Tom Hatch remembers one flight where the Bomb/Nav system started to overheat and the air conditioning was switched to ‘reverse flow’— a condition that forced cooling air into the electronic equipment before entering the crew station area. On one mission, the heat was so unbearable that he had to strip down to his bare chest. However, incidents like this were the exception rather than the norm and in May 1968 the entire fleet of B-58s started receiving an improved version of the AN/ASQ-42 Bomb/Nav system, along with new technical data and spare parts. In my three years of flying in the B-58, I never experienced a ‘reverse flow’ condition.

Some maintenance personnel said they “hated working on this airplane” but in almost the same breath, they would say, “they wouldn’t trade it for the world.” Like the aircrews, the B-58 maintenance folks were an elite group and proud to have worked on the Hustler. They were the best, and the best way to measure their performance is to note that B-58s, on a daily basis, were able to meet their SIOP (war plan) commitment of having 32 alert-ready aircraft, refuelled with weapons loaded and ready to go to war at a moment’s notice.

What was its Cold War tasking?

It was in the bomber component of the United States nuclear triad consisting of land-launched nuclear missiles, nuclear-missile-armed submarines, and strategic aircraft with nuclear bombs and missiles. Each B-58 alert crew stood ready to launch within minutes of a confirmed attack on the U.S. to deliver five weapons on assigned military targets in enemy territory.

What were you first impressions of the B-58?

In the Spring of 1966, my Wing Commander of the 509th Bomb Wing at Pease AFB, New Hampshire asked if I’d like to be reassigned to B-58s. For six years I’d flown as a navigator/bombardier in the B-47, but all B-47s were being retired so it was an honour to have been selected, because the Convair B-58 Hustler was the most sophisticated and technologically advanced aircraft of its day and back then you could not just volunteer for B-58s you had to be selected and recommended by your wing commander.

I was fortunate to be paired up with Major Al Dugard, an outstanding pilot who had been with the 509th for many years. Al successfully passed his F-102 transition training while I was at Mather AFB, CA for B-58 Nav training. Al and our Defensive Systems Operator (DSO), Major Bob McCormack then went to Bunker Hill AFB, Indiana, for flight training in the TB-58.

When I arrived at Bunker Hill (later renamed Grissom AFB) I was quite amazed at my first sight of a B-58. This baby looked fantastic. It was much bigger than I had imagined and you could tell it was built for speed with those four brute-force J-79 engines strung beneath its delta wing. With a sharply tapered needle-nose, it looked ready to break the sound barrier while still on the ground. This racehorse was itching to get out of the stable and run with the wind. I found it hard to believe that I’d be riding this beast in that second cockpit.

Al and Bob had already logged a number of hours in the plane with an instructor pilot, but my first flight meant going up with Al on his first solo ride. It would be a normal mission – high altitude navigation, inflight refuelling with a KC-135 tanker and high and low altitude nav runs with simulated bomb drops being scored by radar bomb scoring sites.

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I had some hesitation as we headed out to the aircraft. Something didn’t feel right. I had my helmet and oxygen mask and my Nav kit – but something was missing. My shoulders felt light. Then I realised I didn’t have a parachute. After ten years of flying in tactical and strategic bombers wearing a fairly heavy parachute for hours on end, I suddenly realised those days were over – no parachute required in the Hustler. The escape capsule had its own installed parachute, so this would be shirt-sleeve flying.

The B-58 was also the only bomber aircraft I know of that had a single pilot with two navigators on board – the DSO was a rated navigator. The crew sat in tandem, one behind the other in three isolated cockpits – no standing room available.

I’ll always remember the take-off and climb-out of my first mission. We were sitting on the runway with four engines in full afterburner. Then at brake release I felt pushed back in my seat as we made a rapid roll to lift off and then a climb at 425 knots until we reached altitude. Of course, after takeoff we had to throttle back out of afterburner to prevent this racehorse from running wild.

Its four J79 engines produced 62,400 pounds of thrust, so the B-58 with an empty weight of only 55,650 pounds had an outstanding thrust-to-weight ratio.

People often asked, “Did you become claustrophobic sitting in such a confined space for hours on end?” My reply was always, ”No. I was just too darned busy during the mission to have any time to think about being claustrophobic.”

Describe the B-58 in three words?

Fast, Accurate and Survivable. Let me explain:

Fast: The B-58 was fast and had a range of airspeeds. At its maximum speed of Mach 2.2 (1,452 mph) it was 2½ times faster than the muzzle velocity of a .45 caliber bullet. Although it was a strategic bomber it could outmaneuver, outturn, and out-climb most fighter aircraft of its day. But it was also fast while flying at low level. On the deck we would skirt the treetops just below the speed of sound. This amazing bomber captured numerous international speed records winning five aeronautical trophies: The Thompson, Bleriot, Mackay, Bendix and Harmon trophies. The B-58 Hustler also set 14 world speed records in international competition; and in 1962, a Hustler carried a payload of 11,000 lbs. to an altitude of 85,360 feet.

Accurate: It was unbeatable in navigational and bombing accuracy. Its Doppler, Stellar, and Inertial navigation system was quite unique for its day. Before it was fully combat-ready, a B-58 crew, competing against more experienced B-47 and B-52 crews, did the unthinkable. It took first place for bombing accuracy at the 1960, Strategic Air Command, Bombing Competition. I would often fly “radar silent” going from standby to radar-on just for the few seconds required to position my crosshairs on navigation checkpoints, however the Bomb/Nav system of the Hustler was so accurate that quite often the crosshairs would be laying directly on the checkpoint when radar was turned on.

Survivable: In the 1960s, improvements in Soviet surface to air missiles (SAMs) forced the B-58 from a high-altitude supersonic penetration of enemy airspace to a low-level penetration and a high subsonic speed run to its targets, just below Mach-1. The Hustler adapted to this new profile exceptionally well. The B-52 was also forced to go in at low-level but it had a huge radar image and its lower speed held no comparison to the B-58 whose radar image was virtually undetectable. Flying low and fast it was hard for radar sites to pick us up amongst the radar ground clutter and its ability to fly ‘silent’ with no electromagnetic emissions made it virtually undetectable in enemy territory. I can attest to how the B-58 was like a stealth bomber on low-level bomb runs. Quite often when we approached a Nike bomb scoring site, we were asked to pop up so they could obtain a radar lock-on.

What is a particularly dangerous aircraft?

I would describe a dangerous aircraft as one where you risked life or limb at a much higher probability compared to other aircraft. I flew for six years in the B-47 six-engine jet bomber and never felt comfortable on take-off and landings because I knew if I had to eject at that low altitude, in my navigator’s downward ejection seat, my chance of survival was close to zero.

Tell us about the escape pod.

It was quite a relief to find out that the Hustler, not only had upward ejection seats for all three crew members, but we would also have our own escape capsule. This capsule was amazing. The pilot’s capsule is shown in the closed position. His capsule included the flight control stick allowing him to control the aircraft while encapsulated up to the point of ejection. The B-58 was the first Air Force aircraft to have a capsule ejection system to allow safe ejection at supersonic speed. And it worked at any airspeed from 100 knots to above Mach 2 and from ground level to 70,000 feet. This capsule would get you out of the aircraft safely. It had an independent pressurisation and oxygen supply system, shock absorbers to ease the impact on touchdown, and it even floated on water.

Do you think it was more survivable than the B-52?

It was much more survivable than the B-52 for a number of reasons. If we had to go to war, it could take off much faster than the B-52. At low level, it could penetrate enemy defenses at a much higher speed and coped much better in heavy turbulence. Most of all it was much harder to detect on enemy radars.

The Studies and Analysis Directorate at the Pentagon ran computer simulations comparing the B-58 with the B-52. They concluded that the B-58’s speed advantage and its very low radar signature gave the Hustler a higher probability of evading detection by enemy radars. This held true even when the B-58 was programmed to fly at a higher altitude than the B-52 during low-level penetration to the target. In comparing radar signature differences, I remember one of the evaluators saying, “The difference between the B-58 and the B-52 was like comparing a postage stamp to a barn door.”

Here’s how my former B-58 pilot compared the two aircraft when I asked him which was more survivable. “I have over 3500 hours in the B-47, close to 1,000 hours in the B-52, with 350 in combat missions in Vietnam, including flights over Hanoi and Haiphong. As a weapons machine for use in both peacetime deterrence and war conditions, the B-58 was exceptional.”

He went on to say, “Having flown the B-52 into a highly defended enemy target complex, it is apparent to me that the B-52 was highly vulnerable to enemy defenses. Having survived the onslaught of surface to air missiles (SAMs) due only to electronic countermeasures and seeing missiles fired even before our initial turn to target, I am convinced that the B-52 for all its great capability was a large detectable target, easily identified and vulnerable to the SAM complexes. The B-52 at low-level had this same huge radar image and due to its lower speed held no comparison to the B-58 whose low-level speed was much greater and the B-58’s radar image was virtually undetectable.”

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Why was it retired, and was it too early?

By 1967, all major improvement modifications had been completed on the B-58 and like its big brother the B-52, it could have remained in the inventory for many more years. Congress, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and even the Office of the Secretary of Defense, despite initial misgivings about the Hustler, came to realize its value as a strategic bomber and by January 1969, it had been given a new lease on life. It was certainly a weapon system feared by the Soviets. But because of an indisputable blunder by Strategic Air Command, during a time when they were under pressure to cut costs, they decided to trade off all of the B-58s in hopes of retaining some older model B-52s. They got their trade off from the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Then, within months, they were also forced to phase out those older model B-52s they had hoped to keep.

What was special about the B-58?

It was an airplane you could fall in love with. It was a pleasure to fly. Among all the pilots I’ve known in my three years of flying in the B-58, none thought the B-58 was hard to fly. In fact, they thought it was the smoothest airplane they ever flew. Especially those who had flown fixed-wing B-47s and B-52s. Its delta wing gave the Hustler a smoother and more stable ride than other aircraft. Responsiveness to controls was instantaneous and you didn’t wait for a wing to respond to control movement. Formation flight i.e., Air Refueling was much easier due to the stable platform.”

Your most memorable mission?

I actually had two very memorable missions. I had mentioned earlier that the B-58 had a range of airspeeds. The following illustrates how slow and how fast the Hustler could fly.

There’s no doubt that the B-58 had an amazing high-speed capability. Now, let’s take a look at the Hustler’s slow speed ‘floating leaf’ capability.

I had my share of ‘shacks’ i.e., putting a bomb directly on target with zero error, and never had a bad bomb score in my three years of navigating and bombing in the B-58. But came close when I was running high altitude simulated bomb drops on a Nike site one evening over Chicago. We were in a racetrack pattern and getting excellent scores from the Nike radar bomb scoring unit. However, we were flying in one humongous jet stream, well over 200 mph. Our inbound run to the target was very slow and our outbound on the racetrack was like a ‘Bat out of Hell’ with that ferocious tailwind kicking us in the rear.

Nike sites scored bomb runs by acquiring the inbound aircraft on radar. The aircraft’s track was drawn in ink on a large horizontal whiteboard. The track was based on the aircraft’s ground speed and true course. Ten seconds before bomb release, I would transmit a constant tone. At simulated bomb release the tone stops and the pen on the plotting board lifts up. At that point, the Nike site operators would extend the track based on the time of fall for the bomb type and the best-known wind data. Altogether, this determined how close the bomb came to the target.

Well, on this particular evening, I was getting somewhat bored on my fourth inbound to the target. We were fighting that tremendous headwind and it seemed like it was taking forever to get to the target. So I decided to try something different. I computed an indicated airspeed (IAS) for Al Dugard, my pilot, to fly that would make our true airspeed equivalent to the speed of the jet stream. If Al could hit that speed, then our groundspeed would be zero. We had just flown a seven-hour mission and the Hustler was real light with just enough fuel, plus some reserve, to get us back to Bunker Hill, 15 minutes away. Al was not sure, he could hold such a low airspeed for too long, but he was willing to try.

He started throttling back on the engines, careful to keep the Hustler above the stall speed and I kept my eye on the groundspeed indicator. Son of a gun, we were approaching zero groundspeed.

Al said, “George, I can keep this airspeed and angle of attack, but I’m beginning to lose some altitude to maintain it.”

“OK, Al, we just hit zero groundspeed. Hold it a bit longer and then we can accelerate to keep the bomb run going.”

Then we started getting panic calls from the Nike site because the pen plotting our track, inbound to the target, had stopped its forward motion. That meant only one thing to the Nike bomb plot people on the ground—we must have either blown up in the air or crashed to the ground.

“Delta 23 this is Nike bomb plot. Do you have an emergency? Come in Delta 23.”

Al came over the interphone, “George, I’ll respond to Nike so they don’t get too panicky and declare an emergency on us.”

“Nike bomb plot. This is Delta 23. Sorry for the delay. We just stopped for a while to open and eat our flight lunches. We’re now continuing into the target.”

“Roger 23” – a long silence and then, “Your pen plot has started to move again.”

They probably could not believe what just happened and never asked for an explanation. I was just lucky they did not retaliate by giving me a bad bomb score.

Now let’s take a look at how fast this beautiful lady could fly. Here’s a mission I was on in March 1967, out of Fort Worth, Texas:

B-58 Taxi (AFMUS).jpg

“Foxtrot one five, this is Carswell Tower, you’re cleared for takeoff. Center has cleared an unrestricted climb to 24,000 feet.”

“Roger, tower.”

“OK, Crew, we’re ready to roll. Advancing power to 100%, engines stabilized, kicking in AB, and releasing brakes.”

I felt the afterburners kick in and said, “Al, I’ve started my stop watch, let me know when you level off at 24,000 feet.”

“Roger that. S1, passing the 1,000-foot marker. S2, rotation, lift off, climbing.”

“Al, my altimeter is spinning like crazy back here.”

“Mine, too. We’re approaching 15,000 feet and I can see the end of the runway below us.”

“Ft Worth Center, this is Foxtrot one five, passing through 15,000 feet.”

Center didn’t believe us. “Foxtrot 15, say again altitude?”

“Flight Level 19 Zero, and now leveling off at 24 Zero.”

“Al, you won’t believe this but my stopwatch reads 48 seconds and that was from brake release.”

“I believe it, George. It’s the lightest fuel load we’ve ever had. That climb was like sitting on the head of a rocket. I couldn’t level off quick enough and finally hit the top of the parabola at 26 thousand feet and dove back down to the assigned altitude of 24. That was a blast. What’s our heading to The General Dynamics rehab base at James Connolly?”

“Pick up a heading of one seven four degrees.”

I was the Navigator/Bombardier in that one-minute conversation with our pilot, Major Al Dugard, as we departed Carswell Air Force Base, enroute to James Connolly Air Force Base. Our Defensive Systems Operator, Major ‘Mac’ MacDonald was also on board.

Our mission was to ferry a B-58 “Hustler” to James Connolly for a modification on the wing root and other mods to extend the life of the B-58 well into the 1970s. While at James Connolly, we picked up an aircraft that had already been modified and flew it back home to Bunker Hill Air Force Base, Indiana.

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Was Mach 2 possible, did you reach it?

Mach 2 was more than possible. The thrust of the four J79 engines could push the B-58 well beyond Mach 2. The limiting factor was aircraft skin temperature. When a B-58 crew set a transcontinental speed record in 1962 they monitored the skin temperature gauges to ensure they did not exceed 125 degrees centigrade (125°C = 257°F.)

I’ve often been asked, “What was it like when the B-58 went supersonic?” Unlike the loud boom, someone on the ground would hear, my first experience passing through the sound barrier was remarkably quiet. Unless you were looking at your instruments, you would never know you had gone supersonic. There was not even a small shudder within the aircraft—nothing, except a fluctuation on the altimeter. The reading would drop around 500 feet and then bounce back to the proper altitude. The B-58 was capable of delivering bombs at Mach 2 but it could be tricky. Travelling at 23 miles per minute. You had to acquire the target as early as possible and once your crosshairs were locked on target any further movement of the crosshairs could result in very steep bank angles as the aircraft turned to reacquire the target.

How fast and smooth was the ride at low levels?

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The B-58 was very fast and very smooth and quite stable even when flying in low level turbulence. When other larger bombers on a low level route aborted their mission due to heavy turbulence, we would come in behind them and successfully complete the mission experiencing only light to moderate turbulence. That’s the advantage of a delta wing design. The B-58’s wingspan was short, solid and stable, unlike aircraft with large wingspans where turbulence can induce oscillating forces on the wings. It was much faster than the B-52 at low level.

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How good were the weapons and sensors?

All bombs were dropped with a drogue retarded parachute to allow safe escape from the bomb blast. The Defensive Systems Operator (DSO) controlled a powerful electronic counter-measures (ECM) system to blind enemy radars, including an active jammer and a chaff dispenser. The defensive armament of the B-58 had a six-barrel, 20-mm rotary cannon (Gatling gun) with a maximum firing rate of 4000 rounds per minute. The radar for the tail gun was located in a bullet fairing above the tail cone. The gun was aimed remotely by the fire control system in the tail, but there was a radar (automatic) fire control panel and a manual fire control panel located at the DSO’s station. The firing zone was any target within a 60-degree cone. The defensive ECM system gave early warning of enemy radar systems to deceive, confuse, or jam them. The system also had radar track-breaking equipment, that generated deceptive radar jamming signals. When radar tracking signals, locked on us, the track breaker generated and transmitted deceptive angle and range information back to the hostile radar tracking system. A chaff dispensing system was also installed in each upper main gear fairing, with chaff being ejected through mechanically actuated slots in the tops of each wing fairing.

What should I have asked you? How about: Have you published any books about the B-58?

I have published a couple of books about the B-58. My best seller is “The B-58 Blunder – How the U.S. Abandoned its Best Strategic Bomber.” It details much more of what has been presented here and is available on Amazon where it has sold over 6,000 copies and received over 260 reviews. In it I describe how the B-58 came to a premature death, largely because of infighting among military and civilian leaders, who failed to understand the value and full capabilities of this fantastic airplane. It was a technological marvel, years ahead of its time and it should never have been sent to the boneyard.