#rural Kent

[aisphotostuff]

Beautiful Little Blue Tit on the Kent Weald by Adam Swaine Via Flickr: 1 of the many blue tits and other birds found in the orchard nature reserve at Bough Beech Kent UK RSPB

[optionalgs]

Jor-El: I made Kal-El a Kyrptonian combat suit out of nanotech so he can go out and fight crime.

Martha Kent: not without something to cover his junk he isn't.

[vox-anglosphere]

Dode village was wiped out by plague, but her parish church survives

[violet-and-honey]

Smallville kind of makes me wish I'd grown up on a farm surrounded by corn and with meteor addled neighbors in rural kansas

[gemini-care-barr]

As a profoundly altruistic individual who hates harm, how do you think Superman can justify not being a vegetarian? Would cruelty against animals in a world where necessity to eat meat instead of alternatives isn’t necessary?

I’m going to try not to spend too much time on this one 😅

Basically… he’s a farmer… and a scientist… and both know that eating meat =/= animal cruelty, so, yeah, I don’t think he has too much of a problem with it. Is a lion eating a gazelle animal cruelty? A wolf eating a deer? It’s just life, and a huge part of respecting life is understanding that everyone and everything lives and dies and that’s just the natural order of things. One could say Clark’s most alien feature is the fact that his super-powered nature disrupts his own ability to die and participate in this natural cycle (if we’re going off the idea that he’s immortal), but it’s this understanding and placement outside of the natural order that helps him respect it all the more and recognize that some creatures are going to eat other creatures. All that being said, he definitely advocates for careful and loving handling of livestock and does all he can to advocate against wasteful food production/usage. There’s also a slew of other economic, social, and conservationist reasons why he’d be accepting of not being a vegetarian, but I don’t want to get into it.

[thegirlinthepinkwheelchair]

Eastern Shore Town Hall

Image ID: Eastern Shore Town Hall. Maryland Department of Disabilities is gathering input from the disability community to create the next State Disabilities Plan and determine priorities for the next plan. Share your thoughts and experiences! To the right is a photo of disabled people with varying disabilities. You can download the PDF here via Google Drive to share with your networks and…

[aisphotostuff]

Winter in the Darent Valley Kent by Adam Swaine Via Flickr: The stunning flood plain around the River Darent by the Lavender farm near Shoreham village..

[thefaeriefeatherdark]

Anyone who says that Kal-El the last son of Krypton is a human more than a Kryptonian is wrong and misses half the tragedy of the Superman.

Kal-El isn’t human. Not really, that’s what’s tragic. Since he was a baby he has had more power than any human, but at the same time he’s had Krypton stolen from him. He’s the child of a world that doesn’t really exist anymore, he’s only left with what little was sent with him in a pod. That’s why so much of the Phantom Zone villains is so tragic for him, because they are like him, they can tell him who he is, but he’s not willing to do wrong to get that. They’re what’s left of his society and they’re the worst of it.

More than that though he speaks Kryptonese, he keeps Kryptonian practices like the Day of Truth alive, he uses the name of the Kryptonian god in his speech, he is Kryptonian, but he’s also not. His culture has been stolen from him, he can’t know the exact traditions of Krypton, he can’t know the slang and their inflections and the jokes or the puns they’d make, he can’t know what lullabies they sung to their children, he can’t know what the food they ate tasted like, because Krypton is lost.

Then there’s Kara and Kandor.

Kara, who grew up on stories of Krypton before it’s destruction, who knows the lullabies and the slang and the jokes but only in the terror of an unending abyss, only in the confines of a spec of dust hurtling through a vast and hostile environment that holds almost all of what remains of Krypton barraged by radiation and asteroids and monsters, a last desperate attempt at survival for their people as their population was slowly whittled down to nothing until she alone remained fired off in the only means of escape her home had left.

She can’t tell Kal how the fruit on Krypton tasted or how the moons looked (there was only one moon by the time she was born), she cannot remember these things from her brief childhood on Krypton before Argo was launched into space.

And Kandor. They cannot give Kal what he’s seeking. It is a city run by a mad machine, a city that has all the life and culture stolen from it and turned to what that machine feels it should be based off a textbook. A city of people trapped forever in that bubble unable to escape, unable to tell Kal of his home. Unable to see Kal as little but their savior. Kandor is like an amusement park version of an ancient culture. It has been scrubbed clean and simplified for the tourists.

Superman isn’t human, he doesn’t consider himself human, if he did you’d lose the tragedy and the point.

[vox-anglosphere]

Imagine keeping your balance while picking hops ten feet in the air..

Hop pickers on stilts in Faversham England 1920

[evasive-anon]

Superman meeting Santa is actually the cutest thing I've ever seen.

[ID: Pages from the Batman- Santa Claus: Silent Knight comic series. Superman has his laser vision activated and looks furious as he says, "You never said-- that you knew." His laser eyes disappear as he says with a stunned, almost stricken expression: "Santa."

A dragon can be seen in the background as he begins to float down and says, "Hi, sir, I'm--" Santa Claus says, "Kent. Rural route 38, Smallsville. You wrote me when you were six." Superman, surprised, asks, "Wow-- You remember that?" Santa replies, "You asked for 'a new coffee maker for Ma and Pa.' And something about how you thought coffee was yucky, but they love it."

Superman, touched, says, "I can't believe you read my letter..." In the background, the dragon is looking at them menacingly, and Blue Beetle shouts, "¡Eyyy! Supes! ¡Hola! Back here!" End ID]

Credit to @princess-of-purple-prose for the description. Thanks for writing this up! I didn’t think to add something like this but if it makes it more inclusive I’m happy to add it! Everyone deserves to see Supes being a cutie pie.

[chiasfeu]

as a retired ff writer ive come out of hibernation bc the lack of smallville clark kent ffs is unacceptable tom welling is toooooo fine

sorry for all the grammatical errors i wrote this all at once and didn’t reread

part two

SECRET ADMIRER - clark kent x reader

Fumbling the lock of your locker, you sigh; you were on your fifth day at smallville high school and you weren’t ecstatic to say the least. After your dad had gotten into some legal trouble with LutherCorp your family had to move out of Metropolis to somewhere more safe.. more remote. Adjusting to the rural life of smallville had proven to be difficult and the people seemed strange. Slamming a fist against your locker you try again, meticulously turning the lock of the locker. Click. As you open the doors of the locker, a piece of paper slowly falls out.

Picking it up you read your name in bright red across the folded up piece of paper, you smile to yourself thinking, my very own secret admirer..

Maybe smallville won’t be so boring.

—————

Sipping on your coffee, you annotate your copy of the scarlet letter for English class. “Hey! y/n right?” A friendly voice calls out. You look up from your book, smiling. “Yeah! you must be Lana?” She nods, “I see your getting ready for the English exam, you need any help?” You glance at your book before starting, “I’m good for now.. I’ll let you know if I have any questions!” She smiles again before turning away to walk back behind the counter. Your eyes follow her as she talks to the costumers by the counter, they look familiar— a blonde girl with short wispy hair, and two other guys beside her.

You almost jump out of your own seat when you lock eyes with one of the boys, has he been looking at me this whole time? You think, embarrassed, quickly focusing on your book again. Although you’ve looked away you can still feel his gaze lingering on you.

“Hi.” You’re startled as you hear the voice, looking up at the boy that was staring at you from across the room. Before you can reply he starts, “You’re in my first period Bio class.. you know.. with Jenkins..” You blink, waiting for him to continue. He gulps, “uh well Jenkins is really tough.. and we have our first quiz next class so I was wondering if you would want any help….?” You smile sweetly, what is it with small town folks being so eager to help out? “Yeah I would really like that actually,” He smiles, almost in a relived way. “Great. You’re actually my new neighbor so I’ll just come over to help out,” He says before turning away. You cock your head to the side before saying, “Wait.” He turns around, facing towards you, “I never got your name,” you say.

“Clark Kent.”

—————

You’re sitting on your bed as you peer up at Clark while he explains how to convert moles into grams, “So you’re going to divide the number of particles by Avogrados number..” You yawn tuning him out, your eyes fall the paper that slipped out of your locker earlier today. I still haven’t read that note. You grab the note, opening it up, “y/n are you listening to me.” He says clearly frustrated. “Sorry Clark..” you say apologetically smiling, he notices the paper in your hands and nervously looks back up at you. “What is that?” He says, shifting around in his seat, looking intently at your face. You smile lightly, giggling, “It’s a letter from my secret admirer.” He visibly relaxes, “Oh.. I take it you like having one?” You nod shrugging, “makes smallville a lot more interesting than it could be.” He fake winces, “Smallville is a lot more interesting than you think.” You raise your eyebrows unconvinced, “Really? You’ll have to show me what’s so ‘interesting’ one day.” He smiles glancing down, “Maybe I will.”

You look at Clark’s notebook and your eyebrows furrow, the handwriting looking strikingly similar to the one in the note you found this morning. “Clark..” “Hm?” He looks up at you, “Do you possibly happen to know whoever wrote me that note?” He scratches his head, “No? Why would I?…” You shrug, “Just curious..” He awkwardly smiles before writing in his notebook again. You shift your position on your bed, scooting closer to him, “Clark, it’s ok you can tell me if you do know…” you bring your hand to his exposed forearm caressing it. He coughs before breathlessly stating, “I really don’t know who wrote it, y/n.” You push up against him, drawing circles up his arms, “Hm.. that really is too bad..” He swallows dryly, “yeah?” You nod slowly, “yeahhh.. I would’ve gone along with everything they wrote in that letter..” There’s a moment of silence as he looks at you. He shuts his eyes, sighing hard before confessing, “I wrote it.”

You grin mischeviously, running a hand through his hair, “You really didn’t have to lie, Clark..” He opens his eyes to look at you, his cheeks red from embarrassment, “y/n” “hmm?” You hum, tilting your head bringing your lips closer to his. He glances at them, sighing heavily before parting his lips to say something. He’s cut off by you pressing your lips against his, you feel his body relax into yours, his hands sliding up your back and his lips pushing deeper into the kiss. You pull away from the kiss, your hands holding Clark’s head; using your thumb you wipe lipstick off of Clark’s swollen lips as he looks at you longingly.

Yoau press your lips together, suppressing a giggle, “Hmm it’s getting late.. how about we pick back up tomorrow?”

[secretidentie]

Since Clark grew up in a rural town in the mid west I'd imagine he was exposed to a lot of government and military propaganda. So a young Clark, feeling obligated to protect his country and being literally indestructible, ignores his parents advice to lay low to protect himself and decides to secretly join the military. Even if someone figures out he's an alien, it will be much easier to make a case for himself being one of the good guys if he's already in the military, Clark rationalizes. He leaves his parents a letter and sneaks off in the night.

At the same time across the country, a young angry Bruce is looking for any excuse to get a break from Gotham and the prying media. He decides to join the military not just for escape, but to gain training for his mission to take down the criminals of Gotham. Alfred having been in the army himself thinks this will be good for Bruce and a much more grounded idea then fighting criminals himself.

By fate, they are assigned to the same dormitory, Bruce on the bottom bunk and Clark on the top (yes this is an innuendo). About a week into their basic training they start to realize the military might be super evil and have to work together to stop the creation of a really dangerous weapon. Through working together and confiding in each other about their feeling and worries, they start to form a close friendship or even more

After they complete their mission they both quit before the end of their basic training and go their separate ways. Bruce decides his training would be better aligned with his values if he is taught by monks who obey the same honor code as him and leaves to go train in Tibet. Clark instead decides his calling is journalism to expose the lies and corruption in the country. To do this he goes to study at Metropolis University and later on decides to become Superman to fight these injustices hands on.

Every now and then they both think bac to their short lived romance and what could have been. When Bruce sees the first Daily Planet article by Clark Kent he can't help but smile and when Clark hears news of Bruce Wayne's return he can't help but make a quick trip to Gotham.

[vox-anglosphere]

Kent

The glorious Scotney Castle

[communist-ojou-sama]

Polish neonazi who has spent their entire life in Canada and has never set foot on Polish soil: We Poles are just so glad that the evil Soviet Union is gone now so we can venerate our national hero, Władysław the Jew Smiter, without censorship.

Ordinary Polish guy: Idk man it kinda sucks that western financial firms came in and bought all our national industry and our social services are shit now and the picture of "upward mobility" offered to us is going to the UK and picking tomatoes in rural Kent while the inbred grandniece of the architect of the Bengal Famine films herself cracking a whip over our heads for her #girlboss motivational instagram account, and the main outlet for that frustration is catholic christofascism. Maybe it wasn't so bad before the fall of the SU (all of this is in polish so anglophones can't understand it and don't care to translate it)

smug liberal whitey, to me: Don't you hysterical darkies see? ex-soviet people are Glad the soviet union is gone! Look at what all polish people are saying, which in the english language is entirely sentiment one and not sentiment 2!

[thebluewritingbench]

you & me in the wreckage

a supercorp ficlet

written for @ekingston's flash fiction challenge! :)

this was fun!! the prompts i got were: thriller, only survivors of a zombie apocalypse, celebrity/just some guy (gender neutral), and blood. thematically consistent, at least. tw for (a fairly small amount of) blood and gore, unsurprisingly. enjoy!

+

Someone is breathing on the other side of the vehicle.

No, Kara reminds herself yet again. Something.

It’s hard to say when the simple sound of another creature breathing became an instant trigger to send adrenaline coursing through her veins. Every tiny hair on her body rises. Her heart rate accelerates until she can feel it behind her teeth, a war drum. She moves with utmost caution; she cannot make a sound.

There’s a creak of metal. A low groan.

Kara recognizes the sound. The pleading moan of perverse hunger.

She can’t see it, as she creeps around the passenger side of the dark vehicle. The thing must be inside the car. The sound came from low down, though. Maybe it’s on the ground. Unsurprising—they always seem to end up there in the end. After having exhausted the limits of human muscle, with no prey left to chase down, they collapse like expended cargo.

The car is a solid black Rolls-Royce. A rare sight in the city, let alone out here. This one has seen better days, though. Shiny paint marred by dust, pock-marked with dents, half the bumper hanging off. How it ended up swerved into the ditch of this rural, two-lane road is a mystery.

Probably someone trying to escape.

Kara’s mind constructs the story even as she rounds the front of the car, reaching for her weapons. It must have contained someone wealthy or important, someone with the resources to get this far. But they must have been infected before they could escape. Though shaken, they would have attempted to brush it off. Nothing but a scrape. The teeth had barely punctured their skin. They would have sped away, gotten off the interstate at the first chance, taken turn after turn until they found a safe, isolated road. This is how far they got before the alien pathogens hijacked their brain.

But that would mean—Kara’s pulse spikes again—that would mean the creature on the other side of this vehicle is the most dangerous kind. Starved for the taste of human flesh. Not spent, but with the full power of the human body. When used without regard for muscles tearing, flesh rending, bones breaking, it could do remarkable things.

Kara knows. She has witnessed it.

The way Alex moved, when the disease took hold…

She shudders. Pushes the image from her mind. That thing hadn’t been Alex anymore.

Kara considers her weapons. A large kitchen knife. A small handgun—the better bet. Not much ammunition left, though. She’ll have to move quickly. She’ll have to make it count.

She lifts the gun, then lunges around the front of the car and fires.

The shot echoes across the scrubby hills. A shriek rings out, black hair flying as the creature shields itself. It begins to turn to her. She missed. Kara’s finger is pushing down on the trigger again when a voice cries, “Wait! Wait!”

She wrenches the gun aside. Her shot flies wide.

There is nothing but heaving breathing in the wake. Human breathing.

The woman crouched on the ground, staring up at Kara in terrified shock, is alive. Truly alive. What’s more, Kara knows her.

 “How are you here?” Kara says. The cognitive dissonance of seeing that face here, now, is so intense that she wonders if she’s hallucinating.

“What?” says Lena Luthor. “Why are you trying to kill me? Do I know you?”

We’ve met before.

“No.” Kara feels herself flush. How absurd that she’s even capable of such a reaction anymore. “I’m nobody.”

Lena Luthor stands on unsteady legs. “No, you’re that reporter. From… BuzzFeed, was it? You came to my office with Clark Kent.”

“CatCo Magazine,” Kara corrects automatically. It feels like a lifetime since she was Cat Grant’s assistant, barely daring to aspire to journalism. Struck nearly speechless by the presence of this woman—her inarguable celebrity crush.

Embarrassing.

Lena looks uneasily at the gun. Kara realizes it’s still pointing in her direction. She drops her arm. “Shoot. Sorry.”

“Don’t shoot, preferably,” Lena says dryly. It takes a second for Kara to realize it’s a joke.

“I wasn’t trying to— I thought you were… one of them. You’re not infected, are you?”

“None of them have touched me. This thing is bullet-proof. I did plow through a few of them…” Lena looks queasy. Kara follows her gaze to the front of the car. There’s blood congealed on the grill.

A flash of memory. She sees the creature that was once Winn charging at her. Her panicked swipe of the kitchen knife across its throat. The spray of his blood, copious, vibrant, across her shirt, across the pavement. For hours, she was terrified the blood had found its way into some scrape, some opening. Infecting her.

She grimaces, presses her thumb hard into the space between her eyes. Stop.

“Where did you even come from?” Lena says. “There’s nothing around here.”

“I walked from the city. I’ve been trying to find anywhere with supplies. There was a group of us. I’m the only one left.” That awful, leaden truth. Kara pushes past it. “How did you get out? I haven’t seen anyone else in weeks.”

“I hid in my office. I had it outfitted as a kind of bunker years ago. I thought I was being insane at the time, and yet…” She trails off, ashamed. “I did nothing to help. Nothing. I stayed there until it quieted down. Then I took the car, and I ran.”

“You couldn’t have done much. No one could have.”

“And now my stupid tire blew, and I am somehow incapable of changing it, so I’m pretty much fucked.” Lena kicks the deflated tire. “Fuck!”

“Your tire?” Belatedly, Kara notices the spare lying on the ground, alongside a toolbox and a badly misplaced jack. She feels a wild urge to laugh. That’s it? “I can fix your tire.”

“Really?”

“Of course.” She swallows. Remembers that somehow, Lena Luthor is standing in front of her. A woman who Kara has followed extensively in tabloids for years. A world leader for tech. Generous. Brilliant. Beautiful. “On one condition.”  

“What’s that?”

“Take me with you.”

Lena Luthor leans against her car and, miraculously, grins. She gives Kara a lingering once-over. “Where are you going?”

“Anywhere. Away from here. I need to find out what happened to my cousin. And my mom.”

“Well, I could use the company,” Lena says. “It’s a deal.”

She holds out her hand. Kara shakes it. At the feel of Lena’s hand in hers, warm, chapped, alive, Kara feels a spark of something she hasn’t felt for ages, since before her life turned into a nightmare.

Hope.

[vox-anglosphere]

The gardens of historic Hever Castle are in their springtime glory.

Spring is sprung! Photo from Hever Castle, Kent.

The first Tulips burst into bloom in my garden about a week ago, and yesterday I spotted the first Bluebells.

It has been the wettest winter in Kent for nearly 200 years. It has also been one of the warmest.