Starting to think a cooler headcanon for Clark’s upbringing might just be that the entire town of Smallville collectively decided to just go with it and accept that Martha and John's kid has superpowers, but we don't talk about it.
Someone's tractor gets stuck and nothing can get it out? "Be a dear and run down to the Kents, would you? Ask for Clark?"
"Why Clark, we need a machine--"
"Run along now."
Or if he kicks too hard and the football vanishes into the upper stratosphere, no it didn't, we all collectively saw it land over there *vague hand movements*
I also like how this can mirror Bruce; Batman only lets a small handful of people in on his hero identity, but most of Gotham has no idea who he is... meanwhile, more than half of Smallville knows about the Kent boy, and they just keep quiet around a few folks they don't trust
When Superman starts showing up on the news all of smallville collectively smile and go and congratulate the Kent’s “you know Martha I just knew that boy of your’s would grow ta some good,” they have a potluck whenever he wins some big fight and are all holding their breath when he get hurt, also every single person in smallville will curse out Lex Luther on a whim,
Look, despite what some people might think, country folk aint stupid. Simple sometimes, sure, but not stupid. So when three events happened in quick succession, it wasn't hard to connect the dots.
First, there was the shooting star. Meteor. Meteorite. "That green blaze of light that went cross the sky screaming like a banshee's flute". Whatever you're going to call it. Anyone who was up at the time saw it. But nobody heard any sound of it hitting ground. And with all the fuss it was making, you'd figured you would. Everyone would've just figured it burnt itself up while stretching through the sky. Except.
Second, there were the very clean, well-groomed men in their suits and their near-identical close-cut haircuts who showed up within a few days. On their own or in pairs, just asking around in that sort of way that super serious people who are trying to be casual for the first time think is casual. Asking about if anything 'strange' had happened. Asking if anyone had talked about 'finding something'. Asking if anyone, or anything 'new' had shown up.
Aside from them, of course.
And despite what some people might think, patriotism and trust in government officials do not always go hand in hand. So everyone was degrees of blandly pleasant and polite to the men who were certainly not from the government and gave friendly non-answers before hurrying behind closed doors to gossip and compare notes and try to figure out exactly what they were all on about.
Third, the Kents had a baby. Martha was a skinny twig of a woman back then and certainly hadn't been anything but a skinny twig of a woman just the week before. And though the hair matched Johnathan's just dandy and the skin-tone was a perfect match for Martha, neither of them nor their kin ever had eyes of that perfect piercing blue.
It was an absolute delight of a baby, though. Martha and Johnathan were good people. However it was they'd gotten whatever it was they were calling their son, they'd manage it right. You could trust them with that sort of thing. You certainly couldn't trust some federal agency of serious be-suited men with identical haircuts and stiff awkward ways. Eventually, those men gave up finding whatever it was they were after and everyone breathed a sigh of relief and got on with their lives.
I mean, yes, the Kents were raising some sort of secret space baby, but aside from the initial flurry of community-wide confirmation of the fact, it really wasn't the sort of thing worthy of gossiping about. The McConnals had that daughter they'd brought home from Vietnam and it was mostly agreed that gossiping about that was poor manners, so why should the Kents' boy should be any different?
Then that was that, at least for a handful of years, till the Kent boy started attending school. He was a sweet kid, a kind kid. The Kents were raising up a good one, everyone could agree on that. And sure, he seemed to have an uncommonly keen ear and sharp eye, and was a hellion on the little league field, but you could chalk all that up to good genetics. And heck, everyone had been going along with the Kents' story so long it was easy to forget he weren't their actual blood. Not that that should matter much in any case.
By middle school, though, the happenings around the Kent boy were getting downright peculiar. The boy was fast, the boy was strong, the boy was tough. And not in the sort of way that made the high school coaches eagerly anticipate them entering freshman year, no. He was trying to hide it, 12 year olds aren't good at hiding normal things, let alone the fact that you tried to keep someone from getting run over by a thresher and wound up with mangled thresher blades, shredded school clothes, and an otherwise completely unharmed Kent boy looking abashed and trying to put together some excuse about a hidden rock getting in the gears or something.
But the kid was obviously mortified by the whole thing, so Dormick didn't push it. He did make a few comments to others though, and once people were looking, the Kent boy's uniqueness was plain to see.
The boy could outrace cars. He could pull tractors out of the muck all on his own. He could stand between a classmate and a thresher and the only thing that'd get wreaked was the thresher. Honestly, it would've been more than a little concerning to folk if it wasn't for the fact that the kid was just so dang nice. He was a good boy, kind, considerate. Any hint to him being, well, better was met with either embarrassed denial or fervent denial depending on how it'd been phrased. So instead of being the sort of thing that lead to muttering behind closed doors and maybe an eventual rousting of the whole family out of town, it instead just became a local secret. An open secret, but a secret.
There were still outsiders with short sharp haircuts and awkwardly stiff manner who'd come through from time to time and ask leading questions about whether there was anyone 'strange' in the community and very obviously trying to play off the assumption that they'd all be a bunch of bigoted fearful 'simple' folk.
There was no way in hell any of them were going to hand the Clark boy over to anyone like that.
It was when he was getting towards the end of high school and began talking about his plans of moving off to one of the big cities to pursue college and a career that folk begun to get worried. The cities weren't like Smallville in a lotta ways, and Clark was such a good decent boy. They worried.
It wasn't some sort of great plan. No one got together and came up with it. It was just a lot of people coming to the same decision in pretty much the same way, then others seeing what they were doing and deciding that they had the right of it and following course.
"That's a strong shake you got there." Mr. McCormick would say down at the store, feeling his bones grind against each other slightly, "You gotta watch that when you hit the city or everyone's gonna think you're one of those asshole highroller types who've always gotta be proving themselves top dog or something." Clark would apologize and start shaking more gently.
"Thanks Clark, that was right quick of you." old Ms. Narri would say when the boy arrived with her weekly groceries, running up so fast he's almost a blur until he slows down at the gate. "You should be careful with running that fast when you get to the city, though. Lotta more people out there, and none of them watching where they're going or what they're doing. We don't want you crashing into someone just cus they don't notice to get out of the way." Clark nodded with understanding and slowed himself down.
"Yer a lifesaver, kid." would say Lenny when Clark would haul a shipment of tractor parts into the shop. "Might want to avoid letting folks know you can do that up in the city, though. They'll think all those muscles left no room for your brain and instead of college, they'd have you lugging boxes at the docks till you go grey. Or spend all your time moving their fridges from apartment to apartment." Clark wasn't sure he fully believed that, but he was more careful about considering what he was about to lift and carry around.
And so on and so on. If they'd all known Clark had wanted to move out of Smallville from the beginning, they would've been coaching him all his life, but the two years of gently nudging the sweet kid on how best to pretend to be normal would have to be enough.
And, well, judging from what you can see on the TV or read in the Daily Planet (which now gets issues shipped out all the way to Smallville for the corner store because everyone loves their hometown celebrity), they must've done alright with it. They're real proud of their Clark. He's a good kid, his parents raised him right. (And while it's not right to brag, everyone does feel more than a smidge of pride at being able to help with it.)
And when any outsiders come through with pointed or leading questions, everyone will just smile blandly and have no idea what they could be getting at. Because honestly, anything beyond the fact he's a good kid who's done well is nobody's business but him and his, thank you very much.
Project Dragon was a game that was in development for 3 years only to be canceled weeks from its announcement and its entire art and development team laid off by the Phoenix Labs. The game (which would have been called 'Everhaven' upon release) was intended to be a multiplayer sandbox rpg taking inspiration from both Minecraft and Breath of the Wild, with an art style similar to that of the Spyro Reignited Trilogy, which some of the team members also worked on along with Crash Bandicoot 4.
According to character design/illustrator Nicolas Kole "Our cancelled project of the last 3 years is officially, truly dead as of today (internal attempts to save it failed), and the embargo on the whole body of portfolio work has been lifted". This means that the only way the game has a chance of resuming development is by raising awareness and spreading the word of it's development. More info from Nicolas Kole and #BringBackProjectDragon
Even if you're not interested in the game itself, you can find the concept art, animations, 3D models, music and all other completed pieces of work for the game being shared by the team at either of these links, and I think are worth checking out.
Some mounts and NPCs
4 of the 5 playable starter races (5th being human of course)
Oca the ocarina golem not only had a 3D model ready to go, but also some animations and even his own theme!
Animations were created by Dave Huddleston who was also lead animator on both Crash Bandicoot 4 and Spyro Reignited.
Oca's Theme was done by, Cris Velasco, who has also created music for games such as God of War, Mass Effect, Bloodborne, Resident Evil, and several other well known franchises.
More and more amazing work continues to be shared by the dev team on X and I heavily encourage any interested to check it out and maybe share it with others, as well as the work of these two artists.
More from the Project Dragon art team:
Nicolas Kole
Cami
Airborne Studios
None of this is my work and will be taken down at the request of the creators. I just want to spread awareness.
The Green Dragon plush has been given an extension and is up for rescue for 7 more days! :D
How come I have never drawn a proper dragon battle before? Hopefully this counts. Thank you all for treasuring this little green fellow so far, I love seeing you all relate to that tiny, ferocious, prideful dragon!
This was a super challenging comic to make, I had to reference so many images of cats fighting that my curated Pinterest board is now just that. I hope you enjoy!
laurae, a small Native farmer who built up her farm over the last five years, was served a 90-day eviction notice despite being promised by the landowner that she would be given a purchase agreement and the farm would never be sold to another person. Everything she has is in this farm - she’s put thousands of hours of work into it, built her cabin by hand, and invested every penny she’s made back into it. we are fighting to help her get the money to purchase her land before someone else buys it and kicks her - and us, her tenants who had no access to land without her help - off.
she ships her jams & honey, which you can buy here
you can also donate directly to the gofundme here
I know we’re all hurting right now and the world is fucked. but I love laurae and she’s done so much for all the people in her life. She has nowhere to go, no other options for a home, and no means to start over. she is a veteran, a survivor of multiple cancers, and close to fifty. all she wants is to live out her days on her farm till she hands it off to the next generation of farmers and I don’t want to see that simple thing taken away from her.
I’ve been here for fourteen years, do you think I remember? I don’t know who any of these people are anymore. I don’t know why they’re on my dash. I allow them to stay because they haven’t pissed me off enough to unfollow them yet. “Why did you follow this person?” I’m not sure I ever did. They’re just part of my ecosystem now.
Inspired by our friends at Rapid City Public Library (link goes to TikTok). Music only - sound not needed.
[Video Description: A librarian with glasses wearing a polo shirt and shelving books answers an unheard question from someone offscreen. His words are inaudible but the caption reads "The librarian wearing the cardigan and glasses will be able to help you."
Video cuts to an information desk where four librarians wearing cardigans and glasses are working. They all turn and wave as four more librarians wearing cardigans and glasses pop out from behind the desk and wave. The librarian from the beginning walks on screen and puts on his own cardigan. And waves.]
Music credit: George Street Shuffle Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
dailybridgerton
annaxmalina
origamiaround
gummygunk
pixelskylines
baratheonpilled
tangentwithtanner
dededos
snowghoul
