#reigncorp

Hi Cinnis! Happy Valentines day to you 💜

So apparently in addition to being the patron saint of lovers, St Valentine is also patron saint of plague, epilepsy, and beekeepers. I can imagine Brainy's research uncovering these things while trying to figure out the most appropriate way to make Valentines day special for Nia, and coming to the conclusion that his offerings should relate to ALL of them.

Thus on Valentines day he presents Nia with:

A poem he wrote himself on the subject of lovers (whether it is actually romantic or not I will leave for you to decide)

A face mask made with 31st century technology that is remarkably comfortable to breath in and yet 100% effective against the transmission of all known airborne viruses in either direction (nothing says romance like preventing the spread of plague, after all)

A cure for epilepsy. Which. Frankly Nia thinks he probably could have mentioned he had earlier (same with the face mask, honestly). But hey, it's still a pretty remarkable leap forwards in medicine and something that Brainy usually wouldn't do because of Protecting The Timeline, so she's not gonna complain, she'll just hand it over to Lena to figure out how to replicate it and actually get it out there to the people who need it.

Tickets to a beekeeper experience/honey tasting. Nia is perhaps not wildly enthusiastic about a date that involves getting up close and personal with hundreds of insects on a grim February day (and she honestly thinks honey is Just Okay), but the honey cake and mead they're served afterwards is pretty good, and they get given a jar of pink honey to take home (pink in honour of the day, naturally), which is a bit gimmicky maybe but still a sweet touch.

💜💜💜💜

I think Lena is generally inclined to work through Valentines day (as she does with most holidays), but at least once during the Jack Era she'd come into the lab to find him wearing a pink lab coat, rose tinted goggles (impractical but they are part of the whole look he's got going here, so worth it), heart shaped stickers on his nails (likewise), and a massive goofy grin that says he knows he's being ridiculous. Then when Lena looks into her microscope she finds a slide with a minuscule, deeply heartfelt valentine note all set up ready for her to read while Jack pretends to be busy doing something else (thus tactfully giving her time to Have Feelings about it/decide whether to make something of it or go back to teasing him for the pink hair mascara he may or may not have added to his beard as a finishing touch to his ensemble).

The exception to the 'work through Valentines' thing would be during the reigncorp era, when Lena would perhaps get more into the whole thing for Ruby's sake (particularly if this era happens pre-National City when Ruby is still quite little), and the two of them bake heartshaped cookies with silly-sweet messages on them to cheer Ruby up (and surprise Sam) after Sam had to go into work unexpectedly on what was supposed to be a shared day off (... whether they then have to throw them out and put in a bakery order instead because it turns out they are terrible at baking I will again leave to your discretion).

💜💜💜💜

Would you care to share a favourite reigncorp headcanon or two in honour of the day, if you have any?

Ooooh headcanon!!!

(No one notice that I’m several days late responding to this!!)

Ok, so in S3 we’re shown Lena wearing Sam’s NCU sweatshirt to be a sad drunk in. I fully believe that this is a pattern of behavior, like if Lena needs to dress incognito, normal person style for whatever reason, she’s doing it wearing a stolen button up of Sam’s.

I also think that Sam did splurge on some fancy sheets & pillows/bed stuff after sleeping over/with Lena, once she had the money. Like she doesn’t need the fancy coffee maker, or like $1000 knife set, but the good silk sheets were a reasonable investment. (Maybe Lena gets them for her as a gift?)

I think Ruby is intensely excited when she learns that Aunt Lena used to fence, and insists that she wants lessons, it’s a work in progress convincing Sam, but Lena thinks it’s sweet and is a very willing teacher.

THANK YOU @sideguitars for the tag!! :D :D :D :D :D :D :D

And since it's reigncorp day this time, here's my reigncorp-i-est snippet for my fellow reigncorp day-ers @sideguitars and @cinnis

(it was written originally with the goal of friendship not romance, but the AU I wrote it for is functionally abandoned so who knows, maybe it will find itself being repurposed one day)

....

Instead of her own indifferent bedroom wall, Lena’s sun-dazzled eyes meet the frank, curious stare of a little girl with tousled pigtails, ninja turtle pyjamas, and a segment of satsuma that she’s sucking on like a popsicle.

‘Hello.’

‘Hello... Are you Ruby?’

The girl nods, pigtails bobbing.

‘And you’re Lena. You’re my mommy’s friend.’

Ruby says this so matter-of-factly that Lena can’t help smiling, despite the fact that she’s still slightly reeling from the sharp turn her night took to bring her here. She rarely has any dealings with young children and doesn’t feel remotely equal to the task of explaining herself to one, so it’s a relief both that Sam has clearly already said something to justify Lena’s presence, and also that Ruby doesn’t leave space for her to respond before glancing around in a way that is probably meant to be discrete, then beckoning Lena forwards until she’s close enough to whisper.

‘When my friend Stacy stayed, mommy made nutella toast for breakfast for a sleepover treat.’

Lena is not entirely sure why she’s being told this with the gravity of a state secret, but she nods anyway, hoping she looks appropriately impressed.

‘That’s so cool, I wish my mom let me have nutella for a sleepover treat when I was younger.’

(Or let her have a sleepover for that matter. Or a treat. She’s actually pretty sure that Lillian Luthor willingly serving up what basically amounts to candy for breakfast is one of the signs of impending apocalypse, but she keeps that part to herself).

Ruby brightens.

‘So, will you be my friend?’

Word of warning, as time continues to pass my memories of the show continues to wane so if I get some things wrong or misremember, I apologize in advance. Also apologize for answering this so late.

What made you ship it?

I think in the entirety of the show, Sam is the only one of Lena’s friends that was shown to really understand Lena. I think you could make the argument for Andrea and Jack as well but as they radiate such exes energy (slightly bitter ones in regards to Andrea) I’ll exclude them for this little exercise. I think the possibility of a pivot towards romance was also the one that I feel would seem the most natural. 

2. What are your favorite things about the ship? I enjoy how similar Sam and Lena are on paper and yet have enough differences to still make them work as two parts of a potentially better whole. It’s well-established that the two are probably a little too invested in their work but where Sam balances family along with it, while you get the idea that Lena partly uses her work to keep herself solitary. And yet, Lena was still the one to reach out to Sam. Clearly not on a whim and even then the two take their time to actually become more than acquaintances. Maybe most of all, for all my distaste for the 100th episode, I love that in some universe, Sam was the one to talk Lena down and to do it so easily. To reassure her and to be the calming force that she needed. There's also the delicious parallels with Kara and Reign, especially in the aftermath of the rift. That maybe the Kryptonian who hurt her most is not Reign.

3. Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship? 

I am almost certain that @sideguitars touched on this in their own ask but I find the ship the tiniest bit too safe? I think they would make a lovely couple but I don’t know if I would be all that compelled to write them together if that makes sense. Or rather, I wouldn’t be very invested in writing about their courtship. Them making it work almost feels like a foregone conclusion. If I ever write a fic where they're an established couple? Sure. Otherwise, I think their romance would be "too safe" to really want to explore too much.