Latest Posts by stresseddepressedlemonzestsblog - Page 4

CP’s first cap // CP’s 100th cap celebration

What’s the saying again?

History never repeats itself…

but it often rhymes <3

So, running with the idea that Lena fell utterly and completely in love with Kara (first) but thought Kara was unavailable (straight, bc, c'mon Lena flirted hard and Kara didn't get it), and with Lena's love and healthy relationships deprived upbringing and young adult life...

...I will always have a hard time not head-canon'ing Lena coming to associate "best friend" in regards to Kara (a name that in Irish/Gaelic even means "friend / beloved") with "person I am truly, madly, deeply, irrevocably, utterly in ...an emotionally dependent relation-- yeah, relation with". And it got so stuck in her brain over 5 years that even when they possibly maybe totally finally become a romantic couple, certified genius Lena Kieran Luther will refer to her Kara still as "my best friend" without so much as considering the platonic implication. Like, she knows they are "girlfriends" but her brain is hard wired to thinking "Kara = my best friend". And that wouldn't even be a bad thing, tbh, because even when they become a couple, they are still best friends first, forged through fire, hell and back.

And, yeah, she'd also be a total Luthor and call dips on Kara and stake her well-deserved claim every chance she can get and refer to her as "my Kara" even outside the context of the multiverse...

Lena: *introducing* "...and this is my best friend, Kara."

Kara: *whispering* "...girlfriend, Lena. We're girlfriends now."

Lena: "Right." *clears throat* "This is my Kara, my best friend."

Kara: "..um, Lena?"

Lena: *confused* "...what?"

Kara: "...you know what, leave it to me." *shakes person's hand* "Hi, I'm Supergirl and I am dating my best friend."

Lena: *muttering to self* "...but that's what I said..."

#Kue out.

there are just so many clever little details that alice wu puts in this movie and it's all just made so much stronger by the filming of every. single. frame.

the little detail with the train lights and how ellie's dad didn't trust the train light to work— but because he loves his daughter so much, he realizes that he needs to let her go and so the camera briefly pans to the lights working again

paul continuing to listen and feeling sad for ellie's dad despite not understanding mandarin because he recognizes that sometimes we just want someone to listen to us

aster saying "deep down, i probably knew the truth... it's not like it's never crossed my mind" just brings so much more IMPACT to the hot springs scene. was it intentional? did aster bring ellie there to keep her all to herself, even if it was just for a few moments?

the way aster sinks into ellie as they kiss, and how her hand moves down to hold her arm like she's not ready to let go yet, but ellie cuts it off because well, she's a nervous disaster gay. the way aster smiles right afterwards and laughs. she hadn't felt that way after kissing ANYONE (at least in the movie) — we can presume that she's never really been interested in trip, and that her being with him was her trying to conform within the norms of the society she's been placed in; she'd never felt that ecstatic or excited. she had no reason to.

and then there was ellie. the girl that challenges her intellectually. and in that moment, despite feeling dazed and confused over these new feelings, aster was SURE of one thing: she FELT something in that kiss. unlike any other kisses shown in the movie, she FELT something.

and when paul was googling "how to know if you are gay"— a lot was left out in that scene. the viewer fills in the blanks after he says "there are SO many ways to love someone" which leaves us to imply he probably went on a deep dive and tried to educate himself on other types of sexualities because he truly cares about ellie. his friend.

"you could never be different," she says, mockingly. "what would God say?" oh the ISOLATION ellie feels in this small, predominantly white, conservative town where literally the only people of colour we see in the movie are her, her father, aster, and her family. aster and ellie's layers slowly being peeled off as the movie progresses and they bond through their shared differences.

this movie isn't a love story, as prefaced in the beginning. it's a coming of age movie that features young people slowly becoming more self-aware; it just happens to feature a lesbian protagonist. we need more stories like this, where being gay isn't the sole focal point of a plot.

god, i love this movie and all its nuances.

and i know alice wu wants the audience to fill-in-the-blanks, but i'd give ANYTHING to have a fun, stupid rom-com with these characters. a sequel set in the future where ellie and aster are confident in their identities.

if the straights can have their fun, stupid, mediocre rom-coms, the gays should too!!! i want fun, stupid, mediocre disaster gay rom-coms!!!

I’ve been thinking about The Half Of It all weekend (the trailer of which just started randomly playing when I logged into Netflix on Friday and I was curious enough to give it a shot and have no regrets) and when I was gushing to my brother about it earlier, I realized why I love it so much:

See, setting up the whole “nerdy girl helps jock boy get popular girl” cliche and then throwing in the twist that “nerdy girl loves popular girl too” is fantastic, every part of the queer storyline was beautiful, the opening monologue and how it was a direct parallel to the water scene, the painting metaphors, the jean jacket, the cliche religious hick small-town that could have been mine, the fact that they literally showed a mountain and prompted me to spend a whole day making a Landslide AMV (cough), the secret looks they give each other throughout the movie, that final kiss and the promise of something more in the future, all wonderful, beautiful, NEEDED…

But none of that compares to the amazing love story that happened between Paul and Ellie. These two going from being rivals to being tentative friends to having a genuine love for each other that confuses Paul because he’s a teenager in a small-town and, let’s face it, he probably only learned “you either feel a casual friendship with this person or you feel horny af” because that’s the binary they teach in these small town high schools, so it makes sense that he looks all sorts of confused when he realizes how much he likes her, and you can tell that he’s still confused, even as he goes to kiss her, then she immediately pushes him away which adds to even more confusion, then he realizes that she’s queer, which goes against every bit of small-town-religious-hick lesson that he had ever learned. So, he lashes out at her and he runs away and I do wish he had been supportive all along but then we wouldn’t get the scene in the kitchen so it was honestly worth it because…

The scene in the kitchen. When Ellie’s father is reminiscing about his own familial love towards his daughter and he asks, “Have you ever loved someone so much you don’t want anything about her to change?” and you just see Paul’s reaction, just look at this:

That is someone who just realized what platonic love is!

Not only that, he realized that his platonic love for Ellie is so strong that he is willing to accept her, no matter what, and help her, no matter what, and love her, no matter what. Not a romantic love, not a familial love, but a pure, genuine, deep, platonic love between a boy and a girl! WHAT A CONCEPT!

Then, of course, he stands up for her, literally, in church. He does so without outing her and, just a note, he never outs her to her father, even when her father begs him to say why Ellie is so upset, Paul never outs her and I know, I know, people shouldn’t usually get props for not being jerks, but seeing as how every other guy in that school is that stereotypical hick/jock, the fact that he’s able to subconsciously keep her secret shows how deep his love is, even when he doesn’t even realize it.

Then, of course, you have him crying on the platform and chasing the train to show her how much he loves her, to make her laugh and cry and whisper, “Moron!” and you know that, whatever the future holds for Ellie and Aster, that’s nothing compared to the love and support that Ellie will always get from Paul and that’s nothing compared to the love and support I have for this movie, it’s so good, you need to watch it…

so while ellie is in college paul and ellie’s dad bond and begin to experiment on making recipes for paul’s family’s business. ideally they start a chinese-fusion american-style diner selling pork sausage tacos and paul learns mandarin so that when sleazy investors try to trick ellie’s dad into a bad deal, they can discuss it in mandarin and ellie’s dad makes sure they make all the right business decisions

aster gets accepted to art school. one night, as she finishes a painting, she sends a picture of it to ellie. “what do you think of the last five brush strokes?” she asks ellie, and ellie replies “not yet your best work” and from then on, they keep on talking. as ellie and aster this time. before long talking to each other over text becomes the norm, then it’s skype calls, sometimes kept on throughout the night, even as one of them falls asleep.

(ellie does her best at understanding emojis. aster teases her a lot about it)

ellie loves college. her teacher’s right, she finds more and more people who get her in college. queer friends who are out and proud, kisses a girl or two. she meets all kinds of girls, the one with flowers in her hair, the one with short hair and broad shoulders, the one who says things like ‘emily dickinson is a lesbian’ without ever reading about her beyond the wikipedia page, the one who makes her smile and laugh. 

(perhaps even the one who makes her fall in love. perhaps it’s also aster, because ellie keeps wanting to talk to her at the end of the day even after meeting all these people. it should mean something, but–they have a couple of years. they’ll figure it out)

either way, they all end up in the right place, happy and with all kinds of love surrounding them bcs they deserve it and i love them so much

The Half of It is so good not just because it’s a beautiful queer love story, but because, at its heart, it’s about different kinds of love - not just romantic. 

Watching Paul, a straight white guy, love Ellie, a Chinese lesbian, was just the sweetest thing ever. I am literally crying while writing this. 

You can see throughout the film how Paul just cares for Ellie: making sure her time is compensated, sliding a guitar across the stage at the talent show, making her food, spending time with her father even with their language barrier, encouraging her to go to a party and making sure she’s okay after getting drunk at that party (he literally tucks her into his bed and he sits on a chair). 

Ellie’s a quiet nerd who doesn’t seem to engage at all with other high schoolers, let alone talk about herself. But you can see how Paul kind of disrupts that. Her ultimate expression of love and trust is revealing her past (specifically, her dead mother, whom she still clearly grieves for). She writes letters to food critics so he can do something he’s passionate about, she goes to his football games even though she doesn’t even like football, she literally facilitates dates between him and her crush. 

And so Paul thinks he’s in love with Ellie, because he doesn’t understand that his love for her isn’t necessarily romantic. He thinks there’s only one kind of love. And Ellie doesn’t think she understands love at all. They’re both wrong. 

I honestly thought the film would end with some declaration of love. I figured that Paul would shout “I love you!” as he chased Ellie’s train and that Ellie would mouth “I love you” back. But that’s not how they express love - it’s expressed in how Ellie cries and laughs and how Paul grins like a moron. 

TL;DR: The Half of It is a touching love story between two friends. 

But did you see the way Paul Munsky ended up falling for Ellie instead of Aster?

Just right after Aster kissed him, he looked straight to Ellie’s window. At the start, all he could say about Aster was that she was smart and pretty, but if he was asked then what made him like Ellie (after everything they’ve been through together thus far) I bet he would’ve been able to list his own reasons the same way Ellie listed hers for Aster. And that scene!!! When he checked on her during the party, tucked her into his bed when she got hella drunk (which would mean he’d have to sleep on the floor maybe, idk), and he saw the letters she wrote for the food critics to give his taco sausages a chance… ah, the way he sat on that armchair maybe realizing what love really felt like for the first time. After the game where he scored, he looked for Ellie, not Aster. By the time he tried to kiss Ellie, he didn’t mind that Aster saw because his feelings had been made clear to himself. During the ending scene he looked like he had some stuff he wanted to say and couldn’t (knowing who Ellie wanted), but he still chased after her train.

And you know how he overheard Aster singing from out the music room window at first? He stopping during practice just to listen? We can actually see his affection shift to Ellie when he overheard her composing her song from out her window, and he also stopped to listen.

I know this is a gay coming-of-age movie, but part of it was also a straight dude falling in love with a lesbian. This storyline was blessed with such a soft, sincere, loving, understanding boy. All that concern? Helping Ellie’s dad prepare her college meals? Helping her pick out clothes for the seniors talent show? I’m wrecked —

I don’t appreciate any of y’all hating on him and you can fite me. Paul ended up redeeming himself from that “it’s a sin, you’re going to hell” comment just by caring enough to google about gay people so he could expand his perspective — so he could better understand Ellie. And of course there was the church scene.

Way to go, Paul Munsky.

I’m rewatching the half of it and it only just started but im crying cause alice wu really did this she had her own paul who stopped being her friend because she’s gay and that was her first heartbreak after coming out and she wrote this movie as a way to work through it but she gave ellie a happy ending with her paul and had him say “I never want to be the guy who stops loving someone for loving the way that they want to love.” 

fuck people who criticized this movie for “not being gay enough” fuck them all GOD

kara "excuse me sir thats mine" danvers

inspired by this post.

-

Kara goes to the future. She hugs them all, a factory line of tearful goodbyes, in the shadow of a Legion cruiser, and then disappears in a flash of blue.

Lena watches her go, and opens up a little box.

-

Five years pass, and life in the twenty-first century soldiers on as normally as is possible in a world without Kara.

Alex, Kelly and Esme fall into the routine of being a family, all school drop offs and trips to the park and learning to control adolescent superpowers.

J’onn takes on the bulk of superhero duties, with Nia and Brainy at his side, and together they keep National City and the world from falling to ruin. It’s harder without their favorite Kryptonian by their side, but they manage.

Lena flounders.

She moved to National City to be near Supergirl and to use her family’s company as a force for good. Now, with no Supergirl patrolling the skies and no business to run, Lena finds there’s very little outside of her friends that’s tethering her to stay.

She helps the remaining Superfriends when she can, throws herself into mastering her magic only to find that it leaves a bitter, unfulfilled taste in her mouth every time latin slips over her tongue.

Sam invites her to Metropolis for a few weeks, as a way to clear her head, to search for a purpose in this still new world that suddenly feels so empty.

It’s there that she reconnects with James.

He’d been friendly at the wedding, warm and understanding and interested in Lena, in what her life had become after he’d set out in search of his own.

It’s nice, having someone care again.

She kisses him on their third unofficial date and moves back to Metropolis on their six month anniversary.

Sam hires her on as head of R&D at the new company she works for, and Lena finds peace in making things again. It feels good to put her scientific mind to work, to use her hands to build things that will help everyday people without the aid of superpowers or spells.

She tucks her mother’s grimoire away in the top of the walk-in closet she shares with James, underneath a National City University sweatshirt, and beside a moving box labeled ‘Kara’.

Lena gets on with her life.

-

Kara comes back on a Thursday.

She’s cut her hair short and traded her Supergirl blue and red for a sleek, dark navy suit with her house crest emblazoned on the chest in white. She wears a Legionaries ring, and when she walks down the gangplank of the ship Alex is waiting for her.

Mon-el doesn’t come with her and the Legion cruiser disappears back into the sky.

Kara comes back to National City and Lena isn’t there.

“I spoke to her at Christmas,” Kelly says over their reunion dinner, after Kara finally gets up the courage to ask in her most practiced, casual tone. “She sounded happy.”

Kara’s brow crinkles.

“It’s March.”

Kelly just hums and passes her the potato salad.

“We’ve all been pretty busy. Things have changed since you’ve been gone.”

“Yeah,” Kara says quietly, pushing a chunk of potato across her plate, avoiding Alex’s eyes that are locked on her. “They sure have.”

-

Kara flies to Metropolis.

The city of the future is bright and clean, and looks more like the world she’s just come from than anything in National City. It’s equal parts comforting and sad.

Lena is on her lunch break, waiting in line at her favorite Vietnamese food truck, when she sees a streak of dark blue across the sky. The color palette is different, but the shape of it halts her breath in her chest.

She leaves without ordering, sprinting despite her four inch heels in the direction she saw her go. She doesn’t plan to, doesn’t even think about it, before her feet are moving quickly down the sidewalk, shoulder bumping into pedestrians along the way.

They meet up in the park, across from the pond where a family of ducks is diving and splashing about in the sunshine.

Lena halts in her tracks when Kara lands gracefully a few feet away, dropping delicately to the earth on a single toe, nothing like the rough three point landing she had expected.

She’s all sharp eyes and strong shoulders, short blonde hair shaggy around her face from flight. It knocks the wind out of Lena, who stumbles on her heel.

Before she can catch herself, strong arms are wrapped around her waist, warm and familiar and enough to break her heart. She squeezes her eyes shut and leans her forehead against Kara’s shoulder, drawing in a shuddering breath.

“Are you okay?” Kara whispers after a moment.

Lena’s hands come up to rest against the crest on her chest, fingers digging in to the synthetic material.

She doesn’t have an answer.

-

They find a bench to sit on.

Kara presses a button somewhere and her suit melts away into a simple black t-shirt and pants, standard Legion fatigues. She looks sleek and strong and so good it makes Lena’s breath hitch loud enough for Kara to hear.

They both ignore it.

It’s awkward. Kara can’t share much about the future and Lena doesn’t know what to say about the present, so for a long time they just sit in the shade of an oak tree and look at each other.

Lena’s phone rings.

“It’s James.”

She slides to answer it slowly, eyes never leaving Kara’s form across from her like she’s afraid if she blinks she might disappear.

“Hey. Yes, I did. It’s her, I’m with her now. I know, me too. Okay. Yes, I’ll see you for dinner. Oh...okay, yeah. No, I will. Love you too.”

When she hangs up the call Kara is staring at her with an unreadable expression.

“James said to tell you hi,” Lena says, going for friendly but it comes out mournful. “And to invite you to our place for dinner.”

“Our place...” Kara repeats absently, but she already has her answer in the look on Lena’s face and the platinum band catching the sunlight on Lena’s left hand.

“We’ve been married for two years.”

-

‘Our place’ turns out to be a brownstone close to the Daily Planet where James has been working again for the last four years.

“I thought he couldn’t...”

Lena quirks an eyebrow, the barest hint of a smirk curling at her lip.

“Would you believe Andrea had a change of heart?”

Because of course Lena could talk Andrea down from a stubborn, bitter edge. There isn’t anything she wouldn’t make happen for the people she loves.

Inside James and Lena’s place is tidy and modern, with unblemished leather furniture and James’s photography on the walls.

Kara walks through the last five years, caught and captured in still frames. She spots Alex and Kelly, Lois and Clark, Brainy and Nia.

There’s Lena and Sam squeezing Ruby between them at her high school graduation. There’s James with Esme sitting high on his shoulders, red cape fluttering behind her shoulders.

Kara gets stuck at their wedding portrait, posed and perfect with James in a sharp tux and Lena all in white and lace. They look happy.

“I’m sorry that I missed it,” she says quietly, and Lena stills across the room. Something flares hot and wild in her chest and she wants to snap you missed a lot of things.

She takes a deep breath and smiles.

“Me too.”

-

James laughs when he sees her, ruffles her hair, pulls her into a tight hug. He’s the same as he’s always been, and it’s comforting in a world that feels so changed.

He and Lena make dinner while Kara watches them from the bar with a drink in her hand, the remnants of a bottle of Clark’s alien rum for which she finds herself grateful.

Lena chops vegetables while James hovers at the stove, and Kara watches them orbit each other in practiced synchronicity.

“Can you pass me the—“

“It’s over there.”

“Oh, I got it. Thanks.”

Kara finishes her drink.

-

Halfway through dinner, where James leads the conversation and things start to feel a little more natural, Lena’s phone rings.

She excuses herself quickly and slips into what Kara assumes is her office.

Kara tells herself she doesn’t mean to listen.

Kara tells herself a lot of things.

“So, you’ve heard,” there’s a shuffle as Lena drops heavily into her desk chair. “I’m fine. Yes, really. — Sam, please,” a heavy sigh and then a quiet “she looks good.” Another pause and then a tense “don’t be ridiculous” to which Sam says something Kara can’t hear and Lena breathes out slowly.

“Of course I do.”

Kara stops listening after that.

-

After dinner Kara says she needs to get back to National City. James and Lena walk her down the steps to the sidewalk, where James pulls her into another hug.

“You staying?”

As they break apart Kara looks at Lena, whose face is stoic, cheeks tinged pink in the cool night air.

“Yeah. I’m staying.”

When they hug goodbye, Kara's fingertips ghost the small of Lena’s back, and Lena’s temple presses against Kara’s cheek.

“See you soon,” Kara says quietly, and then she’s off like a shooting star. They watch her go quietly and then turn to each other, James holding out his hand.

Lena takes it.

-

Supergirl Returns! is splashed across the front of the Daily Planet in the morning, with a picture of Kara soaring in a majestic stretch of dark blue. Lena memorizes the article and then throws the paper away, burying it deep in the waste paper basket.

-

Chaos follows Kara like a shadow in the following weeks, every villain on the planet eager to take a bite out of the legendary girl of steel. She falls back into the familiar habit of punching, and flying and freezing things in their wake.

When a rowdy alien lobs an uppercut beneath her chin hard enough to sting, she takes it.

She decks him hard enough to feel bone crumble beneath her fist and drags him into a holding cell. When the containment force field sparks to life between them Kara feels like she’s the one in a cage.

-

“I’m not sure if I belong here anymore,” she says to Alex one afternoon as they walk along the pier, ice cream cones melting in their hands. Her sister takes a long lick of chocolate and then looks at her with careful eyes.

“That’s what Lena said, when she moved back to Metropolis.”

Triple scoops of mint chocolate ice cream, the same color as Lena’s eyes, melts over Kara’s knuckles, and she throws the cone into a nearby trash can.

-

Lena can’t focus. She’s been struggling to finish this project since before Kara came back, and each day it feels like the solution slips further and further away.

“You should take a vacation,” Sam says over take out salads and tumblers of scotch. “Clear your head.”

Lena pins her with a knowing stare.

“Oh, yeah? And where do you suggest I go?”

“I’m just saying.”

“Well don’t.”

Sam lets it slide, but when Lena gets home that night and James suggests they go to National City for Esme’s middle school graduation, Lena knows she’s been meddling.

It makes Lena feel feral, like a wild animal being led into a trap.

-

Esme has grown tall in the early stages of puberty, already surpassing Kelly who wraps her arms around her daughter with pride.

“Where does the time go?” she asks with a smile and a shake of her head. Kara presses in next to them for the group photo, Alex on one side of her, James on the other.

She’s been wondering that herself.

-

Al’s is the same as it was when they all left it, dark and loud and packed with people. Esme is off to a friend's graduation party, and Alex convinces them all to let loose for the night.

“We raised a whole almost pre-teen,” she says lifting her glass of whiskey over the table. It’s joined by the other’s drinks in a clink of celebration. “We deserve a night of fun.”

They do have fun.

Nia drags them all onto the dance floor, and James goads them into more rounds of shots than is probably responsible, and for the first time since Kara came back, everything feels close to familiar.

Lena laughs at Brainy’s jokes, and drinks the old fashioned Alex presses into her palm, but her eyes stay glued to Kara who sits across the table, watching her back.

After the fourth round, when James and Kelly are kicking Alex and Nia’s butts in pool while Brainy offers helpful calculations of angle and force, Lena slips out the back door into the alley.

The cold night air feels good on her cheeks, helping to cool some of the flush brought on by alcohol and the crowd of warm bodies.

A moment later the door opens, and she doesn’t have to turn around to know who’s standing behind her.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

They lean against the brick wall, half in shadow with only the flickering neon of the streetlight at the mouth of the alley to see by.

Kara picks at invisible threads on her jeans. Lena twists her fingers in her lap. They both study their shoes.

“I missed you,” Kara says quietly after what feels like too long, and Lena sighs heavily, a puff of mist in the night air.

“You left,” she says shortly, the thrum of alcohol in her veins just enough to loosen her tongue and the lid on her largest, most important box.

The ‘me’ at the end of the sentence goes unsaid.

“I’m sorry,” Kara breathes and it’s enough to get Lena to push off the wall, stepping in front of her with a stern brow and trembling fingers.

She wants to reach out, to pull Kara closer, to push her away, to pound her fists against the spot where her crest usually rests. Her fingers curl into fists and she shoves them into her coat pockets.

“What do you want, Kara? Why did you come back?”

Kara shakes her head, righting herself from where she was leaning against the wall, and it brings her closer to Lena, close enough to reach out and touch.

It might as well be the gulf of space and time between them.

“I realized I made the wrong choice.”

“When?”

“About thirty seconds after the ship left.”

Lena laughs, and it’s a cold hollow sound. She crosses her arms over her chest, turns to look down the alley, into the darkness, away from the piercing blue of Kara’s eyes.

“That was five years ago.”

“I know,” she doesn’t offer any further explanation, and Lena doesn’t ask for one. Her jaw tenses, a pale flash of muscle in the low light.

“It’s too late,” Lena says quietly, fingers curled against her bicep to hold herself together. She looks back to Kara, and can see the outline of a tear on one cheek.

“I know,” she says again.

Lena stares at her for a long moment, the tension tightening between them until it threatens to snap into something like disaster.

She turns on her heel and goes back into the bar. A moment later there’s a streak of dark blue across the night sky.

-

Six months go by.

Kara starts working as a freelance reporter and it gives her something to focus on that isn’t lost opportunities and alien bad guys.

She finds her stride in writing again, and gets a few pieces published that make waves. When Andrea offers her a position at CatCo she politely declines, finding she enjoys the freedom and challenge that comes with working on her own terms.

She rents a house at the edge of the city, with a little yard where Kelly helps her plant a garden, and a spare bedroom for any guests that may come to stay.

It sits empty for a long time before she decides to turn it into an art studio. She covers the walls in red paint, dousing everything in crimson and carmine until it feels like home.

-

Lena goes to work each morning and home each night. She and James make dinner on nights when they’re both home, and the routine of their life continues as it has for the last five years.

One night when Lena has a little bit too much to drink James finds her on the floor of the walk-in closet, digging through an old box. He looks at her for a long time before crouching down to take her in his arms.

“I deserve to be someone’s first choice,” he says against her hair, and she trembles slightly, an old photograph wrinkling between her fists.

“Me too.”

-

Sam helps her pack her things. Five years of a life packed away in neat boxes, ready to be shipped across the country, back to National City.

“You could stay,” Sam offers her an out, as they drive to the airport, James’s outline fading in the rear view mirror. Lena watches him grow smaller and smaller until he disappears.

“No, I can’t.”

-

Kara’s guest room is all covered in red, and smells like paint thinner. One wall is decorated with canvases of all sizes, mostly abstractions of space with a few familiar constellations that Lena recognizes easily.

“Sorry, it’s kind of a mess,” Kara says, pressing a palm to the back of her neck. Lena drops her bag just inside the door, and turns around to face her.

“It’s perfect,” she says, and a moment later Kara’s arms are around her, holding her close with no intention of letting go.

-

It takes two weeks for Kara to kiss her, and another two before Lena moves from the guest room into the master bedroom permanently.

“I’m sorry it took me so long,” Kara says one night as Lena stretches out half on top of her, their bodies slick with sweat, limbs tangled against the sheets. Lena lifts her head just enough to look up into her face, one hand trailing up her cheek to wipe a tear from the corner of her eye.

“You’re here now. Promise you’ll stay?” she leans up to mumble against Kara’s lips, before kissing her, slow and deep. Kara’s arms tighten around her like she’s trying to pull them into one form.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

Spreading the love…fic edition

I saw a tweet from @coffeeshib looking to give some lesser-known fics some love…so here are some fics I have really enjoyed and wanted to share. If you see this I hope maybe you’ll give them a read and also post some of your own well-loved favorites.

dead mom issues by from_a_recklesswriter (@n3wkied0nth3bl0ck)

grief but also all of motley by @c-optimistic

how do you say ‘kiss me’? by catchmeimfalling

Kryptonian Lullaby by @thebluewritingbench

Let Me Count the Ways by @inkedroplets

Lost and Found by Quokkai

love me like you mean it and i know i cannot heal this hurt (but i will hold you here forever, if i can) by nostradamusO

Lover’s Gambit by PaperHatsandPaperBoats ( @paperhatintherain)

Alone Together by oversentimentalgay

echoes of a broken heart by @contagiousiridescence

Last Daughter by @douglasamongus

Mondays are the Worst by @storyiicharacter​

The corner by Sydney563 (WIP)

hi i hope you're doing well. so i basically broke up with my girlfriend of four years and i feel like half a person. i was wondering if you'd had some sc fic recs that don't have a happy ending? lol it's just that i spend a lot of time reading fics and i absolutely can't stand right now to read something sweet and with happy endings and happy people

ooohhh my love i am so so sorry, i can’t imagine how painful that must be. i’ll leave this post for anyone else to add on to as well, but off the top of my head:

in which a half confession breaks them both by myselfffff

she herself is a haunted house by blymoon is less a love story and more just an ouch little character snapshot of lena

spending all my nights alone (waiting for you to call me) by dancingthru

if anyone has any others, please reply and let me know!

non-happy ending fics are very difficult because people really do not receive them well. i love them, personally, but in my experience (as a writer) the further you veer into that territory, the more risk you run of really low engagement and/or 100 comments that just say “where’s part two so it ends happily!!!!” so a lot of my really particularly angsty ideas never make it onto paper.

Okk First of all I love almost all of your fics. They all feel very cathartic in the end like sweet sweet payoff even when the beginning are sometimes too heartbreaking. So thanku for writing those angst with happy ending.

Now I wanna ask which is your all time favorite fic that you feel got the characterization of kara and lena closest to the show, since you have no bookmarks . Also which fic is that you go back to most often from time to time.

godddd asking me to pick one of anything is an extremely tall order, the best i can do for you is a handful:

people will say we’re in love by @takethegrasskara is the best exploration of kara’s character i’ve ever seen

i need you to pencil in the rest by @mooosicaldreamz is probably my favourite characterisation of lena post-reveal

and then truce by @itllsetyoufree, would you forget me? (do i know you?) by @hrwinter and the love of forgetting by kl_morgan are probably my favourites in terms of story and all-round canon-ish characterisation, and all of these are fics i’ve read multiple times!

LENA LUTHOR 5.06 - Confidence Women

😄😄

“My girl Kara”

“I’ve got a hot date tonight in National City and don’t want to mess this up” + pride flag in the background 🏳️‍🌈

“I know you're worried about your friend, but sometimes from the ashes of adversity comes a bond strengthened by fire. In my case it turned into something I never thought I'd find”

“... will be stronger than ever because you never gave up, just like Kara never gave up on me”

WelcomeTF back, Christen Press.

That one scene that broke me but then again the entire fic broke me

Breathe by @searidings

You’ve probably heard of Akita Inus: 

And Shiba Inus:

Which  are really cool and cute Japanese dog breeds. Let me introduce you to these other cool and cute Japanese dogs, which I think deserve equal attention.

The Kishu Inu:

The Hokkaido Ken:

The Kai Ken:

The Shikoku Inu:

I just really love dogs, and look how cool they are! Dogs!!!

x

as much as we all loved to bash the Supergirl writing team I really do have to admit “I want you to know with certainty that while I came from poison, you came from love. And if the rest of this family stands steadily in darkness, you will always fall into the light.” was a really good fucking line. 

“I forgive you.”

There'll be a moment when you realise you're 27 when yesterday you were just 17; and you wouldn't be able to tell how a decade passed away and your life got divided into before and afters. The fury of youth will subdue and nothing will really change but everything will feel different when you look at old photographs and blurry videos taken on cheap mobile phones. Scents will remind you of childhood and certain friends you don't talk to anymore, hangouts will become reunions and mom's burnt pie will become the best food you ever had. And I know on some days you won't be able to show anything of those 10 years but I hope you remember to breathe, and let go of the knot in your chest. I hope you go out in the sun and live a little, because tomorrow is 37.

Edit- I added the visualizer for this piece on my YT, check it out here

-Ritika Jyala, excerpt from The Flesh I Burned

she looks at me with

more adoration than i thought

a heart could possibly hold

and i don't know how to tell her

that i don't want to be a hero anymore.

heroes don't get happy endings,

the stories lie.

heroes make sacrifices,

heroes ache,

heroes have to choose.

how dare you ask me to choose

between the love of my life

and the rest of the world?

how could i make that decision?

what good is the rest of the world

if she isn't in it?

what good am i?

-mars

supercorp and coming out at game night? ft lucy saying “give me the 20, danvers” “you bet on us?!”??

After… everything, Lucy flew home to National City and Lena started coming to Game Night.

Because Lena and Kara had become even more inseparable, and because Lucy needed to be with her family. 

It was strange for Alex, at first. Game Night had always been a more active version of Sisters’ Night; then, it was James and Winn, and sometimes Lucy, which started out feeling forced and uncomfortable and making Alex realize how little time she spent with people other than Kara outside of work, but then… then started feeling an awful lot like… well, like family. 

Then, Maggie joined in – at Kara’s invitation, after Rick Malverne – which had been stressful and scary but ultimately, wonderful. And even more like family.

And now, with Lena, Alex is… cautious. Because what if Lena is angry with Maggie for arresting her? Alex has been unusually frightened of fights since the tank, because, after all, she got into that elevator alone after Maggie and Kara tore into each other… 

Kara promises her that it’ll be fine, that Lena isn’t holding a grudge. That she needs a family, especially now, especially after the way she was played, the way she was used, the way she saved the Earth and was terrified that she’d have lost Kara in the process.

And… it is fine. More than fine, really.

Because Lena Luthor? Lena is funny. She and Winn won’t stop bringing little gadgets into the games to help them get the upper hand, won’t stop babbling, talking over each other, hands on each other, giggling in a way that Alex never imagined Lena Luthor could giggle, about the new tech they were working on, about the tech they wanted to dream up together.

Winn keeps whipping out napkins to write notes on for later, until Lena reminds him with an arched eyebrow that he could always use his phone.

Alex laughs as Lucy drinks, as James and Maggie whisper to each other. She leans into her little sister, who was also sitting back, taking it all in. Her family.

“You okay?” Alex nudges her, because she hasn’t been okay, lately. But around Lena, she seems… better. Happier. She even smiles and laughs, now.

Kara sighs and lets her head drop onto her sister’s shoulder. “Happy to be with everyone,” she tells her, and she doesn’t have to tell her the underlying implication.

That everyone is alive. Shockingly.

Alex nods quietly, and watches Lena’s eyes catch Kara’s. Feels Kara’s body sit up. Watches Lena bite her lip before looking away almost coyly. 

Alex wonders for a moment if she’d hear Kara’s heartrate increase if she had Kara’s superhearing.

But she doesn’t have her superhearing, so she has to just wonder. Lucy and Maggie have their opinions, she knows, but she’s just waiting to hear it from Kara herself.

She doesn’t have to wait long. 

Kara tells her before she tells everyone else. 

Tells her that she’s bi. That she hadn’t said anything earlier because she didn’t know, and then because she didn’t want to take away from Alex’s own coming out. But she has to tell her now, because… well, because she and Lena are dating, but Alex can’t tell anyone yet, because Lena’s not ready, but Lena knows Kara is telling her and oh Alex, please don’t be angry with me – 

Alex cuts her off with the longest, hardest hug they’ve shared in a while – while is saying something because their hugs have only grown lately – and promises not to say anything until Lena is ready.

Which turns out to be difficult, because Lena keeps coming to Game Nights. With everyone. Pretending not to be dating her little sister.

It amuses Alex, more than anything. Especially because Lucy and Maggie don’t officially know. 

So she sits through over a month of weekly Game Nights – all featuring Lena in attendance, looser than Alex had ever imagined she could be, Lucy jabbing Alex in the ribcage every time Kara and Lena’s hands brush, catching Maggie and Lucy playing a silent drinking game based on Kara and Lena’s interactions – without being able to say anything. 

Pretending she knows nothing.

Pretending she can’t bare to think about her little sister’s love and sex life, even though it’s almost all they’ve been talking about lately.

Pretending, that is, until Lena clears her throat and Kara nods and takes her hand.

Lucy practically spills her drink down her front.

Maggie does.

“Um, guys?” Kara asks to the already silent room.

Silent, that is, except for Winn, who’s still scooting Toad through Bowser’s Castle, his whole body moving along with the controls. 

They all wait, bemused, for him to notice that the only sound in the apartment is suddenly Mario Kart music. He pauses it and looks up.

“Wh – oh. Ohhhhhh.” He sees Kara and Lena’s hands, their fingers interlaced, and he purses his lips to contain his excitement.

“Guys, um… Lena and I wanted to tell you…” Kara adjusts her glasses, and Alex ignores Lucy’s persistent elbow at her side. “We’ve been seeing each other.” Another glasses adjustment. “Well, um, I mean, of course we’ve been seeing each other, I’m looking at her right now, I just… I really mean… Lena’s my girlfriend. And I’m her girlfriend.”

James smiles broadly at his folded hands, Winn reaches behind Alex to high five Maggie, and Lucy jumps up from her seat at the edge of the coffee table, knocking over a bowl of popcorn and utterly not caring.

“You owe me twenty bucks, Danvers!”

“You were betting on us?” Lena wants to know, and Alex shrugs with a laugh.

“Well, I wasn’t supposed to tell them that I knew, now was I?”

Kara and Lena nod, both grinning with relief, in concession, but Maggie and Lucy explode.

“You knew and you didn’t tell us?!”

“You let us play all those drinking games and you knew the whole time?”

“I thought we were friends!”

“I thought you were my fiancee!”

“I thought we were bonded for life after rescuing you from Cadmus – “

“To be fair, you also sent her there in the first place, Luce – “

“No one asked you, Olsen!”

“I love you, babe, but you’re totally sleeping on the couch tonight.”

It goes on, and on, and on, and Kara and Lena take the time to watch their friends bicker – bicker out of pure happiness that Kara is wearing that smile again, that they’ve gained another new family member again.

“Well, if I’d known the biggest problem anyone would have had with our relationship was a drinking game and a twenty dollar bet, I would have told them sooner,” Lena smiles into Kara’s lips, and the awwwwwwwwwww that rises from the Superfriends as they kiss is what finally ends the playful bickering.

in honor of supercorp canon in brazil

this gif