Wow. Wasn’t Expecting To Get This Emotional.

“For the most part, you don’t hold the people you love in your heart because they rescued you from drowning or pulled you from a burning house. Mostly you hold them in your heart because they save you, in a million quiet and perfect ways, from being alone.”

— Jeff Zentner, Goodbye Days

*jumps*

all i want is an azzi cruise dump and instead i get more blondie, some hot sauce, and a reptile.

I'm so glad she's comfortable and strong enough to say I need a break. that's such a difficult thing to do, especially with the external pressures that she's facing. I'm glad she's prioritizing herself and setting such a good example for future athletes. I'm happy that mental health is something that we're taking into account now and hopefully this trickles down to college and high school athletes who follow the examples of Simone biles, Naomi Osaka, and the queen miss press.

In this house we always support a queen taking time for herself 👏👏👏

Sending all the love and good vibes

“I’m home.”

Kara shreds the steel door with her bare hands, brushing it away like a cobweb.

The blue of her eyes is shrouded in the dark red of tears and the raging inferno swelling inside her. Every line of her body is drawn tense and taught, ready to snap.

“Where is she?” she growls but the sound gets caught in the rumble of her chest, too low for human ears to understand. No words are necessary anyway. The sight of her is enough.

Lex’s lackeys scatter and the ones who aren’t fast enough find themselves downed and bleeding before they can blink.

In the end, Kara finds her in a back room, strapped to a table. She is pale and still, like a cadaver on a metal slab.

For the first time in three days Kara stops moving.

“Lena,” she breathes and it tastes like ice against her tongue.

-

She’s not dead.

Unconscious, dehydrated, unable to wake up, but not dead.

Kara holds onto that, the way she holds onto Lena’s hand while sitting sentry at her bedside.

Alex finds something on the back of her neck, like a microchip glowing green. When it’s passed to her, Kara looks down at it in the palm of her hand. It stings against her skin with traces of Kryptonite.

She ignores Alex’s protest and crushes it to dust.

-

When Lena opens her eyes an hour later, they are blank. She blinks once, twice, like she’s willing herself back into her body. Kara is on her feet in a flash.

“Lena? Lena, can you hear me?” is what she asks, but all she can think is please, please, please.

The sound of her voice shakes something in Lena and she’s sitting up a moment later, stiff and slow. Kara’s arms go around her shoulders, and Lena melts into her in a heartbeat.

“What happened? What’s wrong? Darling? Darling, you’re crying.”

Kara shudders out a sob.

She’s speaking Kryptonese.

-

It takes a few minutes for them to separate enough to look each other in the face. When they do, Lena gasps, trembling fingers raising to follow the curve of Kara’s cheek.

“Kara?” she asks, this time in English.

She looks like she’s seen a ghost, her face falling impossibly more ashen in the sterile med-bay lighting.

Kara presses her palm against Lena’s fingers, bringing their joined hands fully against her face.

“I’m sorry it took us so long,” Kara says quietly, and Lena’s brow furrows.

“Please, Kara,” her name sounds broken in Lena’s mouth. “Tell me what happened.”

Kara does. She tells her about her own kidnapping, about the traps Lex had set around the city, how it took them three days to find her in a bunker beneath a dark mountain.

She doesn’t tell her about the casualties. She doesn’t tell her about her own recklessness and rage.

“Three days,” Lena repeats with a shake of her head, dark hair shifting behind her like she’s sinking into darkness. “No, it. It was longer than that for me.”

“How long?”

Lena clenches her teeth together with a click and does not answer.

-

Alex examines her quickly and clinically, giving her a clean bill of health. She changes her IV with practiced hands.

It takes both of them to convince Kara to go take a shower and grab some food. Neither expect her to be gone for long.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Alex asks quietly, keeping her focus on the IV in a small act of mercy.

Lena draws a deep breath, fingers twisting against the scratchy med-bay sheets. She hasn’t said a word since Kara left, just stared into the middle distance lost in thought.

“Lex,” she says after a moment, his name falling heavily through the air. “He sent me somewhere, another reality perhaps or...”

“Or a simulation, maybe?” Alex offers. “Like Obsidian tech?”

Lena’s fingers curl into fists, and she turns her head away from Alex as if to hide tears.

“It was real,” she says harshly. “To me, it was so real.”

-

Kara is back in three minutes, hair damp and mouth stuffed with half a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. She sets the other half in front of Lena, who stares at it.

“You should eat something,” Kara urges. When Lena looks up at her there is so much intensity in her eyes that Kara stops chewing.

“Is this real?” she asks, voice so small even Kara struggles to hear it over the sound of her heart cracking in half. She swallows her bite past the lump in her throat, and places her left hand over Lena’s on the bed.

“It’s real. You’re real and I’m real.”

Lena stares at their joined hands for a long time, eyes roaming like she’s looking for an answer.

-

After Lena chokes down three bites of sandwich and an unspoken number of sobs, she falls into a deep sleep. Kara sits at her bedside and does not look away from her face.

Behind her Alex stands stone faced, arms crossed over her chest. For a long time the only sound in the room is Lena’s steady breathing.

“What are you thinking?” Alex asks, warning flashing through her tone like an alarm bell. Kara watches Lena’s eyelashes flutter, and straightens her spine.

“I’m going to kill Lex Luthor.”

-

It’s Kelly who gets Lena to open up.

She takes the chair that Kara reluctantly vacates and asks her to give them some privacy. It’s a long time before Kara huffs out a sigh and relents.

“I’ll be in the lab,” she tells Lena, waiting for her nod of understanding before disappearing through the door. It clicks closed quietly behind her.

Kelly sits patiently beside the bed, hands folded in her lap. She doesn’t look at Lena for long, instead taking in the blinking lights and medical equipment around them.

“This isn’t a very restful space, is it?” she asks after a moment. “Would you like someone to take you home?”

Lena breathes out harshly and licks her lips.

“There’s no going home anymore,” she says.

Kelly looks at her then, taking in the hollow of her eyes and the resigned frown on her lips.

“Lena,” she starts gently. “The place that you were sent to...did you have a life there? People you cared about?”

Green eyes turn to stare at the closed door Kara just exited through and she swallows thickly, jaw working in a tense grind.

“Yes.”

-

When Kelly returns to the tower common room it’s to find the Danvers sisters locked in a tense argument.

“—you can’t. Look what he did to Lena, Kara. We don’t know what he’s capable of. It’s too dangerous.”

“Exactly,” Kara snaps, gesturing wildly toward the med-bay. “Look what he did to Lena! He needs to pay! Who knows what kind of torture he inflicted on her in that place? How much she’s suffered?”

They stare each other down for a tense beat.

“I think she was happy,” Kelly says quietly after a moment, and two heads snap to look at her. “Wherever he sent her, whatever kind of life she had there. I think she was happy.”

Alex barely catches Kara when her knees give out, both of them toppling beneath her weight.

-

Kara spots Lex’s helicopter just as it’s leaving the bunker. She grips the rotating blades in her hands and squeezes until they crinkle like confetti.

She looks down through the window and locks eyes with Lex, who appears equal parts smug and afraid.

Kara snarls at him, spins once through the air and hurls the whole helicopter into the side of the mountain. When the inferno of twisted metal and rock finally hits the ground below she makes sure to check the wreckage.

He’s alive. Barely.

Kara cradles his broken body as she flies them back to the tower, and tries to let her fury die in the wreckage instead.

-

They move Lena from the tower before Kara arrives with Lex. She lets Kelly wrap her in an oversize sweater and guide her into the front seat of Nia’s car.

When they ask her where she wants to go she doesn’t have an answer. They end up at Kara’s loft.

“Is this okay?” Kelly asks after she’s settled Lena on the couch beneath Kara’s red throw blanket.

Lena nods, and she asks Kelly to stay. Nia turns the lights down low and kisses Lena’s forehead before leaving them alone. They sit in silence for a while, both exhausted from the events of the past few days.

“Kara said you spoke Kryptonese,” Kelly says quietly, breaking the silence. Lena stills for a moment and then nods, saying something softly that Kelly can’t understand.

“Did she teach you?”

“A version of her did.”

Kelly lobs the next question with enough grace that Lena doesn’t flinch.

“Did you love her?”

Lena looks down at the blanket over her lap and runs her hands over it, feeling the familiar material beneath her palms.

“I still do.”

“That Kara or this one?”

It’s a long time before Lena answers.

-

When Kara gets home, after double and triple checking that Lex couldn’t possibly escape the containment force fields they’ve rigged, Kelly and Lena are both asleep.

They’re curled together beneath her blanket, Lena’s head on Kelly’s shoulder with Kelly’s arm snug around her shoulders. Kara takes out her phone and snaps a picture before waking them.

Kelly excuses herself with a meaningful look that Kara doesn’t understand. When she turns her attention back to Lena, she’s looking up at her with an equally indecipherable expression.

“Will you take me to bed?” Lena asks, and a second later she’s cradled against Kara’s chest. She curls into that same position once they’re both tucked beneath the comforter.

Kara wraps her arms around her and holds on for dear life. The sun sets out the window and the light shifts from yellow to red to complete darkness. They lay snugly in each other’s arms, both feeling their first bit of true comfort since Lena first went missing.

Just as Kara is starting to drift off to sleep Lena speaks.

“I had a life there. It was, it was a lot longer than three days. It was years. It was a whole life. I had friends, a job... a wife,” she whispers into the darkness. Kara’s heart stutters in her chest, and Lena’s close enough that they both feel it.

“Do you miss her?”

“Yes.”

Kara sucks in a deep breath and let’s it out slowly, Lena’s hand that’s pressed against her chest rising and falling with the motion. After a moment Kara finds the courage to ask the question she really wants to ask.

“Did you miss me?”

Lena picks her head up just enough to look into her eyes, barely able to make out bright blue in the darkness. Her hand slides from Kara’s chest up her neck to cradle the edge of her jaw, thumb brushing the soft skin there tenderly.

“I didn’t need to.”

Dear The @cwnetwork:

Let's talk.

Let's talk about why the queerbaiting between the characters of Kara Danvers and Lena Luthor of Supergirl, whether accidental, indirect, or implied, needs to stop asap.

I understand the difference of accidental chemistry between your actresses and straight-up using their storylines as bait to keep your audience hooked.

I know that the LGBTQIA+ community isn't your only audience. However, we are the audience that you are targeting specifically these days. Everytime your program uses Kara and Lena's scenes in the trailer, the teasers from then and now, in the dialogue, their relationship as a recurring topic, as social media boards, promo mats, or when you show their moments in-between that they parallel with other canon DC TV couples, we can't help but hope. We invest our time and emotions in these characters who might get an entire different ending because your management can't stomach a lead ending up with another woman on television.

I get it. You want Supergirl to be a family-friendly show. You want her character to inspire young girls and boys alike. What would parents tell their kids if Supergirl ends up with a woman? Well, what are you showing now if she doesn't end up with the only character who translates to being her soulmate? It seems to me that you don't actually want kids and adults alike to 'dare to defy'. You're afraid of a generation that is confident and emotionally secure to become whoever they want to be. You're telling the same sick excuse that if kids watch a major heroine character end up with another woman, they might follow suit. That is so unrealistic. I've been watching the most heterosexual Disney movies since I was 5 yet I'm still attracted to men and women. Also, so what if these kids grow up to be confident queer folks? Would it be so bad for the younger generation to grow up loving themselves for who they are through a show that preaches about it?

If the chemistry between Melissa and Katie was accidental, we get it. Props to them for acting the hell out every single time they're in a scene together. But to constantly use the "friendship" of their characters to a point where it became the most interesting and awaited dynamic in the entire show yet you still try to convince us that there is nothing 'romantic' is not okay. If they're just best friends, then make them act like they are just best friends.

Don't show us Lena Luthor constantly supporting Kara as a reporter, seeing her potential since the beginning. Don't let Lena be the first one Kara thinks of when she wants to just be herself. It doesn't matter if it's gushing about 90's boy bands, getting her fill of her favorite fast-food, talking about her family, or just simply being happy. If not Lena, then don't show her constantly upgrading Supergirl's suits every single time so Kara can be safe. Don't even think about letting Lena move to National City to 'share her home with a Kryptonian'. Whenever I have a celebrity crush, all I want is to get their autograph or a selfie. Not to breathe the same air where they live! If it's not Lena, then don't trick us into believing that she is the most important person Kara trusts 'in the entire galaxy'. Do not let them become each other's life support. And whatever you do, don't show Kara constantly worrying about Lena every chance she gets to the point where she would risk her identity to save her. That even on the brink of death, she can't help but mention this woman. Do not let Kara fight every single one in her way who even thinks of disrespecting Ms. CEO of LCorp. Don't make an entire episode of Kara visiting different alternate realities in the hopes that Lena would find it in her heart to forgive her. That maybe there is a world out there where they will work out. That's too romantic. We might see right through it. Please refrain from showing these very straight women staring longingly at photographs of each other when things go haywire. Don't create scenes that equate to them breaking up constantly even if they're not technically together. For the love of all things fashion, don't let them constantly wear couple-coded outfits so that they could match. Not the red and blue! That's reserved for the canon partner. Don't even suggest that they're each other's "person". Big no-no. Too much.

You can't tell us, "Well, maybe you've never had a best friend." I sure as hell do not make extra efforts to see my bestie every five minutes, filling their office with flowers, etc. No. You do not know how to value a healthy and loving romantic relationship and it shows.

Being a part of a community that is constantly oppressed, bullied, and shamed for loving who the fuck you want to love is exhausting. It's 2021 and some of you are still acting like we might polish the devil's shoes for holding another girl's hand. You cannot continue on using romantic themes between Kara and Lena if they're not going to end up together. You know why? Because you're telling majority of your viewers, particularly those belonging to the LGBTQIA+ community whether young, old, or in between, that our stories do not matter. Kara and Lena's entire journey reflects a real queer couple's. So if you say that there is absolutely nothing romantic between these characters, it's invalidating.

So, The CW, forgive us for being delighted when we see a major heroine on our fucking TV screens who might just be one of us. Forgive us for wanting representation and demanding for the representation of our community to be respectful. We're sorry for hoping that our stories, our struggles, our fight for love and equality might just be represented by a major TV superhero show in Hollywood. And yes, we have Alex Danvers, Kelly Olsen, and Nia Nal already. But if you really care about these characters that are a part of our community, then give them and their relationships the much-deserved screentime and story development.

But honey, I will never apologize for giving you hell on constantly failing to find a "lead" that would match your protagonist. To be fair, you have a talent for finding the worst possible partners for Kara. Lucy? Wasted potential. James? You we're too racist before they had a chance then turned him into a terrible character. Mon-el? Self-absorbed and toxic. Also, he's married in the future. Don't even think about bringing his ass back. This show ain't The Legal Wife. I don't care if the actors are married in real life, this is fiction and their stories are different. William? ARE. YOU. FUCKING. KIDDING. ME?!

Here's what we've been trying to say about William Dey: he is irrelevant to any kind of plot in the episodes he's been in and the ones in the future, no emotional string to any other character, and pointless to the entire show. If he really is your final choice as Kara's love interest, make their relationship make sense. First of all, there is no chemistry. Second, there is no story. If he's your leading man, why is he the most disconnected character to Kara, both as a reporter and as Supergirl. Why is his character the most underwhelming? How come we cringe when we see him on our screens? Inserting him in random scenarios to seem relevant doesn't make him prince charming material. Just because he's also a reporter doesn't make him the Lois Lane of the show. He just got here! Being an asshole in the beginning, disrespecting her work, then suddenly sending treats on her doorstep isn't romantic. It's gaslighting. If he is truly Kara's endgame, it's disappointing because she will have the most shallow and thoughtless love story out of all the DC TV superheroes. To make matters worse, the actor is so defensive. He insists on being bullied by the fans and that his character is misunderstood. And I can't believe that there are cast members who are so vocal about giving his character a chance. This isn't a best friend's race where you have to defend your cast member all the freaking time. It sucks to hear. Ladies, if he's such a great character, you don't need to constantly convince your audience. You can't say you're tired of the fans who keep bullying him. His character simply does not fit the narrative. We're not bullies! We're simply asking for a better partner. Also, I understand that we must learn to separate the artist from his art. We get it. The actor who constantly whines on social media for the bare minimum support should know the difference too. To be clear, we don't really have anything against William as long as he stays as an extra because that's who he is on the show right now. Crumbs, darling. What we don't like is for him to end up with Kara because she deserves better.

Your main character has been traumatized for years, always at war with who she is and which side matters most, constantly loses the people she loves, selfless to the core, and isn't even given the space to breathe, process, and recover. She deserves someone who will be worthy of representing her family motto. El mayarah.

Kara Zor-El needs somebody who's gonna love her so much it's gonna hurt. She needs somebody who doesn't love her only because she's the girl from the stars, but understands that sometimes she just wants to be held. She needs somebody who respects her and actually listens to her. She needs to be protected more than ever because of the constant near-death experiences she faces. What's William gonna do? Kara needs somebody to come home to and show photos of the cats she rescued from a huge tree down the street and how maybe they could adopt one too. She deserves pillow fights, lazy nights, flopping at baking, geeking about her abilities, and so much more. She deserves someone she can share her heritage and build a home with. She needs someone who is just as human as she yearns to be, broken, a little bruised, but stronger everyday. She deserves to end up with the character who cares for her just as fiercely as Alex does. If that's really William Dey, you have a despicable way of showing it.

But, if you're too homophobic and decide for Kara to end up alone, then that's not fair. She has given so much to save her family, offered her cousin the space he does not deserve, the patience her parents have not earned, and her friends most of her time that they spend too much on just her alter-ego. She is worthy of being loved without expectations. And you know what? She already is.

Lena Kieran Luthor loves her - irrevocably,  unconditionally, to a fault.

I don't care if it was accidental, the acting brought it out, or you're just using their stories as a plot device to keep us on the edge of our seats. Lena loves Kara too much it almost broke her. She loves her so much that you decided to create this huge plot where she never finds out the secret so Kara won't lose the one person who doesn't mind if she lives in the rent-controlled side of town. Honestly, if that's just who she is, no cape or super abilities, Lena would love her just as much. She already does. Lena Luthor, the busiest character on the show, loves Kara to the point of devotion and invention. Do you know how hard it is to speak to a CEO casually? It's like trying to solve this global pandemic. It's impossible. Yet here she is constantly thinking about Kara this or Supergirl that. To be clear, I'm not excusing her actions last season. But she's stronger than what your showrunners give her credit for. Lena is constantly manipulated, abused, neglected, lied to, betrayed, you name it. But time and time again she has proven that she is Kara's match. You have given Kara Zor-El a soulmate the moment you decided that Katie McGrath should stay as a series regular. And I for one am not sorry that her character is a strong independent woman. You should start not being sorry or afraid too.

Look, you can say that it's too early in the season so I should not get ahead of myself. This is also fictional so I shouldn't have so many expectations. I would stop if you refrain from throwing any kind of bone. Maybe I should remain seated and let the writers do their thing? The reality is it's not too early in the season. In fact, it's far too late in the game. If this was RuPaul's Drag Race, baby we are lipsyncing for the crown! You can either sew, crack a joke, death drop 'til your legs give out while remembering the words to Shut Up And Drive, or sashay away.

This is your final season. You should be tying up loose ends. If Lena Luthor was a man, they would be having twins by now for all we know. You can't keep baiting us with your half-baked storylines just so you can keep your ratings afloat. You can't go on like this. Do it or drop it.

If you're going with a different romantic pairing for Kara than most of us hoped for, make it fucking make sense and stick with it. Otherwise, allow Kara to embody her family motto with the only person who truly makes her stronger.

Note: GIF taken from the @lonelydiary through Tumblr. Hope it's okay. Thank you.

🚨 SUPERCORP ENDGAME ALERT 🚨

Their hugs then:

one arm over the other's shoulder, other arm over the ribs/waist

upper body a bit angled and shifted to the side, therefore the hug a little unbalanced and not so tight

best fiends' hug

Their hugs now:

Kara's arms around Lena's neck, Lena's arms around Kara's chest

bodies in perfect symmetry, naturally snuggle into each other tightly

girlfriends' hug

Thank you for coming to my TedTalk! 😊

The depth and important messaging and often overlooked nuance in these subjects that Azie Tesfai brought to tonight’s Supergirl… bravo. Genuinely amazing.

By the way… the little girl. The Kelly/Alex convo. And the hair moment. Powerful.

The ep was beautifully written and executed. Alas it was also a frustrating reminder of what the show could and should have always been (and at one point was), if handled with more care by people who truly understood the characters and stories and messaging that they tried to touch on but instead so often misfired or took the silly, superficial, or even at times outright offensive route for.

Speaking of, that promo gave me whiplash. I went from tears in my eyes and feeling intense awe to making a wtf face and shaking my head, right back to my usual annoyance. Can’t believe I’m saying it but no promo would’ve been better than that promo, after that incredible episode.

Anyway, back to what matters most right now: Azie Tesfai, everybody. 👏