#lena point

[lena-point]

the homecoming

[lena-thinks-too-much]

It is so, so important to me that people understand that Tim didn't figure out the bats because Dick was a "Show off". Like yes, Dick Grayson is the most flamboyant, dramatic ass man you will ever meet.

But the quadruple somersault? There's no way that was because dick was just showing off. Because you're telling me Bruce Wayne, who's so committed to hiding his identity that he literally acts like a completely different person out of the mask in public just to ward suspicion, would miss the fact that Robin regularly uses the flying Grayson's trademark move? There's literally no way.

In the comics we see Tim explain his deductive process to Dick and Alfred and they're both surprised impressed whatever. We don't see him explain it to Bruce. I think Bruce would be surprised and shocked that a 9 year old was able to put the pieces together but I don't think he'd be surprised that the quadruple somersault gave it away.

So if Bruce was possibly aware of such an obvious give away, why let it continue?

I'll tell you why.

It really comes down to the physics

So Dick was 9 when he started out right? That means the most he'd have likely weighed was 43kgs or roughly 95lbs in freedom units.

But Dick and both of his parents are gymnasts who tend to be smaller. So he was likely less than that.

In physics, rotating objects build up angular momentum (this is how bikes stay up right for example). The more rotation, the more momentum. And objects with less mass build up that momentum much faster than those that are heavier.

Robin constantly has to fight people who are nearly 3 times his size. I teach 8 year olds, they're tiny. A quadruple somersault for a small boy that weighs less than a hundred pounds is a brutal weapon. Especially if you add in the acceleration from gravity as he drops in from above.

And I can guarantee you this logic tracks because Dick literally utilizes this idea, without the somersault, in the 2009 teen titans cartoon.

Yeah, that's right. We're talking about the infamous knee drop.

Like it is borderline savage. Add in a quadruple somersault and the resulting force is nearly fatal. It's likely the main reason Batman would ever allow him to do it with the cape on.

Also, Dick landing feet first on the penguin in the first image probably gave the guy severe back issues

[cult-of-the-eye]

lena kelley could run the magnus institute but elias bouchard couldn't run the OIAR

[natalievoncatte]

Alex worked the skin of her forehead with her fingers, angrily kneading the flesh in a vain attempt to suppress a pounding headache.

“I’m telling you, I’m fine,” Kara insisted.

She was not fine, damn it! Kryptonite exposure was serious, even if it had no apparent, immediate effects. The little chunk of vibrant purple rock was currently in a lead-lined chamber where Brainy was mercilessly prodding at its secrets, trying to figure out exactly what it did other than make Kara sweat profusely when she was within ten feet of it.

“I don’t feel sick. What’s the big deal?”

“Red Kryptonite didn’t make you sick at first, either,” said Alex. “You’re not leaving the Tower until I’m certain you’re not going to track down Cat Grant and fling her off the nearest roof.”

Kara, seated on her hospital bed in the med bay, crossed her arms and pouted theatrically. “That was one time.”

She sounded a little brittle, probably because they didn’t talk about that. Well, they did -Kara cried for hours- but afterwards the whole thing became a sore spot and it was clear they they weren’t going to talk about it again. Alex could hear the little crack in Kara’s voice, the touch of strain that signaled how on edge she was.

“Running off and hiding won’t make it any less real, kiddo,” Alex sighed. “Once we’re sure you can go, but no Supergirl for at least a week. I don’t know if what that stuff did to you, but I don’t want to risk your powers shutting off while you’re thirty thousand feet up, or something.”

Kara huffed. Fine.

It was an abundance of caution, to be sure, but the others could pick up the slack. Kara had taken breaks before, and the world didn’t fall apart. Sometimes Alex wanted to just grab her and shake her for all the good it would do. Kara deserved some time off. She deserved to be a person too.

“What’s going on?”

Alex looked up and tried to conceal her relief as Lena walked into the room. Alex liked this new Lena a lot more, the Lena who ran a charitable foundation and didn’t straighten her hair anymore and wore hoodies most of the time. This Lena was friend-shaped, as it were, and put her at ease.

Almost.

“Kara was exposed to a new form of Kryptonite, and…”

And she was off the bed.

Kara was already on her feet. Her pupils were so dilated that her eyes were almost black, the blue almost absent. She was staring at Lena with such an intensity that Alex was afraid she was about to attack her.

Lena looked panicked, but not by the Kryptonian staring her down. “What? Where is it? I need to see it right now, what if…” Lena trailed off, her face going slack for just a moment.

Alex stared at her. What the fresh hell was this?

“Guys?” said Alex. “What’s wrong with… you…”

Kara stalked forward, walking in a hip-popping sashay that would have made a Victoria’s Secret model blush, surging into Lena’s personal space, and… sniffed.

Then sniffed again.

Kara was smelling her.

“Uh,” said Alex.

Lena looked up at her -in flat shoes she was noticeably shorter- and sniffed back. Alex’s jaw went slack.

“Okay,” said Alex. “I’m going to need one of you to explain why you’re doing… that. Like right now.”

They both ignored her. Lena slipped in close, ducking under Kara’s chin, and sniffed at her again. It looked quite a bit like she was about to press her mouth to Kara’s throat, which was both shocking and… seriously, five fucking years of these idiots shooting and missing was bad enough, but right in front of her?

“Hey,” Alex said, taking a step towards the door. “Uh, we good?”

Kara wrapped Lena up in her powerful arms and nuzzled her nose into Lena’s hair, her chest thrumming with a loud purring sound.

“I’m in the room,” Alex deadpanned.

“Alex,” Brainy called, rushing up the hall.

A powerful… scent, or maybe an odor, washed over Alex and she nearly gagged. Whatever it was, it was making Lena try to climb Kara like a tree. The moment Lena popped one of the snaps on Kara’s cape and it fell halfway off her back, Alex bolted for the door and yanked it shut behind her as she stumbled into the hallway.

Brainy was outside, snd Nia was with him.

“Alex, I have good news. The radiation from the lavender Kryptonite sample appears to be entirely benign, although curiously it seems to have activated some anatomical peculiarities that appear to be, so to speak, left over from the evolutionary ancestors of Kryptonians.”

Alex groaned. “Such as?”

“Scent glands, and a peculiar ability to-“

“Guys,” said Nia. “What is that noise?”

Brainy paused, focusing. “I believe that Lena just addressed Kara as…”

“Did she say ‘daddy’?” said Nia.

“Shut up!” Alex barked, slapping her hands over her ears. “I am not hearing this, tralalalalalalala I’m going to the bar!”

“Yeah, I’m coming too,” said Nia.

Brainy turned, listening.

“Evidently, so is Lena.”

“I hate my life” Alex muttered.

[born-in-neverland03]

Comfort characters we call them.

And then it comes to these witches who never had a day of comfort in their lives.

[lena-in-a-red-dress]

AU where Kara is still an assistant when Lena becomes CEO of CatCo. She makes some changes but one thing Cat tells her under no uncertain terms is that a) Kara stays, and b) she's destined to become a reporter when she's ready.

I'm going back and forth on whether Lena and Kara are friends at this point, or whether Lena simply takes on CatCo before they meet. But basically I want to see Kara having to a) build new connections to get Lena what she needs and b) learning what it's like to work for somebody who doesn't treat like dirt most days.

Like, imagine her standing dumbfounded the first time she brings Lena her coffee, because Lena simply thanks her, genuinely. And then the flush of pride when Lena comments in pleasant surprise when she discovers the coffee is perfectly warm-- not hot enough to scald, but not the usual tepidness of coffee thats had to travel three blocks to get to her.

Because Cat always took those little efforts for granted, as an expectation. But Lena smiles slyly as she regards Kara anew, and says "I think we're going to work together just fine."

Because Kara worked for Cat, not with her. And that small semantic means the world. Because its true-- Cat, and now Lena, wouldn't be able to do what she does without Kara doing what she does.

And that just makes Kara want to work all the harder. She finds she WANTS to stay late when Lena does, mostly because Lena urges her to go home, and that kind of kindness is the kind that's paid back by staunchly ignoring her and sticking around anyway. And she takes extra effort to learn all of Lena's preferences and idiosyncracies, so that she knows exactly what Lena needs when she's had a meeting with that particular board member she's outwardly civil to but clearly loathes.

The first and only time Kara brings Lena salmon for lunch, she's absolutely devastated when Lena looks at it, shoulders falling. "I forgot to tell you I can't stand salmon," she says, resignedly.

Kara's eyes go wide in horror. "Oh! No, that's okay, I'll just go--"

"Please don't bother, it's my fault, I never told you--"

"It's no problem at all. Just-- wait here okay?"

As if Lena would be anywhere but her desk. But in ten minutes, Kara returns with a greasy paper sack.

"I promise, this isn't a punishment for needing something last minute," Kara says quickly. "These are legitimately the best burgers in the city, and honestly, it's the greatest gift I could ever give you."

Okay. Maybe she's laying it on a little thick. But Lena only looks at her with a bemused smile. "All right," she slowly agrees. Her eyebrow quirks. "I'm assuming you picked up something similar for yourself?"

Kara blushes. "Yeah. Can't help myself."

"Good. Then you can eat with me."

Freezing, Kara feels like a deer in the headlights. For all that Lena has treatedher as an equal, they've never eaten together in the same room. They usually eat at their own desks, working through.

"Really?"

"Really." Lena's gaze turns artificially solemn. "If I'm going to have a self-induced heart attack, I better have someone there to call 911."

Unable to keep herself from grinning, Kara scuttles to retrieve her own burger and fries from her desk. And there, together, they share the first of many, many meals to come.

[sssammich]

fic: let there be another day

inspired by this fantastically angsty gifset of a supercorp AU. happy supercorp sunday yall

thanks x

---

The days transform steadily, selfishly, into weeks. Until the weeks have amounted to six months of nothing. Nothing between them but a phantom line of what they’d been to each other, once upon a time.

There is a crater in Lena’s heart, a botched excavation of the way she’d willed herself to forget Kara, to protect the two of them from the ruthlessness of her family. So she’d cored herself first, hoping to beat her brother and mother to the punch. Yet Kara had dug herself further into her heart, straight into her marrow. 

So she failed, in the end, to rid herself of the woman she’d loved with her whole being. 

But it’s gotten easier, in a way, existing in this reality where she had to deny herself the chance for happiness if it meant her happiness could live. 

Her family has continued to terrorize her, but she’s acclimated. Expected it, really. Their efforts of trying to eliminate the few people who have been able to reach the fortress of her heart have now since changed to recruiting her into the fold of the family business. 

She now only functions to keep L-Corp as an entity of good despite her family’s best attempts at compromising her work. It’s fine, because she has accepted that her work will be her life. Her love—her grief—has become the shape of late nights in front of her computer, of half-filled decanters as she oversees expense reports, of dry-cleaned power suits and a lethal red lipstick as armor worn in superfluous business meetings. 

It’s worth it, she reasons, when she catches sight of Supergirl zooming past her window to save the day once more. 

—

Lena should have known that Lex and Lillian are simply biding their time until they strike. The last couple of months of relative quiet was not a sign of reprieve. So when the glass of her office doors break and splinter into tiny crystalline pieces, her heart aches not in fear, but in disappointment. 

She’s never had a death wish and would never wish this hurt upon herself, but the amount of threats to her life has surpassed her age. She thinks that maybe if both Lex and Lillian simply just got it over with, that she can get some goddamn rest. But she knows why she fights and why she keeps going. If only to spite her family, if only so that her sacrifice isn’t in vain. 

Another explosion erupts and throws Lena partway across her office, her head hitting the corner of her desk with a thud. She opens her eyes and her vision blurs, her head throbbing with pain, her body tense and sore all at once. Distantly, she can hear the fire alarm go off just as the sprinklers start shooting off water and flooding her office. 

She attempts to stand and find an exit, but her body betrays her intentions, buckling under her weight as she’s sprayed with water all around her. She falls onto her knees and subjects herself to crawling towards the exit with only but reckless determination and an almost-extinguished hope that she will make it out of this alive. 

Before she can take another step forward, there’s a whooshing sound that fills her already ringing ears and suddenly, warmth envelopes her. 

She sighs in resignation and gratitude when she feels the familiar weight around her. Lena knows before she opens her eyes what has engulfed her so safely, so securely. It cuts her heart just as it heals it, and she is in a loop of pain and joy. 

She wants to open her eyes, truly, to look into ocean eyes and a field of golden grass. But she is in pain and she is hurting. Her only course of action is to keep her eyes closed as strong arms grab hold of her—gently, always so gently—and whisks her out of her now compromised and ruined office. 

—

When she comes to, she finds herself in a secluded and private examination room of the National City Hospital, discretion of the highest priority as a prominent public figure. It’s one she’s been in before, from a past attempt at her life. It’s almost something like a comfort, this familiar space that has seen her bruises, cuts, and scrapes. 

The door swings open and she hears Kara behind her begin to make her exit. She doesn’t look up but when she catches sight of the red cape just by the bed, she holds up a hand and stops the movement altogether. 

She only lets go when the doctor looks down from her clipboard and settles on the rolling stool, the creak of the leather as she rolls closer to Lena. 

She allows the doctor to do what she does best, intently listening to the sound of the squeaking stool and the crinkling of the paper of the examination bed as doctor works.  

A mild concussion, some cuts and bruises. It could have been worse, she’s told. It always could have been worse and she wants to yell at Dr. Shapiro that this feels pretty close to the worst. Still, she listens carefully as her doctor explains how fortunate she is for surviving after the second and third explosions completely decimating her office. 

“Third explosion?” she asks, this information brand new to her. 

“Mm,” the doctor hums. “The second blast was the reason for your concussion, but according to reports, the third blast was close to you and would have knocked you prone and done serious damage had you not found cover.” 

Lena tries very hard not to twist her aching body and look over her shoulder. 

“Thank you, Doctor.” 

The doctor looks at her meaningfully before glancing over Lena’s right shoulder and placing a hand on hers, squeezing, and then letting go. 

The door closes with a quiet click, but instead of an exhaled deep breath, she holds herself tense. She shuts her eyes and listens to the way the superhero makes just enough noise so Lena knows where she is. First, from the chair she’d been occupying, then the sound of boots against the linoleum flooring, then the swish of the cape as it catches against the corner of the examination bed and back down again. 

“Where can I take you?” 

She opens her eyes to the setting sun, to saltwater ocean, to a small smile she hasn’t allowed herself to witness in six months. 

She doesn’t know what’s safest, what her family is planning, what the total damage is. She needs her phone, she needs access to her company, she needs—

“Can I go with you?” is what she says. 

Kara studies her, like the horizon staring back, and nods. She opens her hand, the thumb loop of her suit wrapping around her palm, and offers it to Lena. 

She takes it, sliding her unsteady hand in place and breathes when Kara clasps their hands together. 

—

Kara’s apartment smells the exact same. 

She does not comment on this, though it’s the most prevalent thought in her mind. Kara lets her walk in first, speeding to the lamps and switching them on until the apartment is bathed in faint golden light. Fitting. 

“Get cleaned up. I’ll have some spare clothes for you right outside the bathroom.” Kara passes her a towel, and she hugs it to her chest. 

The water scalds her skin, stings the open scratches and cuts. And she revels in it, her alabaster skin reddening under the downpour of it. She savors it until the shower sputters a little and the hot water becomes tepid then becomes cold. She squeals and jumps away, hitting herself against the side of the shower stall and knocking half of the soaps and hair products off the shelf. 

Kara is there in an instant, opening the door and getting soaked herself, trying to protect her. 

Naked and broken, she looks up to the setting sun that is Kara’s concerned face, and then she starts laughing. 

“I—the hot water ran out.” 

Kara exhales, that cold water matting down her hair on her forehead as she protects Lena from the downpour. “Sorry, I never did call the landlord about it.” 

She turns off the water behind her and steps out of the shower stall to pick up Lena’s towel for her. She opens the towel and turns away. 

You’ve seen it all before, she wants to say, but doesn’t. Instead, she takes the towel and wraps it around herself, the cold beads of water from her hair clinging to her neck, her shoulder blades. 

Kara steps aside, offers her a shy smile, and leaves wordlessly. Lena listens to the way she walks around the apartment, the clattering of the plates on the table. 

She steps out and smiles when she finds spare clothes placed on a stool right outside the bathroom door. 

When she next steps out of the bathroom, she is wearing Kara’s oversized shirt with a faded cartoon drawing of National City State Fair on it and a spare set of her pajama pants that she didn’t realize she’d forgotten, she'd thought Kara would have gotten rid of. 

The spread of Chinese food on the coffee table is modest, but familiar. 

She takes a seat in the spot she once proclaimed as hers, and accepts the plate from Kara’s grasp. They eat in silence with only the sound of the television playing on in the background. 

Kara watches her—studying her, Lena’s sure—but doesn’t say anything. She talks about her week because Lena had asked, and so she gives it to Lena. They clear their plates, then she trails after Kara to the kitchen, parking herself on the kitchen island. Kara seems to anticipate her and passes a pint of Cherry Garcia towards her with a spoon on the lid. 

“Good for concussions, I heard,” Kara offers, a twitch of a smile on her lips.  

She laughs at that, surprised, but accepts the ice cream, opening the lid and taking a spoonful. “That’s tonsillitis.” 

Kara shrugs but takes a spoonful of her own Rocky Road on the opposite side of the kitchen island. So much of right now exists superimposed to how things had been before, how their lives had been so entwined, so integrated. It is unnerving as it is comforting, and Lena accepts that for today, at least, she has to accept the disorientation. 

Eventually, “here. I charged your phone. I’d call Sam first, then Jess.”

There is distance between them, far greater than the kitchen island in front of her, and it shows itself for the first time now, here. After everything.  

“Kara, I—” 

“I need to fill Alex in on everything. Let her know you’re alright. I’ll be right outside.”  

She nods, glances at her phone and the laptop that Kara slides across the kitchen island, and watches as Kara walks out the front door. 

For a solid hour, she works through everything she can considering her mild concussion. She touches base with her assistant, with her team, and finds that they have taken care of everything for her. She sighs in relief, shuddering into her hands when Sam and Jess let her know that they have everything handled, that all they want for her is to rest, that the investigation into her family’s attempt at assassinating her might finally have some legs with some information they’d discovered during the cleanup. 

She sighs, sniffling into the back of her hand and tells them goodnight before she closes her phone and sobs into her hands, the day finally wearing her down. 

She doesn’t startle when arms wrap around her, the press of a strong body kneeling in front of her as she cries into the crook of Kara’s neck. She grabs fistfuls of Kara’s shirt as her tears soak through the cotton. 

Kara only holds onto her, rubbing her back and gently cradling Lena in her arms. Soft shushing filters through Lena’s ears and she sobs further into Kara, hoping Kara can just absorb her entirely, as if that’s the only thing that can protect her—from her family, from the world, from herself. 

Her sobs lasts and lasts, a never ending fountain of all the tears she’d shoved back in, a dam bursting now that she’s allowed herself.

—

Kara carries her to the bed, quietly ushering her under the covers just as she sits on the edge of it. 

“You saved me,” she says, her voice coming out slightly congested.  

Kara brushes her hair behind her ear. “That promise has never changed.” 

“They’re never going to stop, are they?” 

Kara shakes her head. 

“I thought by letting you g—” she huffs, turns away. “I thought I was protecting you. I was trying to do the right thing.” 

Kara grabs hold of her hand and places it on her lap, her fingers fiddling with Lena’s palm, but doesn’t quite look at her. 

“I’m afraid that the only times I will see you, I’m trying to save your life. And I—it worsens when I think that I can’t make it.” 

Lena watches Kara’s beautiful profile, the expanse of her forehead, the slope of her nose into the curves of her lips and down her jutting chin, trembling slightly in the faint light outside the bedroom curtain. Then she sees the bob of Kara’s throat, a single tear falling into the center of her palm. 

Kara’s facing her now, and Lena brings up her other hand to wipe Kara’s cheek. 

“I missed you, Lena. And I don’t know what I will do if I can’t make it to you in time, I—” 

This time, it’s Lena who pulls her close, wrapping the arm that Kara’s been focusing on around her front as she cradles Kara in her arms. “I’m sorry, darling,” she says, voice hoarse. “I’m sorry.” 

Kara then turns in her arms and they embrace one another, both hiding in each other. 

The tears stain and soak her neck, but she lets it, welcoming Kara’s weight after months of being so untethered. 

“Please, just come back to me,” Kara says into her skin, muffled words that hold so much promise. “Let me take care of you. Let me protect you,” 

Lena pulls back slightly. “You’d still—you’d still want me?” 

“Let me love you again, Lena.” 

Unable to hold her own tears back, Lena pushes forward until their lips meet. She angles her head and Kara kisses her back, the pair of them holding each other. 

There is an ache to their reunion, but there is healing, too. And Lena remembers, unbidden, Dr. Shapiro’s words. It could have been worse, she’d heard. 

But Lena wants it to be better. She deserves at least that, for all of her troubles, and if her family will aim for her and all that she loves, then she can’t hide herself in the shadows. 

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I love you.”

Tomorrow, she thinks, after the whispered declarations and the promises of more, of better, of a new day. Together. 

“I’m here. I’m here. I love you, too. I’m here.” 

[welcomingdisaster]

iwtv + messages from the 'starboard' channel in my least hinged discord server

[lena-point]

[astrid-beck]

Do you think Astrid and Caleb ever have sex in the nein sided tower memory palace macabre shadowbox recreation of their childhood trauma.

[buildoblivion]

hnnnngggg can’t wait for gwen to inevitably come crawling back to lena having reaped the rewards of her own ambition

[spacephobos]

I've got so much I want to say about Polite Society. But I refuse to post anything too spoilery yet.

So one thing I will say is the way Lena's depression and mental health is written is incredible. So often when men write women with mental health issues they write this sort of "prettily struggling" womsn in a spiral.

(this infamous queens gambit scene comes to mind)

They're never allowed to actually be ugly or gross or even not have their hair and makeup be perfect.

Like beth here is in a pretty frilly top shes reclining in an uncomfortable fashion. Her makeup looks perfect and he cardigan is prettily draped over her shoulders. She's meant to be attractive. Her sadness is almost fetishised.

but then Lena looks like this

Whereas Lena's a WRECK. It's considered an achievement she showered. AND shes proud of herself for that small acomplishment. Shes angry. She destroys her work. She's dressed in sweats and pyjamas with either no makeup (if i remember correctly) or makeup that looks like it's been on for days. There's a scene where shes wandering aimlessly and just buys a duck to eat. And she does not eat it daintily or prettily (and no its not a chicken ppl seem to be confused).

I love that she spends all the first act in hoodies and pajamas looking like shes not washed in 3 days. It's just so good to see a woman direct another woman with depression. There's so much to be said about the male gaze and how it even impacts the portrayal of women going through crisis. The removal of that lens has created what I will argue is the most authentic experience of depression in a woman I've maybe ever seen. I literally cannot think of another time I've seen that.

Anyways Nida Manzoor I love you.

[rustingcat]

Oh, Rao, she wanted Lena.

She was romantically interested in her. She had no interest kissing Winn or Sam, but she wanted to kiss Lena softly while spending lazy moments in bed with her. Rao, she wanted to touch her body in a way she had never wanted before. Her face got redder just thinking about it as her heart raced faster in her chest. What would that make her? Was she gay? Kara wasn't sure. The sudden realization was too big for her to comprehend at that moment. She felt her entire body getting hotter from the sheer proximity to Lena. The woman she was sharing a bed with. The woman she had been sharing a bed with for a while now, and would probably share a bed with for the foreseeable future.

Kara has some big realisations in this new chapter for The Art of the Game!

Read it here

[lena-artz]

Been thinking about this lately...

[lespetitesmortsde]

When Kara got sent away back to the Phantom Zone, Lena put her big, dark feelings aside, desperate to save her once-friend from the only thing she knew that scared Kara. She worked herself to the bone, subsisting on caffeine and twenty-minute catnaps she refused to admit were naps at her desk, amidst old coffee cups and scattered paperwork littered with crossed-out equations. It took longer than she'd wanted, but they'd finally succeeded. They'd finally gotten Kara back. But she's not back for Lena. Lena's heart beats easier knowing that Kara isn't lost in that hellscape anymore, but that doesn't make them friends again. It doesn't make them anything. Lena did what she had to do, and now she'd like to move on with what she calls her life.

Angst/hurt/comfort, happy ending vibes.

[welcomingdisaster]

personally i think trans!fingolfin is very funny if feanor starts perceiving him as a contender for the throne and enemy #1 the MOMENT he comes out. fingolfin like "i feel very validated in my gender identity but very invalidated in everything else, including my right to be alive,"