#this got sad fast

[autisticlenaluthor]

Music

'When all you wanted was to be wanted, wish you could go back and tell yourself what you know now'

-

Kara arrives fifteen minutes early. 

She gets dropped off in front of the school by Eliza, and promises her she’ll be okay on her own. Once she’s alone, she crosses the quad by herself.

Earbud strings dangle across Kara’s body as she walks, head down, focused on the leaves and how they crunch beneath her boots. Taylor Swift’s Fearless echos through the tiny speakers and Kara can’t help but drum her fingers against her thigh to the beat.

The air is salty and damp with the smell of fallen leaves. It feels almost like she’s stepped into a painting, with the castle-like brick building in the foreground. It’s surrounded by trimmed hedges and trees with orange branches. Alex has always said private school kids are a different breed. But god, is their world fascinating. 

She finds the meeting spot with relative ease. It’s a round concrete picnic table just off the main path, near the massive lion statue Lena described in her email. Kara sits and plops her backpack beside her, quieting the music on her iPod so she can focus as she takes out her pens and spiral notebook. 

It’s supposed to be a simple project.

Sophomores from Metropolis Tech work with sophomores from the all-girls private school, Spence to clean up parks in the city. The whole thing is worth five extra credit points on her Earth Science final. Five extra credit points Kara desperately needs- because what kind of cruel joke is it to put an alien in Earth Science when they’ve only been on the planet for a year? 

She gets her stuff organized and looks up, freezing when she sees the girl she’s been paired up with standing across the table. For someone with super hearing– spatial awareness does not seem to be a skill Kara possesses. 

“You’re– are you Lena?” She stammers. 

The girl nods. She has raven hair and pale skin like the vampires in the movies Alex forces her to watch. For a second, Kara selfishly wonders if she might be an alien too. She just looks so unlike the other people Kara knows. But Eliza says it’s rude to make assumptions, so Kara quickly tries to suppress those thoughts. Lena would likely perceive being asked about her home planet as a targeted insult. 

“I’m Kara, it’s nice to meet you,” Kara says after a moment. “I like your outfit– you look so professional!”

Lenas brow furrows as she looks down at herself. She’s wearing a grey sweater vest with a blue crest over a white button-down and blue plaid skirt. 

“It’s a uniform,” she says. “We all wear this.” 

“Oh.” 

Kara scans the campus- for the first time noticing all the girls in identical get-ups, all paired with knee-socks and Mary Jane shoes. A few of them wear dresses instead of skirts, one or two with school-branded sweatpants beneath them. Where had they all been five minutes ago, before she’d made a complete fool of herself? 

“So… I was thinking we could go to Glacier Park,” Lena says, breaking the silence. “Most girls go to Central because it’s bigger. But Central is a tourist trap– Glacier Park hardly gets the same environmental attention.” 

She’s quiet, keeping her eyes fixated on her hands as she speaks. But even so, she seems so sure of herself. 

Maybe it’s a private school thing, Kara thinks. The students here are so smart, they don’t need to follow the social rules everyone else seems to abide by. 

“Unless you were thinking something different?” 

“Uh… I guess I hadn’t really thought about it,” Kara admits with a nervous laugh. “My classes and everything have been kinda crazy.” 

Lena nods but doesn’t respond. Kara can’t tell if she’s judging her or if she just doesn’t have anything to say. 

“You know… midterms week. Can you believe they do this every year?” 

She isn’t sure why she keeps talking. In the emails they’ve sent, Lena only ever mentions the project. She doesn’t seem to be the chatty type– the type to care that Kara’s had four exams this week alone and that that’s why she can’t bring herself to be as invested in this whole thing as she should be.

It’s just that Lena is right there and maybe the reason she reminds Kara of aliens is that she may just be the prettiest girl she’s ever met– on Krypton or on Earth. And sure she isn’t talkative but that doesn’t mean Kara can help it either. 

“Yeah,” Lena says, expression blank. 

For a second, Kara freezes. She isn’t sure what she’s supposed to do with that. 

“We um, we should start on the report too,” Lena restarts, as if nothing happened at all. “I brought some articles on pollution levels in the city. I thought it might be easier to get the reading portion out of the way today, so we can focus on the actual cleanup later.”  

“Oh… okay, yeah, that sounds good.” 

\\\\\

They go with Lena’s suggestion and meet at the entrance of Glacier Park.  

Kara gives it her best attempt to look nice for her. Alex says it’s silly– they’re going to be cleaning up garbage all day, so why does she need to look good? But Kara can’t help it.

Lena is clean and elegant and weirdly perfect. And for whatever reason, she seems to know so much more than Kara does. There’s a gap between them and even though they’re strangers, even though they don’t have to be friends (Kara isn’t even sure if she wants to be friends) Kara hates it. She hates how isolating it feels. 

So she does her hair in two braids, and puts on her favorite jeans with the black long-sleeved v-neck that reminds her of Rory Gilmore. It isn’t much but it feels good– feels like she’ll surpass whatever expectation Lena has of her. 

When Kara finds the entrance, Lena is already there waiting for her. She’s standing under the big iron archway, carrying her backpack and the trash grabbers she’s borrowed from the school. 

Kara smiles and waves over at her. 

“Hey!” 

Lena gives a slight smile in return and nods in acknowledgment. 

“You look nice,” she says. She hands a trash pick to Kara who mentally pumps her fist and kicks a leg with excitement. 

“Thank you.” Kara smiles. “So do you.” 

Everything after that feels easy.

They pick up trash in relative silence. Lena stays in the grassy section while Kara cleans the pathway. It’s quiet and simple until it isn’t. 

“Lena Luthor?”

Lena lifts her head and Kara drops the trash bag she’s been holding. Standing a few feet away are two girls around their age. One wears a Spence School Phys ED t-shirt. Lena must know them, Kara figures. 

“How nice of you to help your brother with his community service,” says the one not wearing the Spence shirt. She has a high ponytail and blue Converse sneakers. She reminds Kara of the girls in Bring it On.

“But I don’t think it’s gonna make a real difference, didn’t he get like… what, twenty-five years?” she adds. Her friend– Spence shirt, laughs. 

A crinkle forms between Kara’s eyes and she waits for Lena to react. She’s seen fights like this go down at her own school– groups of bullies ganging up on lower-classmen in the girl’s bathroom or staircase. They always seem to have the upper hand until they push too far. 

But Lena doesn’t do anything. Her face doesn’t change. She just looks straight past them, the same way she does when she speaks to Kara, and says nothing. 

“Hey, be careful with her,” Spence shirt jokes. “She might snap like he did.”

Lena looks down. Her face is red. She grips her trash pick so tight her palms grow sweaty and knuckles turn white, but still, she’s silent. 

So Kara says something. 

She can’t help it– she knows she shouldn’t. But the words slip out, and before she knows it, she’s asking-

“What are you talking about?”

Converse sneakers looks at her like she’s crazy. 

“Lex Luthor,” she says, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Ya know– that psycho who’s obsessed with Superman and killed all those people?” 

Kara nods.

“That’s her brother.” 

Kara swallows. 

It feels like being punched in the gut– knocks the wind right out of her. 

And suddenly, she’s back in the living room, watching the TV with the volume off at three in the morning because she couldn’t miss the live reports on her cousin’s condition. Because she needed to know if he was dead or alive. Because she couldn’t cope with losing one more person, and if he died, that meant she had to go to. 

She’s in her closet the night after the attack after hearing a crash in the backyard. It’s raining out. Pouring, thunderous flurries. Eliza said the noise was just branches hitting the window in the storm. But Kara couldn’t believe her. She couldn’t get his face out of her head, trailing the worry that now, he was after her too. 

By the time she finds herself back in reality, the girls are gone and Lena is still looking at her shoes. 

“You can go home,” she says through a forced, wavering smile. “I’ll finish cleaning and write the report. You’ll still get the extra credit.”

This time, it’s Kara’s turn to go quiet. 

This stranger, this girl who she found so pretty and alluring, who she dressed up for, who she emailed with for weeks, is the sister of the very person who wants all of her kind dead. Maybe they don’t have a friendship, but to be acquaintances is still too much. To know her at all is to feel every ounce of hurt and damage her family has inflicted. 

Kara isn’t aware of how tight her jaw has been clenched until she starts to taste blood spouting from the sides of her cheeks. 

She isn't going to put up with this. She isn't going to be around her.

So she does as Lena says-- drops her trash bag, and walks away.

[heunmoor]

𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐜𝐥𝐚𝐰𝐞𝐝 𝐚𝐭 𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐫𝐢𝐛𝐬 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐚 𝐟𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐚𝐫 𝐨𝐧𝐞 , an old lover coming to reacquaint itself with veined roots and lining of lungs . monstrous was this creature , devouring and gnawing for more despite there being nothing left in its wake . jealousy had him nibbling at nail beds , FIDGETING AND SEARCHING OUT DISTRACTION IN ONE OF HIS MANY BOUND TOMES .

@wolfkiler INQUIRED: ❝  i belong to you.  only ever you.  ❞

time had rushed forward with a flutter of an eyelash , but at this moment it felt as if it had turned outwards and centered in on a time in the past he'd rather forgo . " you've never been only mine , les --- YOU AREN'T THAT KIND OF MAN AND WE ..... we aren't married any longer , so it's fine . " falsehoods spewed off his brims , emerald hues locked upon a sherlock holmes novel . 𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚜𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚠𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝚋𝚎 𝚕𝚎𝚜𝚜 𝚍𝚊𝚞𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚒𝚏 𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚖𝚒𝚗𝚍 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚎𝚕𝚜𝚎𝚠𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎 . perhaps .

[methoughtsphantom]

halfas are the found family trope foster child

they all adopt each other. it’s the reason Vlad wanted so badly to have Danny as his son and the reason Danny immediately went with sure you’re my cousin now with Dani. it’s a survival mechanism from being so very few of their species. Sooo, halfa!Jason except he sorta isn’t yet cause Jason’s core is extremely ruptured from the lack of ectoplasm involved in his forceful resurrection. So when Danny finds Jason in his catatonic state he can’t quite tell the dude’s been dead and remains some, just that the guy for some reason seems very friend-shaped. Danny doesn’t mind his friend is braindead, and is also a john doe, he gives familiar vibes and that’s apparently enough for Danny to constantly find himself in the hospital doing his engineering homework on the room with the guy, and talking for hours about the updates on the absolute clusterfuck of the city and how he was from a freaking ghost town and he can almost even draw comparisons. he blabbers about how he’s not homesick enough times to even corner himself to talk about a ghost lore many times and how he’s just finding himself a little more prone to violence and in constant pain since none of the people he has adopted as his family are here with him and he can’t consider a place a lair if there’s isn’t someone of his in it.

But Danny could never drag someone with him just because of some it, after all it was Danny’s choice to come to Gotham to collage and not stay where at least his parents (good parents Jack and Maddie) were in Amity.

Ironically, Danny essentially can’t feel that his core has been spoon feeding ectoplasm to Jason. As months go on, the little ball of energy builds in anticipation practically vibrating in the waiting pulse of something (Danny doesn’t know but more often than not has he found himself laughing in happy confusion. it weirds him out in a good way) It’s really that he’s feeling the slow healing process of his friend (brother brother brother) ‘s core.Imagine it’s just about to properly, correctly heal when canon strikes back and Jason gets snatched by League assassins. Danny is left feeling like his core got torned out. His core had spend months helping another’s only to feel the other’s imprint and to not be able to protect it in return is— forget it being an obsession; thats like having your newborn baby being ripped out of your arms. An all assuaging feeling of helplessness that is devastating. Danny just beginning to feel like home lair when out of nowhere the rug is swept under him. Danny suddenly struggling to not flunk all his classes and beat every single liminal that he can feel crossing paths with him to the ground. Danny suddenly having his chronic pain (that hadn’t been so bad lately) dialed up to the point that there are just bearable and bad days.

The worse thing is he doesn’t know why.

Jason had only been a guy.

…

It’s only a three weeks before Jazz tells him she accepted a job offer in Gotham.

(and the guilt only makes him feel worse when he can feel himself feel better because of it)

…

now

whimsical time skip ✨

Danny is now on his feet again and friends with a Wayne of your choice (or maybe they were friends a little before Jay dissapeared and it was badTM cause Waynes? liminal 🥲) Danny definitely didn’t enjoy snapping off to his friend like that. anyways it’s been a year since that and he and his friend are having a grand time playing civvies, uhh let’s say dick because I want them to meet while ice skating, Also Dick because he definitely turns a blind eye when Danny goes airborne for a second there yep. He’s just having too much fun.

anyways as alwaysTM Danny doesn’t clock celebrities and like why would he, Dick is just the random guy who’s was fast to turn Danny’s slow day in the ice ring into a competition one day and brighten when Danny matched up his puns. So he totally doesn’t get why the guy’s so gloomy one day, anyways as you can figure, it’s Jason’s deathday and Dick is a deprecating bean, Danny tries to cheer him up by having him remember his brother instead and Dick attempts to, but even skipping through some photos in his phone make his eyes burn.

It is because of that that he doesn’t notice Danny absolutely freeze up at the photo of his friend Jay (Jay because he’s a John Doe, but that’s just too impersonal and so the first letter is J *wink wink*)

Danny absolutely doesn’t know what to do with this information, barely catches himself from asking Dick how did his brother die. Most importantly when because Danny just saw Jay—Jason less than a year ago, and this somehow doesn’t feel too recent.

Annd that how we find Danny digging into the Wayne second son tragedy. Staring at the date of death while the knowledge that they met almost six months after burns his forefront of his mind. Danny spends a day going over all the questions running through his mind over how the fuck he couldn’t sense Jay was a ghost—err was… in past tense?? what the fuck?? Danny would really like a refund on his ghost sense.

Anyways Danny goes check out the grave (now that he knows there is one) and boom although intangible he somehow triggers those shitty ass sensors/alarms that somehow didn’t go off when jason was literally digging himself out.

Obviously the bats get in the case immediately. And boy are they absolutely enraged that someone would steal Jason’s body.

[myokk]

dad sebastian🥺

[bluebird-ascended]

good old days

[rouzys]

i was young — godlight, noah kahan

dave sandford / dave sandford / andy devlin / dave sandford / bill smith / andy devlin / bill wippert

[sea-jello]

hong kong miku,,,

[cajunfoxnight]

Did Lillie and Reconstruct ever meet again?

The things we do to protect the ones we love 💔

[doomedclockworkdotmp3]

his therapist woulda had a field day at their next appointment

[hana-bobo-finch]

the way that when you return to upper snakemouth and check the spy dialogue, leif is not so subtly BEGGING to leave but vi and kabbu are like “gimme a second, we’ll be done soon, just gotta make sure we didn’t miss anything 🥰”

[couch-collector]

Ai-ppreciation post for this submersed bean

[witchofthesouls]

Lately all I can think of is TFP Optimus being demon bait. Amongst every iteration that I seen with the Matrix, he feels more like a placeholder involving the relic than an actual Champion for Primus. Plus TFP is the only one who doesn't retain any knowledge about his past as Orion Pax.

Placeholders are easier to tempt than champions since they aren't fully protected or warned of the danger. The Matrix of Leadership practically rats him out to anything supernatural when you consider it acts more like a vessel unlike other relics. Optimus is gonna have a mixed time should a demon hone in on him.

I get what you're saying. All the strange and, let's face it, very sus Artifacts are painting a very wild picture.

Personally, while I do believe TFP Optimus is a legitimate Prime, he isn't a fully realized one. It gets weirder with the Canon lore in the Aligned verse that the Matrix was housed with Prima's Star Saber and that Optimus is supposed to be the reincarnation of the mysterious Thirteen. Plus, Metroplex from the games vouched his status as a Prime: "Metroplex heeds the call of the last Prime." (Fall of Cybertron game)

I wonder how come the writers didn't go with the Primal Artifacts being semi-sentient? It would really make sense with the mythos and immense powers, especially since those tools can be only wielded by a Prime. So the building blocks were there. Or, have the ghost of Prima within the Matrix that's controlling new ordained champions, and it's intefering with Thirteen's connections? The Matrix has an established history of reformatting new bearers, so is it a big surprise that they're turned into Prima's thoughts of a prefect guardian? Prima has different Aspects and Domains compared to his youngest brother.

The themes of identity and self-determination are there. I think he internally struggled with it. Is he Orion Pax of Alpha Trion? Optimus Prime of Prima? Are they one and the same mask? Does he remember the Wilds in his dreams? Did he have hopes and plans for reconstruction? At night, does he recounts all the steps that brought him to that point?

But yeah, TFP!Optimus would be a succulent prize for a supernatural entity. The Matrix is both a beacon and lighthouse. To see a mortal God-King or a divine champion drowning in uncertainty would turn the very dangerous or very desperate towards him because a contract could be established.

Weirdly enough, out of all the Autobots, I think Optimus would have the easiest time navigating any potential entities. Orion Pax lived and breathed in doublespeak as an archivist directly sponsored by Alpha Trion himself. He knows the intricate dance to steer between treacherous allies and hostile enemies and how to be very leery of certain agreements. Orion was stuck between impossible contradictions of his status.

Ratchet has had certain privileges afforded by his function and frame. He's comfortable taking over things and saying his piece, especially among the current team. He also has a poor opinion of non-Cybertronian anything. He would either be killed for insolence and disrespect or be ensnared in a dream that gives him his deepest wishes. Arcee, depending on your viewpoint, is either lucky or unlucky, especially since she survives all her partnerships. Even Jack Darby, no matter how careful, has a human lifespan, which is seafoam to a Cybertronian. Something would latch onto her anger and grief. Bulkhead can be a very considerate soul. Some being would be charmed by the mech. Bumblebee is kind, and Smokescreen can be impulsive and so very clever. Traits that are endearing to many entities in old tales.

Optimus would have his hands full should something start sniffing around the base.

[oliviridian]

Being a transfemme in a public facing role today meant getting to advocate for another trans woman in a job interview and receiving a random complement from a second different trans woman. Tonight, my friend who can't get hormones is gonna drop by so I can give her a shot of mine. I love the feeling of community we have in real life.

[schnaf]

day 23 aka THE COUNTDOWN IS OVER - jungsu's past birthday brrrr ppoppos

[deathflare]

2024 rocks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[ellies-enrichment]

since joel & ellie can't have future days, i've found them a more emotional song to sing together in season 2 🖤🖤