#this is mostly copy-pasted from a convo i had with kal

[drfitzmonster]

Do you have any headcanons about butch!kara and packing and (more specifically) her relationship with gender

yes i absolutely do, and this is something that is still coalescing in my mind, bc packing and gender stuff is not something i thought about a lot until sort of recently, so it’s still in development i guess

ok so here are just my initial thoughts: kara is sort of in the process of coming into herself and coming to terms with her gender and how she actually desires to express that

i think that the things she's done before to feel more whole and complete have been littler things, or things that are more socially acceptable

like cut her hair short, wearing more masculine style clothes, those are simpler

packing is something that seems different though, and i think she sort of discovers it accidentally, because she allows herself to wear a dick for sex with lena, and she's able to rationalize it bc she's wearing it for someone else's gratification and not so much her own

kara's such a giver that of course she'd have no problem putting on a strap to make lena feel good, but she'd literally never even consider doing it just for herself, but then she gets accidental feelings about it, and that creates a lot of turmoil for her

so she's in denial and wrestling with that, and like how her whole life she's been taught to live for other people, and so it feels selfish to want something just for herself

so i think she gets really sad about it. she strikes me as a person who is used to carrying tremendous burdens bc she feels like that is her purpose (and what good is she if she's not doing for other people), and so this is just another thing she's meant to carry, even though it's like killing her inside

sacrifice is such an intrinsic part of her character, and having an identity built around loss and grief and sacrifice is so damaging to the psyche

she fully intends to just feel incomplete forever, because she feels like she's not allowed to live for herself, but also because she's just scared and doesn't want to lose lena

she’s terrified that lena won’t accept this part of her

and kara is so scared of losing her because lena is the only thing she’s ever felt even a little bit selfish about, it’s the only thing she allows herself 

so losing lena would be losing everything

this breaks kara’s heart, but she wants to protect lena from her sadness and so she tries to hide it, but lena is not someone she's ever been able to hide from

kara is willing to mold herself into whatever shape lena wants, but lena just wants her to be her true self

lena sees kara, and lena helps her see herself for who she really is, and helps her embrace the parts of herself that she's afraid to show anyone