#warm fuzzy feelings

[wonderful-bellies]

Alright I gotta test. How many of you fellow vore likers have actively imagined/daydreamed about either being in a tum or having someone in your tum?

[igotsnothing]

💕💖 love train! send this to all the blogs you love! don’t forget to spread the love! 💖💕

Nooooo! YOU! You're too cute sending me this! Thank you for being so thoughtful and kind! Right back at you!!! ❤️😉🐹

[metal-mouse]

💌 send this to the twelve nicest people you know or who seem to have a good heart and if you get five back you must be pretty awesome 💌

😭 thank u for making my day

[queermasculine]

all the "x with mama" posts are getting to me i just drew a butch girl with her mom (who is also butch) and thought "let's look like men with mama"

[luckofthegrayajah]

Not a popular opinion on tumblr I know but I would argue character death is good for stories, actually, and often a death with long narrative consequences is much better use of a character than having them linger with no more important plot beats to hit.

Character death isn’t writers being mean to viewers or something characters don’t “deserve,” it’s an important part of narrative and plotting to give stories stakes and emotional beats. The work making you have an emotion is in fact the point, not something to avoid.

[noirandchocolate]

Several weeks ago one of my coworkers called me over into her cubicle and gave me a very unexpected gift. Her mother passed away recently, and she'd been packing stuff up at her condo to give to relatives and sell, so the home could be sold. The mother was an avid knitter and crocheter, and when my coworker came upon her stash of equipment, she told me, she "immediately thought of me as someone who might get some use out of it."

So, I have inherited a varied collection of knitting needles and crochet hooks, cable needles, sewing needles, and, best of all, now-out-of-print pattern books, mostly for blankets, because that was what this lady loved to make most. Plus, I also have a bunch of gauge swatches she made, pinned to little bits of card covered in perfect schoolteacher handwriting setting out the patterns they were made to test.

And also...

My coworker brought another bag, full of yarn and...knitted blanket squares. Her mother's last started project, before she got too sick to continue. And she asked if there was anything I could do with it.

It turned out, there are twelve completed squares, and I quickly located the pattern book they are from amid those given to me. It's a book of 60 patterns, meant to be put together however the maker wishes into blankets of 20 squares. I figured out which of the numbered patterns were already made, and selected eight more that I thought might go well with them.

So now! I am working on completing! My coworker's mother's last knitting project!

And I really am feeling very good about doing it.

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

I think the reader's response to this post is probably going to either be "That's incredibly minor" or "Holy shit YES I'M ALSO PROUD", depending on people's personal experiences with academia, but:

Today I am incredibly proud of one of my students.

In the interests of disguising identities, let's call them Ceri. Ceri is one of my third year undergrads (meaning their final year, for anyone unfamiliar with UK uni systems.) They transferred to us last year, and within two weeks I was giving them the contact info to get to Student Services and get themself screened for ADHD; they have some mental health struggles, but I clocked pretty quickly that they STRUGGLE with procrastination, and punctuality, and attending 9am lectures in particular. Naturally, as is the way of my people, it took them a further four months to remember to go to the screening. Lol. Lmao. Rofl, in fact.

But, they did it eventually! Their screening lit up like a Christmas tree at the ADHD section, and they got a free laptop and optional one week extensions and a study support worker named Claire. This has helped tremendously, and although mental health + until-then-unsupported ADHD meant their academic profile had slid sideways somewhat, with the new tools available and a couple of resits they passed the year and hit this year running.

Until, that is, the last fortnight.

Now, I take them for a Habitat Management module that has two assessments: an academic poster presentation before Christmas, and a site-specific management plan in May. Naturally this means we are at that happy point in the year for the poster presentations. I give out the briefs at the start of the year, so they've had them since October; I've also been periodically checking in with them all for weeks, to make sure they don't have any major burning questions. The poster presentation was to pick a species reintroduction project, pull the habitat feasibility study out of it, and then critique that study; Ceri chose to look at the hen harrier reintroductions proposed for the southern UK. All good.

Which brings us nicely to today! Ceri's presentation is scheduled for 2.30. At 11am-1pm, I am lecturing the first years on Biodiversity, while Ceri is learning about environmental impact assessment with a colleague I shall call Aeron. This means we are separately occupied during those same hours.

Nevertheless, Aeron messages me at about 12.

"I think Ceri needs to see you after your lecture," he writes. "They're panicking, I genuinely think they might cry. I'm worried. Are you free at 1?"

I say I am. At 1, I get lunch and sit in the common area; Ceri comes to see me. To my personal shame, imagine all of the following takes place while I stuff my face with potato.

Now: this part is going to be uncomfortably familiar to anyone who has ever tried higher education with ADHD, especially unmedicated. It certainly was for me. All I can say is, I never had the courage to take the step here that Ceri did.

"I have to confess," they said quietly, and Aeron was right, they were fighting back tears. "My mental health has been so, so bad for the last fortnight. I've left it way, way too late. I don't have anything to present."

"Nothing at all?" I asked.

"I've been researching," they said helplessly. "I found loads on the decline of the hen harrier. But it wasn't until last night that I finally found a habitat feasibility study to critique. Generally... I've been burying my head about it, and it just got later and later. I thought I should come in for Aeron's lecture, and I should at least tell you."

This part is a minor thing, right? But honestly, I remember being in the grip of that particular shame spiral. I never did manage to tell my lecturers to their faces. I just avoided. I honestly can't imagine having the courage it took them to come in and tell me this, rather than just staying home and avoiding me.

"I think..." they said hesitantly, "I know I can submit up to a week late, for a capped mark. I think I need to do that, and apply for extenuating circumstances. But then I'll have both Aeron's assignment and yours due at the same time."

Which meant they would crumble under the pressure and likely struggle to pass both; so me, being as noble and heroic as I unarguably am, stopped eating potato and said, "Let's make that plan B."

(It was good potato. I am a hero.)

So, we made plan A: I moved their timeslot to 4.30, giving them three and a half hours. The shining piece of luck in this whole thing was that this was the crunch time assignment - if it had been Aeron's, they'd have had to try and write a 3000 report in that time. But for me, all they had to write was an academic poster, and those things are light on words by design. We found them a Canva template, and then we quickly sketched out a recommended structure based on the brief: if it's habitat feasibility, look at food availability, nesting site availability, and mortality risks in the target release site. Bullet point each. Bullet point how well the study assessed each. Write a quick intro and conclusion. Take notes as you go, and present the poster itself at 4.30.

"You think I should try?" they asked doubtfully, looking like I'd just asked them to go mano-a-mano with a feral badger.

"If you run out of time, so be it," I said. "But your brain is trying to protect you from a non-existent tiger. That's why you've procrastinated - it's been horrible, and you've been shame spiralling, and your brain is trying to shield you from the negative experience; but it's the wrong type of help for this situation! So while you're sitting there working on it, hating life, every time your brain goes 'This is hopeless, I can't do it', you think right back 'Yes I can, it just sucks.' And you carry on. Good?"

"Good," they said. "I'm going to mainline coffee and hole up in the library. Enjoy your potato."

And then, of course, I had to go and watch the other students' presentations, so that was the end of me being any help at all. I spent all afternoon wondering if they were going to manage it, or if I would be getting a message at 4.25 telling me they'd failed, and would have to submit late and hope for an EC.

And Tumblrs

Tumblrs

Let me FUCKING tell you

They turned up at 4.15, fifteen minutes early, wearing a mask of grim, harrowed determination and fuelled by spite and coffee, and they pulled up that poster and started presenting and yes, okay, I'll admit their actual delivery was dramatically unpolished and yes, they forgot to include the taxanomic name for the hen harrier on the poster and yes, fine, I admit that there were more than a few awkward moments where they lost their place in their hastily scribbled notebook but LET ME FUCKING TELL YOU -

They smashed it. It was well-critiqued, it had a map, it had full citations, it had a section on the hen harrier's specific ecology and role in the ecosystem, it had notes on their specific conservation measures. They described case studies they'd read about elsewhere. They answered the questions we threw at them with competence and depth. There was analysis. All that background research they'd done came right to the fore. They were even within the time limit by 15 seconds.

You would never have known they'd produced it in three hours, from a quivering and terrified mess fighting the bodily urge to dehydrate via tear ducts. After they left, the second marker and I looked at each other and went "So that was a 2:1, right?"

I caught up with Aeron downstairs and he was beaming. Apparently Ceri had seen him on their way out, and had gone over to talk to him. Aeron said the difference between the Ceri of this morning and the Ceri of then was like two different people; in four hours, they'd gone from their voice literally breaking as they admitted the problem, ashamed and broken, to being relaxed and happy and smiling.

"I reckon I've passed," they apparently told Aeron, pleased. "Maybe even a 2:2. There's things I wish I'd had the time to do better, but I'll be happy if I passed."

They won't know until late January what they got, because we're not allowed to release marks until 20 term days after hand-in, and the Christmas holidays are about to hit. But I'm really hoping I can be there when they're released.

But mostly, I'm just... insanely proud of them. I cannot tell you how happy I am. And I know, I know, obviously this is not a practice I would want to see them do regularly, or indeed ever again, and it only worked because they were fucking lucky with the assignment format, but like... when life is just punching you in the face, and you hit a breaking point... isn't it nice? That just this once, you pull off a miracle, and it's fixed? The disaster you thought was about to ruin you is gone? To get that relief?

Anyway. Super super proud today.

[eclec-tech]

Echo and orange are two of my favorite things, so imagine the warmth this gives me! (I'm totally not mentally inserting my long-haired, brunette self into this in Omega's place. Nope. That would be weird.)

The Bad Batch hugs are everything ✨ And sometimes I just want to crosshatch until the pen falls out of my hands, I admit this. Dopamining my brain into bliss and my heart into warmth 🫠✨ Today me wasn‘t like coloring, I just felt… orange warmth 🧡 Radiating and sending this out to you all 🫶 Let me be a cuddle floof craving for hugs okay 🫠

Taglist: @eclec-tech @lonewolflupe @bixlasagna @returnofthepineapple @sunshinesdaydream @covert1ntrovert @general-ida-raven @vrycurious @dystopicjumpsuit @chaicilatte @groguandthebadbatch @justanotherdikutsimp @ladylucksrogue

[beif0ngs]

Pokémon Concierge

A close-up look at some of the Pokémon in Pokémon Concierge

[fluffy-critter]

I know we don't talk or anything, but I just wanted to say...I've known you for damn near a decade now, and I always feel graced by your presence as a mutual. You started out impressing me, and you keep doing it--just, like...your entire *you*. You're an incredibly creative, interesting, smart person, and you make neat things. So...thanks for being my friend, if that's okay to say! And, uh, if we're friends. Social media is an endless paradox of awkwardness.

You're great, Fluffs, please always know that. And thanks again for the Miri rec!

I'm never sure what to do with asks like these because I have to make a decision:

Do I answer privately and then lose it from the inbox forever?

Do I answer publicly and feel weird about displaying something that feels like it was meant to be sent in private?

Do I just hold onto it forever, unacknowledged, so I always have something very nice to see whenever I look at my inbox?

In any case I always am happy to be reminded that there are people who are positive about things and aren't afraid to say it, and it's also a great reminder that I should be more willing to tell other people how much I appreciate them.

In particular I like how much you're always sharing positive stuff and putting it on my timeline, and bringing attention to wholesome art and important environmental things.

So anyway I went with option 2 this time (after much deliberation). Thank you.

[merinsedai]

So, on a whim a few weeks back, I jotted a little message to my daughter in one of her notebooks. Then forgot about it. Last night, she found it. I saw the look of delight on her face and it delighted me as well. She wrote back to me, and I don’t mind that I’m now ‘mimy, because she nailed the correct spelling of ‘too’ and she told me it made her happy.

Tl;dr- unexpected notes of love are a joy to everyone, are they not?

[windydrawallday]

NOT OKAY TODAY / WORTHY

The comic I wanted to post was the last art of 2024, but because of a sudden power outage, it is now a hybrid that started the "past year" and finished on New Year's Day. The text is not mine! This beautiful poem belongs to the author Jarod K. Anderson, who writes about themes such as mental illness and how one can cope with the aid of nature's lessons. I found this poem on Pinterest when I was trying to distract myself from recent awful moments, and it resonated with me deeply. It reminded me how GOOD I felt when helping people I care about by listening to their doubts, when I treated them well, or when we shared ideas together etc. And it became MORE meaningful when I was the one in need of that help... and these people reached without hesitation 💝. You really get what you give! This poem reminded me my kindness is always worthy to be shared. I wished to portray it in the form of art for everyone who needed to read it too!

I hope this New Year brings more kindness to everyone 💞

Special mention to these peeps who brought me so many sweet moments, who let me be silly, who let me babble about art or vent together about adulting stuff: LUV U ALL TO THE MOON AND BACK AAA 🐾

@grinningghoulie @novalizinpeace @sildrae @ghostbulb @skullydrawsstuff @sug4r-melon @emisatea @frosty-tian @cometchasinglove @mariequitecontrary @spashahoney @nepetacataria-art @spiritshaydra @goobygnarp @ballpitbee @soothedcerberus @ninjakarkki @electricpez @akapen011 @lecanel @joonisstrange @tundra-tiger @lets-try-some-writing @myrablurple @ivycorp @confluencechimera @cerebrocentric-bullet @gelu-the-babosa-multiversal

IF I FORGOT SOMEONE SORRY! (... At which moment did this list grow? Life is made of many surprises)

[gafurtle]

I’m not sure how to phrase this exactly: but I like that Sanderson is getting to write the books he wants to write.

Like I see people complaining about the end of Mistborn Era 2 having too many crossovers, like you suddenly need to know the whole Cosmere to understand it. But that’s been Sanderson’s goal since he started writing! To have an interconnected universe of planets! I think it’s so cool that he’s gotten there finally!

Or Wind and Truth being so lore/investiture heavy. Yes, it requires a big reader investment but it’s cool that he’s been able to build such an intricate universe and magic system and now he’s getting to play with it in-narrative! That’s cool!

In conclusion: I just think it’s neat.

[alpacacare-archive]

he dont bite

[natalievoncatte]

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

Kara looked at the chunk of oily black crystal sitting in front of her and said, “No, not really, but has that ever stopped me?”

Lena frowned. Kara’s levity was strained, brittle. There was a tension between them, like the invisible pressure formed by pressing the wrong end of one magnet to another. It made Lena more than nervous, she was scared. They had both seen so much since the cyborg returned to their world, carrying a dying copy of Lena, the same woman who was now waiting in a ship full of Lena dopplegangers, watching over the unmoving form of the love of her life, weighing the decisions she had to make.

“Something is bothering you, Kara. What is it?

Kara sighed.

Lena arched her brow. “It’s not as if you’re good at keeping secrets from me, now is it?”

Kara smiled wistfully. The big secret had almost destroyed them, nearly torn them apart. It had driven Lena down a dark path but Kara had never abandoned her.

“If it was you, if the only way to save me was what they wanted to do with that empty shell, would you do it?”

The major part of Lena, the part of her that wanted to believe in her own goodness as ardently as Kara believed in it, would immediately say no. It was grotesque and wrong, no different from, say, stealing an organ. It might even be murder.

Lena couldn’t say no.

“You know what’s been on my mind since… since that night?”

Kara meant the night that Lena had a few two-finger glasses of whiskey and flat out told Kara how she felt, the night when Kara, ever the knight in shining armor, refused to take advantage of Lena’s inebriation while making her reciprocal feelings very clear. The night that Lena felt those last pangs of dead and doubt flow away and she could finally sleep, a sleep so deep and so sound it was like the first real sleep of her life, sheltered in Kara’s loving embrace.

“Tell me,” said Lena.

“That I might be immortal and you’re not. That one day you’ll be gone and I won’t, and what that will mean for me.”

Lena swallowed hard, trying not to choke up.

“I have to find a way then, I guess, because I won’t let you live on without me. I can’t leave you.”

Kara blinked a few times and Lena saw she was crying.

“I don’t want my love to be the thing that destroys you,” Kara whispered, taking Lena in her arms. “I love you so much. I love you with every cell in my body, it’s etched into every fibre of my being like the sunlight of my new home. You’re more to me the a red sunset. You’re my everything.”

Lena choked back her own tears, burying herself in Kara’s powerful embrace.

They took a moment for themselves, alone in the chamber, and stretched it out while Lena helped Kara change. She unclasped her cape and folded in her arms, surprised by the weight of the dense alien fabric, and set it aside.

She then found the hidden zippers and catches and helped Kara strip until she was bare, her sudden vulnerability making Lena’s chest clench. For all her muscles and surprising number of scars, she looked soft, almost delicate. Lena found herself touching those scars, feeling the hurts that had been so terrible that not even Kara’s invulnerability had saved her from them. The worst was the long but healed gash that ran from above her hip to just under her breasts, a gift from Reign.

Lena then helped her slip into a simple, loose white dress.

Old Lena- she had rejected taking a number and called herself that- joined them a few minutes later.

“Are we ready?” She said.

“We’re ready,” said Lena. Kara nodded in assent.

The lab was set up with three beds, each with their head aligned to the pedestal that held the sample of Harun-El that Lena had synthesized just for this. Kara would lie on one, the cyborg on another, and hopefully, the third would be occupied by a new body in a few minutes.

“I’ll start bringing her in.”

The life support for the cyborg’s body came first, and then they brought her in, using the same stasis pod that had carried Old Lena here from the Fortress of Solitude. Once they disabled the stasis field they’d have minutes.

More Lenas piled into the room, most notably 938, who stood aside to merely watch, and 1610, who could hopefully guarantee that transference was possible.

Only Lena and Old Lena worked on wiring Kara up and preparing the bed for the cyborg.

Neither of them had spoken of it, but somehow they had mutually agreed that they didn’t fully trust 938 or the others that came with her.

It was time. Lena rushed to help Old Lena move the broken body of the cyborg, with Diana stepping in for the literal heavy lifting. Lena could feel her brow burning with sweat as they worked.

Finally, they were wired up and that extra bed was waiting.

“It’s time,” said Lena.

Old Lena nodded and threw the switch.

Power and alien radiation cascaded through the dark crystal and Kara arched on the bed, the cyborg matching her movements with mechanical whirring sounds and the grinding of damaged joints.

“Kara?” Lena said. “Are you alright?”

Kara answered her by screaming. Her entire body arched, heels and shoulders lifting her up, and she screamed a wordless cry of agony as the her skin paled and black veins thickened down her limbs, swelled under the skin of her face.

“Oh God,” said Old Lena. “We can’t do this! Shut it off!”

“NO!” Kara shrieked, “I can take it! I can take it!”

“Look,” 938 said, “Look!”

Something was happening on the third bed. A circulatory system was weaving itself through the air, black veins sliding through invisible flesh. Astonished, Lena watched a brain grow itself from thin air as a brilliant purple energy formed an aura around it. A skeletal structure soon followed.

1610 made strange gestures and her hands took on a strange glow as she concentrated on something Lena couldn’t see.

Kara was grinding her teeth. “I can feel her, I can hear her thoughts, it’s like when I touched Red Daughter.

A full on nude Kara lay on the third bed now. Her chest slowly began to rise and fall and her eyes twitched beneath their lids, as if she were breathing. Her mouth formed silent words.

The cyborg went totally limp, whatever left of the will and energy that kept her alive fading as her head tilted to one side and her form went slack, her remaining eye gone glassy and lifeless.

Finally, Old Lena broke the circuit and the machine powered down. The room was utterly silent except for Kara’s soft, pained whimpers and the steady breathing of an immaculate copy of her lying on the bed. Old Lena rushed to cover her, sweeping a blanket over her to her chin.

Kara slowly rolled off the bed, leaning on Lena. Alex and Diana rushed in, crowding in to support her.

“I’m alright, I’m alright,” she panted. “I’m okay, it just stung like hell.”

Lena felt a wave of relief followed by a sudden terror. What if it hadn’t worked? What if there was simply an empty shell lying there on the bed and the cyborg, after everything she’d experienced, after all that suffering as she combed the multiverse for her love, as just… gone? Over? Nothing left but a few chunks held together by old wires and broken bumps?

“I want everyone else out,” Lena said. “Kara stays. Everyone else goes.”

“You heard her,” Alex piped up.

It was Diana that herded them all out. 938 was the last to go, tears hot on her cheeks.

The clone was not moving, just breathing.

“Please,” Old Lena murmured between sobs. “Please don’t leave. Not when we’re so close. I can’t do this aga-“

She went silent, then looked up.

“She squeezed my hand.”

Slowly, the clone’s eyes fluttered open.

“Where am I? Lena?”

“I’m here, baby.”

Kara grabbed Lena’s hand and their eyes briefly met.

“I couldn’t see,” the clone whispered. “I was falling, falling, I could hear you but you were always slipping away but now… great Rao, I can feel. I can feel.”

Slowly, she opened her eyes. The pair looked at one another and Old Lena pulled her into an embrace, the clone lunging into her arms. Moments later they were kissing each other relentlessly.

“Let’s give them some space,” said Lena.

Neither seemed to hear them, or even recall that they were there. As they hurried out of the room, Old Lena was pressing the clone back onto the bed.

Lena stepped out into the warm air of a Themysciran hotel evening and took a deep breath, the sweetness filling her lungs.

“I feel like someone dropped a prison asteroid on me,” Kara said, wryly.

“You smell like burnt rubber, too,” said Alex. “You need a bath.”

938 stormed up to them. “Did it work? Did it work? Did it bring her back?”

“Yes,” said Lena. “It worked.”

938 looked frantic, almost manic. “Do you think you could do it again?”

Lena felt a pang of unease.

“It’s too much strain on Kara. I won’t let her risk it.”

938 swallowed hard. “Give me the formula. Or just a sample. Anything. Please.”

Lena looked at Kara.

938 grabbed her shoulders. “We could save so many Karas with this. We could help them. So many that wouldn’t need to die.”

“The Harun-El is dangerous,” said Lena. “It has almost magical powers. Honestly, after I saw you and your group being so nonchalant about mindwiping a Kara variant, I’m not sure I can trust you with it.”

938’s face fell.

“You don’t understand,” she pleaded. “I can’t watch any more of them die. Every time it happens it’s like I’m watching my Kara fall all over again. I need to help them. Please.”

The doors opened behind Lena and she turned. The clone, once the cyborg, strode out of the temple in bare feet and a plain white gown, her Lena walking proudly beside her.

Old Lena looked down from the apex of the marble steps.

“I’m older than most of you,” she said, her voice carrying over them all. “I’ve seen things you wouldn’t believe. I escaped the Phantom Zone myself and tumbled through more worlds than I can count, looking for my Zhao, trying to find her before she suffered the consequences of my actions. The woman I loved was a rotting corpse kept alive by science created to kill her, because I couldn’t let her go.”

938 scowled, her voice strained. “It’s not fair for you to lecture us. You got yours back. You got yours back. I’ll never see mine again, except I do, every time I close my fucking eyes I see her falling and falling and it’s my fault! I killed her! I KILLED HER!”

938 sagged to her knees, burying her face in her hands.

“If I’d just jumped after her instead of using her webs… if I hadn’t been so focused on beating my brother… I lost everything.”

Diana, who had been silent the entire time, walked over and towered above 938.

“Lena,” she said. “Look at me.”

She looked up.

“It’s not your fault.”

“But I didn’t catch her.”

“Did you throw her off the bridge?”

“No, but it was my fault she was there, any way you slice it. He killed her to hurt me.”

Diana knelt.

“You are not responsible for her death.”

“You don’t understand,” 938 said. “With great power must also come great responsibility.”

Resting a meaty hand on her shoulder, Diana said, “Perhaps, but you are not a god. You are not responsible for everything.”

Old Lena and her Kara strode down the temple steps and joined Lena and Kara.

“Fine,” 938 finally said. “I can’t make you give it to me and I’m not going to fight any of you. We’ll go, but take this.”

She offered Lena a small device, a copy of the one she wore on her wrist. Lena tentatively took it.

“You can use that to call us if you need us.”

Without another word, she turned and fell in with the others, boarding their ship. When she reached the top of the ramp, she stopped and took a long look at both Karas before disappearing inside.

The ship lifted silently into the air and then winked out of existence with a blast of air rushing in to fill the vacuum.

“We should start looking for a way home, as well,” said Old Lena.

Lena turned to her.

“Don’t.”

Old Lena looked her in the eye.

“Don’t do that to yourselves,” said Lena. She turned to the clone. “Especially you. Whatever debt you think you owe, Kara, whatever guilt you have from being the last survivor of your home world, you’ve paid it. You’ve suffered so much, and your kindness has meant so much to me. Stay here.”

“This world already has a Supergirl.”

“Exactly,” said Kara. “That’s why you should stay. I can handle the cape stuff. You can just rest.”

“You can remain here,” said Diana, rising to join them. “Remain here on this island, beyond the reach of man’s world.”

Old Lena and the clone looked at each other.

“I want to stay,” said Old Lena.

“That’s all I needed to hear,” said the clone. “I just… if you really need me, you’ll call, right? You’ll ask me for help.”

Lena looked at her Kara, then at old Lena.

“No. I don’t think we will.”

“Even the mightiest warrior dreams of laying down sword and spear,” said Diana. “Rest.”

“Yes, Kara rest. We’ll be taking your new body for a test drive soon enough.”

The clone blushed beet red. “Ah. Yes. I see. May I speak with Lena? Alone?”

“Come on, Kara,” said Alex. “Give them some space.”

The others left. Lena was alone with the clone, the cyborg, whatever she was now, the breeze tugging gently at their clothes.

“Am I really her?” said the clone.

“What?” said Lena.

“I can’t help but wonder. I remember Lex running me through with the harpoon. I remember fading out, then waking up with the machinery in my body and a sobbing Lena greeting me full of grief and joy. Then it happened again. How many times can I be remade before I’m not me anymore? What if-“

“Kara,” Lena interrupted. “Do you feel the breeze on your skin? Is that real? Is your love for her real?”

“Yes.”

“Then so are you. We’re on Paradise Island and the love of your life is waiting for you. Go get her.”

The clone smiled. “I’m going to. You go get yours.”

“I will,” said Lena.

She did.

[childrenofcain-if]

(C, please come home, the kids miss you 😔)

When did C first fell for MC? Was it love at first sight? I'm very curious bc so far I'm getting the picture that the competitiveness is the reason why they fell in love with MC

you’re not completely wrong, dear bonnie. i have the flashback planned out for that in the romanced C route.

long story short: it was love at first verbal assault 🫶🏻