honestly for all 13 years on krypton, kara did not have powers. For clark, his powers are what makes him kryptonian and as we see with myriad, clark thinks of himself as human but with abilities–and when he solar flares he thinks “i’m human for a day.” If he lost his powers permanently, he would think I am now human.
For Kara, her sense of Kryptonian identity does not hinge on the fact that she has special abilities, because for the first half of her life she did not. And would explain why she never feels normal–not only is she on a new planet, an entirely new culture and language and history and religion that she is expected to assimilate to, and thus is not normal for any human–her abilities would make her an anomaly among Kryptonians as well.
Kara is always Kryptonian–this is not about what she can do but who she is, her language and culture and history and beliefs, the way she looks at a problem–like that idea that no one was their own man on Krypton, how she doesn’t want to be the same kind of superhero as her cousin but wants to be an el mayarah superhero–a kryptonian superhero, not the lone solitary human savior that clark likes portray himself as (and the Christian savior that a lot of writers like to portray Clark as but @ them they are frickin space jewish go do research stop doing the whole Christian savior thing bc n o p e but i digress)
When Kara loses her powers she is not “human for a day” but powerless, still Kryptonian, the only one in her life not to be taken over by Myriad’s control without outside intervention. And the fact that so many people forget this– the writers of both season 2 AND fic–and it’s too many
Clark’s secret is that he is Superman, that he is powers–Kara’s secret is not that she has powers, but that she is not human–and considering that James and Winn almost always forget this, forget that she is a survivor of her entire world dying and forget that she has so much anger and grief inside of her, that if she forgets herself just a little she could accidentally break their bones, that she isn’t just “Sunny Danvers,” a constant smile affixed to her face?
(except alex-alex, who saw that transformation, that struggle, that act that kara constantly puts out there, for every nightmare, for years of grief–because when Alex was looking at Kara, after everyone else found out about all of the pain lingering underneath the sunny surface, looking at her after red kryptonite and sporting a broken arm and looking at kara sobbing on the table back at the DEO once it was all over–Alex looked at Kara with sadness and love and understanding but she did not look at her with surprise. She’s known for years that this has existed, the struggle Kara has gone through not to succumb to this, to keep her head above the water and become someone she can look at in the mirror. She knows that this is not who Kara chooses to be but that she could be? Yeah, everyone else (except J’onn, the only other one who can relate) was surprised. Alex wasn’t)
It means that Kara is just as successful as Clark is at hiding.
This is the secret that Kara would share, with Maggie or Cat or Lena–because sure it’s obvious to anyone who has spent a good amount of time with both Kara and Supergirl that they’re the same–same scar between the eyes, same exact gold earrings, same hair color, same height, same bright blue eyes.
Kara’s secret is her grief.
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