Kadena Got Their Happy Ending and My Heart is Full

The series finale of The Bold Type aired last Wednesday, June 30 of 2021, on Freeform. It was the last point of a rollercoaster ride that started in 2016 and gave us what was, in my opinion, the best wlw poc ship in the history of TV but that during five seasons also disappointed and enraged us because of some of the choices the network or writers made. Kadena was great, but it could had been even greater if they were given the care and attention they deserved.

After so long, after so many things that happened, so many times where the ship and both Kat and Adena as individual characters weren’t treated with the respect they deserved, the finale had only one last lowest possible bar we hoped they passed but weren’t sure if they would: To give them a happy ending. They did. It was like 20 seconds and at the last minute, but they did. And today I’m here to celebrate the good. We’ve talked enough about the bad before, and as a goodbye I want to remember the happiness this show and ship gave me since 2016.

My Goodbye To The Bold Type

It is no secret that the for last few years The Bold Type has been an important part of my life. I’ve enjoyed the show as a whole, but Adena El Amin, Kat Edison and their relationship is what really captured me. Them, the way they represented parts of me I had never had a chance to see represented, and the small community that formed around them have been a cornerstone of my life for 4 years now.

It’s also no secret that over the last few seasons the show has brought me more disappointments that happiness. I’ve stuck around, trying to enjoy the few good moments, and hoping they would eventually do better. But you can only give a show, or anything, so many chances before you give up.

Fan Video: Adena ft. Circumstance

This video is a take on the Adena is a grown-up version of Atafeh from the movie Circumstance theory the Kadena fandom created back in Season 1.

Song: LSD – Thunderclouds (Official Video) ft. Sia, Diplo, Labrinth

Fan Fiction: No Looking Back

Adena wasn’t surprised when she heard the news. Only at the fact she didn’t hear them from Kat. They expected it. It was why Kat did it on her own, to protect Adena. They knew being fired, at minimum, was the most likely consequence of exposing RJ’s tax returns, and with them his homophobia and hypocrisy. 

No, Adena wasn’t surprised. Even if she thought it was unfair and it angered her that even if they had gotten a slice of justice, the world still protected those on top by creating consequences for those who dared to expose them. Kat was strong enough to risk it all, but Adena knew not everybody could afford to. And she wondered, not for the first time, if she had made the right decision by taking the job at Scarlet. 

Fan Fiction: Walking Together

Kat never thought she was the marrying type. Hell, she didn’t even think she was the relationship type. Her only relationships had been with Adena, and the first time she was barely able to make it last 3 months. This, the second time around. Was better. Way better.

It was a miracle they had managed to patch things up eventually. But they did. It wasn’t easy. But they did. Mostly Kat eventually grew up, realized no matter how much she told everyone and herself that she only wanted chill, no strings attached relationships, the truth was she was only afraid of the work necessary to make things work, of the vulnerability.

Most of all she was afraid of admitting she had messed up with Adena, not once, but several times. She was afraid of trying and failing again. But even then, after years of being together again, of reaching milestones together. Of building back their love brick by brick on a stronger foundation and reinforcing it every day until the ghosts of their doubts, of their past mistakes, disappeared completely. They never talked about marriage.

Fan Fiction: The Time Lost

Inspired by a prompt asking for a “Kadena fix about Kat with braids.”

It’s impossible to prepare for that one instant when you see the woman who broke your heart and got hers broken by you, for the first time. You can imagine it, visualize it a hundred times. But it will never be enough to stop your heart from skipping a beat when it happens in real life.

Adena knows this because for months she thought about all the things she would do, the things she would say when she finally saw Kat again. It was never a question in her mind that they would eventually find each other again. Not even when she sat on her balcony enjoying the orange sunsets of Morocco, not when she sipped a black coffee walking down the streets of Paris, not when miles and miles of land, ocean, and heartbreak separated them, did Adena doubt that they would meet again. 

She had spent hours debating how to approach Kat, how to apologize, how to let her know her life and heart were open for them to be joined in life again. During weeks, before she went to sleep, lying in bed staring up at a ceiling in a random hotel bed or an apartment lent to her by a friend, Adena would visualize brown eyes looking back at her.

Sometimes there was anger looking back, others confusion. A couple lucky times, she still saw love. Adena could only hope whatever she found when their paths crossed again was anything but indifference. That’s the one thing she knew, she wasn’t ready to deal with.  

But like most things in life, their meeting wasn’t planned, and nothing of what Adena imagined was close to real life. A random encounter at Scarlet´s lobby, while she was completely unprepared, seemed fitting. Just like Kat had entered her life unexpectedly and taken it by storm the first time; it was only logical for their reencounter to be nothing but chaos.

The invisible force pushing them together, and then apart, whatever it was, a God, karma, luck, love, seemed to have too much fun making them react on instinct and without preparation.  

The rehearsed speeches left Adena’s mind upon one look at Kat; and in their place, she could only find raw emotion. Feelings twirling inside her chest, breaths caught at the mesmerizing beauty and presence of Kat. Adena swore to herself at that moment, that Kat only had gotten hotter every day since she last saw her. And the first thing that stuck out was the hair. The words left her lips before she could order her brain to stop. 

“Your hair…I love it.”

It was silly but seeing Kat with braids reminded Adena of all the things she had missed. It hadn’t been that long. Just a couple of months. But now, when she looked at the woman standing in front of her she could see those months had changed Kat more than Adena imagined. 

And it wasn’t the braids what told her that. Yes, she thought Kat looked gorgeous with them, that was a fact that didn’t escape Adena. But she also looked taller, stronger, more determined. Even with the obvious uneasiness emanating from her body, Adena could still see that this Kat was not the same one she had last seen in Paris. 

The moment ended too soon. The awkwardness a reminder of all the things they had lost. But one small door remained ajar. And Adena was determined to at least try to open it.

Fan Fiction: Her Mark On My Skin

The first one was ridiculous. So embarrassing. Not something Kat shares openly. Most of the time she wants to forget about it. Something made easy by the fact that in her drunken haze she had not only decided to get an ugly tattoo but also had chosen to do it on her rib cage, high in her rib cage, pretty much one inch away from her breast. 

Thanks to that, the tattoo was covered most of the time; so much that sometimes Kat has to go out of her way to look at it to remember she has it. Kat also counts her blessing that at least she had the good sense to not get it on her lower back.