#I really do love interweaving canon with fics. Feels like wrestling a bear but it's so satisfying when it's done

[fazedlight]

you know, i’m a big lena luthor apologist, and i totally get the frustration that arises from how badly kara/the superfriends treated lena in the show, and i get also that as a result when people try to write kara and alex in particular as ‘in character’ from canon that to some extent they will almost inevitably come off as tending to take lena for granted or being overly suspicious about her etc etc etc at some point and -especially- if you’re jumping off from some unspecified place in the show as a starting point.

but it is SO weird to me that someone would go into the comments of people’s fics and get upset about kara’s behaviour in fics, especially since it feels like those are the exact reasons so many fic writers (and the fic writers you’ve listed in particular) are trying to convincingly recreate or adapt the characters into fics where lena and kara DO have to talk to each other and they DO have to process all of that trauma and there is balance for the fact that they’re both flawed and that their flaws play into each other in specific ways.

at the end of the day i think lena does have a soft spot for kara and kara does tend to jump the gun, while lena was brought up to be all careful consideration and trying to be good, so yeah, a lot of the time lena ends up being the one to step up, but kara is also completely soft for lena as well, and that’s kind of just part of their dynamic and fic writers almost inevitably are trying to show growth for them both (and i think for me personally i always especially like to see kara owning what she did) that didn’t happen on the show.

i actually went back and reread the first four chapters of diat (because i’m annoying like that) and not only do we get insight into both of their perspectives, lena and kara both get space to ruminate and introspect on the previous events as the chapters progress, and i really like kind of the quiet way that a lot of their issues are naturally brought up both as their internal monologues and conversations with others and each other as a result of the narrative in a way the show never managed to do. (“i don’t need to be raised, agent danvers” made me cackle out loud.)

so that is SUCH a weird comment and especially given that as of right now lena….literally does not have time to process anything? because the world is kind of ending? i’m not sure urgently throwing her into action has anything to do with being mean to lena and being good to kara? because if she’s going to be upset about kara the world is going down with her temper tantrum and lena is just never going to do that??? :D

…flippant snark aside, i’m loving the callbacks to canon inserted throughout and how you’ve managed to make canon and the magic!lena work for the worldkillers. this would have been so much better as an introduction to magical lena, and i love when lillian gets to show up like this. i also have a particular soft spot for the question of how muddy the show is about alien-human relations (and especially the way they never address kara’s hypocrisy about kryptonite when they have dealt with several kryptonian adversaries) so i loved that (fairly early on) when kara was like but krypton would never?! that lena got to have her exasperated ‘you gotta be kidding me’ moment.

i’m definitely not doing your fic justice but i’ve already written an essay, so sorry for the extremely horrendously long-winded ask. excited for the next chapter!!!

Yesss!!! 💗💗 Part of why I adore these characters is because…. they’re both hurting, and they’re both trying to do the right thing! It just so happens that their traumas interact very badly. Kara has lost everything before, so she wants control - and has this knee-jerk reaction to the kryptonite that was really hurtful, and she lied because she’s desperate to not lose Lena like she’s lost everyone else. Meanwhile, Lena was forced as a child to adopt the Luthor credo of lying to get ahead, was betrayed over and over again… and now she’s developed her own knee-jerk reactions to being lied to.

To me, it was always clear that the thing that pushed Lena over was killing Lex, before finding out who Supergirl was. She sacrificed someone so precious to her (despite his flaws) to save the world, and very specifically to save her friends… especially Kara. Finding out that the one person she had chosen to save had deeply betrayed her (not just with the secrets, but with the spying, with the meanness) - she wanted to avoid any and all pain at that point, even if it meant brainwashing the world into being nice to each other. If she had found out before shooting Lex… well, that’s part of why I wrote No One and Nothing, and of course DIAT. (I also wrote Synthesis to show that it wasn’t just keeping secrets that set her off, it was everything else too.)

… a lot of my fics are secretly “In this essay I will-” but anyway …

I wrestle a lot with trying to stay balanced in my fics - I think stories often make sense to tell from Lena’s point of view more often, which makes it hard sometimes to show how much Kara is wrestling with her own actions. It’s one of the billion things I wonder if I’m doing right when writing. But hey, it’s a craft, over time I try more things, and I think I tell a better story than I did when I started 15 months ago. But at the end of the day, I’m still learning to write the stories I want to write.

With Lena dealing with the end of the world… I also feel like that was a very canon response for Lena to have. She was pissed during Crisis, too - and in an even worse state with the superfriends - but when the world is ending, she can put that aside for a time.

I was so nervous about magical!Lena - I know a lot of people hated that subplot in the show, it made me anxious that people might give up on the fic entirely. I’m glad you’re enjoying it! It seems to have gone over okay, which is an immense relief. (I was also nervous about Alura being a villain for a while - I suspect Alura’s arc was part of the original season 3 plan, but I wasn’t sure how it was going to go over. Honestly that’s part of why I put out ETYK first, because I wanted to make it clear that I do really love her as a character.)

Never feel sorry for a long ask! I love these!! I just may write an essay back 🤣