#does this count as supercorp?

[rustingcat]

Can we talk about the cello scene from @ekingston 'The Shape of Soup'?

Because I need to talk about the cello scene.

I'm NOT over the cello scene!

[deadbiwrites]

I've decided to sow some chaos in my life today

Here are the moodboards for all the AUs that live rent-free in my mind (and nowhere else), and I'd LOVE to talk about them!

[pan-de-queer]

I SAW FUCKING BIG BELLY BURGER

incorporating this into my supercorp the philippines uni au IMMEDIATELY

[eqt-95]

i am sorry it is monday i am going to be mean 🖤 supercorp

Thanks for the ask! I won't even make a big deal about you and @sssammich poking me for the same heart-wrenching prompt, but I will be using 'artistic licensing' and the skill of 'splitting hairs' to get this one across the line.

for context, this is part of an AU i've written random bits for, so you're about to be thrown right into it.

- - - - -

“Hey Kara?” Lena asked from the bar cart.

“Yes?”

“What would it be?” she continued, walking to the couch. “If you were human. What's the thing you'd want to experience?”

“Food.”

The answer comes so automatically that it almost draws Lena into a laugh. Instead she leans back into her couch, swirls the lowball of peaty scotch, and closes her eyes, imagining for the hundredth time a face that didn’t exist.

“Anything specific?”

A moment passed. The voice hummed in thought; another diversion from Lena’s code.

“Does a buffet count?”

“Some might call that cheating,” Lena smiled. “Lex would call it a loophole.”

“What do you call it?”

Lena opened her eyes; glanced at the ceiling as though Kara’s voice was coming from the stars. Instead it was just the usual speaker floating overhead.

“I think it fails to grapple with the spirit of the question.”

The room, white and bright and sterile, felt like a still-life painting with the white noise that followed. Lena wondered if she’d scared the AI off when-

“Potstickers.”

“Potstickers?” Lena parroted, unable to contain a laugh. She set her glass down to analyze the AI’s activity on her tablet.

It made some sense: every cuisine had its own form of food-wrapped dish from dumplings to pierogies to empanadas to arancini, and it was only natural for the AI to find a common link and answer based on that, but when Lena scanned the code for evidence the AI was responding to that thread, none existed. 

“What calculation brought you to that?” she asked. She continued to scowl at the cloud of connections that weren’t remotely linked.

“Because they’re pillowy morsels of goodness with a contrasting soft texture and a crunchy bottom side. The plume of steam when bitten into is just perfection,” Kara said, fading into what Lena heard as a sigh. It only made her brow furrow deeper.

She’d ask Sam tomorrow. In the mean time:

“Can we order some?”

“Pardon?”

“Potstickers.”

“I… it’s late. Maybe another time.”

“Of course, Ms. Luthor. My apologies,” Kara replied.

“It’s Lena, Kara.”

“My operating system-”

“Won’t allow it, I know,” Lena huffed. 

“Precisely.” 

Only a second passed before: “It is getting late, and your sleeping patterns have shown symptoms of insomnia. Might I suggest saving the rest of your 25 year Caol Ila for another time?”

The shift from casual to formal was instantaneous. Lena swallowed, reminded of the algorithm; of the hardwiring and artificiality of the entire experiment.

The reminder carried Lena to bed as Kara went through her evening protocol: locks, lights, and temperature adjustments. Silence followed their routine; a contrast to their last few nights. It shouldn’t have bothered Lena as much as it did. When she’d finally settled in and Kara flicked off the sidelight, Lena had fallen into a familiar state of loneliness. She determined it was irrational and rolled on her side.

“Goodnight, Kara,” she called as she always did. She waited, listening for the familiar return that never came. With a pang that felt far too similar to heartache, she closed her eyes. A beat of more silence then-

“Can I change my answer?”

It burst through the apartment and nearly sent Lena catapulting from her bed. “What?”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to - oh gosh, and it’s late and I’m not supposed to-”

“No, no, that's ok,” Lena replied hastily. She pretended her heart wasn’t racing and stomach wasn’t in her throat - all things Kara was surely logging. “Just scared me a bit.”

“I can tell, Ms. Luthor.”

“Right.” She couldn’t hide it if she tried, so Lena simply rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling; 

“What would you change it to?”

“Touch.”

“Touch,” Lena parroted again, softer this time, letting the idea sink in. “Anything specific?” she asked, feeling a sense of deja vu hang over her. She half expected Kara’s answer to repeat, but instead-

“Warmth. Something living.”

“Like a dog?” Lena offered, her voice raspy and mouth far too dry.

“While that would definitely rank in the top five, I’d much rather feel the warmth of a human. A companion, as they call it.”

“I see,” Lena breathed out. “You would want to experience a partner; a boyfriend perhaps-”

“Or girlfriend,” Kara replied simply, and Lena gripped tighter at the duvet she wasn’t aware of strangling. “As something that can’t, touch feels like the most intimate of functions. A hug, a handhold, a kiss.”

“A kiss?”

“Yes, Ms. Luthor.”

“I see,” Lena replied, because anything more might have broken her chest open.

“Good night, Ms. Luthor.”

“Good night, Kara.”

Lena knew better than to crave a thing that couldn’t be. She knew better than to feel an attachment for a machine. She knew better than to dwell in the fantasy of a real Kara Z walking the streets of National City, of living a life where potstickers and hugs were her happiest experiences, or of being someone who could ever want intimacy with someone like Lena.

She knew better, yes, but that didn’t stop her from imagining as a lone tear fell in the privacy of darkness.

- - - -

ask game

[kuekyuuq]

Supercorp - Rehashing the Fallout once more

Today's menu: Kara Danvers' Double-Standards.

I am rewatching Supergirl, and it occurred to me why I am with Lena on the "you lied to me" point. (Not the brain-wash the planet or taking a year to get over herself and realize her own - horrible - mistakes parts, though.) Not because of the lie itself or its content, but its context with Kara's very own history!

Let's take a walk...

In the pilot Kara gets mad at Alex for her having kept her double-life as a DEO agent secret from her.

Kara is utterly disappointed and distraught at the secrets her parents kept from her (Medusa, Myriad), some of which affected her directly (Krypton's impending destruction).

Kara finds out that James is Guardian before he told her and she was pretty upset, explains it's because they are humans throwing themselves into danger.

When J'onn explains to Kara how bonded Martians share their minds, Kara expresses how she thinks the “no secrets, no lies” sounds “beautiful”.

Kara ends their relationship with Mon-El over him lying about his true identity (and him being the Prince of a cruel society), ignoring him when he said he tried several times to tell her. When Mon-El let himself into Kara's apartment to apologize, he BEGS for forgiveness

but Kara says she deserved better than being lied to… Yes, she secretly forgave him at this point but still breaks up with him (Rhea told her to do so) and cries over it.

Music Meister teaches Kara (and Barry): “Love is about letting yourself be saved, it's not just about saving other people.”

Trust.

Lillian tells Kara, she doesn't need to spill SG's identity, because when Lena FINDS OUT, it'll be so much worse.

(And Lillian was SO on point!)

When Kara and Clark spar and have a heart-to-heart, Kara wonders if she can have it all, Clark assures her about the most important people make keeping the secret worth it and how letting (only) those important people in IS enough. Later, asked the same questions, Cat tells Kara that women have the guts to be vulnerable, lists her accomplishments.

Kara does not take Lena possessing some of Lex's Kryptonite nor the whole Sam/Reign-secret kept from her well. Gets even angrier when Lena creates her own Kryptonite (in her quest to fight/cure Reign …and cancer and other human ailments).

Or Mon-El hesitating to tell and keeping from Kara about his time-travelling, marriage and his actual mission…

That is up until mid-s03 and not even counting the many times how the show also taught us through Alex', J'onns and Lena's lenses that lying and pretending to be someone one is not to those important/close to oneself, is harmful to their (romantic and platonic) relationships and themselves.

Do I need to go on?

...Kara is clearly fully aware at that point that secrets (even her own) do not bode well in any type of relationships she would like to have and keep.

And, yes, I am fully aware of the "point of no return" argument, in all its validity, that at some point the lies had stacked up so much, that the hurt was inevitable, the fear of rejection more and more founded, of Kara wanting to be "just Kara" with Lena… Every season, every in-show year that passed and Kara kept her secret(s), it became impossibly harder to come clean. But, re-watching the show, it just seems so… irresponsible? And the more often Kara makes a point herself being lied to is a bad thing, even …hypocritical.

I am not saying any of the people who lied to or kept things from Kara were in the right or wrong - a totally different discussion that would require individual assessment. But, Kara, making the same point over and over again? Several times about the very topic of hidden/fake identities and double-lives… But then proceeding to keep her proclaimed best friend in the dark about herself, still?

Yeah, that bugs me. A lot.

IMO, after the whole Mon-El returned thing Kara would or should have had an epiphany about telling Lena the truth about herself… but then Reign beat her into a coma and all kinds of hell broke loose.

But… Yeah. Not even for Supercorp reasons. But internal logic.

From a story-writing perspective; you have your (main) character face a (similar but slightly different) situation a couple times before they learn their lesson. You plant the seeds (in this case: identity reveal) and then have it play out, based on what the character had learned(!) this far. And you have them deal with the worst-case-scenario backlash, if you need any for drama's sake, but it should make some level of sense… Instead they had Kara learn nothing, had her lie to Lena for another two years, and turned Lena into a spiraling madwoman. And Kara… well, now in Mon-El's shoes, could not quite understand how Lena (in Kara's former shoes, but with much more tainted personal experiences) was deeply, intimately hurt, devastated, and struggling.

Kara saw this coming - but tbh, when Lillian spoke so (unintentionally) truthful, Kara should have focused on the implied "if someone ELSE but you tells her", and when talking to Kal, realized that he didn't keep his secret FROM his most important people (Lois, James…) to protect them. Taken Cat's advice to have the guts to be vulnerable to reap Lena's long-term trust instead of settling for "for now this works, right?".

Not to mention that the whole show over and over stressed, that Kara could "have it all" without revealing herself to the world (the 100th episode even making a point that telling the world WILL put her loved ones at risk) or deciding on one half of herself, but then the show ended, and… yeah… I guess, some sort of witness protection for everyone?

No more casual strolls for "just Kara" through the park…

I adore the show, but… continuity?

It's just a bit painful to re-watch the show and watch Kara fault and shame others over and over again, only to go ahead and do the thing herself... Aware, yet oblivious. And NOBODY calls her out on it. (The one time Alex asked her and Kara was all like "I had to take the dog to the vet" is too little too late.)

Thankfully the fandom is so amazingly creative <3

#Kue out.

[moistvonlipwig]

so how many of these little hearts am i allowed to send you :D (maybe we can start with 💖)

💖: What is your biggest unpopular opinion about the series?

I'll assume you are asking about Supergirl. ;) I kind of have 3 that I couldn't pick between and I have a Lot to say about all 3, so this is going under a cut for anyone who doesn't want to see me kvetching about one of the worst-written CW superhero shows for *checks word count* 3681 words.

Opinion number one is that I like Lena/James as a ship. I think they had good chemistry and the thorny history between them makes for an interesting launching point for a relationship. I prefer them as a ship to Kara/James (which is fine and cute, but it doesn't compel me -- plus it's much more in the vein of modern rom-com romances vs. Lena/James which is written more like a screwball comedy romance which I infinitely prefer) and to any non-Supercorp Lena ships. While I admit the build-up in 3A isn't particularly well-done and the implosion of the relationship in S4 didn't do it any favors, I think they're really good in 3B and there's a lot of potential there for a super interesting relationship. (And, I mean, when it comes to Supergirl, which is Very Bad at romance and honestly not even particularly good at friendship, I think 'they have good chemistry, some great scenes, and there is solid potential for them to have an interesting relationship' is kind of the best you're gonna get. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

And to turn this into more of a kvetching session: I truly don't begrudge people for not liking them as a ship -- as I said, there are some serious writing problems afflicting their relationship. But I will say that, even putting aside the more egregiously and blatantly racist strains of the fandom and how they talk about the ship, I get frustrated with the way a lot of fans (even nominally pro-James ones) tend to dismiss the relationship (and Lena's feelings for James in particular) out of hand.

A lot of fans love to talk about Lena "not caring" that James was Guardian, but, like, she did care? She didn't get mad at him because she had no actual reason to. She and Guardian had no beef! He did not maintain two separate relationships with her as both himself and his alter ego Countess Boochie Flagrante! Wild how NOT doing that can greatly improve an alter ego reveal, lol. And the scene with James telling Lena he's Guardian ends with Lena opening up to him in turn about the fact that she herself manufactured the kryptonite. And then they kiss about it and they have sex. That, uh. That is not the reaction of a woman who does not care what her boyfriend just told her, that is the reaction of a woman who is deeply touched that he trusts her (which, it's both sad and telling that that kind of trust is not something she just Expects from a significant other) and who wants to share part of herself with him in return.

And a lot of fans also love to talk about Lena breaking up with James as if it were something she did on a whim because he ethically disagreed with one of her projects. But, um. She explicitly did not break up with him because of that. She told him that was why they were breaking up, but several episodes later she explicitly tells Lex (and thus the audience) that she actually broke up with him because she was scared of him breaking up with her once he found out she was helping cure Lex. Again, this is both a sad and telling moment about her character, that she would rather not give someone the chance to respond to her with grace because she so greatly fears that they will fail to do so, to the point that she would rather sabotage a relationship she treasures with her own hands, so that at least she will be in control of the loss she suffers. And it's a character beat that you miss entirely if you are dead-set on pretending that Lena didn't really care about James.

What's, shall we say, interesting is I don't really see this kind of casual, pervasive dismissal of Kara's relationship with Mon-El, which was much more of a trainwreck on all fronts. Even people who hate that relationship generally take Kara's feelings about it seriously. They don't deny that Kara felt strongly about Mon-El (whether they take the position that she was actually in love with him or that she just convinced herself she was). Why the difference in approach, when if anything, Lena's feelings about James are made more blatantly clear by the text than Kara's often extremely contradictory feelings about Mon-El are? ...Well. I can certainly think of one reason.

Opinion number two is that I don't care about the Danvers sisters relationship. I think there is a potentially interesting set-up to their relationship, where Alex was essentially parentified as a teenager and forced to rearrange her whole life around keeping Kara safe. The inevitable consequences of this -- that Alex has neglected her own happiness and devoted her life unhealthily to protecting her sister, and harbors some unspoken resentment over this fact, and similarly that Kara has had to contend with her older sister trying to manage her life and control her choices well into adulthood, and harbors some unspoken resentment of her own over that fact -- are touched on somewhat in S1 and S2 and then summarily dropped by the show. As the show went on it became clear that the Danvers sisters relationship was one in which no consequences existed: they could do anything and say anything to each other and by the end of the episode they would have a feel-good Danvers Sisters Couch Scene.

There are flaws in how the Kara & Lena friendship was written but one thing I will praise about it is that every interaction they had mattered and had tangible consequences to their relationship. Kara's massive fuckup re: the kryptonite debacle mattered two seasons later in a show that sometimes struggled to remember what happened in the previous episode. I might object -- strenuously, in fact -- to how their conflict was resolved and framed in S5 but at the very least they didn't outright ignore the things that happened between them. When one of them did something that hurt the other, that impacted the relationship. This is in sharp contrast to how the Danvers sisters relationship is written from around S3 onwards.

Two story beats in particular really stand out to me here. Firstly, there's the S4 plotline in which Alex forgets that Kara is Supergirl -- which is an actually rather clever storyline with some great emotional beats...while it lasts. Then Alex gets her memories back and it's like nothing ever happened. People complain a lot about the writing of Once Upon a Time, and rightly so, but at least on that show, when characters had their core memories magically erased/replaced with other memories, and then had their original memories returned to them a season or half a season later, it actually affected their characters. They had to grapple with who they were with their fake memories, and who they were with their real ones, and which self they liked better, and which aspects of their selves they wanted to embody going forward. Not so with Alex Danvers. If you watched S5 without having seen S4 you would not know she spent the last half season not knowing that Kara was Supergirl.

Secondly, and even more egregiously to me, is the events of 5.08 "The Wrath of Rama Khan" and the emotional aftermath, which is to say, the complete lack of an emotional aftermath. Not only does Alex spend a good chunk of 5.08 wanting/trying to nuke Kara's best friend -- which is significantly worse than anything Lena does to any of Kara's friends, and you can imagine that if Lena had indeed done anything on that level then the show never would've had Kara let it pass without comment -- but she manipulates Kara in the process, and specifically in a way that echoes one of Kara's fundamental traumas from her backstory. By using Kara's genuine attempt to reach out to Lena as a Trojan horse to lower Lena's shields (so, again, she can point a nuke at her), she not only thoroughly sabotages any possibility of trust and reconciliation between Kara and Lena for the foreseeable future, she also uses Kara in the same way that Alura used Kara to capture Astra, which Kara was rightfully furious and heartbroken about when she found out about it.

In the hands of better writers, this could've been a stroke of storytelling genius, the catalyst for the long-awaited collapse of the Danvers sisters relationship that was so desperately needed so that they could build it back up again from a better foundation. But you've seen the show, you know what happened: Kara barely blinked. Alex might as well have just eaten the last hot pocket instead of, you know, betrayed Kara like her mother did in order to nuke her best friend, for all that Kara reacted to it. To me, that was the ultimate death knell for the Danvers sisters relationship, the moment that cemented once and for all that this was not a relationship in which actions had consequences or in which anything the characters said or did to each other mattered in any way. So...why should I care?

And thirdly and finally, my hydrogen bomb of an unpopular opinion: I don't like Cat Grant. Which is nuts, because I SHOULD like her on paper. Her character archetype is usually my FAVORITE character in a line-up. Cordelia Chase, the self-proclaimed "nastiest girl in Sunnydale history," is and has always been, from Episode 1 of Buffy, my favorite Buffyverse character. (And my second favorite female Buffyverse character is Lilah Morgan, who is basically just "Cordelia but an evil lawyer".) Regina George is an indisputable legend no matter what bizarre format they turn Mean Girls into next, and I always root for her and am kinda sad when Cady successfully sabotages her. Regina Mills of Once Upon a Time fame is even more of an indisputable legend, a badass mass-murdering HBIC who took no bullshit and coddled no bitches. Miranda Priestly, on whom Cat Grant is clearly based, is an amazing, iconic film character -- and despite what Supergirl 5.01 "Event Horizon" would have you believe, she was not the '''villain''' of The Devil Wears Prada. Discworld's Granny Weatherwax is one of the greatest characters ever written and is also, like, my idol. I love me a good bad bitch. So...why don't I like Cat Grant?

Part of it is that I don't find her as purely entertaining as a lot of the other characters on this list -- I just don't think the Supergirl writers were skilled enough to craft a character who is mean in a way that delights and amuses me as opposed to rubbing me the wrong way. I think she is frequently cruel in a way that I just personally struggle to find humorous or iconic, particularly given her status as Kara's boss, and it doesn't help that Kara often seems so affected by Cat and invested in what she thinks of her. I think if Kara were written in a way that gave her more power in their interactions, where she didn't truly need or care about her job at CatCo and thus, while she might not snark back at Cat in the workplace, she was also unaffected by Cat's barbs, I wouldn't mind their interactions so much. (This is why I enjoy Andrea and Kara's back-and-forth much more -- they seem to genuinely be on equal footing.) But the way Kara and Cat's dynamic is written, Cat really does have all the power, and the fact that she often uses it to emotionally terrorize Kara grates on me.

One of my biggest gripes with Cat is how so much of the '''humor''' around her character is her deliberately mispronouncing people's names. And, uh, as someone with a non-Anglo name, I don't think that's fucking funny! (And once Cat realizes Kara is Supergirl, I actually think it becomes extra ghoulish to do this, since she must then surely also realize that "Kara" is a name given to her by her dead family from her near-extinct culture. Like I know this is just a case of the writers not thinking the implications through, we're not meant to look so deeply into it, but the implications are really bad.)

Consequently, I don't think it's '''sweet''' when Cat finally deigns to call Kara by her actual fucking name at the end of S1. That moment honestly reminds me so much of that time in S1 of "The Good Place" (aka back when I liked "The Good Place" lol) when Eleanor repeatedly mispronounces "Senegal"/can't bother to remember that's where Chidi grew up, and then at the end of the episode she's like, "I have a present for you: Senegal." And Chidi is like, "Um, that's not a present, that's basic human decency." Like...exactly!!! Cat pronouncing Kara's name correctly is the bare minimum, it is not something that Kara should have had to earn, and it is extremely grating to me that the show itself seems to think otherwise.

Which ties back to one of my fundamental problems with Cat Grant, which is the framing of her character. All the other characters I listed above are framed as very complicated characters (Granny Weatherwax, Regina Mills, Miranda Priestly, Cordelia Chase eventually) or as outright antagonists (Regina George, Cordelia Chase in S1 of Buffy, Lilah Morgan, Regina Mills as well because she contains multitudes). Their status as difficult, proud, not-very-nice women is part of their complexity and/or antagonism, and as a defender of women who are not very nice, I gravitate to them in all their messiness. To quote phoukanamedpookie, one of my favorite meta writers, in this excellent post: "I genuinely find ['difficult' female characters] likable, often specifically because the narrative doesn’t tell me that I’m supposed to like them." (Emphasis mine.)

But you ARE supposed to like Cat Grant. And Cat Grant is not actually portrayed as particularly complex -- she is instead framed as an aspirational feminist role model for Kara. I wouldn't go so far as to say that her meanness is not portrayed as a flaw at all, but I think it's telling that every time the show allows Kara to actually get mad at her for her cruelty, the episode ends with Cat giving some speech about how women have it harder than men and Kara realizes that actually Cat, by being mean to her, was being a great feminist girlboss mentor the whole time. Which, like. What. And there's a scene where Cat talks about the double standards between men and women and she complains that Perry White can get away with throwing chairs at his employees but people call her a bitch or whatever. And, like, double standards are real, I'm with you there girlie, but, you verbally abuse and disrespect your employees on the daily, often to the point of tears, and you still have your high-powered influential well-paying job -- what more do you want?

There's a great line in the Mean Girls musical -- which is weird to type out, because it is not on the whole a very well-written musical -- where at the end, Regina tells Cady, "I know I was harsh. And people say I’m a bitch. But you know what they would call me if I was a boy?” And Cady enthusiastically chimes in with, "Strong." And Regina says, "Reginald." That line is so stellar precisely because it acknowledges the double standards while also poking fun at the obviously false idea that Regina was actually some kind of amazing feminist this whole time. That sense of humor about her status as a 'mean girl' is what I think was missing from the framing of Cat Grant -- we're meant to really take her seriously as a character who is legitimately a good mentor and feminist, whose critics truly are just sexist.

Which leads me to another major issue I have with Cat's character. Supergirl as a whole is very much in line with, like, 2012-era pop White Feminism™. It never really stops being like this; even when it tries to pivot to discussing other issues, it never goes beyond mainstream understandings of those issues to make any serious structural critiques, even when it doesn't get mired down in allegories that don't quite work and trip over its own feet in the process -- presumably because said structural critiques would call into question the fundamental assumptions upon which the show is built. (Much love to Azie and the effort she and J. Holtham put into 6.12 "Blind Spots", which was easily the show's best attempt at tackling any social issue, but by nature of only being one episode, it could not result in meaningful structural changes to how the Superfriends operate beyond "thinking about racism more", and the episode ends with a promotion of Robin DiAngelo's insufferable pop anti-racism self-help book White Fragility aka my villain origin story.)

That being said -- I think S1 and S2 are kind of the worst offenders when it comes to Supergirl's pop white feminism, not necessarily because the show gets any better about it later (although it was surely an improvement when they actually started incorporating women of color into the main cast starting with Sam Arias in S3), but because S1 and S2 are really fucking obnoxious about it, especially S1. And Cat Grant is THE mouthpiece for Supergirl's shallow, grating, capitalistic, overwhelmingly white understanding of feminism. While the single most cringey pseudo-feminist one-liner in the show is probably Alex's "No touching without consent!" from the series finale, most of the others come from Cat.

Just as an example, there's the bizarre monologue about how Kara is wrong to be offended by the obviously infantilizing name "Supergirl" (in contrast to "Superman"), because Cat is a girl, and girls are cool, and are you saying you don't think girls are cool? If you think it's wrong to call women "girls," you're the real sexist! Or, again, all her speeches about the double standards she's faced in her career -- and yet no interrogation of how Cat herself makes things so much harder for the women working for her (and, largely due to Supergirl's cast line-up at the time, absolutely no lip service given to the fact that women of color have it even harder). Or the egregious line about how Barry, Kara, Winn, and James look like the "attractive but nonthreatening cast of a racially diverse CW show" -- which isn't about feminism but does speak to the show's total lack of self-awareness about its racial makeup. And you could say these are structural problems with the show, not just with Cat, and you'd be right -- but given that Cat is so often situated as the mouthpiece for what the show thinks feminism is, and that we are meant to see her as a wise, progressive mentor, it becomes very difficult to separate her character from those structural problems.

And speaking of having trouble separating my feelings about her character from the structural problems with how the show uses her character...let's talk about Andrea Rojas, and how S6 thoroughly demonizes her with the end-goal of propping Cat Grant up. Andrea Rojas/Acrata is a Mexican hero in the comics; in Supergirl, they randomly make her Argentinian and they introduce her in S5 as more of a grey hat. Then in S6, the demonization begins.

The show (even in S5) emphasizes over and over how obsessed Andrea is with "clicks" and yellow journalism, which the show (and fandom) insists isn't what CatCo Should be about. Except...that was also Cat Grant's vision for CatCo! She also ran the magazine based on celebrity gossip and sensationalized reporting! It was James and Lena who took the magazine in a more serious direction. Andrea is shown to engage in increasingly unethical business practices throughout S6, culminating of course in William's narratively pointless death due in part to her actions, and Cat taking over CatCo again in the last episode is seen as a righting of this wrong (because, you see, Cat cares about turtles now, for some reason). This is despite the fact that Andrea is consistently shown to be a better and kinder boss than Cat was; not only does she actually call people by their real names, but when Nia falls asleep in front of her, Andrea very nicely tells her to take a mental health day. Cat would not have done that! So we have this bizarre storyline where we are meant to see Andrea as essentially this unethical interloper into Cat's rightful position -- even as they have literally the same goals, and even as Andrea is objectively a much better person to work for.

And look, I don't know how Julie Gonzalo identifies racially -- I know enough Argentinians to know that many of them who look like Julie do actually ID as white -- but even if she doesn't identify as a woman of color, the Latina identity is still a deeply racialized one in the United States. And it just does not sit right with me that one of Supergirl's only Latina characters -- and the one who is most consistently and strongly identified with her Latina heritage, and is based on one of DC's few Latina heroes -- gets demonized and 'put in her place' to prop up a blonde white Anglo woman as the one who should 'actually' be in power, even with her history of abusing that power at every turn.

Fandom doesn't help in this regard -- many (NOT all, fandoms are not monoliths) Cat and Supercat fans, and even a significant chunk of Supercorp fans, do NOT like Andrea and consider her much like the show does, as a usurper of the rightful throne of CatCo. I try not to let fandom affect how I view characters if I can help it, but when it's a narrative the show itself falls into, it gets a bit harder. Again, this isn't Cat's fault in-universe, but it is very difficult for me to extricate my feelings about how the storyline played out with my feelings about Cat -- especially since I'm already disinclined to be favorable towards her character. If I already liked her, I'm sure I'd be more forgiving, but, well, I've never claimed to not be a filthy hypocrite.

So yeah. I don't like Cat. Whoops. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[toxinoire]

Okay so due to major boredom, waiting for the Miraculous World Special, absolutely emotionally dead over the fact that Miraculous season 6 won't be out for who knows how long and my dumbass thinking it was a good idea to rewatch the final ep of Supergirl and absolutely falling back into Supercorp, have a crossover of The Love Square and Supercorp. As incorrect quotes of course, I haven't written an actual crossover au.

...

Yet.

~~~~~

(Let's pretend that all this is post reveal for MLB yeah?)

Supergirl: I can fly high enough that If I drop a rock in from the stratosphere it could break the ground.

Chat Noir: *gasp* I wanna see that!

Supergirl: Or you could try it! You have that suit power up that makes you fly!

Chat Noir: *more gasping* YEAH! I COULD-

Ladybug: NO!

Lena: NO!

Ladybug: Fuck no!

Lena: Absolutely not!

Supergirl and Chat Noir: But-

Lena and Ladybug: no

~~~~~~

Kara: So this boy, who would literally follow you to the end of the universe, had called you "just a friend" more than you can count?

Marinette: Yep. It drove our friends nuts.

Marinette: And me too, so...yeah.

Adrien: You're not gonna let that go are you?

Marinette: Nope.

Adrien: Didn't you partner zone me?

Marinette:

Marinette: I did, didn't I?

Lena: So...

Lena: So basically, you two rejected each other...for each other? When even was your first kiss?

Marinette: During Adrien's flight to London-

Adrien, at the same time: Our date as Marinette and Chat Noir-

Adrien and Marinette: What???

Marinette: Wait, wasn't it during Oblivio?

Adrien: We don't remember that at all.

Marinette: Okay then-...Dark Cupid?

Adrien: I don't remember that!

Marinette: Then when was it-

Adrien: I don't know-

Lena:

Kara:

Lena:

Kara:

Kara: Oh that is complicated...

~~~~~~

Adrien: How is it like dating an alien?

Adrien: Because like, she appears human but she isn't. So how does that work?

Lena: Adrien...

Lena: Aren't you made from a feather?

Kara: I feel like it's more he is a feather.

Lena: Ah, right. And you appear human, but you aren't.

Kara: Yeah, how does that work?

Adrien:

Marinette: Yeah so spending time with you two was a bad choice.

~~~~~~

(Fighting a villain)

Supergirl: Crap, we have to get there but the path is blocked.

Lena: We need to distract them.

Ladybug: *glances at her Lucky Charm that is a bottle of perfume* Oh I know! Chat, can you-

Chat Noir, already putting opening Spotify and playing Careless Whisper: *jumps in the middle of the warzone*

Supergirl:

Lena:

Ladybug: Perfect. Now I need you two to drop that pilar on them and-

Lena: Is this how you two normally operate?

Ladybug: Well yeah and then there's me using whatever I get from the Lucky Charm to win with the laws of physics and Chat Noir's cataclysm.

Supergirl: And you win?

Ladybug: Yeah.

Lena:

Supergirl: How-

~~~~~~~

Kara: Hey! What did you think of Marinette and Adrien?

Alex: Those two...

Alex: Are the jumpiest most traumatized pair of 14 year olds I've ever fucking seen. It's like they're war veterans.

Lena: They kind of are war veterans.

(Meanwhile)

Marinette: Alya, how'd meeting Kara and Lena go?

Adrien: What did you think of them?

Alya: They are literally just you two except they're adults, both women, use technology, have siblings and only one of them had a secret identity.

Alya: Seriously, a smart human who has access to magical shit and a non human blonde who both saved the world, almost lost each other, dated other people before one another, make a great team and severely traumatized? It's literally you two in a different font.

~~~~~~~

Kara: Marinette, control your cat! He stole my food!

Adrien: I took one potsticker!

Kara: Still stealing!

Adrien: It is not!

Kara: Yes it is! What if I just took your pastries?!

Adrien: Hey! These are from my girlfriend!

Kara: Those potstickers were also from my girlfriend!

Marinette:

Lena:

Marinette: Wanna see how I made the contraption I used to hide Miracle Box among my things?

Lena: Oh absolutely.

~~~~~~

Lena: Oh, Nia. I see you've met Marinette and Adrien.

Nia: I have.

Kara: So what did you th-

Nia: Can we keep them? Please?

Supercorp: What-

Nia: I seriously vibe with Adrien's puns and Marinette is so fricking creative and I relate to her awkwardness.

Nia: Please can we keep them?

~~~~~

Lena: You...attempted to cataclysm your classmate for hurting Marinette? I mean, get mad and yell sure, but cataclysm?

Adrien: Yes. I do not regret that one bit.

Adrien: Besides, cataclysm doesn't kill, it just gives you excruciating pain that you'd wish you were dead.

Lena: What the fuck-

(Meanwhile)

Marinette: So you just dropped the plane with the toxic chemicals, not even bothering to check if you were flying over a population or not, and just took your fucking chances so you could save Lena?

Kara: Yeah. I'd do it again.

Marinette: But what if she hadn't made the jump?

Kara: I'd drop the plane and catch her.

Marinette: What if you were flying over a population?

Kara: Still dropping the plane.

Marinette: Okay then-

[performativezippers]

For the ship asks!

what kind of dates do you think Sanvers would go on? (In the canon show, not an AU)

do you prefer Supercorp as an otp, brotp, or notp?

and, because you're relatively new to the ship:

explain why do/don’t ship Bering and Wells

Love these questions!

Sanvers dates: I think Sanvers dates would be relatively uncommon due to their schedules and predilection for hanging out at bars and drinking, which I don't count as a date. I think for Date Night (TM) they would do things like ax throwing, maybe a ridiculously fancy meal once and never again, maybe something like ladies night at a gay bar where they get to dress kinda sexy. I imagine them as more the weekend away or hang at a bar types than a Going on Dates couple.

Supercorp preferences: Supercorp I like as a couple but I am not in a phase of my life where getting invested in a noncanon ship does it for me. Honestly I like them more now that the show is over! So not an OTP but like, a good ship? I dunno what I'd call that.

Bering and Wells: Oh I definitely ship Bering and Wells! They're SO compelling. I mean of course this contradicts what I said about supercorp, lol, but I do think coming to a noncanon ship after the canon ends is different, because what I really can't take is the frustration of seeing a romance play out and the powers that be screaming that it's not happening (while also of course pushing it to the limit for views). So, from this side of the canon, I am absolutely drawn to Myka and Helena's mutual trauma, the ways they keep hurting each other, the way they're both exactly what the other one needs. Also they just keep TOUCHING and the LINGERING GLANCES. But I mean.........has any ship ever come close to Person A wanting to kill literally everyone in the world and then being unwilling to kill Person B and having to abandon their whole plan and going to (noncorporeal) jail for it, simply because she couldn't bear to see Person B die??????? That's love, bitch.

[ship ask list here]

[thecasualqueer]

Fanfic Writer Questions!

Thank you for the tag @fazedlight and @thatonebirdwrites I've never been tagged in one of these before so this is exciting :)).

1- How many works do you have on AO3?

I have 4 works on AO3 I wrote 2 a few years ago (that will honestly never be finished) then took a long hiatus, and then came back and now I have one published WIP and one finished work

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

16,866 words

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Supercorp (although I have dabled in writing for other fandoms but never published anything, those ones are just for me)

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

I will always be your hero - 214 Kudos

Finding Family - 90 Kudos

Stay the night (not to be continued) - 42 Kudos

Two Heroes in one (not to be continued) - 37 Kudos

5. Do you respond to comments?

Yes sometimes, I don't respond to all comments but I also don't really have a system for which comments I do respond to.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I don't really have anything that fits this yet, and tbh I'm not the biggest fan of angsty endings so idk if I see myself writing one in the future, but we'll see.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I will always be your hero

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Not really, I assume I will at some point in the future but right now I am very happy to exist in this internet space where people are being nice to me.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

No, I don't (far to repressed for that lmao).

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

I haven't written any but never say never, right?

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

No, but if anyone ever does want to translate one of my fics feel free to do so :))

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Nope, but tbh I have a feeling I would be a nightmare to work with as I work very slowly due to my disabilities.

14. What's your all time favourite ship?

Supercorp

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

hmm... as I mentioned earlier on in this post there are two fics that will not be finished because I don't want them to be (I feel like my writing has improved a lot since then and I wouldn't make the same witing choices now so it doesn't make sense to drag them back out).

I also have 14 unpublished WIPs so I guess most of them will never be finished, I just don't know which ones yet.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Idk really, I feel like writing dialogue really flows out of me in a way that other parts don't as I can picture the characters in my mind acting out the scene.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

my main difficulty is speed, but also finding its to put in between the dialogue so that it doesn't feel awkward.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I don't really have any I'm afraid. I only speak English so I would probably never do more than a word or so as I wouldn't know how to do more.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Supercorp

20. Favorite fic you've written?

Absolute favourite fic is yet to come so stay tuned for that, but my favourite published fic is my current WIP Finding Family.

and now I'm going to tag @crime-wives to join :)).

[innamorament0]

20 questions game

Thank you, @luthordamnvers, for the tag <3

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

At this moment 9, though most of them are on hold and 1 is an art

2. What’s your total AO3 words count?

206 916 at the moment

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Exclusively Supercorp with a dash of Dansen, Brainia and Rojarias as side pairings. No other pair had this much grip over me, so I would start writing fics for them. =D

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

how to interrupt the spellcasting (Explicit, smut 1 shot) When you move, I'm moved (Explicit, Ice Dance AU, non-trad a/b/o, multichapter, ongoing) Cold never bothered me anyway (Explicit, smut 1 shot) When those walls come tumbling down (Mature (for now) post-season 6 canon compliant, my first work that I intend to rewrite because it's a mess) I hope you're the end of my story (Mature (for now) Cowboy Kara AU, non-trad a/b/o, on hold now, but I will finish it!)

yeah.... people like smut XD

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I always reply! It may take me a day or two especially when I am busy at work but I read them and try to answer something more or less meaningful <3

6. What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I am terrible at writing angst and all my fics ends well because I am a fluff-loving bitch =D

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

All of them have happy endings, but I think, the most satisfying is in I slithered here from Eden . Or I am just biased. But it's most domestic and hopeful.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Got some nasty comments, from some famous haters in a SC fandom

9. Do you write smut? If so what kind?

oh yes, that's my speciality XD Most of my fic contains explicit smut.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

Nope, not yet but I never say never!

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I don't think so? I am not so popular too

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Not officially, no, but I ran fics through the translator to read it many years ago when my English was worse.

13. Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

Not in the full meaning of this word, but I count my Beta as my co-writer because he does a lot of work to make it readable, because English is not my native language and the raw text is... terrifying not gonna lie.

14. What’s your all-time favourite ship?

Supercorp, I think they overshade all my previous favourite ships. But I can't say I love my other ships less, so <3 you Xena/Gabrielle, Sylvaina and Pharmercy!

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

I want to finish all my WIP's, I had a writing draught for a year because of an illness and now coming back to it and focusing on one/two at a time with the occasional 1-shot in the middle

16. What are your writing strengths?

I guess I am good at writing adventures ( thus I focus on action-heavy AU's) and smut. To be honest I needed to write smut first but I try not to seem too thirsty XD

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Angst. Idk, I just don't have a mental capacity for it I guess

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

If we dismiss the fact that English is not my first or even second language, yes, I thought that when I will write Red Daughter I would write her dialogue in Russian ( which is another language I freely speak)

19. First fandom you wrote for?

I never wrote for fandoms before, so my first texts were about my OC's

20. Favourite fic you’ve ever written?

I would say that it is From Eden . First of all it is full of action and I love writing combat scenes and adventures, second of all it was for SCBB and I never participated in anything like that so it added to the fun. And last - it is my only finished long work so I am kinda sorta proud of it =D

I think all writers I know are already tagged so I spread it to anyone who wants to fill it up! <3

[somber-sapphic]

Here Comes The Rain

I've got an unfinished Supercorp Series called "Lena's Mildy Not Fantastic Week" that I've decided to post here!

Lena is sick, Kara is somewhere else, Alex is done with her bullshit. (supercorp)

Word Count: 1115

-----

Lena really didn’t feel well. Her head hurt, her eyes hurt, her legs hurt, everything fucking hurt. She was tired and didn’t want to be awake. Being awake was really way too much work. She felt like her body was somehow icy cold, and engulfed in fire. The cold was so intense that it felt like her bones might shatter if she moved the wrong way, but the heat threatened to sear her eyes out of her skull. She was so exhausted. But of course, she had to work. She always had to work. Doing magic sucked a lot of energy out of the young witch.

Her phone buzzed angrily, pulling her out of her fever fueled thoughts. She grumbled under her breath, and reached out of her blanket cocoon to retrieve the offending piece of tech. The text that flashed across the far too bright screen was from Kara.

Kar: Morning, you’re gonna hate me for this, but J’onn says we’ve all gotta come in, to practice hand to hand combat. I know you don’t need it, but he’s making it mandatory.

Lena: Twenty minutes

Lena began to mentally prepare for a very long day. She pulled herself groggily out of her bed, dragging her favorite fuzzy blanket into the bathroom with her. She was too cold to exist without it. After a very long ten minutes, she managed to hide how pale she actually was, and pulled her hair into a manageable ponytail. Her clothes weren't exactly those she would wear everyday. She was wearing an old sweatshirt of Kara’s, and a pair of ratty sweatpants. Not exactly stylish, but comfortable, and that's all she really cared about.

She shuffled out of the house in Uggs, the same small blanket still wrapped around her shoulders. She knew she looked ridiculous, but it was warm, warm enough that she could ignore the looks she was getting as she strolled to the Tower in thirty degree weather. Naturally, she had given her stupid driver the stupid day off.

Half way through the annoyingly long walk, it started to freezing rain. Now she was probably hypothermic and somehow even more miserable. She should’ve just stayed home. Home has warm blankets and a heater and holy fuck she was so cold.

When she finally got to the Tower, she couldn’t feel her fingers or toes, which she figured was probably a bad thing. The door closed behind her, and she was greeted by a half asleep Nia. The hero had probably just woken up from her dream land.

“You look like shit.” She mumbled, walking past Lena with a cup of steaming coffee in her hands. Coffee sounded like a great idea to the shivering woman. She was too cold, and would do just about anything to get warm.. Everything hurt so much.

It was pretty early, and it seemed that there weren't many other people there yet, which made sense, because it was five in the damn morning. She hadn’t even seen Kara yet. How could the blonde make Lena come in so early, when she wasn’t even there? She just started to brew a new pot of coffee when a hand on her shoulder startled her out of her thoughts.

“Woah, you’re dripping.” Alex said, squishing the fabric of her fuzzy blanket, which sent a stream of freezing down the back of her neck.

“Fuck off.” Lena grumbled, her voice coming out hoarser than she’d like it too. The former agent's hand left her shoulder, and shifted up to the back of her neck. She shuddered involuntarily at the warmth of Alex’s skin, wishing for Kara’s Kryptonian body heat.

“You’ve got hypothermia you dumbass, let’s get those wet clothes off.”

“Coffee.”

“Coffee does not brew, when you don’t turn the coffee pot on. This isn’t an offer, let’s go.” Lena cursed her under her breath as she was dragged to the locker room, and her layers were removed. After a few minutes, she was standing in just an undershirt and sweatpants, staring at the trembling reflection of herself in the mirror. Alex stood behind me, complaining about how useless Lena was being. She seemed to finally understand that Lena had zero intentions of helping her with this process. She did not want to be here and planned as difficult as possible. She didn’t want her fawning over her. The only thing keeping Lena from an emotional breakdown was how Alex was handling the situation. It was weirdly keeping her calm.

“Alright, you’ve gotta change into some dry clothes, but I’m not doing that for you, unless you absolutely need me too. I’ve got some warm clothes, even a new bra, because I’m sure yours is soaked. You think you can handle this?” She asked, looking at Lena with genuine concern in her eyes. It was almost annoying, but also kind of nice to know that someone besides Kara actually gives a shit about her health.

“I’m not a newborn, I can change my clothes.” Lena responded, earning a smirk from Alex.

“You’re shaking so hard I wouldn’t trust you to go to the bathroom on your own. But seriously, I’m going to be right outside the door. If you need me, just yell, or cry, or something. Just, don’t die.”

Unfortunately, Lena’s job of not dying was a bit of a struggle. She was dizzy, and her body hurt. She managed to get the pants on okay, but naturally, she got sort of stuck in the shirt. For some reason, her arms were unwilling to obey her when she ordered them to move. Frustrated tears began to well up in her eyes, as I fought against the offending fabric. She didn’t want help, much less from Alex. But she saw absolutely no choice.

“A-alex?” She croaked, dreading the look that she would inevitably get. The door creaked open, and an exasperated sigh filled the room.

“My god, I leave you alone for less than two minutes. What are we going to do with you?” The brunette's voice was gentle and tinged with humor. Within a few minutes, the shirt was where it was supposed to be, and Lena was glaring at the floor, blinking back the tears that wouldn’t go away.

“Hey, it’s okay. It happens to the best of us, kiddo.” Alex murmured, brushing a lone tear off of the sniveling woman’s cheek.

“Does it?” Lena choked out, biting her lip hard against her emotions.

“How about we dry your hair and get some sort of super strong cold medicine into you. That sound okay?” With a small sigh, Lena agreed, and let Alex lead her out of the locker room. She missed her girlfriend.

[sssammich]

ao3 wrapped fic writer 2023

i know ao3 wrapped for readers is not a thing and frankly as impressive as it would be to see just how many millions of words i have read this past year, i don't know if i need to know just how much i hung around in the devil's sacrament shown back to me, ya know?

so i instead just wanna celebrate and focus on all the writing i was able to do this year up to nov 30 (today). this is just for posted stuff on ao3, obviously my wips folder (aka my lazy susan of drafts) is a different story LOL.

also, super important for me to point out: this is meant for celebration and pride! after having been on hiatus from writing for like 7 years, i'm so happy to be able to get back into writing again. with that said, if the numbers for your ao3 isn't as high as you'd liked, please just know that i'm still very proud that you wrote AND published your work to share with others. it can and does take a lot out of you to write and share freely like this. so if nothing else, you should know that! (and if you haven't written much at all this year for whatever reason, i'm still proud of you! like i said, it's tough sometimes but we should still celebrate ourselves)

if you're a writer and see this and want to play along, feel free to just copy and paste. there's no tagging because i wouldn't wanna put people on the spot/make someone uncomfortable. ok onwards etc etc

2023 ao3 stats portion

basically this part is just taken straight out of your stats page for 2023

kudos: 3,182

comment threads: 352

bookmarks: 688

subscriptions: 359

word count: 212,514

hits: 33,321

total fics posted: 16

general writing portion

fandoms and ships i wrote for this year:

Revue Starlight: tendou maya/saijou claudine, amemiya shion/masai kiriko, isurugi futaba/yanagi koharu

Supergirl: kara danvers/lena luthor, kara danvers/lena luthor/sam arias

RWBY: yang xiao long/blake belladonna

2. top fics with the most word count (complete and in-progress):

not for nothing (54,371 words) kara danvers/lena luthor

homecoming (28,662 words) yang xiao long/blake belladonna

sam's supercorptober 2023 entries (21,538) kara danvers/lena luthor

[...hope springs eternal] (17,352 words) isurugi futaba/yanagi koharu

fate or something like it (16,874 words) tendou maya/saijou claudine

3. events (big bangs, challenges, etc) i participated in (if you didn't participate in any, what are events you've enjoyed seeing this year?):

supercorp big bang: not for nothing (with lovely art from midnightechoes)

bumbleby big bang: homecoming (with lovely art from bumblebydyke)

supercorptober 2023 (i have one more prompt left! it'll be done this year i promise to myself lol)

4. top fics in order of how emotionally compromised i was in writing them:

evergreen

re:live

not for nothing

homecoming

[...hope strings eternal]

5. top fics i would love more readers to get their eyeballs on because i think they're neat (this is just me getting people to read more of my stuff LMAO):

[through smoke and velvet...] AND [...hope springs eternal] isurugi futaba/yanagi koharu

heart's devastation yang xiao long/blake belladonna

sam's supercorptober 2023 entries (particularly chapters 4, 5, and 6 lol but i think they're all neat) kara danvers/lena luthor

re:live tendou maya/saijou claudine

the view, it is so lovely amemiya shion/masai kiriko

OKAY this is pretty long so sorry to your dashboards but that was kinda fun and im proud of everything i've worked on and i hope you are also proud of yourself for all the stuff you've worked on! ok thx love u bye

[pan-de-queer]

until they echo back to you (the words i never said) [supercorp]

Genre: Fluff, First Kiss, Getting Together

Summary:

Kara takes a deep breath and straightens, channeling as much Supergirl-confidence as she can so that when she asks, “impressed?” Lena hears what she really means.

Or: Kara wears a tie, Lena fixes it for her, they say everything without saying anything.

Author's Note: title inspired by It Is Not Your Job by Caitlyn Siehl. i didn't like where this fic was going originally but now i think it's pretty okay??? not my best but i don't hate it anymore and that's +1 to my self-care points for sure 💕 anyways this fic is a short one-shot under my "100 ways to say i love you" series for supercorp! i have a longer fic for this prompt ("come here. let me fix it.") but i promised myself that i'll be posting more often this year even if that means shorter fics, so, enjoy the short version i have for this prompt!

ao3

until they echo back to you (the words i never said)

“Come here,” Lena smiles at the fifth huff Kara lets out. “Let me fix it.”

Lena steps closer, resplendent in a backless red dress and five inch heels. Black hair woven into an intricately braided bun, blue-green eyes framed around a golden shadow, and signature red lips looking soft and oh so—no. No more thinking, Kara promises herself.

Lena’s cold hands snap her back to reality, gently pull Kara’s fumbling fingers away from her sorry attempt at a neck tie. Slender fingers moving to nimbly twist it into the knot Kara’s been trying to force her tie into for the past thirteen minutes.

And despite Lena’s calming lilt telling her how to knot it right next time, all Kara can think of is how close Lena is. Of how Lena is so, so close. Close enough to count every delicately curled eyelash. Close enough to smell her ridiculously expensive perfume mixed with the coffee she had before they started getting ready. Close enough to brush against soft curves and warm skin. Close enough that if Lena looked up…

A gentle tug breaks Kara out of her thoughts just before Lena smooths down the neatened silk and steps back with a satisfied hum.

“You’re looking sharp, Ms. Maid of Honor.”

Heat shoots up Kara’s cheeks despite the beaming smile that takes up her face. “Well, you’re looking gorgeous.” Blue eyes can’t help taking another quick sweep of Lena’s ensemble. And, well, she did tell herself to stop thinking so much, right? “And, I guess, I was hoping to impress.”

Lena’s head tilts adorably and Kara can’t help but think that if everyone believes she’s a puppy, then Lena’s a cat. Lena’s brows crinkle so familiarly as she asks, “I thought you didn’t bring a date?”

“I didn’t,” Kara clarifies quickly, hoping that the breath Lena lets out is out of relief than anything else. Silence fills the space as a palpable tension starts to snake its way around the pair. Lena’s looking at her, eyes curious and cautious but something else. Something else Kara thinks might be reflected in her own gaze.

Another minute passes before Kara finally asks, “—So?”

“So?” Lena echoes, amusement clearly mixing with all the other emotions flitting through her face.

Kara takes a deep breath and straightens, channeling as much Supergirl-confidence as she can so that when she asks, “impressed?” Lena hears what she really means.

(And Lena does. Of course she does.)

Lena’s smile—crooked and dimpled and blinding—tells her everything she needs to know.

“Incredibly impressed,” Lena breathes, pulling her closer by her tie, lips barely brushing hers.

And then, well, Kara stops thinking at all.

[sanversandfriends]

Today, we're excited to launch our mini-views with our fabulous FtF writers, artists, and beta readers. We begin by stringing the lasso around Wally, the author of Amazonian Awakening, an epic multi-chapter fic asking 'what if Kara's pod landed on Themyscira?'

We appreciate your taking the time to share a bit of yourself and your inspirations behind the work, Wally!

Tell us a little about yourself. How did you get started writing fic? Have you written for other fandoms? What are your favorite tropes?

I started writing fic a long time ago, and at 53 I have seen fandoms come and go. I always stuck with what I knew, Star Trek and Star Wars. About three years ago, maybe a little more, my little girl came out to me and it got me thinking that maybe I had a lot to learn. Writing does that for me, so I tried, and people read, but mostly they questioned and commented. Then I made friends in a community I had no reason to be accepted in, and I stuck around. I discovered over time I had a knack for creating stories and I fell in love with the process and the people in the fandoms themselves. Over time I have written SuperCorp and other Supergirl related fiction. My favorite is SuperReign and they are the focus of my longest fic. I have also written for Bishova and Captain Marvel/Black Widow. Tropes? I really don’t know if I have a favorite trope, unless you count song inspired fics as a trope.

What were your inspirations for this particular story? What was it about this/these ships that grabbed you?

This particular story was actually a challenge from a friend, because she loves the idea of Diana and Kara together. So, I thought to myself, what if Kara crashed on Themyscira and grew up as an Amazon. From there it just kinda took control. Honestly, I prefer Diana with Lena, but for this story, I am trying really hard to make them work.

Has the time spent away from your story changed your outlook or approach to any of the storylines or themes? Have you had any new inspirations or breakthroughs/revelations in the meantime? 

It hasn’t really changed my outlook, but it has given me a chance to figure out where I thought the mistakes were and grasp Kara’s personality again. I have questioned some aspects and have made decisions based on those.

Any advice for new or aspiring fic writers?

If there is any advice I can give aspiring writers, write what you want to see and if you hit a block, ask for help.

If you were going to promote this fic with a single line, what would it be? 

“A Kryptonian raised as an Amazon, visits the world of man.”

Here’s a link to Amazonian Awakening.

[eqt-95]

Thanks @sssammich and @sideguitars for the double-tap tag!

1- How many works do you have on AO3?

28 (?!?!)

2. What's your total AO3 word count? 711,082

3. What fandoms do you write for?

in chronological order: harry potter, batwoman, arcane, supergirl

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

follow the buttons

the glasses that broke lena luthor's back

a nemesis and her hero

a crisis of indulgence

like we're made of glass

5. Do you respond to comments?

i aspire. it's real hit or miss for me, but i genuinely adore every comment i've ever received even if it goes unanswered.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

i guess it would be being batwoman but only because i wrote it as a cliffhanger for the sequel?

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

i generally always aim for happy endings, but in my opinion the 'happiest' is a crisis of indulgence but only because it's layered with angst. all my fluff pieces are happy throughout so the end doesn't hit as intensely (i think).

8. Do you get hate on fics?

only once that i remember: same person on multiple fics. such is life.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

i have tried, but it objectively isn't great so i steer clear of it. this has actually been a conundrum with my latest fic: sauce or no sauce?

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

i wrote a kate kane + lena luthor one shot once. does that count?

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

i don't think so

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

someone asked to translate one into german. not sure if it ever happened.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

i haven't but i'd be interested, though i'm usually one of two people: a chaotic procrastinator with fading interest or the most diligent person on the planet. i can't guarantee which would show up for a collaboration.

14. What's your all time favorite ship?

supercorp has had the most lasting affect.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

there are three: 1. being batwoman | year one - (batwoman) i did so much legitimate comic book research and planning for this that it's a shame i've left it go 2. a handy handful - (arcane) i have 30% of the rest written 3. let's for flying - (supergirl) again, i actually have a lot of it worked out but for one reason or another it's in limbo

16. What are your writing strengths?

i'd need to reread things to figure that out

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

consistent prose

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

like, would i personally do it? no, i don't even have a solid grasp of the english language. why would i go butcher another one?

19. First fandom you wrote for?

harry potter

20. Favorite fic you've written?

i answered this in another ask recently, but i think my answer has changed. i'm actually really happy with the concept of like we're made of glass. i don't know how well the execution landed for people (one commenter wrote: not good. it made no sense), but i'm ok with that. things aren't made for everyone.

- - - -

i'm not sure who all did these already, so i won't tag folks, but if you see this, consider yourself tagged!!

[lena-in-a-red-dress]

Watching a new netflix christmas romance called Christmas With You, and it's kinda got the vibe of if Marry Me (the JLo/Owen Wilson romance) had the everyman teacher as a music teacher instead of a math teacher, and if it were set against a Christmas backdrop.

Basically, a recording artist feels outdated and overshadowed by a young new artist and decides to visit a fan who posted an insta reel of herself singing one of the star's songs, with an added christmas wish of being able to meet said artist.

While visiting the girl, she meets the dad, who is a music teacher and ends up having a partial song he's composed himself. Recording artist reads it and is inspired to help him finish it, and bargains with him to split sales and royalties in exchange for her to be allowed to sing it as her brand new single (which her label is insisting she write and release by christmas).

They work together and grow close in the process, only for their homey comfort to be broken when the recording artists publicity-purposes boyfriend shows up to bring her back to the city. But ah hah! She's already invited the girl and her dad to be guests for her christmas gala later in the week, so they'll see each other again.

When it comes time for the artist to sing their joint song on stage for the first time, she invites the dad up to accompany her on the piano. The song is a hit, but afterwards the artist gets swarmed by her fake boyfriend and producer and everyone else, instead of being allowed to celebrate with the dad.

She catches up with the girl and the dad on their way out from the gala, and pulls the dad aside for a chat. She tells him that the song has legs and will be a big hit, and that they'll be in hot demand. SNL, tour, the works. But the dad is understandably upset, because he can't just up and leave his students or his daughter and mom. And frankly, it sounds like this whole thing, their time together and their deepening closeness, has only just been about getting a song.

She's taken aback by the accusation, and struggles to give a response. In the end, she confesses that her songs are all she's ever let herself have. He proceeds to tell her that she needs to take risks, in order to have a real life, instead of just maintaining an image. He storms away and takes his daughter back home to the suburbs.

Then comes the montage of the dad and the singer being miserable apart as the days count down to Christmas. However, the artist does make peace with the up and coming star she'd been so threatened by. During a conversation with said star, the artist discovers where she really wants to be.

She gives her scheduled performance to the up and comer, and races to the suburbs. She arrives just in time to surprise the girl and her dad with a surprise performance at the girl's quince. After the show, the dad invites the artist over to celebrate christmas. She accepts, and they share a holiday kiss.

---

Now the real question is.... in the supercorp version, who would play who?