#'lena fucked off to metropolis for 5 years because that is canonically what lena does when faced with personal feelings' fic instead of this

[sbrn10]

On my extremely low expectations and how SG continues to somehow limbo under them: A Saga

First of all, I am prefacing this with: I finally watched 5x11 actually, and it was like, fine? It was one of the better episodes of the season, honestly, minus the William stuff. And the William stuff is incredibly hamfisted and out-of-nowhere to the point that it almost feels like it has to be a red herring because it’s just so bad. But, I mean, history is not kind to us on this point, so who knows. BUT ANYWAY, to be clear, I am saying: maybe William doesn’t actually happen and this is an overreaction. MAYBE. Like, probably not, but there’s still a chance, so I am acknowledging it.

Second, this is a rant. Sorry. It’s also really long. I didn’t realize it was going to get this long.

On to the actual post I was going to make.

So I've said this before to various people but I came into SG in early-ish s4 (November 2018). I had somehow successfully avoided the show despite knowing that it was the big new femslash thing for two years and my last big media fandom had been Once Upon a Time (which hahahahahahaha fml), so, a while ago.

Anyhow, at that point after catching up to S3 my genuine reaction was that supercorp probably isn’t queerbaiting. (Definition: Intentionally “baiting” fans with a potentially queer relationship while having no intention of making it actually queer in order to capitalize on queer interest in bad faith. Keywords are intentionally, not queer, and bad faith. Depicting queer relationships badly, not queerbaiting. Being forced to keep things subtextual because of outside pressures, not queerbaiting. Completely unintentionally depicting a queer relationship, not queerbaiting, just oblivious as all fuck.)

S2 seemed to be a genuine mistake--they are all so aggressively heterosexual that they created these scenes without a shred of intentionality and seemed genuinely surprised when queer fandom reacted to supercorp. "Wait, wait, we had a canon gay couple RIGHT THERE. Alex had a whole coming out thing! WE LOVE THE GAYS, but Kara and Lena are straight? Y’all are weird," seemed to be the general vibe of their reactions. Admittedly, in retrospect, I understand if you don’t believe them, as an office overflowing with flowers tends to have certain connotations, but honestly, in my experience, sometimes people are just really, really straight. Harold, they’re lesbians! is a whole thing because queerness can be literally and flagrantly staring them in the face and they don’t see it until they’re told. Some people just be like that. Okay, let’s operate on that benefit of the doubt.

Then S3 was an entire season of aggressively no homo-ing--between the continuation of the Mon-El story for Kara, Lena/James becoming a thing, and the weird (as in OOC for Kara, honestly) kryptonite rift story, it was the OPPOSITE of queerbaiting. They were saying very loudly that it’s not queer--chemistry notwithstanding. Were they probably happy to keep supercorp fandom around, sure, but they weren’t noticeably courting it other than, like, Katie and Melissa just existing.

(Side note: P5 told me once that I had missed like valentine's promotions and stuff that seemed to lean into sc more intentionally but I tend not to count the twitter/instagram stuff as honestly that’s probably interns.)

(Side side note: I am not commenting on whether this kind of obliviousness or no homo-ing is homophobic or not; that’s a separate discussion and one I don’t have the energy for now. BUT at the very least it’s not actively malicious, is the thing.)

So that was where I was starting, like, as a baseline. Yeah, this show’s creators are oblivious, yeah, this isn’t going to be canon, but I enjoy these people’s faces when they’re on screen together and I can fill in the blanks, it’s fine!

And then 4b and the between season promotions (”fight for Lena’s soul!” “half the fandom says they should kiss!”) and 5a all happened and like... like... y’all... either this was going to be a huge about-face and supercorp was actually going to happen or this had turned into the most blatant queerbaiting since Rizzoli and Isles. (To be honest, I have mentally blocked out most of what actually happened in canon OUAT and remember almost nothing of it, but also maybe that.) S2-3, at least someone in that writer’s room can say with a straight face, “Well, we didn’t mean for it to be read romantically but if that’s what you get out of it, god be with you.” Once you start doing shit like throwing in fucking Romeo and Juliet imagery, you lose the right to say “we didn’t mean for it to be read romantically” ever fucking again.

(Because images and tropes have history and context, and if you want to write a scene about two platonic-ass friends staring yearningly at each other, choose a setting OTHER than a balcony, and if you really wanted a balcony for it, I’m sorry, but tough shit, get over it. Obviously, this is only one example, but it’s the lowest hanging fruit--these people are fucking professional writers (albeit not terribly good ones); they know or should have known what they are doing. It is often said that one shouldn’t attribute to malice what can be attributed to stupidity, but it is, in my opinion, actually impossible for a group of 10+ people to be THAT stupid.)

So, at this point, I’m still thinking, okay, so wait, even if it’s queerbaiting, it’s still not going to be canon, because this is CW Supergirl, but I mean. Maybe they just end the series with both of them single? Wrap it in “women don’t need to be in a relationship to be fulfilled!” feminism, call it a Boston marriage, and be done with it.

AND THEN. AND. THEN. William gets recalled from the “did this character actually exist?” no-man’s-land they had banished him to for half a season (well, okay, that’s not QUITE fair as Crisis makes it feel longer than it was in the number of episodes) to flirt awkwardly with Kara over a sandwich and I almost punch a hole in my laptop screen.

The series isn’t over, I guess, so there’s room for this still not to turn out to be incredibly insulting queerbaiting? (I mean, if nothing else, William and Kara potentially NOT happening would demonstrate that nobody in that writer’s room knows what romantic tropes look like at all so actually perhaps exonerate them in relation to the stupidity-or-malice argument.)

But... look, I already had low expectations, and now I have, like, none.

tl;dr:

Genuinely, the infuriating thing is that I WAS FINE WITH THEM NOT BEING CANON. (I mean, in some ways, that seemed preferable since all the canon relationships they tried to write were... not written well.) All they had to do was not be complete DICKHATS about it. But they had to go and be FUCKING DICKHATS about it! You know?

#also i would like to note that this entire rant is entirely separate from the huge problem i have with the whole non nocere/luthors arc #which is driving me fucking INSANE #5a was fine in terms of lena and kara's relationship being extremely unstable -- that's fine this is not a shipper thing #what i mind is that non nocere makes no flipping bleeding sense and i am over here bashing my head into the wall every time lena says q wave #i don't care if she's morally grey i care that non nocere is fucking stupid and not even lena should be that self-delusional #everything else lena has done has been at least definable and at least arguably beneficial in some manner #harun-el and the ability to make humans super (which btw is like a dead and gone concept i guess): problematic but achievable #and at least debatable on whether it would be a net benefit or not #non nocere: fucking nonsense indefinable bullshit because 'harm' is not a definable concept #definable: i want to mind control everyone so nobody hurts me again #definable: i want to make it so that nobody has the ability to lie -- it's radical honesty all the time #definable: i want to create a virtual world so i never have to interact with human beings again #non nocere: I AM GOING TO FUCKING SCREAM #i'm sorry i have a lot of feelings i just hate what they've done with her character so fucking much and i really should just write my #'lena fucked off to metropolis for 5 years because that is canonically what lena does when faced with personal feelings' fic instead of this #but here we are and i spent all morning writing this instead of working #i take small solace in that my employer is footing the bill for my self-administered therapy #also NO I WILL NOT STOP WATCHING THE SHOW IF IT BOTHERS ME THAT MUCH YOU THINK I CHOSE SUPERGIRL AS AN OBSESSION IT FUCKING CHOSE ME #musings #supergirl musings