#supergirl meta

[bloodyshadow1]

it's really weird that they didn't make Supercorp a thing, I say this as someone who watched season 2 and then stopped after the comiccon incident. maybe they refused to make it canon in the show because it was a middle finger to the toxic supercorp fans, and there were a lot of them. I wouldnt' even mind since the second crossover event made me leave the supercorp fandom in disgust, you know whne many of them cheered when and alternate version of Jimmy, a black man, was murdered by Nazi green arrow, because the writers had him get together with Lena, it was bad. Maybe there are other reasons but it's still just strange when you make their relationship the heart of the show and don't have them get together..., it's just weird.

Once upon a time was weird like that, their show had Emma, Regina, and Henry, Emma's biological son and Regina's adopted son, not to mention the fairy tale bullshit that connects the two of them, only for them not to get together.

But with Supercorp, it was something that developed naturally, neither of them had any chemistry with the men the writers tried to pair them up with, and it was horrible writing when they were together. Yet Kara and Lena's 'friendship' kept getting center stage in the series.

season 2 lena was abducted by the daxamites because she was brilliant and had been tricked into bringing them to earth. She's going to be forced to marry Kara's boyfriend because of his mother wanting her as a daughter

season 3 a huge part of the season was Lena and supergirl's relationship breaking down, though she was still friendly with Kara. She bought Kara's job for her and despite Lena getting together with James, the writers never tried to develop that relationship.

season 4 Lena is again a huge part of the story since Lex is the real big bad of the season. The big reveal of Kara being Supergirl to Lena is what was supposed to propel the next season's plot. After she shoots him he makes sure to reveal that Kara danvers is supergirl because he knows that nothing would hurt Lena more. You know her completely platonic friend lying to her is what sets her off the deep end to become a villain.

season 5 their relationship is what drives the plot completely now since Lena is going full villain mode. The writing isn't good, but the writers also couldn't stop the two of them from having chemistry.

Hell, the writers had to be aware because the entire 100th episode was about Kara and Lena's relationship. The entire premise of the episode is Kara getting to see clips of what would have happened with her relationship with lena if she told her she was supergirl at different times or just stayed away from her. Almost every time Kara tells her, there's stress in the relationship and things get worse, but they're all about Lena, 5 separate timelines and Kara can't think of anything she would rather change with her life than try and make things wright with Lena. By the end, the episode is supposedly telling us that Lena is a lost cause, but I don't know it wasn't that good of an episode to begin with. It doesn't change that the writers decided to focus on their landmark episode to focus on Lena and Kara's relationship

By the end Lena realizes that she was tricked by lex and joins the good guys, Kara is pissed at her for what she's done, but they eventually can work together again. When lex sends Kara to the Phantom zone Lena is distraught, more than anyone else, even Alex who at least had Kelly for comfort

Season 6 is about getting Kara back and finishing the show. They kill off Kara's temp love interest and Lena is shown to be so desperate to save Kara that she's willing to go farther than Alex, her loving sister, to get her back. Even at the end of the series, the last scene of two characters on screen having a conversation of the series, is between the two of them at a lesbian wedding, where they're in tears talking about how much they mean to each other and hug.

it is bizarre that the writers didn't have the two of them get together given how much the series was driven by their relationship. Like I said, if it was a middle finger to toxic supercorp fans I would understand, but as an aspiring writer, not even a shipper, I feel insulted about how the supergirl writers just tossed aside the perfect natural relationship in the show.

I don't want to keep going much longer, but thematically Kara and Lena were one of the best relationships in the show. The actor's chemistry between the two of them was better than almost every relationship in the show, especially with any of either of their romantic partners. I dont' know, like I said I left the fandom pretty early and the shows been over for almost 3 years, but it still just baffles me.

[kitkatt0430]

So, my brain going off in random directions again. This time with Supergirl and the not particularly well handled Kara/Mon-el romance arc again.

And.

I think I'm on to something about how that ship could have been fixed to work better.

So, they don't hook up in S2. Mon-El has to unlearn bad behaviors in regards to misogyny and Kara has to unlearn her childhood prejudices about Daxamites. It's not easy for either one of them and they both screw up. Kara has to realize she's in the wrong about things and make those up to Mon-el, so it's not just Mon-El being shown to make apologies, grow, and change. They become friends by the end of S2 and have been demonstrated to have made each other better people for having forged that friendship.

Then, to avoid Mon-El having to leave the show, instead of his mom killing his dad and the atmosphere of Earth getting seeded with lead (there is a reason we don't want lead in our water!!! it's still dangerous to humans!!!), Mon-El and Kara save his dad, imprison his mother, and the Daxamites leave to go establish a new homeworld somewhere relatively nearish but not already populated by another species. Maybe leave behind a ship for Mon-el so he can join them later if he wishes, but ultimately his dad respects that Mon-el isn't ready to rejoin his people yet.

If there is to be any ship-teasing between Kara and Mon-el in this modified S2 then it doesn't happen until the big finale with the fight against Mon-El's mother. And both of them are taken aback by the realization there's sparkage there.

S3 is where the ship teasing would begin in earnest and culminating in the two of them getting together at mid-season. Having established a hard-won friendship, showing they're both able to bring out the best in each other without needing romantic motivation first, and giving Mon-El some better characterization than he got in S2 would have made an S3 romance between them way more believable than their weird on/off/on/but now i must go thing that we got in S2. And by bumping Kara/Mon-El down a season, that'd give Kara/James time to actually do their relationship justice before having them mutually break up to stay friends instead.

It'd also be interesting for Argo City to have eventually joined the Daxamite colony once it was revealed that Kara's mom was alive after all. It would have made for some fun background tension and even plots taking place entirely off Earth where Kara and Mon-El have to deal with the tension between the peoples of Krypton and Daxam trying to cohabit the same world. Delve into some of the backstory between both peoples - was Daxam originally a colony of Krypton that struck independence? That would certainly make for an interesting level of nuance in the struggle for creating a fair form of leadership for their now joint colony. Especially when the World Killer thing starts happening - if that was a cult that spanned both Krypton and Daxam but at first appears to be just a Kryptonian thing?

Give me the intrigue. :D

Anyway, canon Kara/Mon-El got strangled by the red string so badly, they never really had a chance to develop any real on screen chemistry. (Not helped by Kara and Lena making heart eyes at each other every chance they got.) But the ship could have been really interesting if it had been given a chance to really breathe and develop more naturally.

[markedbyindecision]

PREV TAGS GOD YEAH

But look, when you have more power than any human army on Earth, you have to be better than this.

[karaspal]

three times kara told nia “you have me”. each time, a different part of kara’s identity.

first time, it was kara zor-el, because she wanted to assure nia that she’s not alone. that someone understood her. kara allowed nia to see her true, full self. she trusted her friend and wanted to make her feel less alone.

second time, it was her friend kara danvers who assured her she’d always be there for her when she needed someone to lean on. nia was grieving and having that support from a friend was really important.

third time, it was her crime-fighting partner supergirl. for the first time in her superhero career, dreamer was faced with a problem she couldn’t tackle on her own. it was important for her to know that she didn’t have to, that she’ll always have someone to stand with her against injustice.

i’m so grateful for their friendship on the show and it’s a shame they didn’t develop them even further. they truly brought out the best in each other.

[fae-morrigan]

Superfam and Found Family: What it Means to Choose

I have seen a lot of my beloved mutuals talk about adoption as a theme in the superfam, and thats true, thats very much a thing, but thats more a subsection of the larger idea with the superfamily: You get to choose your family, and define your relationship to them.

Clark and Kon come to mind. They've been discussed a lot lately, huh? Namely people saying Clark does not treat Kon well. This is false, by the way, they get along great.

But let's sort of dig into the actual story told by their relationship here: Kon was created by Lex without Clark's consent. Clark had no say in how part of his DNA would be used to create a new life.

(This is coincidentally why it irks me that certain fans will act like Clark is a monster for even HYPOTHETICALLY not wanting a relationship with Kon. Guys, you sound like pro-lifers. Lets watch it!)

Despite this, Clark accepts Kon with open arms. Now, as myself and others have pointed out, Kon's technically... he's not a clone, he's a test tube baby. Technically, biologically, he's Clark & Lex's son. D.. diversity win...?

But thats not how Clark and Kon choose to define their relationship. They instead decide, hey, we were raised by the same people, we're brothers.

Kon is not an outsider to the Superfam, even as he is an outsider to this world- He is welcomed with open arms once it is clear he needs a home. And with Clark and Kon, they get to choose how they define their relationship, not Lex, not anyone else.

Then, John Henry and Nat. John Henry is not Natasha's father, but their relationship is very complex and often veers into that territory, for the simple reason that he shows up for her in that capacity when Natasha's own father fails her.

Even while their relationship has its ups and downs (read 52 guys for THEM), they manage to forge a relationship based on mutual respect, enough to the point where during Steelworks, she is not just his niece, but his partner in building a better tomorrow. It is a fatherly/daughterly relationship built on mutual respect largely independent of their blood relation, built on the security that Clay failed to provide Natasha with.

Of course, to talk about adoption, Clois adopting the twins. I think Phillip Kennedy Johnson handles the topic of adoption EXPERTLY with Otho-Ra and Osul-Ra, specifically as a metaphor for transracial/transethnic adoption.

Clark's relationship with the twins is built throughout the Warworld saga, and does not start... great (they discuss looting his corpse lol), and often they. But Clark understands that the kids are traumatized, and seeks to guide them to a better situation.

Now I would be irresponsible to not mention that, during this time, Clark is still struggling with Jon's age up. He mumbles, disoriented during their first meeting, that the kids are the same age as his son (no they are not). In a less tightly written book by a worse writer, it'd be a thing where Clark completely uncritically finds 'replacement kids' in the twins... Which is NOT what happens here, because PKJ is the GOAT.

In the end, his relationship with the twins is built not only independently of his struggles with Jon, but the way he connects with them helps Clark realize that whats done is done. They need him to be Clark, not a man hanging onto the past he will never get back. To move forward, they must do it together, it won't work if the twins remain on Warworld and he remains mentally in Hamilton. Its why it is SUPER important, also, that in the end, Clark doesn't ask them to come with him- rather, they ask to go with Clark.

(Sidenote: The twins lost not only their parents on warworld, but an older brother, too. Clark isn't the only one who finds a healing way forward via the Ra-El relationships, but that's gonna be another post!) And their hero names, Red Son and Starchild, are from their original culture (the Phaelosians), a culture that was systematically robbed from them when Warworld trafficked them into service. Rather than forcing them to conform to the house of El and their legacy, they help the kids reconnect.

These are his children. They found each other in the scariest place in the universe, and together, they find a way past the things they've both suffered through.

I'm afraid I don't know much about Kara (kara mutuals, reading recs appreciated! i've only ever read WOT and a few issues of the most recent Supergirl run) but I do know that her relationship to Clark is inherently different than it was supposed to be, and she has to roll with it and redefine it accordingly. She was supposed to be older than him, be able to take care of him, but by the time she actually finds him, he's the one doing that for her.

(I dont really have a panel here I fear, so look at the pretty art from Woman of Tomorrow. If someone wants to say more on Kara, you're welcome to hijack my post for a bit!)

Kenan is an example of this theme going kind of sideways and being examined from another angle- He's forced to choose between his two found families, and with either choice, he stands to lose something. Either his connection to Superman, or his connection to home:

Kenan already has a messy relationship with family, considering the soap opera level drama his parents inflict on him in his solo. Now, separated from his culture by circumstances he can't control, Kenan's relationship with the Superfam is forced by circumstance, even as it isn't unwanted. He's forced to make the most of what he has.

Then you have Clark and Jon, where the 'and define your relationship to them' part of my thematic statement REALLY becomes important.

I've seen it argued many times that giving Jon the Superman mantle weakens the theme of found family, but I'd argue it strengthens it, because Jon not having a choice in becoming Superman is EXPLICITLY framed as a bad thing.

Jon's not ready to be Superman. He doesn't even really WANT to be superman. But because of the circumstances of his birth, the world, and his father, push him into it. Clark never asked Jon to be Superman, during the Son-of-kal-el + Warworld era. He assumed he would be.

It tarnishes Clark & Jon's relationship, actively preventing Jon from connecting with his father and the WORLD fully in the way they both want. This is a key theme of Superman: Son of Kal El, from the very moment of Jon's actual birth:

All throughout post-age up Jon is the idea that Jon is just as burdened by the expectations placed upon him by his blood as he is comforted by what the mantle represents.

(I know I use this panel like every analysis but its a GOOD PANEL, SHUT UP) And there's of course the fact that... y'know. Well. Y'know.

Y'KNOW.

I think there's a potentially strong story in either Jon walking away from the mantle entirely, or redefining it to be his own. But first, he's going to have to suffer for the fact he wasn't ready for what many people call his DESTINY, including his abuser.

And where does this leave Jon and Clark?

Here.

The last note before Absolute Power of these two is this bittersweet moment where Jon still isn't fully heard. Where he still doesn't get a full say in what he and Clark's relationship will be. And judging by THIS interview from Mark Waid, this particular idea is about to finally come home to roost:

Lastly, there's of course the Most Found Family Thing Of All that i basically see NO one talk about: The fact that the Irons and the Kents just. Share all their big life events with each other. They're literally not related to each other by blood at all, but throughout PKJ's Action Comics, they ARE family!

Teamwork makes the dreamwork guys!

The superfamily is a wonderfully diverse cluster of relationships and examinations of the way family finds each other. Even moreso than the Batfam, which is often defined by their father-son relationship with Bruce in fanon, the Superfam displays a wide array of the various ways non-nuclear families can build each other.

This is all to say you guys should read PKJ's action comics run. It rules.

(This is also to say Superman 2016 sucks ass.)

[jesncin]

please do tell about why woman of tomorrow sucks i love reading your takes they’re always so well written

Sure! And thank you for throwing me this bone because WOOF

(btw it's totally fine for people to like Woman of Tomorrow, and I can even see why! This is just my experience with it that I wish was talked about more)

Quick context: Woman of Tomorrow is about a space farmgirl named Ruthye who seeks revenge on Krem, a guy who killed her dad. Supergirl guides her on this journey so they can learn lessons about grief and revenge.

The biggest flaw of the comic is the narrative prose. Ruthye's dialogue is a rambly, over-indulgent, stylized mix of an attempt at medieval Shakespearian speak, but then in the last few issues the writer remembers she's a farmgirl so he decides she should suddenly say "ain't" more often and speak in double negatives to sound a bit more Southern. I can enjoy wordy comics! But Ruthye's dialogue and narration is blatantly excessive purple prose. So many scenes would hit harder with a less-is-more approach while still being stylized and characteristic. Sometimes the narrations pairs nicely with the art to create layered irony, but most of the time it feels like it's disregarding the comics medium altogether.

The other thing about Ruthye's narration is that it holds the story back. I get that the narration is Ruthye writing from the future, but the way it's done gives us a very passive relationship with the events of the story. We don't get to be with the characters in the action heavy moments because we're reading caption boxes of Future Ruthye rambling about poetry recounting The Battle of Capes. I'm not experiencing grief or dread with the characters, I'm being told about it. All of Ruthye's narrative rants boil down to "Supergirl is really badass, sad and kind. I promise this is deep." and "here's how my farm girl experience is relevant to this". Ruthye also speaks in glowing admiration, idealization and worship of Supergirl; it makes it really hard to get to know Kara in a humanizing way. I'm sure the purple prose hits differently for others, but I personally think the story would have more room to breathe without it.

You know how people like saying "Superman is boring because everything is too easy for him, he's too powerful" yeah that's Woman of Tomorrow. The conflict Kara faces are not challenges to her character, they're inconveniences. The resolutions to each story don't feel clever or earned. Kara just knows where to find the murdered purple aliens, Kara just happens to have a silver age-reference magical horse that can outrun the suffering-ball Krem throws at her, Kara just toughs out 10 hours in the green sun. Why be a smart storyteller when you can just give your heroine the upper hand every single time? There could've been a great bonding moment where Ruthye uses her famer-smarts to build shade for Kara, she could've crafted a salve to protect Kara's skin. But I guess having her guard Kara from dinosaurs is ok. Kara helps of course, even though she's dying because she's so cool, badass, sad, kind, etc.

Kara's internal conflict is that she was hoping that taking Ruthye on this journey would teach the farmgirl a lesson about revenge, but has Kara herself learned to move on? She's still thinking about Krypton after all. The problem with how this is presented is that it's not a flaw that we get to see evolve with the story. We see Kara act mopey, get an origin story flashback and then Kara tells us this- in hopes it'll recontextualize everything you've read before. By the time we make it to the end, the characters act like they've learned so much and I'm just standing here wishing I got to see all this growth they're talking about.

At the heart of it, I feel like Woman of Tomorrow represents the side of Super-fandom that wants to see the Kryptonians deified by the narrative. They hate seeing Kara do silly girly rom-com teenager things, she needs to be SERIOUS and EDGY and SAD and ALONE but like a god would be and not how a young woman would be that way. How else will boys take her seriously? Don't forget to remind the reader that she's STRONGER than her boy scout wholesome cousin! There's potential in a short revenge story about young girls finding hope in seeing a role-model woman survive loss, but not like this.

"You don't think I could've solved all those problems? C'mon I'm Supergirl." I sure love seeing female characters be badass girl-god legends who don't get to be humanized by being unflatteringly flawed people. Anyway the better Supergirl grief+revenge story is "Supergirl: Being Super". I don't think it's perfect because it misses the crucial difference between Kal and Kara among other things- but as a story about a teenage heroine learning how grief shapes her and those around her, it's way better.

Woman of Tomorrow's art is stellar though lmao would get a copy just as an artbook to reference.

[auberge13]

I want to talk about one of my favorite little comic details.

The first picture is Supergirl (2016) issue #33. The second is Superman (2018) issue #14. They are both depicting the same moment- when Jon Kent first pitches the idea for the United Planets- but they go about it in very different ways. When I was discussing these panels, a friend of mine suggested that these are showing the different ways Kara and Clark see Jon at this moment, so let's take a look.

In Kara's pov, Jon is confident in his suggestion. "I" is bolded in the lettering which emphasizes his certainty in his idea, and he is drawn clearly more sure of himself than in the Superman panel. His suggestion may be a little overly-casual, but he's still young, and in the Supergirl panel it's easier to read it as a clear, effective way to get his point across quickly. Kara sees Jon as mature and self-possessed here.

Meanwhile, in Clark's pov, Jon seems more unsure. "Think" is bolded, which conveys that Jon is uncertain in this suggestion- he thinks he knows but he may be wrong. In the first panel he's drawn smaller and standing behind Clark, and even as he is saying his idea he looks like he doesn't know exactly where he's going with this. In this framing, it almost seems like Jon is being completely serious with his suggestion of a "time-out" with no further idea beyond this, like he's playing tag on the playground. That's the heart of Clark's pov here- Jon seems childish.

Of course, it makes sense that Clark would see Jon this way at this point. Just three weeks ago for Clark Jon was 11. Clark hasn't had the time to get used to the change, and certainly not enough time to accept it. At the same time, Kara is more removed from the situation- she cares about Jon but not with the same intensity and proximity that Lois and Clark do- and while she is surprised when she first sees older Jon, she's able to quickly put whatever feelings she has about it aside and focus on her mission. Which makes perfect sense! She's learning the truth of what destroyed Krypton, that's massive for her! She's too busy to have feelings about Jon, whereas this is the biggest thing happening in Clark's life right now.

Kara's lack of emotional bias here implies that her pov of the moment is the more accurate one. This is supported by the fact that, based on what we've learned throughout this book, Jon would not be timid about this suggestion. During this arc, we see Jon gain a very personal understanding of the dangers that come when people don't engage in honest, open, effective communication and don't listen to each other.

(Superman (2018) issues #8 #9 and #10 respectively)

It makes him angry! And now he's taking his chance to do something about it! He knows this is a good idea. The Jon we've seen in books before this and the Jon we'll see after would not be unsure about this suggestion, which makes Clark's way of seeing the scene even sadder. After missing so many years of his son's life he can't bring himself to really see the young man in front of him doing something extraordinary.

[suzukiblu]

I really need more fun Kryptonian biology to mess with in fic but I'm short on ideas right now.

Common-seeming fanons I've seen and liked:

purring

happiness = literal floating

either intersex or just sexes/genders that don't translate into standard "human" versions

inhumanly bright eyes

Also I still really love the whole "Kryptonians psychically soulbond with just literally anyone they love" thing, though alas that is not a thing I see on the reg. ALAS.

Anyway all of these are fun but I need mooooore and I also need to make them all Kon's problem. Like, just all of them. Possibly also Match's. Meanwhile Kara facepalms in the background and Clark gets reamed by Karen over how he didn't think to give his teenage clones sex ed. CLARK WHY THEY'RE LITERALLY YOUR CLONES.

Clark: technically Match is Kon's clone--

Karen: Go talk to your kids about sex.

Clark: I would rather go to the Phantom Zone, thanks.

And Jon probably got The Talk from Ultraman, the poor bastard. Ughhhhh.

[artbyblastweave]

A few days ago I watched my adventures with superman

And while I am very much not a superman expert (the sum of my knowledge of DC is from disconnected facts learned from the internet, a few cartoons and the cw arrowverse up until like season 4 of the flash and everything that happened in that year) but I find it interesting how they shifted a lot of characters into staying in the same roles but being very different characters

Or maybe I just don't know anything and stuff like the current supergirl plot is from the comics

Yesno. Supergirl flat-out filling the Peridot role outright I believe is a novel development, but if I recall correctly, they played the Kryptonian-Chauvanist angle during the nu52 setting reboot (which I did not read) and the idea of a brainwashed Supergirl acting as the enforcer for an alien empire was the premise of Superman/Batman: Apocalypse (with Darkseid as the one holding the leash instead of Braniac.) Supergirl as a character is like maybe one step down from Hawkman and Hawkwoman in terms of number of competing origins and convoluted publication histories so there could be any number of other spins on her character floating around out there that I'm not aware of. So it goes

[lena-in-a-red-dress]

Been thinking about Lena after she kills Lex, and like... sure, fandom and Lena herself like to think that she's a stone cold manipulator, able to con anyone into thinking she doesn't have a heart, but Sam and Kara both know that she's literally mush on the inside. Which implies to me that Lena wears her emotions on her sleeve.

Which in turn implies that she would have been physically unable to hide the fallout of her decision to kill Lex and the truth that's revealed to her in doing so.

Which gives me the idea that Lena wasn't this cold hearted bitch leading Kara on for months over that summer, but rather that simply-- no one was there to see her falling apart.

It's not that hard to rationalize. Kara avoids her, because every time they're together she knows she needs to tell Lena but can't bring herself to do so. Lena lets her, because she can hardly stand the sight of Kara anyway. And the other superfriends, well... Kara was her main point of contact with them anyway. If Kara is avoiding her, there's little reason to expect the others might be filling in.

It all makes me very angry on Lena's behalf. She would have been read like an open book if anyone had given half a shit about her, but instead she was left to fester and stew in her own anger and hurt and misgivings until she got to her boiling point and had forsaken all human connection.

And for those who argue maybe the shock of learning Kara's secret in the way she did was enough to literally shut off her emotionality so that she didn't/couldn't show her true feelings-- if that were the case it STILL would have been noticeable. Kara would have noticed the sudden change from "mush on the inside" to "I am totally closed off to you."

So either way you look at it-- the superfriends and Kara in particular did Lena dirty and this is a hill I'm willing to die on.

[invisible-pink-toast]

k so why did the advertising in the flash movie heavily focus on kara when she was barely in the movie only to die??

i was bombarded with advertisements for the flash when it was coming out - and it was almost all barry running and kara showing up in her suit and using her heat vision. i can't even remember if the other timeline barry or batman show up in the ads (either batman version).

i had no desire to watch the movie, but thought it was great that supergirl was back on the big screen in such a major movie. and having her be so different to previous version was so cool - she's latino! she's more masc looking!

anyway it was my dad's birthday and he wanted to watch the flash but i cannot believe how disappointed i was with kara's treatment?

not kara herself - sasha did an amazing job (especially considering), sad but interesting backstory, intriguing character, she's badass and conflicted and has a cool suit.

but she only shows up like over an hour and a half into the movie!? she has what, maybe 15 lines? if i'm being generous. in her first fight she decimates her captors despite being seriously depleted - in her second (and last) fight she's kicking zod's ass only to have him Suddenly Win. for plot reasons. and brutally murder her on screen.

zod stabs kara with some deus ex machina weapon that he's apparently saved until now and it just makes her completely helpless. and then she's stabbed again by some experimental tech and has her blood drained. and then she dies.

despite being... kryptonian. like was it a kryptonite weapon? that wasn't made clear. she survived decades in captivity surrounded by kryptonite but This Weapon is what gets her. despite the sun. idk.

And if that wasn't insulting enough - she dies again. and again. and again. because barry 2.0 can't accept her death and keeps going back in time to change it. there's a montage of kara dying. in different ways. sometimes not even with the stabbing thing? she's just suddenly outmatched?? barry gets stabbed by the kryptonian weapons and just keeps going.

og batman dies twice - being blown up and then dying in the arms of his friend. he gets his moment, he gets his last lines. kara never gets that. kara always dies alone, her body lying on the ground in display of barry's "failure".

and then she's not mentioned again?? because the movie doesn't think she matters at all! only in relation to barry's story!

it's such a textbook example of the 'women in refrigerators' trope and it's so fucking annoying that this trope is still used, especially in superhero media! so incredibly sexist and ridiculous - poor writing and poor character treatment.

i have very little faith that the dc movies could do any justice to kara after this, but saying that they Are going to make a supergirl movie and not even telling sasha if she's going to be cast in it or not like how dirty can you do this poor actor who quite frankly was already the best part of your basic movie?

[wolfienation]

until i see the full season i won't be jumping to character assassination conclusions. 2 episodes isn't enough to claim total destruction. by the end of ep 8, all these earlier actions could have entirely different meanings so, i withhold judgement.

[kitkatt0430]

☕️ on Supergirl!!

(Perusing my tea shelf, what shall I choose for Supergirl... ^_^ )

Okay, so the Cult of Rao was a plot line that I don't really feel got utilized to it's full potential. It touched on big topics like cultural appropriation and the way cult leaders pick and choose the bits of religion they like to create their new and 'correct' religious way. But because it focused so hard on the cult gone wrong aspect, I think it failed as a criticism of cultural appropriation.

Rao was both the star around which Krypton revolved and the deity which Kryptonians worshiped. True worshipers of Rao were known as Raoists in the comics and it would have informed a not insignificant about of the culture Kara was raised in before Krypton was destroyed. Thus it would have to be very upsetting for her to see the religion of her childhood have the trappings slapped on top of a cult that was very... Christian underneath the Kryptonian veneer.

This was an opportunity to Kara to open up about her own feelings about her people's religion and faith. Was it an open religion to all beings, Kryptonian or otherwise? Was it a Kryptonian and Daxamite only thing, largely closed to other species? We don't really get a lot about Kara talking about her Kryptonian heritage in terms of cultural practices - most of it has to do with her family specifically. Which is fair, she was very young when her world died and would have known her family's practices fairly well, but not necessarily the parts of her world's culture her parents chose not to embrace or regional variations... she was geared towards following her father into the physical sciences, after all. She wasn't going into anthropology or religious studies. And having this cult showing up could make her uncomfortable with herself too over just the sheer amount of Kryptonian culture that she's simply incapable of keeping alive on her own.

The United States has a history of commodifying cultures that aren't heavily Christian the way main stream US culture is. We treat Native American dress as a costume appropriate for Halloween parties, ignore the cultural impacts of minorities where they can't be whitewashed (Elvis stealing the music - and dance style - of Black America and getting famous off it is a great example), the treatment of other nations food staples as 'weird and exotic'... the trivialization of some non-Christian religions while others are demonized.

The Cult of Rao could have been an excellent opportunity to say something meaningful about cultural and religious appropriation, to really hammer home how much it harmed Kara as this ongoing plot beyond just a handful of episodes tied to the World Killer arc. To show that it wasn't harmful just because it became an excuse for these people to do violence, but because the religion of Rao was being treated as a fad. Her people's cultural identity watered down, turning her people's spiritual practices into the next yoga obsession, stripped of all history or understanding of the significance behind the practices save for what makes it more catchy to the people appropriating it.

[forkaround]

This post by @heretherebedork got me wondering about why commentary doesn't work. This isn't just a BL thing but a universal writing thing. I think since 2016 this making commentary thing has increased in all media over all. A lot of that has to do with evolving political landscape of the world in both good and bad directions. But nothing I can say or do about that. What I am interested in is why sometimes it works and other times it doesn't.

It works in Gotham Knights, Agents of Shield, even Cutie Pie to a degree and then there are shows built upon the political landscape like The Eclipse and Not Me. It doesn't work in Supergirl, Doctor Who (13th Doctor's run), and just about most shows that try.

For me the ages of the characters on Gotham Knights, Legacies, The Eclipse, Cutie Pie make it work. With GK and LGS, they are American teens and irl a lot of Gen Z are like that and so it becomes about reflecting real life. For comparison, when TVD came out the cultural consciousness made it possible to succeed in a way it won't today. Same with Twilight. Cutie Pie and The Eclipse has the PC built into them with the gay marriage and anti-authoritarian thing respectively. Same for Not Me.

But if you look at Supergirl, it came from the comics, comic have been PC or ahead of their time a lot of the times, but as a show it's 'lessons' fall flat. Compare the Alien Immigrants storyline in Supergirl with a similar but better anti-inhuman one from Agents of Shield. The difference is when Supergirl did it, it was a one season and done thing. Whereas Agents of Shield built it up slowly over the course of multiple seasons. AoS also gave multiple opposing views on it from members of the team. Supergirl had all it's main cast agree that it's bad to treat alien's badly. Some of it is baked into the character dynamics from the get go. The Supergirl team leaders were Hank, an alien himself and Alex, Supergirl's sister. While AoS's team leader was Coulson someone with experience in spy work and someone who understands people.

On the BL side, like I said the ones that do it well get away with it because of the basic premise. The ones that fail like War of Y, which I would argue didn't fail completely, Step by Step, which has the Supergirl problem, do so because of weak writing. With WoY, given the subtitles and overall quality I didn't expect much. The Commentary has stilted dialogue but so does the rest of the show. Same with House of Stars. It fails but doesn't stand out as egregious.

To Conclude: Some advice as an author,

if you are going to include PC into your story either bake it into the premise or don't make it stand out.

Also it's always good to have opposing views, good and bad. Try to make things as round and without edges as possible.

The characters should be talking to each other, not to the audience. or worse, at the audience.

Don't rely on woke points to propel your story.

It's a story, a narrative first, commentary second.

[karaspal]

it’s always “hands on hips in the name of justice” and never “another woman’s hands on kara’s hips in the name of lesbianism”

[rocketonthemoon]

Not good but “correct” ending? That’s quite the stance

so i'm gunna preface all of this by admitting a) I still haven't seen all of the show (i'm missing a couple of episodes basically from 3/4/ and quite a bit from 5) and that b) it's been a while since I last watched the parts of the show I HAVE seen so. Bear with me

But yes. I absolutely believe this was the Correct ending for the CWSG's version of Kara. like I said, from the get go, the Kara we're introduced to struggles with her dual lifestyle. Becoming Supergirl makes her feel free and confident. She's EXCITED by being able to use her powers and be more of herself instead of hiding all the time. Kara's regularly confronted for being a bad liar - both by the show going 'haha isn't this silly' and by the characters - and personally I view her hard line of "you lied to me" that she draws with other characters comes from her extreme dislike of the fact that she's lying about herself. She comes out to at least one character every season except maybe 3? And every time her behavior with those characters transforms into Kara becoming more comfortable and more herself. And no matter how you view Kara's relationship with Lena, the reveal and the aftereffect is the big push through the season both plot and character-wise

For all of the writing's faults, the one line they did manage to make through the entire season is Kara's struggle with her dual identity. I don't even like calling it "secret" because I think they do actually a decent job of showing that Kara views - or at least wants - her life not as a secret but rather two halves that she can't seem to make fit together. How much of that throughline is Melissa Benoist's understanding and evolution of Kara as a character (the famous interview at the end where she admits to apparently pitching Kara's ending makes me suspect it was quite a bit) and how much of that was actual show projection, I don't think we'll actually ever know. But for this version of Kara that we sat with through 6 seasons of TV with, anything else for a character arc would've just felt static imo. If CWSG can say it's about anything, it can say it's Kara's journey of self discovery.