Honestly remember season 1 and Maxwell Lord was taken into the DEO without due process and that’s when James was like hey maybe the DEO actually isn’t good. At all. And he was right but at the time he was only talking about humans at the time, and how they were treating humans. But what if this led his season 2 arc, with him as the head of this massive media company was James realizing that the DEO is actually alien Guantanamo.
These aliens had at minimum 24 years of being locked up, since that was how long Kara was in The Phantom Zone. We have no idea how long they were sentenced there for, or even for what. And what we know is that the DEO would then capture the alien, take them in, and decide whether or not they will be locked up forever and probably horrible confinement with no sunlight, or cell mates, or any chance of parole. Just look at that tiny cell Astra had. There is no parole, they are there forever without any kind of due process or rights, with agents possibly also conducting experiments on them, like they did with Astra and Kryptonite. They literally tortured Astra–and have you ever seen an alien prisoner with a lawyer? I haven’t.
Jonn had to pretend to be Hank for over a decade–Hank, who clearly had a bunch of friends in the military as we see in that ep where Alex is interrogated by Lucy in s1. You can’t all of a sudden be an alien lover and have extremely Progressive views. Maybe he can gradually and arbitrarily make changes, like letting go of the professor of astronomy that we see, who Hank probably would have kept imprisoned, or doing his best to recruit people who aren’t all hardcore xenophobes. But it’s not enough.
The DEO literally play judge, jury, and executioner with alien lives.
am not exaggerating when I say this is alien Guantanamo
and James realizing this, especially realizing this when he remembers that they shot Kara out of the sky with Kryptonite and locked her up before letting her go. It’s almost a survival thing for Kara to work with them, because this could be her. And it’s one thing when it is all the Fort Rozz aliens trying to kill her, but what about all the other aliens in national city?
And do you know who’s also end up being on his side? Someone he talks to
as a point to be like yes this is the alternative we need, James isn’t
just going to be like “this is wrong,” oh no, he’s going to have a
solution and ideas of how to make the system better, an alternate especially since right now it seems like for any crime aliens get life sentences.
Who this would bring him into contact with? Detective Maggie Sawyer
from National City Police Department’s science branch. And oh look. Now
we also have a cohesive storyline for Maggie that exists outside of
Alex.
And that’s definitely one way to cause conflict between James and Kara, temporarily breaking them up. Because yes Alex definitely took the job in case they ever came after Kara–she straight out says multiple times she did this to protect Kara, because as she was before she couldn’t take on the DEO, and this would give her hours, maybe days of warning that she might need to grab Kara and run– but it was also a Lifeline when she was struggling. and there’s also a fact that most of the aliens Alex encounters wouldn’t hesitate to try and kill Aluras daughter if they knew about her, and she says in season one that J’onn told her that they were going to save the world. She then makes a point that she can’t distinguish between aliens and humans anymore, but we don’t really see that in DEO policies, other than they’ll now take in humans with powers as well as aliens. To do what she does, Alex needs to believe that she’s in the right– and tbh it kind of reminds me about border patrol dynamics w their family members(when I went to El Paso,TX–and this is from both undocumented immigrants and the border patrol themselves–they mentioned that several border patrol agents would have family members who were there illegally and it’s just the dynamic they live with it’s definitely an interesting but complicated topic).
This entire media war would definitely place James at odds with Alex. And even if Kara understands (even if it’s a truth Kara doesn’t want to acknowledge because so much of her life is hard and complicated and she doesn’t want to think about how tenuous her freedom really is, and what she’s maybe done for the past year), both Kara and Alex choose each other first, always. It’s not a man (or racism) who breaks up Kara and James. And James understands, he does, and he hopes that one day maybe Kara will stop being scared of what could happen (and if she is, its because hes helped shape a world where she wont be)–but it’s not going to stop him.
This is what’s right. This isn’t bs contrived drama–god, the metaphor and symbolism alone, about a black man being in control of the media narrative of the xenophobic practices of shady government law enforcement that do what they want to a vulnerable minority population, shaping public opinion, acting as the moral compass of the show? Mindblowing
This is how James Olsen can end up being a guardian for others. Not with his fists, or against muggers. Because
this is something he can do that Kara can’t. Kara may be a reporter, can go against a thousand corrupt politicians and institutions potentially–but not the DEO. She can’t do this–as an
alien, she’s under their purview. But James, as a civilian and a human,
isn’t. Kara Danvers may be somewhat of a big name for a few select
journalism circles by being Cat’s assistant for 3 years but that’s a
selective circle (and how many nights do you think Kara stays up late,
trying to avoid thinking about what scenario would make the DEO come
after her, or how many times they almost did, how much
information they collected on her, before she ever became Supergirl)
James said it himself–he took that picture, and now everyone
knows his name.
This is not about punches and fighting–this is how
James can frame the narrative to shape public opinion and make change on a global scale. He’s not some
random reporter the DEO can disappear, or intimidate into compliance. He just became the head of an international media company, and he’s publicly known as Superman’s best friend–this has nothing to do with Superman, but he, with all his fragile humanity, has been threatened and intimidated by every single goddamn villain Superman has gone against and came out the other side breathing. Sure he’s scared, but when has that ever stopped him?
He’s James fucking Olsen, and he’ll hold his head high as he does what’s right.
This is for the amazing amazing @actualhumangirl, who asked for a Supercat get-together post Myriad. I hope this is what you wanted darling!! ❤
When Kara gets back to work, she’s kind of expecting Cat to yell at her. The thing is, Myriad had been a special circumstance, obviously, but Kara had been in full-on Supergirl mode the entire time, and then she’d been in a horrible almost-died-and-then-got-rammed-back-through-earth’s-atmosphere-as-the-hood-ornament-on-her-own-spaceship coma, which means that she hasn’t actually been to work at CatCo in an entire week.
So, yes, extenuating circumstances, but she’s still expecting to get yelled at – yelling is just how Cat shows her worry, shows that she cares. Instead Cat throws all her things into a box, acts like she’s firing her, and gives her an office and a promotion. Unexpected.
Kara stays in her new office for a long time afterwards, setting up her meager box of things. (Not her burrito – that she eats. It’s only a little covered in box dust.)
It’s hard to know how to feel. When she thought she was going to die – and before that, when she and Cat spoke on the balcony –
It has just been A Week, that’s all. She doesn’t know how to feel about this promotion, or this office. She doesn’t know what she wants. She doesn’t know how to give up being by Cat’s side all the time. She –
She doesn’t know why it was so easy for her to make peace with killing herself.
She doesn’t know what to do with this odd, niggling disappointment that she’s still here, that she’s not with her family in Rao’s light.
Maggie
Sawyer, resident xenosexual, starts a blog. But when she starts dating 100%
human Alex Danvers, will she lose her alien-banging cred?
Not
likely.
Alex Danvers/Maggie Sawye, Alex Danvers/Kara
Danvers/Maggie Sawyer, Alex Danvers/Kara Danvers, Kara Danvers/Maggie Sawyer
and in particular Maggie Sawyer/Aliens
One-shot, less than 4k, 2017
AU-ish, Blogger!Maggie; Maggie is a sex guru;
explicit, funny, crack
Written exclusively from Maggie’s POV in blog
style. This is a hilarious crack fic and one of the funniest Supergirl fic that
I have read. Loved it.
While technically this is a Sanvers and Super
Sanvers fic, this is neither really a romantic fic nor really smut, but
unapologetically explicit and funny.
Favorite quote
Kryptonians- … Of course, their attitude toward
sexuality has always been a bit embarrassed, but as we know, from the Pink Book
of Arkhed–that great erotic novel–(Kryptonian eroticism involving mysterious
intimate underwater embraces, fucking not described) that the #1 romantic
Kryptonian love story was between two brothers who ended up on opposite sides
of a war, and while they were embracing naked in a pond, one slew the other,
for justice, and then himself. So, um, well, anyways …
Alex Danvers knows what rock bottom looks like, and this isn’t it. But still, getting fired and blackballed by your mob-connected boss is not really ‘success’. Reality TV has not ever been part of the plan. But it’s time to make a change, and Knives and Fire: National City is her best chance at making it.
The fact that it will piss off her mom? Even better.
Ever since the explosion that took her parents from her, Kara Olsen has been struggling to find out where she belongs and what she’s meant to do with her life. But everything she pursues seems to end in failure. Working on her boyfriend’s taco truck seemed to be the answer, but without an infusion of cash and some new ideas, the taco truck is doomed.
Going on Knives and Fire: National City is a harebrained scheme to save it. And the prospect of public embarrassment when Kara inevitably fails again is mortifying. But what else is there? Just giving up?
This season on Knives and Fire: Knives! Fire! and Dreams. 8 young chefs come together to prove themselves in the oven of destiny. Bonds will be forged, remade and tested, but in the fires of competition, what you truly find is yourself.
Rules: It’s time to love yourselves! Choose your 5 favorite works you’ve created this past year (fics, art, edits, etc!) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you’ve brought into the world in 2017. Tag as many writers/artists/etc as you want (fan or original!) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome works.
(totally saw this when I was first tagged, and had it open in a tab to remember, but then my laptop restarted and I forgot about it til now, sorry)
1. What We Go Through (bring me back to laughter) The Step Up au I spent about ten months on. I’m honestly still kind of amazed that I finished it and that I like it as much as I do. I think it really helped me see how much I’ve grown as a writer over the years, and that I can finished a longer piece.
2. That [Three] People Are Connected One of my earliest Director Sanvers works, also the first fic I posted in 2017. It’s been a long year since then, and it’s incredible how much this ship has changed my live. It’s also smut.
3. Musician AU It started as a series of asks I sent someone, and can’t even remember who now, but eventually I made this photoset of it. Alex as a classically trained pianist struggling, and Maggie a busker with a guitar. This isn’t the first set I created, not the most technical, but it’s one of my favorites visually.
4. Space Pirate Alex It wasn’t just me, plenty of others contributed, but it somehow ended up as my thing? I love it though. The concept was also what cause me to make my first photoset.
5. Scientific Method Alex and Lucy having a one night stand years ago, causing Alex to come out to herself earlier. The series isn’t done yet, but I like what I’ve got so far. It’s interesting getting into Alex’s head for that, and I actually find I write the Alex/Lucy interaction different than I do when Maggie is also there.
So, I’m not tagging anyone, cause that always makes me anxious, and I dunno who may have been tagged or not, but if you’re a creator and want to do it, go ahead.
She wonders what it might have been like, to meet Regina for the first time now, without the past and a series of Cora’s commands weighing on them. Mulan would never have allowed anyone to command Emma. Mulan has stepped in twice this evening with a grave hand on Snow’s arm at a try the rice, it’s so tasty and join us tomorrow for a ride and Snow had recoiled twice, eyes wide, and retracted the commands and apologized.
It’s easy to dream of a sheltered life with guards around her, to be watched like a hawk in exchange for a certain freedom, but Emma can’t imagine herself as the woman grown from that gilded cage. Nor can she imagine knowing any other Regina first but the girl in the stables, lying to her mother and flushing at Emma’s appreciation.
“I’ve always been certain that Mother had been the reason you’d rejected me,” Regina says suddenly. Emma isn’t the only one lost in thoughts of the past and what could have been. “Though it hardly makes a difference, if you were so easily swayed.” Emma aches. “But it must have been Mother,” Regina says, looking carefully at her.
“It wasn’t,” Emma says immediately, beholden to a command from long ago. Her face gives nothing away, no clues to the truth, and Regina sighs.
If Murphy had his way, he’d never actually leave grad school.
It’s not so much that grad school is so great and more that once he leaves grad school, he needs something else to do, and that’s a terrifying prospect. He’s pretty sure he doesn’t have a future in academia, not with how much better everyone else in academia is at the whole thing than he is, and he can’t just coast on Jaha thinking he’s brilliant forever. And if he’s not in academia, he doesn’t know what else to do. Somehow, horrifyingly, that’s all he knows.
“Maybe a self-help book,” says Emori. “Isn’t that how people with philosophy degrees and no other skills make money?”
“I think we just starve to death,” he says, staring up at the ceiling. He doesn’t want to have an existential crisis, but it might be unavoidable.
“I still don’t know why you’re so convinced you can’t get a job here,” Emori says. “Jaha isn’t the only one in the department who likes you.”
“Yeah, but can you imagine me as a teacher? Fuck, I don’t want to have the read the bullshit I write, fuck student papers. TAing was a nightmare, and I don’t want to publish research.”
“If only they had an open position for a visionary.”
“I think that’s Jaha too.” He huffs. “You got an idea for that self-help book? I think it only works if I’m actually successful.”
“You have a PhD and minimal student debt. That’s success to many.”
“Probably better to just skip it and be a bartender,” he grumbles, and she kisses his forehead.
She blinks up at you, like she doesn’t understand, before smiling, “D’ja eat your cupcake?” You see soot on her cheek from the fire she’d stopped earlier—a little singe at her shoulder—you’d watched the whole thing on the screens behind your desk, chewing on your lip the whole while. You know she’s perfectly capable—that this is almost nothing—but it hadn’t stopped you from worrying. You swallow down the urge you have every time—to tell her National City can save itself, that she doesn’t owe them anything—but you don’t want to have that argument again. Especially not tonight.
“Not yet,” smoothing a hand over her crown, you tell her to scooch, and when she shuffles down on the couch so that you can sit, with her head settled comfortably in your lap. Kara’s turned toward you so that she’s pressed against your stomach, and you can only imagine that the buttons of your shirt are jabbing into her, but she doesn’t seem to care. “I’m sorry,” as if it could be said quietly enough, as if that could take it back. “The days got away from me—but that’s—it’s not an excuse.” You’re combing fingers through her hair, scratching behind her ear so that she hums deep in her chest. Carter coos in his sleep, and one of his little hands uncurls from Kara’s jacket to slap lightly at her chin—obviously not pleased with the movement. Kara catching his fingers in a kiss, and they go limp against her cheek—the boy obviously asleep again.
“I forgive you,” is all she says, eyes closed, settling into your lap.
Question of Smoke 