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ayalanaylo · 6 years

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i’m really confused about the writing in supergirl?

and i’ve tried to google my confusion away, but it led me to places i didn’t intend to reach and tumblr searching is leading me to spoilers (which i don’t actually mind that much, but i’m here for meta answers that i don’t find).

mainly i’m just baffled by james olsen and all the romantic arcs.

i’m turning to tumblr’s fandom expertise for answers but i need you to understand my zero point ground before i ask any substantial q’s - i did not read any supergirl comics before (have read some dc in general and am a huge young justice fan, yes) so comparison to the source material means close to nothing for me. i generally don’t watch superhero related stuff. so why did i even start watching supergirl?

i’m just a Simple Gay™. yeah, i’ve been bombarded for the past year or so with supercop gifs and whatnot - and don’t get me wrong, i absolutely know i’m not going to get any gay content out of this show - but i have a bit of free time and thought i’d give this series a shot because it had wandered the realms of my mind for so long, thanks to tumblr supercop fanbase.

also regarding expectations - i did not expect this show to be a stellar example of top tier writing. i knew this is a light hearted, carefree show i’ll watch for simple fun, and that meets my expectations quite well. i’m not, per se, disappointed of the writing - not every damn piece of consumable media needs to be shakespearean poetry (and people who dismiss those things on the merit of that alone are missing so much, imo) - but it bothers me to the core when i recognize a poor written character being paraded on the plot lines. what i mean by that - a character that seems so meaningless still stands on a pedestal the creators of said character created for it. it’s like a curator putting up his son’s kindergarten crayon doodle on the fine arts exhibition - like, i get that you love your son, but my dude this is so out of place.

i’m 13 episodes in (more than half a season?) and i think this is really early to be frustrated with james olsen, given there are 3 seasons out, but i find myself not indifferent but annoyed with his character and how it affects this perplexed romantic hexagon arc. now, this is the time i worry the thought of ‘you’re only here for the gay’ to come up, so let me put up a disclaimer - the fact that i considered watching this show in the first place because of a non-existent gay ship doesn’t mean i don’t get to criticize an existent (and prominent, mind you) romantic arc. yes, i crave for lgbt content that is not complete crap in mainstream media, but there are so many written and showcased fictional couples i appreciate regardless the gender and\or sexual orientation of the characters involved. but it’s not ‘despite’, it’s because i’m a gay person who lives in a time of decent and even good lgbt romantic arcs representation that i find it very hard to be forgiving for poor written cis-het ones. it’s because lgbt people endured the years upon years of piss writing of lgbt characters in romantic arcs that were generally concluded with ‘this personality-less gay character 1′ and ‘this personality-less gay character 2′ should end up together on the merit of their dictated sexual orientation alone, that i find myself angry of lazy writing of cis-het ones that try to condition the viewer to ship two characters together because the script said they will touch hands and camera direction said to zoom on their face. this is not writing and properly developing a relationship between two characters this is directed instructions from the production down, as opposed to from the writing up.

after my supposed establishment of why i’m an Angry Lesbian™ about hetero ships writing i want to get to the nitty gritty - james olsen and the oh so many other problems with other characters.

i get characters crushing on each other, it’s got real cute potential, but can someone explain to me, enlighten me please - why do i get to live through cringe worthy anguished characters with a crush that doesn’t let me on anything other than ‘okay, i get that they’re attracted to each other’. what is their human connection based on and why the story didn’t bother showing me? because literally every scene he has with kara (that isn’t his given alone screen time or the professional ‘friends helping supergirl with mission’) is either him telling her about superman in the first episodes or him giving her this eyebrow-frown look while she talks. we know nothing about this character and his dialog doesn’t make him voluntarily informative about himself - how am i supposed to connect with him and understand that kara finds his personality endearing if i know zero facts about him as a human being? i know he’s a photographer and he knows superman. when lucy lane is introduced it’s because 1. she was there and he didn’t voluntarily let the viewers know who she is, and 2. she was there to serve the romantic weird entanglement and nothing more. what it did give us? some info about their brake up and life together - it is still nothing about james’ personality traits. i don’t want a sad back-story as much as i want a well rounded character in the present-story.

i was just brushing it off or groaning in frustration most of the time, but somewhere in the middle of season 1 (don’t remember exact episode) alex referred to james as kara’s family. that ticks so many tickey things in me - alex is her sister since she was 13, winn is her good friend for presumably all years she’s working at catco, and james arrived a week ago and suddenly he’s family because kara is crushing on him? no. no. no, story, you need to show me and explain to me in so much detail why a week-long crush is someone’s family along side an actual sister and a very good friend, you don’t tell me about it retrospectively.

and for the ever loving fuck why does he keep advancing on kara when he’s in a relationship with lucy? winn even acknowledges this verbally to his face (episode 12 i think) saying he can go get kara if he wanted to, that he just need to end things with lucy - yet he sees that as a sign to gather up the courage for romantic advancement right after the kara-adam brake up before talking with lucy? that’s a big nope.

and adam. oh, adam, sweet summer child. he really is just a harmless side character who crushes on kara, and she reciprocates, for about an episode and a half - and then comes the time in a superhero’s journey for ‘my identity is known and that puts people in my immediate surrounding in jeopardy’ - ... while she’s on a date with adam? don’t get me wrong, it’s all fine, but it’s just fine. why did this moment have to come when our main hero is in a barely second date relationship? the brake up literally meant nothing to me because we had no time to get to know adam. who is he? he was there to advance cat’s character, we didn’t learn anything about him in his screen time that wasn’t already told to us by cat. we know 1. what cat told kara (that was confirmed in his screen time), and 2. that he thinks kara is amazing. all he talks about is her, never himself. i know gurnisht about this character - why should i care about him when kara brakes things up?

and then we have *spooky voice* the friendzoned guy. first, can someone please make this phrase disappear from existence, yet second, while winn is written with some mistakes (using ‘friendzone’, kissing without confirming mutual feelings) - he is the most developed character of this disastrous romantic blah and he is written is such way that makes me care about him. kara doesn’t reciprocates his feelings? fine and valid, i just wish i could care about who she likes because they would be rounded developed characters as the ones she doesn’t.

in conclusion - please explain to me why should i ship a guy-character and a girl-character if their only connection is shared screen time and not the blessed character and relationship development a lot of lgbt ships get on mainstream media recently?

*banging pots and pans* I’M A GAY WHO’S PRO WELL DEVELOPED HETERO-SHIPS.

#supergirl #james olsen #kara denvers #adam foster #winn schott

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