#also she gets her facial scars from earlier versions because why the fuck doesn’t she

[blueraith]

Hello, and Welcome Back...

To my ongoing series of, “Why the Fuck Can’t the Fandom See What Is Happening Right In Front of Their Fucking Goddamn Eyes?”

It’s a working title.

In today’s episode, we’re actually taking a look and analyzing some dialogue. Good golly, this is gonna be enlightening!

No, but seriously, last post I said that one really, really needs to learn how to read body language and facial expressions if one truly wants to learn how to write accurate characters that one doesn’t own.

But, to my chagrin, I realized in the shower—yes I am stereotypical and come to life affirming realizations in the shower though this one wasn’t of the life affirming type—that not only is the fandom really fucking blind, they’re also selectively deaf. Because the vast majority of fic writers who write Eliza as irredeemable trash, seem to latch onto very specific information. Information that is shared almost exclusively, through dialogue, from Alex.

Now, you are never going to see me claim that what Alex lived through wasn’t real. Because I’d wager that I know Eliza’s version of emotional abuse better than most. Particularly because Eliza has never seemed to have sank to the levels that I have experienced in my life. Not that it makes Alex’s experiences any less real, but only more frustrating. On the fandom’s part, not on Alex. Because Alex seems very willing to move her relationship forward with her mother, learn to forgive, and to repair. The fandom, on the other hand, seems convinced that Eliza has utterly destroyed Alex’s self-esteem and takes pleasure in that.

It’s honestly really fucking ridiculous.

Anyway, Alex is where most of these folks seemed to have learned that Eliza is an awful person. When Alex claims that her mother has always been harder on her, that she has never been good enough, has always screwed up as far as Eliza is concerned, the fandom not only takes her at face value, they also exaggerate these things. Because, and I don’t know about you, but when I describe how awful my mother has been to me, I am venting. Which means that I don’t tell y’all when my mom is actually my mother. The supportive, kind, and loving person she is fully capable of. I know this, I’ve lived it, even recently, but that doesn’t make the times she’s awful hurt any less. Because I know what she’s capable of. I know that she doesn’t have to be terrible to me. Yet she is. And that almost is worse, because it feels like I’m waiting for something that’s probably never going to happen. Waiting for her to just be the person I yearn she could be, and we could repair this rift between us.

And I believe that Alex is very similar to this experience. Eliza is not a monster in Alex’s eyes. And I will explain this in detail, because for god’s sake….

I don’t believe Alex is lying when she describes her interactions with Eliza, on the contrary, she’s probably being painfully frank. However, I do think that she’s biased in this instance. Like I said, I don’t think she’s as upfront with how Eliza actually loves her. I mentioned earlier that a writer should never fully depend on dialogue to write fanfiction, because people are sometimes biased. When a character is describing something from their point of view, you must assume that they are biased in some way because that is how people act in real life. Fiction is not exempt from this. If you asked Alex and Kara to both describe how their bond as sisters feels, you’d probably get two different answers. Because emotions are not facts, you aren’t going to get a dry run down from either of them over how they feel about the other. Similarly, you cannot depend on Alex to be factual about her relationship with her mother. And this is not to say that she’s lying. She’s not, she is being honest. However, she is being honest from Alex’s point of view. In terms of the pain Eliza has inflicted on her, and only the pain. She’s biased.

Alex is not a very forthcoming person in terms of her emotions in the first place. Many of these details she has shared about Eliza is to Kara. Which is very important to remember, because Alex knows that Kara knows that Eliza actually does love her. Alex doesn’t need to sit down with Kara and describe the ways Eliza has been kind to her because Kara was probably there and witnessed these things first hand. No one vents about good things. Not the same way that they do with their pain.

Again, look back at Thanksgiving 1. Alex is mad and upset with Eliza. Case and point is when she bitterly refuses to go along with Kara’s ‘Let’s talk about what we’re thankful for.’ Because Alex is not feeling particularly grateful at the moment, she’s resentful, in fact. She comes out about the DEO because part of her wants to get Eliza’s disapproval over with. The both of them are not in anyway interested in keeping that interaction from blowing up into a fight. Again, I am very familiar with this kind of thing. If Alex actually wanted to make that as undramatic as possible, first off, she wouldn’t have told Eliza about the DEO in front of Winn. Remember that Winn is not yet Alex’s friend, he’s just her little sister’s best friend. Alex is not normally forthcoming about her feelings. Why in this wide world would she have made to have this conversation with Eliza, in front of someone she is not remotely close to no less, if she planned on making herself emotionally vulnerable in any way?

The answer, is that she wasn’t. Ever. Anger is not vulnerability to most people. Anger is often something people hide behind, that they use to defend, to attack, to lash out with. I do the same thing with my mom when she really pisses me off. Just push, prod, purposefully bring up things I know she won’t like, argue with her simply to argue, say things I don’t even personally believe in but I know that she hates. Just to see her get as angry with me as I am feeling with her.

Alex wasn’t quite at that extreme, but she’s coming clean not to get Eliza to say that she’s proud of her. She knows that Eliza won’t like that she’s working for the DEO on some level. On another, she is hopeful that things will go well. That’s where the look of surprise comes from when Eliza smacks her right down immediately. Because Alex yearns for her mother’s approval, and not getting it, even when she doesn’t expect to, is a punch to the gut. Alex wants nothing more than to make her mother proud, it’s what she most wants, it’s what she hopes and prays for in every interaction that they have. To not get it is a horrible sinking disappointment every time.

Alex is terrified of failure. And when you are terrified of failure, you have to have failed at some point in your life. Repeatedly. There is nothing quite so back crushingly exhausting than failing repeatedly in your life no matter how hard you try to succeed. And at some point or another, you just get used to failing. It’s the default, why even try anymore? As far as Alex is concerned, that is where she is with Eliza. She’s used to not being good enough, might as well just come clean now, fuck it, she’ll react however she wants to, it’s not my fault, it’s not going to hurt this time, she can think what ever the hell she wants, let’s just get this bullshit over with.

Except it does hurt, and she knew that it was. Hence the drinking.

Now, I, again, brought up Thanksgiving 1 to highlight the ways Alex and Eliza actually were messed up. Both from what we know Alex says, and the way Eliza acts. That is the rift between them. Here is where the fandom becomes selectively deaf. Eliza apologizes to Alex, while they are alone, so that Alex can actually be herself in that conversation. Alex cries, Alex asks her, again, why she isn’t ever good enough. But this time, she’s not lashing out at her mother. “I will never win with you,” is something you say to someone when you want to make sure that they know that a rift in a relationship is all that person’s fault. “Why wasn’t I ever enough?” is something you say when you blame yourself. Yet know that isn’t quite right either. It’s what you say when you know something is wrong between you and you don’t know how to fix it anymore.

And the following conversation, one that I won’t be breaking down because for god’s sake go watch and listen to it this time instead of writing it off, completely addresses that very vulnerable question. One that only a child asks. One that is often taken into adulthood because that sinking feeling of being a disappointment has followed them for years. “You have always been my Supergirl,” was said purposefully. Eliza did not just watch her grown daughter break down in front of her, something that probably hasn’t happening in a long time, and just ignored that. I don’t think Alex quite believed her in that moment, and I don’t think Eliza quite earned that yet, but it was said and it’s now up to Eliza to prove it.

And she does. Off screen, too.

Because now we’re at the part I started this long ass post for in the first place. Two lines of dialogue that actually says everything there is to be said about how this relationship is no longer a mess. It’s not quite healed, but it is scarring over.

Here is a good example of when to actually take dialogue at face value.

The difference between Alex being biased about Eliza and taking what she says as serious, but not quite damning, is that Eliza is not in the room to defend or confirm Alex’s words.

Now, let’s take a look at when Alex comes out as gay to Eliza. Eliza says two things, that I believe are often overlooked.

One. “Keeping secrets disagrees with you, sweetie.”

Alex, Agent Alex Danvers, is exactly that. A fucking secret agent of a shadow government organization. We all know just how good Alex is at her job. She kept up the secret from Eliza for years. She should be very good at keeping secrets. Just look at Kara’s entire existence, for god’s sake. Yet, Eliza now claims that she can tell when Alex is lying. And Alex seems completely incapable of lying to Eliza right now. She’s so painfully obvious in this scene. And if there relationship was just as bad as it used to be, she shouldn’t be, right?

So this tells me a few things. One, Alex doesn’t keep secrets from Eliza anymore. It seems to me, that they have been speaking with each other.

Which goes right into the second piece of dialogue. “Is this something to do with Maggie? You talk about her a lot.”

Which confirms that they speak regularly. Because when would Alex ever have the chance to talk to Eliza if they don’t flat out call each other on the regular? Because, at this point, Alex and Maggie haven’t known each other for a terribly long time. Yet, Eliza not only knows that Alex’s secret has to do with Maggie, but knows Alex cares about Maggie as well.

I mean, Christ, this is some pretty clear cut shit. They’ve been repairing their relationship on their own terms, off screen for a while. But, there’s still that lingering hurt. Which is why Alex was afraid of coming out in the first place.

This is a stark difference between Thanksgiving 1 and this scene. Alex was angry at Eliza during T1. She told her about the DEO in a way that wasn’t conductive to becoming emotionally vulnerable. I.E. alone, with Winn not right next to her. There weren’t going to be any tears, any heart felt questions, or any vulnerability so long as he was right there.

During T2, Alex gets even more drunk because she knows she can’t handle the emotional fallout here either. However, she does try here because most of the people there are actually her family at that point. With the exception of Mon-el. She’s not looking to have a one-to-one conversation with Eliza, though. That’s the whole purpose of coming out surrounded by people, I suspect.

But this time, they are alone. Alex does not decide to hide. She could have. Eliza was going to drop the matter. Alex decided to keep the conversation going when she asked, “How?” Alex is not angry right now. She is afraid. She is afraid of being a disappointment. Which is different from being a failure. A failure is something you do. Or fail to do, rather. It is on your shoulders, it is your fault. Being a disappointment can be different. It can be linked to failure, to being your fault, but I don’t think Alex was thinking this way in that moment. She was afraid that Eliza was be disappointed in what she was, not who. You can see this has nothing to do with anger because Alex immediately bursts into tears while stone cold sober.

The fact that Eliza was surprised that Alex was so afraid speaks volumes, too. She’s not oblivious. She knows she’s hurt Alex in the past. That’s the whole aftermath of T1, after all. But they’ve been getting closer, they’ve been speaking, Alex doesn’t remember how to lie to her, Eliza knows that not only is Alex gay from the mere descriptions she makes of Maggie but that Alex also speaks about Maggie enough for Eliza to even realize that Maggie is an important part of Alex’s life. They are in the midst of healing. Eliza is surprised because she thought they had moved past this. Only to find out that they haven’t, and Eliza chooses to tell Alex that she is exceptional.

This is dialogue you cannot just brush off. Alex and Eliza are only talking about each other to each other. This is not biased dialogue. If it were, one of them would have started arguing, most likely Alex. But that’s not what happened. It was an emotional, vulnerable, and open scene between these two. Which means that they were both completely and utterly honest with each other.

I’m sorry, but this is not the actions of two people who ignore each other until Eliza decides out of the blue to come visit National City, and “Alexandra, surely you won’t mind, I’ll be there tomorrow.”

And “Shit, Maggie, my MOM is coming here? What am I going to do?!?!” 

“Alex, babe, please put down the scotch. I’ll take care of her for you if you want.”

“Thanks, Mags. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

I mean, for god sake.

What the fuck?

#supergirl #eliza danvers #alex danvers #listen and watch people #sigh