I don't know what I'm doing

"Just- stop." 

"Lena. Lena, look at me." 

Lena's eyes stay resolutely fixed on her wine glass, the same despondent expression in the downturn of her lips and the furrow of her brow. 

Kara squats down, puts a hand on Lena's thigh to try and catch her attention, to distract her- to make her look at anything else but the void of swirling darkness that only she can see.

The touch seems to jolt Lena, so much so that her head turns finally in Kara’s direction. Her eyes are glassy, but her voice is remarkably steady.

It takes Kara’s super-hearing to discern the tremble in it, the barely apparent vulnerability that Lena keeps so carefully hidden.

"You know, all I ever wanted to be was good. All my life, I was a pariah, first, because I was rich, and then, because of my brother, so-" 

Lena swirls the remaining wine in her glass, studying it intently to avoid Kara's sharp gaze. She can still feel her friend’s eyes on her, keen and protective, angry on her behalf - against reason and against logic. 

Lena doesn’t deserve it, doesn’t deserve her - not when she is guilty of the crime, even though Kara won’t see it.

Lena just has to make her see it.

"And then finally I did- just one thing, one thing that was good, and- now I'm the monster that poisons children." 

Kara stays silent, pondering the irony while she shudders at Lena's self-deprecating laugh.

She hates it, how easily Lena surrenders to her worst fears. How Lena, so strong in the face of the world, faces her battles alone and barely nurses her wounds. How she throws herself at danger and never takes time to recover. How defenceless this leaves her, at the end of the day - and how she’s so ready to deal herself the final blow.

"Even Lex Luthor never did that." 

Kara won’t take it. She won’t watch on the sidelines while Lena self-destructs; not this time, not when she can help it. Not when she was there. Not when it's her fault.

“Lena,” she calls, her voice hard. 

But Lena doesn't hear, just barrels on, piling up the guilt on her own unusually frail shoulders.

"Maybe I'm the same. People are sick, it's my fault, and-" 

"Lena. Look at me." 

Lena shakes her head and Kara shuffles closer, her index finger lifting Lena's chin as burdened green eyes finally meet vibrant blue. 

"You are good. You saved everybody, everyone on this planet, and if there is a problem, we will deal with it. But you shouldn't blame yourself for the unforeseen consequences of putting everything down the line. You were brave, Lena, and incredibly smart, and-" 

"You- you wouldn't understand, Kara." 

"Why?" Kara asks, the single word like a challenge as her thumb wipes Lena's tears from her cheek, gently, in a steady gesture that has Lena’s eyelids almost fluttering closed.

But Lena opens her eyes again and fixes them on Kara, the tenderness in her voice not quite masking the cutting cynicism of her next statement:

"Because you- I know you think that everything is good, and kind, and that is one of the things I love about you- but that's not the real world." 

And Kara rises, a sudden glint in her eye as she drops her hand from Lena's face, and stands tall again.

Raises her hand to her glasses. 

"You're wrong, Lena." 

Lena hums in quiet disbelief, affection almost tangible in the resigned vibration. 

Kara's glasses are off her face, folded in the palm of her hand, but Lena still isn't looking at her. 

"In the real world, my last name is laden and everything I do hurts people. You know, it's in my DNA, so please, just- just stop believing in me, okay? I'm not worth it." 

"Really?" Kara starts, and she's surprised to find a hint of anger in her tone. "Then is it in my DNA, too? What about Supergirl's? Does everything she does hurt people, too?" 

"Of course not," Lena scoffs, lifting her eyes to frown at Kara, "you know that-" 

Lena stops mid-sentence, the air ejected from her lungs. 

Kara doesn’t allow for a pause.

"I told you that I knew what it was like, to be disillusioned by my parents." 

"But I- but you-"

“Supergirl?" Lena settles on, voice breathy and incredulous - almost puzzled at the sight of Kara sans glasses, superhero by night, standing in her kitchen with her - for her, Lena Luthor, poisoner of children.

Kara nods, sets her glasses on the counter and crouches to Lena's level again.

"Yes, Lena. And I did this, too, even though everyone is blaming you. I pressed the switch. I disseminated the lead. Me, not you. And-" 

Kara stops, unsure how far she should go. Unsure if she should keep her last secret, her most precious one, or let it go, just like this. Unsure if it will help. 

"And?" Lena challenges, and Kara hopes it will. 

"And you're worth everything, Lena," Kara whispers, her eyes planted into Lena's, one hand on her thigh, head tilted upwards as she gazes up in adoration. "Everything, do you understand?" 

Oh my GOD six months later, I'm so sorry guys but things got a little crazy with the book and all

Kara has never had phone sex before, but Lena has introduced her to more outlandish things before, with great success. Kara isn’t sure her dirty talk is quite up to the task, but she’ll never know if she doesn’t try, will she?

“Take it off?” Kara says.

It comes off a little timid, but the noise Lena makes is louder, this time. She obeys immediately, clearly putting the phone down to get out of the dress – Kara can hear the zipper sliding down through the phone, and then Lena getting back into bed. The immediacy of it, like Lena was just waiting for the request, sends a low shiver down Kara’s spine.

“It’s off,” Lena says, once she’s picked the phone back up.

Kara bites hard on her lower lip. It’s broad daylight in National City, and it feels like this is something that should be done under cover of night. “Are we doing what I think we’re doing?”

“That depends.”

“On?”

Lena pauses, and then Kara can hear the whisper of fingers on skin again. “Are you going to tell me what you’d do to me if you were here?”

glad you've been enjoying my slow spiral into a new fandom! (well, new for me)

i have a LOT of fic recs i will not be keeping this short asjdhka and also i am sure you've seen a bunch of these already so gotta add extra:

the habit, the sequence, the loss by @fiddleabout (this is more an incredible yelena character study but there IS bishova and they kiss)

breaking little hearts like the one in me by @simplybishova (a winter soldier au that will stab you in the face)

short fuse if you light my fire by @thecousinsdangereux (epic post-hawkeye college au it's gonna be like 300k when it's done)

we've got scars on our future hearts (but we never look back) by @emilyjunk (frustrating fake married au because they haven't kissed yet feel free to yell at the author about that)

devil in a red dress by @unicyclehippo (friends to lovers and also occasionally epistolary. and there are puns!!!)

tether and drift by @strangelythirsty (a pacific rim au, which is like, top three aus of all time and REALLY works for bishova ngl)

precious metals by @tinykippen (knights! disguises! kate being a goober!)

i was also recced a bunch i haven't gotten around to yet but anyway:

you've got the love by luscious_words (actually rated M, which, this fandom is very chaste so that's a welcome addition)

kate bishop dies on a thursday by Axinite25 (timeloop au!!!)

your mother wouldn’t approve (of how my mother raised me) by dare121 (a 5 times fic)

okay that's a lot like, i have a huge to read list from my friends so i will probably add at some point

[read on Ao3]

Some days, it’s like this:

It’s early in the morning, a quiet, hazy hour. 

The pair of them move idly around in Kara’s apartment, basking in the gentle warmth of the sunshine streaming into the open space. Kara’s hunched over the stove, still in the loose t-shirt and a pair of boxer briefs she’s worn to bed, humming to herself as she’s flipping pancakes. The hair on the back of her head is sticking up a little, messy from sleep and even messier from Lena’s morning ministrations. The pancakes smell a little burnt.

As far as images of domestic bliss go, it’s all rather mundane and unglamorous.

Lena’s utterly, hopelessly in love with every minute detail of it.

She’s always in awe of Kara, her towering, magnetic, just-stepped-out-of-a-heroic-tale kind of presence, but loves watching Kara like this, cozy and chipper and all hers. It’s the kind of ordinariness Lena’s never thought she’d have in her life, the kind that’s been only more ridiculous to imagine considering Kara’s day-job. But here they are, in the comfort of each other’s presence, Kara burning their meals and Lena watching her committed fumbling and thinking she’s the luckiest woman in the universe.

This is what draws her closer and closer until she’s pressed against Kara’s back, arms wrapped tightly around Kara’s middle. It draws a low, rumbling laugh from her wife that reverberates in Lena’s very core.

“Breakfast’s almost ready,” Kara says. She shifts a little on her feet to lean into Lena’s embrace, and Lena delights in the feel of every minute flex of her muscles. She nuzzles her face between Kara’s shoulder-blades, snaking a hand under Kara’s shirt to palm at her abs, tickling the coarse hairs of her happy trail.

“Are you planning on distracting me?” Kara asks, and Lena knows she’s smiling now, bright and ever so slightly smug. She nips at her back in response, and Kara yelps, indignant: “Hey, no nibbling!”

supercorp, rated T,

part 1 / ??? (idk like 3?? 4?? whatever somewhere around there)

--

"Fucking shit."

Lena rifles through the small stack of papers sitting beside her purse in the front passenger seat and realizes with great annoyance that the paperwork that Sam sent over isn't in there. She would have let it go and finally driven home were it not for the meeting about said paperwork early the next day.

Shutting her eyes and taking a deep breath, she attempts to cool the frustrations that's fraying the last of her sanity, and reaches out for her purse before heading back out of the underground parking lot and towards her private elevator.

Standing in front of the shiny reflective doors, her mouth curves down when she inspects her appearance, the bags under her eyes more prominent despite the makeup she has to cover it, her once tightly pulled high ponytail looser now, hanging limp behind her. Her cream satin blouse hangs on her thin frame, the bottom of it having come loose from where she'd tucked it in her navy blue pencil skirt. A pitying sight, if she's being truthful, but the accompanying pity party will need to be postponed until after tomorrow's meeting—no doubt a means for members of the board to undermine her at every turn while the ship sinks.

There doesn't seem to be any clear path to any real reprieve for her after inheriting the family business, not after her own brother, the touted Man of Tomorrow, had been arrested for murdering their father and placing their mother in a coma.

Eventually, her elevator reaches the top floor of her office suite and she straightens, internally waving away the thoughts of what her life has become, what her family has become. She has no control over those things, but she does have control of finding that stupid file she left on her desk that she will undoubtedly spend the next couple of hours detangling until she succumbs to exhaustion.

The door opens to her floor and she beelines for her door, alarm tingling when she looks at her door sitting ajar.

Her pace slows despite the persistent ache in the ball of her left foot and the sting on the heel of her right. She narrows her eyes, clutching her purse tightly in hand, and running through a mental list of what she can use inside of her purse for defense, protection. When she reaches the door, she tilts her head and peeks through the sliver of space between, finds her desk lamp has been turned on. There are sounds of movement, footsteps, and something she can't quite make.

Then she hears…humming.

Narrowing her eyes, she grasps the edge of her door and pushes it slowly, careful not to make any sudden moves.

She her hand grasping the edge, and carefully opens it only to discover a person with their back turned to her. Her eyes trail from the black sneakers to the powder blue overalls with the top half hanging around the person's waist. A black tank top serves as a backdrop to the blonde hair is up in a ponytail, swishing back and forth as they move from side to side.

The woman turns a little, a mop in hand, as she uses the top of the mop handle as a microphone, singing some familiar tune that Lena couldn't quite place.

"All by myself, don't wanna be…"

The corner of Lena's mouth twitches into an amused smile when she realizes what she's looking at, or perhaps, who she's looking at, and how completely swayed and distracted they are with the music that they're listening to.

Lena's eyes are focused on this woman as she remains rooted in her place, as she watches this impromptu concert while the woman belts out the chorus of the song.

It's not until the woman opens her eyes and resumes the back and forth mopping that Lena realizes where she is and what she's doing there in the first place. Yet despite needing to collect the files at her desk, she's not sure if she should keep walking to her desk, make some kind of overt gesture or simply call out to the woman to signal her presence. She might have ended up taking too long because before she can make a decision, the clattering of a dropped mop handle reverberates in the room and a surprised shriek is coming from the woman who stands between Lena and her desk.

"Excuse me," she says.

The woman raises her hands up just as she pulls her headphones down. "I didn't—uh, who are you?"

"This is my office." As she goes to make a move towards her desk, the woman steps forward and blocks her, hands no longer up in the air and now towards her, as if to stop her.

The woman scrunches up her face. "I'm gonna need some i-identification. Ma'am."

Lena quirks a brow, but the woman remains with her hands up despite her demand. "You don't trust me?"

"Only until after you show me proof."

"And who's to say you're who you are?"

The woman frowns before straightening her shoulders, enough for Lena to discover that she stands broadly, arms exposed, before she taps on the ID badge clipped to her waist. "Kara Danvers. Overnight Custodial Specialist. Now you."

A beat passes, then another, before she tilts her head, attempting to bypass this Kara Danvers, but to no avail because Kara stops steps to block her again. "Do you know whose office you're cleaning?"

"Yes. Lena Luthor's."

"But you don't know what she looks like."

"Um."

"So how would you know the difference?"

Kara frowns, but she stands her ground. "I can call the security guards to confirm. Actually, that's what I'll do."

Lena then proceeds to watch as Kara stands between her and her forsaken paperwork as she quickly radios for security. She would have been annoyed about this whole thing if she wasn't also touched that this veritable stranger is doing everything in her power to protect her company. So despite being tired, Lena waits for security to respond and clear her.

"Hi Scooter, listen, I have someone here in Lena Luthor's office claiming she's Lena Luthor but isn't showing identification. I just want to confirm. Um, over."

"Copy that, Danvers. Please have the woman approach the radio."

She bites back a smile, already anticipating Scott's request (or in this case, Scooter's request, already making a mental note to ask about this nickname) for her. Instead, she stands up straight and watches as Kara approaches with the radio between them.

"Go ahead, Scooter," she starts, pressing on the radio's talk button, just shy of Kara's fingers as she holds the radio up. "Please ask what you need from me."

There's what she thinks is a throat clear, but can't be sure with the static of the radio. "Right. Please provide today's ten digit confirmation code."

She doesn't tear her attention away from staring at Kara and the blue of her eyes. "1-0-2-4-1-9-9-4-3-8."

"Confirmed. Danvers, she's clear."

"Thanks, Scooter. Sorry for the bother."

"Good work, Danvers. Over and out."

"Uh, over and out." Kara clips the radio by her name badge and offers an apologetic smile that crinkles the corner of her eyes. Lena attempts not to focus on that. "You're cleared. Sorry."

"Don't be," she says, finally able to walk towards her desk unimpeded once Kara steps back. She picks up the folder and quickly flips through it to confirm it's exactly what she needs before turning around and meeting Kara's gaze. "I appreciate and commend the thorough precaution. Certainly more thoughtful than what I've experienced as of late."

"Oh."

"Forget I said that," she says, with a shake of her head. "It's clearly been a long night."

She motions to walk away when Kara's words stops her.

"It's not fair, how they're hounding you in the news. "

She arches a brow. "You know my name and you know about the news surrounding me but you don't know what I look like?"

"Uh. I'm no good with faces," she says with a shrug, Lena noting the definition of her shoulder muscles before turning her attention back towards Kara's blue eyes. "Face blindness."

She nods, though she remains somewhat dubious. "I understand. Well, Kara Danvers, as lovely as this has been, I must be going."

Kara's body jerks up and nods. "Oh, shoot. You're right! Sorry, it's so late and I've just kept you here even longer. Sorry, Miss Luthor, ma'am. I don't—"

She puts a hand up. "Just Lena is fine."

"Right."

"Well, goodnight Miss Lu-Lena. Lena."

"Goodnight…" she intones, waiting until realization dawns on the blonde woman in front of her.

"Kara. Just Kara is also fine."

"Goodnight then, Kara."

Supergirl, Kara/Lena, M

“Oh Lena Luthor, you absolute dumb slut,” she mutters to herself, taking stock of her environment and the way her body feels.

Another long one, folks. I'd apologize but I'm losing credibility. Enjoy it HERE.

as per my last post, i have received a lot of encouragement to go public with this, and the more disappointed people i have in my dms, the angrier i get. so i will.

the silence and the song is an ancient arlathan au DA fic on ao3 by luxannaslut, and it is partly, if not entirely, written by an ai. i have no wish to be involved in any kind of fandom drama or witch hunting or bullying, but as a writer myself there are few things that piss me off more than watching people steal the work of others because they can't be fucked to write. it's disrespectful to your fellow writers, it's disrespectful to your readers, and it's disrespectful to the authors of the works the ai is stealing from.

ai is a plague that has no business being in creative spaces and you must do better.

the writing pattern

there was something very odd and monotone about the sentence structure of tsats that i couldn't quite place, so i fed chatgpt a prompt along the lines of "two people in a fantasy novel hate each other, but they secretly desire one another, and they kiss", and the screenshots above are the results. the third one is an excerpt from chapter 40 of tsats. the writing pattern is identical and it doesn't seem like the "writer" has even bothered to pretend they wrote it. if you're going to use ai, at least be sneaky about it. you know, paraphrase a little.

nonsense descriptions

"her nimble fingers worked with quiet precision" (ct. 1), "his grip firm but tender" (ct. 33), "her gown pooling around her like embers" (ct. 1).

fingers don't make sound, so what does quiet precision mean? as opposed to what? her joints cracking with every movement? how is a grip firm but tender? what does that mean? since when do embers pool?

the entire fic is littered with these adjectives that contradict each other or just straight up do not make sense, because all an ai does is generate descriptive language with no understanding of what the words it's spitting out actually mean. i could spend hours picking out examples from the seven billion pages worth of text, but i quite frankly have better things to do and would simply challenge you to try getting through a chapter or two without noticing the pattern.

repetition at structure-level

all the scenes in this fic are described in pretty much the same way. they open with purple prose vomit of the surroundings; solas is standing somewhere looking "unreadable as ever"; ellana's fiery golden molten fire copper ember ginger red hair is flowing this and that way; there's some dialogue with whoever is present and it leaves ellana feeling different variations of "something she couldn't name". this is, once again, a blatantly obvious sign of ai. below is the result of me feeding chatgpt the line "write me a scene from a fantasy novel where a woman with red hair is sitting on the ground in a magical garden at night", and side by side with that is the opening scene of the fic. make your own judgement.

repetition at word-level

this one speaks for itself. we fucking get it. her dress is orange, her hair is red, mythal's presence is heavy in the room, solas looks unreadable, compassion is sitting on her head like a crown, solas' ears are betraying him and ellana's move with every thought she thinks. we get it. the issue here is that an ai remembers the info you feed it, but not necessarily the info it shits out. if it's being told to write scene after scene of an elven woman with a gown that looks like fire doing xyz, it's going to do so with no regard for how many times the reader has already been informed of these details.

lastly: the breakneck speed

359,6k words in four weeks by a person who allegedly is employed and married and hasn't pre-written anything? no. any writer will tell you that this simply isn't possible. it absolutely infuriates me to see how much praise this "writer" gets for posting up to three full chapters in a day without anyone calling bullshit. i am pulling out my hair, you guys.

why i'm not going to live and let live this one

perhaps i would be less angry if the fic was some silly bullshit court intrigue Y/A stuff, but this is a text that handles very heavy and triggering topics such as SA, coercion, domestic abuse, and other things of the same vein. to sit back and put your feet up while having a robot write these extremely sensitive and very real human experiences with words it has stolen from texts written by actual persons is fucking heinous. the "writer" should be deeply ashamed of themselves and i'm sick and tired of watching people eat up their bs.

38K | Supercorp | rated M

Metropolis has been abjectly miserable for the past two years, no one for Lena to turn to with her problems or anxieties. The closest thing she’s had to a friend has been her favorite Chinese place’s delivery drivers.

Lex had been arrested, Sam had left, and Jack had died all in the course of one really, really shitty year, and the year that’s followed has been exponentially more shitty. Lena’s glad it’s almost over, and that she gets to forcibly eject it from her life like a floppy disk carrying a PC-killing virus with her best friend’s help in a foreign country. Even if it’s a rainy, grey Christmas and New Year's in London.

or

Not at all an original idea, and not a single person asked for this, but I needed a smutty palate cleanser so I wrote some Assassins Creed Eivor/Randvi/Kassandra smut and figured I might as well share!!

“I do not wish to cause trouble,” Kassandra says plainly, looking to Eivor. “Whatever your arrangement is, the last thing I want is to get caught in the middle of a lover’s quarrel.”

“I rather think it would be me caught between the two of you,” Randvi says.

Kassandra’s eyebrows shoot up.

“I do not know about the Greeks,” Randvi says, stepping closer to Kassandra. She traces a finger over the defined lines of her chestplate. “But we Norse are not so bound by propriety as the Christians. Eivor and I are tied by love and promise, but that does not mean we cannot share in pleasure with someone we both desire.”

Read it here!