*cackling*

Saw a video of a video of a lady on tiktok pretending to be deaf to avoid the attentions of some "admirers" while traveling abroad. It was questionable, but it does give me the idea of Lena being fluent in ASL, and using it to ignore people she doesn't want to deal with.

So, say Lena and Sam are traveling, and some dudes start pestering them for greetings/pictures/attention. Lena slips into fluent ASL, legit explaining to them that she's deaf (she is not), and Sam trying not to laugh as she's plays along and translates.

The men eventually move on, but when Lena later goes to the bathroom, she's caught on her way out by the same guys who try to press their luck again. They're drunker this time, and ignore her signing as they leer closer and closer into her personal space.

Just as Lena is about to panic and abandon the charade in favor of telling them off, she hears a call from across the bar.

"Hey!"

The next thing she knows, Lena is wrapped up in a warm hug from a person taller than her but also female, who smells so so good.

When the woman draws away, Lena catches a glimpse of a beautiful face before her rescuer turns to her would be assailants.

"Can I help you?"

Lena nearly chokes at the sound of accented English, the slightly warped, slightly too loud words those of someone who is *actually* hard of hearing.

Then men try to explain that they're friends, but before Lena can deny it, the woman cuts in with a loud "I can't hear you", signing as she goes.

Quickly losing interest in a woman who can speak-- with her voice, loudly-- the men soon drift away, giving the woman room to turn back to Lena.

"Are you okay?"

Then, before Lena can reply...

"Sorry for the hug. Looked like you needed an out."

Lena grins. "I did, thank you. But I have a confession-- I'm not actually deaf."

The woman's smile only deepens. "Well, you sign beautifully."

Lena flushes a light pink. "I have a friend waiting outside. Can we buy you a drink?"

"My sister is already at the bar-- maybe we should buy you one."

Kara turns a little sheepish then.

"Actually... can we? It's rare that I find a stranger who can sign."

Lena nervously nibbles her lip, then makes an executive decision.

"That would be lovely."

Broke: Acknowledging that a character who is an objectively terrible person is also a complex and intentionally well thought out individual with different levels of nuance you can empathize with in some ways while not in others is immediately “woobifying” or “poor little meow meowifying” them.

Woke: “This character is a bad person” and “this character is still a person” are two statements that can, should and do coexist and admitting that they exhibit nuance and depth and are more than just their bad actions doesn’t immediately excuse or condone their bad actions or mean that you’re ignoring or trying to soften the canonical version of the character.

Bespoke: That’s the whole point, that’s always been the point, to be made to empathize with horrible people so you can understand that they can be anyone, that bad people can be likeable, can be interesting, can be human, are human, and it’s scary to think about all the ways they’re just like you and all the ways they’re just like everything you hate, forcing the use of critical skills in media analysis, forcing a confrontation of the duality of man.

Whatever Level is Above Bespoke: But sometimes, yeah, sure, maybe they are a poor little meow meow, what are you gonna do, get a lawyer

What are they playing?

Commission for boojangs on twitter

we had a whole pearl-clutching fest last month debating whether or not we should laugh at billionaires killing themselves in their own deathtraps meanwhile media executives feel comfortable saying shit like “we’re just waiting for the people we’re exploiting to go homeless” with zero personal consequences. we need to stuff more billionaires into shitty submarines and laugh harder

Hey, hey! Friendly reminder to make sure your supposedly “fearless” character gets their darkest fear revealed in the worst way possible so they break down into a vulnerable shaking mess in front of all the people they care about 

Reblog if you think fanfiction is a legitimate form of creative writing.

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