An explanation on my reasoning

So, looking through the reception Not A Fairy Tale Romance is getting (and say what you will about the ol' Pit of Voles, but they are good about commenting. None of this "kudos" BS... just sayin'), I note a recurring criticism. And far be it for me to not take critique well, but I believe there's been some interrogation of the text from the wrong perspective--would you believe I've always wanted to say that?

So, the common theme being the idea that Regina/Emma has moved too fast, let me retort that this is the canon where Grumpy (then known as Dreamy) and a fairy Amy Acker made serious plans to run away together and sail around the world, Consecutive Time In Each Others' Company: Five minutes. Not that canonical bad writing excuses transformative-work bad writing, but this isn't exactly the land of slow burn storytelling here.

Also, maybe this wasn't clear enough, but there was a time-jump from Regina and Emma deciding to go out and them having kinky role-played cop/hooker sex. I mean, I kinda assumed that was obvious, the other possibility being that the hooker sex was literally their first date. But anyway, it being a Regina/Emma fic, the premise is that there's an underlying attraction to their interactions they just have to act on.

So I didn't see a problem with skipping over some dates that would've had the sole narrative purpose of "they like each other, no really, they like each other" when that kind of build-up was better suited to the decision to enter into a relationship in the first place. The understanding being that once they start dating, it's pretty much smooth sailing, so we can "happy times montage" ahead (or, in this case, "kinky hooker sex montage" ahead) to the reintroduction of conflict, which is the point of the story. After all, you don't want to read about Regina and Emma not dealing with their issues, which are many and varied.

Plus, I thought we were all on the same page of wanting to get to the kinky girl-on-girl action as soon as possible. I mean, what, some of us aren't perverts? What are you doing in fandom? Are you a spy?

In conclusion, I seriously wrote like twenty thousand words between "Emma and Regina start to get along" to "Emma and Regina are in love." That is a novella. Do you know how much money I'd make for that if I could sell it to Analog? What do you want, War & Peace? Talk to the Tron people, I kept them waiting years for Sam and Quorra to have sex.

Let's sum this shit up

My one-line (give or take) review of Superman: Earth One by JMS.

Originally, Superman was a guy who saw that there was a lot wrong with the world, had superpowers, and decided he would use those powers to make the world better. DC decided to make him more sympathetic and relatable to today's youth. So, they released a book in which Clark Kent doesn't know whether he wants to be a highly paid professional athlete or a brilliant scientist (who is also highly paid), before finally choosing to make the ultimate sacrifice--becoming a universally beloved superhero.

Rambling man

Going back to the "one big change" theory, wouldn't the Grounded storyline, in which Superman decided to walk across America after being accosted by a woman for failing to save her husband (FROM A HEART ATTACK), have been better if the inciting incident were better? In some stunning tone-deafness I haven't seen since Civil War, readers were apparently supposed to agree "Yeah, why didn't Superman stop that guy from having a heart attack?"

Here's my revision: The woman is a mother whose son dies fighting in Iraq. She asks Superman "Hey, why'd you let that happen? You could have ended that war in five minutes. Why didn't you?"

I know, I know, it's political, but wasn't the big problem with Grounded how un-political it was? All we found out about Clark in this story arc was that he didn't like drug dealers and child abuse. And lest you think such a story would have to end with Superman punching Osama bin Laden, there's plenty of arguments you could make against Superman participating in wars, that it'd be doing more harm than good, a short-term solution to a long-term problem. After all, once Superman starts fighting on foreign soil, he's pretty much a member of the military--even if he doesn't take orders, the Army can just go to war with whoever and Superman will be obliged to go along with it because, hey, American lives.

But anyway, it has the potential to be thought-provoking and controversial, with the embodiment of American might trying to figure out what it is Americans want from, well, America.