100 days of enemy recs: 42. Clex

[melannen]

Ah, Clark Kent/Lex Luthor: the pairing for which the term "Foeyay" was coined.

I feel like I must have always shipped Clark and his arch-nemesis at least a little bit, because that's what I do, but Lex wasn't really there in the limited Superman comics I had access to before the internet, so I didn't really know much about it until Smallville. Smallville is a fandom I have kind of a weird relationship with? It was the (non-Harry Potter) fandom that was huge at the time that I was just starting to admit that maybe I wasn't monofannish after all. So I read a ton of it! But it's got the distinction of being probably the first fandom I ever read a ton in where I didn't feel any real emotional connection to either the canon or the fandom community? I just read a ton of fic, because, look, there was a lot of quality Clark/Lex fic! And, you know, foeyay! Lots of foeyay.

But canon was, like, bad. Like even for someone who was measuring it against, like, Buffy and Highlander, it just, wasn't very good. And at the time I still had the false belief that I had to engage with canon in some way if I wanted to be in a fandom. I still can't tell you anything much about the plot of Smallville other than that Lex moved to Smallville and had a ton of both sexual and ethical tension with teenage Clark, who spent a lot of time shirtless in cornfields (I'm honestly not sure there *was* much more to it?) As such my canon for them is really more Superman: Birthright, the DCU graphic novel they put out around that time in order to capitalize on Smallville.

Also this vid, which after ten years of encountering it every con-txt has basically overwritten anything I may have once known of Smallville canon. It covers the basics right?

And looking back at recs list from the time period I must have been reading it heavily, everything looks vaguely familiar but nothing really stands out.

So here are the only three Clark/Lex fics I could find back in my old bookmarks by authors not already accounted for. 2005-2009 me says they are good?

• The Butterfly Effect (11648 words) by The Spike
  Fandom: Smallville
  Rating: Mature
  Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
  Relationships: Clark/Lex
  Additional Tags: Drama
  
  Lex gives himself the power to see the future.



• The Rules of Blue (7607 words) by Thamiris
  Chapters: 1/1
  Fandom: Smallville
  Rating: Explicit
  Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
  Relationships: Clark Kent/Lex Luthor, Clex
  Characters: Clark Kent, Lex Luthor
  Additional Tags: Slash, Romance, Comedy, Future-fic
  
  Lex didn't have sex with Clark Kent.



• Conflicts of Interest (54768 words) by rageprufrock
  Fandom: Smallville
  Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
  Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
  Series: Part 1 of Conflicts of Interest
  
  Lex has a kid. (With Clark) (Them having a kid together is still comics canon btw)

Comments

[petra]

I appreciate that I knew which vid you were linking to before I clicked it. Some things are justly classic, even for those of us who didn't watch any Smallville due to its being terrible, but read the fic.

[melannen]

I am pretty sure that vid contains all the canon you need in order to read the fic (i.e., lots of shots of Rosenbaum and Welling gazing lingeringly at each other, + extreme nonsense. Though it is a bit low on shirtless cornfields.)

[ivyfic]

Yup. That Clex vid, that’s exactly what happened on the show. (For real tho, I bailed on Smallville somewhere in season 5–there were unicorns with kryptonite horns? What?)

[melannen]

I honestly do not know if the unicorns are canon. On the one hand, it seems exactly like the kind of thing that would happen on that show.
They were definitely real in Merlin, which was basically Smallville's spiritual successor! And if they weren't canon that was some incredible editing. (I am, like, 99% sure though that Clark did not at any point give birth and then die of Padme Amidala disease. Nor was there a Kryptonian kitten. Well, 95% on both of those, really.)

On the other hand, even people I think of as people who know Smallville tend to react to the unicorns with sort of incredulous joy. But I don't know if that's because they aren't canon, because people are being suddenly reminded of a bit of canon they'd blocked out of memory, or just because they're so well-placed as a punchline in the vid. I have even asked people outright, I am pretty sure, but was unsure if I could rely on the answers (in the same way I am unreliable on things like certain aspects of Highlander canon, or whether DR. DOOM has ever been in a live-action movie.) I feel like I have seen them in other Smallville vids? But maybe that's a false memory, or a direct reference to this vid.

I can't even tell from your comment whether you are incredulous that they possibly exist in canon you didin't see, or whether their canonicity is part of why you quit! :D

On the other hand, I'm not sure I want too know, being unsure if unicorns are real seems like the proper state of being.

[ivyfic]

Incredulous that they possibly exist.

I have come to realize that the reasons I think I leave fandoms are usually not the actual reason. Like, if you asked me why I left Smallville, I would say that I was tired of the Lana storyline (no shade on Kristin Kreuk, but playing the love triangle love interest that we know the here won't eventually end up with is no peach), and that they were spinning their wheels with the Clark's secret plots.

But then I realize--oh wait. I stopped watching Smallville when I graduated from college and started working full time and didn't have cable. I kept up for a bit with a VCR and bunny ears, but that likely has way more to do with why I didn't continue than anything in the show.

Like, I'm doing a rewatch of Person of Interest right now, and I'd thought I stopped watching in season 4 because they had too many filler episodes. But--season 4 really doesn't have any filler episodes at all, and it coincides with when I graduated business school and started a new job with much more demanding hours.

I had always thought that I'd go back and do a Smallville rewatch, but I'm much less likely to do that for a 10-season show than a 5-season show. Also the whole Alison Mack thing makes it a little rough.

[superborb]

That vid... is incredible...

[melannen]

It is one of the greatest vids of all time (up there with this one.)

[pauraque]

I think I made it through four or five seasons of SV before I just couldn't take it anymore, even as cheesy camp. It made so little sense and the character arcs were more like random zig-zags.

That vid is amazing, though. And has a way more coherent and plausible plot than the canon.

[melannen]

Someday, all that will be left of Smallville is whatever is preserved on AO3, and that vid. And the future historians will not realize anything is missing.

[out_there]

But canon was, like, bad. Like even for someone who was measuring it against, like, Buffy and Highlander, it just, wasn't very good.

Oh my god, canon was terribly bad. I say that as someone who managed to watch it until mid-s3. It started cheesy as hell and it did not get better.

But... it was one of those badly written shows where the plot made a great deal more sense if you assumed Clark and Lex were fighting their desire to be together. Which is why the fandom was so huge: pretty, pretty cast, characters drawn larger than life, a plot that makes more sense with slash, and so many plotholes there is plenty of space to play in.

I'm going to read all of those fics because I haven't read SV in ages and I loved it for a while. The fannish output was *amazing*.

Also this vid, which after ten years of encountering it every con-txt has basically overwritten anything I may have once known of Smallville canon. It covers the basics right?

I'm also going to watch that, because I don't know that one. TH SV vids that made an impact on me were Placebo (I think it was Every You and Every Me) and there's a "Bad Romance" one that made me realise I'd missed 7 years of canon and do not regret it. (Except maybe for the presidential white suit. I always loved Lex in the white suit.)