Smallville - Fanlore

Smallville

Name: Smallville
Abbreviation(s): SV
Creator: Alfred Gough/Miles Millar
Date(s): 2001 to present
Medium: Television
Country of Origin: US
External Links: TWoP: Smallville
Subpages for Smallville:

Chloe Sullivan · Clark Kent · Jonathan Kent · Lana Lang · Lex Luthor · Lois Lane · Martha Kent · Pairing Names · Pete Ross


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A TV show about Clark Kent in his pre-Superman teen years, Smallville was one of the major slash fandoms of the early 2000s.

Contents

The Canon

Smallville is an American science fiction/fantasy television series that debuted on the WB Network in October of 2001, focusing on the adventures of Clark Kent as a teenager in Smallville, Kansas. Creators Gough and Millar emphasized that the show wasn't going to be about Superboy, and often repeated its motto of "No flights, no tights." Instead, Smallville departed from much of DC Comics canon, kept Clark firmly on the ground (mostly) and introduced him to Lex Luthor, the son of a ruthless businessman. As Clark gained more powers, Lex would become his best friend and biggest problem. Clark's other friends include Lana Lang, Chloe Sullivan, Pete Ross, and later Lois Lane and Oliver Queen, the Green Arrow.

Unlike most teen dramas, and in keeping with Superman canon, Clark's parents Jonathan and Martha Kent play a big role in his life and on screen.

Critical Reactions

One interesting note about Smallville is that the perception of homoerotic subtext was not limited to slashers, but was fairly widely perceived. Given that the series began with Clark, the male lead, giving mouth-to-mouth to his eventual enemy, Lex Luthor, this is perhaps not to be wondered at.

Smallville Fandom

As the show and fandom started in 2001, Smallville was one of the fandoms that transitioned between the dominance of the mailing list culture and the move to livejournal and various other blog and journal-based communities. SV fandom is also active on message boards.

One of the original primary SV communities was TWoP. Omar's HoYay-heavy recaps were one of the main channels for pimping the show to new fans, and several elements of fanon and other recurring themes arose on the active TWoP message boards.

Fandom & TPTB

Not all Smallville fans love the show without reservation[1], and many fans have an uneasy relationship with the showrunners, feeling that their vision for the show was inherently flawed and got worse over time. The show creators, Gough and Millar, are often (usually disparagingly) referred to as "Goughlar,"[2] and are the subject of bitter fan mocking, particularly accused of loving Lana Lang to the detriment of the rest of the cast. One of the more entertaining examples of the trend was the webcomic Lanarama.

Pairings

The predominant pairing in Smallville is Lex/Clark, or "Clex." Lex is also paired with pretty much everyone, as it was often joked that he had chemistry with everyone and everything on the show, including his piano. Some Lex pairings, like Lex/Lionel and Lex/Martha, challenged traditional thinking.

See also: List of popular Smallville pairings

Common Themes and Elements in Smallville fandom

Futurefic and The Rift

Futurefic is one of the most common types of SV fanfiction, extrapolating the more famous Superman canon from the backstory presented in Smallville. Some fan writers will use specific Superman canon elements from DC Comics, the JLU cartoon, or (less commonly) the movies. Others create their own pastiche futures, based on the basic Superman mythology but eschewing the particulars from any one canon. Later events in the show rendered many of these fanfiction futures uncanonical, but as most of these events are also contradictory to the other Superman canons, most fans don't particularly care.

As Superman and Lex Luthor are traditionally arch-nemeses, much of the futurefic portrayed them as such even before there was much conflict between them in Smallville canon, with the Clark/Lex pairing as a type of tragic enemyslash. The separation is generally referred to as The Rift, and stories that feature it are known as Rift-fic. Some are dark; others strive to reconcile the characters. The polar opposite were "Rift, What Rift?" fanfic (riffing on PWP), in which the traditional canon was totally denied, with Lex never becoming a supervillain and instead living happily ever after with Clark.

Relation to DC Comics

As Smallville's roots are in DC Comics, DC crossovers are very common, both in futurefic and in stories set in canon. Crossovers have been written with The Justice League, Flash, Batman, and more. Some SV fic authors are DC fans first and write mostly comics canon with backstory elements from Smallville; other authors have little direct experience with the comic canon, but pick and choose comic elements (often gleaned from Scans Daily) to add spice to their Smallville stories.

Bruce Wayne is a frequent visitor to Smallville and Metropolis, and a popular sex partner for both Lex and Clark.[3]

Warrior Angel

Introduced in the first season episode "Stray," Warrior Angel was a fictional comic book series that Lex collected.[4] It featured a bald hero and his nemesis, Devilicus, who used to be best friends. Some fan writers embraced the fictional comic book and used it in their Smallville fanfic, while others started to write fic for Warrior Angel itself. Zahra was possibly the most prolific of these authors, writing fics that featured Warrior Angel as well as fics based on what little canon there was for it.[5]

Notable Fanworks

Fanfiction

Fanvids

Fanzines

Ender Wiggin is maintaining a Smallville fanzine listing here.

Printed fanzines

Online eZines/PDF Zines

Online Resources

Archives

Livejournal Communities

(For a more complete list, see the Newbieguide post.)

Forums/Message Boards

Mailing Lists

External Links

References

  1. ↑ One of the popular forums on the TWoP boards is the The Smallville Bottomless, Deep Bitterness Society (Accessed 28 February 2009)
  2. ↑ For example, "I do want Lexana to have sex but I suspect the Goughlar will chicken out so Lana can remain pure and chaste." --DarkPriestess in Spoiler discussion: "They're gonna WHAT?!" 29 Aug 2006 (Accessed 28 February 2009)
  3. ↑ No Darker Than Yours, by RivkaT (Last accessed November 17, 2008.)
  4. ↑ Warrior Angel entry at Smallville Wiki (Last accessed November 17, 2008.)
  5. ↑ Smallville fics featuring Warrior Angel, by Zahra (Last accessed November 17, 2008.)
  6. ↑ The Project series, by Te. (Last accessed November 29, 2008.)
  7. ↑ The Butterfly Effect, by The Spike. (Last accessed November 29, 2008.)
  8. ↑ The Rules of Blue, by Thamiris (Last accessed November 17, 2008.)
  9. ↑ The Identical series, by Lanning Cook. (Last accessed November 29, 2008.)
  10. ↑ A Handful of Dust, by Jenn (Last accessed November 17, 2008.)
  11. ↑ Conflicts of Interest, by Pru (Last accessed November 17, 2008.)
  12. ↑ Prophet of Eden, by Destina. (Last accessed November 29, 2008.)
  13. ↑ A Clark/Lex Epic of Staggering Genius, by Punk Maneuverability and Tiffany Rawlins. (Last accessed November 29, 2008.)
  14. ↑ Mercy, by Koi (last accessed November 18, 2008.)
  15. ↑ Immortality, by Grail (last accessed November 18, 2008.)
  16. ↑ A Clexian Love Story (accessed 2/18/2009)
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