I wear black on the outside ...

[rivkat]

And if I seem a little strange, well ...

Yeah, Smiths lyrics. As the great mustangsally78 might say, bite me.

On the plus side, class today went really well, I thought. Maybe we were all trying to get away from reality, and federal preemption of state laws overlapping the subject matter of copyright fit the bill.

This is probably election hangover, but I thought "Jinx" was a lot like the election: seemed fine for a while, then ended in a big ball of suck. I love that Lana, one of SV's "strongest minds" according to the previews, didn't even interact with Mxy. You mean the SV preview lied? Next you're going to tell me they're going to break the promise about no flights, no tights ... oh, wait. Never mind.

Nice: Lex's cut finger -- healed by his next appearance. Now that we've forgotten the malaria and embraced the popular fan theory re: Lex's mutation, we can look forward to ever more miraculous healing. (I can wank the malaria, too; I just don't need to, since that was a whole year ago.) Still waiting for the creepily Dune-like metal spigots on Lex's chest to reappear, though.

I'm not bothered by Chloe's stupid pills -- she was probably looking for a thrill to make up for the absence of soul-crushing terror in her post-Luthor life, not to mention an escape from the constant anxiety that must be her home situation after Lana turned down Gabe's bid for the Talon. And she did not voluntarily go along with Mxy's plot, as the WB's site summary suggested; she even found a fairly easy way around his poorly phrased edict.

Nope, what gets me is the big ol' friendship of legend problem. Clark and Lex are friends -- no, they're not -- yes, they are -- it's like watching an extended volley in tennis. And I don't like tennis.

Nor will the ultimate breakup make me believe in tragedy if it seems like breakup number 20. More, unless Lex has a better game planned than I can tell -- and I do live in hope -- he took the stupid pills this week. Lex plainly knew about the Jason-Lana fling before he talked to Clark, given that Lex was the one who brought it up, but Clark's anti-logic blaming Lex for breaking a confidence is to be expected by now and Lex's failure to point that out understandable. The underlying issue is Lex's manipulation of Clark's friends, which was going to come out as soon as Clark learned about the firing, and I don't understand why Lex thought he could avoid Clark's condemnation. Perhaps I need to consult my earlier view, which was that Lex is really fucking angry this season, and doesn't care about the friendship so much as he cares about keeping Clark around to punish both Clark and himself. So maybe Lex knew that Clark would be pissy again and wasn't being stupid, merely self- and Clark-loathing. That? Not so much fun to watch. The slow rotting of the relationship, like a reanimated corpse that doesn't know it's dead, is painful for me.

Of course, as I said, I wasn't watching in the best of moods. Chloe got her chance at saving the day and standing up for herself while still trusting that Dr. Clark Jekyll would come through for her! Lana had minimal screen time. And Martha shone, with her faith and her insight and her love for her beautiful, special son. So there's three good points for the episode right there.

ETA, based on stuff that came to mind in response to Sarah T's reply: One source of fascination to me, in a sick sort of way, is that Clark still thinks nothing of barging in and asking for another favor, and Lex also still thinks nothing of providing it, at least if he's not made a better offer by the target of said favor. Fans tend to get mad on Lex's behalf at this exploitation -- I know I did -- but I now think that Lex is so used to paying for his relationships that Clark's friendship, with its comparatively transparent demands, seems above par. Lex never seemed to resent Clark's requests, and I think that's true even now, since it's not as if it's anything he can't afford to give -- even his refusal in Velocity is more about making Clark's friend stand on his own than about being unwilling in the abstract. Both of them are formally working off the proposition, "If we are friends, then material goods don't matter; friendship and gifts are incommensurable." And I'm willing to believe that in this at least, both are sincere, perhaps with Lex wryly realizing that Clark doesn't think he's using the friendship to get things, because Clark would never maintain the friendship in order to get things -- Clark's position is more, "while you're there, will you give me X?" Clark is using Lex's wealth and power, but he's not using it as payment for his friendship, and that's a crucial distinction. I find it fascinating how in this one area Clark's demands/secrets can mesh with Lex's cynicism in a way that's not actually harmful to them. When it gets to the emotional aspects of the friendship, that's where the toxin is. I doubt Lex will ever consider cars and jobs and passport revocations on any tally he makes of what Clark owes him, but he will count a mashed Porsche and a stolen manuscript.

Other than that, outside of fan stuff, as Jon Stewart would say: I got nothin'. I hope to do some book reviews this weekend.

In the meantime, I need beta readers for a SV novella, around 45,000 words, with violence and adult content. Any volunteers? I'll be really appreciative, I promise.

And possibly beta viewers for a SV vid in a day or two. Pretty please?

Comments

part II

[latxcvi.livejournal.com]

Though there's just no way Clark will ever understand, much less acknowledge, that he's responsible for Lex's interest in the caves -- it may get subsumed into his overall feeling of responsibility for Lex's later shenanigans, at most.

Of course he won't. The thing that was most disquieting and annoying to me about Jinx is the way I thought it confirmed what I have long hoped wasn't the case with AlMiles, but suspected might have been the case: They come from the Hero Is Always Right school of storytelling. I think there was a reason they hammered home the point that Clark *never* trips, that he's *never* missed a throw, etc. To me, that was basically a metaphor for the idea that he's not ever really wrong about things.

Even when he's obviously making poor or bad decisions - the Lost Summer in Metropolis, going to Lionel in Memoria, lying for much of S3 to Lex about the events surrounding Belle Reve - he's never really called to account for it. If he suffers consequences at all, then those consequences are never presented as the result of his poor decision-making; it's always someone else's fault - Jor-El's for being an overbearing dad trying to force him into a destiny he doesn't want, or Lex for not being willing to just let go of the fact that seven weeks of his life went missing. Despite the fact that Clark's decision to play any kind of contact sport, let alone football, was arguably irresponsible at best and downright negligent at worst, the show never really addressed the point; if anything, the decision got completely and thoroughly validated in Jinx, since he got to save the game *and* the damsel in distress, be a hero *and* prove that it "wasn't really him" who was responsible for that player getting hurt.

One of the reasons I've grown disenchanted with SV this season is because I've come to realize that Clark probably *isn't* ever going to recognize or acknowledge his own role in the ultimate Rift between himself and Lex. I used to think that the story they were telling was the story where, in part, Clark has an epiphany - too late to undo anything, of course, but he still has the epiphany - that his own failings as a friend contributed to the creation of an enemy he didn't *have* to make for himself. Now? Post-Jinx? At the *most*, I can see Clark maybe wondering if Lex was a lost cause when he set foot in Smallville or if there was something about being in the town itself changed him for the worst. But I don't think this Clark will ever see or acknowledge how his own behaviors contributed to creating the enmity they have ahead of them. I don't think this Clark will ever understand or appreciate the possibility that this Lex actually might have reasons for hating/resenting/being disdainful of him.

Re: part II

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

I see your disillusionment, and I have to admit I share in it. I read a story that made the great point that, as beautiful as Clark's pass in the big game was, it was also ugly because of what it implied about his misuse of his powers.

I still have some hope that Clark will see the great error he's made, though. A writing team that could produce Shattered and Asylum might just be able to pull off Clark's realization of his own folly. "Both sides are to blame" is kind of a subtle concept for SV, but I live in hope.

Re: part II

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

Forgot to add: the thing about excusing Clark in Jinx is that it wasn't an excuse at all. The only reason Mxy was able to trip Clark into crushing another guy's collarbone is that Clark made the decision to go onto the field, knowing that this was SV and that if anything went wrong he'd be a danger to the others around him. He had no reason to expect that nothing would go wrong; all experience counseled otherwise. Hey, what if there were a sunspot?

As characterization in the short term, it makes a lot of sense to me. He's still a child, and still being encouraged to think like a child, for all that his parents talk about responsibility. The question is whether SV will be able to pull off a real step into maturity, where Clark accepts the indirect as well as direct consequences of his actions without devolving into feeling responsible for things he really can't control, like being dropped in SV in the first place. To be Superman, he needs to have a sense of obligation, but not one so great that it's overwhelming; that's the delicate balance that a proper resolution of the Clark/Lex storyline could bring.