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SV "What If" Game
Edited to rename my game now that it is famous all over teh internets, since "an SV Game/Poll Thingy" doesn't scan quite as well.
I have one of those extremely tedious projects at work that require, for sanity, an lj break every half hour or so, so it seems like a good time to play a game.
So here's the premise: the SV fairy has appeared to you and offered you the opportunity to travel to the SV-verse, temporarily, to improve Smallville and/or the lives of the characters in any way you see fit. There are rules, however. You can either (1)have one conversation with one character (and only one character), time length up to one hour, at any point in the timeline OR (2) you can change one event, but not speak to anyone.
--If you choose the conversation, you can talk to anyone at any point in their timeline, but you have to be yourself (mysterious stranger); you can't, for example, be Clark to talk to Lex. You can, however, be a mysterious stranger who knows the future; you just can't hang around more than an hour to show that your predictions were accurate.
--If you choose changing an event, you have a fair amount of power--let's say the limit of your power is that of a meteor mutant--but you can only change one event, and you can't speak to anyone. So, for example, if your goal was to prevent Jodi from becoming a fat-sucker in "Craving," you could either magically prevent her father's greenhouse from being salted with kryptonite OR you could have a conversation warning her, but you couldn't do both. If you wanted to save Jonathan's life in "Reckoning," you could have a conversation with Clark or you could blow up the Fortress of Solitude (if you think that would help) OR you could puncture Jonathan's tires so he never has the encounter with Lionel, but you could only do ONE of those things, not all of them. If you want to redirect the meteors in the first meteor shower to squash Lana, you can do that, but you can't then talk to Clark to get him to wait on Loeb bridge so he saves Lex's life even though he no longer has Lana to moon over and so he may not end up there on his own.
SO:
What is your goal?
What are you going to do to accomplish it, given the constraints on your powers?
What do you think the effect of your change will be?
What might be the unintended consequences?
For example, here's mine.
What is your goal?
I want Lex NOT to become an evil monster whose sociopathy exceeds Lionel's. It turns out I want that even more than I want Clark and Lex to get together.
What are you going to do to accomplish it, given the constraints on your powers?
After much thought about this, I think what I would do is appear to Lillian a couple days before she kills Julian and HEAL HER with my magical kryptomutant powers.
What do you think the effect of your change will be?
Even though I don't get to talk to her, my hope is that healing her would cover both her post-partum psychosis (to which I am attributing her desire to kill Julian) AND her heart condition, so she would live and continue to be a countering influence on Lex. I think by the time Lex gets to Smallville it's really too late for him to really change; he's too fucked up already. My hope is that if Lillian is not sucked down into despair because of her mortal illness, she would actually be able to support Lex in not becoming like his dad. And Lex would still have a little brother, who he clearly loved a lot, so that would give him motivation to try to be a good person and set a good example.
What might be the unintended consequences?
Well, Lillian might already be so damaged that she would still kill Julian, and maybe this time Lionel would catch her and she'd go to prison or be locked in an asylum, which probably would NOT make things better for Lex. Or maybe she wouldn't be caught, but she'd live, and instead of being Lex's dead model of goodness, she'd be the psycho-mom he was protecting, and that could get ugly and he might go evil earlier. Or maybe none of that would happen but instead Lionel would succeed in molding Julian to be the heir he wanted Lex to be, and instead of Lex being the evil genius he'd be locked in an eternal struggle with his brother the evil genius.
So, does anyone else want to play, or did I make the rules too complicated?
I have one of those extremely tedious projects at work that require, for sanity, an lj break every half hour or so, so it seems like a good time to play a game.
So here's the premise: the SV fairy has appeared to you and offered you the opportunity to travel to the SV-verse, temporarily, to improve Smallville and/or the lives of the characters in any way you see fit. There are rules, however. You can either (1)have one conversation with one character (and only one character), time length up to one hour, at any point in the timeline OR (2) you can change one event, but not speak to anyone.
--If you choose the conversation, you can talk to anyone at any point in their timeline, but you have to be yourself (mysterious stranger); you can't, for example, be Clark to talk to Lex. You can, however, be a mysterious stranger who knows the future; you just can't hang around more than an hour to show that your predictions were accurate.
--If you choose changing an event, you have a fair amount of power--let's say the limit of your power is that of a meteor mutant--but you can only change one event, and you can't speak to anyone. So, for example, if your goal was to prevent Jodi from becoming a fat-sucker in "Craving," you could either magically prevent her father's greenhouse from being salted with kryptonite OR you could have a conversation warning her, but you couldn't do both. If you wanted to save Jonathan's life in "Reckoning," you could have a conversation with Clark or you could blow up the Fortress of Solitude (if you think that would help) OR you could puncture Jonathan's tires so he never has the encounter with Lionel, but you could only do ONE of those things, not all of them. If you want to redirect the meteors in the first meteor shower to squash Lana, you can do that, but you can't then talk to Clark to get him to wait on Loeb bridge so he saves Lex's life even though he no longer has Lana to moon over and so he may not end up there on his own.
SO:
What is your goal?
What are you going to do to accomplish it, given the constraints on your powers?
What do you think the effect of your change will be?
What might be the unintended consequences?
For example, here's mine.
What is your goal?
I want Lex NOT to become an evil monster whose sociopathy exceeds Lionel's. It turns out I want that even more than I want Clark and Lex to get together.
What are you going to do to accomplish it, given the constraints on your powers?
After much thought about this, I think what I would do is appear to Lillian a couple days before she kills Julian and HEAL HER with my magical kryptomutant powers.
What do you think the effect of your change will be?
Even though I don't get to talk to her, my hope is that healing her would cover both her post-partum psychosis (to which I am attributing her desire to kill Julian) AND her heart condition, so she would live and continue to be a countering influence on Lex. I think by the time Lex gets to Smallville it's really too late for him to really change; he's too fucked up already. My hope is that if Lillian is not sucked down into despair because of her mortal illness, she would actually be able to support Lex in not becoming like his dad. And Lex would still have a little brother, who he clearly loved a lot, so that would give him motivation to try to be a good person and set a good example.
What might be the unintended consequences?
Well, Lillian might already be so damaged that she would still kill Julian, and maybe this time Lionel would catch her and she'd go to prison or be locked in an asylum, which probably would NOT make things better for Lex. Or maybe she wouldn't be caught, but she'd live, and instead of being Lex's dead model of goodness, she'd be the psycho-mom he was protecting, and that could get ugly and he might go evil earlier. Or maybe none of that would happen but instead Lionel would succeed in molding Julian to be the heir he wanted Lex to be, and instead of Lex being the evil genius he'd be locked in an eternal struggle with his brother the evil genius.
So, does anyone else want to play, or did I make the rules too complicated?
no subject
Believe it or not, save the pancakes aka Lana’s parents.
What are you going to do to accomplish it, given the constraints on your powers?
Telekinesis. I’ll just move them fifty feet to one side.
What do you think the effect of your change will be?
Honestly, I think that with her parents alive, she wouldn’t be on the cover of the Time magazine. Also, she wouldn’t be known and pitied as an orphan or be wearing that horrible little necklace which I still think made her into a freak with the “pity power.”
I think that a lot of Clark’s interest initially was her unavailability due to her necklace and pity/guilt for the meteor that whacked her parents. I think that w/o them, she wouldn’t have stood out quite so much and Clark would’ve found out a lot sooner that she’s not the perfect saint that he thought she was for such a long time. Clana would’ve happened sooner and burned out faster as she would show that she’s not as interested in the stuff he comes to be interested in and probably starts getting a roving eye. W/o Lana’s previous history of woe, I think Clark might’ve grown up a lot sooner.
I also think that Lana wouldn’t be able to demand perfection from loved ones since she wouldn’t have idolized a memory to the point where love = being flawless. With a father figure in her life, maybe she wouldn’t keep hopping from guy to guy to guy. Having a flesh and blood father and mother doing imperfect things and screwing up would give her a more reasonable expectations of what a relationship is really like or at least make her realize that nothing is perfect. She wouldn’t be able to blame everything on being an orphan or have the deep-seated abandonment issues or at least she would have been forced to own them. The thing about Aunt Nell is that Lana got to think “My parents would be better/more honest/more understanding/more loving” and without that, she’d have to face some hard facts of life sooner.
I like to think that if her parents had decided to move out of Metropolis to keep her from being stalked, she would simply have gone with them or that Chloe wouldn’t have opened her house to her considering that it was her PARENTS telling her to pack, not simply her aunt.
Without the dead parents thing, I don’t think she would’ve taken on the Talon but just continued just being a regular high school girl for the most part since she did say that it was her parents’ history that inspired her to reopen it.
What might be the unintended consequences?
I think Nell might’ve been happier and found a guy w/o Lana. Perhaps she could’ve made a move on Lionel once Lillian was dead. Hmmm . . .
Lana’s parents could have divorced and Lana’s mom might’ve married Henry Small. Depending on custody battle, Lana might be Lana Small or Lana Lang. It would’ve gotten a bit messy.
Without Lana, I’d like to think Clark & Lex would have talked about different and other things than her. Also, I’d like to think with a more honest/realistic view of Lana, Clark would have been able to have a more varied romantic life including Chlark, not necessarily but possibly.
The show would’ve actually improved as Lana would hopefully have parents who did view her as a human being and not someone to worship. It would’ve been nice to see her yelled at, grounded, etc.
If her parents were stupid enough to want to stay in SV and let her get stalked over and over again, well not sure how to change that. Maybe they’d get killed trying to protect her or may end up just being more proactive about protecting her. I’d like to think they’d move.
I’d like to think her parents wouldn’t be indulgent enough to let her go to Paris and get involved in the stone arc of S4.
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In fact, I doubt she would have been the target for all the mutants, since she wouldn't have been the center of attention that came with being the iconic meteor shower victim, and she wouldn't have worn the necklace that I think drew all the mutants to her. Like you say, she would have been just a regular high school girl.
Though you terrify me with the prospect of Nell possibly marrying Lionel!
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Oh, gurl ... In the original 'notes' for the show, the connection between Nell and Lionel, the idea that they were long-standing friends and possibly even had a romantic past together, was much more explicitly acknowledged (likewise, Lana's fascination with Lex; you heard that right -- Lana was originally supposed to be fascinated by Lex because he represented the world outside of Smallville that she was curious about/craving to experience). You can still see glimmers of the Nell/Lionel connection in some of the earlier episodes (Lana and Nell were visiting the Luthor penthouse when Lana caught Lex skinny-dipping and, in one of the very early episodes, either Lana or Whitney mentions that Nell sold Lionel a ton of land), but the original concept was that they had a long and varied history with each other.
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Though I guess it would have prevented the Lexana, if they were step-siblings!
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