I remembered saying this when I first came into the fandom (this is from April of 2003):

Lastly, I wish TPTB would realize they have this beautiful, potentially incredible show and they are killing it. Potential, is the word everyone thinks of when they think of "Smallville." They are not living up to it and it makes me irritated. In the way that makes me wish for a dart board so I could use it for target practice on SV producers and writers. While they may never have the OTP I want to see on there, it doesn't negate the fact that there are plenty of other storylines they could be doing to make up for that. It's Future Superman, people. What makes him the Future Greatest Superhero? If they could understand that, I would be a happy, happy fangirl.

And here we are, more than two years later, and I think, wow, if you only knew how this was going to go.

(Thanks to Jenn and Pru for the reassurances that this is actually coherent.)



Lately, I’ve been contemplating a lot of overall fandom thoughts. Smallville’s my first hugely active fandom online (I’ve written elsewhere, but I’d never organized challenges or written recs or well—done anything beyond writing). I will always have a very, very deep sentimental attachment, and not just because I’ve met some people that I’m going to be friends with for a very, very long time, and not just because I’ve learned so much from the experience. I’ll have a deep sentimental attachment because my God, I love these characters. I love what they kind of almost are, but mostly, I’m in love with the idea of what they could have been. (Well. I suppose “might be” is still up for grabs, but wow, I think Al and Miles would have to run off to Tahiti or someone would have to turn back time and make sure Kristin misses her audition. Part of me can’t help but hope, because I’ve always been the optimistic sort, but the other part is screaming that hey, isn’t that the definition of insanity—beating your head against the wall over and over again and expecting a result other than a concussion?) Smallville’s my first true, deep fannish love, and yeah, I don’t think you get over those. I’m not done with Smallville.

But the thing of it is is that I’m finding myself wishing more and more that I could be. It’s not that I want to be done—I still have so much left I want to do—I’ve had challenge ideas I’ve wanted to do for over a year, and have just been waiting for the right time, I have WiPs and stories to finish, I still love talking about the show and discussing scenarios and chatting with people. So what’s changed?

The show itself is a pretty obvious answer, and for me, it’s the actual one. It’s been said before and it’ll no doubt be said again, but this show was never, by traditional standards, “good.” That doesn’t mean I didn’t fall in love with it fiercely, and fast. But what it does mean is that while I never expected anything close to perfection, I expected them to get Certain Things right along the way. I can deal with side trips to China and characters like Jason doing a 180 (or heck, characters like Jason *existing*), or EVEN Lois Lane coming to *Smallville*, so long as they get those other Certain Things right. I expected them to break my heart and I yearned for them to do it, to make the fall of Lex and the rise of Clark something that would last.

I expected them to break my heart because the fall of Lex and the rise of Clark *hurt* in all the classically traditional ways; because here were these two beautiful boys who simply couldn’t get it together enough to remain friends, to not become the best of enemies instead—not because they didn’t love each other, but because things happened along the way that made them view their world in very, very different ways and neither one of them could see where the other was coming from anymore. I didn’t expect them to break my heart because it was *stupid* and ultimately, worthless. Because it was ill-thought out, crappily planned, and thrown into the back-seat of the Fabulous Life of Lana Lang and All The Men Who Must Love Her.

I’m not the sort of person who can go into a fandom if the show/book/media/whatever actually is….bad. I’m not the sort of person who can just turn off the television set or stop reading the books and still manage to be interested in the fandom itself. I need the constant renewal of energy that an active show provides, I need new canon to breathe life into ideas for things to do, for what to write, for what I can encourage others to write. That’s the great part about being part of a fandom with a show that’s still on the air—people are interested in exploring the canon that hasn’t come yet, want to anticipate what might happen on the show and utilize it in their work.

I’m not someone who can watch something like we just watched in Season Four and not get…the wind knocked out of my sails. I *hated* Season Four. I can joke about it, I can poke fun at it, I can try and make light of it all I want (and I do because I honestly don’t see the point in just posting all the time to say, wow what a fucked up mess that was), but I *hated Season Four*. It had bright, stellar moments, but a few drops of nectar does not sustain a fangirl. Thus moving me into the point of this post.

I’ve been contemplating Smallville’s legitimate longevity as a fandom, when all is said and done, when this show is over. The thing of it is is that—I *don’t* think Smallville is a fandom with staying power. This is something I’ve thought long and hard about but—yeah, I will be honestly surprised if two years after the show is gone, there is anything beyond the skeletal remains of a fandom left. Certainly there are fandom resurgences from long-ago aired shows like Due South, and Buffy still enjoys a strong online experience, but there’s a big difference between those shows and Smallville.

Those shows are….good. Smallville has some extensive pretty, but even the pretty cannot withstand another season like the last. What’s extremely fascinating to me is how Smallville seasons seem to somehow get better in our minds as we go along, because the level of quality continually sinks. For instance, oh, God, I just loathed Season Two. I thought it was pathetic, and then somewhere in mid Season Three, it suddenly became interesting and awesome retrospectively, because Season Three was that obnoxious. Then the latter half of Season Three was stronger and I thought Season Three was so much better about six episodes into Season Four.

If you hear me babbling that Season Four was good sometime in say, November, you all have my permission to gently send me e-mails and ask me if I’m okay, ‘cause chances are I should be so bailing if I’m saying that.

So. Things I’ve wanted to address, because I’m curious if any of you have had your own thoughts on these subjects.

I’m in *fandom*; I don’t need no stinkin’ canon.

People say, oh, “I’m in it for the fandom! I don’t need the show to be good because I’m in it for the fandom and the fandom is great.”

Well, the fandom *was* great. The fandom is still pretty neat, but if you look around, you’re seeing strains. Or, actually, gaping holes where People Could Be. But the thing of it is? While it’s nice that maybe you don’t need for the show to be good, most people need canon to give them *something* to work with, if they’re going to continue to be remotely interested in contributing to the fandom. You’re seeing people giving up and getting tired and moving on, because there’s only so much someone can take before the self-preservation ideas kick in and you just have to get out. Interest has to be maintained by the older fans because they’re the ones who wind up attracting the newer fans in deeper than just taking a cursory glance at the fandom itself, and the newer fans are the ones who wind up “replacing” the older fans that burn out/leave/move on, after all. If the older fans aren’t writing, or making other fannish contributions, a fandom is not going to be renewing itself, and that is what I think is happening with Smallville.

At the very least, I think people need for the show to not be quite this bad so that they can take the parts they need to work with and be inspired by them. If you have a show that makes you ache to watch it and you see most everyone around you in the same place, mentally, well—how does that make you want to write? How does that make you want to do anything with it, when you’re fighting this bitterness that they’re doing things that you just can’t get in line with and are egregious enough that you simply cannot ignore them? Of course you’re going to look for something to hold your attention that’s worthy of you.

Smallville isn’t like other fandoms. Okay, ‘duh’, you’re saying, but--

People say fandom “fixes” things. But you see—I don’t think you can really “fix” Smallville. Look at most of the stories that get posted these days—they’re wildly AU or future fic. People aren’t operating within the canon of the series, they aren’t writing about what’s going on now….so how is that “fixing” what’s wrong with Smallville?

As my dear rageprufrock would undoubtedly put it, “Watching Smallville is like getting fucked without lube. Over and over and over again. And then when you think it’s done, and you can maybe roll over and sleep, you get smacked upside the head with a Stone of Power and then they leave you on the ground bleeding.”

Only, she’d put it more eloquently. Possibly. And without the Stone of Power part because I don’t think she believes me when I tell her about S4 and what it contained.

But I digress! Every now and then, well, very often now, I see people saying “Oh, I can’t wait for fandom writers to fix this!”

The thing of it is is that we—can’t. People can’t *fix* this, there’s just too much to fix. You can only shape it to what you want it to be, but you still wouldn’t be operating within the show’s parameters, because quite simply—if you want to have a logical story, you have to ignore the show. And that’s so hard to do, and most other fandoms don’t have that element to contend with. They give you stuff to work with, and honestly—I don’t really see all that much getting incorporated into the fiction any more.

My end point here, perhaps lost in all this is that—other series, you see general fix-it fic, based on the canon, and that can lead to inspiring others to working with that same material and working their own magic. I see future fics, and I see AUs and I don’t see how a show that continually contradicts itself and invalidates most character progression can give people the material they need to legitimately take a look at this series and think they want to do something with it fannishly.

Another thing to throw out there about Smallville is something weird to mull over, but nonetheless, I think quite true. We are not a fandom that really contains that much conflict. We’ve argued over spoilers, cut-tags, a few other things along the way, but especially in the last couple of years, Smallville has been a pretty sedate fandom. A lot of fandoms interest me because they seem to have one-three very vocal people who are very verbal in offering differing opinions, and that helps to initiate discussion and help ideas progress along—this odd sort of competition or something. Conflict within a fandom can lead to projects, or to stories being written if for no other reason than to prove what “Old So-and-So said was *so wrong*.” Smallville doesn’t have that sort of spark to prompt Interesting Things.

All of these factors, rolling into one another, sliding into place alongside each other are what lead me to think of Smallville as a fandom that has most likely seen its glory days, and that we’re looking at the fall of the Empire, so to speak, here.

Effects on the Fangirl and Her Delicate Psyche

Fandom is—a bonding experience. You pick up friends along the way. The ones you really value, the ones you want to keep track of, you inevitably try and pull them into the same sorts of things that interest *you*. This is something I’ve referred to in my own head as the Lazy Susan Principle. Fandom’s like a never-ending lazy susan in many ways. You keep turning the wheel and sometimes you partake in something you never anticipated, just because it’s right by your hand. People want to see to it that their friends conveniently have the “right” thing by your fingertips. (In case you have not noticed, Smallville is not going to get a place back on the Lazy Susan. There is no newness, and the shine factor? So. Gone.)

Okay, all of this is leads to somewhere you probably didn’t anticipate, but whether you want to admit it or not, I bet at least some of you are feeling it.

After this season, I’m finding myself jealous of other fandoms. Right now, I am mostly insanely jealous of SGA. I’m having these irrational moments, as I see person after person on my f-list succumb to this show, to those stories. I’ll tell you something—I entertained thoughts that this could be my Next Big Fandom, because the fic is simply that good, and I always loved SG-1, so I figured SGA watching would go over well with me, and I’d have fun with it.

Now I’m finding myself with a twitching cheek and an urge to smack my desk every time I see someone with an “OMG, love SGA!” post, “Give me recs!” or whatever. I feel like I don’t want to be a part of it just to be *contrary*. I….I *miss* that. I miss people that are genuinely excited and fresh and *fully happy* about their show that is supporting the launch of the Next Big Fandom. I get nostalgic about my early days in the fandom, then I get embittered at what the show has done to that fandom. It gave us the fandom, true, but it also took it away. I get so *angry* and somehow that turns itself on fandoms that are fun and peppy, and why?

Because They Squee Too Much. And that’s insane, I know it, that’s irrational, know that too, that’s *mean*, I get that, but at the same time, I genuinely am getting to just dislike the letters S, G and A together, because I want *my* show to inspire that kind of giddy glee and it’s *not* and I just don’t see it happening again. That makes me so sad.

I don’t feel that happy go-lucky spark in Smallville fandom. I don’t know if it’s because we’re tired or if it’s because we’re old and matronly or if it’s because most of us are just disgusted by a show that’s let us down in so many horrifying ways. I think it’s definitely a combination of all of the three, but I cannot help but think that if the latter were adjusted, if the show were stronger, that many people would still be full of fire and zest even if *we are* old and matronly.

What I want is for my fandom to not be this dejected and dumbstruck about this show.

What I want is for my Fun Crappy Show to become watchable again.

What I want is for them to somehow, by the grace of God, get those Certain Things right, otherwise I’m scared that even though this has been a great fannish experience so far, I’ll never wash that taste out of my mouth and this experience will have a taint that I won’t be able to get away from.

Failing those, I want to be able to at least recover some measure of fannish sanity so that I don’t have the urge to smack people who are (*gasp!*) happy with their active shows/media.