![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
- Tue, 15:26: Fall Convention Schedule http://t.co/0cWT7W6ZB2
- Tue, 15:26: Fall Convention Schedule http://t.co/qionddt7DE
- Tue, 21:36: The Fall Convention Schedule http://t.co/pXKcJzRT64
- Wed, 01:05: creativitymatrix http://t.co/x7S6V66Kar
- Wed, 12:00: Try a little Brimstone to bring out the demon in you. #99cents #Amazon #NewRelease #UrbanFantasy http://t.co/LCAMjKsEPN
Aug. 26th, 2015
(no subject)
Aug. 26th, 2015 09:23 pmI write an Urban Fantasy series. And this questionnaire came over my tumblr.
So, let's talk about magic in my Urban Fantasy 'verse, where werewolves drive trolleys and teach New England Transcendentalist lit classes, where vampires are the shadow government, where biker mages deal with Nightside threats and where Cthulhu and other Great Old Ones seek readmission to our world (which is handy for the buses and closer to the shops)
(covers link to buy pages)
How is it learned and executed?
Magic is learned through schooling. A human child who exhibits power is tracked by the local wizards, until age 9-12. Then they are tested. This looks like any ordinary school testing. It is decided whether or not to train the children then. A child with some magic who is not promising (or of the wrong ethnicity) will be left to wither, becoming a No-Talent. No-Talents aren't human enough to live with normal people and aren't magic enough to survive on the Nightside.
"No-Talents like me go out one of three ways: a spike in the vein, pickled in the bottle or ripped apart by something Nightside. I wasn't guessing the first, but those who knew me had their bets on the other two."
A child from a family of wizards will begin training in the cradle, especially fire mages. They tend to have a bit of a head start on those whose magic isn't a dominant trait. But it evens out by their twenties.
There is a strong hereditary component in magic. Many women are breeder witches, who are encouraged to have a lot of kids, starting quite young. They often have talents as doulas and healers, and all learn other forms of magic to practice and teach the kids. Moira McKay, a powerful Scottish breeder witch has 13 children, including 2 combat mages (one the first to retire in a century, the other the most powerful of his generation), a breeder, a necromancer, and others. She herself is a powerful talismonger in her 90s. Male breeders are more uncommon, but there are some.
Because of the high risk, male combat mages are expected to bank sperm each year. Female ones are required to have two children after training and before being assigned to a unit. Most combat mages don't have the right personalities for families, or even long-term partners, so the kids end up being raised by a breeder sib.
Kids are encouraged to get their basic learning out of the way. Magic training begins about 12-13, and is mostly extra-curricular. At 15, combat mages are encouraged to get a GED or equivalent and start actual combat training. (those who delay until high school graduation, or worse, college, run the risk of losing all their power) Breeders are encouraged to have their first child about 17.
Execution is simply bending mana to the user's will. Some need more ritual than others. Some store spells in objects for later use.
How is it accessed?
Will power, primarily. Imagine the ward, draw it in the air with your finger and open your eyes to see the pretty blue lines you made. Take aim, conjure the fire in your mind and scorch your target flat. Visualize your desired person, and talk to them. If they have a dab of mana, they'll hear. Visualize a double of yourself and send it to visit (sending a fetch) relatives clear around the world.
Does it have a will of its own?
Mana is much like the Force. It can nudge a user, or even compel her, but he also controls it. The mana works as an aphrodisiac bringing a couple together and smoothing the way for them to get together physically. But the couple can fight it, and do on several occasions. The magic isn't sentient, but it flows with events and shapes them at the same time.
Is it restricted in space and time?
It is to a degree. Spells have a limited range and duration. If you throw a small fireball, it will go only a certain distance, set stuff on fire and burn out. You cannot pull magic from a different time. However, mages from all over the world can send their power to a specific spot if needed.
What does available magic do?
Whatever the user needs it to. It can show the future, be used in battle, summon or banish demons, control the Fae (if briefly), move objects, make things visible or invisible, and travel between planes.
How does it relate to the character, plot and theme of the book?
Our lead is a No-Talent. So she has to deal with the derision of the magic folk she works with. Not having magic makes her job harder. She has enough to use magical objects, like banishing talismans, and to be aware of the magical world around her. Also, too much mana use alters a mage's sense of danger, which is why DJ thinks all mages are crazy.
What is the cost of magic?
Magic is energy. Casting takes energy out of the caster, even if they are mostly channeling the power around them. A hard session leaves a caster hungry, thirsty and tired. Combat can also leave them jacked up, as if on stimulants, and very horny.
What can it not do?
It can heal, even if one is at death's door, but it cannot bring back the dead. It cannot make solid objects. It is energy, and converting energy into mass is a pain.
How long does it last?
Most of the spell effects I've been working with are short term things: fireballs and such. Wards and illusions can last for weeks, months or even years, depending on the caster. Visions tend to be fairly brief, (DJ has about 2-5 seconds' worth of precognition, set about 2-5 minutes ahead) Banishment tends to be permanent, until the creature finds another path back in.
Who can use it?
Anyone who can access the mana. That means mostly those born into magical families, but some born to human parents as well.
How do others react to it?
Magic users tend to be delighted about other mages, to a degree. Combat mages, especially itinerant ones, are not welcomed by law enforcement. Some are old-fashioned and stodgy and secretive. Others are "Welcome aboard for a wild ride." Humans for the most part won't see magic, even when it's staring them in the face. They don't know the signs that someone is a werewolf. People see what they expect to much of the time, and nobody expects pixies zipping around a McDonald's.
Then again, combat mage. He carried it around him like Marines carry their attitude or really wealthy people wear their money. He’d dialed it back after the entrance, but the power just rolled off him.
I’d seen mages that powerful before. They’d walk down the street and people would get out of their way without even seeing them. If you asked the passerby later, they’d have said it was body odor or something. Most people didn’t know magic when they saw it or felt it.
Excuses are almost always made when something large happens.
Jackson nodded. “You’ve tangled before then?”
I just pointed to my face. “Chernobyl. 1986.” We’d covered up my failure with the tale of a nuclear-power-plant accident, but people had still died. That was on me, all the deaths, and the magic, not the radiation, had rendered the place unlivable.
Why haven’t people with this power taken over the world?
They have. The humans just don't know it yet. The ones in charge are often born to human parents, so they regard themselves as humans who can do magic, instead of mages first. This is deliberate. It fosters a benign policy toward ordinary people--our parents, sisters and brothers--and keeps the monomaniacal ones from revealing the Nightside and turning humans into cattle (and some of that is the plot of the book i'm currently working on)
So, let's talk about magic in my Urban Fantasy 'verse, where werewolves drive trolleys and teach New England Transcendentalist lit classes, where vampires are the shadow government, where biker mages deal with Nightside threats and where Cthulhu and other Great Old Ones seek readmission to our world (which is handy for the buses and closer to the shops)
(covers link to buy pages)
How is it learned and executed?
Magic is learned through schooling. A human child who exhibits power is tracked by the local wizards, until age 9-12. Then they are tested. This looks like any ordinary school testing. It is decided whether or not to train the children then. A child with some magic who is not promising (or of the wrong ethnicity) will be left to wither, becoming a No-Talent. No-Talents aren't human enough to live with normal people and aren't magic enough to survive on the Nightside.
"No-Talents like me go out one of three ways: a spike in the vein, pickled in the bottle or ripped apart by something Nightside. I wasn't guessing the first, but those who knew me had their bets on the other two."
A child from a family of wizards will begin training in the cradle, especially fire mages. They tend to have a bit of a head start on those whose magic isn't a dominant trait. But it evens out by their twenties.
There is a strong hereditary component in magic. Many women are breeder witches, who are encouraged to have a lot of kids, starting quite young. They often have talents as doulas and healers, and all learn other forms of magic to practice and teach the kids. Moira McKay, a powerful Scottish breeder witch has 13 children, including 2 combat mages (one the first to retire in a century, the other the most powerful of his generation), a breeder, a necromancer, and others. She herself is a powerful talismonger in her 90s. Male breeders are more uncommon, but there are some.
Because of the high risk, male combat mages are expected to bank sperm each year. Female ones are required to have two children after training and before being assigned to a unit. Most combat mages don't have the right personalities for families, or even long-term partners, so the kids end up being raised by a breeder sib.
Kids are encouraged to get their basic learning out of the way. Magic training begins about 12-13, and is mostly extra-curricular. At 15, combat mages are encouraged to get a GED or equivalent and start actual combat training. (those who delay until high school graduation, or worse, college, run the risk of losing all their power) Breeders are encouraged to have their first child about 17.
Execution is simply bending mana to the user's will. Some need more ritual than others. Some store spells in objects for later use.
How is it accessed?
Will power, primarily. Imagine the ward, draw it in the air with your finger and open your eyes to see the pretty blue lines you made. Take aim, conjure the fire in your mind and scorch your target flat. Visualize your desired person, and talk to them. If they have a dab of mana, they'll hear. Visualize a double of yourself and send it to visit (sending a fetch) relatives clear around the world.
Does it have a will of its own?
Mana is much like the Force. It can nudge a user, or even compel her, but he also controls it. The mana works as an aphrodisiac bringing a couple together and smoothing the way for them to get together physically. But the couple can fight it, and do on several occasions. The magic isn't sentient, but it flows with events and shapes them at the same time.
Is it restricted in space and time?
It is to a degree. Spells have a limited range and duration. If you throw a small fireball, it will go only a certain distance, set stuff on fire and burn out. You cannot pull magic from a different time. However, mages from all over the world can send their power to a specific spot if needed.
What does available magic do?
Whatever the user needs it to. It can show the future, be used in battle, summon or banish demons, control the Fae (if briefly), move objects, make things visible or invisible, and travel between planes.
How does it relate to the character, plot and theme of the book?
Our lead is a No-Talent. So she has to deal with the derision of the magic folk she works with. Not having magic makes her job harder. She has enough to use magical objects, like banishing talismans, and to be aware of the magical world around her. Also, too much mana use alters a mage's sense of danger, which is why DJ thinks all mages are crazy.
What is the cost of magic?
Magic is energy. Casting takes energy out of the caster, even if they are mostly channeling the power around them. A hard session leaves a caster hungry, thirsty and tired. Combat can also leave them jacked up, as if on stimulants, and very horny.
What can it not do?
It can heal, even if one is at death's door, but it cannot bring back the dead. It cannot make solid objects. It is energy, and converting energy into mass is a pain.
How long does it last?
Most of the spell effects I've been working with are short term things: fireballs and such. Wards and illusions can last for weeks, months or even years, depending on the caster. Visions tend to be fairly brief, (DJ has about 2-5 seconds' worth of precognition, set about 2-5 minutes ahead) Banishment tends to be permanent, until the creature finds another path back in.
Who can use it?
Anyone who can access the mana. That means mostly those born into magical families, but some born to human parents as well.
How do others react to it?
Magic users tend to be delighted about other mages, to a degree. Combat mages, especially itinerant ones, are not welcomed by law enforcement. Some are old-fashioned and stodgy and secretive. Others are "Welcome aboard for a wild ride." Humans for the most part won't see magic, even when it's staring them in the face. They don't know the signs that someone is a werewolf. People see what they expect to much of the time, and nobody expects pixies zipping around a McDonald's.
Then again, combat mage. He carried it around him like Marines carry their attitude or really wealthy people wear their money. He’d dialed it back after the entrance, but the power just rolled off him.
I’d seen mages that powerful before. They’d walk down the street and people would get out of their way without even seeing them. If you asked the passerby later, they’d have said it was body odor or something. Most people didn’t know magic when they saw it or felt it.
Excuses are almost always made when something large happens.
Jackson nodded. “You’ve tangled before then?”
I just pointed to my face. “Chernobyl. 1986.” We’d covered up my failure with the tale of a nuclear-power-plant accident, but people had still died. That was on me, all the deaths, and the magic, not the radiation, had rendered the place unlivable.
Why haven’t people with this power taken over the world?
They have. The humans just don't know it yet. The ones in charge are often born to human parents, so they regard themselves as humans who can do magic, instead of mages first. This is deliberate. It fosters a benign policy toward ordinary people--our parents, sisters and brothers--and keeps the monomaniacal ones from revealing the Nightside and turning humans into cattle (and some of that is the plot of the book i'm currently working on)
Smalllville Season 1, Ep 2, Metamorphosis
Aug. 26th, 2015 11:06 pmPreviously on Smallville... A recap of last episode.
Note: Clark's watching of Lana is still creepy.
Exterior, night, the Lang house.
Kid in a tree, filming Lana as she tosses a tiara into a drawer full. Impressive for a Freshman. She opens a plain brown paper box on her bed, and it's full of butterflies. they flit around her and stalker!boy films it, seeming pleased at her expression of delight.
He drives an old style Volkswagen Beetle, heading for home. Greg's mom confronts him about his taping of Lana and his bug collecting. She is, as is typical of small towns, more concerned with her own reputation and comfort level than the invasion of Lana's privacy. But she has had it and plans to call a military academy and send him away.
His butterflies are gorgeous, but rather too green. He's got meteor rocks in some of the habitariums. Thinking to take his collection somewhere save, he loads them all into his beetle but a stop sends one to the floor. The swarming wasps cause him to have a car accident, and the screams continue from the glowing green interior of the Volkswagen.
So, this is our set-up. Creepy stalker kid with a passion for bugs, gets hit with bug bites and stings compounded by meteor rocks. It's our first true Freak of the Week episode.
A cricket crawls on his broken glasses. A poster reads "Greetings from Californication" as Mom comes looking for him, only to find the habitariums gone. (this will be important later) Greg, looking about 30, sporting a lot of stings and marks, is plaster in the corner of the ceiling.
Opening Credits. The six kids: Tom, Kristen, Michael, Eric, Sam and Allison are billed. Annette gets a "With" credit and John gets an "As" credit. (I had to go to TV Tropes for this next bit, and I escaped unscathed) Tom Welling has top billing, because he is Clark Kent. The "With Annette O'Toole" indicates she is a better known actor, but has a smaller part. The "As" credit is much the same. Coming last, it means they are banking fairly heavily on John Schneider's name. More credits. This is first season, John Glover is still being credited as a guest star. Since he's not, expect no Luthor tension.
Chad Donella is Greg Arkin, the bug boy. He's been in Final Destination, Shattered Glass and Taken 3
Flying montage, right into Lana's room, where she is sleeping in a pretty white camisole embroidered in pink and yellow. She's on her back, her hair is perfect. She isn't snuggled down, drooling into the pillow with bedhead. He's hovering over her bed. She says "It's all your fault, Clark." Then Martha calls his name, Clark wakes and lands face first on his own bed, breaking it.
I've heard about sex dreams, but that was a lulu. Flying is nearly always a sex indicator, as is the presence of Lana. The fact Clark has actually achieved levitation indicates he'll be washing those jeans out before breakfast.
Homecoming banter at the farmer's market. And Clark brings the bitchery! Whitney tries passing the scarecroww bit off as a joke, but Clark isn't having it. he wants Lana's necklace back and Clark tells him to go to the cornfield and find it.
Lana is admiring stained glass butterflies when Greg steals up on her. he looks a l;ot better without the glasses and ferocious acne. This whole bit lends credence to my theory that Lana is herself a meteor mutant whose power is making everyone fall stupidly in love with her. And on some level she knows this, because when he proposes working on his paper at his house, she says library. His flat stare and intensity make him scary, even when asking for homework help. Whitney shows up to do the macho possessive thing.
And Lex appears, plucking an apple out of Clark's basket, complimenting him on his taste in women, and inquiring about the previous night. "You were tied to a stake in the middle of a field. Even the Romans saved that for special occasions."
Jonathan hesitates, but shakes Lex's hand this time. Lex comments on this. He stares after Lana, while taking a particularly large and symbolic bite from the apple.
Whitney is driving alone. Greg leaps into and then out of a tree, landing on the roof of Whitney's Ford truck. Whitney goes through a LOT of trucks this season and this may be the first casualty. Yep, it ends on its side, roof caved in, windows and windshield broken. Whitney unconscious on the airbag and a small fire on the undercarriage.
The Kents happen along. Jonathan grabs his extinguisher, but Clark is already pulling Whitney out. The truck explodes and Clark shelters Whitney with his own body. (That sounds a lot gayer than it is. OTOH, They're practically spooning in the middle of the road and Clark has his arms around Whitney as the fireball overtakes them) Jonathan burns his hand touching Clark's shoulder, but Whitney isn't even singed. Clark's sooty.
Father/Son talk time. He's worried about freaking Martha out. And he confesses the floating thing, wanting explanations. "As soon as you start breaking the law of gravity, we're in uncharted territory." Clark is afraid of the things that are happening.
Cut to Luthor Mansion and Lex examining the necklace before putting it into a box.
Cut to Lana on her horse, galloping and then walking him into the stables. Lex is there and offers advice. She's already seen more of Lex than Lex is comfortable with, after catching him skinny dipping about 5 years before. (And why would Lionel be having Nell stay over?)
The conversation is a lot of Lex playing dumb, getting answers that he already knows from Lana. And he drops the suggestion she ask about what Whitney was doing before the game.
This is typical Lex behavior. Many times, I think he's asking to see how honest people will be so he knows how to treat them. A hazard of growing up around a pathological liar. Lana's candor in this scene seems to have won him over.
Greg's mom comes home to find the heat set at 103. Her white walls are covered with handprints and Greg's room is full of webs. Greg, looking disturbingly like Christian Bale, shows up, shirtless, and possibly entirely naked. A brief, fairly brutal scene with a lot of unsavory implications, ends with him spewing webbing.
Clark examines Lex's mock up of the Siege of Troy. It was a gift when Lex was 9 to prepare him to enter the modern battlefield of business. Because it's Troy, he gets in a bit about a Whitney stringing Clark up out of jealousy. As he stands entirely too close... and he works those eyebrows. Also, his face is lookin down while his eyes are looking up at Clark. This is classic flirtation, but again, a feminine position
(Note: it's always "The Quarterback" never Whitney or Fordman.)
Lex tosses out a sociopathic suggestion, that Clark should have let Whitney die in the accident. It would solve his problems. He rounds on Clark to check the response and reminds Clark he's kidding. Except he looks totally earnest. He then offer's Lana's necklace to Clark and observes that Clark is completely NOT fine around that necklace. The box is made of lead, and when it snaps shut, Clark is back to himself.
Lana confronts Whitney about the scarecrow. Whitney confesses he's lost the necklace.
And now Greg waylays her. She forgot the study date. He has a jealousy reaction over Clark.
Clark, meanwhile is experimenting with the necklace, only to find Lana in his loft. His "fortress of solitude". Clark asks why she's there. She apologizes for the scarecrow thing, even though it's not her fault. We get the story of the necklace again.
"Life is about change. Sometimes it's painful. Sometimes it's beautiful. Most of the time, it's both."
Cut to Greg sloughing off skin in the shower. Eww.
Jonathan is fixing a disc harrow. Clark comes down to help, and Greg jumps him. They hunt for Greg in the rafters. Greg pushes Jonathan through the loft rail, directly over the harrow. (saw this one coming. Lots of dangerous stuff on a farm) Clark gets between Jonathan and the harrow, bending several discs out of shape.
Clark is an expensive person to have around. He can do chores in 5 minutes flat, but he is destructive in the process of saving people.
Kent parents and Clark trying to figure out what is going on. Clark and Pete used to hang out with Greg in grade school. Now, Greg is leaving gooey green footprints on their barn ceiling.
"I dunni, seems kind of out there."
"This coming from a man whose been hiding a spaceship in the storm cellar for the last 12 years." I adore Martha's sass.
Clark tells Jonathan about the Wall of the Weird. He blames himself for the meteor shower. Jonathan suggests LuthorCorp is responsible for the weirdness. Cue serious bit of talk about feelings and being human.
School. Clark checks with Chloe about Greg. Brief cuteness.Then Research.
Greg's house. It's a mess, at odds with his neat freak mother. We hear about the tree fort. Chloe does B&E. They find bits of Greg in the drain. They piece together that Lana is in danegr, and find Greg's dessicated mother.
Whitney comes to talk to Lana. Jealousy caused him to choose Clark for the scarecrow. Greg shows up, tosses Whitney into a stall and approaches Lana who has the sense to be afraid.
Clark finds Whitney and they're off to the rescue together.
Or not. Clark gave directions and vanished as Whitney started up his new truck.
Lana under webbing. Greg is observing. And Clark is trying to reason with him. Greg knocks Clark out of the treehouse, and vaults the foundry fence. The foundry was hit in the meteor shower, so it's full of rocks. Clark is very sick when Greg hits him with the iron pipe.
fight and chase scene. Clark takes refuge in a lead crucible. greg pulls the wrong chain and gets squashed into millions of smaller bugs.
Whitney rescues Lana from the web. Clark watches him get the hug and cuddle.
Clark hangs the necklace on her doorknob and vanishes.
Death toll: 2. Greg and Mrs. Arkin
Property damage: Whitney's truck, the disc harrow, Greg's Beetle, Clark's bed.
Information gained: Clark is very allergic to meteor rocks. They make his veins glow green. Lead blocks them out. Lana knows what Whitney's capable of. Lex discovers he likes Lana. And Clark can levitate, but only when sleeping.
Not a terrible episode. It's not as rich as they will become, but for a new show trying to find its feet, this is a good one off.
Note: Clark's watching of Lana is still creepy.
Exterior, night, the Lang house.
Kid in a tree, filming Lana as she tosses a tiara into a drawer full. Impressive for a Freshman. She opens a plain brown paper box on her bed, and it's full of butterflies. they flit around her and stalker!boy films it, seeming pleased at her expression of delight.
He drives an old style Volkswagen Beetle, heading for home. Greg's mom confronts him about his taping of Lana and his bug collecting. She is, as is typical of small towns, more concerned with her own reputation and comfort level than the invasion of Lana's privacy. But she has had it and plans to call a military academy and send him away.
His butterflies are gorgeous, but rather too green. He's got meteor rocks in some of the habitariums. Thinking to take his collection somewhere save, he loads them all into his beetle but a stop sends one to the floor. The swarming wasps cause him to have a car accident, and the screams continue from the glowing green interior of the Volkswagen.
So, this is our set-up. Creepy stalker kid with a passion for bugs, gets hit with bug bites and stings compounded by meteor rocks. It's our first true Freak of the Week episode.
A cricket crawls on his broken glasses. A poster reads "Greetings from Californication" as Mom comes looking for him, only to find the habitariums gone. (this will be important later) Greg, looking about 30, sporting a lot of stings and marks, is plaster in the corner of the ceiling.
Opening Credits. The six kids: Tom, Kristen, Michael, Eric, Sam and Allison are billed. Annette gets a "With" credit and John gets an "As" credit. (I had to go to TV Tropes for this next bit, and I escaped unscathed) Tom Welling has top billing, because he is Clark Kent. The "With Annette O'Toole" indicates she is a better known actor, but has a smaller part. The "As" credit is much the same. Coming last, it means they are banking fairly heavily on John Schneider's name. More credits. This is first season, John Glover is still being credited as a guest star. Since he's not, expect no Luthor tension.
Chad Donella is Greg Arkin, the bug boy. He's been in Final Destination, Shattered Glass and Taken 3
Flying montage, right into Lana's room, where she is sleeping in a pretty white camisole embroidered in pink and yellow. She's on her back, her hair is perfect. She isn't snuggled down, drooling into the pillow with bedhead. He's hovering over her bed. She says "It's all your fault, Clark." Then Martha calls his name, Clark wakes and lands face first on his own bed, breaking it.
I've heard about sex dreams, but that was a lulu. Flying is nearly always a sex indicator, as is the presence of Lana. The fact Clark has actually achieved levitation indicates he'll be washing those jeans out before breakfast.
Homecoming banter at the farmer's market. And Clark brings the bitchery! Whitney tries passing the scarecroww bit off as a joke, but Clark isn't having it. he wants Lana's necklace back and Clark tells him to go to the cornfield and find it.
Lana is admiring stained glass butterflies when Greg steals up on her. he looks a l;ot better without the glasses and ferocious acne. This whole bit lends credence to my theory that Lana is herself a meteor mutant whose power is making everyone fall stupidly in love with her. And on some level she knows this, because when he proposes working on his paper at his house, she says library. His flat stare and intensity make him scary, even when asking for homework help. Whitney shows up to do the macho possessive thing.
And Lex appears, plucking an apple out of Clark's basket, complimenting him on his taste in women, and inquiring about the previous night. "You were tied to a stake in the middle of a field. Even the Romans saved that for special occasions."
Jonathan hesitates, but shakes Lex's hand this time. Lex comments on this. He stares after Lana, while taking a particularly large and symbolic bite from the apple.
Whitney is driving alone. Greg leaps into and then out of a tree, landing on the roof of Whitney's Ford truck. Whitney goes through a LOT of trucks this season and this may be the first casualty. Yep, it ends on its side, roof caved in, windows and windshield broken. Whitney unconscious on the airbag and a small fire on the undercarriage.
The Kents happen along. Jonathan grabs his extinguisher, but Clark is already pulling Whitney out. The truck explodes and Clark shelters Whitney with his own body. (That sounds a lot gayer than it is. OTOH, They're practically spooning in the middle of the road and Clark has his arms around Whitney as the fireball overtakes them) Jonathan burns his hand touching Clark's shoulder, but Whitney isn't even singed. Clark's sooty.
Father/Son talk time. He's worried about freaking Martha out. And he confesses the floating thing, wanting explanations. "As soon as you start breaking the law of gravity, we're in uncharted territory." Clark is afraid of the things that are happening.
Cut to Luthor Mansion and Lex examining the necklace before putting it into a box.
Cut to Lana on her horse, galloping and then walking him into the stables. Lex is there and offers advice. She's already seen more of Lex than Lex is comfortable with, after catching him skinny dipping about 5 years before. (And why would Lionel be having Nell stay over?)
The conversation is a lot of Lex playing dumb, getting answers that he already knows from Lana. And he drops the suggestion she ask about what Whitney was doing before the game.
This is typical Lex behavior. Many times, I think he's asking to see how honest people will be so he knows how to treat them. A hazard of growing up around a pathological liar. Lana's candor in this scene seems to have won him over.
Greg's mom comes home to find the heat set at 103. Her white walls are covered with handprints and Greg's room is full of webs. Greg, looking disturbingly like Christian Bale, shows up, shirtless, and possibly entirely naked. A brief, fairly brutal scene with a lot of unsavory implications, ends with him spewing webbing.
Clark examines Lex's mock up of the Siege of Troy. It was a gift when Lex was 9 to prepare him to enter the modern battlefield of business. Because it's Troy, he gets in a bit about a Whitney stringing Clark up out of jealousy. As he stands entirely too close... and he works those eyebrows. Also, his face is lookin down while his eyes are looking up at Clark. This is classic flirtation, but again, a feminine position
(Note: it's always "The Quarterback" never Whitney or Fordman.)
Lex tosses out a sociopathic suggestion, that Clark should have let Whitney die in the accident. It would solve his problems. He rounds on Clark to check the response and reminds Clark he's kidding. Except he looks totally earnest. He then offer's Lana's necklace to Clark and observes that Clark is completely NOT fine around that necklace. The box is made of lead, and when it snaps shut, Clark is back to himself.
Lana confronts Whitney about the scarecrow. Whitney confesses he's lost the necklace.
And now Greg waylays her. She forgot the study date. He has a jealousy reaction over Clark.
Clark, meanwhile is experimenting with the necklace, only to find Lana in his loft. His "fortress of solitude". Clark asks why she's there. She apologizes for the scarecrow thing, even though it's not her fault. We get the story of the necklace again.
"Life is about change. Sometimes it's painful. Sometimes it's beautiful. Most of the time, it's both."
Cut to Greg sloughing off skin in the shower. Eww.
Jonathan is fixing a disc harrow. Clark comes down to help, and Greg jumps him. They hunt for Greg in the rafters. Greg pushes Jonathan through the loft rail, directly over the harrow. (saw this one coming. Lots of dangerous stuff on a farm) Clark gets between Jonathan and the harrow, bending several discs out of shape.
Clark is an expensive person to have around. He can do chores in 5 minutes flat, but he is destructive in the process of saving people.
Kent parents and Clark trying to figure out what is going on. Clark and Pete used to hang out with Greg in grade school. Now, Greg is leaving gooey green footprints on their barn ceiling.
"I dunni, seems kind of out there."
"This coming from a man whose been hiding a spaceship in the storm cellar for the last 12 years." I adore Martha's sass.
Clark tells Jonathan about the Wall of the Weird. He blames himself for the meteor shower. Jonathan suggests LuthorCorp is responsible for the weirdness. Cue serious bit of talk about feelings and being human.
School. Clark checks with Chloe about Greg. Brief cuteness.Then Research.
Greg's house. It's a mess, at odds with his neat freak mother. We hear about the tree fort. Chloe does B&E. They find bits of Greg in the drain. They piece together that Lana is in danegr, and find Greg's dessicated mother.
Whitney comes to talk to Lana. Jealousy caused him to choose Clark for the scarecrow. Greg shows up, tosses Whitney into a stall and approaches Lana who has the sense to be afraid.
Clark finds Whitney and they're off to the rescue together.
Or not. Clark gave directions and vanished as Whitney started up his new truck.
Lana under webbing. Greg is observing. And Clark is trying to reason with him. Greg knocks Clark out of the treehouse, and vaults the foundry fence. The foundry was hit in the meteor shower, so it's full of rocks. Clark is very sick when Greg hits him with the iron pipe.
fight and chase scene. Clark takes refuge in a lead crucible. greg pulls the wrong chain and gets squashed into millions of smaller bugs.
Whitney rescues Lana from the web. Clark watches him get the hug and cuddle.
Clark hangs the necklace on her doorknob and vanishes.
Death toll: 2. Greg and Mrs. Arkin
Property damage: Whitney's truck, the disc harrow, Greg's Beetle, Clark's bed.
Information gained: Clark is very allergic to meteor rocks. They make his veins glow green. Lead blocks them out. Lana knows what Whitney's capable of. Lex discovers he likes Lana. And Clark can levitate, but only when sleeping.
Not a terrible episode. It's not as rich as they will become, but for a new show trying to find its feet, this is a good one off.