okay ENOUGH brutalizing tess bring me zod's broken shattered cranium NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SO funny every single other kryptonian is able to fly except clark. they can all fly and fuck women and clark can't and this is because he is gay AND closeted.

Literally wtf do people do for tags. Hardest part of ao3 for me I can never think of any to put

zod forcing faora to kneel while choking her out is like okay well the gay sex episode with clark was fun but can we just kill this guy already. can anyone fucking kill zod.

oh my god oh my GOD tess you are so so so so so babygirl the way she is terrified and shaking and trying to control it and let chloe kill her even though she didn't think chloe would bring her back to life just to protect the kandorians. oh tess mercer the character that you are.

S9 AU where Zod gets Clark pregnant instead of Faora (space needle anal on redk has consequences)

fuck this is exactly why you don't create registries to track vulnerable populations like not only is this an obvious no brainer, but this has LITERALLY happened to chloe before like when she was in high school and her meteor freak registry was used by a serial killer to mass murder them.

I guess my larger thought, actually, on Lex and being a supervillain, is that I see Lex as a very emotional character. Which is one of the things Lionel has always hated about him, and tried to force himself to stop and control himself and Lex does put a lot of effort into controlling himself, but more than anything he's really emotionally motivated, and struggles with emotional dysregulation due to, well, a lifetime of abuse. Like, he acts the way he does with his dad not out of logic but because he loves him deeply. Same with Clark -- he frequently makes "dumb" choices, but it's really just because his emotions are in the driver's seat. Like that's why he can do such seemingly contradictory things -- like building the stalker room, and sending Clark back to his parents without pressing when he's on RedK. Being insane to Clark about secrets or actively exposing him to danger on purpose in one episode, and then almost volunteering to be a Kent doormat the next. Because he has no real practice identifying and process his emotions, just masking the outward presentation of them, they are huge, overwhelming and totalizing events to Lex where what he feels becomes what is true. Clark is lying to him about something becomes Clark is a liar (which is bad and wrong!). When Lex trusts Clark and feels that it isn't returned, that becomes the truth. When Lex feels Clark trusts him to be a good person, it becomes the truth that Lex is (or can be) a good person. It's why Lex can seem so dependent on outsider perception of him and why it's so easy for Lionel to manipulate Lex -- by showing him occasional moments of kindness and love, it puts Lex in a position of thinking that Lionel is capable of love and Lex is the problem. That if Lex just keeps trying --

Anyway. I think even Lex's major turn to evil arcs are largely driven by his emotions. He is hurt by Clark and so he lashes out to hurt Clark. And he is really smart and he holds a lot of power, when he lashes out he does a lot of damage! Which is another thing he has in common with Clark: they both have really dire consequences when they 'explode' or experience negative emotions. But, awesomely, opposite sides of the same soul. Where Clark devotes every single ounce of his body and will and repressing his emotions, wants and desires, Lex does the opposite. Clark in pain shuts down (Clark not even wanting to interact with Lex or Lana during their relationship, Clark not crying after his dad died, etc etc etc) while Lex almost seeks it out as much as he does pleasure (his relationships with women who try to kill him, his continued dynamic with Lionel, even his determination to stay friends with Clark while doing things he knows will push Clark away). In fact, Lex's implied like 'teenage rebellion' is totally this behavior. It's extremely self destructive indulging in quick fixes (drugs, sex, parties, friends, money), following his emotional impulses (he is sad and does not want to be sad).

Wait, sorry, where was I going with this? Oh, I think that most of Lex's actions in the later seasons when he's doing his "supervillain arc" come from emotional places -- he feels hurt by Clark and now he wants to hurt Clark. And his actions are very very very disproportionate, but due to again Lionel's abuse and his emotional dysregulation, it doesn't feel that way to Lex. That's the level of pain Lex feels that he is directing outward. okay I fear my thoughts have gotten a bit jumbled and lost here I don't have a good conclusion. and post!

okay another thing that's really interesting since most Clark/Lex pulls from Smallville you actually have pretty limited/tame supervillain Lex stuff, which is kind of a bummer for me who genuinely does like supervillain Lex stuff (I think most of my favorite fics so far have included that element at least a little bit). I think that makes sense with Smallville's, like, insane approach to ontologically evil/good and Luthors being ontologically evil (instead of like well it's not the Luthor blood that makes Lex who he is it's really the um how you say um right yeah the child abuse) but at the same time it's like don't you think he deserves an evil arc where he actually has fun doing crazy Supervillain stuff. Don't you want him to run. Truly after what he has been through. And also I like when people who are having gay sex are also trying to kill each other genuinely I just think that's fun. I think it's fun!

And I think Superman having this crazy moral paragon reputation kind of guy being the sort of person who can't help himself from having freaknasty sex with the evil supervillain billionaire everyone hates and tries to kill him on the regular is like such a oh wait wow something is actually DEEPLY wrong with Clark thing that it's also fun from that angle.