Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Challenge The Tangent Line

(Or rather, tangent lines...)

In honor of the first rainy day(s) of the season (California, mind you), and the fact that I've been eagerly anticipating my trilogy watching season, I give you a challenge semi-inspired by none other than the Back to the Future trilogy. *applaud* ("Ohmigosh! That's so amazing!")

Thank you. So here it is.

Goal: Reach as many different outcomes of the same event as possible. Normally I like shooting for 100, but we'll just have to see how far this gets.

Rules: No duplicates. No limit to the amount of weirdness or complexity. Can be as long/short as necessary. And it can also be developed into a longer fic (for those of you who like to write 50+ parters :p ). Meaning it doesn't have to be in here per se, but it would help to outline it.

For instance, there's the scenario (outlined below). One person takes the first part of the challenge and can develop the intro better (if they so please) and then comes up with an ending for the story. Then, another person takes the same beginning and (in the words of Doc Brown) "skews the timeline into a tangent to create an Alternate 1985" ... er, alternate outcome. This can even overlap partially into another person's posted idea, so long as it skews at some point before the end.

I hope I explained that all right.

Scenario: Lois is walking down the street by herself, on her way to Clark's apartment. Suddenly, a windowless white van pulls up to the curb next to her. The door opens up and...

(The rest is up to you! So many variables! Timeline, attitude, emotions, whowhatwhenwherewhy... Muahahaha! Have fun!)

The door opens up and...

1: A strange man wearing a bow tie and a fez appears in the opening. Behind him the interior of the van is impossibly huge. He smiles and says "Lois Lane?"

"Why is your van bigger on the inside?"

"Hello, I'm the Doctor, and I want to warn you about an interfering busy-body who calls himself H.G. Wells..."

2: A strange man wearing a bow tie and a fez appears in the opening. Behind him the interior of the van is impossibly huge. He smiles and says "Lois Lane?"

"Why is your van bigger on the inside?"

"Magic, Miss Lane. Do you remember receiving a letter on your eleventh birthday? From Hogwarts?"

3.

"Ook."

Lois turns to look. In the shadowed interior of the van, she can just make out the shapes of what seems to be...people? In...pointy hats? Something in the shadows jumps out, landing in front of her.

Lois gapes at the huge, yellow-fanged face grinning at her.

"Ook!"

"An orangutan?!" Lois exclaims.

As she stares, blinking, the ape reaches out and snatches the book she'd been carrying to Clark's.

"Hey!" she snaps. "I need that for a story!"

"Ook!"

He swings himself back into the van.

Lois tries getting the attention of the men inside. "Hey, your monkey just stole my--"

There's chaos and swearing, and the door slams shut, muffling the sounds of old men trying to calm an angry ape. She can just make out "--not the 'M' word!" and "'Step on it', arch-chancellor!" and suddenly, the van roars away.

( Two challenges with one stone! )

Lex Luthor jumps out, grabs her, but as he is trying to drag her into the fan she uses her Tai Kwan Do skills on him and knocks him down, running with all her might and screaming "help, Superman, Lex is back and trying to get me."

4. Lex in the mean time has pulled a gun and is aiming it at Lois. before he can fire, Superman sweeps down and takes Lex off to the 12th precint for Henderson to book him.

Lois runs to Clark's apartment and knocks on the door. When he doesn't answer, she uses her spare key to get in and goes and gets herself a nice cream soda from the fridge while wondering why Clark isn't here.

Before she can figure this out Clark walks in through his door and says "honey, you don't have to worry about Luthor. He is securly locked up in jail and they arn't going to let him out."

Lois responds "Clark, Luthor has been dead for nine months, why would I worry about him?"

"Well, he did just try to shot you, which I, I mean Superman just stopped."

"Clark" said Lois slowly "Did you just try to take credit for Superman stopping me getting shot, and how do you know about this?" Lois asked.

Clark looked around sheepishly, realizing he was mainly caught. "Lois, there is something I have been meaning to tell you."

"What is it Clark?" she asked.

"Superman is me."

"If that is so, why are we going to hang out at your apartment and watch a movie, instead of going to Tahiti" she repsonded.

"Tahiti, if Tahiti is what you want, here it comes"

Clark quickly spun back into his Supermsuit, eliciting a "wow" from Lois' lips and then took off with her to Tahiti.

Once they landed she turned to Clark and said "I appreciate this, but next time let my grab my red bikini first."

The End.

Dr. Klein jumps out. He is wearing a lad coat and turns to Lois.

"Lois, we have Superman in the van. Henderson rescued him from some Inter-gand agents, but he is still suffering from Kryptonite poisoning. I figured I should contact you."

Lois turned to him. She was not sure exactly what she could do to help.

"Dr. Klein, you know better than I that Superman needs sunlight. The sun is not quite down, so why are you transporting him in a windowless van. This is not a good idea."

Dr. Klein looked at her for a bit, tilted his head, and then considered the matter.

"I guess you are right."

He then turned to the orderly in the van and signalled him to bring Superman out.

They brought the man of steel onto the sidewalk and set him out under the setting sun.

Luckily the Kryptonite exposure had been relatively light, so in about 15 minutes Superman was able to get up and fly away.

Lois then continued on to Clark's apartment. Hopefully he would not be mad that she was late for their early Saturday evening date.