WTFAF-- A Different Kind of Aargh!!

WTFAF-- Fallen Angels

I've been slowly making my way through the archives on this site since I joined and I really, really hate when this happens!
"When the Fallen Angels Fly" is the best story I've read so far and it was never finished!!! What a cliffhanger it ended with! It's even more frustrating than the "Earth 2" TV show which ended with the main character near death from an unknown illness and frozen in a cryogenics tube.
What is Ariana's reasoning this time? Was Lois really in love with Lex? She certainly acts like it and Part 10 leaves no doubt that she and Lex had a sexual relationship before the wedding. She claims not to have enjoyed it nor to have loved him, but methinks the lady doth protest too much. This is the only rewrite of this subject I've read that even hints she might have really loved him but is now in denial because of the truth about him.
The story is so well written it's unpredictable, according to a writer friend who read it, too. I agree. There is no way to predict where the plot might have been headed.
The comments for the story were all positive and the author hinted at the next installment, but not enough to carry to the end of the story.
Aaaarrrgh! in frustration!

Okay,I read this and it is a pretty good story and I even like Clark in this one. I usually don't like how in fanfic he is written so shy and Lois is so aggressive. I know they were both like that on the show but not as extreme as in fanfic. I really hate when they have Clark "blushing furiously" all the time. If he spent as much time blushing furiously on the show as he does in fanfic Jimmy would have a lot more lines. Someone would need to fill all the gaps in conversations while he stuttered away like an idiot in the background. He is less bumbling in this story than usual. Well he did knock Jimmy over and he blushed and stuttered furiously then, but only once!

LOL! To a lot of people that's what made Clark an endearing character. I can take it or leave it if the story is good, but I do like Clark when a writer gives him a little more backbone than usual. He doesn't need to be apologizing all the time. JMO.

I do a lot of skipping over in ff. If I don't like how Clark is written I'll skip over that part and the same with Lois. In some ffs she is just too unlikeable. In one story it starts out she is dead but we discover she and Dan Scardino faked her death and she went into hiding for a while. Meanwhile Clark who is hired to replace her at the Planet, is looking into her death and finds out she's alive and hiding and the dead body in her apartment was a visiting friend. This is a week or so later and she has given no thought to how devastated her family and friends must be feeling and that the dead woman's family and friends have a right to know she's been murdered until Clark points out how broken up her sister and her mother and Perry White are. Then she decides maybe she'd better call Perry and explain- after the man has been through a week of hell missing her.
In spite of this lack of empathy for others and her questionable ethics, Clark falls instantly in love with her and is instantly jealous of Dan who is instantly nasty back and Lois doesn't care.
I don't know what happens next. I didn't read further. I figured they'd get together in the end but Lois was so selfish and Clark was such an emotional fool I didn't care if they did or not, or how the author redeemed her. And jealousy just is not an endearing quality in my opinion.
Unlikeable ff characterizations in any fandom just annoy me!

Well at least you stopped when you realized you weren't going to like the story. I read one a few weeks ago that had an ending that was so bad I wished I could sue the author to get the time back that I wasted reading it! It was about the night Lois and Claude spent together when he stole her story.
But at the end of the story we learn this is what Lois is thinking about while she and Clark are on the ceiling during their wedding night! Poor Clark fails to make her happy but she doesn't care! Why? Because she loves him of course!
If that story was a book I would have thrown it across the room, kicked it out the door into the street and let cars run over it. LOL!
Of course I shouldn't really be mad at the author, I'm the one who kept reading even after I realized it was Claude not Clark. I could have stopped too and I certainly wish I did. (m/o)


It was a numerously satisfying night for her with a humiliating next day and following weeks, and she's remembering the multiple o****ms she experienced that one time with Claude while she's with Clark the first time! Poor Clark never had a chance!
I thought, well, if you wrote about her concentrating on her husband, a man she is supposed to be totally in love with, instead of comparing him unfavorably to an ex who she is supposed to despise, don't you think she would have had a much better experience???!!
Yes, I understand it was inspired by the virgin thing.

So much for soul mates then! That marriage is doomed! Love him or not - aw, poor Clark! I'm curious but I don't think I want to read that story.

The story you described sounds familiar. I might have read it but I can't remember more than you said about it. Maybe I stopped reading it, too, because I've been thinking about it and can't get beyond that point. I'm probably just comparing it to "Angels" because Clark was hired to replace her there, too.

On the other hand there are some stories that are so good you can just ignore the little things and have a good read.

Day Follows Nightfall

and

Nightfall

Two totally different stories but each fun to read in their own way.

Thanks,I'll read those. All Shook Up is a good episode. I loved when Martha pushed Clark off his balcony! LOL!

I read both stories.
Day Follows Nightfall:
I liked that Clark told Lois everything before he went to destroy the asteroid. I laughed when Lex died when a piece of the asteroid hit his tower! Yeah just get Lex out of the way as soon as possible!
I guess it's just a good plot device that no one knows what they have till it's gone and Lois' realization was kind of sad and I liked that she included the Kents in her feelings of loss.
Clark's story is where it didn't work for me. How could absolutely nothing happen during all those months to give him or his girlfriend cause to think he wasn't just an ordinary guy? He was a cook for pete's sake! Knives, fire, blowing too hard on something. LOL! He never once made a quick action with his hands and sent something flying through a wall? Didn't he ever wonder why he couldn't shave? Feel the cold? Why was nothing heavy?
Also how much damage would the L&C dynamic really have taken if he slept with Lauren? He trusted her, she was real, not just a dream. I can't think of any two gorgeous characters less interested in sex than Lois and Clark when they were single. I know, I know, that's what makes them so sweet. They're soul mates.
Charlie Brown moment: Good grief!
I like the story, I'm just reading it too late, nine years after it was written. If I read it then maybe it wouldn't be so hard to recall the series dynamic between L&C.

Nightfall:
I had an easier time believing this one. I liked the Henderson POV especially. It was closer to the 'dramedy' of season one. Bill Henderson is a great character and just imagining him playing racquetball with Clark is quite an image. Adding in the superheroes was fun and I liked Barry and Martha sparring over lunch. All meeting for the first time in a time of crisis was interesting and each having a distinct reaction to Clark going missing was cool too. "I have to help him!"
I was never a Jack fan but I can see how he was there to give Mrs. Henderson a purpose but she already had that just being her husband's most trusted confidant. As a plot device I don't think the brothers were necessary. The homeless guy with the shopping cart who helped Clark would have worked.
It was a nice at a minor character.
All just my opinions.

Kate

DFN

I didn't even notice such things about Clark! I was going to add floating in his sleep, but I don't remember that from the series. Did he do that in the series? I know in the first episode of Smallville, Clark the 14 year old did and that would have been in fall 2001. Is that a traveling fact that crossed over between series? I know a lot of recent fanfics by newer writers have TNAOS Lois calling TNAOS Clark "Smallville" now and then.
I know he demonstrated to Lois in JSN that he could sleep suspended in mid air, but he was awake when he did that. He didn't float up while snoozing.
Anyway I love that story. Lauren is a good character, and yeah, she just fell for a guy who happens to have a soul mate and is locked into his destiny in ff.

Nf

This one I love too because I'm the Beverly mentioned in the blurb. The author is from the SW RPG and often writes stories for us players. He's writing a couple of other L&C stories from the challenges I sent him.
I thought Jack and his brother were perfect fits. Runaways on the street, of course Clark would help them. The old guy who found him was where he wanted to be and didn't need or want help. He was already offering help to others.
I also really liked seeing it all from Henderson's point of view and getting to imagine a little background on him. Mr. laconic cop and his lawyer activist wife. Nice.

Do you have any other recommendations? I liked those but that's why I don't usually post feedback. I won't say I like something if I don't. I learned a long time ago to stay silent.
I just started reading the archives since I joined only a month ago. Suggestions will be appreciated.

Kate, who wishes she could find someone to write fanfic for her

Check out the archived stories for the author of DFN. He wrote some good stories, some with multiple endings that will make you laugh. (I mean the 3000+ archive.)

I think you'll like this one, too. I wasn't annoyed by either Lois or Clark though their portrayal is very 'series-ish.'

Carbon Copy

Okay! I tried reading Wilson's stories and there are some really good ones but he has a serious hair fetish that got on my nerves. Who writes like that anyway? LOL! Every other story there's a description of Lois changing her hairstyle. Some of them are only about haircutting and nothing else!!
Twice or so was enough for me. Okay, the guy likes short hair. I understand. I don't need it rammed into my brain. It's like every new Superman story starting with events on Krypton and Kal-El being saved. We know that already! Lois has short hair in this guy's stories. Got it.
I'm going to read Carbon Copy.

LOL! That's why I put the apology about the hair at the beginning of the Scardino Aargh because I know there are people who like her in short hair. Now, it wasn't that the guys hate short hair on women. They don't. They thought the "Tinkerbell" haircut in "Contact" was a good style for her and very sexy, but then they started changing it - the Wanda hair, the Alt Clark hairdo, both of which they hated and thought it aged her ten years. In the chat when we wrote the Scardino Aargh there was a lot of jokes on young Alt Clark falling in love with Mayor White's 40 year old sister, Wanda! They thought the Season 4 super short hair didn't suit Teri Hatcher at all. I've known the RPGers for years. We've met up at conventions and exchanged pictures, so I know some of these guys have wives, moms, sisters and girlfriends with short hair. They just thought it didn't suit Teri Hatcher.
Anyway, did you, at least, read "The Office Visit?" If you did I can send you "What Happened Next - Smallville's Revenge." (m/o)It's an independently written continuation of the ending to that story where Lois takes the money. I have to send it email because the author didn't have Mr. Wilson's permission to write a continuation, no matter how tongue in cheek, to the story so he just sent me an email copy and I still have it. Since Mr. Wilson says he might one day expand the story, "WHN-SR" is just some fun between fans of the story and it can't be posted anywhere on the internet.
I read TOV for the first time over a year ago and sent my friend, Rob, a link to it. Then I went to visit my folks for a while and when I got home some three or so hours later, "Smallville's Revenge" was waiting in my email box for me! Rob loved the bad Lois ending so much he immediately got an idea on how Clark could get even and he sat down and wrote it in just a few hours and sent it to me.
It's really funny.
If you want me to send an email to you, let me know.

Yes, please! The Argh was very funny and I like stuff like that. I'll give you my email through My Stuff. I can't wait to find out why SV needed revenge.
I liked Office Visit but, yes the implications of the alternate ending would be bad. The image of Lex being goosed was hilarious! I also liked it was a Lois-centric story.
Have you read any good stories where something like this has happened and Clark just had to deal with it? No soulmates ending.

What do you mean by soul mates ending? That Lois did something bad and they still ended up together, or H.G. Wells intervened and fixed everything?
Wells pops up in a lot of fanfic, fixing things and sometimes not. And so far every story where Lois does something to hurt Clark, he always forgives her and they end up together.

You answered my question.
To me a soulmate ending is where no matter what happens they are together at the end and on course for Utopia whether Wells had anything to do with it or not. Preferably not.
To me a non soulmates ending would be they end the story still apart but with the future open to getting back together. As much as I don't like the concept of soulmates I do believe in Superman/Clark and Lois Lane. It's nice and romantic that they are destined to be together, that in all incarnations they will find each other but it's so limiting to the characters that they can't experience real happiness unless it's together. No matter how good a life they might be having with someone else something will always be missing. What kind of life is that to experience over and over? What if Kal-El never made it to Earth? If he ended up on another planet with a yellow sun would the Lois soul spend eternity alone because the Clark soul is in an immortal body half the galaxy away?
Now that's a good fanfic idea. Would your friend be interested in writing something with that concept?

Well, the Clark-soul, as you put it, found it's way to Earth and to the Lois-soul didn't it? I'm sure the Lois-soul would find it's way to the Clark-soul no matter where it is. A soul on its own wouldn't need spacecraft to travel so it could end up anywhere in the galaxy. Or maybe the soul found baby Kal-El so he wouldn't be alone knowing he was destined to come to Earth. Oh, I don't know!
There are some stories out there where Lois marries Lex but she and Clark end up together in the end. There are some where they both marry others and never get together, but I really don't understand the purpose of those because they effectively trash the Lois and Clark concept. They are Lois and someone else and Clark and someone else. If you're a fan of Lois and Clark why waste the time writing them?
If you WANT to see them with other people and not one another - how does that make you a Lois and Clark fan to begin with? LOL! (JMO, no offense.)
So far I have seen only one story where Lois dumps Clark and marries Dan Scardino. Clark leaves to travel the world and Lois' marriage immediately begins to fall apart so that by the time the New Kryptonians arrive she and Dan are separated and she doesn't know where he is. Superman accepts his commitment to Zara and he is leaving with her, and Clark is going along to write about the struggle on New Krypton. I can give you a link to it, but despite the interesting plot, it isn't that well written. I'll give a spoiler. (M/O)

Lois can't sleep, she doesn't eat, she's slowly killing herself but she refuses to admit it's because she loves and misses Clark. She talks about wanting to have a baby with Dan but the marriage is over and he spends more time away investigating cases because he, at least, can face the fact that she is pining for Clark. He finally accepts an assignment and leaves without telling her where he is going, and he never comes back.
The story ends with Lois finally admitting her true feelings and going to Smallville and asking to see Clark, but Martha refuses, telling her to go home to her husband.
Lois sees Superman getting aboard the Kryptonian ship with Zara and she runs after him, asking him to tell Clark that she loves him. Kal-El says, "He knows." And he leaves for New Krypton, leaving an emaciated and very ill Lois in front of the Kent farm house alone.
As I said, in my opinion, and mine only, the story isn't written well, and that's why the spoiler. The writer needed a good beta reader to help them make the plot easier to read.
But again, I wonder, why write the story at all if you don't believe in the L&C concept?

Wow. That's too non soulmates for even me! There has tobe an opening that they will get together.
Okay, I guess the souls would connect somehow. But I still think the soulmates angle isn't needed. I want Clark to be able to walk away and give her the space she needs without moping around like a beaten dog. A lot of the writers I've read so far always have Lois reminding Clark she got along just fine without him before he arrived. Well, so did he. In fact he wasn't so miserable before he met her!

Carbon Copy

Very good. The two Clarks were great. Their interaction was so believable, and Lois was well written too. I LOVE that she didn't turn into the horror from hell when she learned Clark's secret. She reacted like the intelligent woman the series portrayed her to be. Anger, hurt, tears, sure but she actually was feeling that for both of them, not just her. She was a very mature Lois, not a screaming banshee.
Everybody read that story!

Kate, who wishes there were more mature Loises in fanfic

I suspect a lot of authors get to live vicariously through Lois. Who hasn't been angry enough to say things like she does? I have, but I would never say the kind of things she says to ANYONE no matter who or what they did.
I guess we need more mature Clarks in fanfic,too.

Less jealous Clark's at least. I know he-- and Lois-- showed jealousy on the show but there was a reason for it even when it was not so much jealousy as fear or anger. Lex, Dan, the Luckaby guy, Mayson, the library woman, even Cat Grant. There was a reason behind it and then they faced it and dealt with it. Both of them.
As I said before jealousy isn't a trait I consider cute or endearing. I see it too often in my profession. I really hate to see men or women who goad it out of their spouses or partners or tease them with it. I can't think of anything that leads to violence or misunderstanding quicker than deliberately making someone jealous when they are not that way naturally. They often don't know how to handle it.
Okay, end of rant. No more bringing work home with me, repeating over and over....
LOL!
Seriously, Carbon Copy does portray a mature Clark, too. He faces the problems he has with the situation and deals with them, even apologizing when necessary.
Here's a question. Have you come across any stories where Sarah, of go for rocky road fame, has to face the schism she caused in the relationship between L&C? By the time of the happy ending to the Dan plot Sarah was a forgotten character but boy was she a huge part of the whole mess. She was a plot instigator and nothing more but I cringe every time I hear her quoting from her books with no experience to back up her advice!
I know Jimmy liked her and later did what he could to get CK back in good with Lois. When did Jimmy stop liking her? She was staying with Lois. I wonder if she ever at any point realized what she had done?

I just finished What Happened Next and you're right! There are some good laughs in it. Clark throwing rocks at Earth, Lois who is totally out of the news business being jealous that Jimmy's pictures of the end of the world were called exemplary! Lois comparing Lex's lovemaking to being with a microwave! LOL! Not to mention Jonathan's cheeky suggestion to Martha! And Perry telling Elvis parables right to the end.
I like the idea of Smallville protecting the Kents. And people from all over the world standing up for Superman/Clark.
I agree. If anyone can escape Lois can.

Kate

I've been reading the archives for just over a year and I guess I've read maybe a thousand stories. The only Sarah mention I can remember is the one where she and Jimmy get married and Lois makes an off hand remark about don't listen to Sarah's advice about men. There are also re-writes of the chocolate/rocky road episode but by the end of the story she's a forgotten character there, too.


I've been thinking about it. Did Sarah think she was doing Lois a favor by pushing her toward a more active romantic life? It seemed like she thought the same as Dan- that Clark was too dull for her. In this case hiding in plain sight in the baggy clothes and loud ties screamed no taste, boring and dull. As you said Sarah stayed with Lois a while and may have misinterpreted her indecision about Clark to be loss of interest. Does that hold up to reason?

Mr. Kent better watch his back! That was a mean trick to play on them. And resetting the time locks for ten years was, too.
If Bill Church only knew!

>>>I've been thinking about it. Did Sarah think she was doing Lois a favor by pushing her toward a more active romantic life? It seemed like she thought the same as Dan- that Clark was too dull for her. In this case hiding in plain sight in the baggy clothes and loud ties screamed no taste, boring and dull. As you said Sarah stayed with Lois a while and may have misinterpreted her indecision about Clark to be loss of interest. Does that hold up to reason?<<<

Maybe she did. Lois was angry at Clark a lot during that time. She was pushing Clark away, arguing with him, and here was this new guy clearly interested in getting to know her and she would have been interested back if she didn't have Clark to deal with. That's a possibility isn't it? She was helping Lois get rid of the geek partner who is reading too much into their work relationship. Mr. Leather jacket and a gun in his armpit must have looked like just what the famous and fearless woman reporter needed.
Of course, Sarah never saw Clark in a T shirt and jeans! LOL!
Yes, I'd say it stands to reason. Please ask your friend to write something about this!

Os there a Lois' escape written? I hope so!

Rachel Harris talking about Trask after he finally left town: "there was something about the guy that just made me want to shoot him." LOL!

Okay, I sent Rob an email with our ideas and I sent him a link to come here and read them for himself.

Now that you mention it, Clark could have been seen that way by a young girl with only her text books to give her examples of life's experiences-- 18, 19, same age as Jimmy? Too bad Lois was so insecure and distrustful of men that she was open to it.
We know Dan took every opportunity to make Clark look bad, but it's to Lois's credit, she was able to separate her own feelings from what others were telling her she should be feeling. Anyway, angst ensued and that's what we were supposed to feel.

That's the worst thing about it all. That kid, maybe second year psych major talking as if she's had years of experience counseling. But all kids do that. My mom reminded me that I did.
Sarah was a meddler who should have watched her subjects with an objective eye instead of according to her own feelings. Scardino on the other hand, was an opportunist who used his training and experience to do all he could to get what he wanted. He saw the strife and the doubts Lois had and went right to work hammering on them. I wish we could have seen his face when he had his final talk with Lois. I don't think he bowed out gracefully. Lois wasn't exactly exuding joy and love when Clark opened the door was she?

Robert, we have another one!
You might very well be right. He was in it to win, wasn't he? He was following them on their date to the Planet fair, waiting for a chance to break in, he sneaked in on one of their stakeouts, bringing wine and who knows what to Lois while Clark was out to get some take-out (wasn't he?) You're right, he WAS an opportunist and he played dirty. He followed them on their dates!
Do you think Jimmy knew? Was he trying to warn Clark at the fair?

Robert, another one! And we want them all by Thanksgiving! (just kidding)

Lois' fire escape was a pretty handy spot for anyone who needed an edge. He'd know every plan they made, how to counter it and make himself look good. I never thought of it before but he did know right where to find them on the stake-out and exactly when to show up with a snack and some wine. Almost like he had the car bugged.

Kate

One would think that, wouldn't one?
I suppose it would have been possible for him to say something to Lois when she broke things off with him, to react in anger or desperation and play to the fears and doubts she had. I need to watch the episode again, but I seem to remember Lois was defensive from the moment Clark opened the door. She had to keep reminding herself to stay focused on why she was there. I forgot the terminology she used.

She arrived defensive from the start. I know she has always been afraid of this particular commitment, and she would be afraid now, but she was also combative before she saw the room.
We know Dan was attracted to Lois, he mentions her eyes first thing, and by the end of the episode as she stands over him holding the gun on the bad guy, there is desire there, definitely.
really don't see him letting her go without saying something, unlike Clark who always wanted her to be happy and was willing to step aside if that's what it took.
She finally realized this and she was going to tell Clark she did, so why all the negativity?
yes, speculation is fun!

Well, this speculation at least opened my eyes to the fact that Dan followed them around. I honestly never noticed that before, but there it is right on the screen! Of course she could have told him she was going to be here or there with Clark, but he still took the opportunity to butt in when he could and he couldn't do that unless he was there waiting for a chance.
There are stories of Lois saying good-bye to Dan where he is all understanding and sad, but he guesses he always knew he wouldn't be able to come between her and Clark completely, where he asks for a kiss good-bye and then he walks out of her life forever.
I wasn't the only one who missed this.
Angst got in the way! That's my excuse! I was too angst-ed out to see it!

Angst-ed ? LOL!

To be honest I never understood what I was seeing either. I would think "what's he doing there?" or "where did he come from?" He was an undercover agent who could blend in until he got the opening to make a move.
You hit it in the dot. He had an advantage over Clark neither of them expected from him. He could fight dirty.
I can see him dropping by Lois' place to see her and then making use of Sarah's new found insights into people to give himself an edge.
I hope your friend will write something. This would make a good story!

P.S. Can you link me to some of those Dan stories? I never thought he was that bad a guy until we started pelting him with mud! I'd like to see the general impression writer have of him.
I know we aren't going to change anyone's minds just talking between us but I enjoyed this!
Who can we pick apart now? Lex? Is he still trashable? The Argh really poked fun at him!

Kate

Lex will be trashable 'til the day he finally dies and stays dead.
The RPG guys were admiring what a genius he was. He was going to marry Lois so he was getting her used to endearments, "My dear," "My darling," etc. so she would be used to it by the time they married. Even at the height of passion he would never say the wrong name. No "Miranda!" or "Antoinette!" or "Scratched!" (the guys made up that last one, not me) at the wrong time to anger or humiliate his new bride. Just "Oh, sweetheart!" or "My love!" That's why in the Aargh we made fun of his endearments.
He probably did that to all his women. Can you imagine what Mrs. Cox might do if he said, "Lois!" instead of "Darling!"at the wrong time? LOL!
The guy was sleaze.

I'm putting together a list. It won't be complete since there are probably a lot more Dan stories than the few I've read so far.

(I've been sending all of this material to Rob so he knows about it.)

Or Ariana!
LOL! That's terrible! I hate the idea behind that. Poor Lois.
Well she wouldn't have known but still. That is sleazy. Every woman, except Mrs. Cox of course, would think how charming and romantic he is. Until he got tired of them and either dismissed them or blew them up!
Since Mrs. Cox was a killer herself she wasn't drawn to his romantic gentleman act.
Yuck! What a ---- What's a word bad enough for him? LOL!

Kate

Sleaze says it all for me.
I don't know whether I thank the RPG guys for pointing out that interpretation or not. I just know it's stuck in my mind now! I can't even read stories about the two of them being married without laughing, (m/o)imagining Lex crying out "Oh, Mrs. Cox!" with Lois! LOL! (Well we don't know her first name!) Just joking, but it does pop to mind now and ruined some perfectly good stories for me!
Lex and Mrs. Cox were two of a kind so that would be like finding your exact opposite and they were sick enough to take it further. I think the show implied that.

By the way, I think maybe we should stop discussions in the "Scardino Aargh" and bring those topics over here. There is new fanfic there - Smallville is a really good story - and we keep moving the Aargh discussion to the top of the list. People have complained before about one person taking up a category as their own and flooding the MB with their posts. I don't want anyone complaining that we're taking over the Fanfic section and not letting stories get their due.
We were talking about:



Kate:

Yes. That's probably why we never saw Bobby again on screen.
wink In his memoirs Sal Viscuso wrote how he stormed off the set of an unnamed TV Series if I recall correctly and vowed never to play the character again if he wasn't going to be taken seriously. After all the time he spent researching and developing the character he felt betrayed that they changed his motivation without talking to him. I think he was talking about Bobby. biggrin

I liked Rick Overton, too! He was so straight faced and funny doing all that slapstick with Bronson Pinchot as a pretty good bad guy/straight man. They were a good team.

Kate



Bev:


Oh definitely. I see it now, just one revelation after another. It had to be Bobby, he was such a complex character after all. It must have taken him months of research to get the eating just right. Stuffing your mouth and speaking clearly is a learned art, almost like talking and kissing at the same time. MONTHS of research. smile




Kate:

There you go. If not hours of detailed practice. You have to do stuff like that over and over to get it right.
LOL!

Anyway as it turns out Clark didn't seem to have a problem with what Wanda did or did not, or am I missing something? Of course by then he knew Lois had no problem being intimate with men she didn't love. It was the men she did love who were not to be trusted. As Wanda she didn't even have that to get in the way.

Kate





Bev:


With Lex there were extenuating circumstances. The man had her snowed. I want to say more but I'm on my break between classes.
I just wish it wasn't Lex with who she was so willing to go into what was a sham marriage for both of them. She thought he loved her and would cherish her forever, wrong! He wanted her because Superman did.
More to add later.




Kate:

The thing that has really bothers me about Lois' relationship with Lex was how comfortable she was with him. This was a man she did not love but was attracted to, but she was as affectionate toward him as he was to her. Cuddling on the floor with him when they were held hostage- I know. Handcuffed together what else could they do, but they weren't handcuffed in the back seat of his limo or at breakfast on his terrace. He was able to touch her- and she touched back- in ways Clark didn't get to unless she fell asleep or until after she found out he was Superman.
I've hated that so much.
Yes, Lex did have her fooled, but after the pheromone there was feeling there, it just made the fun of killing Superman more enjoyable. I always thought his taunting Superman was just that. He was already successful at taming Lois. The day she started dating him instead of trying to interview him was the day he won. The day she agreed to be a news producer and started working for LNN was when he stopped her from being too headstrong and independent.
He didn't have to do any of the things he was teasing Superman about before the wedding because he already did! After they married it was just a matter of control and she was already on the way to being a Stepford wife before she said "I do."
Would she have realized this before he got bored with her? Who knows? Ariana didn't and look what became of her. She still wanted a man who put her so far out of his mind she wasn't even a footnote he cared to mention. Sleaze indeed.

Kate




Bev:

Wow, I never thought about Ariana that way. I suppose I knew Lex divorced her and not the other way around because she was so jealous of Lois. If Ariana divorced him she would be dead. Still he held her in high regard since he was waiting until after Lois was actually married to him to change his will, if he intended to at all.

As for Lois and Lex, I agree they had a much closer relationship than most people want to remember, including me. I just hate the thought of it. tongue But all I have to do is watch those episodes and see just how comfortable she felt with him, how close they were that they could discuss such personal things while held hostage or snuggling in the back of the limo.
So IMO she wasn't going into the marriage blind, she did believe he loved her and she wasn't going to be having a spurious relationship with him. She thought there was something there for herself to build on. She wasn't just giving herself to a man she didn't love. There had to be feeling there of some kind because she was so comfortable and affectionate with him.
Wanda was something else. She was created to be comfortable with men and appreciative of what they could do for her (and to her. smile ) When you know the man you love is married to a frog eating clone and he never noticed the difference, Wanda is an understandable choice to help wrap your mind around it and come to terms with it!

I do agree that the day Lois started working at LNN was the day she became one of the rule makers and stopped being a rule bender. In the scene where she goes to one of her sources to get an LNN exclusive - how many of those sources will still be there after she becomes Mrs. "The Boss?" All Lex has to do is trace her phone calls and bang-- literally!-- one snitch gone. She won't even have a "Sore Throat" like Perry did to fall back on.
Getting the confirmation would fall to someone else and Lois' attention would be directed to the next story, the next breaking headline. No dangling over the jaws of death anymore.

Oooops! I saw this too late! Okay, I won't post over there anymore.
I'll copy and paste what I wrote.

Maybe it wasn't so much holding Ariana in high regard as it was keeping her around as a safety measure. He would know Ariana still cared for him and he had his cheating death plan already worked out. He sailed off that balcony knowing another crazy woman who loved him would be waiting to get hold of his remains and bring him back from death. As long as Ariana had control of his money he could get it back. Lois was still an unknown part of his game. If she had control and was horrified by the secret he kept from her, she might start giving it back or give it away to real charities. Ariana was a sure bet. Gretchen wouldn't have even been considered. Leaving Ariana his estate would make it easy for him to say he never trusted Lois or any woman as much as he trusted her. Putty. In. His. Hands. And then a bullet execution style after she gave it all back to him.

Yes, Lex was smart enough to make Lois a decision maker at LNN instead of a writer or reporter. What's that saying about power? I'll bet Lex has it monogramed in little letters on all his handkerchiefs and ascots. LOL!

I guess I'd go visit Wanda for a while if you put it that way! But Lois knew the little clone didn't like Clark at first! LOL! It still makes me laugh that she didn't like his muscles! How innocent!
Kate

Oh I love seeing things in new ways even if they do make me shudder! Different points of view are interesting to learn.
As for Lex and Mrs. Cox if he has her attuned to sweet nothings too, it doesn't matter what her first name is or if he even knows it!
I think he always calls Lois by name when Mrs. Cox is around but that could just be business decorum.


Kate

I really need to watch a few of the episodes again.
BTW, if you read the script version of "Target: Jimmy Olsen" that is online, in the scene when Clark goes for food Lois names a specific Chinese dish she has wanted all day and Clark leaves to get some. A few minutes later Scardino shows up with that exact food item. In that version of the script, he did have the car bugged!
Did he do that in the show? I just remember the wine.

TJO

It they changed it, I wonder why?


Yeah, Lex has to keep up appearances at all times. The way the public perceives him depends on it. The way Lois perceives him depends on it. Of course, he isn't worried about how Superman sees him because Superman has no proof against him.
But there was proof right in front of him.Lex was so good at manipulation, even Superman didn't see how Lex was changing Lois from the woman who caught his attention in such a breathtaking way at the ball, to the woman who dated him for a year and never once asked another question in a professional capacity.
Afterward they both saw the extent of Lex's manipulation, especially Lois. Remember how she went after Dan while he was on the job and almost ruined his sting? There was no regard for personal feelings or friendship there!

He was sleaze!
Lex was a genius, though, I'll give him that. He had everything planned to the letter - he just didn't expect Ariana to risk her reputation and her inheritance by going after Lois. Imagine his surprise when he woke up in a sewer instead of a pristine clinic!
He hid it well.
LOL!

Do you really think he could have corrupted Lois? I don't. He tried and in the end she said "I can't."
She gave up the jets, the cars, the 15 garage house and designer clothes for love of another man.
Even if it did take another year to admit it to herself.

No Lex wouldn't have succeeded in corrupting Lois. He would have tried but the nature of what he wanted from her would have opened her eyes I think. She was a strong woman at a temporary disadvantage. Of his making. Keeping her off balance and vulnerable long enough for his influence to be effective would take too long. She would catch on. How many believable set backs and losses could he inflict on her before she broke down instead of taking his comfort? Sooner or later she would know this just doesn't happen like this!
She would have fought back and it would not have been pretty.

Kate

So we were right to guess Dan could be just as manipulative as Lex ever was! Mr. Fun and Exciting had a dark side behind that cheerful smile.
Okay we can come up with a reason why. He needed to get close to Lois for something. Her reputation as a reporter? How could he have used that?

I'm beginning to appreciate the way she went after Dan now! LOL! Served him right to have her discover he was FDA instead of DEA!

My opinion of him has really changed. I always thought he was a nice guy who fell for Lois at the wrong time. I felt bad for that poor sap! Not anymore!
LOL!


Kate

And Lois had an advantage over Ariana. She never loved Lex to begin with so once she realized what he was doing, there would be nothing to temper her anger. Talk about a Mad Dog attack!
Oddly, I don't feel a bit sorry for Lex. :]

Well, Robert has a Sarah story started but I'd like to see this one developed, too.
If you love angst, I can already see it flowing from this idea! Hurt, angry Clark; doubtful but too proud to let her defenses down Lois; and Dan turning on the charm to use her for......what? Not getting to Superman. Dan working for Bureau 39 has been done in fanfic.
What would he need from her? He's new to Metropolis and met her accidentally, became enamored immediately, learned who she was....credibility? A poor sap might need that. LOL!

I've been using Quick Reply to answer and I wondered how you got a quote box to appear. Well I have figured it out!



Or like Lex he just wanted to win. One wanted to best the all powerful alien, the other wants to get her away from that wishy-washy partner of hers! Of course he is helped along by Sarah who possibly thinks the partner isn't good enough for Lois either.
This doesn't say much for poor Lois does it? LOL! Another manipulator and she doesn't see it. That can be excused though. This time some of us viewers didn't see it either.
Make a man a good guy and we don't see the hidden side. It's the writers manipulating all of us!
That was a paranoid moment. Love conquered it this time, so Lois didn't do so bad.

Kate

Lucky for him his choice was changed by the police to going to jail or the easy way out! Still you have to notice, I don't want to say admire, the guy's absolute faith in the women who loved him. Gretchen would be there to bring him back, Ariana would protect his fortune, and Lois would still want him after his miraculous return!
I think her mistake was kissing him right after saying "I can't." She didn't say "No" or even "I won't." She said "I can't' then Perry and Jimmy came in and she was so happy to see them, she kissed Lex- almost like "But now I can." Then she jokes about there being an echo. I'm sure that's all Lex needed to make him believe she loved him too.
Big surprise.

Kate

You might be right about that. I wondered how he got the impression she would be waiting. Not calling the police when she realized he was alive was not a good thing to do. She cemented his belief that she just had to be reminded how much she loved him-- and if that didn't work, hypnotize her and stick her in another body!
I think contingency was Lex's middle name. he planned ahead for everything!

There is a story in the archives-- I can't search for it right now, darn it-- where after the break up Dan sees a young woman in a Chicago airport and he goes over to talk to her and it turns out to be Lucy Lane! She more or less agrees that Clark is kind of a dud but Lois loves him so that's that. It ends with the two of them feeling an attraction to one another.
The thing is some writers liked Dan and wrote him as a character they felt sympathy for, some brought him back years later and wrote him as still being in love with Lois, and some have written Lois divorcing Clark and getting back together with Dan. There are Dan fans out there whose only stories are Dan and Lois getting together either at the time they met or years later.
No one has written a story, that I'm aware of, where they allude to Dan following them around. There have been rewrites of the wine scene and the Planet fair scene but I don't remember any of them saying he was watching them and waiting for his chance to move in. He just happened to be where they are by coincidence. Neither Lois nor Clark nor the writer ever think, "What was he doing here?"
To be honest, I read those stories and I never wondered either and there was the early version of "Target Jimmy Olsen" right there online for years!
Not to mention the DVDs.
Do I think we could change any minds with this discussion? No. Only our own. There are over a thousand views of this thread according to the board statistics and no one is bothered enough to comment.
It's just you and me, kid.

Or so Lucy thinks!
Really, if that's the writer's intent that's the way it is. We all see what we want to see. But you can't fault anyone for changing their opinions in the light of new insights.
The writers of the show seemed to have pulled back from presenting an obviously unscrupulous guy to a more subtle approach. Maybe Hatcher herself didn't want Lois falling for another bad guy in sheep's clothing. Twice would be too much. Or they realized it themselves. Dumping Clark for another bad guy he can't fight? One guy had billions of dollars to back him up, the next guy the US justice department.
All that horrible artwork Dan gave Lois probably had bugs and little cameras in them. No one would look closely at the ugly things!
All they showed us in the end was a guy who followed her around to take advantage of her anger at Clark. Speaking for myself I missed it almost completely. At least I can say I did think "where did he come from?" LOL!

I'm willing to go to email but I think we should stay around until we get booted. So play it again, Sam.

Kate

Alexander Contingency Luthor. The initials fit.
But this is what makes the Superman universe characters so interesting. They are so complex.
Except for Smallville. I tried hard to like that show, but I just couldn't get interested in a teenage Clark Kent.


Kate

It's called "A Match Made in Chicago." Would you do that to your sister? Get involved with someone who fell in love with her first and came close to breaking her relationship with a man she loved? Lucy and Lois are supposed to be close.
Of course that would fit with Lucy's penchant for choosing the wrong men, or "bad" men.





Whoa! I never thought of that. Both of them could have made life miserable for Clark-- more miserable than Lois ever made him, anyway!
There are stories where Lex does try to ruin Clark because Lois chooses him, but none that I know of where Dan does.
I guess that's series canon at work there. He left without a trace. In the Aargh we had him and Deter leave "never to be seen again" because that's what they both did in the series. Poof! Gone.
But you might have something there. He could have used his contacts to give Clark a hard time, too.
It would be a great stretch to believe Lois would fall for someone like that again.
Maybe it's a good thing they didn't wait until the fifth season to get them together! Would we have had to go through another Mayson and another Dan before we got there?

Your guess is as good as mine as to why the writers changed tactics. I've read where Teri Hatcher was disappointed with the show so I don't really see her fighting for Lois like that, but you never know. Maybe she did object.

I tried to watch Smallville, too, but I wasn't interested in the teen years either. I didn't start watching it again until the sixth or seventh season, and even then it wasn't regularly. If I didn't like the story there was nothing there to keep me interested. So I saw bits and pieces of the last four seasons. I can't say I'm a fan but I can read fanfic if the plot is good.
The only thing that bugs me about Smallville is that Clark never wore glasses until just before he became Superman. Yet I'm supposed to believe he successfully keeps his identity secret and absolutely no one guesses. Other than that I can watch reruns of the later years and just tolerate the Red/Blue Blur era.

I wondered about that. All the pictures of Tom Welling in costume and presumably in character were without glasses, and so were the DVD covers. How close did they cut it? I have no problem recognizing kids I went to school with if I meet them now and I've been out of school over 5 years. I wear my hair differently now and they still know who I am too.
So would you recommend watching the later seasons?


Kate

It's called "A Match Made in Chicago."


Okay! Mayson and his fans- are we the only people who liked Clark?





Another Mayson would be okay with me now that I'm older. As a kid I probably would have hated it, but from an adult standpoint? Come on! Clark was gorgeous but only Mayson ever noticed and went for him? And during the pheromone thing only Lois was attracted to him? At the time it was fun, but looking back? Just a sec here! LOL! Oh well.
Now, luckily Lois never noticed that not one single man who worked with her was attracted to her either! She must have been a terror as Mad Dog Lane!






I wondered about that too since I rediscovered L&C. She'll go out of her way to promote "Desperate Housewives" but I didn't know she had a negative view of L&C. I don't remember her seeking that kind of exposure to promote L&C. It could have used some enthusiasm by some of the regulars.
What disappointed her I wonder?


Kate

LOL! Seems that way, doesn't it? The pheromone episode is kind of strange that way but I guess that's why they had Cat be unaffected by the perfume. She would have killed Lois to get at Clark! LOL! No more show after that unless Lex forced Dr. Kelly to bring her back from the dead!






I was looking for the thread where I read that but I can't find it yet. I'm sure it was on this board.
Apparently TH felt the show didn't live up to the potential illustrated by the pilot episode, and there was also a post saying her husband had made a comment about her wasting her time doing a children's show.
I was a child when I first saw L&C but I'm an adult now and still a fan. I'd say it's more timeless than anything I've seen in a long time.

Seasons 9 and 10 were when he wore glasses more than once, so that's pretty close. And they weren't current style glasses, they were the thick, black horn rims from the comics and movies. Apparently, in 2018 styles will take a backward turn to the 1950s. Get ready for women's cat's eye frames to make a comeback.
Smallville is the most face recognition impaired of the Superman universes. No one says "Hey, that's Clark Kent!" even though it's only been months since he started wearing glasses and he'd been working at the Planet for years before that as a bare faced Clark.

"Clark used to look exactly like Superman before he started wearing glasses last year."
"Yeah, what a coincidence, huh?"
"Whatever."



Yes, I would recommend the later seasons, but don't expect to see Lane and Kent becoming the top reporters they end up being. This series was never about that. It wanders all over the place. As I said, some of the episodes I never watched past the teaser or the first ten minutes.
I did like Callum Blue's Zod for the most part, though, but I've been a fan of his since Dead Like Me.

I might try it but I really have no desire to see Clark as a dorky nerd again. For all the hype over the years that Smallville is the story of Clark Kent it's funny that they change this character they spent so many years creating and turn him into some kind of a caricature. This personality people have come to know is just squashed? Or hidden?





All it took was a pair of horn rims.
Are you reading the new comics? Are they going to do the same thing there?

Kate

Then all the "my loves" and 'my darlings" would have meant nothing to Gretchen! All that planning ahead for nothing!

Of course she would have let Lois die, a failed attempt. "But at least I know what went wrong so I can fix it in case you ever die, Lex dear!"
Lex would be looking at her suspiciously from then on...endearments from her? That means...! (ominous music)






If it keeps me young at heart I want them to play the DVDs on my death bed. It'll be in my will to show them at my wake!



Kate

All I know about the comics is what the RPG guys talk about and of five reading the new books, three are ready to stop. The other two are giving them a longer chance. They think the story is starting to improve but the others say there is nothing about the new Kal-El/Clark that they can get interested in. So far four of them think Lois is not interesting at all, as if she is being underwritten so Clark will lose interest.


As for SV, he is hiding his Clark identity. Superman is who he is.

Original TJO script


I found this while I was looking for that thread about Teri Hatcher's disappointment in the show.
This is even worse than Dan following Lois around like a stalker! Someone leaked this script to the fans and after the outcry, the writer went from Lois actually dumping Clark to Dan spying on them to what we finally saw on the screen. Amazing!
When you think about it, though, if the show was originally planned to go until the fifth season before L&C got together, things like this would have had to happen to keep them apart. I just hope it wasn't going to be always Clark who had to be the one to get hurt.
Even after Contact, Lois never regrets how she treated Clark in the park before saying 'yes' to Luthor.
If anyone has written a fanfic where she realizes how badly she treated him then, I haven't read it yet.
Maybe that will be my next search.

Shhhh!!!! I found the interview where I read that. It was done in '99 and she still felt her opinions strongly even after clearly moving on both career-wise and personally.

I was surprised by the fan reactions, some of the people who posted took it personally when it is clear she blamed the production team for her issues with the show.
Over time her views have mellowed somewhat, but not entirely. It took the full ten years of Smallville to get her to guest star on the show!
I'm sneaking the link in here because of the vehemence of her supporters who got so angry in their support of her that their posts are almost as angry as her comments about L&C!
Still, the fact of the matter is she said these things, like it or not. No wonder only K Callan was ever offered a guest shot on DH!


Shhhhh!!!!

From the Scardino Aargh thread:



The story is called "Got A Way" and I just read it. It does have Lois going off with Scardino.
It has a nice, happy ending. Too happy for Scardino to have been more than a one episode character. Good ending for a fanfic, though.
I'm more puzzled than ever why the show's writers left in those references to him following L&C around if he was changed from a potential boyfriend to someone meant to be a short term rival.
Robert, you really have to write something with this! I don't care what it is! Use the original script if you want to! Please write me something!

That is brutal! If anything I respect her more as an actress now because once she got in front of the cameras to act out what she saw as childishness, she gave it her all.
I will adore Dean Cain until the day I die but I have never been a fan of the actors and actresses on the show. I love the characters. I grew up with Superman, Star Trek and Star Wars. My dad raised us on those three.
I loved the presentation of the characters on the show. I truly enjoyed the fact that in this show I could love Clark Kent and Lois Lane as much as I loved Superman in the movies and comics. I liked them okay before but I was fascinated by their portrayal in this series. The fact that Hatcher hated the loss of potential and, literally, didn't even like the show, never showed up on screen.
She is entitled to her opinions. Let her have them. You don't have to agree or like them and you don't have to defend them as if she did something wrong. All that really matters is she never let it show up on screen.
That will never change.


Kate

I'm going to start reading the older posts now! There is a gold mine of information in there!

Supe is a one woman man. Lois has had other romantic interests in the past (comics) and along the way she became a modern woman and started sleeping with some of them. In the movies, too, of course.
Clark/Kal-El, on the other hand... Let's just say he 'don't play that.'
Lois and Kryptonite are his weaknesses. Writers will take advantage of it. You can write him with respect or not. It's up to the individual or the writing staff. In a way I'm curious to see how Clark/Kal-El is going to be portrayed as a modern man in the comics reboot but at the same time I don't want him to pick up the modern disrespect for women that so many young men have. I have to deal with that enough in real life. I don't need my favorite superhero to be that modern.
My hopes are not high because I hear he is already a bully and we definitely do not need that in a superhero. IMO, only.
If the show went five years as Levine planned, Clark would have taken all the hits. (Hopefully he NEVER would have contemplated suicide or wasted his life in sorrow.)

Kate

That's it. That's one of the first fanfic stories I ever read. The first one was about L&C having fifteen kids because Lois loved being pregnant or something equally hilarious. I thought "this must be a parody!" and stopped reading it!
Use the 'select a story at random' option with caution!

I really hope we do get a story out of all this!

Given what I know now I don't think TH would have objected to having Lois fall for another bad guy presenting himself as a good guy. Re-using an old plot would just reinforce her opinion the show wasn't as good as it could be. Someone else must have pointed out why are they doing that again.


Kate

Well said. I've seen the vids on YouTube, the out takes and the features from the TV gossip shows and you can see for yourself, whatever she felt for the show and the scripts, she didn't let it affect her work attitude. She tried to have fun on the set no matter what.
One I really like is the vid about the proposal in the rain. I think it's an ET feature. Anyway, it shows us that the hand on the chest thing is a Teri habit. After her part of the shooting she runs over to her husband, who is watching the filming off set, and she stands beside him with her hand on his chest as she looks back at Dean finishing his takes in front of the camera. It's just a cute little thing to know.

A+ for sneaking in a Homey reference in a Superman post! LOL!
Clark/Superman is very stoic, isn't he? I hate that he would have been the one to have to suffer in silence each time.
If you haven't seen "Superman, the Animated Series" try to rent the DVDs and watch the episode called "World's Finest." It's a three story arc where Bruce Wayne comes to town and he and Lois meet and fall in love. Superman/Clark is very stoic.
He does nothing to interfere even after Bruce figures out how he feels about her. Kal-El/Clark and Lois are not involved, even though she and Superman know each is very attracted to the other, so he respects her free will and says nothing and does nothing to ruin her happiness. She decides to move to Gotham City with Bruce and work for the Daily Planet office there and Supe is willing to let her go because her happiness comes first.
I won't give a spoiler this time, but this is classic Superman. Lois' happiness matters above all else.
I believe he would never contemplate suicide in any incarnation.





I so hope that, too. I'm a sixth grade teacher and I see that behavior in kids already! Twelve/eleven year olds who come into my classroom each fall who already think girls are bitches! And this past summer we had special training classes sponsored by the school district to learn how to cope with bullying. Even the custodians had to attend!

There was one instance the RPGers mentioned where Clark/Kal-El uses his strength and bulk to intimidate some bad guys in, I think, the first comic.
If you keep reading the fanfic you'll see that Superman as a bully shows up frequently and as recently as a month ago! In ff he is not above throwing his strength and reputation around, sometimes in comedies, sometimes in more serious stories. Either way feedback comments find it hilarious (comedies) or so appropriate for the situation that no one notices it.
I could be over reacting.

There is a series of stories about the children of that brood. Is it a parody? I don't know but it's possible. Tom Welling was in the "Cheaper By the Dozen" movies so it might be.

The first TNAOS fanfic I ever read was "Meet Me in Kansas City." It's a wonderful story but I absolutely hated crybaby Clark.
Unfortunately crybaby Clark is a staple of fanfic and I've learned to grin and bear it when I encounter him.
I highly recommend MMIKC, but disliking crybaby Clark is part of my opinion, too.

I know we're getting a Sarah story and maybe Dan can feature in it prominently, too? Come on, Rob! I know he's read these posts because he asked me a question the other day that could only have been prompted by one of my comments here.

It came through in a flawless performance every day. She gave me the first Lois Lane I actually liked even if she did get into a lot of trouble! I never really liked her in the comics because I never quite got why she was like she was. It took little things like the expressions on her face and what she did with her hands, how she held her head, simple body language you don't see in a drawing, to give me a clue to her personality and I liked what I saw of Lois in Teri's performance.
I don't care if she never understands how good the series really is. She never spoiled it for me by not taking it seriously in front of the cameras. I can't ask for more than that from any actor. We could have been stuck with getting used to an actor switch in mid season at any time!
The scene where Lois cries because she and Clark will never have children- professional at work. I believed in the emotion the first time I saw that scene and I do to this day. I really felt for her even as a teen. I know women face that knowledge in real life too but getting that emotion right when you're pretending to be the wife of an extraterrestrial alien who can fly?


Kate

My husband was watching Bulletproof and Homey was on my mind.






My dad has the DVDs. I'll ask if I can watch it. Sounds good.
Yes, Kal-El/Clark is alien first and foremost. I know in 'The Foundling" the show makes it series canon that intellectually his brain has been taught to work like a human's and in that way he is human, but he is still an alien. Something about that helps him in the comicsand cartoons to keep a clear view in mind no matter what the emotional turmoil. The TV show kind of muddied the water on that so I can only imagine what the fanfic does.


Kate






As I said before I stopped giving feedback.


Kate

Do I even want to learn what a crybaby Clark is? And he's a staple of fanfic? Any other staples one should be warned about?
I found the story and I will read it. The first part is good- the Daily Planet scene.






Good, good, good! Even though we never came up with a reason for Dan to need to get to know Lois so quickly, I still like the idea of an explanation for him following them around. He gave the dead partner excuse for why he was on Lois' fire escape but why did he come into the apartment? To plant bugs? To get a drink? To sneak into the bedroom and watch her dress after her shower?
Yes, my opinion has really changed!


Kate

That would never have worked!
In her interview segment for the DVDs-- now I know why her participation was so limited-- she said she played Lois as a woman who just wanted to be loved. That's where the vulnerability came from.
One of the things I've seen people complain about is how she (Lois) changed from the season one independent woman to the boring wife she became in season four.
She didn't change . At the Planet she still worked as hard as ever, we just saw more of her home life during that time. She did something good enough, dug deep enough-- on her own-- to be framed for murder and put on trial. It was a Lois Lane investigation, not a Lane/Kent story.
No matter how hokey and ridiculous it was to the viewers, it was real to her!
I liked when she said being a hard bitten reporter was a lot more fun than it used to be. Sexual innuendo aside, she liked being a married woman as much as she liked doing her job. Somehow she'd found the time for both and she was happy. Nothing wrong with that.
I wish we could have seen more of her at work, too, but I have to take the glimpses they gave me and be happy with that.

MMIKC:

I'm at the part where Lois and Alice just had a talk over lunch and Lois is going to see Clark where he works.
So far so good.


Kate

Series and fanfic Clark/Kal-El are quite a bit removed from what we are used to in the comics and in all the animated series. Some people think the TNAOS series made him too human and as a result writers treat him disrespectfully-- one of the feedback comments to a suicide story at ff.net states that-- and they might be right. I don't know if I agree with the disrespectful part, but maybe he was made too human as TNAOS Clark.
Remember when he fought the thousand year war alongside Diana in the comics and as far as he knew Lois was long dead? He could have given up and let himself die at any time but he fought to win every time. For a thousand years, every day he fought to win, never knowing if he was going to live to see the end or even what would happen then.
In ff he commits suicide way too often.

LOL!
All I know is it takes place when the trials start and Sarah sees Jimmy in the courtroom and she follows him back to the newsroom and sees that things have really changed there.

So you're past the first angsty stuff! It really is a good story.

Have you read some of it? Why can't I find someone to write fanfic for me!

Kate

MMIKC:






Strangers on the street can see Lois is in love. Why can't she????

Kate

We spent a little time in the RPG chat room tonight and put together this list:
No offense intended, we're just joking around. If you're a writer with sensitive feelings don't read it.(M/O)

LnC Fanfic Staples


One or the other must speak out loud to the other, think to themselves, or tell a third party that Lois/Clark is my best friend. No story is complete without this happening. ("Clark, you're my best friend..." "Lois you know you're my best friend..." What was she thinking? Clark was her best friend!)

Lois must flinch, blanche and jerk her hand, arm, shoulder or any other body part away if Clark should ever make a motion that could be mistaken for reaching for her.

Clark must blush and/or stutter at least once in every story, but no more than there are scenes in the narration.

Lois must go ballistic when Clark tells her he is Superman. There are no exceptions to this rule.
Lois must yell, “You lied to me!” in every revelation story. There is no exception to this rule.
Lois must angrily ask, “How can I ever trust you again?” in every revelation story. No exceptions.

Clark must mope around, cry and contemplate suicide after the afore mentioned ballistic episode until Lois calms down and agrees to speak to him again.

No matter how badly she insults or denigrates Clark during an afore mentioned ballistic event, Lois must never apologize for anything she says. It is all Clark’s fault.

Clark must apologize for being everything Lois accuses him of being during an afore mentioned ballistic event. He must never expect an apology from her. It is all his fault. There is no exception to this rule.

Lois must be able to read Clark’s body language, expressions and gestures like an open book from the moment she meets him. Clark must be absolutely clueless about her throughout their entire friendship/romance/marriage.

In all romance fic, Lois must remind Clark she got along perfectly well without him before he came to Metropolis and she doesn’t need his overprotectiveness now.

Lois must ask for time before committing to do anything with Clark no matter what it is.
(“Lois, want to go to a movie tonight?” Lois panics. “But Clark we always watch a movie here and order pizza! Just give me a little time to consider it. I need time, please, Clark.”)
(“Lois, please, the kryptonite is killing me!” Lois panics. “I’ve never touched kryptonite before! I need time, don’t rush me, Clark! I just need time.”)
(“Clark, what are you doing?!” Lois panics. “Adding garlic to the stir fry. Why?” “Clark, I’ve never eaten that much garlic with a man before! Please, I need time! I just need some time.” )

If Lois and Clark marry before the ages of 28(L)/29(C) they must not have sex.
Even if they sleep in the same bed, they must not have sex.
Even if they marry and sleep in the same bed for ten years they must not have sex.
(The only exception to this rule/staple is: if Lois gets raped by and made pregnant by Lex Luthor while on an ocean cruise, she and Clark may have sex once. This is to confuse her so she can’t decide who the father is until the end of the story.)

(To be continued...

MMIKC:

Being such a long story I got as far as where Lois has him in her hotel room and is trying to keep him there by saying all the wrong things. I will continue tonight. It's on my ebook reader which I didn't bring with me because the temptation to read would be too much.


Kate

LnC Fanfic Staples


LOL! That is funny mainly because I suspect it is true!
Can't you people be serious about anything? Is your RPG a comedy by any chance? LOL!

Kate

I have that comic on my desk at home and I reread it often. I love how as the years pass and his memories fade, a part of him always holds on to the fact that there was a woman, a beloved woman, and even if he can't really remember her any more, he remembers he once loved in a wonderful and passionate way.

I'm going to agree he was made too human by the show. When fans are moved to write him as suicidal and unable to cope with what life gives him, they are seeing him as human and not as a Kryptonian raised among Earthlings. Human men, many of them, suffer horrible losses every day without resorting to suicide. In our society that's still considered the easy way out and shameful. Clark would know this. (M/O, I hope I get this right.)
I'm wondering if this all goes back to the virgin thing? A man without sexual experience is a weak man or a coward, afraid of women or intimacy, damaged in some way? Lois was abstinent because of her distrust of men, what was Clark's excuse? He never really explained it well in VD so it is open to interpretation. The metaphor he used to convey his reasons leaves much unsaid.

Kate

And his heart's desire is to return to that love as his reward. The Lois plot is best left ignored, but she is the human in that relationship so I understand her.


You know, one of the things not on the list was left off because when we started talking about it, we discovered it has happened in only three stories any of us could think of, so it's not a prevailing trend. It seems to be an idea that could become a trend. (M/O)

It's Lois' unbelievable ability to be able to tell that Clark is a virgin the first time they have sex. Depending on your own opinion on the matter and which writers you've read, Lois has had two prior experiences with sex before she marries/makes love to Clark. One with Paul, the college boyfriend, which some writers and some readers believe doesn't have enough evidence to point clearly to a sexual encounter. Others write stories where Lois admits she slept with Paul. The other is her experience with Claude. We know it happened and it is up to the writers and readers how to interpret it. Was it a one time thing? Was it an ongoing affair?
The point being Claude happened and Lois lost her trust in men until Clark came along.
So she has slept with men twice, maybe, once definitely. Whether or not it was several times with Claude comes into consideration with this ability Lois has to know that Clark is a virgin the first time they have sex. If she didn't sleep with Paul, then she was a virgin herself when she slept with Claude.
Her reasons for knowing have been Clark's "hesitancy," his type of "exploration," and "I know. I could just tell." Though she doesn't say it, his eagerness seems to be what she means.
If she was waiting for her wedding night with Lex, this means her relationship with Claude was a long running affair for her to be experienced enough with sex to "know" when another man is a virgin just by his touch, eagerness or lack thereof. Either that or Marshall, Mitchell (? the guy she talks to on the phone in the pilot) hit a few homeruns with Lois when he wasn't coming down with something.
Don't you agree there has to be more than just two-- or one-- experiences for her to be able to reliably compare to?
What Clark doesn't know won't hurt him comes into play again! She is as skilled a liar with Clark as she accuses him of being with her!
Anyway, there wasn't enough use of this plot point to include it on the list. Three times doesn't make it a staple.

Of course not! We take Star Wars very seriously!

()IIIIIIII--()>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Do I think Lois' vast sexual experience with possibly two men makes her capable of discerning a possibly third man's lack of experience? No! LOLOLOL!!
I'm at work Bev with people in the outer office and I can barely type!
Okay,calmer now. Of course,in any author's universe all things are possible. If this is what the author wishes we must accept it and learn what the circumstances are to warrant this as the story progresses.
As analytical readers though we have the right to look at any story objectively. Witness Harry Potter being torn apart by fans and critics alike. (M/O)

(I'm assuming you go to spoiler mode to hide anything some people might not be comfortable reading?)

Personally I don't see how Lois can do this without a wider range of experience. I suppose a long affair with Claude will do. If he was just a one time thing then she and Lex were doing more than snuggling on the back seat of that limo. They were engaged to be married so there was nothing to prevent them from going to the edge, e.g. Clark, without stepping over. Whatever your imagination constitutes that as being.
I suppose if he asked for directions or for permission she would have been able to guess! LOL! "Uh,Lois, is this your (expletive deleted.") "Oh, so that's a (expletive deleted?") "Can I kiss you on your (expletive deleted?") LOLOL!!


Kate

MMIKC:


Last night I stopped at the point where Clark spent some time on the iceburg and decided it was time to go back.
If this behavior on Clark's part happens frequently do you get the impression it is meant to convey men can be sensitive too? Or is it a Clark trait taken to new levels in the fan fiction?
I get the impression from your previous posts you don't see Clark as fic writers see him and that's why I asked the virgin question.


Kate

Edit:
P. S.: I'm not picking you out for analysis but for your opinion. I signed up at Kryptonsite to join their L&C forum but after two months I log in over there and I get a page telling I'm still waiting for moderator approval and don't rush them. There is another L&C forum but you apparently have to ask permission to join. Here, you're the only person willing to discuss anything about the show and fanfic and not just the latest pictures. I like the latest pictures as much as anyone but as I said, I like the characters more than the actors who played them.

You're not going to bill me for that, are you? LOL!

If something defies belief, though-- obviously only mine since no one else seems to care that she has this remarkable ability-- it can pull me out of a perfectly good story and leave me annoyed at losing believability in the plot.
This particular happening-- and as I said before I have seen it in two other stories-- defies explanation to me. How can she do this if she has only had two sexual experiences in her life before this? Joking aside, he would have had to be awfully hesitant!
Which brings up another matter. (M/O)


Some fanfiction Loises don't like sex very much! Not all of them, but some of them do an awful lot of thinking and comparing and analyzing instead of enjoying the experience as it happens. The one story where she's remembering Claude and the wonderful experience she had with him because Clark, the man she supposedly is totally in love with, is less interesting at the moment; these stories where she can tell he's a virgin because she'd rather think about that than do anything to help him make the experience more enjoyable to herself.
Fanfic is an experience I can tell you. I speak as a Harry Potter fan who has tried to read fanfic written by kids.
I remember a story at FF.net about Supergirl that went like: "After she closed the door she locked it. She turned away from the door. She crossed the room. When she got across the room she went into the hallway. She walked along the hallway. She came to the bedroom. She opened the door and went into the bedroom. She closed the door. She turned away from the door. She crossed the room to the bed. She sat down on the bed."
It went on and on like that throughout the whole story. It was a long one, too. She had three sexual encounters and each one was exactly the same but the name of her partner was different.
I guess I shouldn't nitpick so much with well written stories, but I can't ignore incongruities when they pull me out of a story. I just hate reading a good story and suddenly thinking, "Wait a minute! How can that be?"

No, no, no.
If Clark was going to be polite, he would use proper terminology, not expletives deleted. Martha taught her boy better than that!

(M/O)

He would say mammary glands or reproductive organ. If he did that, then I can see Lois knowing he was a virgin. "May I squeeze your gluteous maximus with both hands while I engage in intercourse with you?" would be a dead give away.

I'm still thinking about the virgin angle and will get back to you on it.

I hope M/O-ing that was good enough.

ROTFL!
I have only myself to blame. I started it.
We're supposed to like Clark. We should be defending him. He's been to the edge, Bev. The very edge! He said so himself.
I can barely type! I wrote He sad sii himself. LOL!
That was so funny. I'm going to get strange looks when I go for lunch later. I already get teased for having a Superman coffee cup.
Why is it you get teased for liking Superman or Star Trek but not if you like Star Wars? Then it's "kewl."
Soooooo...
That's why I think the virgin thing might be working against Clark/Kal El. Those writers don't believe he's been to the edge.

Kate, trying to change the subject but still fighting the giggles

MMIKC:


You were right about it being a good story. I liked it a lot. The different meeting is nicely done. Getting the revelation out of the way could have been less dramatic.
I still have to think about Clark. He was different. Almost over the top. Lois was strangely disappointing. I like the TV version better.
Over all I recommend it too.


Kate

P.S. I'm reading A Match Made In Chicago next

I hope you and your students all had a great time and a very successful Christmas pageant, Bev.

I was able to read most of that list of stories you recommended.
A month ago I probably would have liked "Mr. Right Now" and felt sorry for poor doomed Dan, but the author got it right about him being an opportunist. (I can't go back. I simply don't like him anymore!)
My favorite by far was "Field of Dreams." I'm reading it a second time and it will not be deleted from the ereader when I finish. You said there was only one mistake in it and I know what it is! Space lights, right? LOL! Farms are never completely dark at night because they have space lights! One of the joys of being a child on a farm is staying outside playing under a space light until you're so sleepy you can't stand up anymore. It was the only reason to spend the night with my cousins!
"An Unexpected Valentine" also stays on the ereader. That was a nice, simply told story without immature behavior, reactions I guess, from either. Just wonder at this surprising thing that's happening.
The other ones with Dan in them- read them, dismissed them. He no longer holds my sympathy card. But Lois has my undying annoyance for wanting to spend time with him.
"AMMIC" I would not be able to date my sister's ex at all. I would never be able to stop wondering if he's pretending I'm her, does he really like me or is he just trying to stay in her life to look for another way back to her, is he looking at me because he's really interested or because he's looking for similarities, "That is the ugliest thing I've ever seen!" would have come right out of my mouth if he ever admired anything even remotely looking like eyeballs on sticks.


Kate

Thank you! Just got home from the last performance and a little party given by the parents. (Pizza and cupcakes.) My class did "The Night Before Christmas" all three nights and we varied our songs each night, doing different ones after the poem reading. We did good but the fourth graders were the scene stealers wearing their red noses and little antlers as they sang.




Yes! When Clark and Lois were out looking for flowers and she was getting scared, I was wondering where the space/yard light was. (My grandfather called it a yard light.) If it had gone out certainly Martha would have mentioned that so Lois, or Laney, wouldn't be surprised to have a bucket truck from the power company showing up to fix it one day. Considering how she was spending her days I'd think she'd appreciate it.
Apparently the author didn't know about or chose not to mention a yard light, which farms have had since the late forties.

"Valentine" was just a very sweet story. Not all alternate beginnings work, but these two with MMiKC, are examples of some that do.

AMMIC--- Lucy is in for a very short and unfulfilling romance if she goes for it, and for the very reasons you mentioned. Sooner or later, something will happen that neither expected and doubts will enter her mind. But, as I said before, she and Lois are supposed to be pretty close so I like to imagine Lucy has more respect for her sister than to put her-- herself, too-- through that.

I was thinking of the first Lucy as I read it. I don't see that Lucy falling for it. The second Lucy had a drop in age ala second season Jimmy and she seemed to be around 19 or so. Still gullible enough to fall for a man with a good line and who could turn on the charm.
I saw the first Lucy as I read the story but the characterization seems to fit the younger Lucy. Perhaps under the right circumstances it might work but the potential to end badly would be damaging to Lucy.
Of course,if it had happened the result might be the young woman we saw in "Metallo." Dan got tired of pretending and left, and poor Lucy slinks back into Metropolis and works as a waitress in a out of the way joint. She could have gone to her uncle Mike for a better work environment and emotional support but Lois would find out. I can't imagine her having the courage to go to Lois and pouring out her heart about falling for Scardino.
Yes, I want to Dan bash! It was all his fault poor Lucy was victimized by Johnny! Even if it isn't so I will make it so through endless speculation!
Yes, I am very disappointed in the guy. After all, I fell for his line too and I was only a spectator! Not even a part of their universe!
LOL!


Kate, who is currently engaging in self analysis

LOL! Dan bashing, huh? Let's see...

Dan Scardino's favorite food isn't Italian.
Dan Scardino tells everyone his Irish mother was born in Sicily.
Dan Scardino ticked off Wonder Woman when he gave her a tiny sculpture of milk jugs on sticks because they reminded him of her.
Dan Scardino went to Metropolis after betting everyone in Washington he could become Superman's best friend within a month. When Superman found out, he took Dan flying, pretended to sneeze and dropped him a few thousand feet. Dan doesn't want to be his friend anymore.
Dan Scardino used to wear Superman underwear.

Absolutely!LOL!

Dan Scardino wonders what Lidia is saying at the end of her TV shows.
Dan Scardino thinks he is in Lois Lane's league.(Oops! My mistake! So does Lois.)

Love and Capes was mentioned in a post on this board a while back. If Dan gave the milk jug sculpture to Amazonia she would have loved it!


Kate

See! There's another one for the list.
Dan Scardino can't do anything right.
But then he's in good company because Clark can't do anything right either, on TV or in fanfic.
I was going to write something about Dan being beneath Cat Grant's notice, but Gloria from the RPG told me she read a story where Dan ends up married to Cat Grant! So I couldn't do that. (She's looking for that story to send to me.)
Apologies to Lidia! I like her show but that's funny.
“Tutti a tavola a mangiare!” or "Everyone at the table to eat!"

I always think of Elizabeth Barondes, too, when Lucy is part of a story. I agree that Roxana (?) Zal was a much too young version of Lucy. The actress may have been the right age but she looked so young! And what on earth do you suppose she majored in that she has to wait tables instead of getting a job in her field of study? You might be right. Maybe they were going for a much younger Lucy like they did with Jimmy. I wonder what was planned for her, if anything?
We need to bring in H. G. Wells to make Dan responsible for that, though, and I really hate time travel stories. If they are done right like "Tempus Fugitive," I can enjoy them, but too many of them have too many plot holes. One thing an RPG teaches you, it's to recognize and stay away from plot holes.(Not there wasn't any in "TF." There were.)


Edit:
Or........have Tempus bring in the H.G. from Warehouse 13, thinking he has her all wrapped around his charming self and she falls for Clark instead!

No,even she's too good for him IMO. Toni Taylor was too good for him but only because she did business with Lex but didn't get involved with him. That puts her a notch above Miranda and Dr. Baines in my opinion.
Match him up with Miranda or Ariana.




Wow! I like that H.G. She's played right on the edge- good this time, bad that time, trustworthy this time, up to something that time.
While she's in that vanishing state when she sacrificed herself, Tempus could find her somehow and rescue her, but later LnC-Wells would have to take her back to the exact moment of her sacrifice to save W13universe's continuity.
Yes, women fall for Clark in a way Lois doesn't know about. A fantastic woman like that going for him at a time when Lois thinks Dan might be the better of the two. Good possibilities.
Plus we can throw Dan in the time machine to go back a couple of months and devastate Lucy so badly he shaves a few years off her age. No plot holes there!
LOL!


Kate, just funnin' around because a month ago I might have liked AMMIC- I would have questioned Lucy's judgment and felt sorry for her but...

People are always saying things like "I'll knock you into next week." He'll literally knock her backward in time three or four years and she'll never know it! That would be why we never see him again, he went back in time and is wandering around back there trying to figure out what happened. Would he be smart enough to try to save his partner?





This incarnation of H.G. is way out of Tempus's league! She would have no qualms about ending his little quest any way she had to. She doesn't have to be a gentleman, for a start! She isn't a bumbler trying to do the right thing for all involved and save the timeline. If there is a tweak in the timeline, so what? If it means getting rid of Tempus so be it. (Meaning she'll do it anyway.)

I like the way she's been written and portrayed, too. Getting her involved with Clark would work, too. Remember when Helena said many of her lovers have been men? So what have the rest of them been? She and Clark would not be long term, just until she's made her point. This H.G. would be in charge of change and she wouldn't have the gentlemanly need for honor getting in her way of doing it.
I'd love to see her butt heads with Lois! I like her interaction with Myka as much as anything about Warehouse 13. I hope they keep bringing Helena back so we can see what the outcome of that friendship will be.
I sent this off to my RPG buddy to consider writing. We've swamped him with ideas but at least we might have some more stories to look forward to.

This is the Dan Bashing thread so no he isn't smart enough to try to save his partner. LOL!
No,sending him back would be too mean to an innocent age regressed Lucy.
The author of AMMIC clearly wanted to leave the reader with the idea that one thing led to another. Like it or not, that Lucy would do that to her sister and probably even blame her when Dan gets tired of pretending she's Lois and moves on.



That could be so much fun! Helena was ready to unleash a nuclear winter on all of us for being such a violent dystopia- she would be Tempus's biggest mistake. She wants utopia as much as L&C Wells does and you're right, she doesn't have to be the honorable gentleman while guarding it.
Any confrontation between her and Lois would be something to see. Lois honed herself on Cat Grant, Linda King and any number of male adversaries. Lois wouldn't have Myka's attraction to Helena to influence her reactions either.
As long as Clark/Superman isn't some innocent, stuttering, virginal bystander, blushing furiously and apologizing for everything I would read a story about those four, or five coming together for what Tempus thinks is his greatest triumph.
I think it would be fun to keep Superman out of it until the very end. The mild-mannered thing. Helena wondering how on earth does this quiet man and that volatile woman bring about the foundations of Utopia? She can be just as volatile so maybe she could wonder "can he accomplish this with me?"
LOL!


Kate, who is about to tell my household "everyone to the table to eat!"

How many times do I have to tell you? This is what makes him an endearing character! LOL!! This is what a lot of people like most about him.
I know what you mean, though. I live in a part of the country where people wait for marriage for religious reasons. I've been close to women and men who gave nothing up in choosing to wait. In most cases I never knew until the wedding invitation because we had friendships like any other. M/O Waiting for marriage doesn't arrest your emotional development and leave you a total innocent. You learn from life the same as everyone else and you learn from your friendships the same as everyone else, and you make lasting friendships the same as everyone else.
Sure, Clark was uncomfortable around Cat Grant, but I'm uncomfortable around men who come on too strong, too. Sexual harassment cases in the work place go both ways. It doesn't mean a man or a woman is innocent or scared of the opposite sex. (To be uncomfortable with pushy people, I mean.)
However, Clark knew exactly when to turn on the charm when dealing with Dr. Baines and he knew exactly how to handle Toni Taylor, too. He wasn't all that innocent.
Of course, that's all up to individual interpretation and that's my individual interpretation.



Couldn't agree more! I like that idea so much. Email sent! M/O
So far my RPG buddy is the only author interested in what we come up with so we might be pretty lame at this, but he did get one story started for us so far. Let's cross our fingers for this one, too.

I forgot to add jealousy which IMO is the most destructive trait of all in a man or woman. A hazard of the job.



I agree if you are saying clinical sex only makes you a man or a woman figuratively just as coming of age only makes you an adult legally. m/o If you haven't grown into adulthood mentally, morally or emotionally, coming of age or losing your virginity won't flip a switch to give you all of that automatically. IMO and I stress IMO- some of the stories I've read take this approach to Clark. He's still an innocent boy with childish emotions because he hasn't had sex yet.
You mentioned various reasons whereby Lois is able to guess his lack of experience. She's treading a fine line there. It might be a nice plot point but it could also be a mighty insult if she's wrong. Maybe he's just taking it slow and easy until he knows the strong emotions he feels for her are controllable and he won't hurt her in a moment of heightened desire. He is Superman, after all, and experimentation with women in the past would not compare with being with the woman he's been waiting for all of his life.
On the other hand...! Don't tell me you weren't expecting this...
Imagine the chaos that might have ensued if Claude had been a bit hesitant in seducing Lois. A moment of guilt at what he is about to do which is soon overridden by his need to jump start his career. What if she incorrectly interpreted his initial hesitancy followed by renewed eagerness as this being his first time?! Hilarious for us, but certainly not to him nor his reaction! So he stormed back to the news room, stolen story in hand and told everyone what a disappointment Lois was, instead of bragging that he slept with her!
Speculation is such fun!



No way!


Kate

I wish I could write something, get it started and let Robert finish it from there. I can hold my own in an RPG but when it comes to a beginning, middle and an end to a story idea, I just don't have what it takes. I've tried, it isn't there.
I really like the idea of Tempus thinking he's found the perfect accomplice in the amoral female H.G. Wells, and then discovering she wants to see Utopia more than LnC Wells and is willing to use any means to keep the timelines intact. Unlike the Wells he knows and despises, she's capable of causing Tempus great pain!



LOL! I never thought of that but she could have gotten herself into big trouble! She's lucky series canon is on her side.



I'm trying to decide what you mean here. You mean like Cat, Linda and Mayson? Total attraction and enough nerve to act on it? In a way Antoinette Baines felt it, too, but she thought she had Lex. I don't think it's that Lois didn't feel it, too, it's more that she would never have admitted she did. She had herself so focused on her job and her standing as the best, I don't think she even recognized she was feeling that kind of attraction to anyone, let alone Clark. It was there though. I always liked her reaction to Clark and Toni Taylor kissing so she could get out of his apartment unseen. Even as a kid I knew what it meant!

We've given it a pretty good start and I'm good at waiting. The last Paolini book was finally released and waiting for that (let down) taught me how to do it! Not to mention the last Harry Potter.



Something like that. I've always been annoyed by her surprise that other women were attracted to him and willing to let him know. (I know that's the set-up for the series but still...) And later that remark she makes to Dan that everyone in town but Clark knew that Mayson was in love with him. How could Lois not know how untrue that was? How conflicted he was over Mayson's feelings for him?
I guess it's another thing to fall under Wells' 'blinded by love' statement/explanation.

I started reading 'Second Thoughts.'


Kate (who has a feeling you're setting me up)

Setting you up? Who me?

I just noticed that the Terry Kiser H.G. is the photo for this forum. I rewatched "Emily Lake" and "Stand" to reacquaint myself with W13's H.G. I also had an encouraging email exchange with Luke Skywalker (Robert) where we talked about her and what kind of situation might develop if she did show up with Tempus around the Dan time, because that was when "Tempus Fugitive" occurred. We thought if we could extend the timeline of this triangle we could have Tempuc come back to the same time by making it a more important pivotal moment in the relationship between Lois and Clark. They don't remember the evnts of TF so they could interact with Tempus again, remembering later, if at all, the time travel incident.
Do you think that would clutter up the entire situation?

You're asking me? I forget how to type if I laugh at the same time.
How about have Dan the car bugger out of the picture by this time? Tempus would be trying to keep them apart. (Obviously Dr. Friskin would be pulling her hair out by now wondering why Lois won't act on her feelings now that the Dan barrier is gone.)
It isn't working, he's working against more than just time after all so Tempus looks for help somewhere and the criminally inclined Helena falls into his time machine or little digital time device.

Kate
wondering what role you play

Did you by any chance mean Dan the car booger?

Good idea. Strike while the strife is hot. Or still hot, as the case may be.
Strife brings to mind:
Going in a totally new direction-- or now for something completely different. Have a look at these very funny posters. There is a funny "strife" poster in the thread but you have to find it yourself. The first page has a Scardino shot you can print out and throw darts at! The smirky expression on his face is hilarious! And lot's of shirtless Clark shots, too. But the strife poster is one of my favorite scenes. It was shown in the opening montage of season one, I think. Where L&C are disagreeing and they both turn away from one another with their arms crossed. You'll love the search.

Hilarious Posters

(I play Shaak Ti and an original character who is an X wing pilot)

You did set me up here but it was fun going through to the last page! LOL! Even if I had to see the 'car booger' three times. He never had it all right but I actually felt bad for him!
There. I'll never admit it again.
What a fun morning! I didn't read any of the posts, just looked at the pictures.

We need to stretch out that strife as long as we can. On the series it's still more than a year before they get together. Angst is no big deal with this couple. They might as well have invented it.

Kate
who thinks laughing is a good way to start the day. It might be the only one I get.

Sometimes all you need to do is look at the pictures. I can't believe after all the fantastic shirtless pics of Dean/Clark you're still talking about the booger!

Well, yeah, what would Lois and Clark be without a little bit of strife. I'm waiting for a reply back but I think we settled on an idea we both liked. I'll let you be surprised. ;p

Any second thoughts about Second Thoughts?

Oh,I noticed "fivearms" and the scene where Clark is playing checkers with his mom is a favorite. I'll never forget him in his apartment in the sleeveless sweatshirt cleaning his uniform or answering the door in the tight t shirt either. They are burned forever in my brain. The first time I ever looked at a man and saw a man, even if I was too young to know it at the time. I really liked watching those scenes over and over on tape.
Reading the stories, I'm beginning to think Lois' reaction to towel clad Clark in the pilot is the only honest, uncontrolled one she ever let herself have.

Kate

Yes, she does get pretty dismissive and sarcastic after that, yet she does have moments when her feelings do surface. I think I'm beginning to get what you mean by Lois not knowing some of the ways women let themselves fall for Clark. Since Claude, she hasn't let herself go for a guy purely physically, at least not until the booger. (There I go now bringing him up again.) For a woman who in fanfic can spot a virgin at first touch, her experience with men on the series is severely limited.
BTW there is a fourth story - a work in progress - where she demonstrates this ability again. The author wrote one of my favorite stories(see below,) so even though I never read stories until they are finished, I decided to read this one. I was stopped cold by Lois' amazing ability to spot a virgin with her eyes closed! Too bad, because I wanted to see how Superman's blindness would be explained. I should have waited for the end.

One of My Favorites-Short, simple, cute

And one I found, while reading the other one, that is so funny, but kind of free with reality:

And The Janitors and Maintenance Staff Got Fired

Edit:
P.S.-- I hope they got a different copier after the rebuild of the offices, otherwise this might be the same one Victor pressed his face against to make the pics of himself that he hung all over the newsroom during one of the Prankster attacks. Is that good or bad?

We had half a day of school today, the kids are gone until next year and I'm looking forward to the time off.

LOL! What Victor, much like old CK doesn't know won't hurt him!




Oh no! Do I even want to know what this means? I think I can guess. If Clark was the one she loved then her attraction to the car booger was entirely physical, wasn't it? If it was any other woman I would go on to suggest one man for sex and one for pizza and a movie but this is TNAOS-Lois Lane. m/o I refuse to think she was intimate with the booger. I've said before she and Clark are the most attractive couple ever who had no interest in sex as single people. She may have loved Clark but she was incredibly, they both were, uninterested in a sexual relationship. I know it was a prime time show and kids, like you and I were watching, but there are still ways to get the point across without going into detail. I can see why she needed Dr. Friskin's help, but I just don't see her having sex with Scardino anymore than with Red and the bartender. I know she opened the door to go for it herself by letting Clark leave her apartment thinking something happened between her and Scardino, but I don't think she would have actually gone that far to get back at Clark. he did love him and being sexually attracted to a second man sent her to Frisken. Thanks a lot, Sarah! LOL!

Good stories, but yes, I see a couple of problems with the second one, even though it is short, sweet and funny! Our custodial staff never touches our desks or our computers in our offices, for one and our storeroom is locked with limited access to the key.

Kate

Never discuss this series with men who are used to being honest with you because you'll hear a lot of that if you do! The RPG guys write fanfic for Star Wars, Star Trek, the Terminator movies, the Superman comics (by and large they don't care that much for the movies, except the first two which they did like for various reasons unrelated to mine) and various TV shows, including this one. If I ask an opinion from them, they'll give me an honest one. No respecting my love of the series from childhood, no seeing the romance as the best part like I do, no sugar coating anything. They'll point out things that are obvious to men but not necessarily to women. They don't have friendships in this fandom to respect, except me. And after five years of doing the RPG they know I don't respect their feelings and views anymore than they do mine! And I'm the one who brought up this series way back when they were trashing "Superman Returns" in the chat room after it was released. I was very surprised that most of them remembered TNAOS positively.
I guess that goes back to what you said about Teri Hatcher never letting her feelings for the material show in her performance, because the gamer guys remembered Cain and Hatcher positively and liked them-- unlike a lot of 'purist' fans. I think the guys are even bigger fans of Lane Smith's portrayal of Perry White. And I don't think I've ever read them saying anything negative about Margot Kidder either. In fact "This is natural!" or variations of it, is one of the catch phrases of our chat room conversations! (From the scene where Margot/Lois, on a health kick, with a cigarette dangling from her lips, is squeezing orange juice.)
So, not all men who are Superman fans from childhood hate this series. A lot of them like it better than TH ever did. (Though her attitude seems to be softening a bit lately as I said once before. I don't remember where I read it but I got that impression from something she said recently.)

M/O Spoilers ahead on the second story:
Yes, I am going to just completely kill this funny story! Read it first and enjoy it and don't even come back to read this! You've been warned.
I'm a teacher. I get three months off in the summer just like my students do. I have cleaned office buildings during the summer when I got tired of sitting around the house doing nothing. I can't help it! I know the business because my mom has been the supervisor of an office building's cleaning personnel for thirty years. She hires me and other bored teachers almost every summer when her regular crew takes their vacations. The maintenance staff is separate with their own supervisor.
Supervisors are actually there for a reason, unlikely as that seems. If the date on the memo was April 1st, the two staffs could get away with saying it was an April Fool's prank, but in most companies there are rules of conduct that the employees are supposed to follow and sending out a memo like that would be considered showing disrespect to fellow workers. You can be fired for that. Most companies began using rules of conduct back in the 90s after post office workers began killing their fellow workers. No one wanted that happening in their companies so they started drafting rules of conduct for employees.
A supervisor can send a memo to another supervisor, all supervisors being equal, and settle the complaints that way. Sadly, it seems there is a cover-up going on at the DP if Ralph having porn on his desk is a common thing. Possession of porn is illegal and having it in the workplace should get you fired. Sadly, like in recent news stories dating back to the 90s, the chain of command isn't doing anything about it. Sigh. Aw, Perry! I'm so disappointed!
Back in the day Xerox machines and copiers were as hugely expensive as they are today, so most companies lease them and when something goes wrong they call the company that owns them and they send their own people to service them. So the machines are off limits to the cleaning and maintenance personnel. The newsroom, or whatever company, staff is responsible for keeping them and their rooms clean and orderly. All the janitors/custodians do is empty the trash cans. Sweeping up, cleaning the equipment if necessary - knowing the DP chain of command would be Jimmy's or Jack's job! They would be the ones complaining about butt marks. Jimmy would probably be too embarrassed to say anything, but Jack would complain loud and clear within hearing distance of Cat! I doubt if either would complain to Perry, because as we saw in PML, he thought it was as funny as everyone what Cat was doing in the copier room. Again, Perry, I'm so disappointed! LOL! But the copier is independently owned so who cares?
As you pointed out, Kate, the desks and computers are the reporters'/employees' private property on the premises as long as they are employed there. Janitors aren't supposed to open drawers or use the computers. Even if blood is dripping out of a drawer you report it to your supervisor and they deal with it, super to super. You don't open it. If your vacuum cleaner jostles a desk and the mouse moves and the screen comes on with porn wallpaper-- report it to your supervisor or ignore it, as your conscience allows.
Also anything on the floor gets thrown away. If the owner doesn't think it's worth picking up why should the janitor/custodian? Unless it's jewelry or a picture or pencil holder, etc., that has long been on the desk. (I'm remembering a story where L&C have sex on her desk and papers fall all over the floor, the janitor leaves a note complaining. No. --and another where the same happens in the stock/copier room and the janitor complains. Never happen. Janitors don't clean the stock/copier rooms, Jimmy and Jack do. The staff is responsible for their own stuff. If important notes, damaging information on the companies/people you are investigating are important enough to be copied but not picked up from the floor if dropped, don't be surprised if Jimmy or Jack break your story! Complete with pictures!)
Okay. I am finished stomping this poor author's work into the ground, as well as that of a couple others. Shoot me. I'm bad.

ROTFL! I'm so glad I'm at home reading this!
I knew about the desks and the store rooms but I forgot about the copiers and printers. It was explained to me when I took my job that the janitors don't use what is the rooms, the staff on the floor does, so it's our responsibility to keep the rooms clean and to report problems with the equipment to the front office.
I don't know about your assessment of Jimmy, though. I think he'd use that ID to blackmail Cat! This is first season Jimmy remember. I agree Jack would speak his mind loud and clear no matter what! LOL! Maybe that's why Cat left. One too many butt mark jokes might prey even on her....



My dad is one of the guys who thinks to this day she was totally miscast and the same for Kate Bosworth. I like Kidder's portrayal but I'm remembering it filtered through childhood when whether or not she was pretty or sexy enough meant absolutely nothing to me. I liked her but I wasn't fascinated by her portrayal the way I was with Teri Hatcher. Maybe because TH did something different every week for four seasons while MK's two or three performances are all there is to stand for all time.
Bosworth- waaaaay too young.

I'm halfway through "ST" and it is SO unnecessarily complicated!

Kate, on her way to the second showing of Sherlock Holmes

We're going tomorrow afternoon. We're cheap. We go to matinees.


Same thing at my school. The copier/printers are in the teachers' work rooms, which are break rooms with fridges, microwaves, sinks and cabinets, a storage room, and a 'unisex' restroom. The custodians empty the trash and clean the restroom, but we have to clean the break area and report problems with the copier/printer to our main office.


So I can cross that kind of story off the list of recommendations? LOL!


She left and went into outer space. You might have something there!


I don't mind her at all. Some of my favorite moments in the films involve her-- the look of self disgust on her face after climbing out of the water at Niagara Falls. To me that scene is still so funny. The look on her face and her body language as she turns to Ursa and punches her out. Then the smile. I have no problem with Margot as Lois.

Neither do I. I can watch the first two movies even though I no longer like Clark-as-nerd. Even as a kid I didn't like 3 and 4. I've looked for fanfic on this characterization but I haven't read any that I really like, that really capture their dynamic.
I've read some of the fic written for "Superman Returns" but Lois was dull as dishwater in that movie and the fic writers carry that right over into their stories. Also I wonder why no one is interested in writing anything about Jimmy the drunk? What happened to him while Superman was away?! I'd rather read about that than Lois having sex with Richard White while Superman is at the other side of their house gazing through the wall at his sleeping son. Do you know how many times that happens in the few fanfic I've read? Way too many. Out of 22 stories by 9 different authors- 6 times! Your super hearing just goes right out the door when you watch your child sleep.

Kate

The movie-verse is soul mates free, so they can marry other people, have happy lives and eventually get together later in life. I read one where after the movie events, Lois marries Richard and they have a daughter. Clark marries, too. Eventually though, Jason has to go live with him to learn how to be a responsible superpowered being, so they are in contact with one another over their lifetimes. Clark and his wife raise Jason, then the wife dies of cancer, I think. An illness that takes her quickly. By then Richard has divorced Lois for a younger woman and, in her 50s now, she finally confesses to Clark she has loved him all along and they finally get together.
Throughout the entire story I kept thinking, "What's wrong with forgiving him and starting fresh, together with their son?" and "What's wrong with just forgiving him, Lois?"
I never got the answer because the author wrote what was on the movie screen. A Lois and Clark/Superman with absolutely no chemistry between them. The chemistry was between Jason and the Superman symbol. Remember the way he rushes over and touches the uniform so carefully and so full of wonder?
In the end, too, even though Lois is outside looking over the riverfront, Superman goes to see the boy first, then comes to talk to Lois. All the best interaction was between father and son. I sometimes think "Jason and Clark" would make a better story subject than the more modern, unattached, and angry man we're going to get in the comics and the next movie.

I've been mulling over this but I still don't know why Lois let Clark leave without telling him the truth. Of course this was before she was supposed to dump him and they had to change the script and the direction of the triangle, so that could have been a set-up to what was originally planned. I wonder if they had planned for her have a fling with booger that ends as badly as the one with Claude? A super defensive Lois after that, could carry over the next two years as DJL proposed, until season five when she and Clark finally get together. Could the wait have been as bad as what we got? Maybe the New Kryptonians coming to take Kal-El away would have been what finally opens her eyes and sets up a romance in season four, leading to a wedding in season five.
Either way Clark's reaction to Lois letting him believe what he did about her and Dan was in character for him as comic book Superman. He and Lois were not committed to one another in any way, their one date ended abruptly, Scardino has apparently swept her off her feet as surely as Superman once did-- Clark doesn't know about her helping Dan earlier that day and the attraction that solidified from it, and she has free will to live her life as she wishes. Clark has no claim on her in any way. The slamming of the door on date night saw to that. The kiss is made irrelevant by what he thinks he's just seen, no denial from Lois, and he walks away.
Was it really a good thing the direction of this triangle was completely changed?! LOL! I don't know, but I'm going to ask my RPG buddy what he thinks of this idea. We have a good outline for our story already but I think this will fit into it nicely.
Maybe we can even have Sarah mugged and beat up in the end.

He never lands on the ground, does he? He talks to her from the air.
She's in a relationship. He won't do anything that would be an intrusion on her personally. What a guy. He takes all the hits.
I hope the movie tells a good story after we go through another origin on Krypton which we already know. I never watched Smallville after a few of the first season episodes so I really want to see good Lane/Kent interaction up there on that big screen. If I can believe in them I'll be happy with the story. Unless it is really bad!;p
So did the ff story you mentioned feature Jason and Clark in any way important to the plot?

Kate

I guess if the plot was meant to keep L&C apart the full five years I can see a relationship with Scardino being developed the way the Lex relationship was. The Lane/Kent partnership might bite the dust but going after the same stories and being forced to work together could have fit the dramedy concept. The booger would make an occasional appearance like Lex did. Whether he did something to open her eyes or the New Kryptonians arrive and open her eyes, it would get us through season three wouldn't it? I could have bought that if it was done right, and anything eliminating the argh would have been done right!

I like the Sarah idea. Have her tied up and put into an old leaky "rowboat" that is set adrift in the shipping lanes with a ship loaded with refrigerated cargo containers of chocolate and rocky road ice cream bearing down on her! Smash! Only Jimmy mourns.

Better yet the phoenix kidnaps Lois and he and the booger have a gun battle and Sarah is hit in the crossfire! Thud! Only Jimmy mourns.


Kate
all finished thinking for today...

Not really. Jason was just a tool of conflict between them. Lois was able to hold onto her anger for a lifetime in that story before letting it go. One of her many talents in all LnC universes.
M/O
I know. Complain, complain, complain! That's all I ever do!
I don't know if it's an advantage or a disadvantage to have come into this fandom at such a recent time. As others have pointed out in the RPG chat, our opinions and the general way we look at fanfiction is bound to be different because we didn't spend the last fourteen years waiting for the next story to be written and posted in the forums. We didn't see the archive grow story by story. We got here within the last three or four years and found this great cornucopia of an archive filled with thousands of stories we can pick and choose from to read. We don't have favorite authors we followed over the years, we don't have loyalties to soften or influence our feedback comments. So we say what we really think and we get in trouble for it. We see the similarities in the plots, we see the same plots used over and over, we see the 'Staples' of LnC FF and we comment on them and we're being mean and we're making fun of the stories.
Ha! I'm willing to bet we're getting ripped apart a lot worse than we give out!

The Metropolis Star:

"BOOGER BLASTS BUSYBODY'S BOOK,
BUT PHOENIX FIRES FATAL SHOT!"

Sarah Longley, a student at Metropolis University and one of the key witnesses in the upcoming Perot mother and daughter criminal trials, was shot and killed today by Lex Luthor, back from the dead, in a gun fight with a Federal agent whose identity is being withheld by his superiors, but whom sources say was Agent Dan "Please call me Daniel" Scardino. The two men were fighting over the bound and gagged Daily Planet reporter, Lois Lane, when Miss Longley tried to stop the gun fire by quoting from her psychology text books. The Federal agent, sometimes called the car booger, accidentally, so he claims,blasted one of her books from her hands, but it was a bullet from the zombie Luthor's gun which actually killed
(continued on page 29)

What? You couldn't think of an F word that means shot?! LOLOL!
She tried to stop the gunfire by quoting from her text books! LOL!

Kate, who almost misspelled my own name just now..

Like I said we can go to email at any time, but I'd still be lurking here anyway so why not use the facilities for what they are intended? Until told to stop anyway. (Listening for approaching footsteps.)

I come from a Star Trek background where the long time, die hard fans go back almost fifty years, Star Wars thirty years. My own dad is one of the harshest critics of the new fans and TPTB who are taking control of the Trek universe and trying to move it forward. I have my opinions but I don't think, lately, I've been as mean and nasty as he and his brother and my brothers can be about Star Trek and Star Wars. Or as harsh and brutal as Teri Hatcher about L&C, for that matter. I know I probably was in my early posts but you've been pointing out what makes Lois and Clark enduring and endearing characters to fans so I try to be more a reviewer when I read the stories than a feedback writer. I'm learning, I hope. I know I really enjoy seeing the humor along with the drama in the series and speculating is just that. It isn't canon. It's just looking at the subject from a skewed perspective. Canon will never change no matter what speculation points out or humor uncovers.

Kate, co-inventor of the car booger

None of us could. I was in the RPG chat room losing at a trivia game when I read your post and wrote my reply. I showed it to the gamers and they started making funny suggestions and I changed the post about four times, and I was going to change shot to bullet and have all B and F words but we decided since it was the Star, they wouldn't be able to sustain the creativity!
Quoting from her books worked the first time. She got Lois to start dating Scardino.

I didn't mind the humor in the show either but I know some fans didn't like the "joke's on Lois" aspect of the series. I never saw it until I was older. By then I didn't care because I'd discovered the chemistry between the stars that had my dad watching the show to the end, even though some of the episodes made him laugh or just throw his hands up in disbelief. "Oh, that can't happen!" he'd say-- but he kept watching! He was a fan and comic collector since he was a boy but his complaints about TNAOS were very few and far between so when he did complain about something I listened. Superman's blindness was one he just scoffed at and chuckled all the way through the episode. I've been interested to discover what other fans think of it, too.

BTW, after we in the RPG finished writing the Metropolis Star's banner headlines in that other post, I explained how Scardino came to be called the car booger. The guys told me that car boogers in real life are those masses of ice and snow that gather behind your car tires when you drive through slush or salted/sanded snow. LOL! So the next time you kick one of those things off your car, you're kicking Scardino! LOL!

You're not going to give me a break are you? I'm just going to have to let the outer office think I'm losing my mind! LOL!
I can't wait for the car boogers to start forming. I can work out my frustrations by stomping HIM into the ground or running over him!
The joke's on Lois aspect? I don't know what you mean by that.
Oh wow, your dad and my dad ought to get together. If there is one thing mine will defend it's his fandoms! Superman and Star Trek TOS especially, Batman almost as much, Dr. Who, right behind Batman. I don't know where he got if but he has a T shirt with images of all the doctors on it, but only the hairstyles and suits and neckwear. Even so you can tell which doctor each
one is. Each had a very distinctive hairstyle, even the very short ones were distinguishable by color.
Anyhooo, I think they would get along very well- probably arguing over Margot Kidder mostly!
But you know what? I've been thinking about it and in a way the casting of MK as Lois means even though she wasn't a knock-out on a par with the reigning sex symbols of her day either real life or in the movie-verse, Clark/Superman would have gone for her. So what if she was ordinary looking- like 90 percent of us woman walking the Earth, he would have seen the qualities he wanted in her and gone for her. Unlike my dad who would have preferred seeing whoever was the reigning pinup queen of the day working at that newspaper. If he was responsible for writing Superman the fanboys would get the Superman and Wonder Woman hook up they dream about!

Kate, eager to kick car boogers- where is that storm headed now?

Is there more to the article? I'd like to see what was continued on the inside page.

Kate

It was supposed to say (continued on page 29, fourth column, below the fold)
but I didn't feel like typing all that.

We gave it the Aargh treatment, of course, we silly Star Wars fans who can't be serious about anything. We tried to make it look like a newspaper article, but evening out the print like they do (left and right justifying) isn't translating here at all.

The Metropolis Star:

"BOOGER BLASTS BUSYBODY'S BOOK,
BUT PHOENIX FIRES FATAL SHOT!"

Sarah Longley, a student at Metropolis University
and one of the key witnesses in the upcoming Perot
mother and daughter criminal trials, was shot and
killed today by Lex Luthor, back from the dead, in
a gun fight with a Federal agent whose identity is
being withheld by his superiors, but whom sources
say was Agent Dan "Please call me Daniel" Scardino.
The two men were fighting over the bound and
gagged Daily Planet reporter, Lois Lane, when
Longley tried to stop the gun fire by quoting
from her psychology text books. The federal agent,
sometimes called the car booger, accidentally so he
claims, blasted one of her books from her hands, but
it was a bullet from the zombie Luthor's gun which
actually killed the college student, thus ending
a promising young life.

Luthor, the undead former billionaire, claimed
Longley recklessly walked into his line of fire to
retrieve her damaged text book, so it was all the
officially unidentified agent’s fault. “I don’t kill,”
Luthor said primly, “I have people for that.”
When questioned about that extraordinary statement,
Luthor narrowed his eyes and s a i d, “W h a t
extraordinary statement?”

According to the unidentified federal agent, said to
be Agent Dan Scardino, he was attempting to rescue
his close friend, the bound and gagged reporter for
the Daily Planet, Lois Lane, whom he claimed the
automaton Luthor kidnapped from her home earlier
today, when Luthor cried, “You will never take my
beloved fiancee from me!” and pulled a gun from his
pocket and began to fire. The unidentified agent claims
he had no choice but to return fire to defend himself.
It was shortly after the first shots were exchanged
that the foolishly brave Longley rushed onto the
scene and futilely tried to stop the violence with
just her voice and her psychology text books.
Startled by her sudden appearance, maybe/maybe not
Scardino sent a wild shot into her text book "totally by
accident." It was then the newly poor Luthor fired the
fatal bullet, he said, and killed the little girl.

When asked why he kidnapped the reporter from the
Daily Planet, Lois Lane, who really was once his
fiancee, but who, as you may recall, abandoned him
at the altar, the newly risen Luthor insisted he did not
kidnap her. She was already bound and gagged by two
men, one called “Victor,” and both of whom fled at the
sight of him, when he arrived at her apartment to ask
if they might still have a future together. He merely
removed her from a dangerous situation. She agreed to
accompany him to his basement apartment near the
docks where "we would transfer our souls into new and
perfect bodies and start a new life together."

When this reporter wondered why he wanted to make
the Daily Planet reporter, Lois Lane, into a zombie, too,
the death defying former Man of the Year flew into a rage
and tried to attack this reporter with one of his victim’s
dropped text books. He was led away screaming, “I am not
a zombie! Don’t let (The Metropolis Star) print I am a zombie!
I have a hidden bank account worth hundreds of millions!
I will sue! I have an image to protect! I am a gentleman,
not a zombie!”
He is unavailable for further, lucid, comment.

The unidentified agent was also taken into custody for
further questioning and is unavailable for further comment.

Lois Lane, the reporter for the Daily Planet, was taken to
the nearest hospital by Superman, who lifted her by one
bound arm and carried her off like a sack of potatoes.
She is unavailable for comment.
Superman merely threw his hands into the air when asked
for a comment.

(Linda King and staff photographer )

A lot of shows still do it. At the end, as a tension breaker after a serious or intense episode they have that closing scene where the characters share a laugh. Some fans didn't like that the closing laugh was usually on Lois.



Looks like that pairing will happen in the comics anyway.

That was an interesting take on Margot Kidder and Lois Lane in general. She's drawn as gravity defying as Wonder Woman in the comics and dressed like Erin Brockovich. I'm curious to see the fanboy reaction to Amy Adams, who is a good actress but not one of those the gossip shows go after.

Yes, I agree our dads would get along fine. MK, apparently, had a reputation as eccentric when she was cast and that's probably what works against her(?) They were expecting a bad performance and don't see or want to accept she was actually good. Maybe not as beautiful as Hatcher, Durance, Bosworth and Adams, but she could act.
But that's their problem. My problem is I want to terrorize car boogers, too, but the storm stayed south of us.

I'm glad you guys don't take things so seriously!
You really ought to apply the Aargh treatment to more things. LOL! I'll bet it goes well with a lot of plots and stories.
I had a feeling Linda King would be a part of this. One of you must be a fan of hers because she was mentioned in the Argh.
He merely removed her from a dangerous situation. I don't blame the Prankster and Victor for fleeing at the sight of Lex. LOL!
P.S.- Dare I ask why Lois is unavailable for comment?! LOL!

I like that avatar you have now. Where did you get it? If you ever see the original Fivearms picture, no writing on it, I would love that for an avatar.

Kate

Well it did start out as a dramedy though it didn't strictly adhere to the format. I wouldn't have even thought of that. It wasn't like everyone was written seriously but her. Everyone else was laughed at too more than once throughout the run of the series. I don't see the significance since Lois was the character allowed to change the most and considering what happened to the people around her- the Whites separating, Jimmy nearly dying more than once, re-connecting with people she thought she had lost all possible connection with, among other things- it's no surprise she changed the most. By the end of the series we were seeing what Clark always saw in her. It didn't weaken her in any way, it calmed her if anything.
Again, many thanks to TH for being a professional throughout all of it and letting us- me see the growth despite her personal opinions.
Besides, I think Jimmy is more disliked and derided for his two depictions by both actors who played him than any other character.

My dad the oldest fanboy of them all, LOL!, will love Amy Adams as long as she doesn't play Lois like Cinderella. He said so.

Kate

Rumor has it she thinks she is an Italian housewife whose husband, a real booger, left her for her younger sister who lives in Chicago. Perry White is arranging for the paper to foot the expenses and send her to a private clinic. . .is it just me or did you get a feeling of deja vu just now?

I saw the avatar picture in the "Fan Art" forum when I was looking through old posts a little while back. I have one of those protective vinyl skins made for laptops with Superman on it on my laptop. He's the comic book Superman hovering above the buildings of Metropolis with the Daily Planet globe right below him. When I saw the avatar picture in Fan Art I immediately saw the similarities between the two images. The hair is almost exactly the same with that little hint of a curl over the right side of the forehead, and combed back loosely with the drawing's ear placement and size just like the picture of DC. The chin and jaw of both is very similar,too. While Cain is smiling and Superman is frowning (as usual)their eyes are very similar, too. Superman is more in profile. It took me a while to find the original picture-- at Zimbio-- because the picture is labeled "l.a. lakers vs. phoenix suns"-- nothing even close to "Dean Cain." I used Image Shack to upload it in avatar size.
I don't care if he isn't supposed to age, that picture is what TNAOS Superman looks like today, as far as I'm concerned. What a pair of gorgeous images, avatar and laptop skin.
Check your My Stuff email.
This is what the laptop skin looks like.
Small Laptop Skin


Found a better shot of the picture on the skin, scroll down a ways.
Laptop Skin Picture

When you put it that way, it would be a wonder if Lois didn't change. (I know losing a friend to cancer when I was 20 changed me, not enormously, but it gave me direction which I was sort of ignoring until then. What happens to those close to us affects us, too.)
I guess she did become less intense as time went on but she never lost her edge. And, yeah, she was a much calmer woman in season 4 and more likely to use her head instead of charging off to prove herself. She really had nothing to escape from anymore, nothing to prove to herself, but she still had grit.
Also it doesn't matter when the events leading up to Lois' murder trial happened, a few months before or years before, she was still being made to pay for it unfairly, but she knew she and her husband were going to get to the truth-- he just had to stop thinking like a superhero and like a married man and they would do some serious butt kicking. She also knew he had to make the decision himself. It always makes me laugh how calm she is in her prison cell waiting for Clark to get a clue.

All things lead back to the Argh, huh? LOL! It's inevitable. It IS series canon and no amount of fanfic can change it. (sighing quietly)


Thank you and Merry Christmas! As soon as I finish I'm going to see if I can get that picture to load for me! It's just the one I wanted.
I'll take your word about the images. I can see the hair similarity even though the skin picture is so small. The square jaw and chin a little, too. The shading on DC's face from the arena lights and reflections is just right to show his jawline.

Yes. Throughout the series it was her world that was changing, professionally, personally, privately. Everyone around her felt the impact of Superman on the world, and many of them felt the personal impact of Clark on the news staff. To expect her to stay the same after Lex, after becoming a target both as a reporter and as Superman's romantic interest- I can't call her a girlfriend, not in the way of the comics- and as a wife (accused of cheating, pronounced unfit for adoption) isn't giving her credit for being able to change. Staying young at heart is something I can do for the rest of my life, but staying the same as I was in my early 20s is not how I want to live the rest of my life. For one thing, I want to stay ahead of my son in maturity!
The series writers and quite a few fanfic writers have gotten that right. As long as it evens out or stays ahead of the ones who want to see Lois always as she was at the beginning of the series, I think reading (most) of those 3000 plus stories will be quite enjoyable.

Kate

I can see you were able to get your avatar. Great, huh? Superman past and present and just for us!
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, indeed!

True, you can't change series canon but I'm all for alternatives.
I like different takes that lead to the same outcomes, other ways of looking at what happened in any series, book or movie with unforgettable characters in a believable universe.
I would certainly hate for congress to take it all away from us. Dealing in bootleg fanfiction? Someone would do it and someone would buy it.

I'm still at it! I don't plan to stop yet. Some might frustrate me, some might get on my nerves, some might make me wonder why they were ever written, but that's no different from watching the series.
The wedding arc-- immense frustration
Mxysptlk, hypnotized Superman, Baron Sunday's magic is more powerful than Superman, and Superman tricked into the cage-- really got on my nerves
What was the point of the Nazis? And SOAD and VFTP? Why were they even written let alone filmed and aired? FTASV should have been the beginning and end of it.
JMO, JMO.

Love 'em. I come to this thread and the first thing I see is that smile, then those arms. Very nice.
There are a lot of good pictures out there of both Cain and Hatcher where you can see what the characters might look like now. I always liked the first and second season hairstyles that DC had- before they started 'gluing' his hair down, as he said in the DVD commentaries. There are a lot of pics of him now that remind me of the way he looked as Superman back then. He has remained very photogenic.
On the other hand the slideshow that AOL did on her birthday of Hatcher's changing fashions had some awful pictures of her Botox days. She has stayed photogenic too but some of the pictures they chose for the slideshow were awful. She did herself a great favor by deciding to not use it anymore. Believe me, you'll know them when you see them. If she goes back to it in the future, which she hasn't ruled out- well, if it makes her feel better about herself.....
Slideshow

I haven't heard anything about the latest bill recently. There doesn't seem to be any updates on it anyway.

Kate

I never really got that arc. Why was the son so obsessed with Lois? Aside from the 'all men will be falling in love with her from now on' rule the writers were following. (Apparently!) He just came out of the blue totally obsessed with her. And what is it with Luthors and sewers? TV, movies- Luthors end up in the sewers! LOL!
Yes, I've said before the Argh really frustrated me as a kid and honestly it still does. I still have no answer to 'Why are they doing that to her, Mom?!'
DTOSC, B&C&L&C- those two fit all three criteria for me. Mainly because I'm a Superman fan first and foremost and I hate when he is made helpless or inferior by anyone. I also hate that the writer of the second one clearly spelled out that Lois and Clark have absolutely no friends! None whatsoever! They are isolated in the world! Totally without outside-work contact!
Did I get my point across? LOL! They made friendships in past seasons- what happened to them?
As to DTOSC, I have nothing good to say about it.

Kate, enjoying my time off

Yes there are! Sometimes a pose or an attitude will come through in a picture and I'll see the character there and not the actor. And then, the flash or strobe on a camera can be a very unflattering thing now and then. Amateur or pro, sometimes the camera just gets the worst angle on a subject.

Maybe that's where the flushable internet connection came from. Leslie Luckabee is probably behind that innovation. Who knows how many of those connections were made by city workers and how many were made by super villains plotting world domination in the sewers?

LOL! I can't feel sorry for her. Who needs outside-of-work contacts with Clark living in your house?

LOL! Never even entered my mind when I wrote that.
Wouldn't the dampness down there have been detrimental to that expensive computer set-up they had down there? If they could afford that couldn't they have leased a little place somewhere above ground?
Maybe come up with a better plan away from the smell?
They were both- Lex and son I mean- expecting Lois to join them and love it after all.

I don't either for that! Lucky poor friendless woman.

Kate

It happens for me too sometimes but not often. I really can't get interested in the actors who play the characters I like in film. The performance counts for me. I can believe that's Lane and Kent on the screen with DC and TH and that's what matters to me.

Kate

The Metropolis Star, December 25th edition:
EXCLUSIVE!!!
SUPERMAN HAS FRIENDS!

Daily Planet Misses Deadline

For the first time in the history of the Daily Planet,
the Christmas Eve edition of the paper was five hours
late hitting the newsstands yesterday. Sources at the
paper, who insist on remaining anonymous, say the day
started out like any other until the middle of the day
when the skeleton staff on duty had their annual gift
exchange.
The little party was proceeding as usual, spiked punch,
rum balls, merlot laced artichoke dip, and “eggnog
that can wilt your hair and eyelashes,” when Santa
arrived with a bag of goodies for everyone. After a
rousing round of Christmas carols led by Santa’s two
young elf helpers, he began to hand out the gifts from
his bag. Everyone was pleased. The DP brass outdid
themselves this year, the sources say, matching gifts to
the recipients much closer than usual: Swiss chocolate
towers for the women and sports items for the men.
After the unwrapping, there was another round of
raucous caroling, then Santa bid the staff good-bye and
he and his helpers departed.
It was then that some of the staff began to play with the
soccer ball one of the young photographers had
received. A wild kick sent the ball rolling up against
the legs of one the staff’s senior reporters, a woman
some in the industry claim is the best investigative
reporter in the business.
Annoyed, she kicked the soccer ball out of the room.
It went straight through the door to the stairwell and
bounced down the stairs, careening off the walls and
bannisters and smashed the glass on a firebox. The
axe inside fell onto the floor with a loud clang, and
on the other side of the stairwell door a security guard
looked inside, picked up the axe and looked around,
puzzled. The ball continued to the lower floors, bounced
through a slowly closing overhead and rolled into the
printing area through the open doors of the staff entrance.
It came to a stop beneath the lowering forks of an old
Raymond forklift with a skid of barrels on a pallet. The
ball exploded like a gunshot when the pallet was lowered
onto it, causing the lift driver to jump off and run for
cover. He bumped into a co-worker who was taking a
bowl of Greek potato salad to the break room for the
printing staff’s Christmas dinner and sent the bowl and
a spoon flying out of his hands. The large spoon went
end over end, high into the air and came to rest between
the rollers at the top of the paper feeder. The rollers
screeched loudly and stopped moving. The computers
went to fail safe and locked the screens in case of data
loss and for the first time in the history of the Daily
Planet, the Christmas Eve issue hit the streets hours
late, well after dark; deliveries were still being made at
midnight.
Superman, who happened to be sitting atop the Daily
Planet building at the time, heard the commotion below
and dropped to the scene. He was able to extract the
spoon which was firmly wedged between the rollers of
the paper feeder and replaced the damaged parts at
super speed. Even so, it was several hours before the
computer system was once again online.
When asked why he wasn’t handcuffing the woman
who was responsible for the gaffe and hauling her off
to the nearest police station, Superman stated the Daily
Planet’s substitute editor considered the incident to be
an accident and the newspaper would not be pressing
charges.
When asked if the abundance of alcohol at the staff
party might have something to do with that, the Man of
Steel declined to comment. When pressed about the matter,
he excused himself saying he was planning to visit friends
for Christmas and he was late.
Late for what? the media representatives inquired.
“My flight,” Superman answered, preparing to leave.
This unusual statement caused an uproar and while the
media representatives present mobbed him for details on
the identity of his friends and where did they live, the staff
of the Daily Planet slipped away. This reporter followed
them to the front entrance of the building and asked for an
interview with the guilty party. This reporter was refused
entrance and the newspaper refused to issue anymore
comments on the incident.
As Superman took to the air with a whirl of his cape, he
hesitated as several questions were shouted at him. He
turned to look at the questioners and wished us all ‘Happy
Holidays’ and then he flew away.

(Linda King)

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

Well, Lex was but that's why the son episodes made no sense. Where did Junior, I don't remember his name and don't care to look it up, get the idea Lois would have anything to do with him?
And I hate that he planted so many bugs that Clark couldn't detect even when they were literally right in front of him. I think the writer was a huge fan of Phantom of the Opera and the premise sounded better than it was.
Oh well. It's there and there is nothing I can do about it, except ignore it.

Well, my niece and I are going to check Santa's progress one more time and then she's going to bed. He was over Ohio the last time we looked!
Have a great time tomorrow and try to give more than you get.

So funny, but very understated humor for you guys! I guess you just can't Argh Christmas.
Best wishes to all of you and thanks for so many laughs. That must be a fun RPG.

Kate

We did that too. Amazing how kids in this day and age can still believe. We're doing something right.

Kate, enjoying the aftermath

I rewatched the DVD extras. I wondered why they went to the slicked down hair and it was because of the cape. Not that I blame them. If you've ever been in a convertible and your hair isn't secure the ends can whip your skin and sting like anything. (I was going to use the H word but the naughty language filter said no.) I don't even want to know what a 'bazooka' air blower feels like.
The look of the cape, 'capeage,' was why they changed the look of the man. I read somewhere it was because of Dean Cain cutting his hair for a movie role. Maybe so, but making the cape look good was also becoming important.
I know what you mean that Superman looked different with more volume to his hair.

Yes, capeage, capage?
I think it was Randall Zisk who said they had people behind the scenes with sticks making the cape look good. I have complimented TH's professionalism, and I have to say the same about DC's for different reasons. Hanging by uncomfortable wires hours at a time and then having people with sticks beneath you concerned about the cape flowing right in the breeze!
Why am I laughing? LOL! Where did they have to poke those sticks?

Kate, oh my!

LOL! I guess it would depend on what part of the cape needs to look better. Left, right, center.
Do you need another list of stories to read? You haven't said anything about the last one. LOL!

Considering they all had the 'Staples' featured prominently in them- two or three in the same story, I didn't think I needed to.
If done right, the Staples are a part of the story. If the writer doesn't dwell on them too long, over explain or make them too important, there is nothing to take your attention away from the story. m/o
Second Thoughts went around in too many circles but held together as a story worth reading in spite of that. Wounded Angels was good too but the entire no sex just sleeping in the same bed was dragged on too long. JMO. Who in real life wants a purely platonic relationship with someone they love but apparently have no sexual attraction to? That's not a relationship between potential lovers, that's a close friendship between asexual people. JMO.

Kate

Are you going to put either of these in the fanfic section with the Car Booger Argh?
No snow here yet, BTW. Darn!

Kate

I can agree with that, but when the situation goes on for a long time, including after marriage, it becomes comedic. You either stop reading or, in my case, continue by skipping over that part and following the rest of the plot. Sometimes the story is good enough to overlook what is, face it, very strange behavior. It might make sense to others but not to me.
M/O I'm not talking about a friendship between a man and a woman. (I'm friends with male teachers and former classmates going back to grade school.) I mean this weird situation that seems to be exclusive to Lois and Clark fanfic. Have you ever seen this kind of relationship anywhere else in fiction?

No. I would have to write explanations and really, when you have to explain a joke, doesn't it kill the humor? Does for me.

We have snow but the streets are clear, no chance of boogers forming anytime soon.

I do that too but the story has to be really good to make me want to know what happens to a characterization I don't like. If I can't believe the character it's hard to stay interested in what happens to them. It's why I'm apprehensive about the new comics. I haven't read them even though my dad and brothers have. I'll wait for the TPB or read my dad's when the arc is complete and make up my mind after the story is there. I want to like them because the comic books have been a part of my life as long as I can remember.
I know what they think and I know what you said and what I've read in Superman specific forums but I have to make up my own mind.
m/o topic: Off hand, no, but it's series canon that they have the self control and determination to wait. It's also series canon that if they don't Lois dies. But fanfic is not series canon and anything can happen if you chose to break the chain of events in canon to go in another direction. Being consistent with the characters doesn't have to go that far it just has to be believable.
IMHO.

Kate

When an author does, it can be good. This is another of my favorite stories. It has a still naive representation of Clark, who doesn't really understand women as lovers, but you have to expect that if you really want to enjoy LnC fiction. It comes with the deal. When the story is good, you can overlook it, like this one:
Into Each Life

I'll complain like the dickens, but if a story is good, I'll give it credit.

I see where crybaby Clark can become annoying.
There was a balance here that was well done. Both L&C had a lot of growing to do, a lot of adjustments to make, a lot of accepting to do. Hopefully, they'll find confidence in their relationship before the child is born, otherwise I see a lot of strife between them as they adjust to the little one demanding their time.
The happy ending implies this but they have so many issues!
Still, I liked the story for the balance. They were presented as equals who solved their dilemma together.

Kate

You're absolutely right. I've always liked the story even though I am no fan of crybaby Clark, but I was able to look past that behavior and appreciate the story. Talented author, yes. She did indeed show both characters were afraid for different reason and they worked it out together. Lois didn't do all the thinking and mending while Clark stood by ready to run and on the verge of tears.
You'd think I'd be used to that after years of Luke Skywalker fanfiction! This is another guy too many authors see as a backward, virgin farmboy who cries and whines a lot, though that has been changing little by little in recent years as authors come to realize that war changes a man. The boy who goes off to fight isn't going to come back the way he left, in fiction or in real life.

Interesting. Clark traveled the world seeing and meeting people of many cultures, most probably saving lives along the way, seeing who knows what inhumanity along the way, too. Some authors acknowledge this, but still write him as a naive country boy fresh off the farm. m/o
Why does the virginal little boy persona appeal to authors writing about these two very powerful characters, Skywalker and Superman? From what you've read does this cross the gender line of the authors?
I see the beginnings of a fun subject for a paper here.

Kate

In the same story! Virtually Destroyed, I think, is all there is to say.
(Check your email.)

I've enjoyed reading your postings. I hope you continue to post.

I have to echo bellekettle2's post -- I've very much enjoyed reading your posts/discussions.

You have inspired me go back and re-read some stories I hadn't even thought about in a while (sorry, I gave up on reading some certain fanfics/writers a long time ago). And you've pointed me to some new stories.

Thanks for a new perspective!

Please, let the discussion continue

Deb

I've been reading the discussion off and on, too, but I'm afraid I don't have anything to add to it as I'm not really a fic reader, except for the occasional short funny fic. But I agree, you should continue posting. There are obviously people reading it if the thread has over 5000 views.

And gee, thanks a lot Deb. Your sig file has had me going around singing Soft Kitty ever since I read your post. LOL

Sorry about that! But thanks, it was a reminder that I needed to change my sig...

LOL, Deb. Still BBT, but I can't sing this one, darn it

lol

A Kathy Brown story I missed! Thank you.

She also wrote one of the funniest stories ever.
Teatotaled
It's just plain fun.

Another one I missed!

This was maybe the fourth or fifth story I read. I had a varied introduction using the random selection button.

Kate

And it didn't matter that they remained good little boys and girls, soul mates to the end. This was an early story for me, too. I read it before I encountered the ones about Lois' unusual deductive abilities. (She can spot Clark's virginity but she can't spot his superpowers until after he tells her. JMO, but I still think it should be the other way around, if it has to be at all.)

P.S.: I was wondering when you would feel comfortable writing in this thread again. Took me a while.

[quoteLois' unusual deductive abilities.quote]

I keep thinking, are we having fun yet?
If it has to be at all? You have to admit though, it is an interesting possibility for someone to be able to do that. m/o Breaking padlocks, locked doors that suddenly open, chains with weak links, who notices those things when they happen?
Awkwardness, hesitancy, over eagerness, too explorative. Who knew that meant virginity?

Kate

It's living vicariously through the characters, IMO. They can do what we want to do but can't. I play in an RPG, after all, but if I could write beginnings, middles and ends, I'd probably write the same way, but more likely in the other direction. I like Superman/Clark. I'd be easier on him.

At least when you read enough to get an idea what to expect, the reading gets easier. I was wondering how you knew there were so many crybaby Clarks if they got on your nerves so much but they become less of an issue as you read more and get used to them. If you're expecting certain behavior going in when you get to it you can ignore it- and if it doesn't happen then it's a pleasant surprise. m/o
I finally had an email exchange with your writer friend and he told me about his early days- late 90s- writing fic for Earth 2 and how no one knew what ships were yet and how important they would become to fans. So when people became fans of the show when it was re-aired on Sci Fi (Sy Fy now) after 2000, they read the available fanfic and were disappointed to find no stories dealing with the two ships in the series. In other words each new wave of fans expects something different from the fanfic.
I wish some of those old fanfic sites were still in existence. He said they were all or mostly, college students using the computers there to write and make their websites and all the URLs ended with .edu

Kate

Yes, it does. I wish I could keep a list of what I've read so far but 3000+ makes for a pretty long list. Even saving links to favorites gets too long after a while.
M/O Robert was telling me about an email exchange he had about someone calling herself a 'canonite.' This is a writer who sticks strictly to canon when writing a story. Only what is mentioned in series canon is allowed in her stories and nothing else. There are also readers out there who are strictly canon fans. They won't read anything that deviates from series canon. Apparently he'd written an Earth2 story that a woman fan liked a lot-- until he wrote about one of the characters having brothers and sister back home on the stations. Then she had to stop reading because a family for this character was never mentioned in the series, so as far as she was concerned they couldn't exist.
I may be over-opinionated and a complainer, but I'm pretty darn sure I'm not that extreme!

I suppose that makes sense to some but isn't fanfic a way to expand upon or tell additional stories on a subject? To fill in some of the blanks or add different interpretations to events that happened on the show/book/movie? Why would anyone restrict themselves that way? So Claude for example would never be anything but a name mentioned in passing in one of that writer's stories? Or since Cat Grant was never shown leaving the show, in that writer's stories she would still there somewhere in the background? I guess she can be mentioned now and then because Lois does when she's talking to Lex at his penthouse and missing her former co-workers. How do you introduce new characters if they never existed on the series?
There is something there I clearly don't understand.

Kate

I don't really get it either.
In the Earth2 series most of the secondary characters had no first names. They were called by their last names. Many writers gave them first names just to be calling them something besides Denner, Mazatl, Cameron, Magus or Walman. According to the canon only style of writing, you can't even do that.
So where do you go with LnC with its unresolved ending? To a canonite a huge majority of the 3000+ don't exist at all. Or shouldn't, anyway.
Can you imagine thesame bad guys coming back time after time. Even I could get tired of Tempus and the Prankster. I almost am, as it is.

So it was you who put the Prankster and Victor into that Metropolis Star article about Sarah biting the dust. Actually that was the first time anyone wrote a story for me on a subject i chose. I have it printed out and hanging beside the computer at home.
I haven't read a lot of Tempus stories yet because, though I do like the character, by the time he was on the show the third time his signature remarks and mannerisms were either getting old or suffering from writing that didn't match up to how funny he could be.

Kate

The last appearance also brought Alt-Clark back and I'm not a fan of his at all. In fanfic, I mean. I liked him in the series but that near kiss made him a fic character I don't like. He's a clean-slate Clark and in some of the fanfic he's too perfect or too troubled, yet presented in a way that makes him better than poor series Clark. In one, though, he's downright scary with the way he manipulates Alt-Lois, found in the Congo with partial amnesia, into a relationship with him. I kept thinking, Wait a minute! When Lex did it on the series he was sleaze, but when A-C does it in this story it's romantic?

I don't like him from what I've read so far. He's too obsessed with Lois Lane! I get the impression from the way he's written that finding her and missing her and just thinking about her are all he ever does or thinks about. Read any story (I've read five and there are a lot of them) and he has no life apart from a Superman rescue now and then. Even when working on a story his spare time is spent thinking about poor lost Lois Lane- either one. He can daydream about both at the same time and it can be annoying. That kind of obsession is troubling and he keeps doing it even after he finds her. It's like the song- every breath you take, every move you make I'll be watching you. And he does! Yet somehow Lois accepts this and falls for him, no matter how forcefully he pushes himself into her life. He won't let her say no.
I guess because of Lex in canon, as you mentioned, Lois is accepted as being easy to manipulate, but it was done subtly and in a way that she thought she was making the choices. Lex wasn't hanging around her every spare minute he had. He laid the trap, threw in the bait and she walked in.
Alt Clark is just all over her from the moment he finds her.He doesn't even give her the illusion of free will that Lex did, he hounds her until she accepts him as a part of her life from now on. And she falls in love with him and they live happily ever after.
I don't see how he can be presented as better than series Clark when he's such a stalker.

Kate (getting forgetful )

There are quite a few stories about him. In some he is presented as the Clark canon-Clark should be or might have been or could be. Nonlunkhead, I guess is the term.
In this case, I guess I'm a form of canonite. I'm a series Clark fan and I'll stand up for him. LOL!

Okay. In the series Alt Clark was fine but why isn't Wells concerned about Utopia over there in his timeline? He can easily go back and change what Tempus did and give Clark his anonymity back. Am I wasting my time looking for a story that gives an explanation why this never happens? The series left us with the clear impression the fate of that Lois will be learned. Those stories are what have been written with but mostly without Wells helping, but so far nothing about why Wells hasn't fixed the Tempus tampering.
Are L&C in that universe really supposed to live in a fish bowl all their lives? Why all the fixing and prevention in one timeline but not in the other?

Kate

I never thought about that. H.G. was so quick to put things right in the series-- anything Tempus did could be fixed. Maybe he was waiting to figure out how to find and save that Lois first? That was the biggest fix he had to make if his need to insure Utopia came to be there, too. No such thing without her.
Story idea, umpteenth and one.

As extreme as Tempus went, almost becoming president, it was still able to be set right. I like that. Wouldn't that give Alt Clark the ability to choose where the fix originates? At Lois' safe return from her assignment or at the accident that killed the Kents? Would he choose to go back to the relationship with Lana? Or save his parents, too?
Wow. One little idea and so many possibilities!

Kate

I think as long as it assured Utopia some day, Wells would go for whatever Alt-Clark chose. That's why I think the female Wells would make such a great nemesis for Tempus.(She wants Utopia more than male Wells.) He'd be so sorry he found her! Too bad she would eventually have to return to the exact moment in W13 when she sacrificed herself.
Eventually.

That's assuming he was going to give Alt Clark the option to get his anonymity back if he wanted it. In the stories I've read two do indicate Tempus was responsible for the Kents dying but just finding Lois means Utopia assured and Wells leaves things like that: L&C in that very public fish bowl.
Why wouldn't Alt Clark choose to have a private life if he knows his time line can be 'fixed?' I don't see why he wouldn't choose to save his parents too.

Male and female Wells meeting one another would be a hoot too!

Kate

Canon, Kate, canon for canonites. It was never resolved that way on the series, so it's up for grabs. The hint was that Lois could be found, not that it would lead to repairing the damage. On the other hand, the damage was always repaired for the main time line, so there is no reason to think it would NOT be for Alt-Clark, too. He got a glimpse of having his parents around in his adulthood, a good hard look at having no private life, and understanding that his descendents play a large role in the future of Earth and dooming them to live in that fish bowl from birth can't be good for them-- so, yeah, why would he not opt for a total fix? In fact I believe there is a story, possibly more than one, where he and Lois live on the run to try to give their children a private life.
When you first brought up the subject of why was it assumed that time line was never fixed I remembered the story which I either read, a long time ago, or someone told me about it.
Wells, I'm sure would explain this to A-C.

That sounds really interesting. Was the press after them? I imagine superbabies would make big news. The first video or pictures of one of their kids doing something super would be worth a lot of money. Lex and LNN would chase them anywhere. He wouldn't have the tie to Lois he has in the series but getting his hands on one of the super kids might occur to him.
With so much money to be made exploiting the children and Clark not having ties to Smallville anymore the town wouldn't be likely to rally around to provide sanctuary like they did in your friend's story. Poor children.
Just because we don't see it in the series doesn't mean Wells didn't fix the timeline.

Kate, knowing I sound like a Harry Potter fan now

Occur to Lex? Surely not him!

I've been looking for that story but no luck yet. Someone in the RPG must have told me about it. I can usually remember a word from the title of most stories I read and find them later, but not this one.

I don't think the debate over Harry Potter will ever end. I still see denials over whether Dumbledore is really gay or not, did the Slytherins really come back to fight, Andromeda doesn't count as an example of a 'good' Slytherin, etc., etc. No matter what Rowling says is true, if it isn't written on the page, it doesn't count-- still, after all this time there are those who won't accept what is not on the page. Or in this case, in a series episode. We're so picky, we fans.

So anyway, being over 1000 stories in, in my estimation, I haven't seen a story where the alt time line is set right. Just many different ways of getting Lois back, and then 'the end.'
For two people who can't write worth a darn we're pretty full of ideas, aren't we? LOL!

Good morning!

Yes, Lex, and don't call me Shirley.

For me it's actually fun to see how stubborn people can be. If it isn't on the page, no matter what Rowling says it isn't so. Yet the evidence that Andromeda is the good Slytherin
example they wanted to see is on the page but they won't accept it! The fans want it both ways and apparently always will. Potter fans that is.
So you could apply the argument here too but I didn't bring it up for that. It just occurred to me after reading a couple of stories and I wrote it down.
I thought it would be heart wrenching for Alt Clark to make that choice after all he's been through but he wouldn't remember it and he would get his parents back in the end.

Kate

Yes, well I can be stubborn too. I want Clark to be stronger. He doesn't have to be heroic as Clark, just not so teary eyed and sad if Lois gets mad at him. Hasn't anyone ever been mad at him before? It's canon that he's had girlfriends before and I can't imagine two people never getting mad at each other when in a relationship of any kind. If the Lana in the series time line was anything like the Alt-Lana he ought to be an expert at handling angry females. You don't forget everything you ever knew when you fall in love.
Well obviously Clark does. My turn to sigh heavily.

You said it before. He needs to get angry back but what are the chances of that ever happening in fanfic? Rare. You said there are stories out there where he does but they seem to be very few and very far between.
We're doomed to be complainers but with the downright mean ways Lois treats him in some of the stories, he needs us to stand up for him! LOL! Some authors have given us a purpose in life. Clark Defenders. CK Defense League.

Kate, don't you tug on Superman's cape when we're around

LOL!

The FCDL-- Fiction Clark Defense League
FCDD-- Fiction Clark Defense Duo
CDU-- Clark Defenders Unlimited -- that sounds more worldly

Good idea! We can give him advice, too. Defense and advice-- two things fiction Clark definitely needs.

Divinity's End - Bev's advice: get married, have girlfriends, anything but hang around the farm in loneliness. None of it will last and you'll have experienced life waiting for what's her name to come to her senses.
Too Soon For Love - Bev's advice: get married, have girlfriends, anything but hang around the farm in loneliness. None of it will last and you'll have experienced life, which is more than I can say for her.
Faux Pas - Bev's advice: have a romance with Linda King, marry her if you want. It won't last, it won't lead to Utopia, but believe me you'll want your first experience to be with a woman who actually likes sex. She'll have the experience to make it good for both of you and chances are it won't even enter her mind to ask you if you were a virgin because she would have been enjoying herself and not wondering why the heck you were touching her like that, or like that, or like THAT! Also, Linda's attracted to you and she knows exactly why. She isn't arguing with herself wondering why she's having amorous thoughts about you. (He looked great in just that towel around his waist. Oh my god! Lois, why are you thinking that? For example.) In the long run you'll end up with Lois but you'll have the experience to keep her from thinking of Claude on your wedding night.

added:
P.S. He does get mad at her in the story my friend is writing.

Yes, why didn't he get married in either story? Lois wasn't interested, it wouldn't have hurt anything! The child would have had a real family and a mother figure. So much wasted time. m/o

Quote:

Linda's attracted to you and she knows exactly why. She isn't arguing with herself wondering why she's having amorous thoughts about you.

Shouldn't that be another fanfic staple? Lois must always question why she is attracted to Clark. Why doesn't she know? Who's the virgin here? At least Clark knows why he's attracted to Lois.


Kate, who likes Clark Defenders Unlimited

CDU it is!


I'm not sure where that comes from. By the end of season 1, Lois knew her feelings for Clark were romantic,IMO. Before that he wasn't even on her radar until her wedding day.

Kate's advice in those stories would be similar. (I like this! We get to do a Clark-ism: we get to refer to ourselves in the third person!)
Wells didn't show up to protect Utopia so both were free to have a romance with others, so you were right pointing that out before. One child seems to be all it takes, but with the daughter's mom issues, she obviously has Lois' temper and ability to hold a grudge, she will make one interesting super hero!
Yelling at repeat offenders? Mad Dog Superwoman!
Plus, no Lois to help raise and nurture the child means no Tempus in the future, or one who isn't so dissatisfied with Utopia.
Doesn't this make him a possible descendent of L&C? To be so directly affected by this change?

Kate, member of CDU

Whoa! Maybe in those two universes it could be possible. No Tempus was the omission I mentioned ( but you spotted no New Kryptonians, too.)
I suppose the absence of Lois in the raising of both of those children could cause less perfect but still viable Utopian futures where Tempus is changed, too. He has no super powers so, as a descendant, he would have to come from a time after evolution has changed Kryptonian physiology to react like human physiology to yellow sunlight-- that is to not manifest super powers when exposed to yellow sunlight.
The fastest evolutionary change in humans took place over 2700 years, or more than 100 generations, when the Tibetans adapted to living in the Himalayas, far above sea level. (The RPG guys told me that. They just know things like that. Makes me look smart to quote them! )
He would have to be from a very far future if he could be a descendant.

Oh bring her on! She sounds like fun. Think of all the things she would be throwing into outer space. "Get that thing out of my way!" Whoosh! Someone's gun or video camera heads for the stars. (I'm thinking of Lois grabbing the cigarette out of the man's mouth in the Daily Planet elevator. Like mother, like daughter.)

I figured the New Ks showing up would force Lois to deal, in some way with what would by then be a year old child, but that's too easy a deal for her. In one she might have been affected by the circumstances, but in the other she was too self centered to care. The Kents would have kept each child and cared for them while Clark was gone.
Tempus would have made a difference in the outcome for the Lois who was the mother of Jon, but the Lois who was the mother of Lara would have become angry and more distant. She was much more damaged woman than the other Lois.

Well, you lost me at evolution (!) but Tempus could be changed just as much by the repercussions of Lois' nonparticipation as anyone. Still, I like the idea of him not knowing he is a descendant until he succeeds in destroying Lane and Kent. As one or the other lays dying, Wells comes rushing forth to tell Tempus the truth just before he fades from existence...... Definitely can see that. LOL! He wouldn't mind, he loves irony, right?

Kate

He would be staggered! "What's happening to me! Why am I fading away?"
He doesn't have what Wells has, does he, to know where or when a time line needs to be fixed? He has a way to travel through time and all he cares about is ending Utopia by destroying Lane and Kent by any means. It would be ironic, wouldn't it? That he can't exist without it? If Utopia goes, he does, too? The moment he changes the outcome and Utopia is no more, he disappears, never to enjoy the dystopia or whatever that he brings about.

Perfectly ironic for him. I wonder when it will occur to him that first H.G. has to be dealt with in order to make a permanent change? Going after Lane and Kent is never going to work until Wells is no longer able to fix things.
Do I really need to say Duh?

Kate

LOL! But that would take up too much time. He'd have to go to every alternate time line and find the Wells there and either try to outsmart him, and we know how that always turns out, or try to kill him in way that he stays dead-- because..... Wells would get wind of it and start fixing things again-- for himself this time! Think of the huge loop that would create! Just like now for LnC. One destroying, one right behind him fixing, fixing, fixing. If you're one of those who think of time as having a fabric of some kind, in no time at all they
would have shredded it to bits and then where would we be?! LOL!
Kidding aside, he would have to find a way to stop Wells from interfering in another way. He needs to get Wells on his side, or find at least one Wells he can get to agree with him. There are a couple of little fics I've read where they are working together but there is no background as to why that came about.
You're right, though. He'll never make a permanent change with Wells there to fix it. Anyway, I think for him the most fun is in going after LnC because he can sneak up and they don't see it coming. Wells has his myriad little devices to warn him.
I like how Tempus diverts their purposes but can't make his own that work better. For all his brains, I guess he's just not technically inclined.

He does have fun while he's executing his plans!
He's a product of Utopia though. He thinks he knows how to be a bad guy but having the tendency and having the ability to back it up isn't quite there. As it is often pointed out, book learning and actual experience are two different things. He's all book learning so far and he's not really learning from experience.
In the universe he's literally out of time, trying to be a bad guy in an era where it takes more than neat little devices and a plan to make a time altering difference.

Kate, IMO as always

I never thought of that!
Well, sure. The same thing happened to Al Capone. He tried to conduct business as usual and was puzzled when it didn't work that way anymore and he was only forty-fifty years out of his time. he would have adapted his style if he'd lived free longer, but then he knew how to be a bad guy, didn't he? M/O
I remember the RPG guys saying his attempt to kill Clark as a baby shouldn't have worked because the baby was newly arrived on Earth and exposed to yellow sunlight for only a short time. The kryptonite shouldn't have affected him the way it did because he and it were still compatible. They had just arrived from the same planet and he hadn't manifested superpowers yet. His body hadn't begun to change from the exposure to the yellow sun.
His home planet shouldn't have been toxic to him yet. His tiny self was still fully red sunlight Kryptonian. Unlike the comics and the movies, he doesn't become super immediately or, even as a baby he could have levitated away from what was hurting him.

Survival instinct. And that would explain why that huge piece of kryptonite sat under the tree throughout the childhood of a boy whose father was close friends of the man who lived in the house near the tree, and it never affected him.
(LOL! Can you tell my kids and I read The House That Jack Built recently? I almost wrote that in cadence too!)
We visited my dad's friends a lot and they visited us and we children played together, running around our yards and exploring each other's neighborhoods.
Even without kids to play with Clark would have explored the yard while the men or the grownups talked. There was plenty of time to notice if he got sick whenever he went near a particular area or thing.
So........when Tempus learns to kill by getting his hands dirty he becomes a more dangerous threat? He seems to find that distasteful! Coercing people to kill themselves is his style. Luckily!
So........it wasn't the Kryptonite killing baby Kal El? It was, say, the possibility of him not being found by anyone or by the wrong someones?

Kate, remembering that alternate scene from The Kansas Connection

I spent some time in the RPG chat room yesterday and discovered what we're experiencing is what Alfred Hitchcock called "icebox moments." He meant it for movies but it can apply to reading or TV shows, too. He said it was that moment after a movie when you're at home getting cold chicken from the icebox before going to bed and you suddenly realize, "Wait a minute! That couldn't happen!"
If you spot it during the movie or while you're reading it's a plot hole, but if comes to you later it's an icebox moment or popcorn logic or fridge logic.
There is a name for this disorder! We aren't mean, complaining women-- we have icebox moment syndrome!

Oh yeah. He finds the little spaceship and hugs the mummified remains of a little Kal-El who was never found or rescued. That was one of the few really emotional scenes that saved the KC story arc for me. I always felt it was a bad attempt to mimic the miniseries Taken. Moments like that made the silly ending less annoying.

That's the one. One of the saddest moments in the story. It started out so interesting but after I figured out what was happening long before Superman did, the drama went on too long. He should have known sooner or Lois should have been there to help him put it all together. He could have learned more from the alien if he knew he could.
Oh well.

Alfred Hitchcock has given us an explanation? LOL! Okay, that's us. We are Hitchcockian by our very nature!

Kate

LOL!
Hitchcockian Clark Defenders Unlimited.
That does not sound good!

I have a list of stories I'm planning to read next and I did a search for stories with Tempus in them and they are in line after the others. Right now I'm reading all of my "The Ladies' No. 1 Detective Agency" books one more time before donating them to the library. I noticed over Christmas break that they don't have any of A. M. Smith's books at all! Do you watch "Grannie's on Safari?" In today's episode they were in Botswana at the set used for the TV series.
I'm up to "The Kalahari Typing School for Men."

Those are some of my favorite books and I got them from the library here. Definitely donate and spread them around. Charlie and Grace are my favorite characters. I like their very explosive brother/sister relationship, which neither realizes they have!

I have to agree what Lex did in PAS was not only stupid but funny. It made me laugh. What was he thinking? That this was a clever hint on his part? I hope she has the sense not to see him anymore. Being treated like his Barbie isn't exactly a flattering thing.

Kate, m/o wishing she was a nurse who assisted in tending Clark's butt wounds...big sigh...

LOL! Yeah, Clark can moon over me or moon me anytime he wants to!
Lex can be an idiot, too, in the hands of the right authors.

Unfortunately you don't see that very often. Lex always gets the drop on them, kidnaps Lois and knocks Superman out with kryptonite. Lois saves the day. I don't know if it's funny or not that she always gets away, finds a way to escape, but Clark never does. He did on TV but he never does in fanfic. Lois has to save him- and she rarely cries when she does. Superman always sheds a few tears when he saves her from near death. She rarely does.
m/o How do you see it? Funny or just another thing we have to accept? Weak Superman and super strong woman? Not that I have anything against strong women, I hope I am one, but Lois is sometimes taken to extremes. Like the one where she and WW fight an arch enemy and Lois takes as much of a battering as WW and still walks under her own power at the end.

Kate

Well, you know with thousands of stories out there and no one but us mean reviewers finding the time to read them all, there are bound to be many themes that get repeated. Not everyone has read as much as we have, and if you're one of the writers and have an idea with everything falling into place for a story you're not going to do a search first to make sure no one else wrote a story with that subject already. You're going to put the idea into words. The writers in the RPG do it all the time.
I think of it as variations on a theme. M/O
As for extreme Lois, I don't read them. They're too far off character for me, just as cry baby Clarks grate on my nerves so do the super Loises. But as I said before, if the story is good I can overlook Lois dragging herself out of a hospital bed and going after who knows what with broken bones and crutches and IV lines trailing behind her, staggering after something that just must be done. There are great plot lines out there with hard to believe characterizations. It's up to you, of course. I can overlook a lot to get the end of an engaging plot line in any fandom.

That's something I have to learn to do I guess. I still pause if the plot is familiar. "Wait, didn't I read this last week? No, I guess not. The bad guy in that one was different." And it does happen in other fandoms too. I was never an "Enterprise" fan until recently so I didn't read that fanfic until just recently and the shipping between T'Pol/Tucker and T'Pol/Archer are very similar and disappointing. Where are the adventure stories in a Star Trek series? It's all shipping!

Kate
m/o Lois has actually gotten out of a hospital bed like that? What's the story about? LOL!

Shipping is the thing now but it's funny because you don't notice it with TNAOS. The series was about the relationship between LnC and not really the adventures of Superman. Unless, after all these years, someone decides to start an L/D or L/L ship, I don't see that changing. I doubt many would be interested in either of those. Like with Earth 2 fanfic writers, new LnC stories are still going with the established relationships. E2 made the ships a part of the overall plot, too, so you don't notice the absence or small number of adventure stories.
They're my favorite fandoms with ST-TNG second to them.

I wish I had discovered this one earlier. I might not be so critical if I followed it for a few years, waiting for new stories. No guarantee, of course, since I grew up reading Star Trek and Star Wars and those fans can be super critical. Funny too but really picky. m/o I learned from long time fans about giving reviews but in ST and SW the long time authors expect positive and negative opinions from the fans.

Kate

I don't know why I never thought to look! I think maybe because I was in so many RPGs and I was learning about writing myself. Writing segments for an RPG is a different kind of writing where you have to be very careful to not do something that will affect the other players adversely. Nothing like fanfic story telling. I don't have to provide a beginning, a middle or an end-- just the next segment of a what is barely an overall story.
I started reading fanfic because the other players would write something and tell us about it in the chats and I became intrigued through them.
It's pretty cool to me that LnC and Earth 2, which were on the air around the same time are the only two fandoms that are still actively producing stories.
M/O
The line between giving an honest opinion and what some would consider is flaming can be thin depending on a lot of factors, as we have discovered.

My dad had paper Star Trek newsletters and fan mags going back to the first ST conventions before computers and the internet. The fans got together and wrote stories which they published themselves and sent to others through the mail. After we learned to read my brothers and I got into a lot of trouble touching his Star Trek stuff to read the newsletters and stories. Touching his Superman, Batman etc. comics was okay but not his Star Trek stuff!
Of course some of the early stories were slash and he didn't want us finding those and reading them but we didn't know that until later.

Kate

My dad has a few but I don't know where he got them. The only convention I know he has ever been to was Celebration I.
I know he reads ST and SW fic and he used to be a regular on TrekWeb when Enterprise was on the air, and he was very active in "Firefly" MBs but dropped that fandom after "Serenity." I haven't read fanfic for that series in a really long time, come to think of it.
So many have fallen by the wayside as interest waned.

One might call it a curse that among the new fans coming to this fandom people like us are sneaking in with them. Hmmm. I read the
blame it on Batman news item first so I'm thinking ominous thoughts filled with dread...
I liked Firefly, WonderFalls, Dead Like Me, Odyssey 5, Roswell, and remember one called "Dark Skies?" The fanfic for them dwindled too. I remembered you mentioned fanfic for Terminator and I found some fairly recent stories on that fandom. Sarah and Catherine are two characters Linda Hamilton just owned.
Well, back to L&C and part 2 of Supercop. You're right, it's fun! I gave the link to my dad and my younger brother.

Kate

I took my Alexander McCall Smith books to the library today and while I was there I found a novel called "It's Superman!" by Tom De Haven. Never heard of it before but I sat down and started reading.
SPOILERS:

I'm trying to think of a fanfic that comes even close to this!

That sounds like fun. Is Clark any different from his past characterizations? I Googled the title and found good reviews and an article by the author on how he based his plot. It sounds like a good read.
De Haven Article

Kate, who will look for a copy mainly because I agree with his assessment of Dean Cain. (He was a terrific Superman/Clark)

Absolutely. That was an interesting article. He did a lot of research and he took a little from all the various incarnations to use in his book.

Quote:

Is Clark any different from his past characterizations?

In some ways. If you like the innocence of the TNAOS characterizations this is not a book you should read. Lois has affairs with her boyfriends, Clark goes to Hollywood and becomes a very successful stuntman in the movie business and has an affair with a beautiful actress. (When you think about it, stuntman would be the perfect job for a pre-Superman Clark.) Both are quite young in the story, I think they would be about 20 or 21 by the end of the story.
Clark doesn't immediately fall in love with Lois upon meeting her. It takes a bit of getting to know her-- she is after all the ex-girlfriend/lover of his best friend, Willi.
Instead of traveling the world, he and Willi meet up in Smallville while Willi is in hiding from Luthor and become friends. They travel the US together and end up in Los Angeles. When their apartment is blown-up, Willi assumes it was Luthor's doing and he and Clark go back to New York City.
Clark gets to know Lois a tiny bit before he falls in love, but he does and-- well, read the book! She's a fun character.

So they are older teenagers in the story. Like Smallville? Are the Kents alive at least? It sounds like the Lanes and Kents are the parents of out of control teens.

Kate, finding the book really cheap on Ebay

No, not out of control, at least by today's standards. The story is set in the 30s, the Great Depression, the dust bowl era, so teenagers on their own weren't an unheard of thing. Lane and Kent were luckier than a lot of young people of that time. The Lanes were well off, she had a good education. The Kents were able to keep their farm though the times were tough, so Clark graduated from high school, at least, and started writing for the local paper. They both fared a lot better than many. They both had homes and parents who loved them and both went out on their own at eighteen.
It was a time when kids left home and went on their own at early ages, either by choice or because of hardship or necessity.
The story is pretty good, a period piece and it's fun recognizing the little things De Haven took from all the past Superman stories and kind of paid homage to in his narrative. His Lois IS very influenced by the Hatcher/Coates portrayals with some Durance to come to make her more modern (sexual) and comfortable with men.

(Took me an hour to write this post. I had to stop and watch Globe Trekker's show about the WWII battle sites in the south Pacific.)

So Clark stays the farm boy? He doesn't see the world at all? One of the best things about most Clark characterizations was his curiosity as a young man and his elation at learning to fly. Seeing the world was a natural thing to do after that. It shows up in the fic too with his not being able to stay in one place too long for being super. He gets to see so much first hand.

Kate

(Was it the GT episode shown from the Japanese POV?)

Yes, it was. I recorded it so I can show it in class. My students should have watched it, too.

It was disappointing but it gave Lois reason to be mean to him after they start working together at the Daily Planet! She is really annoyed that he falls in love with her and she is horrible to him all the time, including in the news room!
M/O She calls him "NicelyNicely" and other insulting things because she thinks he's too rustic to have read Damon Runyon! It's funny, though, because Clark has this thing for older women and he consoles himself over Lois' nastiness to him with an older singer named Soda Wauters who lives in New Jersey and has a nightclub. He spends a lot of his spare time there and that annoys Lois even more. Soda is described as an older fat woman, but I'm not sure what is meant by fat. I mean, I'm a product of modern times where a woman is fat if you can't count her ribs when she puts on a bikini. I don't know what the standard was back in the 30s. (The actress he was with in Hollywood was also an older woman but she isn't described as fat.) Obese fat or just well-endowed? Like Mae West?
Oh yeah, in the story it's revealed that Lois's bra size is 34B. LOL!

It sounds a lot like many of the stories I've read but after she discovers his dual identity. Living every day under that tongue? I would find comfort elsewhere too.
Of course that isn't too far from how Lois treats him in the comics. I remember an issue where a famous rock star shows up in the newsroom and asks Lois to go to lunch with him. She already has a lunch date with Clark but she blows him off and leaves arm in arm with the rock star!
In TNAOS the romance was the object of interest and in the comics it was secondary to the action. In the movies- apparently the same. Fiction is a huge mix of all with Lois the shrew being a popular way to write her.
It IS fun to read but after a while it all begins to sound the same.

Kate

It is fun to read! After all this time and complaining I still do just to see what Lois is going to say this time. Invariably she gets away with it, which is the part I wish was different.
Now, back to the stories. The novel was a fun diversion, though. It was nice to see Clark acting like the human male he was being characterized as, if I said that right. He was presented as a believable human male. It was fun to see it can be done.

I didn't find it at my library but I'm going to check a larger one this weekend before getting the book online.
Okay, I really liked Super Cop and To Protect and Serve was good too.
I'm beginning to understand what you mean by overlooking something annoying because the plot is good enough the something becomes a minor annoyance and not so bad because you want to know what happens next.
Also Bill Henderson is one of those minor characters with enough personality to wish you could have seen more of him/her. The story involving him stands up just for that.

Kate

There is no way he and Perry White did not figure out Clark was Superman. I'm sure both came to the realization in their own ways. Both have a career lifetime of the kind of observational skills needed to put the pieces together. Plus, they were watching from the sidelines, observers and a lot better at it than us! They probably figured out Scardino, too. (I like to think Henderson was still there after his actor left to be John Munch, he just got a promotion and got to pick and choose his cases after that.)

LOL! I agree to-tally as my babysitter would say. I like the idea of them knowing, either or both. I can't think of any reason for Henderson to ever want to let the secret out but I know in the Lois and the Pulitzer stories, Perry agrees with Lois that letting the secret out is the right thing to do. The public's right to know and all. He would either have to be very secure in his job or so fond of Clark by the time he realizes the truth that he can't let on he knows. It would be so much harder for him to keep the secret than for Henderson.
Like Lois, though, in the early days I think he'd be just as likely to tell as she would be. He can bring Pulitzer honor to the Daily Planet as easily as anyone.

Kate

Purely hypothetical, but I think if he did realize the truth early on, mid first season stories, agreeing with Clark about Lex would make him reconsider. Bringing down Lex, especially after the bombing would matter to him more. But he didn't know, or his idea of bringing in the "big guns" might be Superman, the police, or just Henderson, but his idea of the big guns was Lois. Persuade their inside ex-colleague to help them , kicking and screaming and totally against her better judgement? LOL!! Do you think they could have done it?
Oops, another story idea!
Can you hear the Lane/Kent arguments over that?
"I will not spy on Lex for you!"
"Not even to prove I'm wrong?! And bragging rights for the rest of my life?"

I like the idea of Perry picking it up from little clues that suddenly add up. Blatant clues going over his head are too fun. Like the public goodbye for Superman at the Daily Planet and the siege of Smallville. Seeing the spectacle and not the facts. I think the character would like a little detective work in his realization.
As for Lois, she would do it for Perry to prove Clark wrong. It would take both of them to bring her in. She believed in Lex until Henderson tried to arrest him and even then she was bewildered.
That would make a good story.

Kate

The same as Henderson and he and Perry can compare notes as they get drunk and wonder what took them so long.

First they would have to get in touch with Lois without Lex or his spies and surveillance equipment alerting him. Maybe they could lure her out of her comfy job at LNN with a phony news tip. However, if Lex is watching her, I don't see how she can be any help to them without alerting Lex to what's going on.
She's in his trap but she isn't firmly in his grasp yet. He'd be watching to make sure she doesn't change her mind.
Supe could spot any bugs and tails, but how do you make them fail without alerting Lex? Stage an event that would get her thinking, so she contacts Perry or Clark?
I really think Lex was be watching her like a hawk in the time between her saying yes and the wedding.
Her mom in the wedding episode is nothing like her mom in later seasons, so maybe she might help in some way, but I can't help thinking Lex would be watching her, too. Until Lois is his wife, she can change her mind.
All of a sudden i want to kick a car booger and pretend it's Lex! LOL!

Have Lois struck by lightning? Meet under high tension power lines? Kidnap Lois "accidentally" and then release her later as if you made a big mistake?
Okay. You got me there but I'm sure there is a plausible way around Lex. Ellen would be low spying priority so having her get word to Lois might work, but she doesn't know until the day of the wedding that Lois is having doubts, so she might not do it.
Find Lucy, drag her back from wherever she is and send her in with sheer surprise on your side.

Kate, warning you to watch out for Lex car boogers, they might be all ice!

Oh, Lucy! Good idea! She isn't bugged or under surveillance yet so she can be the go between to get things started. Give her something to interfere with video signals and a 90s boom box to knock out audio transmissions. She'd be perfect!

Of course! Black ice-- that's Lex!

I finally got a copy of "It's Superman!" and took the time to read it. As a period piece it has a lot of detail, mentions a lot of the major names of the era but I think he went a little overboard showing off his knowledge of the times.
I'm not sure I really liked Clark Kent with a youthful arrest record even if Willi would have been smart enough to give a fake name when they could. He seemed to be so much in awe of Clark, seeing him as a one in a million human and not immediately assuming "alien! I must exploit!"
I did not like Jonathan being portrayed as a distant father, a man almost afraid of his son and who didn't really know what to do with him. De Haven made it too clear that Jonathan feared Clark more than he loved him.
My dad was a teenager in the sixties and I know he had a couple of close buddies he drove around with to various places in the summer, looking for jobs to get where they were going and back home again. So some of what Clark and Willi do on the road is familiar to me from my dad's stories. In that 30 year time difference, the country had changed so much, kids were staying kids longer than their parents did. By the 60s though, it was already becoming unsafe to roam around like that anymore.
It must be just a trait people like to see in Lois that for all her brains- and in this story she has more than usual- she's too blind to see what is right in front of her. She wants to fall in love but when she does she doesn't know it! It's such an unpleasant feeling she can't help but treat the object of that horrible emotion like dirt! All incarnations of Lois do this.
On the series H.G.Wells said she was blinded BY love, but in this book and many fan fics she is blinded TO love. It runs her over with a truck and she thinks she just tripped and fell.

Kate, who did like the book, m/o except the part about Martha. If any boy needs a domineering and nosy mom, it's Clark Kent. I greatly fear a Superman forged with the help of 30s era Lois Lane instead of Ma and Pa Kent!
Also by the end of the book don't you think way too many people know about him?
I also liked that although Lex was smart in many ways, he still left his name written all over the insides of his Lexbots including the ones armed with explosives and guns!
THEN HE GOT AWAY!! But being the archnemesis I guess he had to. Darn!

For that time, perhaps, but for recent times,not really. When you think about it a few other people had to know.Since Martha and Jonathan are longtime residents of the area it's pretty easy to imagine the people who know to be friends or family they can trust.
There had to be the judge who granted the adoption of Clark, at least one doctor and one nurse to falsify his yearly physicals and immunization records needed to attend school, one social worker to handle the case before the court, possibly two lawyers-- whoever represented them in court before the judge in the adoption, and their family attorney, if this is a different person, close family members to make sure his identity stays a secret. I know there is no mention of family in canon but they are bound to be there, especially if the Kents have a multigenerational ownership of the farm and both the Kents and the Clarks having standing in the community. That doesn't happen overnight.
A close knit group had to know everything and stay quiet about it.

I did think about this when my son started school.
After Clark became invulnerable how did he get his shots for school? His passport?
It does make sense that others would know. The Cold War era suspicions would be what they were all hiding, protecting, so whoever sent the baby into space would never get him back to experiment on him more. I suppose a suspicion of alien-ness was there but with the Soviet Union and known wartime experimentation it would be easier to accept them as the cause for why a baby would fall out of the sky.
UFOs and aliens were under the stigma of early contactees and their stories. This was a real 'human' baby, not an imaginary, benevolent being from the canals of Mars!
None of them would know for sure he was alien until he became Superman and found the globe.
So. . . how about Trask?
What were they looking for at Smallville and when did he begin to fear aliens I wonder? Did they think the little ship was a cold war thing too? It seems they did because the ship and the globe stayed together under a dust cloth and the significance of both wasn't explored- no Roswell treatment for it.
Somewhere along the way Trask began to fear aliens but even after Superman appeared he didn't seem to care about the significance of the little ship and the globe. The artifact was secondary to the alien which Trask and his team never imagined would be so human looking until then. Even then didn't they think it had taken over Clark's mind? Before he died, Trask realized the truth but none of his people did- not even the infamous driver of the van. The team is still looking for a small Roswell type alien who can control human minds and take humanoid shape as Superman.


Kate, just thinking online, I'll notice the holes later

This network of people would have come in handy for Martha of "Superman Returns." I was thinking about them in my post in Angry Birds. There are so many fics where Lex succeeds in harming Superman in some way and there is only Lois to do anything about it. I think it would stand to reason that Clark and his parents would have made arrangements in the event of such a situation after they learned of kryptonite. (Just because the series writers didn't think of it doesn't mean the characters didn't! There comes a time when the Kents have to make a move!)
Why wouldn't they have people to help them? Until Clark went to Metropolis, they all thought they were protecting a human baby who had been the subject of some kind of experimentation by human scientists.

I'm not a Trask fan and I haven't read many of the Trask stories in fanfic but I have to agree that Trask's remaining people don't know that Clark and Superman are the same. Jonathan and Martha would have disappeared never to be seen again if they did.
M/O On a totally unrelated subject the reason I dislike crossover stories is the "guest star" characters always have to figure out Clark is Superman before the story is over. I really don't like that! Where are these people when Clark needs help? They never show up! LOL! If they are smart enough to figure it out and promise never to tell, they should have the brains to know in a crisis they can help!

I know what you mean. There is one where Superman is unconscious after being in the cage and Clark is missing. Lois is Superman's friend so she and I think Henderson make all the decisions for him and the Kents are watching TV for updates.
It's an accepted thing in ff the Kents will just hang back in matters of Superman and get their information from the TV. That didn't happen on the show. At the time of Nightfall and Superman's blindness, they rushed to Metropolis. You mentioned Martha from the movie rushing to Metropolis even if she had to stand among strangers to be near her son. The Kents don't just stay at home and wring their hands when Clark is in trouble. They go to help when he needs them and they go to him when they need help with something.
They would have gotten to him somehow. For those who go strictly by canon, Jack is always there in the background. Any doubts that Clark told them about him?

Kate, wondering what happened to Martha after they showed her in the crowd watching bland Lois go into the hospital?

Everyone is smarter than Superman. There is a moment in the animated series when Batman plants a bug on Superman to find out his identity and then accuses Superman of cheating when he uses his x-ray vision to see under his mask. It made me laugh. I thought who cheated first, pal? No, the bat is too cool. Supe has to be the cheater.

Kate

I guess she could have gone inside and just said she was the mother of Superman's good friend CK and asked if she could see him based on that. If not, pull a TNAOSLois and pretend to get sick! Miss Bland might approve after thinking it over. She never has impressed me as being sharp, for some reason. Taking her child into danger as she did.

I'm sure Clark told his parents about Jack and even though he disappeared from screen time after the second season, I like to imagine he and Clark remained friends. I still remember Chris Demetral's performance as he looks at Clark in awe and says he probably wouldn't be believed if he ever told what he had seen in the stairway that night. Then he reminds Superman he owes him a movie.

True, and no other comment or I'll be writing, angrily, for the rest of the day!

Whether they intended to or not the pro writers did give the Kents a way to get to Superman if he needed them at that time by letting Jack figure it out. Or by letting Clark be so "careless" and keep his stature with Jack by letting him figure it out. Lois already looked down on him, but Jack changing his opinion must have been very hurtful.
In the series I assume Jack thought Clark could take care of himself so didn't worry when he was gone overnight in HOL. Are there any stories where he worries and goes looking for him? I ask even though I doubt it because Lois has to be the one to save Clark in ff. If most fans didn't like Jack knowing the secret before Lois, there wouldn't be a demand for Jack fiction heroic or not.

Kate, wondering why I'm answering my own questions

You mean stuff a basketball under her blouse and start screaming? LOL! At Martha's age that would get medical attention all right!
That hypothetical doctor or nurse from Smallville would have come in handy here. They might have been with her and gotten her inside somehow. By then, they'd spent their lives protecting this boy's secret and they'd care for him, alien or not. They would get to him to help him.
Wouldn't this also explain why TNAOS Clark didn't share his secret with Dr. Klein? He could share whatever Klein told him with the doctor back home. Until the time came to tell Klein the secret, he'd be the other guy's back up.

Kate, again just thinking it out and not worried about the holes yet

If there are, I haven't found any yet and I do wide searches for stories all the time. I think you're right that there is no demand for them.

Dr. Hypothetical, Jonathan's old buddy from the Army.
Judge Hypothetical, Martha's first cousin on her mother's side.
Nurse Hypothetical, Martha's friend from childhood? Or sister? Jonathan's sister?
Unfortunately there is no basis in canon for this. Phooey.

Well someone had to be there to provide medical records or he would have never been to school. Even if he traveled the world under his own power he would need a stamped passport to get a job at a newspaper or sell stories to a newspaper in one of the countries he visited. He needed a birth certificate for that, which he would have received after the adoption. (I wonder why his old suitcase didn't have stickers on it from around the world?)
The theory does stand to reason.
We'll never know who they were but that small core in on the secret were there- in recent Superman history anyway.
Back in the 30s the months long snowstorm and Martha giving birth on the farm would have worked I'd guess. It was the dust bowl era and the weather must have been affected by the drought. Of course the unwanted child of a relative would have been more believable.

Kate, wondering if Jonathan would have been in the army with Dr. Hypothetical before or during Elvis' time

We actually talked about it once in the RPG when we made up a silly Stripes-like situation between Jonathan and Elvis, but it didn't work. (Remember that movie?) We figured the very youngest Jonathan could be at the beginning of the series was 60 in 1993,and 20 in 1953. If he joined up at 18 for four years, he would have been halfway through his enlistment by then. Elvis enlisted in 1958 for 2 years.
No reenlistment for Jonathan. Out in 1955, he and Martha find Clark in 1966- giving them about a decade or less of marriage.

Very creative writing might get it to work out. We had Tempus trying to get Elvis to kill Jonathan in Germany! Let your imagination go from there. LOL!

My imagination doesn't go anywhere close to where you and your RPG people go. (Thinking of Glock and Numerman.)
So Jonathan and Dr. Hypothetical probably would have served in the Korean War by that timeline. A wartime friendship would be why the doctor was willing to help his friend with the baby he found and the doctor might know more about medical experiments going on around the world to have assumed this is what might be the answer.
No wonder writers have such detailed backgrounds for their characters. It's fun making up stuff! No Elvis but this is better.

Kate

Good start. Two guys from Kansas going through war, coming home and staying in touch, maybe living not too far from one another. The friend goes to college under the GI Bill and becomes Dr. Hypothetical; Jonathan could use it for loans to build up the farm instead of college, or maybe classes at a community college where he meets Martha. (?)
The farm is prosperous enough for Jonathan to be able to send Clark money from time to time without a second thought.
What do we know about the Kents aside from five tries before Martha married Jonathan?

Nothing I can think of beyond that.
Jonathan has a plow that can turn over frozen ground? Superplow!
What about grandparents? Cousins? If Clark had cousins he wouldn't be the lonely, friendless, bullied kid from fanfic and the first Reeve movie, sometimes hated and feared. As nice as it is having the close relationship between him and his parents, he must have had a best friend, an ally and confidant. He knows how to make friends. Someone who grew up with him knows.
We don't see them in canon but they must have been there. Not in the movies, obviously, otherwise he would have known how to fight and land a punch or two in his own defense!

Kate

In Smallville, Martha's father was alive but since he didn't get along with Jonathan, he refused to have a relationship with Clark, though Clark wanted to know him better.
Oh, no comment on Reeve Superman getting beat up, but he had superpowers right from the beginning. TNAOS got them gradually so he had time to form friendships. Even 'Smallville's' Clark did, not to mention comics Clark. Even if there was only one cousin he was close to, that cousin would know and protect him.

I'm not a comic book reader nor a Smallville watcher, but I do know about Pete. What about Pete? I think he found out about Clark in Smallville. Does he know about Clark's powers from childhood in the comics?

In the Superboy comics Pete and Clark are best friends. Pete knows Clark is Superboy but never tells him he does. He helps him much like Lois did on the show. He makes up excuses for Clark's absences.
That was the Silver Age of the comics, though. Everything changed and Superboy doesn't exist in the comics anymore. Clark no longer has a history of Superboy in his life. They did away with Superboy completely from what is now Superman's life story. They decided he existed in I think they called it a pocket universe, or something like that then they destroyed that offshoot universe.
Like with Batman, Superman's friendship with Pete has changed. He and Batman are now rivals and he and Pete are two guys who know each other from school. But then he was killed at one time by the Prankster and Toyman (?) who tortured him until he told them Clark was Superman but he showed up recently as vice-president to Lex Luthor's president of the US.
In some appearances Pete's married to Lana Lang and is jealous of her friendship with Clark- which is close because she knows Clark's secret and Pete doesn't.
I didn't watch Smallville either but I think he did know Clark's secret.
He was never mentioned in TNAOS but he could very well be one of the people who know and help Clark behind the scenes. Jonathan and Martha did wonderfully raising Clark but someone else taught him to be relaxed with people of his own age. Pete, a close cousin, someone was there. The Fortress of Solitude had room for more than one boy.

Kate

Wow. Talk about brutal. In the comics the Kents are much older than the Kents from either TV show and they were more elderly in the Kirk Alyn serials, but in both TV shows Clark could have known grandparents from one or both of his parents as they are portrayed as younger than the comics.
The elder Kents of TNAOS could have retired when Jonathan took over running the farm. Martha's parents would have been happy to see her with a child and have wanted know to Clark.

Kate, whose own grandpa was in the navy and loved showing us pictures of where he'd been and who wished he could have retired to Panama but didn't

Clark actually tells Pete in "Smallville" about himself and even shows him the little spaceship he arrived in after Pete gets annoyed over Clark's behavior. Then, later, he leaves to live with his mother away from SV when the burdon of the secret starts to bother him.
They pretty much destroyed the friendship between Clark and Pete in the comic book universe. At one point Pete, a widower, goes to Clark for help when his son is kidnapped by aliens. He tells Clark he has long known his secret and never told anyone and asks Superman to find his son. Then the dimwit people at DC had Clark say NO! Superman couldn't help! After that Pete is institutionalized until his son is rescued.
Who knows what the new Superman will do?

Wow, Bev. You just made me glad I don't read the comics.

Thanks to both of you for the information

That was an easy story to put down and never pick up again. I don't think I read the ending. I'm drawing a blank there.

Who is left to estrange him from? They took away his friendships with Bruce and Pete, and Lana, they took away Lois, his wife, they've taken away both parents this round, so who is left?
Have you seen any ff based on the new Superman yet? I'm almost afraid to look. I really don't want to get to know a Batmanlike Superman.
I mean if worse come to worst what if I like him? LOL!


Kate

P.S. You're welcome.

Don't worry about that for a while. I haven't found anything written yet, but I did find some new Star Trek stories based on the Captain Riker novels. Someone sent me a long list of links for Superman Returns stories but I haven't looked at them yet. I had a busy weekend. The sixth graders had a little show and a dance Saturday night and we sixth grade teachers and the music teacher had to be there. It was fun but I will never be a Justin Bieber fan.
I never got to read the President Kent stories and I'm going to start the first one right now.

It certainly did. Unlike the Reeve Superman who was superpowered as soon as the yellow sunlight touched him, Cain Superman got his powers gradually so he was able to be a close to normal boy for a long time. Watching the kids run around, chase each other, push each other on the swings, wrestle and tease each other at recess-- he must have experienced that. Smallville's Clark seems to have gotten his powers gradually, too, but maybe a little earlier for each one.
I suppose the Kents could have kept his secret alone, but to me that doesn't add up to get to what they showed us on the series.

You're welcome.

The first story is just fun, but the second one was a good character study of Keith Jackson. The discussion at the end was nice. It was respectful of both men. Guy to guy, Clark gets treated a lot better than the other way around! I don't know if I like it or not. Why do the women have to behave childishly but not the men? LOL!

Kate, who can't be happy with anything, huh?

I don't know. I just can't imagine SSA Jackson yelling at Clark that "YOU LIED TO ME!" and then ranting and yelling about how he must have laughed at his gullibility, how he didn't trust him when he thought they were friends! Then calling him every bottom feeding, scum sucking name he can think of before telling Clark he never wants to see him again.
Even "So this is what you were hiding!" doesn't quite work.
On the other hand, their quiet discussion was better than "You cheated!"

Oh I forgot about Bruce!
It takes away the mystery when it's easy to figure out the secret identities of the superheroes. The JLA is fooling themselves to think they're protecting themselves by hiding their private lives if someone can just come along, notice something odd and put it all together in a matter of hours.
Isn't the concept of their universe that no one can do that? That even Batman had to use bugs to find out who Superman was? (In the animated series)

Kate, going too far into it again

I sent that one to the guys at the RPG chat. Let them figure it out!
If it's done believably I can see past it, especially in crossover stories. I maintain not everyone has to know. It would be a good character study of Lois and Clark to see them able to keep the secret no matter who the guest star is.

Okay I see what you mean. If it's done well in a crossover you're okay with it BUT you believe not all crossover characters have to know. Right?
I haven't read any crossovers but I think I agree anyway. The concept of the Superman universe is that his deception- such as it is- works. In our universe we see the flaws of any character having a secret identity. Even wearing a mask isn't good enough to hide it. Dogged observation and surveillance will uncover what we're looking for eventually.
But in the superhero universe it works. No amount of spying on the superheroes will ever get you what you want.
Keith Jackson figured it out within that universe because Clark gave himself away.
Crossover characters figure it out because they are sent into the universe for that purpose, not just to interact with Superman, Clark Kent and Lois Lane but to figure it out. Right?


Kate, unable to let go of that line if thought for some reason and experiencing another different kind of argh!

All I know is I strongly object to everyone else being smarter than Superman! I'll let it go when it's Martha or Lois. There wouldn't be any stories without them leading him through life the way they want him to live it. I don't see any reason for anyone except other superheroes knowing his identity to matter how trustworthy they are. What's a good metaphor? Too many cooks spoil the broth? Loose lips sink ships?
The Kents and their close knit circle of helpers are all that need to know. Anyone without a personal interest wouldn't have the emotional attachment to the family to reinforce the need for secrecy. Did I say that right? By the time Clark is grown, he would gather his own circle around him as the people who helped the Kents grow old with them and pass away taking the secret with them.
Is that plausible?
Of course, Clark's childhood friends would be a part of his circle and Pete might as well be among them as he's a canon character. I still say a close cousin is in there somewhere. Family would be involved in some way in both circles. The truly solid member they can count on.

Sounds good to me. I buy the whole concept because I'm going to be spending the next several years of my life getting first one, then both of my kids immunized for school each summer. I suppose I could do a search and find out exactly when it began but my parents remember in the 60s having to have their shots and their mothers giving their records to the secretary or nurse when they registered for school. The Kents had help with their little Cold War experiment.
The relative in the mix gives one or all children Lucy Lane has a significant role in the lives of Clark's offspring. I know it isn't possible, but the series was set-up for children to happen like it or not so my curiosity about the next gen is held back only because I don't want to read any stories like those of Cade Skywalker.


Kate

I've read a handful but I don't want to read them until I've read more of the relationship before marriage stories. They can irritate me with their portrayals of Clark but a good plot can get my attention. A unique angle is always something to look for.
One thing at a time.
I, too, hope there are no Cade Skywalker Kents out there!

Is that something that will be inevitable? That sooner or later a super powered child would be born into the family who would refuse to follow the path set by Superman? Who would use the powers for something like Cade does with the force? Or does the assurance of Utopia in a timeline automatically mean it can't happen?

Kate

I think it would be inevitable. I don't think you can prevent it but if it happens it can be controlled. We were talking about the NKs in the other thread and having a choice. There is always New Krypton to get a Cade-type away from the yellow sun and misuse of his/her powers. As it is there is at least one story where a daughter reveals the family secret to a lover against the wishes of her family, so even with descendents who are following the example set by Clark there are going to be problems that will test the family and their values. By the time they have to face a rogue they should have experience and the mindset to do what needs to be done. If there is a Cade story out there, the solution to the problem will be unsatisfactory if it's settled too easily.

Wouldn't it depend on the misuse though? Cade Skywalker is a bounty hunter and a pirate- or ex-pirate. He's broken the law without the privileges of being a Jedi to absolve him. But he's the hero and its unlikely such a popular character will ever be made to pay for his crimes.
Exile on Myrkr would be the same as exile on New Krypton.
Selfishness on the part of a Kent descendent would be a misuse of their powers but it would depend on how far they take it, wouldn't it? Just refusing to participate wouldn't be a misuse. It would be a waste but not misuse.
If they use their powers to become rich and famous but anonymous as a superpowered being, instead of to fight crime that would be misuse. The individual would be cheating big time in society and breaking all kinds of laws. They would be Lex Luthor with super powers.
Both would be disappointing but would the latter be a punishable crime kept within the family?

Kate

If it got that far it wouldn't say much for the Kent family. Being mild mannered is supposed to be a ruse so no one would think Clark or his descendents are superheroes. They aren't really the parts they play. What could possibly have happened to make a descendent that disrespectful of what Superman stands for to choose that kind of life?
No wonder Tempus finds Utopia intolerable if it's founded by a line of beings who can't control lawlessness within their own family. I'd hate to think of Clark or his descendents being that weak.

I guess the circumstances would have to be exceptional to allow the cheating by the individual. There would be those overlooking it and hoping it's just a phase that will pass. Keeping a super family in line would take strength inside- mentally and emotionally- as well as in body. How can that individual be brought back into the fold without having to pay for the wrongdoing?
I agree that kind of weakness would be terrible for the future of a super dynasty. Would L&C tolerate it from their own children? If one went rogue would they let it go hoping it's just a phase that will pass?

Kate

You can never tell how parents, or even siblings will react under those circumstances. Gives me the shakes just to think about it. If Henderson knows by then,or whoever his replacement is but I like to think he's still around, some kind of punishment could be carried out. Or if the judge from Smallville is still around and in office, the secret would stay safe.
I guess that means I think Clark and Lois would not let it go on once they see what is happening. If their conscience allows it to continue just because he/she is their child-- well, I don't know. How does Superman continue with his own child above the law? How do Lane and Kent go on?
That's a hard one.

I guess it depends on any author how they think a Cade-type will be dealt with by the family. Hopefully we never have to find out.
Cade is what? The great grandson of Luke Skywalker?
The superhero universe has more positive influences than the Star Wars EU so I'd like to think it would take longer than a couple of generations for a rogue personality to appear. Even if the child is brought back into the fold the tendencies to take shortcuts to get what they want will always be there. They got away with it before and it's a lot easier to cheat to get the results you need or want even if you're doing it for the best reasons.

I think we hit a brick wall here. Cheating for the best reasons? Lois Lane does that every day! Breaking and entering,lifting items from other people's pockets, purses or desk drawers. She even got Clark to start doing it, too!

"So he manipulated the stock market to get the millions needed to bring down the biggest drug cartel in the world! Clark, the point is, he brought them down!"

Shall we not go there anymore? LOL! Start getting used to saying, "Cade Skywalker Kent? I'm honored to meet you!"

Speaking of Lex recently, I was at the library Saturday and I saw a copy of "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" on the shelves so I sat down and read the last few chapters.
SPOILERS!!!

It seems Lex also had a lot of confidence in his own technology, too in the same way the villain of the book did. Didn't Wennerstrom use the same "hack proof" laptop even after it became apparent the evidence being unveiled to the authorities had to come from his business computers? Yet he was confident his personal laptop was safe.
Whatever Lex did at his desk before he jumped off the balcony it didn't affect anything beyond his own computer. His sons were able to recover an awful lot of information from what was left of his computer system. True, he had it handy because he knew Gretchen would do her job but it was still careless of him to leave so much information around with such simple encryption to protect it. His kids didn't even have to know him well to understand how he thought.

Kate

LOL! Well it goes back to what we were saying about every man who meets Lois or knows of her falling for her since season 2, don't you think? Both boys saw her and just knew their old man had to have been as obsessed with her as they were becoming! She's the key! Jaxon immediately knew. All of dear old dad's passwords will have something to do with her. I must trap her in my software.
I must have her and complete my father's obsession, said the other guy whose name I don't remember and don't want to look up. The Sewer Booger. I will have her for him!

Going back along this line do you guys think Lois ever moved into the penthouse with Lex in the last weeks before the marriage? He had everything inside his tower, didn't he? So LNN would have been on one of the lower floors of the building. Even if they weren't actually living together she could have been in the penthouse suite somewhere. I mean she was having meals with him and had access to his cars. She must have given up her apartment by then. She was at home in the tower enough that she got to know Mrs. Cox good enough to not like her.
Just thinking.

Like everything else it's open to interpretation. The visual clues are certainly there but I missed the Mrs. Cox one! I doubt if Lex started taking her along on dates and since she was his (personal) assistant she would have no reason to interact with Lois at her job. She was watching Lois after the meeting with Clark.
It's something to think about.
It could be why the placement of windows in her apartment changed from season 1 to season 2. She got a different apartment in the same building.

Kate

That's what I've thought, too. She did something therapeutic between the wedding and the reopening of the Planet. She was able to cope with the gossip that was still going on among her co-workers. (The scene where a man and woman discussing Lex walk past Lois and the woman offers one of the most insincere apologies ever filmed, IMO.)
Apartment hunting can take your mind off anything. Going back to the same building would be as close to going home as she could get after that fiasco.
I think it's possible.

Jeez! She had a lot to cope with too! Apartment hunting again, getting the items she kept close by out of the tower, getting her other stuff out of storage- possibly in the tower basements. Can you imagine having to go there day after day to move out? No wonder her relationships with Clark, Perry and Jimmy were unchanged. It pays to have good friends.

They did all the work? Probably.
If this was the case I wonder where she stayed? With the Whites? Jimmy and Jack were probably still with Clark. With Lucy? At a hotel?
Another possible story that will never be!

And what did she do with the clothes? She was dressing a lot better in the last couple of episodes. She was a producer not an on air personality but her clothing changed to much finer fabrics and cuts.
She walked away from everything Lex gave her.


Kate

Drugs,prostitution,murder-- considering how he paid for it all,I don't blame her.
If the Whites still had a home in the city and Alice came back after Lex's death, Lois could have stayed with them. Considering she was going on a month long honeymoon, her job was probably already gone, even if she wanted to continue working. I doubt if the Whites would have taken no for an answer. Perry knew everything she was going to have to deal with, and considering Clark had his own problems to face, I'd bet on the Whites.

Could be. I never thought of it that way. Instead of competition for Lois, real life pushed the character out of the picture? LOL!
If the writing kept her in the picture I wonder if she would have changed herself in any way when she realized she wasn't going to get anywhere with her current persona? She did change her attitude when she had him at her apartment, but the phone call messed it up.

I think so too because Lois's mother was undefined at the time. I always imagined her living in California which was where Lucy appears to have gone after her character left the series. To me Lucy always seemed to have had a closer relationship to her parents than Lois did. She knew the things you learn from your parents and she was secure in her own life in a way that Lois never was. In her conversations with Lois in the first season, she was the older sister and Lois was the stubborn kid who knew it all and didn't need to be told anything.
Lois is standing at the mirror in tears and her mother is offering comfort from five feet away. She knows Lois is unapproachable for her, yet Perry has a very different way of relating to her. At that point in the series, Ellen would have gone home and Lois would have gone to Perry and Alice.

Kate

Who is this?

Kate

Oops! Cat Grant. The thread started in the Aargh.

Where the fountain of youth is. Both Ellen and Lucy were younger than they originally were when they came back to Metropolis. Sam Lane went in the other direction, he got much older the second time he appeared. Getting younger makes you timid or caustic, but getting older makes you goofy. In the Lane family.
I don't watch Grey's Anatomy so I missed him there,but I liked the original Sam Lane in 24.

Lucy's whole take on life was different than Lois's and she's interpreted as promiscuous in fanfic. In Lois's opinion, she who is that great judge of character, Lucy's choices in men were not what she, Lois would call good. For Lucy though, they were interesting and worth her time. Since she lived with Lois, they met each other's dates. Lucy encouraged Lois, Lois didn't like any of Lucy's choices.
As far as I can see Metallo was her first questionable choice and she was a different Lucy than she was before. And I mean attitude not looks.


Kate, who doesn't think being the dating sister necessarily means she's the promiscuous sister

I see what you mean. Up to that point, Lois doesn't even like Clark so her opinion of men overall is suspect, to say the least. Lucy might have dated some nice guys who Lois didn't like and I can't imagine her not letting them and Lucy know it. Yet at the same time she does value Lucy's opinions. She called her when feeling remorse over stealing Clark's Superman story, after all. Her distrust is all in the men, not really in her sister's judgement.
Do you hear Tempus chortling in glee again?!
As Lois learned to trust men through getting to know Clark, she also felt able to trust Lex. If she thought back over Lucy's past boyfriends and dates, she might have had to admit they weren't so bad after all.

I see Lucy as she was created by DJL and Elizabeth Barondes. That tough kid who stood up to her sister and exasperated her and who had such fun questioning Jimmy Olsen. That isn't a meek little girl who would automatically hand over all her money to a jerk. First-Lucy would have seen through the guy easily.
She and Sam Lane were both dumbed down from DJL's original creations.

Kate

I liked the Barondes Lucy, too. She had a much stronger self image than FF or Season 2 Lucy. Also I like your idea that she stuck around and got to know her mother after she got sober,unlike Lois who got out as fast as she could. Original Ellen wasn't the pushy character she was when she returned either. The Lanes really suffered from DJL's departure. M/O I decided on "the build" shot of Superman for my avatar now. I like the shoulder turn he does and the color of the suit against the dark cityscape,the shade of red and the billow of the cape.
Terrific Superman physique shot.

I don't know if Cat was that adaptable. She did change her tactics to impress him at the apartment but she was still out to get Lois's goat at the news room.
I liked their sniping at one another but I suppose you can't keep up the originality there if one character is one dimensional. Maybe it was that remarkable chemistry that pushed Cat as well as Lucy to the background.

Kate

Ellen especially. I can't believe some of the things she does in fic! In the series she's more likable but too clearly presented as the comedic mom. They tried to show her as the source of a lot of Lois's habits and traits but even as a kid I didn't buy it. The distance between them was always apparent. This was a mother even Lucy didn't like- that first Lucy wouldn't have liked!
The way Lois and Sam Lane were presented in the first season is the way I choose to see them now. I never liked funny dad Sam.

Kate

If I was a writer I would see it as a choice. They gave us two different versions of so many characters. It's up to you which to use since both appeared on screen. Jimmy, Lucy, Sam, Ellen-- take your pick. What other fandom offers you that? LOL!

Way, way back when you were admiring Teri Hatcher's professionalism at playing Lois believably despite her contempt for the material she was given to work with, I thought about the scenes where Cat would hang around Clark and flirt with him. The expressions on Lois' face in the background are so funny to see as I rewatch certain episodes.
She knows she's going to be rebuffed by Clark,yet she can't resist teasing him. I have to think she has someone watching who will tell her Lois's reaction every time. Foil indeed! She knew how to push Lois' buttons.

Oh yes. That's part of the office environment, even one as small as the one I work in. There is always someone who likes to stir things up. In a larger place I'm sure there are those who gather together just for that. It's there even if we didn't see it in each episode.
During the wedding arc- poor Clark and his super hearing! LOL!

Kate

Not just the characters. They gave us two different versions of the newsroom too. Of course that didn't stop the desks from traveling all around the room like the first season. The janitors vacuum cleaners did more than just joggle the desks now and then. They moved them several feet to new locations from time to time.


Kate

I am going to miss that suit so much! I don't know what they're planning to do in the movie with the new one, if that strange texture looks different on film or makes it easier to film and add effects to it or what. Say what you want about the story, if Superman looks like someone else it will distract me unless the story is good enough to make up for it. I like Big Blue, not Big Gray.

I always liked the little jump off the wall when Superman first comes to see Luthor. He doesn't use his powers for everything. (I know it was the wire guys, but still... )
I'm going with a different avatar, too.
No hard feelings Martha! Wish I was in your place.....talk about the possibilities for inappropriate hand action. LOL!

Kate

You chose a pilot screen shot too. In most cases the original is always the best and it applies to the LnC pilot episode too.
I'm all for inappropriate hand action in that case, and I don't mean choking him or stabbing him.

They gave us at least three different versions in the pilot alone. Lois never worked at the same desk twice. In the next episode it was different again. Sometimes Perry's office had a conference room next door, sometimes it didn't. Sometimes he had a back door, sometimes he didn't.
They were going in and out of rooms that disappeared or changed configuration from week to week.
And what happened to that ponytail guy from the first season who kept looking at,up and around Hatcher's... dorsal area... every chance he got? LOL! Which was lot since he was a background figure.

You have only yourself to blame! When I went into the RPG chat,the gang was already throwing out ideas for this after someone read your post and mentioned it to the others. Someone said, "Maybe it will make him invisible!" and the door swung open.

......BIG BLUE TO VANISH FROM METROPOLIS’ SKIES??!!
........................Say It Isn’t So!

The citizens of Metropolis stood slack jawed with astonishment
today as they gazed into the skies above the city to watch the
daily patrols of their beloved superhero, Superman. For the first
time the whoosh of displaced air from a rapidly moving object
was no longer accompanied by the familiar blue and red blur of
color from the iconic suit of the mighty Kryptonian. They saw
nary a hint of red from his billowing cape, no streak of blue
from his famous uniform. . .just a thin black blur from his
hair.
Citing the abundance of hand held laser weaponry sweeping the
criminal community of the Metropolis underworld, a press
release from S.T.A.R. Labs in conjunction with the Metropolis
Police Department stated the powers that be from both
institutions had convinced the champion of truth, justice and
the American way to change his style.
The confiscation of several devices over the last fifteen years
which have the potential to harm even the Man of Steel if the
inventors had “thought to modify them in such a way,” has
several key scientists and police officials breathing easier since
Superman agreed to change the material from which his red,
blue and yellow suit is made.
Advances in optical camouflage technology have produced a new,
lightweight, stretchable, cloth-like material which has the unique
properties of invisibility. With the texture and appearance of Lego
blocks, this waterproof tarpaulin is produced in gray-ish shades of
primary colors, and fashioned into Superman’s new suit, it will
render him invisible to the naked eye.
Speaking strictly for myself, this reporter is of the opinion the
change will disappoint many Superman watchers the world
over, including myself. Observing the big guy in action, whether
flying on patrol or mopping up a crime scene, has long been a
favored pastime for many fans in every nation of the Earth.
The arrival and departure of Big Blue is the most filmed and
photographed event to happen anywhere in the world. Wedding
photographers have been known to film Superman flying over-
head during the exchange of vows, expectant fathers are always
alert in case the mighty hero flies past the hospital at the time
their child is coming into the world. Among some cultures this
has become a good luck beacon for the life of the newborn and
for the future of the newlyweds. The red/blue blur will be sorely
missed by many.
Lois Lane, still a reporter for the Daily Planet newspaper,
supposedly by her own choice, said, “The criminal population
of the world is getting more sophisticated and better educated,
and I believe all superheroes should keep this in mind. Whether
it’s natural or magically or scientifically induced, invulnerability
can be compromised. Get with it! All of you! I know this will
mean putting clothes on, Wonder Woman, but it’s your
own life you’ll be saving!”
[Editor’s note: Wonder Woman no longer uses an invisible
aircraft, a decision she might now regret. Not that it ever hid her
from view.]
Ms. Lane, who was once cloned, and is the former fiancee of the
man who financed the cloning technology that ultimately copied
her, Lex Luthor, an unnatural human being thought by many to be
a zombie, and who refuses to die and stay dead, wished her friend,
and former love interest, Superman, a safer tomorrow.
Clark Kent, the best reporter for the Daily Planet and possibly
the world, and this reporter’s former partner, said, “Though I have
reservations about the comfort and look of the new material, I
can’t fault Superman for wanting to appease the fears of his
friends and colleagues and take their recommended precautions
for his continued safety.”
Mr. Kent, who settled for marriage, that is who is settled in a
long marriage to a previously mentioned Daily Planet reporter,
flashed his still knee weakening smile and said he was sure the
Man of Steel would quickly become accustomed to his new power
of invisibility and wished him luck.
Mrs. Margaret Duffy-Schott, a long time fan of the Last Son of
Krypton, said in an email to this reporter’s desk, “I will certainly
miss seeing Mr. Superman flying overhead on patrol, but I’m sure
just hearing the whoosh will be as reassuring as time passes.”
The Justice League of America plans to issue a statement in the
next few days due to ongoing crime fighting and a lack of fashion
sense among themselves.
In a related note:
Anticipating the possibility of a problem with invisibility and
dropping from the sky at high speeds, Mighty Mouse has
graciously given his permission for Superman to sing, “Here I am
to save the day!”(an altered version of his own pre-flight ditty)
to announce his arrival just before landing at a scene where
he is needed.
The end of an era in the skies over Metropolis has come for the
citizens of our fair city. No longer will we see the Man of
Tomorrow when the familiar whoosh of his passing musses our
hair. This reporter will miss watching his passage across the sky.

Linda King (who thinks we had the best view from the ground...)


The next morning's headlines:

JAILED LEX LUTHOR TO SUE METROPOLIS STAR!!!
The Twice Dead Former Criminal Mastermind
To Sue Over Being Called A Zombie Again
"The judge threw out the last case, so we aren't
worried," said editor in chief (continued on page 24)

Well that was mighty nice of Mighty Mouse to let Superman use his song if he needs it!
LOL!!
The birth and marriage part sounds like it would happen under the circumstances. Myths have to start somewhere! LOL!


Kate, thanking you guys for the laugh

Someone could do a picture essay. 'The Many Desks of Lois Lane.'

Kate, who can't get MM's theme song out of my mind now


Strangely Funny MM Theme Song Presentation

ARGH! It won't go away! I never knew there were so many verses.

Or this one which proves that even mouse love interests are mean to the superheroes who love them. LOL!
Note: These are the New Adventures of MM.

Alternate MM Theme



Politically Incorrect MM Adventure

Seal skins, Little Nell??!!

LOL!
Yeah, that door slamming thing really caught on, didn't it?
So is Lois' Jeep the equivalent of the little one passenger airplane?
I much prefer Lois Lane, though. All that singing was funny when I was little but now I kind of like love interests to sneak around, steal incriminating evidence(so the police won't find it. What would they do with it anyway? Write an award winning story or lock it up as evidence?), hide behind doors, and fight back if a bad guy threatens her.

Kate

I like that Linda King writes all the news items. She can take a swipe at Lois and her editor doesn't care what she says or who she insults!
In the other one about the girl getting shot it cracked me up when Lex Luthor said he was just rescuing Lois from a bad situation but he left her tied up and gagged! LOL! That is still funny when I think about it. Oh, that and the zombie accusations! LOLOL!!
It was really fun to read all the way through these threads. Some of the things I thought of before and some have made me wonder how I missed it.
I didn't think Dan Scardino was so bad and since he left and didn't come back I can take him or leave him. But it's really funny to read how your opinions of him have changed.
I'm not a fan fiction reader but some of the ones you mentioned were good stories. I can see your point about some of them, too!
Also I haven't seen that Andy Kaufman Mighty Mouse clip in many years. It takes me back to when stand up comics were funny without being obscene.

LOL, thanks for the Mighty Mouse cartoon link. That was fun to see.

LOL! Take him and leave him somewhere far away! Above the Arctic Circle! The car booger should be right at home in the ice and snow.
The other Metropolis newspaper is more of a muckraker so we have fun letting Linda carry on her rivalry with Lois. One of these days we'll have Lois strike back!

Times have really changed. My childhood Saturday morning cartoons were different from what they are today but closer to MM's adventures.

Absolutely! Take him somewhere he can't find his way back! LOL!
Take him to the Antarctic so he won't get a ride back the next time Little Nell needs a new seal skin coat.

Kate

Also, you've probably noticed we use the online scripts for most of our information.
Scripts
I'm usually on my laptop at work or at the library so I don't have access to the DVDs to check things out, and I don't have time to watch an online episode. Sometimes i don't get to watch an episode until days after making a post.
When I got my set of DVDs three years ago I planned to put them into iTunes and load them on my iPod but I never have. One of these days I will.
So if you have to do a little research to find out what we're talking about, my apologies but I'm not going to go back over and change things. Sorry.

Yes! Even though a lot of what's there is different from the final episode they are still close enough to the final plot. It's also really fun to see what was changed and wonder how it started out.
I wish I could read the huge script DJL wrote with the fire ceremony in New Guinea and Lois in the Red Rocks of Utah and all the other things that were cut from the original script.

Kate, who read the novels recently and thinks the authors never watched the series at all

Remember the show "Earth 2?" There were three novels written for it, too. Two of the books each had Eden Advance coming upon a huge grand canyon type feature that they had to cross. I remember in an old EZboard forum we were saying we wished they wrote more books just to see how many grand canyons that planet had on the continent they were crossing!
Hmmm. Clark and the purple haired girl become partners and go to Utah. . .
LOL!

When Lois finds out the Red Rocks become the broken Red Rocks of Utah.
She really didn't know what to do when she went to Clark's apartment and the woman from the library or wherever was there, did she? Clark with another woman at any time during the series before Lois admitted her feelings was something she couldn't handle at all. If he had dated someone at the time she dated the car booger all hell WOULD have broken loose.
I don't like the sound of that.


Kate

Perhaps, but how could that be worse than declaring in front of the entire newsroom "Clark kent isn't man enough for me so I have room in my life to date another, more exciting man." That isn't what she was doing at all but to the newsroom, I'll bet it looked like it.
This is like godmoding in an RPG. The writer/s knew the outcome of the storyline so they gave Clark the strength of mind and heart to be okay with such an insulting situation and put up with it. I've said before if a guy I was dating ever did that to me, I wouldn't go along with it for a moment. I wouldn't have had the strength and thick skin I'd have needed to deal with it.
Hold on there. This is called metagaming in an RPG ( RPG Terms ) not godmoding. In this case metascripting, I guess.
Anyway, you're probably right. Lois punishes. She would have eloped with Scardino! LOL! That would have been a fun third season! (This is a joke. Kate doesn't like Scardino so I'm trying to get on her nerves. I know Lois would not have done that. Honest.)

And it worked! LOL!
If someone disagrees it's okay to say so. You don't have to use My Stuff to say it. I started out that way but it's more fun this way.
It must be really hard to follow that metagaming rule. In almost all stories Lois knows a lot of things she shouldn't. Even years of experience can't give you the knowledge to know exactly what is going to happen next in a brand new situation, but she always knows and she's always right.

Kate

Well, notice how many of the authors have Lois avatars.When you identify with one character you want them to be noticeable. It's easy to metagame when you're first starting out but if you stick with it, you learn to watch yourself. It's harder to avoid than godmoding, at least it was for me. You want the character you identify with to stand out but there are other ways to do it than making them smarter than Einstein,braver than the gods or able to take a beating beyond normal humans.
Lois' ability to escape, on the other hand,is something I like, because that comes with practice and the ability to see opportunity and assess materials at hand. There is nothing beyond normal there. It takes a clear head and determination.
No jokes, JMO.

Yes! Clark is worried about his secret endangering his family and friends and Lois specifically because they are ordinary people who can be hurt and killed. They may be intelligent and able to take care of themselves, but they are in human bodies and he couldn't force any of them to be careful.


Kate
m/o
There is a story where Lois is out for a walk with her child in a stroller. She is accosted by a couple of thugs and while other people stand by awestruck, she somehow gets her baby out of the stroller and uses it to beat up the thugs with one hand while holding the baby in the other. She and child unscathed then go home with the heavily damaged stroller being dragged along.
It was meant to be humorous and I did laugh but I also cringed at that poor baby being in danger and the mother not trying to get it away or protect it by staying to fight instead of running. I'm assuming of course Lois wasn't wearing high heels or one of those tight skirts that immobilized her thighs.

LOL! And the baby slept through it all? Who cares about the baby as long as Lois saves the day? Okay, that gave me a good laugh. It's a wonder there aren't more like that not meant to be humorous.

We saw it happen in Superman Returns, breaking and entering with a child in tow. It wasn't funny. It meant bland Lois wasn't all that maternal. It all started with her forgetting to pick her son up after school and arriving late. (I had a discussion with someone at the library who blamed Superman's return for distracting her and upsetting her so much she wasn't able to think clearly because her attraction to him was still so strong! That's worse than just running late and taking a chance.)


Kate

She did it more than once, too because Jason asks her if what they are going to do is illegal-- I don't remember what term he used but he was familiar with his mother bending the rules first hand. Another Lois whose child will someday choose between "Do as I say, not as I do." LOL!
Even when she's Bland Lois and doesn't have a fiery personality she teaches her kids the other side of the law.

You can be bland and adventurous at the same time, especially if you have to find out of the way places to smoke in secret.
One needs dark alleys to change clothes and the other needs them to smoke.


Kate

Yeah, Cade Skywalker Kent gets closer every time.
No, really, there are too many superheroes to choose from in that universe and they all know Clark! Who to emulate, Dad or one of his friends? If a Cade type shows up it will be super bad parenting-- and we know who will get the blame,-- or a pure bad seed.

LOL!
I guess. The super parent would never be there, would miss all the ball games, run off in the middle of something. Kind of hard to imagine a Utopia ever coming about. All the pieces have to line up and I guess they do to get to that point.
Still, I don't see TNAOS Lois taking a child along while investigating a story or even following up an unexpected lead. For her Superman is just a shout away and Perry and Jimmy are just a phone call away, possibly Lucy, too. SR Lois doesn't have that kind of relationship with them. Not that I remember anyway.

Kate

Not Quite It
Do you see Lois doing something like this? Really?
It's not quite what I had in mind when I wished both were a little more mature and comfortable around one another and with sex in general.
Sorry. To me it's just something (I won't say it) but it doesn't mean believable.
Also it goes back to Lois knowing Clark better than he knows himself. What made her think he wasn't ready for sex?
I suspect a case of metawriting.

Poor Quinn! Who's going to believe he almost boffed Lane? Rumors will be flying in all directions. I guess Lois just likes being the center of attention. Clark on the other hand is wishy washy enough to forgive all. JMO

Kate

That's another occasion for office gossip to hit the ceiling! Teachers aren't immune and we've had some hot topics around here a few times. You don't want to be a part of it but you want to know what happened. It's a vicious circle! M/O
"Lane! Tell these bozos you wanted me to jump you the night before last but changed your mind. And those aren't fakes boobs, are they? When you were hugging me that" thunmb and forefinger pressed together "close they sure felt real! Tell them, huh? Okay? They don't believe me."
Batman sounds fill the newsroom and Quinn says weakly from the floor, "Told you guys."

Same here and men and women are just as interested in the details.
m/o She was lucky he wasn't a rapist or a more forceful guy. Inside her apartment, behind the closed door she was so lucky he was willing to let it go as easily as he did. Rapists have gotten off under circumstances such as that. In this day and age there are still men and women who would believe a victim asked for it doing what she did.
Consequences. What spoil sports we are, seeing the danged possible consequences that weren't meant to be there.

I thought of that too. It was not a smart thing to do.
Plus, Clark needs to find out if this is what he can expect every time they have a fight, because they are going to have fights. If so, find a guy in 19th century clothing buying gold, and ask him to take him to another timeline where there is no Clark. He'll be happier with a more mature Lois-- if he can get a romance going and hopefully she is more mature over there.

Well at least they tried! LOL! A happy ending is obviously meant to make up for a lot.
Clark is such an understanding soul. The BAM! POW! KICK! Batman noises would be followed by a WHOOSH!

Kate

What complications people can come up with to make life difficult for those two! Even if it's unintended, or especially when it's unintended! LOL! What seems like an ending to you might be a glaring loose end for someone else.
...the pizza delivery girl was so pretty,Quinn completely forgot about 'the' Lois Lane in his pursuit of the pizza girl.
...just as he got home there was a knock on the door and he won the Publisher's Clearing House Sweepstakes! He completely forgot about what happened with 'the' Lois Lane in his happiness at becoming rich(like).
...his taxi had an accident and the hit on his head caused amnesia. Dr. Deter, thinking he would make a good husband for his sister, hypnotized him into marrying her and moving to Italy. But this Lane woman the guy mentioned intrigued Deter and he tucked the name away in the back of his mind.

Yes, No. 1: the Jimmy approach to dealing with women. When a prettier one comes along, forget all about the last one. Sure, any of that could have happened! What was I worried about anyway?
LOL!

Kate

Darned if I know! Loose ends are easy to tie up, aren't they?
Well, as long as they aren't too complicated, and you can have a little fun with them.

How about the Cat Grant loose end? Where did she go? She was still around a few days before the Lane/Luthor because Lois talks about not hearing from her and others lately.

Kate

She married Scardino, remember?
LOL! They already had a child as old as the FH baby so they got together immediately after season 2 ended! Jeez, pay attention when you read these stories!
I surmise Cat was passing by outside Lois' apartment after Dan left and turned around to see who was suddenly swearing in Italian behind her and asked 'what four-eyed farmer in the dell wearing baggy clothes do you want to beat the crap out of?'
Though, of course, she had some suspicion seeing whose building she'd just passed. . .

LOL! That just slipped my mind!
So they dated a while, got married and their child was born about the middle of season 4. Tied up.

Kate

Thought this might be interesting:
My Aunt's Car

Taken yesterday evening. I asked her where she got them but she said, "SHHH!'
That usually means I'll be getting some for my next birthday or Christmas.
I would assume she found them on Ebay since she is an avid Ebayer.

Off to recess-- I'm a recess monitor from 12:15 to 12:45.

Added:

Frame

License Plates

My aunt lives in Kansas, a state which requires only one license plate for cars. Lucky her. She did give my mom and me sets. Mine will go in my back window.

It's even easier to tie those loose ends when someone else does it for you.

Wow! I like it. The car looks black so the plate and frame match it perfectly! Makes me want a black car to do it too! LOL! My car is blue so a full color plate will work with it as a back window item. Sigh.

Kate, who loves the assortment of sayings on the frames! And wants one of each! LOL!

I could have told you that! You and the RPG people do it all here and they don't even post! LOL! Lazy me.
I'm looking for another alt-Clark story from way back just to see what difference the passage of time makes on perceptions of him. I can't say I'll ever be a fan of his because he is presented as just too obsessed but I want to compare different views.

Kate

As I said before I don't like what I see, JMO, as characterizing him as somehow better than the Clark of the series. That's my main objection to Alt Clark. Series Clark makes mistakes, Alt Clark doesn't. Play fair! (Joke)

I think I know exactly what you mean. In one story an Alt Clark turns out to be the father of the Family Hour baby. He comes to this time dimension to get him. As he is getting to know the baby he babysits and then starts doing Superman rescues while Clark is busy. Once he was needed so he he took the baby to the Planet building and left him with Lois so he could do the rescue. A few days later, real Clark was babysitting and needed to go to a rescue. He took off and left the baby at home alone! Needless to say Lois and Alt Clark were angry and he was sheepish and sorry for doing such a stupid thing.

After such a good example set by the real father, Clark still did something like that? Endangered the baby to un-endanger others? LOL! And he got the higher score from the adoption agency?
Brings up the question what would Clark do with a child if he was spending quality time with him/her and there was an emergency? How can he spend time alone with his hypothetical kids if he can be called away for an emergency unexpectedly? He won't be able to leave the house alone with any of his kids even if they know the secret.

Kate

The only reason I could think of for that to happen so soon after the other guy doing it right was for Lois to see that her doofus husband isn't ready to be a father yet and make it easier for both of them to give the baby back to the real father.
Offhand, it sounds like they would need daycare or a sitter at home.
The name of the story is Kidnapped! I forgot to include that.
-Paula

Thank you, Paula. I was looking at alt Clark stories but couldn't find anything that resembled it. My weekend reading.
Clark needs advice from the CDU immediately!

Halfway through the story...hmmmm...have to get eggs ready.


Kate

I haven't started it yet but will this evening after all the excitement is over.
I hope everyone is having a nice Easter holiday in whatever way you might celebrate it.


(\^^/)
(='.'=)
(")_(")

I haven't finished reading he alt Clark story yet but I have to say from what I've seen so far our Clark is the big dummy and real dad is far smarter. The other man has issues but no matter how the story ends, our Clark will be the lesser man.

Kate

In a way, it does work out that way. I liked it better than I thought I would, mainly for the background that Clark had. It actually made the New Ks interesting somehow and I am no fan of the New Ks.

Why do alt Clarks not have parents? Is killing the Kents when he is at a young age considered beneficial to any Clark Kent? Is that what makes alt him smarter and 'better' than series Clark? Or is just having a 'clean slate' Clark a way for the authors to remake Clark as they see he should have been?
This might be another ff staple. The Kents must die when alt Clark is a child.

Kate

I don't know. That's always the starting point for the differences in the various lives of the Clarks. Maybe so.
Alt Clarks are not allowed to have happy lives.

Well I guess if they had happy lives they wouldn't be interesting.
Still they would have made different choices and gotten to the point of meeting Lois, or not, in different ways. They can't all be brooding, empty men brow beaten by life or dominant girlfriends. Some of them must have taken on the world without hiding so much about themselves. The naive farm boy is an act after all, as is the mild mannered reporter, so no one will immediately associate Clark with Superman.

Kate

It's easy to forget that, though. The character played it up more in the movies and the comics, but even though the series emphasized Clark over Kal-El, he was still Superman.

Series Clark didn't go away and brood for years in an Arctic Fortress of Solitude either. He was always super and used his powers secretly. Movie Clark hid his powers until he became Superman. It's harder to see the difference in TV Clark, I suppose. Still, I like there being a definite Clark and a Superman better than Clark being a disguise he must resort to when not needed as Superman.

Kate

I think in the new movie, we're going back to that, but you need that for a movie. Action, special effects. You can't explore the characters for long in something that has to be a blockbuster or else.

Before I forget:
We've been writing different things in class this week. For extra credit I told the kids to write a haiku about Superman. (They all know I like Superman and Star Wars.)
Sixth grader haiku about Superman...these are my favorites and they even imply a season!

"Spaceships crash
cornfields glow softly.
Superman lives."

"The sky was bright,
the grain is dark,
a baby cries.
(They smile.)"

"The lights fade away
The man said, no!
She said, he's ours."

"Thunder rumbled,
they run to look.
Starshine on a boy."

I wanted to compliment your 6th graders. Those are very good. What was the preparation? I mean did your class watch a Superman movie? Was it just based on a general knowledge of Superman? I'd be interested to know. And was it to be solely about his arrival on Earth?

Zoom

The haiku is really cute. I don't know much about haiku but I can see the point to each one. Little bits of information that say a lot. You've got your kids writing their first tiny fanfics.


Kate, whispering what is the significance of seasons?

Oh, however it turns out it will be for a couple of hours. If it isn't good there will be no waiting for week to week improvement.
I hope it's good enough to continue, though. The alternative would likely be animated adventures. Which are not bad just not character centered.

Kate

Most of the kids knew the Superman story either from cartoons or "Smallville" and most had seen the movies on TV. Some knew of TNAOS, too, from watching programs at the WB website.
At the beginning of the year, as we were getting to know one another, we talked about our favorites. I mentioned one of my favorite parts of the story was the arrival of the spaceship on Earth and how just the right people in all the world found it and the child who was inside. (It also gave me the opportunity to teach them the word 'serendipity.' )
So, this is kind of sucking up, writing about my favorite part. LOL!
Some wrote about other parts of the story but quite a few chose the arrival and I did like them all, but these four stood out to me. They aren't perfectly in form and one has an extra line sneaked in, but I think they're pretty good,too.
Thanks for the compliment on their behalf.


We had a list of things to research,the different forms of specialty writing people can do: poems, acrostics,couplets, tongue twisters, limericks, odes, haiku, cinquain, and the kids latched on to haiku like it was just what they were waiting for. ("Because there's just three lines and it doesn't need to rhyme.")
Looking it up, we discovered the original Japanese haiku were odes to the seasons, and the form grew and changed from there.

Added:

His Job
Reporting is
his job of choice, but not
because his partner makes his day
complete.

Edited by BevK (04/14/12 09:39 PM)
Edit Reason: added a cinquain

Okay,now I can't stop:

Dear Clark
You're doing good!
I saw you lift the ship.
I see my contribution works.
Love, Mom

I can admit I'm still childish enough to appreciate cartoons. LOL! I don't care if they aren't very deep and if the action is paramount, there are moments to everything that stick in my mind, good and bad.

I like the cinquains too. I looked up the word and they SEEM an easier form to do. I like the Martha one, mentioning the suit without saying the word. Nicely done.

True to being me I was disappointed by the Animated Series, especially the Brainiac episode where the ship was blowing up and Superman with all his speed, managed to save only the Krypton globe from all the civilizations Brainiac destroyed. Why didn't he use his cape and gather up as many as he could?

Kate, thinking your class reads you like a book

Yes, but I know them pretty well, too.
Conquains are more precise than haiku where you can get away with a lot. The exact number of syllables is harder to create than haiku. They're both fun to fiddle around with and if you look up on the internet haiku written by children you'll find some really nice stuff. The kids liked the form a lot better than cinquain where they had better luck coming up with examples when they worked in teams.
Anyway, what was that about the movie? LOL!

Movie? What movie? Big Gray and Textured?
Are you seeing or hearing spoilers about it? Aside from the new logo which we saw in the official release pics a long time ago. Despite the interest of the guys in my family and blogs of people I know online, I'm not. There are no big deals coming out, just a picture now and then- unless I'm looking in the wrong places. Even Bleeding Cool has absolutely nothing this far along in the filming.

Kate

I have to thank you for teaching me what a cinquain is! LOLOL!
I remember haiku from high school but I didn't remember cinquain from anywhere, let alone sixth grade! If I did hear of it somewhere I really don't remember it.
I had to look it up and had to laugh how close it sounds to Dean Cain. (Thank goodness for dictionary.com and it's pronunciation feature.)
I like these. The haiku was good too.

Not really. I've seen what some claim is the plot for the movie and if it is, it's not that bad, but the spoiler is a year old and rumor says the script has been rewritten or changed significantly since then.
There was Diane Lane's spoiler, which wasn't much, and a lot of long distance fan pictures by people hanging around the filming locations.
But, you
re right. There are very little spoilers coming out.

There are fifth grade teachers who are introducing their students to items on the list above.
The more synonyms you know for words the easier it is to craft a cinquain. I think that's why kids prefer haiku.

Blue Pen
He draws the line
through the stilted phrasing.
Why can't he write like Lane and Kent?
he thinks.

After reading that I'm going to look for Perry White centered stories.

Kate

Good idea.
One of my personal favorites:
A Perry Story

LOL! Well heck yes! If it was a sight for us it must have been high entertainment for him watching from a few feet away! Luckily we got hear what they were actually saying!
I have to feel sorry for L&C though. If Perry watched them that closely, everyone must have. Can you imagine what that would be like? I mean for the ones watching, since most of the time L&C were oblivious to it all.

Kate

m/o

"The harsher the
critiques or the brighter the raves, the better, thanks."

Preferably the latter, of course. No one seems to really wants to hear the former, judging by how many times I've been warned to take it easier (in other places) or how many emails I've gotten from authors over the years.

Same here, M/O but I'm not going to turn into an easy reader any time soon. Like I said before I came from ST and SW where the writers have been around since the 60s and 70s and know how to take criticism. I'm used to pointing out what strikes me as unusual. We've been reading some of the older stories more than others and looking at the feedback it's all positive going back to before 2000 and one can get very used to that.
Office gossip can be everything but good for you, especially with super hearing. I guess Clark just has a very forgiving heart. LOL!

Both (gossip, feedback) can be ignored, both can be acknowledged. I've seen gossip in action and would rather not be the center any more than I already am.

Anyway, Perry is featured in many stories, but stories about him are few and far between. Looking some more...

Kate

I haven't seen many either, and not too many when he is featured prominently. There are death fics but I'm waiting to read them last-- death of anyone. I don't mind them but I want to read as much as I can of everything else first.

Another Perry Find
If you're patient when going through Google's mile long lists of possibilities you CAN find a hit on what you're looking for.

Kate

Good one. All Perry and inside his head, too. This fits with my personal opinion that he knew for a long time. After the first wild idea to write the story of the decade, he calmed down and thought it over and kept the secret. I can't imagine a man of his experience and intelligence not figuring it out. Maybe this was how.

Very Unusual and Noteworthy
I have a feeling if Boy Scout was really on the job those trips to Vegas would have been a little less naughty.
There is something to be said about stories off the beaten track.

Kate

Whoa! That is different. It would have been a fun episode to watch! A Teri Hatcher open mouthed look of surprise to the president grabbing Clark and helping him walk! LOL! Too many know his identity but I guess they can keep secrets.
Yeah, they definitely could use his influence nowadays!

Yes, that would have made a good episode. The last person you would expect to come to the rescue at the farm would be the president! LOL! But then he was probably visiting someone in Arkansas and, what the heck? Let's go help Superman.

Kate

They're just across the state line, why not?

This has been a busy week. Aside from having our annual book fair, I'm moving to a new school in the fall so I have to clean out my room here. Just a few more weeks of school left and so much to do.

Interesting Take But Bland

Sometimes there are too much fireworks, sometimes there aren't any at all.

Lois is completely numbed by shock. She'll wake up in the morning and start screaming 'rape' and run to work and have Perry fire Clark. Or she'll sneak out and pretend it all never happened.

Kate, who wonders why ff Lois is never nice to Clark until AFTER she finds out he's Superman

LOL! Get used to it. It happens all the time from what I can tell, so far. I can't really blame her though. Two for the price of one. Clark is one big BOGO deal-- the ultimate one! Who can resist if the price is right?
LOL!

BOGO and the Car Booger- The Adventures of the Adversaries
This was one of Fox Network's pre-cancelled TV series of the early 2000s. It was pulled from the line-up after two aired episodes and the entire series of filmed episodes, twelve, was released on DVD after fan protest.

Kate

LOL but a sad LOL. There were so many shows that they pulled after only one or two episodes, it did seem as if they were all pre-canceled!
WonderFalls had such a pretty cast, they deserved to stay on the air just for giving us a complete cast handsome and lovely to look at. (Well, except for the mouth breather but they explained his hairdo in the commentaries. )
B&CB-TAOTA, die-hard fans call it Toyota for short.
Lois Lane goes missing, disappearing from her apartment after the Prankster and his side-kick are seen running, screaming from her building, babbling something about a zombie. Superman and a government agent, code named 'Car Booger,' reluctantly unite to find her at the behest of Perry White. Join them each week as they go in search of the mysterious zombie seen in the vicinity of Miss Lane's disappearance. This one hour dramedy debuts on Friday nights at 7 p.m on FOX.

(Sarah doesn't show up in time in this zany Tempus mixed up timeline.)

LOL! I'd pull it after two episodes too, even if it was an Arghed show! The car booger doesn't deserve to know the secret.

Kate

Actually, Dan was the one who got fed up and irritated by Superman's crazy excuses to turn into Clark Kent for a while. Car Booger was on the verge of a major temper tantrum brought on by Superman disappearing all the time just they were about to sit down and compare ideas AND the fact that the danged reporter Kent seemed to be following them around, looking for a scoop.
Our boy has that affect on everyone he works with, I guess.
Anyway, the show was canceled in the middle of the twelfth and final episode, so they were able to write an ending where CB is being borne away in a straitjacket weeping and saying, "I just wanted to sit down and compare notes once a while, but he kept running away like I was yesterday's news!"
At this point Superman streaks away to help a Lear jet in distress and discovers the mysterious zombie is aboard with the missing Miss Lane.
Superman leaves the disabled jet floating in the ocean with the zombie inside and flies back to Metropolis with the rescued Miss Lane, arguing every minute of the way over "WHY DID IT TAKE SO LONG?!"

What? Was she running out of vehement insults this time around?
I like the idea that in every episode no matter where he and Superman are, the booger gets a glimpse of Clark poking around there too, and thinks he's following them! LOL!
I hope there was at least one Linda King episode, or one with Cat Grant where the booger has to deny he is attracted to his possibly future Mrs.

Kate, with apologies to Cat (- I still say you're too good for him!)

LOL!
Sounds good to me. Wonderful show. Never had a chance.

Great Clark

Love this story. Lois fans might not, but this CDU member does. Why can't he be this guy more often?

At least Superman got to solve the disappearance all by his lonesome. Pre-cancelled. Sigh.

Kate, frantically looking ahead for time to read the story link

Once again Lex is suing for being called a zombie in the press.
This time the international press, the helicoptors from several networks worldwide filmed him being taken into custody, live, by the Coast Guard.

Of course it was fitting that Superman and Lois flew off into the sunset ARGUING!
I guess it's time to hunt for more unusual stories.

Kate

Nice, Well-written Teaser
Every now and then I actually like something, contrary to popular opinion. This was well written enough to keep the twist from being a let down or too much of a surprise.

Hmm. It was a surprise to me, but I guess I should have known this was not normal behavior for Lois around Clark. On the other hand the opinions of others matter to Lois even though she reacts as if they don't. She can't even imagine herself letting the others win even in dreams! LOL! I like the little bit of whimsy in the ending though.

Kate

Good old office gossip. We seem to be bringing that up a lot lately, but I guess it's the last thing on anyone's mind when they're planning to put Clark through emotional hell or have him punished for something.
M/O Around here we don't even talk about a certain subject. It's like a good luck charm. If we don't talk about it, it won't happen here. Everything else is up for grabs, but not THAT.

Poor guy. Always being punished for being superpowered and keeping it a secret.
Still, I wish I worked there too! I'd do research forever if it kept me in the newsroom. LOL!

Kate

m/o I have an idea what that might be and it can happen in my line of work too. It's part of ethics and professional conduct, right?

LOL! We're a couple of broken records and poor PMC, Paula, is worried about coming in with late comments?! Sheesh!

We hold our own opinions dear to our hearts and revisit them as necessary. That's all there is to it.

Kate

Well yeah. How else to explain the constant bringing up of one Dan Scardino, AKA the Car Booger?
Looks like it might be time to discuss the Kents again. Last we saw of Martha she was terrorizing Wayne about the weather and contemplating politics.
And really, President Kent wouldn't be that far off once the media picks up on how often Superman visits State Senator/Governor/US Senator Martha Kent.

The ultimate celebrity endorsement: his own mom! You've got her on the fast track there.
You bring up the booger, not me! I deny him all over the place. BTW, I finally saw Piri on Missing and even though you said he was the guy who hits on the women in the gym I still had to look twice and I recognized his voice first. K Callan was in an episode too as a sweet looking but mean newspaper columnist. She is also in the DS9 episode "Rivals" where she's only recognizable by her voice!

Kate

You can say that again! Three or four times! LOL!
Alsia (K) Callan
We used to watch this show but I never knew that was her until a long time later, when I was watching a rerun and I did recognize her voice. Click the card pic to make it a little larger. She got to play a Star Trek weird nose alien! Such envy!

Wow. I've seen K in guest star roles before, but I had never heard about this one or seen this pic before. I don't watch any of the ST shows. Thanks

Sometimes I don't recognize her right off but her smile or her voice always do it for me. Sometimes if her hair is done very differently I don't recognize her at all. She can change with her characters.

Kate

Pic number 5 in this slide show, with her hair up, very different and would have taken a second look from me to be sure.
K Slideshow

Aging?
Interesting for me right up until the handsome looking middle aged man showed up. Middle aged? How? With no aging machine to save Jimmy from, CK hasn't given up any of his battery life, so how could he age? Lois will be twenty years older and showing it but Clark will still look 26.
Maybe Martha is dying his hair. Good old Mom, always there with the answer to a super problem.
(Yeah, yeah, what a time to be nitpicking, but this is a new story for me. It's the first time I've read it.)

Yes, leave it to Martha. She would be looking after her boy, since he seems to have no interest in any other women. The fifty year old virgin just hit town. It's a wonder the city is still there since fifty year old Toni Taylor (and sons)is probably still around toasting all in sight.

Kate

LOL!
Her reign of terror is about to reach it's end. Mr. Patience-is-his-middle-name, the very definition of patience, "patience is a virtue", is in Metropolis. If Martha is still alive and can sew, can a suit be far behind?
Perhaps if Lois' eyesight is not what it used to be she won't notice the first time they kiss that Clark's wrinkles are drawn on with different shades of eyeliner pencil, or that they change position fron day to day.
Oh well, Martha will have thought of all that and prepped her boy properly. (Leaving him a detailed list, if she has gone to her reward.)

Can't wait for him to meet the other fifty-ish plus super heroes when new and exciting Superman makes his debut.
"You were doing what for twenty years?"
"You're that mysterious savior we've been trying to track and find all this time!"
"You're the mysterious radar blip that helps aircraft in trouble!"

Kate

Barry Allen: "I came close to catching you in the act eleven times! Not fair flying away!"
Hal Jordan: "How did you get yellow light to work for you?"
Bruce: "Chicken. About time you showed up."
Diana: "Soul mates?! You're joking! Nothing's inevitable!"

I hope you are still posting or did I leave it too long? I've been meaning to ask a few questions but was too lazy to create an account. I hope you are.
1- In one discussion you said something about how Lex would have broken Lois if she had married him. You were of the opinion what he was telling Clark in the cage was just to torment him and that Lex had other plans, but you didn't go into detail! What do you think those plans would have been?
2- You also said that knowing who is a good guy and who is a bad guy going in would influence a person's perception of the behavior of the character. We can differentiate between Clark's treatment of Lois and Lex's and judge them as good and bad just by their reputations. Correct?
3- Also you brought up an interesting point about the superheroes being able to stay anonymous even though their disguises are often so flimsy. I like that idea that they just work because that is their universe and that's just the way it is. I have other questions but that's all I have time for now.
I really enjoyed reading all three of your threads, Bev and Kate and others, and the humor is great! I spent the weekend reading from start to finish and laughing out loud many times.
Again, I hope I haven't left this too late.


Kris

Hi Kris. Speaking for myself, I'm taking a break for work reasons but, don't worry, I'm always happy to ram my point of view into the public domain as often as possible.
Point 1: Let's see. What was I thinking then? OK. In the series Lex is living one huge lie. He has had the world fooled for years with his gentleman-philanthropist mask. His criminal activities depend on the rest of the world buying that facade hook, line and sinker, and never looking deeper. Lois Lane is a public figure, well known in the news business and an award winning investigative reporter. Breaking her, if that was truly what he was planning to do and not just words to torment Superman, he would have to do it in such a way that no one would suspect he was causing it. She can't just disappear after the wedding. He's given her an important position within his news network. If he was planning to drive her insane,for example, he would have to start the campaign in full view of the LNN staff and the watching gossip media. By the time he tearfully has her committed a year or two later, the whole world will be watching and thinking, "Oh, that poor Mr. Luthor. His wife was never the same after that newspaper she worked for went out of business."
There are stories where he sexually torments her or plans to murder her, but neither make sense to me. I can't see her tolerating the first in any way, no matter what the threat. And the latter would be such a media event, he'll ever hear the end of it.
Point 2: Suppose during the first season "The Boss" and the richest man in the city were never presented as the same man? What if the richest man in Metropolis was John Smith for example, and just a romantic rival for Clark? What if we didn't know that his real identity was Lex Luthor until House of Luthor and he was also The Boss? Would we have seen his relationship with Lois as manipulative even if Clark sensed something was wrong?
Point 3: Sure. No one ever finds Clark's clothes hidden anywhere, no one ever sees the Batmobile leaving or approaching the Bat Cave. They don't even know which way he goes when he's leaving. Peter Parker's camera takes great, perfectly centered and in-focus pictures of Spiderman no matter how he moves around during a fight with a nemesis.
JMO,of course.

Yeah. John Shea played Lex with a lot of charm. You could almost feel sorry for him- well, you would have felt for him as John Smith when he was explaining to Nigel that he was really in love and not just being influenced by the pheromone compound- if you didn't know he was Lex! And then finding out he was really Lex Luthor in the end would have been a terrific shock.
Sexual torment and Lois Lane? I agree with you there. She wouldn't have tolerated it as portrayed in the series. Husband or not, threats or not, she isn't the type of woman to let anyone get away with that kind of treatment. She has too much respect for herself.
Breaking her would have been the challenge of his life and, yeah, she would have fought back in some way. She's too smart to let anyone physically harm her in anyway. Once the charming veneer was revealed as phony, she would have fought back and gotten out. It wasn't the 1890s after all! A woman of the 1990s knows the choices and alternatives and Lois was not one who would tolerate it. She could be fooled only so far. We saw that with Scardino. She figured him out no matter how charming and exciting he seemed to be.
You know, I never even thought of him before but after reading these threads, I realized if she could see through Scardino, Lex would have had a fight on his hands to keep her under his control.


Kris

Hello Kris. Good questions.
In order to keep her under his influence he would have had to cage her too as he did Superman. His high profile wife would have disappeared from the public eye after that extravagant wedding presided over by 'the bishop' no less, and that was the kind of attention Lex couldn't afford to call to himself. Lois slowly withdrawing over time for other reasons would have been less noticeable and, yes, a lot more challenging and just plain entertaining for a man of his experience to arrange. His ultimate chess game against two opponents at the same time, Lois and the public.
Lois is not a weak woman. Husband or not, when he started threatening her or her family and friends, she would have resisted. It would have taken a lot of effort on his part to dominate her but she would have resisted. All it took was one moment alone to yell for Superman and leave him a letter or something for Clark, Perry or Lucy or all three and a call for help was out without Lex knowing.
Reading the ff and reviews there is one impression that stands out for me. Fans think Clark loves Lois more than she loves him and of the two, Lois is the most likely one to cheat. And this is during a marriage to her soulmate! She didn't love Lex at all. Why would she stick around and let him make her life a living hell?
He may the king of crime, but she's the queen of escaping.


Kate, who thinks it's always better to not think of Scardino at all

You remind me of J.K.Rowling when she said "There are three kinds of people. Those who can count and those who can't." LOL!
And who is she most likely to have an affair with? Perfect Alt Clark.
Alt Clark is low on my list of favorite characters but I have to admit I like anything that blasts the bejeebers out of the soul mates thing. Why would God, fate, karma, whatever make them soul mates if one is destined to cheat? No sense in it, but I can't complain.


Interesting idea. Really, if he was nearby and she could get away with it, all she'd have to do is start talking out loud. If Superman/Clark can zero in on her heartbeat, he can zero in on her voice, especially if she sounded stressed or emotional.

Scardino, Scardino, Scardino!

Oh funny, funny!
I meant to change that to 'two' impressions but I didn't.
Why indeed? They were created to be together despite what the current goofball in the comics cat seat thinks. I like the idea of soul mates but I don't like how it is played out. I guess I don't like the loneliness issue it implies if they never find one another, but then it also means they are not interchangeable between the Wellsian dimensions introduced in the series. You can have one but not the other.
But wouldn't it be an interesting reveal if that did happen? Lois calls Superman to a quick meeting in an out of the way place and asks him to warn Clark that she knows all about Lex but he is going to kill Clark or her family if she doesn't stay with him and pretend to be his loving wife. Quick spin and Clark is there saying, "He can't hurt me and I won't let him hurt anyone else."
Spin back and he's gone.
She doesn't know about the cage, so she believes him and stand back and see what damage an furious investigative reporter can do from the inside.

Kate, after giant Lois, not the least bit fazed by giant car boogers

In the few fics on this subject I've read, she allows herself to become a victim out of fear for the safety of her family and friends. In a couple she doesn't leave until she becomes pregnant and you can imagine what happens after that. In one she stays but it's never explained why. She's fighting back but still a victim but not strong enough to leave. She knows what he is but isn't strong enough to defy him.
Clark, Perry and Jimmy are so dispirited they stop investigating Luthor and no one is opposing him in any meaningful way.
No one is portrayed as they were in the series.

Oh well. Boldly going, I guess.

Yes. And unable to take it further. How frustrating is that? I don't know about you but pretty darn for me.

Kate, wandering off into an LL time too

M/O
You're familiar with Earth 2, the series, right?
Look at this: E2 Star
In addition to Gates McFadden/Beverly Crusher, Debrah Farentino/Devon Adair was another great influence on me as a young girl.
So now we have Dean Cain and Debrah Farentino beginning to do cons and both seem happy to greet and oblige fans from previous shows. I'll have to broaden my horizon to include other cons than Star Wars. Both J. Madison Wright and Sullivan Walker from E2 are gone now so it would be great to see Debrah/Devon sometime. Clancy Brown is affiliated with Star Wars , The Clone Wars and he's been appearing at SW cons and I'm looking forward to CVI to see him.

Sullivan Walker is gone too?! I hadn't heard and there's very little information about him on the net. That's too bad. I liked his portrayal as Yale.
I think it would be great to meet Farentino and, I wish!, Jessica Steen too. I was more of a Julia fan than Devon but both were good characters, and 'Beverly' on Eureka is a nicely played villain. Farentino is great in that role too.
I guess I'll be paying more attention to conventions in my neck of the woods from now on with the possibility of meeting Mr. Cain and so many others I've enjoyed watching.

I was trying to keep my imagination from going there but it did anyway. Does he actually help her raise the child as their own?

Kate

Righto. Got it in one. He welcomes her back with open arms, red, puffy eyes and tear stained face and pillow.
Of course, no child asks to be born and that's the reasoning. "It isn't the baby's fault," both Martha and Lois tell sniffling Clark as he pretends he has a bad cold and coughs into a clean hankie.
"By allerdies are bad dis dibe of da year," he hiccups in explanation.

Now to something where Martha cries but for a better reason. As I have said many times, every now a then a little gem pops up and IMO this one is.
Moms Are Cool

LOL!!
Okay. Another category that falls to the bottom of my list of reading.
It isn't the baby's fault. No, it's Lois' fault for sticking around and letting it happen. Why wait until then if she was unhappy and Lex was no longer hiding his true self from her? She wanted his child so she would never have to marry again?
Keep crying, Clark. Can you say platonic?

Was the recap of story details really necessary? I guess new fans would appreciate it. Other than that.... the expression of emotion was well done and having infant Kal-El a part of the recording is much more personal than just Lara standing there talking.
That realm called Kansas came through for her didn't it?


Kate

"Bladobic!"
Seriously, maybe. I haven't a clue why that strong, feisty, intelligent woman would suddenly turn into second season Lucy after saying "I do" to Lex. To protect her family and friends? Has she forgotten the way to the police station? I'm letting it go or I'll go on for the rest of the day!

Yes, that realm called Kansas did an exemplary job. Until the last reboot anyway. Now society as a whole is shaping him.

The recap didn't bother me, considering the story was written not so long ago, some 12 years after the series ended, I think. Anyway, who knows what goes through Martha's mind when she's in cleaning mode? LOL! Clark or politics?

Clark I guess, or she just likes to recap his life every now and then. I wish she would recap her own once in a while. I'd like to know what her past was like. Being that she resisted Jonathan's proposals so many times, apparently posed nude at her age for art class, raised a superhero who let her dress him in one heck of an aerodynamic suit and told Nor to watch his mouth- that is one interesting life she's led!

Kate

With a man who appreciated her just the way she was. She probably sent Jonathan into the treehouse the next day to see what would happen.

LOL! Yes. I guess that was a gem of a story. It has me thinking of what might have happened next.
I'm glad the Kents were never changed from season to season. Their dedication to their son stayed constant.

Kate

Perry Knew!
Someone else agrees Perry figured it out and kept it to himself. One more for my side!

Back again.
So what would evolution have to do with superpowers? I started to read one of the stories in the Fanfic section and the explanation there was all genes and dilution of the powers through time. Sounds good to me, but what is the other explanation you mentioned with evolution?
I bet I just made your day.
I am also beginning to understand what you mean about the way the Lane family was changed. Sam, the obviously brilliant doctor/scientist who did work remarkable enough to get Lex Luthor's attention and more importantly, funding turns into Dr. Abs-in-a-Bottle.
What did Luthor do to him? LOL! He went from building super-robotic men to making anotomically correct life sized Barbie dolls. It's a shame because it shows up in the fiction. I just read one where he offers to build a baby for Lois and Clark! If you want to talk about something happening to pull you out of a story that did it for me.

Kris

LOL! A mechanical infant?! That you have to hit on the head when it gets 'stuck' like Baby Gunderson? No no no. That's funny but so wrong.
I can't begin to help with the other part of your post since I don't understand it either.

Kate

I hope you don't think I understand it because I don't.
We were in the RPG chat one time talking about stories where some of Superman's children have one power but not all of them, or no powers at all, or some combination of them. The RGers said "Not possible!"
This is taken from that chat transcript.
This is just a theory, really, because as far as I know we have no geneticists in the RPG. A veterinarian, some nurses, a doctor's aide, several engineers, computer techs, a math professor and other teachers but no genetic authority.
Anyway, they all agreed it wasn't possible for Superman to pass the superpowers to his descendents through DNA. Technically, he does, because he is from Krypton, from a species of beings who evolved under the light of a red sun. They are as ordinary under that sun as we are under ours. That means on Krypton he has no superpowers at all, SO they are not a part of his genes, his DNA. They are not traits he can pass on to his children. His Kryptonian body as a whole is what reacts to yellow sunlight and manifests superpowers. Not just his genes, but every component that is needed to make one of the cells that make up his/our bodies reacts to old Sol in this way and makes a Kryptonian superpowered. (What is that called? Physiology? I'll call it that anyway.)
Like it or not, the TNAOS series was created with the specific fact in mind that Lois and Clark were going to be able to have children. So all of their children and resulting descendents are going to have the full set of superpowers for a long time to come because, as long as they are descended of Clark Kent they will be part Kryptonian and it is Kryptonian physiology as a whole that makes superpowers under yellow sunlight. There are no strands of DNA or genes that are specifically for creating this superpower or that. Something has to teach their genes how to be able to do this because that kind of information has never been a part of Clark's genetic code. The Kryptonian species didn't need that information so why would their evolution put it there? It stands to reason that it didn't.
Now that Kryptonian physiology (I hope that's the right word) and human physiology are combining to create a new species of hybrid, evolution is going to start both species' genes on the road to dealing with the superpowers.
Either the Kryptonian physiology will begin to copy the human one and learn to ignore the yellow sunlight's effect, or the human physiology is going to start to copy the Kryptonian one and start manifesting powers, too. But none of this will happen overnight, nor from Clark to the next generation and then the generation after. It will happen over millennia. Eventually the signal to ignore or the signal to accept this change will be programmed into the genes of the descendents, but not for a very long time.
What problems that will bring, I don't know, but until then Kryptonian matter in the cells will still react to yellow sunlight and generate superpowers.
This is what the RPGers think.
I agree with them because it all sounds so possible and because I want to.

LOL!
I'm glad the series didn't go on long enough for the writer's to think of that! LOL!

That's what I was imagining. Sam saying, "Just put it in the closet if you want it to sleep for a while."
Luckily they told him no. It would have been too strange.

Do you mean if he had super powers in his genes and obviously got them from his parents then all Kryptonians would have been super powered on Krypton, correct? But they weren't so Clark's descendents will get them the same way he did? By accident because of yellow sunlight touching their Kryptonian half of their bodies? So they will get diluted as the generations add up. Each generation will get weaker and weaker.

Kris

Like I said before we're just making this up as we go along. We don't really know what we're talking about but we know how to really fake it and make it look like we do.
I would say 'correct me if I'm wrong' but no one will so here goes.
This is transcript with names removed. I think it answers your post.

"For the sake of this discussion let’s say it takes 30 kajillion individual cells to make the average humanoid body. Earthling, kryptonian, whatever. When the two species mate and produce a child that kid is NOT going to end up with 15 kajillion human cells and 15 kajillion K cells all stuck together to make the hybrid body. It will still have at least 30 kajillion bits of h matter and 30 kajillion bits of k matter but each type will be sharing the same cell.
Yeah. Each cell will have half human and half Kryptonian components to make the cells..
Right.
So no matter how many gens pass there will always be at least 30 kajillion pieces of K matter in the bodies of the descndents?
Yeah. The k matter will not weaken it will just become fewer and farther between u know?
Right. A dominant human gene will make the kid have more of their human parent’s characteristics but that dominance wont make K matter stop being k matter. It will still be a little speck of k life matter from the original k ancestor. 30 kazillion of them.
Kajillion. Pay attention.
;p
Even if it is just one little speck it s still kryptonian and it will react to sunlight by making super powers in the kid.
Well unless by that time evolution has encoded the genes to tell the k matter to ignore yellow sunlight.
Yeah.
But how likely is that guys? Wont survival of the fittest rule?
Maybe. Sure y not? The human life matter might begin to copy the k stuff and start reacting like it does."

They have me believing it! LOL!

I wonder what he was planning to do? Replace the child with another, aged properly, every year? LOL!

It all sounds good to me too. Especially the part about not being traits he can pass on one, all or a combination of powers at a time. He would have had to be born with each super power in his genes and he wasn't because Kryptonians are just as normal as we are in their home planet system.
You really talk about a lot of stuff in that chat room, don't you? LOL! Let me in!

Kate, not an authority either but willing to accept since we are talking about fictional characters

Oh well, if you're going to use scientific terms like kajillian, then count me in. I'm a convert!
It's kind of mysterious though, isn't it? One little speck of Kryptonian life in the cells is still enough to cause superpowers!

Yes, we do. Not too long ago our veterinarian member was saying he met up with a friend he hadn't seen since high school back in the 80s. One wanted to be a large animal vet and the other wanted to work in the field of research in biology, improving crop yields. (Yes! A GMO scientist!) Both being farm kids, they got help with scholarships as blue jackets, and he was asking me if any of the stories I've read dealing with Clark as a teenager mention the possibility of him being a blue jacket. Jonathan probably was, or could have been, and Clark certainly might have been. I had to say, no, because I've never seen mention of it.
All we know of Clark's high school days is he stays in touch with the kids he went to school with. He had a lot of friends.
And a cow.

Mysterious? As in way the hell over my head? That's mysterious alright!

I had to look that up, being a city kid I still should have recognized the term because I was a mid 80s grad, but that's a good possibility, isn't it? There was a GGGOH story where Lois was poking around Clark's room and finding things from his childhood but no blue jacket in the closet.
And why do people think Clark was a lonely boy who kept to himself? He was in the movies but Clark seemed to be well known and liked in GGGOH. No one seemed shocked to see such a reclusive guy at the festival.

Kris

LOL! That, too, but just that so much can come from so little.

If you watch closely everything you need to know is there, but everything is open to interpretation. Making Clark an outcast is a very reboot thing to do, but it was being done as far back as the 90s. It isn't really a new idea.

That would be too normal and Clark has to be alien and alienated from what I've seen either by choice or by force.
It's kind of funny, too. He wants to be just a normal guy and he keeps telling his parents this but in just about every way, as Clark, he is! He was written as a pretty normal guy who fit in at the newsroom so well no one suspected he might be Superman too. (Okay, okay, Perry did. LOL!)
If you had never heard of Superman before would you have suspected that guy who got off the bus would soon stop another one with one hand instead of being rescued by Superman from being killed by it?

Kate, yawning like crazy and knowing I'll find holes all through what I just wrote in the morning

No,I think you're right. Clark will never feel he is sufficiently normal because of the powers and his parents didn't see how normal he really was because they knew about the powers, too. Kind of a Catch 22 for the Kents. The doctor, the nurse, the judge, Aunt Opal and the lawyers were probably all rolling their eyes or throwing their hands in the air when around them! LOL!
Speaking of Opal-- how could we have forgotten her? A relative! Who lives in Metropolis! She would have been the ace in the hole in case anything happened to Superman.
Move over Lois, Opal is here!

One is all it takes, as they say. In this case one per cell and if you look at your arm and wonder how many cells it takes to make it what it is, that's a lot of cells. One speck of K in each cell adds up to a lot.

Oh that sounds fun! Lois and Henderson are watching a team of doctors doing all they can for a kryptonite weakened, unconscious Superman and there is a loud commotion behind them. A determined looking woman dressed in a business suit (K Callan in a dual role) and flanked by briefcase toting lawyers in 3 piece suits, stalks up to them and sticks a fistful of papers in Henderson's face. She points into the hospital room.
"I'm here to take my boy to a private facility!"
LOL!

Kate

We never took it that far. The fan boys and I here just figured no matter what, Kryptonian was Kryptonian and nothing could make it stop being Kryptonian. (and yes, I call it physiology too.) It never occurred to me that Kryptonians wouldn't have the superpowers in their genes. Obviously something is there, something that will react to yellow sunlight but it isn't specifically this, that, or the other individual powers.

Kate, sorry just thinking out loud

They're making fun of us! And my favorite movie, "My Cousin Vinny."


..“I AM SUPERMAN’S MOTHER!”
Woman Claims To Be Man of Steel’s Mom!
...Authorities Forced to Concur!
National Security Agencies Not Happy!


In a stunning show of maternal concern, Ms. Opal
Clark-Stone, retired photojournalist and author of
numerous coffee table tomes of her photographs,
stormed into Metropolis General Hospital early
today and announced she was the woman who raised
the hero of Metropolis after his arrival on Earth!
Accompanied by her younger sister and her husband,
Martha (Clark) and Jonathan Kent, of Smallville,
Kansas, Ms. Clark-Stone, a widow who resides in the
gated Metropolis community of Painted Hills, and
her team of attorneys arrived at the hospital just
minutes before a scientific team of doctors, scientists
and xeno-biologists from the Department of Defense’s
offshoot SETI program was scheduled to take control
of the fallen super hero’s further medical treatment.
This heretofore unknown “offshoot” of the DOD came
to light when spokesmen from Met General were
forced to announce yesterday that they were unable
to give Superman the proper medical care he needs.
Under executive order, DODo-SETI stepped out of
the shadows and assumed responsibility for our
hero’s further treatment and an investigation into his
demise should he not survive his weakened and
vulnerable condition.

Superman has been unconscious and unresponsive
since being found caged in the sub-basements of the
LexCorp Tower, the largest skyscraper in the city.
How and why he was imprisoned within the cage,
the bars of which were coated by a glowing green
substance which is now believed to be a mineral from
his home planet of Krypton, is still a mystery.
Discovered after the marriage ceremony of Lex Luthor
and Lois Lane was interrupted and stopped by members
of the Metropolis Police Department two days ago, the
only person who can answer the question of “Why?”
was Luthor himself, who, as you remember, threw
himself from the penthouse balcony of the tower
bearing his name and died as a result of this suicide
leap.
Despite the loss of the man she loved just minutes
before, when the unconscious body of Superman
was carried from the tower she was to call her home,
Miss Lane, never to be Mrs. Luthor, insisted on
accompanying the stricken Man of Steel to the
hospital. Escorted by Inspector William Henderson
of the MPD, Perry White, a retired newspaper editor
of some repute, and two youts, she arrived at the
hospital still resplendent in her wedding dress and
stood vigil outside Superman’s room as doctors
rushed to do what they could for him.
Mr. White, assuming the role of Miss Lane’s spokes-
man, told the assembled society reporters, gossip
columnists and tabloid rumor mongers press, that as
one of the Metropolis Marvel’s closest friends,
Inspector Henderson was going to ask a judge to
appoint Miss Lane his temporary guardian in order to
make medical decisions for him.
Not recognizing headline news when they heard it,
the crowd of soft news reporters waited for more
information while this reporter rushed to file the story
and the Metropolis Star ran the announcement as
an exclusive:
“Late Luthor’s Lady Lands Legal Lookout!”

However, late yesterday, when the medical staff of
Metropolis General admitted they could do no more
for the Last Son of Krypton, the President of the
United States stepped in and announced the fate of
Superman was too important to be left in the hands
of one grieving woman whose late fiance was the most
likely person to have tried to kill the super hero.
The President appointed the DODo-SETI agency to
take over Superman’s medical needs at no cost to
the taxpayers.

Horrified by the government’s plan to take Superman’s
body to a secret facility at an undisclosed location, Ms.
Opal Clark-Stone knew it was time to throw caution to
the wind and claim her adopted son no matter how
disruptive it would be to her quiet life.
“The dodos can play with their little green men, but they
will keep their hands off Kal-El!” Clark-Stone announced,
and turned to Miss Lane to say, “Beautiful dress, honey, but
inappropriate for the setting. Thank you for looking after
him, but I’m taking the boy with me now.”
After examining her forms and documents presented as
evidence of her stewardship as Kal-El/Superman’s
mother, representatives of the MPD’s legal department
stated they were satisfied that Clark-Stone was indeed
the next of kin of our fallen hero, and cleared the way
for her to take him to a private clinic or hospital of her
choice.
The DODo-SETI team, stopped at the airport and told
they were no longer needed, left with no comments fit
for the record. The President agreed later, a mother’s
love and care supercedes even the state of the art, quality
care of the federal government, whose medical
establishments are limitless in their knowledge and
ability to solve even the most mysterious of health
problems.

Before spiriting Kal-El away from the hospital under
cover of darkness sometime tonight, Ms. Clark-Stone
revealed that Kal-El was home schooled, he enjoyed
all sports and often hovered over stadiums around the
world to spend a few minutes watching one of his
favorite teams play, and if the DOD had tried to take
him away by force, she pointed out the window at the
crowd of people outside the hospital.
“I’m sure the hoi polloi would have risen up to stop
them.” Then she patted a society columnist on the arm
and said, “It’s in the dictionary, sweetie. Look it up.”
She then excused herself to meet with a reporter
from the Wayne News Group of Gotham City and with
Hal Jordan, the famous test pilot from the West Coast
who came to show his support of Superman’s mother.

Unworried about the changes coming to her life, Ms.
Clark-Stone is confident her adopted son will recover
from this setback and will one day, soon, return to
patrolling the skies above Metropolis.
This reporter is hoping she is right.

Linda King

Tomorrow! Read Linda King’s Exclusive In-depth
Interview With Superman’s Mom!


P.S. This is as close to how I got it in email as I could make it. Too bad I can't make left and right justification work at the same time.

Linda King is getting snarkier by the article! I like how your RPG pals portray her.
I was picturing Opal as an overbearing older woman, used to getting her way and sick and tired of the younger crop of writers and photographers she sees. I can just imagine her commanding all the attention and diverting it away while Martha and Jonathan get their boy ready to leave quietly in the background. With Hal Jordan and Bruce Wayne's people there....well, I'm guessing Kal-El was gone long before dark and in Smallville in no time. LOL!

Kate

Did you see that it's days later and Lois is still in her wedding dress? Continuity, guys! Can RPGers say "continuity?" LOL!
If I was one of the writers I would have had Linda or Opal say something about Jimmy because he changes from Landes to Whalin during this time. A picture caption maybe or gssiping in the teaser for the "in depth" interview. "On the left, the brown haired young man is Jimmy Olsen, formerly a photographer for the Daily Planet, and who I could have sworn had black hair and could have passed for Clark Kent's brother the first time I met him..." "Young people nowadays! Dolling up for TV cameras! Tsk."
Also I would have figured out how to have Opal's last name be Koboi with a different spelling. LOL!

I always thought when my son is older we would read Artemis Fowl and see if we like those books. Believe it or not he's not all that interested in Harry Potter. His favorite movie is "The Sandlot."
Opal Koboi, huh? Opal Cowboy? LOL!
I did notice about Lois's dress but this is tongue in cheek and Linda King always tries to put Lois in a bad light so I excused continuity and imagined emotion plastered Lois not even thinking about it.
It does bring up an interesting dilemma though. If this really did happen would Lex's death and the fall of his empire take a back seat headline wise to Superman's fall? Would Superman overshadow him even as the extent of criminal activities by Lex grows? I think Supe would be the lead off story followed by the latest discoveries of Lex's duplicity.
Between the two I'd be hard pressed to know what I'm wearing and where I am, too. LOL!

Kate

I think so, too. Superman's condition would matter world wide but Lex's death and his criminal activities would be local at the beginning, taking on a wider range as more and more of his crimes came to light. Except at LNN, possibly. Would they stay loyal to the Boss, I wonder? Or try to distance themselves as the news gets worse and worse?

LOL! That's funny. So, uh, where was Clark all this time?

Kris

Well, Perry shrugged and said he and Jimmy thought he was still out drinking somewhere, but Opal revealed he was at the "private facility," getting it ready for Kal-El's arrival. Then the Kents came and took over the interview so Bruce Wayne's people could sneak Opal out the back way. They claimed they were completely floored when Opal admitted to them the little boy she adopted years ago was actually Superman and she needed their help.
Oh, what parents! Any tall tale to protect their boy.

Some Fun

Enjoyable,though I'm at a loss as to why the "look of absolute horror" should come over him. According to Jonathan, even before Clark went to Dr. Klein, he and the Kents had doubts Clark could ever have a family. I'd think he'd be fascinated. This is an answer to a very important question!
In COTOC he was stunned because he knew it wasn't true, but I don't remember him being horrified at any time.

I think they are pros. They would be impartial and unbiased for the first time with his tight control gone. They would cover the Superman story the way they know it should have been done all along.

Kate

Absolute.
I don't know either. Surprise, initial disbelief, Absolute horror? Unless he ditched her after she told him she might be pregnant and I don't see him ever doing that to anyone.
It's interesting to see Lois react with jealousy since in so many ffs she never gets jealous- she gets suspicious or accusatory as if her distrust in men must now extend to him just as she always knew it would!
Also I like how a romance with a Nigerian princess doesn't faze this author at all. Other authors have written about her and made her a child, too young for a romance between her and Clark/Superman.

Kate

Seriously? Why did they have a child go to England to study ballroom dancing?

No explanations. IIRC Clark said she was about 9 or so and she stood on his feet as they danced and she scolded him if he made a mistake. In another she was a little older, fifteen or sixteen but still a young girl and too young to have been a romantic interest. In fact I think she was preparing for her pre-arranged wedding (?) when she learned to dance. Anyway she was safely off limits.

Kate

There are several stories where this princess is mentioned and some of them feature her as a youngster but others refer to a young woman Clark's age at the time he knew her. In a couple they have a child together that he finds out about later, and there is at least one where the boy is grown when he comes to find Clark/Superman. It's a next gen story where he and LnC's oldest son have a sort of competition between one another.
There are also ones where the princess and Clark are just good friends.
I didn't save any of them on my computer so I don't have links but there are several princess stories out there with a variety of plotlines.

Another subject to put on my list to be read later.
Though the boys in competition sounds interesting enough to do a search this weekend.

Kate

You mean the two super youts?

LOL! Thanks a lot. Now if I find the story I'll be thinking 'the youts are sizing each other up now.' 'The youts are going to argue now.' 'Are the youts going to have a flying contest?'
Can you send a raspberry to the RPG for bringing that up?

Kate

LOL! I would love to read this as a serious story. Ever since you mentioned it that image of Ma Kent standing in the crowds outside the hospital and not being able to get closer to her son has been in my mind. Letting Lois, or Bland Lois as you very rightly call her, go straight in with an escort like the queen, seems wrong to me now. It never did before, but now it does!
I'd like to see Martha get into that hospital before Lois.
True, as my son pointed out, Lois has his son with her but no one knows that! His mom trumps someone everyone thinks is Richard White's son, doesn't she?