For reasons I do not understand, feedback when I’m exhausted seems ever sweeter. So, thank you for all the feedback! It energizes my tired brain…
Ann,
I should probably wait until Sheila has posted her response
You had to know that comment was going to scare me. I furiously thought about what I had written that would make you hate the chapter. So, it was good to hear that you didn’t hate all of it.
Clark needs to be careful, but I don’t blame him for doing this. It was really sweet. And I think Agent Perrelli is trustworthy.
I do, too. I don’t really deal with who Perrelli is too much, but the other old TV show I’m really fond of is Scarecrow and Mrs. King. If you have any idea of what that is, I imagine Agent Perrelli being quite a lot like Lee Stetson.
Okay. Imagine another guy, not Clark, who needs to pretend to the world that he is dead. …Is this really a nice sort of guy? No, in my opinion, it is a conceited guy who loves his own ability to love, but who doesn’t really care for his girlfriend.
I think my best answer to this is that this is a memory of the old Clark. I still don’t view him as conceited so much as stupid, but whichever it is, he has learned his lesson and the new Clark would not make the same mistakes again.
That’s impossible, isn’t it? Clark really didn’t have a choice. He had to risk his secret identity by taking the bullet in his chest, and it didn’t even have much to do with the fact that it was Lois who was in trouble. He would have had to do the same thing for almost anyone who was about to be shot. How could he live with himself if he didn’t?
I agree with this, which is why Lois says this. She knows what he did was partly because that’s just who he is and it has nothing to do with her. But it also serves as a reminder of all Clark is willing to do for her that is just because she is Lois.
I believe that if Lois had been faced with a similar situation, where she had to make a split-second decision about whether or not she should take a bullet in her chest in order to save Clark, I believe that she would have chosen death for herself so that she could save Clark.
I agree, but while it’s not exactly like Clark, it’s not completely dissimilar. Clark would stand in front of a bullet for anyone, even Lex Luthor. Lois wouldn’t go that far, but I don’t think Lois’ list would just have Clark. I think she would do this for Perry as well and Jimmy… The issue here is that both Lois and Clark are selfless people. The consequences for Lois are greater, but I also think it’s important not to minimize the consequences for Clark. In this instance, he really did give up his life. And in the instance where his identity is discovered he risks the lives of Lois, his parents, … basically everyone he cares about is now in danger of being used as leverage against Superman.
Beth,
I have to admit that the whole spandex thing has always been something I kind of wondered about in some back corner of my brain. Of course his aura means that is fits perfectly, but when he doesn't have that, will it sag or wrinkle in parts?
Wow, Beth, you are just the queen of unfortunate images, aren’t you? First an aging Superman in Fidelity and now Superman in a saggy suit. Eww!
While I'll be sad to see this go, I'll also be glad to see these characters get some closure after ten year years of all this angst.
You know, I think I have mentioned before now how eager I was getting to finish this story. But when I finished the rough draft last week, I felt a mixture of emotions. My immediate reaction was elation. This is the longest thing I’ve ever written and ended up being much more complicated than I had planned, so it feels good to have finished it and feel like I’ve ended in a decent place (at least I hope everyone else agrees). But then I was a bit sad. It’s amazing how much time I’ve spent working on and thinking about this in the past several months. It’s a bit sad to see them go.
But given the amount of editing left to do, I’ve been able to slowly wean myself off.
Sheila,
Even in his sleep, Clark knows that he loves Lois and unconsciously softly seeks contact with her. I was so sure that Lois would wake up with CLark holding her and struggling with what to do about it, but this was just as sweet.
You know, when I read that in your feedback to the last chapter, I considered changing the beginning of this chapter to incorporate it. But I decided not to primarily as this had a nice mental image in my mind. And it symbolizes a lot of what Lois is feeling right now. She’s not relaxed enough to fall into Clark’s arms, thus she is huddled into a ball, but she can’t quite seem to stay away either.
Funny that Agent Perrelli's first name is Dan.
I struggled with this a lot, worried that people wouldn’t like Perrelli simply by association with the other Dan. But for some reason, the name Dan just really suits the character in my head and in real life we meet people with the same name as someone else we once knew all the time. So, I kept it.
And I think he may be on to Superman's identity which made him treat him as an ordinary guy.
So, I need to ask Sheila – why the instinctive suspicions about John, but the trust in Dan Perrelli?
There, now Lois has said it. She's ready to move past this, but to what?
Oh, I don’t think she knows yet.
Well, my break from work is nearly over and I need to refocus. But once I get back home this weekend, I’ll post the next part.
