Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic FDK: Stardust (5/?)

This explanation is so characteristic of Lois, especially early Lois, and yet it also makes me want to hit her upside the head. Oh, Lois.

Your description of Perry made me grin. And this:

made me smile. Rather bittersweetly, considering their current situation. But it made me smile nonetheless.

I'm really glad Perry laid down the law. Lois needs someone to make her start screwing her head back on straight and jolt her into at least trying to be reasonable, and he's just the right person to do it.

I really enjoyed the little touches of humor you added to the story, Caroline. I've come to think of that as being one of the welcome and distinctive traits of your writing.

Hee!

And the seeds are set for the appearance of Superman. Excellent.

Thanks for posting before leaving. Have a safe trip!

Excellent!!

I loved that - it's so Lois. hehe!! And it's so well said!

Yes, please, I'd like to read it too.

This is such a wonderful story so far! I'm absolutely loving it!

Yea! So happy to see this.

Lois, I hope this haunts you for days. Maybe it will convince you to stop being a selfish brat.

Can't quote the entire Perry conversation, but here is my response: YES! I am so glad to see him take Lois to task; he usually lets her get by with so much. But she really did cross a line. Maybe I will quote just a *little* bit:

Go, Perry! Take that, Miss Queen of Reporters.

(I do like Lois, I really do, but she has moments when I just want to hit her. The ultimatum to Perry was one of them.)

At least Lois has enough decency not to accuse Clark of harrassement.

I must admit that if Clark Kent came to work in my office, I would probably be in the ladies room gossiping about his assets too!

Just when I want to give up on Lois, she redeems herself. Maybe there is hope for her yet.

Great words. I can almost feel the intensity myself.

yeah I want to hit Lois too but her thoughts at the end and the elevator scene made me want to hug her and tell her everything will be alright.

Great part.

Hi,

Great part.


Hope she will think more about it.

What will happen when Cat attack?



Jimmy!

Happy to see this one. You always do Perry's character so well IMO.

This one would make an excellent qoute in a game.



I think this is also what I love about Lois character in the series, the take no prisoners attitude she has to life. Her supreme belief in her own point of view no matter the odds.

OMG...this is so sad. Why did Perry have to offer Jimmy?

Why didn't he just say...take Clark! But I guess you have a reason.

Now about your posting schedule...more often please! This is a great story and I am anxious to see the next post!

I'm so very glad you're showing the fallout - total and completely unexpected fallout - of casual sex with a stranger, even one who has good character. Oddly enough, that sounds like an oxymoron to me - how can a person with good character engage in casual sex with a stranger? Even if the strangers are as manly and handsome as Clark, and as hot and sexy as Lois - er, Wanda?

I agree with earlier posters who thought Perry's statements to Lois after he talked to her about her ultimatum were totally in character, completely on target. He was angry and let her know it, and made sure she knew that she'd crossed a line that she should never have even approached. But he also treated her with some patience, and even some compassion, when he suggested that she take Clark with her on the Messenger story but didn't force him on her.

Lois needs some time to come to grips with what she's done, and to admit to herself and to Clark that she was seventeen kinds of idiot that night. And whether or not Clark will forgive her (of course he will - eventually), she has to apologize for everything. And I mean EVERYTHING! This isn't at all like Clark keeping Lois in the dark about Superman's real identity. Clark never demanded that Perry fire Lois or himself. Clark never seduced Lois into spending the night with Superman (although I'm sure he was tempted once or twice). As badly as Clark behaved in keeping the truth from Lois, this is so much worse because it was deliberate on Lois's part.

You know, condoms aren't 100% effective. I wonder...

Nahhh!

Wow so this butt poem...do you have it? Nice job. Poor tortured Lois. More soon. Laura

Thanks, everyone, for your responses!

Chris, Lois *does* need to be hit upside the head. Fortunately, she's good at getting herself into the type of situations that result in being hit upside the head, so I can probably arrange that in due time

Laurach, I don't have the butt poem but would love to write it. It would make a very funny epilogue, I think. Unfortunately, I'm the pits with poetry. Of course, who's to say these women are any better?

Yeah, I think being forced to work with Clark at that point would have pushed Lois right over the edge, and for all Perry's bluster, he doesn't want to do anything that's going to cost him his star reporter. He's not going to force them to work together, and she's not going to do it voluntarily.

Plus, from a sheer technical standpoint, I don't want to completely re-write the pilot. Everyone's already seen it anyway, and I'm not comfortable with the idea of how much "borrowing" I'd probably wind up doing if I put Lois and Clark together on the Messenger investigation. With her investigating with Jimmy, I can cover the investigation indirectly, drawing on what people remember from the pilot, and focus my writing on the mess she and Clark have gotten themselves into.

Terry, it sounds like you and I share a similar worldview, at least as regards Lois and Clark's behavior in this story. I don't completely agree that a person can't be of "good character" and still engage in casual sex, only because I think anyone is capable of having his or her judgment compromised, especially when faced with an intense attraction to someone else. We all do things from time to time that violate our personal code of ethics, and if we're lucky, they're small things that are easy to remedy. This was a bigger thing, and it's going to take time to resolve.

In this case, I think "casual sex" is the oxymoron. Though for different reasons, neither of these people is really capable of it. Lois was trying it on for size, thinking that she could just bury whatever feelings existed when she was done with them, and Clark had his fingers crossed (figuratively) when he agreed to just one night. He was hoping to talk her into more, and it wasn't until she disappeared before he even had the chance that he realized how foolish and short-sighted he'd been.

I've put these two characters into a situation where they're forced to confront this mistake immediately - because it makes a story - but I think there would be consequences - fallout, as you put it - for them even if they'd never seen each other again. I can't imagine Lois ever venturing out as Wanda Detroit again, for instance, and I certainly can't see Clark ever giving his hormones quite such free rein.

I could probably ramble on some more, but my coffee break is over and I need to start my day. Thanks again to all who took the time to offer feedback

Caroline

Great part!

Andreia

Caroline, thanks for responding to my comment about casual sex. You explanation makes perfect sense, along with your comment that we all violate our personal moral and ethical standards more often that we'd like to admit. And I also agree that 'casual sex' is the real oxymoron, whether it's just in this story or in real life.

I wasn't trying to condemn either of these characters, nor was I putting down your story. My original comment was intended to refer to people who engage in oxymorons on a regular basis, not Lois and Clark specifically. (It sounded perfectly clear in my head!) You've done an outstanding job of showing how damaging it is to any relationship to put the cart before the horse.

The romantic in me hopes you resolve this without too many heart shards scattered around the landscape, but the parent in me knows better. This is going to be a seven-Kleenex ride no matter how it's resolved, and I'm going to be watching, because overall this is an outstanding story.

Caroline, let me begin by quoting your reply on the FDK thread rather than your story itself:

The way I see Lois and Clark, I wholeheartedly agree. There is not, and will never be, anything "casual" about them when they make love to each other.

I didn't get the impression, when I was reading your story, that Lois was looking for a one-night-stand when she decided to be Wanda that night. It just so happened that she met Clark when she was Wanda, and because of the tremendous attraction she felt for him, and because she was being Wanda that night, she seduced him. Like you said, she thought she could just leave that night behind her and expect it never to trouble her again.

I love that image of Clark with his fingers crossed - even I, who have seen so few of the actual LNC episodes, recognize that one!

Absolutely true. In the long run, Lois would be obsessing about Clark almost as much as Clark would be obsessing about her. She could never put on her Wanda clothes again (or any other "disguise" for that matter) and go looking for a casual flirt with someone who wasn't Clark. I also don't see her venturing out as "herself", as Lois, for any sort of casual little fling, either. Not when she could still remember that night she had spent in Clark's arms - and how could she ever forget it?

I'm usually an incredibly staunch defender of Lois, but in this story I think that she is the only one who is at fault. I don't blame Clark for anything he did, and I don't blame Lois for what she did that night. To me, the troubles start the moment Lois decides, in the cold morning light, that her night with Clark wasn't "real" because Clark had been with Wanda and not with her, and Wanda isn't real. The problem is that Lois panics when Clark insists that Lois is the woman that he spent that magical night with and that he wants to be with her for the rest of his life.

To me, Lois's talk about Wanda not being real is exactly the kind of nonsense that makes me so furious with Clark sometimes, when he insists that he isn't Superman, or that Superman isn't real.

Isn't this exactly the kind of reasoning that made Clark keep mulishly silent about his double identity? Isn't the the kind of justification Clark used to explain why he rejected Lois as Superman? Worse, isn't this why he worked so hard at trying to make Lois fall in love with him, while at the same time he took every precaution to make sure that Lois never learnt who he really was - because if she learnt who he was, then she might love him for somebody he was not! I hate it. So Clark has kept the truth about himself from Lois for fear that she might start comparing Clark with Superman and finding Clark wanting. In your story, Caroline, Lois is all but panicking at the thought that Clark is going to be looking for Wanda all the time, but he will only ever find Lois.

Well, I've been telling all and sundry that I have little patience or sympathy for Clark when he's lying to Lois. I had even less sympathy for Lois when she was trying to get Clark fired. Like everyone else here, I was very pleased that Perry gave her a sharp warning not to try to pull such a stunt again.

This was perfect:
Lois is in danger of sinking lower than she ever has in any fanfic I can remember, if she is going to accuse Clark of harrassment.

She doesn't do it, though. I often think of Lois as a woman whose body wants one thing while her mind wants something else entirely. Lois's body wants Clark. Her body wants him so badly. Her body recognizes him as her perfect mate, as her one-in-a-million mate, as her one-in-the-universe mate. And her body will not let her accuse Clark of harrassment. Her body, I think, can't bear the thought that Clark will not be a part of her life again.

But her mind wants something else entirely. Her mind panics at the thought of commitment, of daring to trust a man. Of making herself dependent on a man. That's what her mother did: she made a commitment to her husband, she trusted her husband, she made herself dependent on him. And he left her, humiliated her, cheated on her, crushed her spirit and turned her into an alcoholic wreck. And the first time Lois herself dared to trust a man, when she was with Claude, he used her and humiliated her, too.

No one has ever upset Lois's equilibrium as much as Clark has. He made her feel safer and happier in his arms than Lois would ever have thought possible. Her body is crying out for him. But what would happen if she ever gave in to him? He would be looking for lovely Wanda all the time, but he would only ever find cranky Lois. Surely he would grow tired of her. Surely he would desert her. And by the time he abandoned her she would have grown so dependent on him that she would die of loneliness and self-disgust when he left her.

Lois is acting like a frightened child in this story. She really is very childish. Like a child, she is extremely self-centered and can see only her own needs. All right, Caroline, she probably shouldn't have spent that night with Clark. Not because I ever blame Lois and Clark for reaching out to one another, for making love to one another. No, but because Lois is, when it comes to her mentality, a minor here. She is too young to have sex, because she can't deal with the consequences.

I hope you will let Lois grow up somewhat. I hope you will find a way for her and Clark to be together. But whether you do or not: this is a beautiful, delightfully written story. Thank you so much for sharing it with us!

Ann