Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic FDK:Teaching Indecency (Part 2/?)

I really honestly didn't mean to add in Lana. I was just sitting there writing and I had Clark going home to an empty apartment and I wondered why he seemed so sad. And all of a sudden I had him as a grieving widower. But as for Lois not being the great love of his life... I disagree. I think she will be. It seemed to me that Clark Kent would marry Lana if he never met Lois. And it seems that Clark's character would love his wife desperately, and so he would grieve for quite some time and believe she was the love of his life. When he ends up with Lois later, perhaps he'll realize that he always loved Lana, but the love paled in comparison. Or maybe he'll love them both equally. Perhaps I shouldn't have made his grief so strong, but he obviously loved her and is genuinely upset by her death. I didn't expressively add that bit to notch up the angst, it just seemed to flow with what I was writing. As I said, I'm sorry if this is causing unnecessary grief in the fandom. I certainly didn't mean to do so, I just wanted to try my hand at a different kind of story.

Ah well, so much for that great love story - Lana, Lois whoever.

But you are the writer, Laura, and I know you must write. So write on.

c.

I think that this story is wonderful so far. I'm eagerly awaiting the next part (even though I know what happens)!

As for the Lana tailspin, I think its completely plausible for Clark to be grieving the loss of his wife as he is, even if in the end it turns out she wasn't his greatest love. They'd only been married a year, they'd known each other for ages, and so not only did he lose a wife but he lost a friend as well. Its an interesting take, I think, and one that, to me, adds a spice of flavor to the story.

As for rhe placing a hex on his boy bits comment... That's a wee bit harsh on our dude of steel, methinks. He hadn't even met Lois at the time! Ouch.

As for the rest, weee! Bring on more of the story, Laura Dear! ^_^

I think someone has way too high a view of divorce and way too low a view of widowers who remarry.

My grandfather lived to his mid-90s. In his time, he was unfortunate enough to out-live three wives. To say that Minnie was his "second choice" cheapens the deep commitment he had toward her. He loved Lizzie and grieved for her to the depths of his soul after she died. But he eventually found healing--and so he married Minnie. He loved her, as well, but their relationship was, of course, different. It was never a matter of Minnie, Lizzie, whomever. When she died, he was alone for quite some time. We figured he would be alone for the rest of his life. He was pretty shy when he told us he married Fanny. They eloped--how's that for romance! Fanny cooked him Southern meals and puttered around in the garden right beside my grandfather. But by then, they were both quite old. Their time together was short, but that doesn't limit its value.

I will never say that a man can only have one true love in his life. I've seen it happen too many times before. Of course, a man can only have one true love at a time. I may have all the room in my heart for my second and third child, but I would never tolerate a second woman.

Elisabeth

My best friend teaches Swedish to newly-arrived immigrants, many of whom are Muslims. One man from Afghanistan told her that he had been forced to leave his wife, whom he loved dearly. But, he explained to my friend, he had now married another woman here in Sweden, because it is hard for a man to be alone. My friend decided to tease him. "Oh," she said, " but isn't it wrong to marry again if you really love another woman?"

"No, no," he assured her smugly. "I have so much love in my heart, it is enough for two wives. And the Koran tells us we may marry four times."

"Four times?!?" my friend said, pretending to be dumb. "That's great! I want to try that too! Four husbands - that would be wonderful!"

"No," he answered, horrified. "It's only men who can marry four times - women can't!"


Ah well. This man is from Afghanistan. Even here in the west, however, we seem to think that it's all right for a man to love many women, while I doubt that we would be so generous to a woman who kept outliving her husbands and kept remarrying. And speaking not of remarrying but of a man loving many women, I remember watching the original Star Trek with Kirk and Spock, where Captain Kirk was a real womanizer. The most popular Kirk and Spock episode ever was called City on the Edge of Forever, where Kirk falls in love with a woman named Edith Keeler, who, however, unwittingly poses an awful threat to the future of humanity, and so Captain Kirk must make sure that she dies. Poor Captain Kirk. He grieved for all of two minutes when the deed was done, I'm sure. Afterwards, he had all these other little flings and love affairs with all these other little women, and later, in a movie, we learnt that he had been married. And no one ever really criticized Captain Kirk for being such a womanizer. But you know how it is - you can't criticize a man for loving more than one woman. (Sorry. I couldn't resist.)

Laura, you said this:

And I'm very sorry if I have made you feel that you have done something wrong. You haven't overstepped any lines whatsoever. However, you are very new to this fandom, and therefore it's hard for you to know what to expect from the rest of us. I'm sure you don't yet know how some of us old-timers care about Lois and Clark. The problem is, we care about them in different ways. I'm sure most of us need to feel that Lois and Clark are good people, but we define that goodness differently. Much of it has to do with their sexuality, of course. Some of us feel that the most important thing is that Lois and Clark must remain chaste until they are married. Others, like Patrick, may feel that Lois and Clark should not end up having a sexual relationship at all if they get to know each other under circumstances where sexual feelings are inappropriate. Still others, like myself, feel that Lois and Clark must be each other's "one true love" and therefore they must end up loving each other, body and soul. (And I certainly don't mind if they become lovers before they are married, because to me marriage is a very secondary thing to the overwhelming love I see between them.) But there are others here who don't necessarily need to see Clark end up with Lois at all, although they want to see Clark tackle the problems of love anyway. Some of them, I think, are happy to see Clark struggle with the same kind of relationship problems that other people also struggle with - jealousy, misunderstandings, balancing one's career with one's love life etcetera. Others may be happy as long as Clark falls in love with any woman at all and refrains from having sex with her until they are married, and then lives happily with his wife for the rest of his life. Oh, and there are even those who like Clark not to be "a very patient man", because they find it sexy if he has had a few flings and relationships before - or even after - Lois!

This is my point. It is almost impossible not to step on anybody's toes when you write in this fandom. It might be a good idea to remember that. But you should probably remember that most people here are Lois and Clark shippers, after all, and therefore a happy marriage between Clark and Lana is not uncontroversial here. That doesn't mean you shouldn't let that happen in any of your stories, if it suits your plot. I'm just saying you should be aware that some people, including myself, are not going to happy about it. But don't apologize to us. This is your story. However, please understand that many of us have strong feelings regarding Lois and Clark. Don't be shocked or saddened if we tell you that we aren't altogether happy with everything in your story. Don't change things on account of us. Don't try to please everybody here. It may be that you can, but it's more likely that you won't be able to. And that is not your fault.

Laura, you are a newcomer here, and you are a very good and talented writer, and you write great FDK, too. Don't let our grumblings scare you away from us! If you leave this fandom, that would be everybody's loss. And hey - if you leave on account of me, how do you think that will make me feel when so many people here will be angry at me?

Write on, Laura. We are very glad to have you here. But please remember that everybody here has their own take on Lois and Clark. Respect the feelings of others, and remember that certain story elements are more controversial than others. But if you are proud of your own story, don't take the criticism of others to heart.

Ann

What I look for in a story is a reflection of the two premises that were central to the show L & C: TNAoS:
1.That Lois Lane and Clark Kent have "that one great love" as HG Wells put it. They are soulmates. Theirs is one of those classic, iconic love affairs.
(alt-Clark may have been engaged to Lana, but it was clear that she was not that "one great love" in the classic romantic sense. He'd found a woman he thought he could live with, but not one he couldn't live without. As well, although Lois wasn't a virgin, she knew that her few relationships had been "federal disasters". Even with Lex Luthor, we knew she was "settling" when it was clear to her that the man she loved did not love her.)

2. Lois Lane counts for as much as Clark Kent.
The woman's story matters as much as the guy's - she's not there merely to serve the guy whether it be as cook, sex object, bearer of his children, or sidekick. She's not a plot device whose purpose is to advance the story about the guy or show us that the guy is capable of "suffering". In that sense, Lois Lane was one of the first great female pop culture role models.

So "Lois and Clark" wasn't just about the guy - it was about the man and the woman. And that particular man and that particular woman were destined for each other. That's what I need to feel as I read a fanfic . (btw, this doesn't mean that all L & C fanfcis must have both characters of even one of the two, but instead that the story just not contradict those two premises of the show.)

Even when alt-Clark was engaged to Lana, he knew and we knew that theirs wasn't that great love - although both would have said they "loved" the other. And in a way they did. To repeat what I posted above , there are all types of love and a gentleman would, after all never say I married her because she's a great cook or wahtever but would hopefully say it's because he loves her. Or the Afghani gentleman who Ann's anecdote cited - he wanted someone in his bed, but he found a euphemistic way to say it.

As I said above - in RL, we often settle, we compromise, etc in relationships and call it love, and often find a certain contentment there, which we will also likely label "love".

But that's not what Lois and Clark are to each other.

Anyway, once Lois Lane gets demoted in Clark's emotions to just "one of Clark's women" then the story no longer feels like an L & C story, but, instead, only a Clark Kent story or a Smallville story in which that great iconic figure of Lois Lane is kicked back into a pre-feminist corner and told to be good, be quiet, to wait her turn, prove herself worthy, and then she too will get a turn to service the super man. (or even worse, semi-bimboized)

Sure, we can "love" several men at the same time or serially - because we enjoy one more than another in bed, because another is on the same wave length, or we laugh at the same jokes or because he's a great cook. But like that wry observation about the contemporary school system - when all kids are told they are special, then no one really *is* special.

So, when Clark Kent is set up as loving Lana so deeply and intensely, it's hard to see any new relationship he has as anything "special".

I know, though, that many on these mbs are now looking for Clark-centric stories with Lois playing only a secondary role, and have less interest in the actual TV series, beyond Clark Kent. As well I know I'm a hopeless romantic who has been unable to buyt into the post modern construct that love is dead
Anyway, I would suspect that the feelings I've expressed here are very much in the minority. (As a matter of curiosity, Laura, will you post this fic on Superman sites and on Smallville sites? I would expect the Smallville sites in particular are more frequently visited and so you would increase your readership.)

I won't post on this thread again - by focusing on a broader look at the significance of Lois Lane, I have (as Elisabeth did with her personal perception as a grandchild of what an old man's marriages were about, and Ann's tale of the Afghani man who could not quite love one woman enough), hijacked the thread somewhat. and for that I apologise.

And given that you may well be taking us into a story where we leave poor, tortured Clark desperately wallowing over Lana as he looks at his shower tiles, while Lois finds the great love of her life teaching math around the corner from the English Lit Dept, (and tracks down some evil-doer as she falls blissfully, truly, passionately, and profoundly in love with Matt the Math Guy.), you may well be intending to downplay Clark Kent after all. Or maybe Clark will become a sexual predator of underage girls and Lois will be the one to "save the day". Now either of those would be a different take than what we've seen before on these boards.

BUT, as Ann said, it's your story to tell, and tell as best and as only you can tell.

c. ( should add that L & C:tNAoS was also about "truth and justice" oh, and incredibly cheesy villains at times. )

Ann, again you're falling into the trap of believing that you can speak for others here on this board. Most of us, believe it or not, don't have double standards when it comes to men and women. Most of us would be equally appalled whether a man or a woman was a victim or a crime, widowed, traumatised in some way or whatever. Women are not less important in my world-view, and yet I don't see the world the way you do.

For example, when my mother-in-law was widowed about eight years ago I hoped she'd find someone else to love and to love her. Why should anyone have to be alone, even after losing the love of their life, if they can love again?

Carol and Ann, I appreciate that you have strong feelings about what you believe Lois and Clark's relationship should be. But I feel that this takes your argument too far, Carol, and risks being insulting not just to Laura but also to other readers:

I'll take the last point here, because it's an argument you've made several times. Why do you insist that readers/writers who believe that people (men or women) can love more than one person in their lifetime, and specifically that Clark could have loved someone before Lois (or love someone else after losing her) have no real interest in Lois?

Believe it or not, it is possible to love more than one person in a lifetime without devaluing either relationship. I've heard people say that the love they have for their second partner is 'completely different, but just as strong' and doesn't take away at all from the love they had for their first partner. As others have said in the past - even as much as we want Lois and Clark to be together for ever - if for some reason Lois lost Clark, or Clark lost Lois, would you really argue that the survivor should be alone for the rest of his/her life? But then it's pretty obvious that you do.

Ann said:

Not uncontroversial, no, but the marriage is in the past, and are you really saying that you'd prefer Clark to have had an unhappy marriage? Yes, the Lana we saw in the alt-universe wasn't a nice person, but Clark did seem to hint that the Lana he knew was a good friend. Why couldn't a happy marriage result from that? And it wasn't as if he'd even met Lois at that stage.

Besides, what seems to be clear from the story and Laura's comments in this thread is that she is also a Lois and Clark shipper, so your suggestion that she isn't, purely based on the fact that you don't like Clark's back-story here, is just a tad unfair, don't you think?

You're both entitled to your opinions. It would just be nice if you could express it without appearing to undermine Laura's story or the opinions of others on these boards who disagree with you and yet still love Lois Lane as a character.

One thing we all really like about these message boards is that people here are courteous and respectful to each other. Constructive criticism, when it's offered, is polite and friendly. We do all recognise that the author's entitled to write his/her story as she wishes. The trouble is that I'm getting the impression from your repeated and lengthy posts on this thread that you have difficulty recognising when a horse is well and truly dead. I'm sure you don't mean it this way, but your posts appear close to wanting to browbeat the author into accepting that your perspective is more valid than hers. I'm sure you don't mean it that way, but that's definitely how it came across to me when I read this whole thread this morning.


Wendy

NB: speaking in a personal capacity, not as a moderator.

Wendy, may I respectfully point out that I said that

Here in the west. To me it is obvious that this must refer to a general culture here in the west, in North America and Europe and Australia, not to individual human beings. Please note, too, that I didn't say "here on these boards". May I say again, once and for all, that if I talk on the boards about "us in the west" in the future, which is a distinct possibility, then I will be referring to what I consider this general western culture, not to the members of these boards. So please, Wendy, don't tell me again that I might not write about what other people on these boards are thinking, because that is not what I'm doing.

Wendy, you said:

Frankly I'm not discussing whether or not most FoLCs have double standards when it comes to men and women, because there is no way I can know what most FoLCs are thinking. I do insist, however, that the Western culture has different standards when it comes to men and women.

* A man who keeps having flirting with and having affairs with women is called a womanizer. What is the corresponding term for a woman who keeps flirting with and having affairs with men? Are there other words than whore or slut?

* A fictional male character who is a womanizer can be a popular hero. The best example is probably James Bond, but there is certainly also a man like Captain Kirk. Can anyone name a fictional female hero of the same stature as James Bond or Captain Kirk, who is very popular in spite of being a - "man-izer"?

* I checked out what movies are showing here in Malmö right now. Here are some of them: Pirates of the Caribbean III, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Mr. Bean's vacation, Die Hard 4.0, Spiderman 3, Ocean's Thirteen, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Transformers. How many of these films have a woman as their most important character? How many of them star two equally important characters, one man and one woman?

* Today the last Harry Potter book was released. Harry Potter was created by J.K. Rowling, a single mother of a daughter, who started writing about Harry Potter, a magic boy, mostly to entertain her daughter. How many of you have heard of a single father of a son, who started writing about a magic girl in order to entertain his son?

* Since Laura's fic, whose thread I am regretfully stealing, deals with a teacher possibly falling in love with his student, I'd like to mention that the only movie I am aware of which deals with such a theme is a Swedish film, which portrays a female teacher having an affair with her circa seventeen-year-old male student. The boy gets all the sympathy in the movie and the teacher is portrayed as a witch, which is something I can't question at all - clearly it's the teacher's responsibility to make sure that such a situation does not arise. However, I am a teacher myself, and I personally know of two cases where a teacher and a student have had an affair, and in both cases the teacher was a man and the student a girl. I know of no teacher/student affair where the teacher was a woman. Terry Leatherwood mentioned a case that he had witnessed himself where the teacher was also male and had some sort of relationship going on with a female student. May I suggest that cases where male teachers have affairs with female students may be a lot more common than the ones where the teacher is female and the student is male? Yet most cases that we see, hear or read about deal with a female teachers and male students. For example, by far most Swedish newspaper articles about inappropriate and lewd teacher behaviour deal with female teachers. Interestingly, these female teachers seducing their students always seem to live in other countries than Sweden, in Great Britain and the U.S.A. and in Germany, if I remember things correctly. Why do Swedish tabloids keep reporting about these "foreign" cases, then, instead of writing about the male teachers who seduce female students here in Sweden? In my opinion that is because a female teacher seducing a male student is so much more titillating and scandalous and just plain "newsworthy" than a male teacher seducing a female student. And correspondingly it is more "okay" if a male teacher can't control himself around his female students.

There are many more examples of double standards in "our" - the western culture's - way of looking at men and women, but these examples will have to do for now. Wendy, I fell in love with Superman because he was the only comic book hero I knew of who loved a woman who could stand up to him. Lois Lane was her own person and had her own adventures. She was a person and a character in her own right, and I loved the fact that Superman loved her. To me it was Lois Lane who made Superman delightful.

Wendy, you also said:

I don't know what horse you are referring to here, Wendy. But the horse I'm referring to is "our" - the western culture's - double standards when it comes to men and women. Lois Lane is a heroine who holds her own in a culture which - I'll keep insisting it - doesn't value women as much as it values men, and certainly doesn't value women as individuals and as ficitonal heroes as much as it values men as individuals and as fictional heroes. To me, that makes Lois Lane even more important and valuable, precisely because she is an exception to the rule.

The double standards of the western culture is the horse I'm flogging, Wendy. And I'll continue to flog it, until you or other moderators tell me I'll have to stop doing it or be denied access to these boards.

Finally, Laura. I wrote that post to ask you to please understand that there are aspects of your story that I don't like, but I so much hope that you can accept that you and I may look at Lois and Clark differently. I don't mean to imply that you are not a "Lois and Clark shipper", only that, possibly, Lois is less crucially important to you than she is to me. To me it doesn't matter that we would all want Clark to find someone else if Lois died. The important thing to me is that Clark and Lois are "a perfect fantasy". Because they are a fantasy, they simply can't die of natural causes. They don't die unless we write stories where we kill them. I don't want to think of them in terms of what they would do if they had lost each other, because that is not part of my fantasy about them. I also don't want to imagine them loving anyone else than each other. But this is my take on Lois and Clark. I just wanted to explain it, because I feel it so strongly, and it certainly does affect the way I look at other people's LnC stories.

But I also wrote what I did because I wanted to say that I very much hope that I didn't make you sad with my FDK on your story. Let me repeat that I think you are a very good writer, and I so hope that you feel welcome on these boards and that you will continue to post your stories here.

Ann

Hmmdy. I'm not sure if I'm stepping out of line here, and if Laura S doesn't agree with me then she by all means has my permission to tell me to shoosh, but I have a slight favor to ask.

It seems that there is a debate going on in this FDK thread that only slightly relates to the story. If a debate is to be had, can we please move it to another thread or something?

And really, we're only on part two, peoples! The story gets better from here. A LOT better! Not that it isn't already great, because it is. It's kind of a bit early in the story to be judging Clark's character about his views on love and loss...

Again, if I'm stepping out of line, just let me know.

I didn't read all your post, Ann. I'm afraid I only have so much time in the day and so much patience with well-trodden and, frankly, well-beaten themes.

But this caught my eye and deserves comment:
First, let me reiterate that I'm not - at the moment - speaking as a moderator. But what I will point out is that these boards are the Lois and Clark Fanfic Message Boards. They're not a general debating forum, for the evils of western culture, the sins of man against woman or whatever.

There is an off-topic forum here, and because of that we have had discussion of a wide range of topics completely unrelated to Lois and Clark. That forum's quite unusual in message boards and websites dedicated to specific topics - most would simply delete any discussion considered off-topic.

A final personal note here, and I'll return everyone to comments on Laura's story after this: Ann, I actually agree with you that our society still has double standards and that much inequality on grounds of gender (as well as race and other criteria) still exists. But the kind of examples and exaggerated, unsubstantiated claims you make time and time again have only served to drive me further into the camp that disagrees with you. And that is sad given my personal and professional record as a feminist.

Now, as Catherine said, let's focus on Laura's story and not on personal or political agendas that vaguely arise out of it?


Wendy

Oh, Clark. Poor Clark. I can't even begin to imagine what it would be like to lose my husband, my best friend. Even so, that section of this chapter made me feel some of his pain, so very good. And I feel a little better because I have a suspicion that Clark has a Lois in his future!

LOL at the fully intact jeans!

I love it! But why couldn't I have had a high school teacher that cute? *rails at the fates*

Awwwwwwwww! <sniffle> Poor Clark! I just want to give him a hug. You wrote his grief very nicely. Hang in there handsome, your princess is coming

LOL! I LOVE that - it so sounds like Lois - I can even see the expression on her face. Hee hee.

And I love that she's already a little taken with this handsome young widower teacher. Lois, you're a goner. <g>

I'll be back to fdk on part 3 later!

-- DJ <who is glad to be reading the story after all the "hub" and "bub" have died down. >