Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic FDK: Learning to Love 28/?

I'm almost afraid to start a feedback thread after the multiple threads were opened a few parts back. I'm supposed to be making dinner, so I'll keep this short.

You got your line in! "We ain't got money, honey, but we got LUV." I've been there. In some ways we never left being there, since we knew from the start that we wanted a 1-income family.

I'm enjoying watching them pull together to make decisions, particularly about hard questions like "How do you put a dollar figure on what we've been through?"

I'm still curious about Aunt Louise and her stipulations. She didn't seem like such a busybody when she was alive.


Elisabeth

Aunt Louise, I always thought, knew far more than Lois and Clark realized. She knew Lois wasn't in love with Clark when they got married, and I'd bet that she knew the real reason too. She didn't let them know what the stipulations were because she didn't want them to specifically meet them. [Well, fine, if we're not getting any money until we've been married 5 years, then we just won't divorce until after that or whatever.] If they'd separated after college, then they wouldn't have walked away empty handed, but she wanted them to be together, because she knew that's where they belonged. I'm sure there were other 'what ifs' in there - what if... Clark got drafted or Lois was chosen to be the first reporter on the space station or things of that nature.

One of the others is simply an anniversary, but if something were to happen to one of them before they got to that anniversary it wouldn't matter.

The third, Clark is right on. She wanted to make sure that her 'grandkids' would have college funds so she earmarked some of that 1/3 for that, but she also made allowances for if they aren't able to have children [infertility on the part of one or both of them] or choose not to for some reason [dangerous jobs etc]. If the former, some of that money could have been used for treatments or adoption - whichever appropriate.

I guess I don't see it as meddling, but rather making sure they don't just take the money and run away from each other or something.

Does that help at all?
Carol

I see what Aunt Louise did, she knew Clark was good for Lois and saw the money as a way to keep them together until nature stepped in and Lois finally fell in love with Clark.

It's all good, Carol.

How totally fun to get to help out a little bit with this; I always knew my Mumbo-Jumbo degree would come in handy someday!

If I may use a Swedish expression and translate it directly into English, then this was a full-eared chapter, Carol! There was so much in it, but it was never too much. It remained interesting, and often compelling, the whole time.

Again I don't have much time to comment, though!

I liked the comparison between Mayson and Clark, and I'm glad that both Lois and Clark agreed that Mayson was not a bad person. Lana, on the other hand... (Oh, and... yes, I meant Lana when I said Mayson in my last FDK.)

Ha-ha! Yes, there is an ice hotel in Sweden, in Jukkasjärvi in Lapland in northern Sweden. I haven't visited it myself, but two of my best friends went there two winters ago, and they said it was lovely. You have to visit in the winter, though, because it melts in the summer.



The Snow Queen in the ice hotel in Jukkasjärvi.

Anyway, I guess you included Sweden on my account - thanks a bunch, Carol!

I marvel at how you managed to make that whole legal discussion between Lois and Clark and Constance Hunter so fascinating. I found myself holding my breath when Lois and Calrk looked at the offers they were given by the university, and it didn't bother me in the slightest that you didn't tell us the amount in dollars. But I loved being told that it was a lot more money than Lois and Clark had expected!

So an unmarried woman would get less if she was raped than a married woman would. I'm sorry to hear that, because it seems to me as a way of belittling the unmarried woman.

I love this! Constance Hunter took on their case pro bono! Reminds me of a case I read about a year ago or so... a dirt poor Bangladeshi father and widower sold his thirteen-year-old daughter in marriage to a much older man. The girl was raped - because surely it is rape when you are forced to have sex against your will? - and sought out the help of a female lawyer, who took on the girl's case at no cost. The girl was granted a divorce, and the picture of the smiling girl and her equally happy lawyer was just lovely.

Absolutely! Many years ago I read an article about a number of Americans who had won at least a million dollars on the lottery. One man had gone to Thailand and bought a lot of sapphires, among other things, and he commented: 'I blew a lot of money in Thailand. It was surprisingly easy.' Yes, I bet it was!

As for Aunt Louise's stipulations... well, it was her money to do with as she pleased. Maybe I would have found her meddlesome if I had been Lois, but as I reader I don't take offence.

I loved this:

I love that he admits that he would love to have kids with Lois.

It is quite sweet that Clark is so afraid of flying. I'm a claustrophobiac myself, but airplanes don't scare me nearly as much as elevators. Airplanes have windows, after all.

I loved that Clark wanted Lois to hold his hand when they were flying! Although I must say that the presence of other people is not enough to calm me if I have to ride an elevator. If we get stuck we get stuck, and the other people aren't likely to break me out of there!

I think Lois and Clark should trust Lucy and Jimmy, and if Lucy and Jimmy were to make love before they got married, I personally wouldn't find that a big deal at all! After all, Lucy and Jimmy are seriously committed to each other, and they will undoubtedly get married in the relatively near future anyway. Don't worry about giving them the chance to make love without any interference, because it really isn't any sort of big problem if they do!

Well, I love the fact that Lois and Clark suddenly have such a relatively large amount of money, and that they will go travelling the world together!

Ann

Ann - that wasn't what I meant by that at all. What it meant was that it was less likely that he somehow misread the situation - or at least that's how the jury might see it.

Theoretically, anyway, Paul could make the argument that the girl [whoever she was] led him on and then said 'no' at the last minute and he didn't really believe her or whatever. While that would still make him criminally liable for what he did, this is a civil case. If he could make that argument convincingly, the awards might be smaller.

Since Lois is married, that story wouldn't be nearly as believable. Even though the rumor was out there that Clark was having an affair, no one but Clark, and later Jimmy and Lucy [though I don't think that's been revealed yet], knew that Lois believed it - or even knew about it.

So it's not that I think that a single woman should get a smaller amount or anything like that - I only meant that it was less likely that Paul/his people could cast her in a... negative light, if that makes sense. The argument that she led him on is harder to make. She's the only one of the women [that we know of] who was in any kind of serious relationship at the time and he knew that she was married.

It *could* make a difference in the mind of the jury when it came to the circumstances surrounding the incidents.

Does that make any sense at all?

Actually - I've seen the ice hotel on... Discovery or TLC or whatever several times. I stuck it in there but couldn't remember where it was, then I remembered Sweden and thought of you - so of course it had to stay .

Carol

To be clear, the law makes no distinction between married or unmarried victims of sexual assault.

What's underlying the whole discussion about whether to take the settlement offers, is the fact that in the U.S., juries and not judges usually decide the monetary award. Because of this, amounts can be very, very unpredictable. Juries are notorious for taking things into consideration that are not supposed to have any impact on the outcome; in other words, they tend to make more emotional judgments.

I know Carol knows all this; I'm just jumping in as the "Legal Junk/Mumbo Jumbo" interpreter.

What she said .
C

I see. I guess I'm glad that it's not juries that make the decisions in sex crime cases in my country, then. I think that the question of whether or not a rape victim was married would have no bearing here. But it would certainly matter if she was drunk, if she was provocatively dressed, etcetera.

Ann

Yay, great installment Carol. What else can I say. Looking forward to same world travel? or are you going to through wrenches and wenches in their way before they get a chance to travel?

Michael

still reading, still loving it.

James

That's exactly how juries are though. Whether or not the victim is married, was well-off financially, was in a certain neighborhood or was wearing provacative clothing should have no bearing at all on whether or not she was raped. Realistically, the cut on a blouse doesn't magically change the word no into the word now. Somehow, though, it makes a difference to a jury and they award penalties based on those perceptions.


Elisabeth

As always, Carol, the way you deal with the situations that your characters have to deal with is much better than where my imagination goes- which keeps things fresh. Great chapter! I, for one, can't wait for the traveling to begin!
~Sonia

Hey guys.

This is going to be short, but I did want to say thank you to all of you for your fdk.

The next segment should be up today [followed by another on Friday], but I'm afraid I may have to go to 2xs a week again after that - unless some major writer's block clears up. This week has been horrid - especially yesterday so... as much as writing would help 'escape' and I could use it, the words haven't been coming. Maybe this afternoon... since I probably won't spend it crying... I hope...

Anyway - thanks again and look for 29 later today.
Carol

((((((Carol))))))

Ann

Carol, I'm so sorry to learn of real life clobbering you. I know what that's like, even if I don't know your particular circumstances. I hope that your tears will soon give way to laughter.

Ann wrote:
The right to a trial by peer is one of those the American Revolution was fought for in 1776, Ann. It prevents a dishonest judge from sending people to prison because he doesn't like them or because they can't give him a big bribe.

Besides, you're mixing your verdicts. A conviction on a count of rape does not automatically bring a monetary judgment. It brings on a criminal penalty for the one convicted, and in this story Paul is going to serve some time in prison for what he's done to Lois and to others.

The monetary offers given to Lois and Clark and the other women are for avoiding a civil trial, not a criminal trial. The two events are linked by participants and by action, but one does not automatically follow the other. When OJ Simpson was acquitted of murder, he was free of criminal penalties linked to that event. But he wasn't free of civil penalties. A subsequent civil trial determined that he was liable for the wrongful death of his ex-wife and her boyfriend. That verdict cost him a great deal of money, but it did not and could not put him behind bars.

Not being convicted of a crime doesn't mean you won't suffer civil penalties. And conviction of a crime doesn't automatically mean you will suffer civil penalties, either. At least, not in the USA.

I'm not saying that the American system with juries is bad, Terry. I didn't mean to criticize it. I don't think that it is inferior to the Swedish system at all. What I was saying, really, is that I have never before heard anyone discuss the question of whether a rape victim was married or not. Maybe that is my point: I'm glad that a rape victim's marital status is never an issue when we discuss rape in my country. (But I'm not saying that Swedish justice is a model of perfect fairness, certainly not. The Swedish system is far too lenient with criminals, if you ask me. )

And I'm sorry to bring this thread off topic, Carol. These two puppies here hope you will feel happier soon.



Ann

Sorry I'm so behind that the next part is already up.

Wow, what a lot happened in this chapter! They're definitely traveling the world, Jimmy's hopefully going to take the apartment for the summer, they've got a ton of money suddenly, Clark wants to start some Super stuff, we found out a bit about Aunt Louise's stipulations.... Hey, no bad news!

I hope that with some of this pressure off, they can start to learn more about each other. It'll be fun to watch their relationship grow.