Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic FDK: Breaking Up is Hard to Do (7/30ish)

Very cute... I loved the double date dinner =)

But I wonder where the fic's title will start to play in...

I really liked this chapter and I thought the double date actually went well. It's nice to see the Lois and Clark partnership developing both professionally and personally.

I did a double take when I saw Andrews and Kent. I'm guess I'm so used to seeing Lane and Kent that I had to re-read it.

It'll be interesting to see whether Lois will emerge from her break-up an insecure person who finds it hard to trust people. At the moment, she seems to be nice and kind, and confident in herself and her identity, so much so that she took on Chad's last name. This is quite a departure from the show.

I agree with Lieta though. I think the title always reminds me that there will be impending doom with these relationships. Hopefully there won't be too much angst. :p

I'm refraining from assuming anything... could the break-up be of Lois and Chad, Clark and Rachel, both? Or the break-up of the soul-mates themselves... it comes down to the fact that, while I will cheer for Lois and Clark, I like Chad and Rachel and I like how Nancy is writing the present relationships... so if I step back from my instinct to maintain pairings in canons I like... I can cheer for either way... I also learned in Triangle that I often fail at second guessing Nancy =P

I love this fic. I love seeing Lois this way, so happy with Chad at home, so happy with Clark at work, and so able to read and understand and accept herself:

Wow! She understands this about herself! And yet she is calm and accepting about it.

And she liked Linda! Wow! It has always pained me a bit that Lois seems unable to be friends with women. But not this Lois - she liked Linda!

And she liked Rachel, too. And I liked Rachel. And I think Clark and Rachel were rather sweet together.

And Rachel has good taste in art! Impressionist art is great!







The entire double date was so nice and feel-goody. I giggled at how Clark and Rachel described Martha's artwork. Weird art! I just love it. I considered googling 'weird art' to see what I would get, but I decided against it.

And then there was all the Smallville talk, and Lois's fear that Chad was embarrassing Rachel with his wide-eyed Smallville talk, and the comparison with Little House on the Prairie, and that interesting tidbit on corn ethanol...

Well, Nancy, you have created a warm and cosy LnC universe where I myself just love to spend time and cuddle up with some lovely fanfic!

Ann

Chad likes small towns. Lois does not. Rachel likes small towns. Clark does not.

Are you doing that wife swap challenge?

I totally agree that I'm loving the LnC universe that you've created. It's different and refreshing, but most importantly, believable.

I'm curious where things are going and eager to see how you develop the characters from here.

Sara - I guess I should explain the etymology of the title. When I started this story, I wasn't sure what to call it. Carol, Beth, and I refer to it as the Chad story, but that's not much of a title.

Then for awhile, I decided to call it "When Death Eludes Us", but wasn't happy with that as it refers more to the Chad from Triangle than the Chad from here, and certainly without that as a backdrop the title doesn't make sense. While I do see this as a spin-off in some sense, I also want this story to stand alone.

Not sure when I came up with "Breaking Up..." as the alternate title, but I'll tell you I wasn't happy about it either. Still, it was the working title when I started posting.

So, I'm not saying the title has no relation to the story, but I'm still not convinced it's the best title, either. It's just all I have to work with right now.

grinch - I agree - it's hard to remember that this is Lois Andrews and not Lois Lane. On the other hand, when I was writing the beginning part, it struck me as natural that Lois would take on Chad's name. She married young, she met Chad even younger, so her bad experiences with men didn't happen here, and she hadn't started a career for herself where she had a real identity as Lois Lane.

Plus, she doesn't get along with her parents. This made me think that had she not been single for years before she met the right guy, she'd be happy to take his name. I got married right around the time Lois and Chad did (although I didn't know my husband since high school) and didn't have the best relationship with my parents. I never gave changing my name a second thought. There was no reason not to and I was happy to align myself more firmly with the new family I was building which I saw as better than the one I had been born into. Maybe I'm assuming too much to think Lois would have felt the same way, but it made sense to me.

Ann - Your feedback gave me a warm, happy glow. Thank you!

I did see Lois as having been friends with Linda. Since she was with Chad, she had no interest in Paul and that meant there was no reason for her and Linda to fight. It was only mentioned briefly, but at the beginning of the story, it's clear that Lois is friendly with Cat as well. (Although, this is a different Cat - less outrightly sexual and this poor woman was conned by Claude. Similarly, it was Linda who was conned by Paul in this story.)

I'm glad you liked Rachel. It was important to me to build a character that was a good match for Clark as he's been with her for so many years and I don't see Clark as someone who would stay with someone if he wasn't happy with them. This is part of why I had Rachel travel with him for a while at first - I wanted a Rachel that was a bit more worldly than we necessarily saw in the show. Rachel wasn't well drawn in the show, so my character doesn't exactly conflict, but I always perceived her as someone who grew up in a small town, lived in a small town, etc. I can completely see Clark with someone who still has small town sensibilities - partly as I think Clark has those, too. But given all his experiences outside Smallville, I'm not sure he would be happy with someone who had lived their entire life in Smallville and didn't have other places as a reference frame.

This aspect of Rachel's will come up in later chapters as well and will make an interesting contrast to Lois - who has spent her whole life in Metropolis, but hasn't ever left (since she was with Chad, she didn't go to the Congo, for instance).

You know, I tried to find a term that would get me what I was picturing of Martha's art on google, but I couldn't find one. I keep thinking post-modernist sculpture, but that's close, but not quite right. (I didn't google "weird art", though.)

Patrick - Correction - the only one of the four that does not like small towns in Lois. Clark likes small towns, just isn't sure he wants to live in one.

Chad, on the other hand, likes small towns, but knows very little about them - except what he surmised from Little House on the Prairie, of course. I see him a little bit like me in this respect. I have lived most of my life in the shadow of Manhattan (unlike Chad, very little of it has actually been in the city). I have limited knowledge of small-town America. But I do have a very romanticized version of everyong being friendly and everyone knowing everyone else.

My husband comes from a town the same size as Smallville, although it's a bit different as it's about 30 minutes away from a big city. But while he does know all the people who live on his street, that's not more than the neighbors I know (I just have more neighbors on my street since I grew up in suburbia and my husband grew up on a farm) and it's clear that not everyone in his town knows everyone else.

And I know enough about his life growing up to know that not everyone was nice, either. (Although, to be fair, I think my mother-in-law is a lot like Martha Kent.) Still, like Chad, I cling to the idea that in Kansas, where small towns are encircled by other small towns and not big cities, life is better and nicer.

Nice Rachel stuff. And the final scene was hilarious with Lois both sabotaging her own team and upholding morals at the same time

Michael

Thanks, Michael! I really wanted a likable Rachel.

And the Lois thing was something I could so see canon Lois doing that I had to include it. Besides, Lois is not a completely different person here - she's really the same person whose life up until now has been much better. So, she's still competitive.

Which is why I'm surprised Lois 'Chumpy is a word' Lane told on her teammate instead of winning.

Michael

I see this as an outbreak of being competitive. We've played Taboo with our closest friends and the wife is very competitive. We've also played with them and another couple where the wife is also competitive. It doesn't matter how we've split up the teams, these two women always end up screaming at each other. Even on the same team.

Not sure if you've ever played Taboo, but the way the game is played Rachel had a card in front of her with a word she had get Lois to say and a series of words below that she could not use in doing so. Either Chad or Clark was watching her with a buzzer and buzzed her when she used one of the "taboo" words. So, Lois only knows she used the word as Rachel got buzzed and lost them the point, thus annoying Lois.

Does this make sense?

/slaps head/ Right. Never played it but seen it on TV often enough. Now it makes perfect sense.
/thought Lois busted Rachel because she cheated but otherwise would have gotten away with it, not because Rachel lost them the the point/

Michael

Well, I've seen the competitive friends do that, too. They just are so excitable they'll yell at anything.