I loved Bob's reply here.
Like Bob and Iolan, I love the fact that Clark is a true
alien here, and because he is an alien, he will not take all the little things for granted that are so obvious and natural to us. When a person is inside a society and has never been outside it, then all the little mores and customs inside it can so easily seem as natural to him or her as the air we breathe. It takes an alien to stop and stare and question the reason for, or the rightness of, this all-pervading culture.
I loved that Kal was so shocked at the thought that food was something that you have to pay for on the Earth, and if you can't pay for it you may not have any. I also loved that he could see how beautiful our world is, how precious it is, and how we should not take its beauty and diversity for granted. Beth, you really make us understand how Kal might feel duty-bound to use the great gift of his powers on this world to protect the world to the best of his ability.
On a so much less serious note, I loved how Kal worried about his Clark Kent hairstyle - it was so loose! No doubt that kind of hair would have been
very inappropriate on Krypton, and I loved how Clark felt nervous and unbelievably self-conscious about going out looking like that. How different that was from a recent fic, where Clark gave himself a 2009 style haircut before going to Lex's Orchid Ball, to please a 2009 style Lois and the 2009 sensitivities of readers.
All in all, I love the 'Stranger in a strange land' feeling that you are giving to this fic! And I love how this Lois is so relaxed and matter-of-fact around Kal, because she doesn't feel threatened by him. I loved this:
“Marriage is not a requirement in this country, is it?” Kal asked.
“No,” Lois answered. “But that doesn't stop some people from thinking that you need to be married to be considered successful.”
“Have you considered getting married?” Kal asked. “Do not feel as if you have to answer that,” he told her. “I am just trying to learn more about life on Earth, and you are one of my few sources.”
“I don't mind answering,” Lois responded. “Normally, I don't like sharing a lot of personal information, but with you it's different, somehow. I'm not really sure why.”
I agree with Bob that this was so touching:
”Did you ever meet… I mean, did you have an arranged marriage?”
“Yes,” Kal replied. “Although she had found her soul mate, so the arrangement was dissolved. I hadn't, though,” he told her, answering her unspoken question.
Like Bob said, Kal was looking for his soulmate on the wrong planet!
During the first season of the show, Clark and Lois had such a tense and flaring relationship, although most of the tension and flares came from Lois. It is so completely different here. Lois and Kal are building a solid, trusting relationship. I love how Lois understands Kal's situation and feels sorry for him:
When she thought about it, Lois realized just how cooped up Kal had been for the last few weeks. At the Kent farm, he was free to walk wherever he wanted without any attention, and could do some real exploring. But ever since he came to Metropolis, he hadn't been able to go out in public at all without fear of causing a riot.
Lois cares about Kal. I'm sure she likes his company. She feels at ease and relaxed around him. She greatly approves of him as Superman, but she is not in awe of him:
“I want to use my abilities to be able to help out here,” Kal told Lois, “but I have no idea how I can use them to help with this.”
“I can't think of any way,” Lois confessed. “It's a basic fact of life here that food costs money. So in order to provide it to people, you need to have money. But you're helping out in so many other ways, Kal,” Lois told him. “Don't think about the things you can do nothing about, and just be glad for the things you can do. You're a symbol of hope for all of us here now. And whatever you can actually, physically do is enough. Because that energy of hope spreads to everyone else.”
Lois said something similar to Superman in the show, but there she was speaking to someone that she didn't really know at all and was basically in awe of. Here Lois is, if anything, Kal's mentor. And she is mischievous enough to want to beat him at tennis, although I'll bet she won't be able to do that!
These two are building a great foundation for their upcoming soulmate relationship!
Ann
