Originally posted by VirginiaR:
Well done and believable from beginning to end. You've made a smooth transition with the switch.
I love the Martha / Clara bonding, and kind of felt bad for Jonathan being left out (then again, he was left out during the Clark / Martha suit making session too).
Just like his sister… Well of course! He should have seen it before. That’s all that was between him and Clara. She reminded him of Lucy.
So, Jimmy has designs on the new reporter. I'd think, he'd be too uncomfortable hitting on someone above him on the DP hierarchy. We know Jimmy would hit on Cat in canon, but only because he knew it would never develop into anything.
The whole dinner scene is quite sad from beginning to end. Although this line: Some deeply buried caveman part of Louis made sounds like a contented grizzly bear. Woman pretty. Woman clean cave. Woman cook good. Good woman. Keep woman.
That neither Lucy nor Louis ever had a sit down meal with their parents, nor had to set the table, was all too heart-wrenching. Adding Clara to the mix, suddenly made these misfits into a family. Awwwwwwwwwww.
I liked this scene rewrite as well: “Good going, Farm Girl. Please tell me you actually did call the police,” Lou was snarking when Clara tuned back in. Baines and her goons were gone.
“Would it make you feel better if I lied to you?” Clara snapped grumpily. She was already beating herself up enough, she didn’t need Lou on her case too.
“Yes. Yes, it would.”
Lou’s deadpan tone almost made Clara smile. Almost.
“Then yes, I really did call the police. They’re sending a SWAT team.”
“Great.”
Here he's trying to tell Clara that he still doesn't want a committed relationship, even though he's talking about his past: “Claudia was… this bright light. Beautiful, with this cute accent. I wanted her. What can I say? I’m a man. But I never wanted more than that. I never wanted a relationship. I’d just started my career, I knew I’d be out at all hours chasing leads, and probably rude and distracted when I was home. That wasn’t the kind of life to offer someone.
“No, it’s not,” Clara calmly refuted. “Or not just your fault. Maybe you broke her heart and were a little insensitive, but you didn’t mean to. Even if you did, she’d misled you about her feelings. And it doesn’t justify her taking your story.”
“Lou, there’s a rusty link in my side of the chain. If we pull hard enough, it might break.”
“Okay,” Lou said, sounding more like his commanding self. “Okay. On three. One, two – ”
They pulled. The link Clara had spent their conversation weakening gave way, the ends convincingly fragmented.
Clara waited for Lou to pass her, falling into step behind him so that she could protect him and Jimmy from the worst of the blast. Lou didn’t have the breath to argue. He was a muscular guy, but he was carrying a hundred and eighty pounds of dead weight at a run.
Clara looked in the direction of the voice and saw Jimmy and Lou lying in the puddle together like they were lovers, Jimmy giving Lou a wary look. Clara couldn’t help it. She burst out laughing.
That just seemed to make Jimmy more nervous.
“Is there a reason I can’t remember how I wound up laying in a puddle under Louis?”
“It’s simple, Jimmy,” Clara explained. “Lou saved your life.”
“Oh.” Jimmy sounded dazed. “My hero.”
Thanks so much for all the lovely feedback! I'm so glad you enjoyed it!
With Jimmy, I sort of seeing him as having a crush on both Clara and Superwoman, but whenever actually faced with the opportunity to approach one of them romantically, he just sort of stammers and says he thinks he hears Perry calling. XD
The thing with the toe shoes came about because as I was thinking about it, I decided that Clara was probably still a very athletic person, and in a town like Smallville, that would mean her choices for female sports would probably be cheerleading, dance, basketball, soccer, or volleyball. Now, Clark is usually characterized as liking team sports because it takes the whole team to win, so it's not like they're getting too much of an advantage by having him on the team. I decided that Clara would probably be a dancer, because while dance is a lot about endurance and strength, it's even -more- about balance and technique, so it's something she would have to really work at, just like anyone else. And, though she's good, she probably still turns down lead roles, feeling like it's unfair somehow, even though she comes by the skill mostly honestly, and that's why she was the Wicked Witch of the East in The Wizard of Oz rather than Dorothy (the only two characters who would need red toe shoes). And then I have this sort of mental image of Superwoman being a really graceful sort of avenging angel figure in the air.
Which brings us to the mask: It's metal for several reasons. Firstly, the costume design is in large part inspired by the costume for She-Ra, Princess of Power. I don't really like the traditional design for Supergirl, or Wonder Woman for that matter, so I wanted to come up with something that had the sex appeal factor, but wasn't just ridiculously revealing or plain awkward looking. So I used She-Ra and Hawk Girl as inspiration, and both their costumes involve metal headpieces, which I sort of adapted into the mask. The second reason was that I did want it to be reminiscent of a helmet, to sort of give the feel of armor, like when she puts on the costume she becomes a warrior. And thirdly, I have this mental image of her flying and the sun is angling off the mask, and it makes it sort of glow, like a halo, adding to the angel image. And it occurred to me too, that if her mask creates a glare, it could make it that much harder for people to recognize her, because they wouldn't look at her face directly, and it would mess up any flash photography.
Thanks for catching the typo! It's fixed now!
And the scene with the crane, yeah that just sort of happened. I honestly have no idea where that even came from, it wasn't in my outline. But I'm glad you liked it, and that it got the job done. :3
Glad you enjoyed the story, and thank you again for all of your wonderful feedback. :3
