Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Related Fanon versus Canon

I want to add one other time in the series when Clark cried. When he and Lois were saying goodbye in the DP conference room before he left for New Krypton, she said, "Don't forget me," and the shot cut to Clark, whose eyes were red, who was blinking rapidly, and who had his teeth so tightly clenched that he could hardly say her name. He may not have been actively crying in that scene, but he was fighting tears as hard as I've ever seen a person do it. Notice that both times we saw him near tears were when he was losing Lois. So I would say that Clark crying (or almost crying) over losing Lois is in canon, but crying at other rare times of deep emotion is FoLCLore, and most FoLC will accept either one as in-character.

In Dead Lois Walking the scene at the beginning has Clark with his head resting on his joined fists, and to me it looks like he's fighting back tears in that conversation with Perry as well... He starts off with:

"They want to execute my wife Perry.."

Wendy wrote:
Absolutely! One of the signs of a really good fic, in fact.

Interesting to read the examples of Clark's near "crying" in the series, too. I think those rare examples are what subconsciuosly makes us accept Clark's crying when he believes he's lost Lois in fics.

I'd never thought of Clark's pausing outside the vault in The Invisible Man ep as being his tracking Lois's heartbeat ( I had Sheila's take on it ) but the heartbeat theory does work there too.

c

I just remembered two other bits of FoLCLore: Lois continuing to call Clark "Farmboy" or calling him "Flyboy."

It's canon that she called him "farmboy" in the pilot, but she never said it again in the series. However, fanfic writers often have her call him that repeatedly. And she never called him "Flyboy" on the show, but it's a common appellation in fanfic.

Well, I'm not sure if the connection was made because people thought he was actually listening to her heartbeat in that scene or because he could've been. You have to take into account the fanfic "what if" factor after all.

All it takes is for someone to wonder if he'd been listening for her heartbeat? Not just anyone's heartbeat but hers, and hers alone. The significant of that would be enough to make most FoLC's hearts beat a little faster and then they're all off and running with it.

And I think this is an important aspect to remember in the tangential discussion of whether it's important where these things originate. To me those origins of FoLClore aren't as fascinating as whether they stick.

And why.

Because if they stick over time it means that enough writers and readers have accepted them, whatever they are, as true enough to the characters and the premise of the series that they make it into our collective consciousnesses and are used over and over again.

Now that is significant.

And as a sort of PS to this post, I'd also like to point out that on reflection I'm not sure that scene from Sanctuary counts as one of the heartbeat uses. After all, there's a big difference between him picking out her heartbeat in the middle of Metropolis and a field in Kansas. Or on an island, which is where I was thinking it happened. Must've been in another draft. :p