Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic Do you believe that first love never dies?

And if you do, how do you kill it?

I think it is very hard to gain love (or maybe I'm thinking about trust) and very easy to destroy it.

L&C, of course, have that true love. They are able to work through their differences and come out o n the other side with their love stronger.

That's why the L&C relationship is so valued, and why we continue to write fic about it, thirteen years after the show went off the air.

yeah. but how do you kill feelings for someone you loved who no longer loves you?

I know I hate seeing Clark and Lois's love die. There have been a few such stories posted here on these boards, and they made me almost heartbroken when I read (parts of) them.

There has been at least one story where Lois became so evil that Clark couldn't possibly love her (and she, of course, being so evil, had lost her ability to love). There has been one story where Lois wasn't exactly evil but a pain in the neck, and Clark fell in love with another woman instead and loved her, apparently giving up his love for Lois forever. I hated that!!!!

A story that broke my heart the first time I read it, but which I have grown to admire more and more, is Becky Bain's Ad Astra Per Aspera . Mrs Mosley, who used to post here earlier, once said that she thought it was one of the most moving stories she had read. She described it as a story about doing one's duty. Personally I regard it as a story about Lois's everlasting love for Clark and Clark's not-so-everlasting love for Lois.

Ann

P.S. Sayo (that's what we should call you, right?), in Becky Bain's story Clark has stopped loving Lois (at least it looks that way), but Lois never lets go of her love for Clark. She just keeps loving him, and she isn't angry at him.

Ann: yep! People call me Sayo.

I'm going to read that fic you recommended. i was wondering if it was possible for Clark to ever stop loving Lois, because Lois is the first real love of his life.

I'm trying to remember the guy I first fell in love with... I guess it was Pete. I was pretty devastated when he broke up with me, anyway. And it hurt for months. But eventually I found somebody else, who suited me better. (Until I broke up with him). And then I met my husband. And that was 20 years ago.

Love is first a choice, then an emotion. Your emotions will follow your choices. I like the "soulmates" thing in L&C, but don't believe in it in real life. I think there are any number of people that you can love and be happy with, if you work at it.

Ann, I only read that story once, 'cause it broke my heart, too. It was mostly about Lois. I never got the impression that Clark had stopped loving her, though -- circumstances made it impossible for them to be together, and he wanted her to be happy, even if it wasn't (couldn't be) with him.

PJ

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PER ASPERA

Ditto Pam. I never thought Clark stopped loving Lois in AAPA. I bawl every time I read it but that's because they CAN'T be together due to circumstances. I don't think Clark ever LOVED Zara even though they had children together. I believe he truly loved his sons and cared very much for Zara but he was caught in a horrid situation and couldn't leave. I believe that Lois continued to love Clark but, much as one whose spouse has died [because he may as well have], she also loved Tom truly and deeply. Clark never really had the option that we saw [suppose he might have later] as the Supreme Ruler of NK to fall in love again - he was 'stuck' with Zara and left holding on to the dream of what 'might have been' with Lois. I think he probably spent the rest of his days as a lonely Supreme Ruler with his world as his spouse.

If that makes any sense at all . But I don't think Clark stopped loving Lois - or Lois Clark even though she moved on.

Carol

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My reason for saying that Clark stopped loving Lois is not what he did on New Krypton, because I agree that he would have done that out of a sense of duty. My objection is that he never sent word about his decision to Lois. He owed her, if not an explanation, at least a notification that she should stop waiting for him. She deserved to be told, because she was engaged to Clark, after all.

The reason for Clark's lack of communication with Lois can't have been that he was unable to contact her, because if he was able to send his own son from Krypton to Smallville, he ought to have been able to send a message from Krypton to Lois in Metropolis.

Ann

I heartily agree.

I don't necessarily buy that Ann - how was he supposed to do that? Intergalactic telephone? Or maybe the technology for his son didn't exist [again] until years later - it had been like 15 years by then.

But I guess we just may agree to disagree on that point - I don't know that it would have been an option.

Carol [who is off to see her 5yo graduate preschool]

My inner astronomer insists that it is much, much easier to send messages through space than to send spaceships and people through space. Therefore, if Clark could transport himself from the Earth to Krypton and send his son from Krypton to the Earth, it should have been a piece of cake for him to use Krypton's futuristic space technology to send a message to Lois on the Earth.

Ah, but what is true in the real world may not necessarily be true in the world of LnC, I know, I know. So let's agree to disagree, Carol.

Ann

Do any of you all believe it would be possible for Lois to stop loving Clark? Given their history it is probably a lot easier for her than for him to fall out of love, yeah?

For either of them to fall out of love with the other there would have to be a change.

Lois has aquired a template for who she thinks Clark/Superman is and that is the person she falls in love with. Obviously, his feelings for her enter into her impression of who he is.

If Clark changes in some fundamental way then I could see Lois falling out of love with this 'new' person, but most likely she would still carry a torch for the man he used to be.

The same holds true for Clark to Lois. This is why Terry's controversial fic actually made sense under the circumstances. Lois was no longer the person that Clark fell in love with so that love had been relagated to a memory of someone who no longer existed.

Tank (who still carries a small flame for his own first big unrequited love)

@Tank: I see. That's really interesting. I'll take a look at Terry's fics and read that one you're talking about.

I realize that I'm speaking as one whose "mental image" of Lois and Clark has been formed by the comics and movies, not by the TV show. But to me, it is easier to imagine Clark falling out of love with Lois than Lois falling out of love with Clark.

Consider the Smallville TV show! That show is on its tenth season and Clark has been in love with Lana and made love to Lana and what not. And now the producers are considering pairing him up with Lois. Maybe.



And in the movie Superman III, the sequel to Superman II where Clark first made love to Lois and then took away her memory of what had happened, Clark was sort-of-flirting with Lana.



In the comics in the nineties, Clark decided to risk Lois's life rather than commit a crime, and afterwards he seemed to grow tired of Lois. Even though he was engaged to Lois, he flirted with his old flame, Lori Lemaris the Mermaid.



Here is a panel from a comic book story which I read as a kid:



Superman is kissing Lori Lemaris! Oh no!

And his relationship with Wonder Woman always bordered on being romantic.



Lately Lois has been seen having boyfriends too, Lex Luthor in LnC, Oliver Queen in Smallville and Richard White in Superman Returns. But she never had any boyfriends in the comics I read as a kid. Back then, Superman was her only love. That is why I think of Lois as being more devoted to Superman than he is devoted to her. That is also why Becky Bain's Ad Astra Per Aspera resonates so strongly with me. Clark has married another woman and abandoned Lois - certainly out of a sense of duty, but still - while she keeps loving him and loving him, even though she eventually, after eighteen years or so, marries someone else.

But if we just consider LnC, is it true that Lois would fall out of love with Clark more easily than he would fall out of love with her? I can see one reason for thinking so, and that is that LnC Lois has had relationships with men before, while Clark was a virgin. Otherwise LnC Clark and LnC Lois seem pretty "equal" to me when it comes to loving the other one. Those of you who think that Clark's love for Lois would be more steadfast than her love for him, what do you base your opinion on?

Ann

@Ann: At the risk of seeming really un-Superman-fan-like, I gotta confess that I have never been a fan of Superman before or since Lois & Clark. I've watched a few episodes of Smallville, but mainly because I like Kristin Kreuk from Snow White. i guess you can say my i base my opinion on that one show.