Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic FDK: Louis and Clara (2/4)

LINKS: Table of Contents

Thanks everyone for reading, and everybody who's commented so far! You've made me feel really welcome and gotten me excited about continuing this story as a series!

Constructive criticism is welcome. I only ask that you provide an example of ways I can fix what you think is wrong. :3

Note: If you check the Table of Contents, you will find this series now has cover art.

I really like how you're playing this gender switch. In my experience, they're usually really good or awful, kwim? This one is one of the good ones! Can't wait for part 3.

Tara

I like your cover-art from the TOC. I was wondering how Clara (Super Woman) was going to get away with having Cat, Louis, and Lex see her without her soda-bottle glasses.

I love this whole speech! Yea, Cat!

I was a bit disappointed by the switch of Claude to Claudia, as I was hoping the only gender switch would be Lois and Clark. I was thinking you might have Claude buddy up with him and then hire a some woman to seduce Louis and steal his story to give to Claude. It sounds like Claudia did a number on Louis, but I guess we won't be getting any Messenger Hangar confessions of vulnerability from Louis to Clara. So, will Clara become sympathetic to Louis via rumor only? Because so far we haven't seen any direct examples of his dropping the jerk guard with Clara.

Hmmmm. Does this mean no high heal boots for Super Woman?

Ooooh! I'm envious!

Yikes! That is long.

So, did Clara bring the sewing machine back with her from Smallville? No, she didn't, did she, since she landed on Cat's roof. I was going to wonder if Martha helps her out with the costumes or if she made it by herself.

Sounds like a homage to Smallville.

Awwwww. Poor Louis, that he thinks so poorly of himself.

And the sexist pig is back.

Yea, Clara. Atta girl!

Oh, no. Not Clara. I can't look... <<peers through fingers>>

Lex seems even more of a chauvinist than Louis, seeing Clara only as a woman and not as a reporter, especially with that closing line:
Only it's only going to interest Louis, but not Clara? Pig!

This story is still fun. I don't know how you'll wrap up the Pilot in only two more parts. I'm curious to see what other twists on canon you have in store for us.

ROFLOL!!!

Hey, gang member. You wanna try?

I can so see this. And I’m reminded of Brenda Leigh Johnson or “Brenda, just Brenda” from The Closer.

Yep, you’re still being a jerk, Louis.

Ooooh… A man saying that to a woman. Let’s send Louis to the sexual harassment classes. LOL.

Wait a minute. Who said this? The following paragraphs seem to indicate that it was Louis, but this paragraph seems to indicate Clara.

And who said this? Perhaps you could add a little more explanation here.

Awww….

So much waffiness, I’m grinning ear to ear.

Yes, I think you’re right.

This sounds so Cat to have a screen.

I like that you made the dress Clara wore red.

Surely Cat has a needle and thread? Ah, I see. She had to go to Smallville.

Oops.

Love your double entendres.

It could be interesting if she falls for Lex.

This might be a little bold for her to say this to someone who doesn’t know about her super side. I’d scale it back and then have her think about what the truth is.

Great part. I loved it.

But those darn high heels are soooo impractical.

Thank you! I'm glad you're enjoying it. :3

Thanks for the thoughtful comments!

Glad you like the cover! I'm pretty proud of how it turned out. I had a lot of fun designing Clara's costume. And yeah, I felt that it was more likely that Clara would have to wear a mask and ditch the glasses, because Clark can get away with always wearing them, but speaking from experience as a woman who prefers glasses to contacts, people will not SHUT UP about how you should wear contacts or just be blind during formal events because your glasses just hide your face/clash with your dress/etc. etc.

Lol yeah, I think Lou is implying he'd sleep with someone for a story. I made that choice, because in canon Louis goes out of her way to emphasize to Clark that she WOULDN'T do that, so I thought it would be an interesting comment to make here, on society's different expectations for men and women. After all, if Lois slept with someone for a story, she's a dirty ho, but if Louis does it, he's not a nice guy, but more people are goig to focus on his dedication to the job than anything else.

But yes, he is totally lying.

Thanks for catching the missing paragraph breaks! I've gone back and fixed them.

Lol yeah, with the 'mommy hand me down' comments, Louis is trying to get out of admitting that he does think Clara is pretty and distance himself from her, but he's also in a bit of a pickle, since he's still in the middle of trying to get her to come to the ball.

Cat - YES. YES GOOD EVERYTHING YOU SAID. I just have a whole lot of Cat Feelings that can't be contained. >_>

Re: Claude to Claudia - I thought about doing what you said, having Claude stay a male reporter with a female accomplice, but in the end I decided it was better to just switch Claude than to make up a female OC who wouldn't have instant name recognition with the readers. Claude/Claudia is the only other genderswitch in the series though, if that makes you feel any better. Everyone else is staying the same - including Linda King, who is now Lou's old college girlfriend.

I think there will be some direct discussion of Claudia in the hangar, but it'll come about differently, since it won't be so much a tearful confession as much as Clara using the opportunity to ask Lou questions, knowing he'll probably answer since they're tied up and, as far as he knows, about to die.

Lou unbends a little soon, too. I'll not spoil it for you, but hopefully it's believable...

And lol, I'm going to get the pilot done in two more parts because I'm skipping every scene that the gender change doesn't affect, and counting on everyone to know what's going on since it's a rewrite of an episode XD But they are -long- parts. I think the story will finish out at close to twenty thousand words.

Thanks again for the thoughtful comments!

Thanks for the lovely feedback!

Yes, I loved the idea of Clara having a hideous purse! XD

Re the quotes: Clara says both of them. No one else has mentioned anything, so I think I'll leave them for now, but if it confuses anyone else I'll go back and make it clearer.

I'm actually not sure yet if Clara is going to fall for Lex or not. Right now she likes him and thinks he's charming. I'm going to see where the story takes me. I do know she's not going to realize he's a crook for quite a while. The A-plot demands that.

Clara's languages: I think as she hasn't invented Superwoman yet in this scene, and given how she's a bit careless when she firsts gets to Metropolis with the bus and the flying around in her own clothes, and the upcoming manhole rescue, that she'd be a bit less than prudent here. Lex is charming and handsome, and maybe she wants to show off a little, and have someone appreciate her after spending a day with Lou acting like she's an idiot.

And yeah, I think Superwoman's boots are going to be pretty much just like Superman's, except they'll come up to just above her knees. I keep imagining her getting heels caught in unfortunate places otherwise, and/or breaking a heel when she's picking up super heavy things.

Thanks again for such thoughtful comments!

Uh-huh, new chapter?

Yay! That might be the start of a wonderful friendship!

Love it, love it, love it! That's the kind of Cat I'd have loved to see in the series!

Probably not. He's not the Editor in Chief of the world's greatest newspaper because he can yodel...

Claudia? Couldn't it have been Claudine or Claudette? Anyway, I like this kind of twist.

Gotta love Cat's pragmatism here.

Wait, no stories about bongo drums and swinging from the chandelier for half the night? Cat must be really warming up to Clara. Nice touch. Very nice touch.

Very interesting. I don't know what's going to happen with her alter ego, but it sure is going to be different.

See something you like?

Do you really want to know?

Took him long enough.

Where, oh where did she pick up that language? At Great-(great-great-)aunt May's?

Another nice little twist. And love the bit about taking turns leading!

Show-off.

Love that little interplay, with Clara once again doing a little more than just raise to the challenge.

Nice move, girl.

Touché. Even if it's highly unlikely anything on Earth can eat her alive without any kryptonite around.

Now don't you get any ideas, missy. Luthor is scary with a capital S. And probably a capital C, too.

I sure hope Clara gets the hint that she's not seen as a professional, but merely as some kind of eye candy and/or trophy to be won.

Great, great, great chapter! I can't wait to see the next part! Do you have a posting schedule?

Loving this story. It would be great to see this follow more of the Season 1 episodes, but I wouldn't want to wait two whole years before they got together ...

Now, I wonder what Louis will think of Superwoman when she turns up, and I wonder whether Clara's smll infatuation with Louis will quickly turn to love, or not.

And I'm really curious to see how Lex will respond to Superwoman. I can't see him thinking of her as an enemy, more as a seduction challenge, so would he put her through those tests?

And Jason Trask, would he be as convinced that there was an alien invasion with it being a super-powered woman. Maybe he'd acuse her of wanting to distract all the men of the world with her skin tight costume making them all think with the brain in their pants!

Anyway, keep posting please.

I like the interaction between Luthor and Clara. I can see him wanting to pursue her, but I hope she doesn't fall for it.

On a totally unrelated note, I've got a question for you, Pris. What does the emoticon you keep using mean? :3 It makes me think of a cat face, but I've never seen anyone use that before, so I'm not sure I'm looking at it right.

no I won't, I will bury the message.

I think that should be "they were".

I hope Clara thinks about this arrogance. Too bad she did not hear the seize the high ground line.

Pris' grammar is quite good. I think this is just a slip. It's far easier to see mistakes in others' writing than it is your own.

Too true, I can vouch for that.

Too true, I can vouch for that. [/b]</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Longer replies to other comments later, as I'm about to dash off to work, but I wanted to say thanks for spotting the typos (and vouching for me !) and I'll be sure to go back and fix them later this evening. :3

Oh, and the ':3' face I'm fond of using is just sort of a cute smiley. In my head I think of it as 'little cute guy'. I use it when I think someone/something else is cute and/or when I am trying to be cute /if that makes sense? The more extreme version of the face is x3 - for when something is SO CUTE OMG.

I should have been more up front that I really, really like this story. I was not trying to be overly critical with my comments. I am sorry if I came across that way.

I neglected to comment enough on my favorite parts earlier.

I like that Louis actually picked Clara up for the ball. I am tempted to say that he comes off as more sympathetic than Lois from this. However, I think he would come up a lot worse off than Lois if he just has Clara show up. Plus, he is trying to use Clara more than Lois ever tied to use Clark.

I really liked the scenes in the taxi cab. I guess they make sense since Louis does have to prep Clara for the cornering of Lex, but they were still very fun.

I am really looking forward to seeing if Clara figures out what is really going on with Lex a lot faster than Lois did.

Hmmm, I really hope she figures out during the test scenes if not before. Well, we shall see.

I have to say to date this is the best geder switch of the main characters in the story I have ever scene, bar none.

Even all my gruming about the amount that Clara is interacting with Lex shows that this is good.

It might help that this is the closest to canon I have ever scene someone do the story. However I think that is what makes it work so well.

I also have to say leaving almost all the other characters unchanged is helpful.

Actually I just realized another reason why "I've Got a Crush on You" is such a fun one to do. You get to give new aliases to Louis and Clara. Hmm, that alone might be a reason to have Clara go to do the undercover work first. Louis using the unemployed sailor outfit just seems to work. It would also lead to a new but still funny dynamic when Clara recognizes Louis in disguise.

Clara:Louis, I can totally tell that is you.

Louis:It's Lenny, Lenny King.

Clara:I can see through any disguise you use Lenny.

Louis:Like you could ever pull off a disguise. By the way, did you hear that Superwoman put out another fire. She is so awesome.

I also have to say I like the cover art. It reinforces my view that Clara will have to get used to slightly immodest clothes. I guess wearing a mask as Superwomen makes sense since Clara has not held as closely to the glasses as Clark.

So you are going to do "The Rival". Interesting. I am wondering if Linda King will go the way of Rachel Harris or Claudia.

One possibility is Linda King being a former associate of Clara's. Considering Linda's getting Clark to take her to the rail station because she was "new in town", it would work better if she was someone Clara had known in the past.

On further reading I see you are keeping Linda having a connectiong to Louis. That will be interesting. It will change the dynamic, but it will if anything make the sense of betrayal even worse. This will be very interesting.

But in canon I am pretty sure that Clark says that line to Lois.