Sheila, how come you manage to say the things the rest of us are struggling to express?

So, let me formulate the No Ann deathfic warning. The story you'd better warn me off goes like this. Lois is alive in the beginning of the story, and she gets killed at or before the end. She doesn't die a natural death, but she gets killed (or executed - basically the same thing). The story is told in such a way that Clark and other family members don't grieve too much over her death (in which case I won't even be appeased by her return to life). Or else, Clark's grief is the whole point of the story, whereas Lois herself, as a person, is unimportant.

These two kinds of Lois deathfics not only kill Lois, but they also tell us that Lois was never important in herself when she was alive. We are not asked to take an interest in Lois herself in these stories. We are not asked to identify with her or to wish her well. She is, I think, either treated as an appendage or an accessory which can be discarded since she/it doesn't matter anyway, or else she is treated as Clark's pet interest and obsession, which could have been Krypto the dog for all the difference it would have made to the story about Clark's grief. Like I said, in both these kind of stories Lois doesn't matter and she starts out alive and ends up killed.

So, people, if any of you are going to write such a story, please warn me not to read it. Because if you don't, I'm going to post a challenge for you. The challenge will go like this: Try to write a story which naturally invites us to identify with Lois, care about Lois and wish Lois well. Are you Lois-killers capable of doing that?

Edit: So, don't I hate Clark deathfics? Well, it seems to me that while the Lois deathfics invite us to grieve for Clark, the Clark deathfics also invite us to grieve for Clark. The Clark deathfics generally make us feel that Clark was important while he was alive, whereas the Lois deathfics don't necessarily care much about Lois. That's why I don't feel that the Clark deathfics hurt and belittle Clark the way the Lois deathfics hurt and belittle Lois.

Ann