Whohoo! I'm barred from my computer for a day and I come back to pure amazing-ness!
TOC wrote:
Hmmmmm. "Fluff" would translate as "WAFF", I suppose. Seeing that quite a few purely WAFFy stories not only get posted here, but they get read and they have praise heaped on them... well, in view of that, I suppose we can take your fluff, Rachel.
I appreciate that! lol.
More rain images! I don't much like rain myself, but I love reading how you write about it!
.........
Another little tribute to Rachel's love of rain, I suppose!
Guilty as charged! You know, I live in a place that qualifies as a desert, but I went to Seattle once and it just rained and rained and rained . . . it was *lovely*! <sighs> Everyone else wished it would clear out, but it made everything so green and fresh and clean...
Okay, I'm stopping now.
I've never thought of this. But of course this is what Einstein meant about "spacetime" - namely, that time itself is inseparably connected with space. Move around in space and you will lose connection with the time that used to be your own. (Which is why Star Trek wouldn't work, by the way - these people move across enormous distances at incredible speeds, and still they can, at least sometimes, stay in the same timeframe as the people at Star Fleet Commands, far, far away somewhere. That's impossible.)
Fortunately, for all of Clark's criss-crossing of the globe, he almost certainly hasn't moved at speeds even close to the speed of light, so at the very least he hasn't left Lois thousands of years behind him. But he gets torn loose, at it were, from his natural time zone on the Earth, which is another way of showing how he somehow lacks roots on the Earth. How he is falling upwards, away from the Earth, when he allows himself to drift. And how he needs Lois to anchor him.
It's a very good thing his speed doesn't cut him away from the world like that! As for me, just traveling cross country or whatever at times just throws off my internal clock. To Clark, who can speed to any time of the day or even fly out and float right in front of the sun, I can imagine that he might get confused at times, especially when he's been working through the night for China, to come back to night in Metropolis. At least during the day you can see the sun move. At night, time kind of stops meaning much.
I like the idea of Lois tying him back to Earth and Metropolis. Really, his "time" is her time, because he knows he'll always be able to come back to her. It's a sweet idea. Thanks for pointing that out.
Hah! I love Lois's incredible coolness and Clark's adoration of her!
Hehe. I'm guilty of being a complete sop when it comes to their interaction . . . I love it.
Wow. This is such a mysterious paragraph. I can't help it, I get "Jesus vibrations" from Clark again. And here, interestingly, Lois suddenly feels that perhaps she isn't good enough for Clark - eh, for Superman, of course.
I've always thought your religious comparisons are quite interesting. As for Lois's uncertainty, I think it's one of the touching thing about both of them--that they both don't think they're good enough for the other. It's sweet.
Uncertainty. Uncertainty. Where do we go from here?
As for the mysteriousness . . .
Oh, wow. I can see Clark as a freezing, dripping little puppy or kitten, hesitantly jumping into the warm, dry, fluffy(!) towel that Lois holds out to him like a mother hen (eh, sorry about the mixed metaphors).
That's what I love about Clark. He's so invulnerable, strong, and powerful in one way, but while Lois accepts and love that, she also can see the "dripping puppy" out there, and she loves him all the more for it. <feels waffy>
I love how she loves him. But she feels that she has to watch her dignity and not get carried away - but of course, Clark sees it all, her elation at seeing and touching him and her attempts at self control.
And there is Clark trying to do the exact same thing--keep up his dignity and the remnants of his "invulnerable" image, just as Lois is still trying to defend that scrap of her independence between them. But both of their attempts are weak at best, and it doesn't last very far into this chapter, does it?
So moving. This is how Clark has changed, because he gets so deeply shaken at the horror and death he sees after his ordeal at the hands of Luthor and Bureau 39. But this is also how he hasn't changed, because he keeps flying to the disaster sites to help out any way he can.
Exactly! Clark recognizes his fears and from whence they've sprouted. He's not happy about them, and he realizes that he can't just ignore them, but he's doing his best. That's what makes him the super man we all love.
So beautiful. When I was a kid, I grew up in a religious family, and my religious grandparents kept giving me all these religious books to read. I kept reading a children's version of the Bible, but as much as it fascinated me it troubled me very deeply too, because I was so frightened by this God of fury and vengeance that this kiddie Bible showed me so many times. (For example, there was a picture there of a small Egyptian child who was being eaten alive by insects. The reason that the child was being tortured to death was that God was punishing Pharaoh for enslaving the children of Israel. The cruelty and unfairness of the suffering that God visited on the Egyptian child shook me to the core of my being. When I came across Superman at age twelve, I think I embraced him so fiercely because he was a "god" of goodness and light, not of fury and vengeance.)
I think this special sympathetic side of Clark stems directly from his childhood and how his parents raised him. He wasn't raised to think himself better than anyone, and as his powers developed they made him *more* humble and careful and unjudging, if anything. He didn't see it as some gift that gave him the right to 'rule' others, or to attack the darkness and destroy it. He just realizes that it's his duty, along with everyone else, to try and do his best to avoid a little more darkness by bringing just a little more light.
Interesting. Very interesting. I remember an LnC story where Lois marvelled at Clark's ability to lie smoothly and convincingly to Perry, without missing a beat. In that story, Lois, who didn't know about Clark's Superman identity at the time, asked Clark what else he was lying about. She told him that it takes a lot of practice to lie as well as she had seen him do, and therefore he had to lie about other things, too.
I think it goes to show how much Lois has really learned to *know* and understand Clark (or "Superman," if you will) that she can read him so easily.
Oh, so moving. The way you turn those words upside down, change their meaning very suddenly. Because when Lois found those words from Kal-El, scribbled on a piece of paper, they signalled heartache, abandonment, bereavement and farewell. Those words were all that he left her when he disappeared from her apartment and vanished from her life, temporarily at least, when he couldn't deal with Superman.
This time of separation has definitely not been an easy time for either Lois or Clark. I think that it was fiting to end it with the very words that began that lonely time--even if both were heartfelt as they could be. Like you said, the first time Clark is saying, "Thank you and goodbye." This time, I get the feeling that he's saying something more like, "Thank you, now let me try to show you how thankful I am." It has a very different tone to it.
How beautiful, beautiful this is. You don't use the word "love" at all, but you show us the love between these two people so wonderfully.
Isn't that a lot of what true love is? Absolute, constant gratitude for everything--even the things that sometimes seem irritating or even hurtful? Gratitude that, sure, maybe things aren't exactly as you want them, but everything is better than being without that person you love? I think it shows the depth of Clark's dependency on her that he cherishes even the cutting words that Lois tosses sometimes quite carelessly at him, along with all of the good. He's accepting the whole of her being just like she accepts all of "Superman's" being--with weaknesses and strengths alike.
I'm very glad he says this to her. And I'm happy about her answer, too.
Again, I think it's showing the growing understanding between both of them. Lois really doesn't need him to explain. It doesn't change that it had hurt her and made her lonely and frightened, but she realizes--especially now that he's back and all right--that *everything* can be all right as long as he's all right.
But you are Superman, Clark.
Like someone points out farther down, Clark is having a major identity crisis here. The wall between Superman and Clark is no longer a clean line or a mask of one that can be fitted over another--instead, it's this odd sort of combination. He feels like he can't be anything but nervous and stuttering as Clark--largely due to what Lois expects of him--and as Superman he's starting to be much more like the man Clark was before Bureau 39. But he can't bring himself to think of himself *as* Superman, because he's always associated that name to be the "alien" part of him, and especially after Bureau 39 he's definitely not comfortable with saying, "Okay, so I--the whole of me--is an alien," even after Jor-El's message.
This is wonderful. They are so comfortable and, well, so happy together. And there are no words to convey what they feel, but there is laughter.
I really hope I'm not the only one who has ever had a random spontaneous laughter attack. lol.
He is lying again. *unhappy sigh
Oh, Clark! <shakes head>
That thing about Lois being an idiot for dismissing Clark like that - she needs to repeat it to herself until she really, truly, finally believes it.
She's starting to, especially after breaking into his apartment and seeing all the pictures and stuff.
That's true, Clark. She doesn't know you as well as she thinks she does. So it is up to you to change that.
Exactly. Poor guy. <knocks him affectionately over the head>
I love the way you write her desperation.
I think the panic at the very thought of him leaving her is enough to show how dependent she really is on him.
Well and good, but this is not what he really needs to tell her about.
Lois is really doing her best to help him out of his shell that she realizes he has hidden behind out of his fear and uncertainty. Clark has just been too uncertain to step forward and do his part.
Interesting. So you are thinking of Krypton's sun as a red giant, then? To you it an old sun which has ballooned to gigantic proportions as it prepares to die? Personally, I have always thought of Krypton's sun as a red dwarf, a small, light-weight star that shines more feebly than our Sun, and which will not turn into a red giant for trillions of years, if it ever does. But I admit that the science of Supermanology gives us no clue as to which interpretation is the right one!
Wow. To tell you the truth, I've never thought of it as anything but a giant old sun. But your idea is quite interesting to think about. Thanks for giving me a little mini-science lesson!
I always thought that Superman's interview with Lois Lane was so boring, because it didn't answer any of the really important questions. But I concede the point that Clark is making here.
Me too. I mean, if Superman were real and *I* had an interview with him, I certainly wouldn't stick to the questions they used in STM, especially if I was hard-hitting reporter Lois Lane!
I'm afraid I agree with Clark. We do horrible things because of our fears, but we do great and compassionate things in spite of our fears.
Hm. Good point. I think Lois was just trying to point out that trials and fear tear away any fake images we might be trying to hide away to the core beneath--whether that's good or bad is the real test of character.
Clark felt guilty, because he didn't think he deserved the praise that Lois heaped on him. He had let fear stop him. But only for a while.
Superman was gone for so long not just because of his fears, but because--as we've pointed out before--that in many ways he just ceased to be. I think Clark was thinking more about how fear is *still* affecting him, and in a way that involves Lois directly. He's been too afraid to tell her his secret, even after trying again and again.
So sweet, so intense. I love the way Clark is speaking to Lois by brushing his thumb over her knuckles.
The simple touches, the little looks and smiles and glances. I think they say more than a lot of the words that are being spoken.
Hmmmmm. Why does this sound just so ominous, Rachel?
Do you know how the war in former Yugoslavia started in the 1990s? It was because a Serbian leader, Slobodan Milosovic, reminded his people of how the Serbs had bravely fought the Turks on the Field of Thrushes back in 1389, and because of that, the Serbs now needed to honor the dead Serbs from 1389 by re-drawing the map of the Balkans, by expelling people of the wrong ethnicity from their homes, etcetera. All because of what had happened in 1389.
So, is it Clark's duty to recreate Krypton on the Earth to honor all the dead people on Krypton? Did the dead Serbs from 1389 get happier because of the Balkan wars in the 1990s?
Wow! Ann, you really know your stuff. If I ever have a question, remind me to come to you! As for the comparison--no, it doesn't make it right. But clearly the argument was powerful enough to bring the past to haunt the present, even if we can see it from afar and realize how ridiculous and tragic it really is.
The one thing I hope we can see throughout DD is how illogical human minds (and Clark's mind too, I suppose I'd better add) can be. They're flawed, subjective, affected by emotions, hopes, dreams, terrors. As readers we've seen things long before they happen and screamed over some of Lois and Clark's actions--but I hope we can understand why they do what they do nonetheless, even if we aren't happy with it.
Hmmmm. Physically, this Superman is a lot more like Brandon Routh than he is like Dean Cain. I seem to remember that your Superman has blue eyes, too. (Which is something Brandon Routh hasn't got, but at least he wore blue contacts for his role as Superman!)
<scratches head> I don't think I've said anything about blue eyes, but I may have on accident. I'm trying to write this story to bridge both the movies and LnC and all that stuff, but to tell you the truth, when I write I don't see Dean Cain or Brandon Routh or Christopher Reeve--I just see Clark. It's an odd combination, especially visibly, but it's more the feeling I get from him. As for the description of height and weight--I do admit that I pulled that from STM.
I love all of this. How terrible that Clark lost so much weight at the hands of Bureau 39. Now he has regained some of that weight, but only some of it. Lois is horrified to find out, of course, and now she is going to make him eat more cheesecake to fatten him up a little!
Again, I love that mother hen Lois.
He's getting too relaxed, so he's forgetting to lie to her. *unhappy sigh*
If only he'd just get it over with, he could really relax and not have to worry about one more thing! It would be much easier on both of them (Eventually, anyway).
However, this is the bottom line. Clark needs to tell Lois about his double identity. And he needs to tell her as Superman. He knows that Lois trusts Superman in a way she doesn't trust Clark. If he respects her, he will tell her about himself very, very soon, and he will tell her as Superman. The longer he keeps lying, the more he keeps abusing her trust.
I remember that Superman flew away from Lois some chapters ago, and then he returned to Lois as Clark and sat ouside her door for hours. It was heartbreaking to see how she dismissed him as Clark. Even so, I so wish that he had stayed with her as Superman instead of flying away, and that he had revealed his Clark identity before her eyes instead of playing this double identity game with her.
My fingers are itching to give a very nice reply to this, but I'm not going to. I've kind of been avoiding this side of the reviews today. <has to delete about three sentences in fear of saying too much> But do know that I'm reading them and giving them quite a bit of thought!
One thing that hurts me, the biggest Lois fan in the world, is that not so few LnC fans seem more irritated at Lois for failing to see through Clark's disguise than angry at Clark for carrying on his deception in the first place. But how can it be the deceived party's duty to see through the lie more than it is the liar's duty to stop lying?
I guess many people find Lois so unbelievably dense for failing to see through Clark's disguise. Hey, we can all see so perfectly clearly that Clark and Superman are the same person. Honestly, it's so obvious! So what is wrong with Lois since she can't see it? Huh? Huh?
I think it's the whole perspective thing again. We can't see inside Lois's mind--of course we know Clark is Superman, so it's obvious to us. But like in my story, it's obvious Clark needs to tell Lois, but he hasn't. It's obvious that Lois should recognize Superman now especially, but she hasn't. And considering everything they've been through and where Lois's focus has been, I don't think it's a surprise for any of those things.
It is time for Superman to come clean with her.
Is that an order, a command, a threat, or a plea?
It sounds like the end of a powerful speach, Ann. Have you considered running for presidency?
Okay, I'm working my way down (slowly) . . .
Onto your 2nd response . . .
Well, seeing that I just lost my Pulitzer membership and I can only get it back by posting a lot of new stuff, why not add a new post instead of editing my old one?
OH, no! I hadn't noticed that--I'm only a beat reporter? Lame! Did that happen in the Great Site Crash of Doom a couple weeks ago? Well, at least we didn't lose everything. . .
Because I was thinking of the ending of this chapter. Lois and Clark, eh, Lois and Superman, fall asleep on Lois's new couch together while watching The Scarlet Pimpernel. Which is about a man who leads a double life, who is an amazing hero, but who in "real life" is this silly fop who just irritates his wife. Who doesn't know about her husband's double life... hmmm... wait a minute. Lois has two men in her life... and one of them, the non-heroic one, is so completely irritating. But he is strange, too... you can't figure him out... wait... wait... there is a momentous truth to be found here someplace, isn't there? Like, say in Lois's dream? About the Scarlet Pimpernel? Who wears a scarlet cape - I didn't know that! - but also blue spandex for some reason.
Imagine Lois slowly waking up from such a dream, where she is only half-awake, and suddenly looking straight into the totally "innocent" and "open" face of Kal-El, sleeping next to her. Suppose the movie, right then, shows how the Scarlet Pimpernel's wife suddenly finds out about her husband's identity....
How about it, Rachel? Huh? Huh?
<walks off whistling to herself>
We'll see.
Thanks for your review! You're amazing!!!
SmirkyRaven
