[ID: a thread of eight (8) tweets by “🕯Little Light 🕯” (@/burnlittlelight) that reads:
Honestly I’d love a story where the folks at the Daily Planet reveal they knew Clark Kent was being squirrelly about his ID but they checked his legal records, assumed he was just an undocumented immigrant from elsewhere on Earth, and respected/protected his privacy and safety.
They’re all investigative journalists or whatever. Maybe the knew Clark was being evasive and facts weren’t adding up and he didn’t need those glasses but figured it was just to hide from La Migra and chose not to look into it further. Mystery solved. He’s a decent guy, lay off.
In the modern era of the Internet and all, it makes way more sense. And it establishes them as competent and kind. “You think he’s *Superman*? Shoot, no, step into Perry’s office for a minute, keep your voice down, we can explain. We checked up on all of this a while ago.”
Why doesn’t he ever do the employee physical? Why is he always running off to take care of vague stuff without good explanation? Why does he claim to be from “Smallville,” which is obviously made up, and never mentions any relative but his parents, who don’t look like him?
Whenever there’s the kind of crisis where the police would show up, Clark’s nowhere to be found. He never goes to the doctor. He’s so shy. He works so hard and never really has anyone over to his place. And we all choose to leave it at that, because we care about him.
What does a quiet, hardworking, hyper-polite guy who knows a lot about farm work look like to you? A guy who pays a lot of attention to when sirens go off? Who has secrets, but never seems to do anything unethical or wrong, who is an exaggeratedly model citizen? Just saying.
Maybe Clark doesn’t even know this is why his secret identity has been working this well, because nobody wants to freak him out, until a Dreamer intern or something gives him a friendly “You secret’s safe with me, brother, we’ve got to look after each other” at the copy machine.
And then you get a story of Clark finding community and kinship and solidarity with all the human beings whose parents also sent them, with desperate hope, from catastrophe-wrecked homes to somewhere there might be a better life, who understand him better than maybe anyone else.
/end ID]
