#romantic dismemberment time here again my friends
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finally time to post my piece for @nighthauntzine, the subject of which will not come as a surprise to anyone.
#nieyao#mdzs#nie mingjue#jin guangyao#romantic dismemberment time here again my friends#also first time using community labels.... 'violence' undersells this maybe lmao#my art#gore cw
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@yangsbandana ranked her top 10 bees moments and then i got in my feelings about them so fuck it!! here's my top 10 after the cut
10. that little eyeroll and smile blake does in v1 when yang picks up the chess piece in the emerald forest and says "how about a cute little pony?" they've only been partners for about for 30 minutes at this point, and blake has spent multiple episodes practically screaming "I DON'T WANT TO GET CLOSE TO ANYONE, I AM A BAD PERSON WHO DOESN’T DESERVE HAPPINESS." and still yang gets the prickly ex-terrorist to smile. gay.
9. yang's reply to blake at mountain glenn. blake is still so torn up about running away from home, her actions while with the white fang, running from adam, her present, her future. and all yang says is that she knows she won't run away from a challenge. that she's strong enough to face it and come out on the other side better than she was. the utter faith of it all!!
8. all of v4 lmao. but i have narrow that down so it's when yang looks at the pile of books in her very first scene in that volume and then turns away with the saddest look on her face. she misses just blake so much even though she left!!! and she doesn't want to because missing someone has never brought back the people she cares about, but she is anyway! bees angst is usually not my favorite but when it hits it hits and v4 and v5 were it
7. the dummied out cherry stem yang ties with her tongue while staring directly at blake in v2. she is extremely gay and she is trying so, so hard to show the girl she likes that she's interested. bless her. crwby, yall are cowards for taking this away from us
6. nora at the rally going "friends? just friends? i think they have more going on". nora is easily one of the most emotionally intelligent characters on the show so when she says two people wanna kiss i believe her. it's also notable that this is the first time anyone in-show has acknowledged blake and yang have something happening, even if they aren't necessarily together. praying that there's a followup to this in v10 where she outright asks what the deal is now that they're back from survivor island in the Time Pit
top 5...god i suffered for ages over this and i still think i forgot something
5. "i'll destroy everything you love...starting with her." cw for this vid: dismemberment, abusive relationships
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i'm a relatively new fan having only picked up rwby in late 2019. my friends who were into it kept telling me it was pretty gay and one friend routinely sent bumbleby fanart because she knew it would entice me to start the show faster. and sure i thought they were cute, but i was still unsure if this was for real or not. but this scene. this one right here is the one where i went, "oh. oh, we're actually doing this.” there is no real way to read this as other than romantic. the framing, the timing, like.... man.
i’m also a sucker for devotion in ships and if sacrificing an arm to save the one you love and not even blaming them for running away isn’t devotion, i don’t know what it is.
4. burning the candle.
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if number 5 convinced me, burning the candle was the one that got me on the train. here was my reaction from a friend sending gifs of this without too much context
and then i finally watched and got hella emotional. it’s a lot of firsts: yang opening up about her past, disagreement, blake allowing herself comfort. but they still manage to talk, work through how they feel, and leave better than they were. and i think it’s what i love about them the most? regardless of what happens, they have each others backs and always work toward a compromise. ugh. god.
also that stupid flirty wink is fooling no one, just say you’ll meet her under the bleachers
3. "what if I needed her there for me"/"yang was strength"
yes it’s kind of cheating to put two different scenes in one spot but they share real estate in my brain. these are the pinnacle of v5 bees angst, for me. there’s a lot left unsaid and literal continents between them, but they’re both saying the same thing. “i miss her a lot. i really wish she was here.” and at this point they haven’t been in the same room for almost 2 seasons. they have a lot of emotional ground to cover when they see each other and even more healing to do.
regardless of it all, they can’t stop thinking about each other. someway, somehow, they want to make their more-than-friendship work.
speaking of seeing each other again
2. beeunion 2.0
blake walks into the battle at haven at the most bizarre time. weiss has a big giant wasp summon (and it looks like she’s been stabbed???? but she’s fine???????), her friends are here, all the bad guys are also here, there’s some random kid fighting a juiced up dude with a cane. everything is fucking happening at once. and all blake can say is "yang?" In that little scared, hopeful voice
and like. the look on yang’s face as she sees blake for the first time is of utter awe. this person she never thought she’d see again singled her out in a room of utter chaos looking just as amazed to see her.
also there’s this gay little moment after yang comes out of the vault
1. “we’re protecting each other.”
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to this day, this is the only scene in rwby that has almost brought me to tears. it really is all about both of them realizing they don’t have to face their ordeals alone ever again. they’ll be each others’ pillar with unwavering faith.
just! fuck me up!!!!!!! JUST FUCK ME UP
quick honorable mentions:
blake's gay little skip in v6
sun saying that yang would never blame blake for what happened with adam
bumblebee the bike ramming into adam at high speed
yangs gay meltdown over the haircut
“do you think...she thinks less of me?”/”you could always try calling yang...”
beeunion 3.0
actually all their moments in v7 (the talk in the truck, the moment in the airship, getting ready for their totally a date but not a date before the election)
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Wine Drunk while watching Godzilla vs Kong
Some major spoilers up ahead!
Mans really just annoyed the shit out of his coworker until he left so he could hack shit, huh?...I love it! 🤣🤣
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You mean to tell me that the explanation for why Godzilla attacked the one tech company site by the dude who studied Kaiju communication and behavior for a living is just, “sometimes people (and creatures) change”???? Like some dumbass justifying a toxic person/relationship??? Like excuse me???? Why are the literal teenagers making more sense than you?????
Also, we’re all in agreement that this facility is either housing Ghidora’s dead head, Mecha Godzilla, or Mecha Ghidora, right?!?
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Lol! “Apex Cybernetics!” That’s not foreshadowing! 🤣
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Apparently, I didn’t get my fill of white nonsense from Falcon and Winter Soldier, bc someone decided to put this blonde-hair-blue-eyed little bitch in charge! That’s not ganna go wrong somehow. 🙃😑👀
Like this bitch literally wanted to send a fucking child into unexplored hollow earth territory without a second thought! 🙃🙃🙃🙃 I was literally like 🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕 for that entire convo.
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I’m sorry! This conspiracy man just met these teenagers, and his first impulse was, “yeah, theses seem like some good people to break into a tech conglomerate with!” 🤣🤣🤣🤣
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Why are these people surprised Kong knows sign language? These are people who study Kaiju (and presumably other animals in order to draw conclusions about certain behaviors) for a fucking living!!! We have primate species that recognize and communicate in sign language already! Why is this surprising???!?! Like...has NO ONE except this precious child tried this????
Also, nothing bad better happen to this child.
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That ship literally fucked around, and Godzilla let it find out! Lmao!
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Kong: Hey, Godzilla...look at me...
Godzilla: >:[
Kong: ...bitch.
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Precious girl: Thank you, friend 🧏🏽♀️
Kong: ☺️😴
THIS GIRL IS TOO PRECIOUS!!!!
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Bitch-ass White Man: How’s Kong with heights?
BITCH, you really ganna try that?!?! You really think you ganna find any aircraft(s) that are ganna be able to support all that weight?? Never mind any other problems with Kong trying to nope the fuck out of that situation and all kind of other hosts of problems!
And if you do somehow have one (or multiple) WHY TF DIDN’T YOU USE THAT BEFORE KNOWING FULL AND WELL YOU RAN THE RISK OF GODZILLA MERCING KONG’S ASS IF YOU TRAVELED VIA SHIP!?!?!?!
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Down the Hell Naw tunnel we go!
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“I think it’s romantic,”
I fucking love Millie Bobbie Brown’s character!! 🤣❤️🤣
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WHY IS THIS TEENAGER SMARTER THAN EVERYBODY OMG!!!!! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
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“This is page one in the ‘Playing God’ handbook, right?”
I’ve decided I love this character! 🤣
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WHY YOU GETTING INSIDE THAT THING—Oh god! 😨 Why y’all got eggs!?!? This is like if Weyland-Yutani succeeded in getting Xenomorphs! 😬
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Oop! Locked in! THIS IS WHY YOU DON’T HIDE OUT IN MYSTERIOUS ROOMS!!!!
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Oh shit! Apex Cybernetics think they on that Wakanda shit now!
Also, why was that one Apex Cybernetics bitch bitching about how one of those HEAV crafts could power Vagas for a week if y’all clearly have a whole network or transportation using this tech!
And I never understood how tech companies kept that shit to world domination shit! Build a public transportation system with that shit! Boss man said he likes ideas that make him rich! Pretty sure that would do the trick!
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WINE BREAK!!!
Saving the rest of the last bottle for coking Gumbo, so gotta open up a new bottle
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Aw, Kong is so sick of this bullshit! 😂😭
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“It’s not working”
Bruh! Give it more that two seconds!
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HOW DARE Y’ALL USE KONG’S LOSS AGAINST HIM!!!! HOW DARE Y’ALL!!!
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HEAV go Brrrrrrr Shoooooooooooom!!!!
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LMAO!!! Monarch has their own brand of bottled water!?!?! Idk why that amuses me so much!
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This hallow earth portal thing is some Pacific Rim bullshit right here, lol!
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NYOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMM
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Are we...are we really Ice Age: Dawn of Dinosaur-ing this shit rn??? 😂😂😂
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“It’s beautiful,”
Of course it’s beautiful! No hoomins have touched it! Lol
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Y’ALL GOT FUCKIN DRAGONS IN THIS BITCH!?!?!?!!! 8D YO!!! SIGN ME THE FUCK UP!!!!
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*marvels at the creature creation ideas*
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Kong’s first thought: *nom the dragon guts*
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THE ROCK HAND OMG IM GANNA CRY!!! 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 It’s the same gesture the Precious Girl did OMG!!!!
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“We going in?”
“Yeah”
The BALLS on this child!
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“AAAAHH 😐”
*fear*
LMAO!!!!! I’M FUCKIN WHEEZING!!!
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“Sacrifice Pit”
OMG 🤣🤣🤣
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I KNEW IT!!!! MECHA-GODZILLA MOTHERFUCKER!!!!!!!! 8DDDDD
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YO PACIFIC RIM RAN SO MECHA-GODZILLA COULD FUCKIN SPRINT!!!!!!!!
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YO IT’S A GOOD THING I AIN’T SEEING THIS IN THEATERS BC I’D BE FLIPPING MY SHIT!!!!
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“Humanity, once again, will be the apex species,”
THERE it is!
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Why Mecha-Godzilla so skeeny?!? He need ta be thicc if he ganna take down REAL Godzilla!
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*Ryan Bergera conspiracy voice* Is this the real reason Kong was contained!? So this douche could snatch up Skull Crawlers without Kong intervention???
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OH SHIT!!! I think this thing is emitting alpha waves (or whatever we’re calling it) and THAT’s what set Godzilla off!!! He fought Ghidorah, heard this shit and went, “Nu-uh, bitch! NOT AGAIN!!!”
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Monarch dude: Yo, Godzilla’s headed to Hong Kong for some reason?
FUCKIN CALLED IT!!!
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This look like the door to fuckin General Grievous’s lair,da fuq?!? 🤣🤣🤣
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I got waaay too emotional over that handprint, y’all! 😭😭😭
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Y’all, the fucking art history major in me is fuckin screaming at this temple scene! The fact that some of these Kaiju not only had the urge and drive and capacity to build a fucking temple around this power source or some shit and create weapons like the axe that Kong just fucking Excalibured the shit out of that one skull crawler’s skull fucking implies the fact that there is intelligent civilization amongst these fucking Kaiju and all that shit! I want to know more about this shit! Take that you fucking racist-ass white historian motherfuckers!
(Note: I definitely needed to use talk to text for much of this bit, because there was no way I was going to be able to contain all my excitement in just typing, alone, lmao)
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BRUH!!! Why y’all exiting g the HEAV without no breathing apparatus or lead suits or nothing!?!?! In previous movies, y’all implied that these Kaiju lived in environments in which their environments were hella radioactive compared to our own!!!
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Kong is s the true heir to the iron throne, Lmao!
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FUCKING CALLED IT!!!! THEY HAD GHIDORA’S REMAINS IN THERE SOMEWHERE!!!!
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OH FUCK!!!! Y’ALL AINT JUST SENDING OUT ALPHA VIBES WITH YOUR MECHA-GODZILLA!!!! YOU SOMEHOW USING GHIDORA’S HIVE MIND OR TELEPATHY SHIT TO DO IT!?!?!?! AAAWWWWW SHEEEEEET!!! Y’ALL ARE BONED NOW!!!! FUCKIN BONEROWNED!!!!
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Godzilla! My bruh! My dude! You didn’t HAVE TO get up right where that bridge was!!! 😂😂 Ya douche bag!!!
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At the same time, tho, I can just hear him going, “Ah! FUCK! NOT AGAIN!!! Sunova bitch!! Motherfuckin!! STOP BUILDING sHIT SO DAMN HIGH!!! Goddammit!”
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You know, with all the Bright twinkly lights in Hong Kong, I can’t help but think of the sequel to the original Gojira movie ( that I can’t remember the title of ,rn) where he was fucking triggered by fucking lights. And I wonder if this little scene where he’s stomping all through Hong Kong is a tribute to that or whatever. But I’m probably overthinking it.
[Sober Edit: it was Godzilla Raids Again]
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*GASP* HOLY SIHIIIT!!! The axe is made out of Godzilla skute!?!?! GOLY BALLS THAT’S NOT ONLY COOL BUT CONTRIBUTES MORE TO THE FACT THAT THESE KAIJU (likely Kong’s species, in particular) WERE REALLY FUCKING INTELLIGENT AMD TJOUGHT, “Imma beat this muthafucka with their own spiky thing! Bc that’s what screws us over, so, why WOULD’nt it hurt them!?!” I need SO MUCH MORE of this Kaiju/Kong culture studied and shit! HOLY FUCK!!!
It even fucking glows!! Like ... they managed to fucking piece together that its glow was a fucking warning sign like Sting or some shit!!!! Holy fuck!!!!
Also, how does that work? How are the skutes still connected even after dismemberment???
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NO FUCKIN WAY WRE YOU—AAAAAAAAHHH!!! Excalibur that shit my boi!!!!
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I FUCKIN LOVE YHIS MOVIE HOLY SHIT!!!
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“ that’s Apex property now,”
Excuse me bitch! Are we really not gonna listen to the scientist who saying “hey we don’t understand the shit out of this fucking power! Maybe we should hold off on taking some fucking samples!”
Are we really just gonna ignore that shit???????
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Kong said: TRY ME BITCH!!!!
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Oh thank the GODS this Serizawa dude is taking precautions like his old man! Also, what is his relation to Ken Watanabe’s Serizawa!?!?!
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UH OH!! SOLDIER DUDES GETTIN ATE!!!
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OH SHIT!!! PILOT JUST GOT ATE!!! FUCKIN DRAGON BASEMENT UP IN THIS SHIT!!!
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BITCH YOU REALLY GON THROW A ROCK AT IT!!! FUCKIN NONSENSE OF THIS BITCH!!!
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LOVE AND FITE ME ENERGY IS STORED IN THE ATOMIC BREATH
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“Shoot him!”
WHY!!!???!! He literally had NO problem with you before then!!!
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Why does white man who don’t know anything about this vehicle suddenly know how to pilot this shit!???!?!!!!!
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Y’all love had SO MUCH wine!
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The FUCK this dude got a flip flop phone for!!!?!????!!!?
Da fuq!?!?! 🤣🤣🤣🤣 yeah that’s the most unrealistic part of this entire fucking movie! Not the fuckin Kaiju robots. Not the fucking hollow earth bullshit! The fucking flip phone! LMFAO!!!!
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“Maintenance! I’M MAINTENANCE!!! This bitch ain’t buying it”
That made me laugh WAY FUCKIN harder that it should have!!!!
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Y’all really ganna try to shoot at a kid!?! REALLY!?!?!??!
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GAWD, I’m so glad I impulse bought these oatmeal bites from Dominos! 🤤😋
[Sober Edit: I have no idea how my autocorrect managed to convert “Parmesan” to “oatmeal,” but okay! 😆😅]
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Kong be like, “Hey, bitch!!! You lookin’ for me!?!?”
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Find you a partner that bites your neck like Godzilla does! Lmao!
Sorry, I’ll be crawling back into my hell hole, now.
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EAT YOUR FOOKIN VEGETABLES GODZILLA!!!!!
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Did Godzilla just axe throw with his fuckin teefs!!!????!?!?!
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THIS IS THE FOOKIN MONSTER VS MONSTER FIGHTS IVE BEEN CRAVING SINCE KING OF THE MONSTERS HOLY SHIT!!!!
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“Really? Groupies, again?”
First of all, again!?! What happened last time???
Secondly, where tf are YOUR grpupies, asshole! No need to judge! Ya cunt!
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“There can only be one alpha,”
Really! You really gotta bring your toxic masculinity into a fuckin monster fight, my dude!?!
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Kong said, “Yeet! YEET SELF!!!”
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I am living for the feral fight scenes!!!!
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Kong’s expression , tho! 🤣🤣🤣
Like, “Can you ducking NOT, Godzilla?!? Can you, like, fucking chill??!!? Aight, fine! ASDASHKLSDJKLDZJL ADKLKDZDJ!!!!!!”
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Awwwww! Godzilla let Kong go, bc he knows what it’s like to be the last of his species! 🥺🥺🥺🥺😭😭😭😭
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“This is how we [...] win!”
Oh, honey, you ‘bout to die! Lmao! 😂
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Oh god! I knew he was going to use the sign for “coward” at the most inappropriate time! Lmao! At least the Precious Girls is smart enough to know what Dumbass White Man means, lol
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Oh, thank god we do t see this dumbass in any sequels!
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Dammit, he escaped!
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This girl is too good!
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Did y’all really think you were ganna break into a semi-sentient Mecha-Godzilla by GUESSING ITS FUCKING PASSWORD!!?!?!?!!!!???? 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
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YEAH!!!! TEAM-UP COMING THROUGH!!!!!
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“I was hoping to die with adults, but that’s okay,”
🤣🤣🤣
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“I’VE GOT TO DIE WITB YOU AND SOBER!!?!?!”
GOD, I love this movie!!!!
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OOOOOOHHHH HOLY SHIT!!!!! 😱😱😱😱😱 He powering up the axe!!!!!
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YOOOOOO KONG WENT PREDATOR/YOUTJA ON MECHA-GODZILLA’s ASS!!!!
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Kong said, “I’m done, y’all! Imma take a nap!”
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“Dad. Uh...Bernie.”
I fucking love Bernie!!! 😂😂😂😂
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JIA NOOOO!!! Don’t go running between two disgruntled Kaiju bby!!
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Yo, why do monsters have less toxic masculinity than we do??? Lol!
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Yaaaaaay! Kong has a new home!!
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WELP!!! I fucking loved this movie, and I highly recommend it to everyone!!!
#SPOILERS#Godzilla#godzilla vs kong#King Kong#kaijuverse#my posts#my drunk ass#godzilla vs kong spoilers
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Help! My plot is stalled!
It’s alright, friends. We’ve all been there, sitting at a desk or laying in our beds, staring at the screen wondering what in the holy beef jerky has gone wrong because our ability to write has just come to a screeching halt.
We’re uninspired.
We’re unmoved.
We’re incapable of figuring out what happens next.
It’s time like this that our instinct is to grab a machete and start cutting through extraneous characters like a boiled steak knife through Jell-O. We’re throwing romantic curve balls and car crashes at our protagonist so quickly they don’t have time to recover from one before they’re being traumatized by another.
Sometimes, we think, now is the time to reveal that our beloved Protagonist is actually an alien from another planet who survives by consuming the souls of lap dogs and his insatiable thirst for Pekineses is causing him great distress because the human mate he has chosen for himself has three such delicious morsels.
BUT, never fear my friends. Here are some ideas to help you get out of that hellish valley of despair and back on track.
Take a break. Have a snack. Stretch your limbs. Go for a walk. Call a friend who listens to things and explain to them how your story is stupid and you hate it and it won’t move. You don’t need to let your friend talk at all. Just keep complaining about your story until suddenly you realize what went wrong.
Daydream about what your character would do if you were to suddenly abandon him/her with six kids under the age of 5 at a busy theme park. Or what he/she would do if they suddenly found themselves trying to talk two very angry kingly types out of starting a civil war because they disagree on which side of their toast to spread butter on. Put your character in the MOST ridiculous scenario you could possibly imagine. Make them rationalize their way out of it. Don’t make it easy. Six kids under the age of 5 when you’ve never dealt with children is basically hell. Let your character suffer, and fail, improve and finally win (or at least survive).
Fantasize about beating your characters with a metal pipe. Imagine their pleas for mercy as they try in vain to remind you that they are fictional constructs and this is not their fault.
Once you’ve cleaned your system of these violent urges toward non-real people, sit back down. Re-read what you’ve written, if it’s still as bad as you thought it was, here are some actual bits of advice:
Regardless of what Rafiki once said about moving on and forgetting the past, the problem that you are presently experiencing is mostly caused by something that went wrong in the recent events of your story. Take another look at the latest choices that your main or side characters made and ask yourself if maybe them making A DIFFERENT CHOICE might put your story back to rights.
Take another look at your character and his/her story so far. Is your character excelling in every facet of his/her life? Have they faced any obstacles that amounted to more than a mild inconvenience? Are they generally well-liked? Respected? Do they have noticeable faults? Are these faults presented in a way that allows other people to be annoyed by them? Have these faults gotten in the character’s way? If your main character is Too Good and Such Winning or Basically Useless and Always Failing then your story is imbalanced and it can’t move forward because you’re not allowing the protagonist to experience growth and change.
Are there relationships? Friendships? Family? Rivalrys? ROMANCE? You need relationships of at least 2 different types in a story. Preferably more. And they can’t all be the same kind with different names. And they need to also be developing with your characters. So Protag makes an unpopular choice with his family but his BFF is loving it and his Romantic Interest thinks it could be good for him. You have so much material right there!
DO. NOT. MURDER. ANYONE. Dismemberment is okay if you really want to have to take the time out of your story to focus on the emotional and physical effects that a traumatic event inflicts on your protagonist.
DO NOT MAKE YOUR ROMANTIC INTERESTS HATE EACH OTHER OVER SOMETHING STUPID. Please. Please don’t do this. It’s really just not worth it. If you make them so angry at one another they’re screaming death threats and then the next day they’re like: I guess we love one another again you cheapen the impact. If this is a story about overcoming things and growing as people and forgiveness then yes, break them up and get them back together but don’t do it just to have an exciting screaming sequence. Or do. I mean, you do you.
Instead of tearing your couple apart, have them get together. Have them spend a weekend doing silly, childish, amazing things. Let them smooch, and cuddle, and eat candy together. Let them waste money they don’t staying overnight in a fancy hotel.
Visit a Significant Character from your Protag’s past because they are in need of comfort and guidance. Allow them to reminisce about the good old days, and whine about how they don’t feel like they’ll ever be that happy again. Let your Significant Character hit your Protag with a rolled up newspaper. STOP BEING A NINNY, PROTAG. STOP IT IMMEDIATELY.
Give your Protag an unexpected promotion. You were just a kid that cleaned stables, but we noticed that you’ve got a real way about you that suggests you’re WIZARD MATERIAL. Build that Protag up, let him feel pride and joy and love.
(And then make the person that promoted him have questionable morals. Make him vaguely untrustworthy. Watch your starry-eyed protag battle against a shady man of questionable intentions to see who wins in the end! But not with the fate of the whole world. Like the fate of a small village at most.)
Give your Protag the single worst day of his entire life that does not involve physical altercations and/or death. Maybe he/she pulled a muscle having athletic sex that morning, was distracted by the pain in the shower,got soap in their eyes, limped to the car to find it was out of gas, went to a busy gas station, got coffee that was too cold to enjoy, was late to work, had more work than usual, the pain meds never started working, left his lunch at home, couldn’t buy anything because they ran out of time, had to listen to the Obnoxious Co-Worker next to them complaining about Obnoxious Co Workers Obviously Useless Significant Other for an hour and a half, left work late, forgot about plans to meet up with a friend, got ignored by friend at meet up, comes home and collapses in a pile of self-pity and physical pain and has Significant Other rub their aching pulled muscle and listen to their complaints.
You could do a car wreck, or you could just ruin your Protag’s entire life by having the transmission die in the middle of traffic.
The point I’m trying to get across here is that you have to have a journey that is balanced with ups and downs. If you’re only going up, or you’re only going down, or you’re not going anywhere at all but straight forward on a 300 mile car trip across a flat surface with no trees, there’s no story there.
You could shoot someone, or you could have your Protagonist do something that injures their relationship with their Best Friend and Confidante. Then your Protag protests their innocence to the point that it’s obvious they are being Stupid now. Let them roll around in undeserved pity. Let nobody else agree with them, and still they refuse to acknowledge they are stupid. And then let them FINALLY, sort of, a little, admit they were wrong and instead of them offering a half-assed apology and moving on like it never happened, make them work to repair the damage they inflicted.
Put your Protag in a position where they have to defend a friend/family member or romantic interest in a non-physical way. Susan from Biology was telling Quentin and Theodore that Protag’s BFF eats his own snot. And Protag is like OH MY GOD I’M GOING TO GO FIND SUSAN AND SCREAM A STRONGLY WORDED LETTER AT HER. (or start vicious rumors about her behind her back, and take utterly glee at her humiliation, and then finally think: did I go to far? I don’t think I went too far.)
DO. NOT. GET. SOMEONE. PREGNANT. Do you knows what happens when someone’s pregnant? They end up with a baby. (Or a miscarriage.) That pregnancy cannot be handwaved away. If you’re not here to write about the amazing journey from sex to birth and lifetime of parenting that follows, you are not here to get someone knocked up for the drama.
Sure, let your Protag develop a desperate attraction to someone’s that not the Primary Love Interest but if the Primary Love Interest and Protag already have sexual and romantic tension building between them, maybe let the audience know that this is one of those things where you’re lonely and you want companionship and it’s not really that fair to Someone You Just Met and Now Want to Have Sex With. Let Primary Love Interest struggle to be supportive. or let Protag and Primarily Love Interest be mean-spirited little shits and mock the poor Someone You Just Met.
DO. NOT. MURDER. AN. ENTIRE. VILLAGE. Did a spell go bad? Did a curse escape? Did your magical being accidentally create a sixteen foot tall metal horse with a thirst for squirrel hearts? Remember that wholesale murdering of innocent side characters nobody cares about does effectively nothing for your story. Don’t kill the entire village. Let your character freak out because he/she misplaced a curse and ANYONE COULD HAVE IT. Let them ransack the village developing a reputation as a mad man to find it. Let him work furiously to develop a cure to the curse and refuse to rest until everyone’s been inoculated against said Curse, and then idk, he finds it on the floor under his work station. Or, let him realize a curse is missing and he just kind of says nothing while he watches the village to see how effective it is.
SIDE QUESTS, so here me out. This works best for longer stories and serial type works of fiction, but if your character has only one goal and never any other goals or distractions or purposes or interests you are seriously shooting yourself in the foot. Don’t focus all your energy on Protag Loves Love Interest. Protag also has Family Drama. (Did you hear that Bobert is trying to buy a fucking boat? A boat! Why does he need a boat! He can’t swim. He’s going to die. A boat. A god damn boat.) Protag has ambitions at work that are being undercut by Evil Boss. (And anyway, Worst Boss Ever, he just comes over and drops this massive work load on my desk and he smiles at me because the Main Boss is coming tomorrow and my desk will be the only one covered in unfinished work. What choice do I have? I can’t quit, I need this promotion, so I stick to it. I stay late, I work as hard as I can and...)
I know it’s not for everyone but Sex. Unless your characters are Too Young to have a developed sexuality, that sexuality needs to be in your story. I mean, if your entire story takes place and Grandma’s funeral, then you probably can skip this one. But if your story takes place over any length of time, sex and sex-adjacent things need to be brought up. They don’t need to be graphic. They don’t need to be gross. It can be a kiss, or the yearning for a kiss. It can be a meaningful, flirtatious touch. It can be the idea of a flirtatious touch. There can be complaints of a need for flirtatious touches. To each their own comfort level, but some sense of sexuality and how that is a Driving Urge in your character is also good.
Introduce a Rival. Go ahead. Let your uncontested King of Bowling protag meet a New Challenger. Send them spiral with fear that they may not be top dog anymore.
Force your Protag and Antagonist to form a momentary truce. Let them come to some understanding of the other that makes their future interactions more difficult.
Strike your Protag with a Great Unfairness. They didn’t get the promotion. They couldn’t pay the bills. They weren’t selected to be court jester. They didn’t get to the store on time. Someone else got to the top of the summit before them and now they’re basically trash to history.
Randomly have your supposed Antagonist turn out to Actually a Decent Guy that you’ve been blaming for all the wrongs in the world because it was convenient and really the actual antagonist can’t be defeated because he/she overpowers you somehow. But with Actually a Decent Guy and his Surprisingly Nice Friends and you and your friends, you stand a chance.
Push your protagonist into a mud puddle. Just for shits and giggles, make it so there’s not a dead body in there with him. Or put one in if you want. Nothing says ‘happy fun times at plot-stalled high’ like a decomposing corpse where one shouldn’t be.
Break your Protagonists heart, and let there be people that love them.
Have fun, take your time, embrace the mundane and ridiculous aspects of life. ALWAYS give your character flaws, and make them aware of them, and let them grow. That’s the story. All the other nonsense, the car wrecks and gunshots, and serial killers doesn’t matter in the end. The reader is looking for Relationships That Matter and Characters that Grow. Characters that stink of humanity, that reflect something about human beings the reader has met (or the reader themselves). They want to connect, they want to love your character and they can’t do that if your character is Perfect. Nobody’s perfect. Stories stagnate when they can’t grow. Let your story grow. Let your characters grow.
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The Children of Atreus
Let's talk a bit about the coolest of the mythological Greeks, the children of Atreus - Agamemnon, Menelaus, and Anaxabia. And let me just name three things about them that are guaranteed to make you fall in love with them.
Before that, here is a quick summary of the things that everyone already knows anyway: Menelaus is the famous king of Sparta whose wife Helen’s disappearance sparked the Trojan War. The Greeks’ troops are led by his brother, Agamemnon, king of mighty Mycenae (who, when returning from the war, gets murdered by his wife Clytemnestra). Anaxabia is their sister, and she is married to Strophius, king of Phocis.
Secondly, here are three of the (many) reasons why they are The Best:
1 - They are the best of siblings.
Obviously, they are called the Atrides (or Atreides) after their father, Atreus, who is the son of Pelops and grandson of Tantalus. That makes them part of the forever cursed family of the Tantalides. That curse manifests itself in their father’s relationship with his brother, Thyest. Atreus and Thyest come to Mycenae after they get thrown out of Elis, the territory around Olympia, for murdering their half-brother. They then quickly gain power and influence in Mycenae and use the majority of it to stab each other in the back - repeatedly and quite literally, as they both end up dead.
With role models such as these (plus the curse that Tantalus brought on his family for murdering and cooking his own son just to prove a point), it is absolutely amazing and quite heart-warming how close the Atrides are. Despite their family history of betrayal and murder, they always, ALWAYS stand by one another and support each other.
I mean, Agamemnon starts a war to end all wars to get justice for his brother, for fuck’s sake (yeah, yeah, there’s that bit about the oath of Helen; I’ll get to that later), and for that ten-year-long war they are practically joined at the hip.
And it’s not just a matter of obvious power-politics either: Agamemnon sends his son Orestes to his sister and brother-in-law in Phocis when he has to leave for war. To entrust his only male heir to them is massive proof of his trust in them, in her. Anaxabia and Strophius continue to raise Orestes as their own, and Orestes becomes best friends (and quite definitely lovers, according to my man Euripides) with their son, Pylades who supports him through thick and thin.
Pylades ends up marrying Electra, Agamemnon’s daughter, while Orestes gets wed to Hermione, Menelaus’s kid with Helen. While for today’s standards this might be a bit too incestuous for comfort, it is further proof how tightly knit that family now (in contrast to previous generations and their fondness for throwing people down wells / dismemberment) is because of the bond of the three siblings.
2 - They are strategic and diplomatic masterminds.
Agamemnon and Menelaus are often reduced to being one entitled and power-hungry dick and his arrogant but ultimately impotent little brother. While that makes them the perfect cardboard-cut-villain for everyone in need of one (such as grieving Achilles, for one) and while I enjoy Brian Cox and Brendan Gleeson as “Troy”’s villains as well as Sophocles's characterization of them in "Aias" as much as the next guy, it really doesn’t do them justice.
First of all, as for the notion that they are entitled and/or feeble: Both of them are self-made men. Not only are they (as well as Anaxabia) kids of a refugee / man living in exile, after their uncle Thyest overthrows their father and has him murdered, they have to flee from Mycenae and seek refuge in Sparta, with king Tyndareos, their future father-in-law, (step) father of Clytemnestra and Helen. From there, they not only manage to mobilize enough man power to overthrow Thyest and conquer Mycenae. They also turn Mycenae into the most influential and mightiest of all the Greeks’ kingdoms. And by proving himself over and over again, Menelaus inherits the right to the throne of Sparta from his father-in-law, while Anaxabia marries the king of Phocis, a kingdom North of the gulf of Corinth with influential Delphi right in the center.
The Atrides’s influence is not just gained by clever marriage and perseverance, however. Sure, the famous oath of Helen (in which all the kings that asked for Helen’s hand in marriage swore to protect her and her husband-to-be) is thought up by wily Odysseus. But who makes sure (for all those years before Paris) that it would be upheld? It’s not like alliances between Greek kingdoms are all that stable. And yet, the council of kings - including extremely strong-willed characters such as Achilles, Aias, and Odysseus - WORKS and works well for ten years, even under the pressure of a prolonged war. Why? It’s because Agamemnon knows how to choose advisers (such as wise Nestor), knows how to utilize the human equivalent of an eel (I am looking at you, Odysseus) etc. He is a fucking brilliant politician. (And it was his RIGHT (AND a necessity) to demand Briseis from Achilles, however much the Myrmidon may moan about it; but more about that later).
Simple proof in numbers: Three exiled kids with NOTHING; fast-forward a decade or two and you have this: Agamemnon commands the largest of the Greek fleets (100 ships). If you add to those the number of Spartan (60) and Phocian (40) ships as well, that’s a whooping 200, even if you disregard for instance the huge Cretan fleet (80) which is led by their uncle, Idomeneus. Brilliant strategists and politicians.
3 - They are so highkey EXTRA when it comes to the love department. (Well, the brothers are. Anaxabia rolls her eyes at them.)
Before I talk about the brothers and their highkey Extra relationships to their wives, let me just again go back to Anaxabia. Her marriage to Strophius is delightfully stable and uneventful and no one ends up dead (which is quite rare in Greek mythology, really). It produces delightfully stable and unproblematic children, such as the original bestest of mates, Pylades. Just think of Anaxabia and her husband just looking at each other silently at a family dinner,when her dramatic brothers and their dramatic wives start throwing food (and possibly knives) across the table. Next year, we’re doing a couple’s retreat in Delphi, my dear. I love her.
But the brothers’ marriages are equally fascinating.
Paris kidnaps Helen while Menelaus is attending his grandfather Catreus’s funeral btw - dick move, prince of Troy -, and for some reason THEIR relationship is the stuff of legends? Well, fuck that. While I have all the love in the world for one (1) flamboyant and canonically cowardly favourite of Aphrodite, let’s not forget how superglue-strong Menelaus’s bond with Helen is.
First of all, out of all the suitors for her hand in marriage, she chooses HIM without hesitation - after they must’ve known each other for years, btw considering Menelaus’s time in exile in Sparta.
And when she is suddenly gone, he mobilizes literally every available man in Greece to get her back.
That’s a matter of pride, you say? That’s because - much like Agamemnon when he demands Achilles’s prize of war, Briseis, because he had to give his own, Chryseis, back to appease Apollo - he would lose face and power (and thus massively endangering the stability of his reign and consequently the safety of his country, btw)? Sure, it’s that as well.
But.
It’s not like other kings haven’t “misplaced” a wife before. It’s not like he couldn’t simply have claimed she died. He could have. And you know what? It would have saved him from being both the laughing stock of all of Greece (“Here comes Menelaus who couldn’t hold on to his wife”) and also everyone’s favourite villain for having to go to war for him.
And later, what does he do when he finds her again - either in the ruins of Troy or in far away Egypt? Does he kill her? Does he demand a divorce?
No. They sail back to Sparta together and - and this is the kicker - rule together for many years, quite happily reunited.
He fucking loves her, and she loves him. (Okay, she might ALSO love Paris and that whole war could’ve been avoided if they just got into a poly relationship. I wouldn’t have been opposed to that either.)
The same goes for Agamemnon and his family.
Iphigenia, you yell at me in outrage? Well, the unquestioned villain in THAT story is so clearly vengeful Artemis for demanding her life in the first place. And yes, you may fight me on this.
And okay, I am having a slightly harder time explaining away Agamemnon murdering Clytemnestra’s first husband as a romantic gesture, fine. But my point is, Agamemnon’s and Clytemnestra’s relationship status throughout is clearly “it’s complicated”, it’s ENDLESSLY fascinating. Plus, Clytemnestra is such a fierce and badass (Spartan) woman who without problem competently takes care of Mycenae during the war. They are SO well suited for one another, and their relationship is brilliant, from a storytelling point of view.
So, in conclusion: Give me Rufus Sewell as Agamemnon, Dominic West as Menelaus, and Oona Chaplin as Anaxabia, and I’d watch the hell out of twenty plus seasons about the Atrides and how they feel rightfully superior to all those other Peloponnesian peasants .
The Atrides are the best. It’s just a fact.
#mythology#greek mythology#mycenae#agammnon#menelaus#anaxabia#Trojan war#iliad#atreus#aerope#thyest#strophius
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A Chat in the Basement
This little fic is about a hypothetical meeting between Kit and Lawrence, some time after Kit and Ren have settled into their relationship. Gore and insanity warnings apply, and also this probably needs beta reading but I really wanted to get it out. Enjoy~
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Kit knows from experience that waking up to an utterly livid stranger staring you straight in the face whilst you’re strapped to a chair with rope and duct tape is a disorienting experience. He is, however, disinclined to engage his empathy.
“W-wha—”
“Why were you following Ren?”
“I… who are--?”
“Answer. The question.”
The basement really is a marvelous setting for interrogations. The lighting is nice and sinister, and although they’ve thrown out all Strade’s old tools except The Knife, Ren thought that it might be nice to get a new set to actually use as intended. Kit agreed. Very useful. Very symbolic.
And so the walls are covered in perfectly innocent tools that look very, very scary in dim fluorescent light.
The man is still stuttering. He is, the more lascivious part of Kit notes, a very attractive man in a sort of bishonen lumberjack way. This makes Kit angrier. He and Ren have very similar tastes, so Ren would probably find him attractive too. That makes him even more dangerous to Ren. Ren needs to be protected from beautiful danger. Especially beautiful danger that smells so… off.
Kit sighs through his nose, teeth clenched behind his lips. His fox ears are lowered, and his tail twitches. He’s sitting on a chair turned backward, as if he’s a school guidance counselor about to “level” with a problem student. The knife (The Knife) he pulls and puts to the man’s throat is not standard issue for guidance counselors. The man whimpers and tries to pull back.
“You were following Ren,” Kit says, “Not just both of us. It was Ren you were after. My Ren. My perfect, beautiful Ren.” Kit’s voice takes on a slightly dreamy, distracted tone. “Maybe a human wouldn’t have noticed you, out in the dark, but I did. I think Ren did, too. He’s been… edgier than normal. We used to like going out at night, you know?” He fixes the man with a glare, and when next he speaks his tone is like flint. “But the last few times you’ve been out there with us. And you were watching my Ren.”
“Your…? I—no, that’s not what I—”
“Do not lie to me,” Kit hisses, teeth bared. “Do not lie. I’ve been a liar all my life and I know a lie when I smell it.” The choice of words was deliberate, though leaving room for plausible deniability, and Kit is interested to see a quick flash of anger (panic?) at the word ‘smell’. So. He knows then. Kit wasn’t sure, because some smells that are obvious to him go completely unnoticed by humans.
“I wasn’t—I wasn’t trying to follow him,” the man says, “I just—I wanted to find him again, just once, to talk to him, but—you were always there.” His tone, still tremulous, turns slightly accusatory. “Why were you always there? Who—who are you? What’s—what’s this thing on my neck? Where am I, you can’t--”
Kit lets loose a shriek, teeth bared, incisors gleaming. It’s deeper than a real red fox’s scream of aggression would sound, but it’s just as inhuman—almost but not quite human-- and it has the desired effect. The man cowers as best he can, wide-eyed and silent. Kit leans back. His expression is nearly blank but threatens a sneer.
“Sir,” Kit says, “You do not get to tell me what I cannot do. Not here, not now.” He pauses. “Alright. You say you wanted to talk to Ren. I think that is bullshit, but let’s pretend I do not. What did you want to talk to him about? And why couldn’t you do it while I was there?” He leans forward. “What couldn’t you say to Ren in front of his lover?” Again, a pointed choice of words, and Kit is fascinated to see… pain. Hurt. This man feels excluded, does he? Well, Kit will have to impress upon him the fact that Ren chose Kit once he’s done asking questions.
“Ren is—was—we were—are… were friends once. Or… maybe we still are? I… don’t know. The last time we talked we… had a problem. He had a problem.” The volume of the man’s voice has been dropping steadily as he speaks. Kit is annoyed. “His path split from mine,” the man finishes in a whisper.
Yes, Kit wants to scream, His path split from yours and joined with mine he joined with me he’s part of me I’m part of him and you don’t get to have him you don’t get to tear us apart you don’t get to have him Ren is mine, mine, MINE—
Kit takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. He lowers the knife; he doesn’t trust himself with it.
“Why am I here?” the man whines wretchedly, “Please, I didn’t—I wasn’t going to hurt any—I wasn’t going to hurt Ren! I was going to be careful, all I wanted was to talk! I wanted to know why he l-left me, and then never... never talked to me again… not even online…” Kit opens his eyes, and for a brief moment makes eye-contact with the man before his eyes dart back down to his shoes. It’s not enough to set up a hypnotic bond, but it is enough for Kit to feel a sudden, unwelcome surge of fellow feeling. Even terrified, taped to a chair, and alone with an enemy, this man still feels the pain of losing Ren.
Kit can relate. He does not want to.
“Look at me,” he says, and for the first time the man shows defiance. His brow furrows, and he staunchly refuses to look up. Kit grunts irritably. “Sir, I spent some time rifling through your pockets before you woke up.” At that the man does look up, shocked, and Kit grabs his face with both hands. He worried the man’s eyes would dart away before he could get a hold of him, but sure enough the man’s eyes dilate and he relaxes slightly. Whatever this man is, he’s susceptible to Kit’s hypnotism. Of course the current situation isn’t ideal for giving orders, but it should make him a little more cooperative.
“Now then,” Kit says. He keeps his voice low and even, pleasant. “When I looked through your pockets, I found a few things that most people would not be carrying. Drugs, but not anything I’ve seen on the street before.” A small flicker of confusion appears in the man’s eyes.
“Then how do you even… know they’re drugs? I… I make medicine…”
Kit leans back, keeping eye contact. Strictly speaking, he doesn’t have to keep from blinking, but he still tries to do so. The burning of his eyes is a small price to pay for not letting this fucker out of his sight.
“Did you know,” Kit says, “That the word ‘drug’ is derived from the Dutch word ‘droog’? It literally means ‘dry’, but in this context it was dried plants that people referred to. You know, plants used for… medicinal purposes.”
As he’s speaking, he notices the man relax even more. Bingo. As Kit thought, this topic of conversation genuinely interests him. Figures; the strange herbal blends he had on him could only have been made by someone who had taken time to study this stuff. That makes the charm work better. Even though the man still has every reason to be terrified, he might be a little more honest this way.
“And we all know,” Kit continues, “That the words ‘drug’ and ‘medicine’ used to be interchangeable. So I do believe you, sir, when you say you make medicine. But the dose makes the poison, as they say. And you can understand why the thought of you--” poisoning my Ren, my Ren, if you did that I’d kill you “—doing something like that to Ren would make me unhappy. Even if it wasn’t a fatal poison.”
“No…” his captive says, frowning. “It’s not… I didn’t have any poison with me. I can make poison. But I never mix it up with anything else unless…” he trails off. Oh, for the love of Kuma Lisa, the fucker is blushing.
Wait… what?
Why would anyone blush when they were talking about poison?
Kit’s eyes flicker down to his captive’s red-stained shirt, the gory elephant in the room.
“I wasn’t going to poison Ren,” the man continues before Kit can press that point, “I might… I might have asked him to… drink something with the herbs in it—” it is all Kit can to to keep from clawing this creature’s throat out, biting it out, make him bleed drink his blood—“But I—I would have drunk some too. So we could—so we could talk to each other without being nervous.” The man looks down. For a moment Kit considers grabbing his face again, but he restores eye contact himself. “Ren and I both get nervous. And we… don’t always… make good decisions.” His brow furrows. “Why do your eyes make me feel better? Your eyes are like… my medicine… like looking down into the water…”
Oh, ew.
“Limpid pools, I’m sure,” Kit says drily “Listen—"
“Not pools,” the man interrupts. “Like… a river. Not the river but… they flow. When the light shines against them, like a sunset… or moonlight… glitters on the current…” the man shakes his head, obviously trying t clear it. “I think I hate you. I hate you for hurting me. For tying me up. And… I hate you because you have Ren, and I don’t. But I could keep the river in your eyes forever.”
Oh, ew, ew, ewww. The only reason the man managed to get that overwrought little prose-poem out is that Kit is speechless with (mostly) revulsion. His charm makes people think better of him, so it’s not like it’s the first time he’s hypnotized somebody and they’ve started getting gushy. But this is the first time it’s happened with someone he actively loathes and vice versa. And he’s pissed off with himself for being almost flattered by what amounts to someone saying ‘I would tear on your eyes and keep them on a nightstand if I ever got the chance’.
Maybe it’s hypocritical to get creeped out by that when Kit and Ren have mutually pledged to eat each other’s heart if one of them dies before the other, but there are things you do with your boyfriend that you don’t do with anyone else, and romantic dismemberment is one of them.
Kit runs a hand through his silvery hair, and his tail swishes behind him.
“So you mean to tell me you were stalking Ren on the off chance you could get him alone so that you could get high together and… what? Talk things out?”
The man smiles a hesitant, hopeful smile. He’s blushing again. It’s uncomfortably endearing.
“You understand,” his captive murmurs.
“Let’s say I do,” says Kit. “Now, let’s take a minute and think about how I fit into all this. Or rather, how I don’t.” He takes the man’s face in his hands, thumbs just below his eyes. His captive doesn’t resist at all, gazing back levelly. “Would you have killed me to get Ren alone?”
“Only if I had to,” the man says calmly. “I didn’t plan on it. I had something to knock you out. Special medicine. You wouldn’t even have woken up with a headache.”
“But if you had no choice, you would have killed me,” Kit says, “Is that true?”
The man shrugs as best he can tied up.
“I hated you even before you did this to me. Because Ren loves you, I think. And… I want Ren to love me. Only me. I want to be the only person Ren needs.”
There’s that unwelcome consanguinity of spirit again. Kit grinds his teeth.
“But I didn’t really have a plan. I thought maybe I could just take him from you. I didn’t need to kill you.”
For a moment, everything is still.
Then there is blood, and screaming.
When kit is done the man’s clothing is considerably more tattered, and his eyes are huge and terrified. There are four raw, bleeding claw marks on his right cheek, and fang marks in his shoulder.
“Listen to me,” Kit coos, pulling back and licking the blood off his lips. He cradles the man’s head, forcing him to look at his eyes again. Kit wonders if it feels terrible to want to approve of your kidnapper. He hopes so. “Listen, Lawrence. Oh, don’t look surprised, of course I know your name, I rummaged through your wallet. Lawrence, you have to understand,” Kit smiles with all his teeth, “That the only way to take Ren from me is to kill me. Because Ren and I are not two separate people. We are one pair of lovers. Yes, lovers. I do not exist without Ren. By definition, taking Ren away from me nullifies my entire being. It is more than death to lose Ren. It is worse than death to lose Ren. So much worse that I really don’t have words to describe it.” He laughs. The laughter goes on a little longer than he intends, and the dim lights shine off his red-stained teeth as well as his eyes.
“Lawrence, I get the idea that you’re not the most stable bloke around. Hey, it’s OK; as you can see, I’m not really the picture of mental health either!” He laughs again, but manages to stifle it into a brief giggle. “I have had a really, really shitty fucking life. I have a feeling that’s something we’ve got in common. So part of me doesn’t blame you for wanting Ren. Ren is like every soft, slow day in late summer rolled into one beautiful being. Ren is like a fire that heals you instead of burning. Ren is like the blood that flows in your veins… but cleaner. Right?” He leans down to lick Lawrence’s cheek, and Lawrence flinches. There is something wrong about Lawrence’s blood, something sick. Kit feels drunk on blood and rage.
“But you can’t have Ren. No, never. Even if you kill me, I’ll still be there, waiting inside him. And one night, maybe when you’re lying beside him, or even if you’re in another room, I’ll just crawl up out of Ren’s mouth, I’ll slither out of his eyes, and I will hurt you, Lawrence. I’ll hurt you and I’ll keep hurting you. I’ll claw and shred and eat every soft part of your body, Lawrence. I’ll stick my claws in your brain and shove splinters in your dreams. Being dead won’t stop me. Being dead won’t make me gentle.” He presses his face close to Lawrence, dimly aware that he’s panting. He hopes Lawrence can smell the rotten blood on his breath.
“I would do anything for Ren,” Kit hisses, “Anything. Anything to make him happy. Anything to keep him safe. I would kill you. I would kill myself. If I thought Ren wanted it, I would hurt myself. I’d let you hurt me, if Ren asked. I would let you stick your fingers under my skin and rip my tendons apart with your teeth. I’d let you slice my muscles to bits with your weak little human fingernails.” Lawrence is panting too, lost in Kit’s eyes, in his words. “Can you say the same, Lawrence? Can you love Ren enough to let yourself be destroyed? No. No, you couldn’t, not even if you wanted to.” Kit leans back. He lets his hand trail almost tenderly down Law’s throat just below his collar to his chest, where tattered fabric sticks to gore.
It was bloody even before their little conversation.
“I killed you,” Kit says. He sounds less unhinged now, the bloodlust slowly starting to fade. He’s just kind of irritated. “Knife right between the ribs, right into your heart. It was a good kill.” He glares at Lawrence, fox ears lowered. “I took you down here. I was gonna burn you,” He’s gratified to see Lawrence go pale, “But then you started breathing. And fuck me, what am I supposed to do with that?” He paces a little.
“I don’t know if burning you would work. I don’t know if that would somehow make you stronger, or whatever, like salamanders.”
Lawrence blinks, still frightened but also confused.
“But amphibians need to stay w—”
“There’s a mythological creature, shut the fuck up,” snaps Kit. “I mean, not even mythological. They exist, like kitsune do. You know Ren’s a kitsune too? Well he is. And he’s mine, and I need to keep him safe from you, and all I can think of to do that right now is to keep you locked up, except…” Kit sighs. He shakes his head, trying to clear it, and is immediately annoyed to have another parallel with Lawrence.
“Ren is smart. And Ren lived in this house with a serial killer—yes, yes, right surprising, I know—and he is probably gonna figure out I’m keeping someone down here. And I really don’t know how he’s gonna feel when he learns it’s you. He never… he never forgot about you.” Lawrence looks up sharply.
“Yes. Ha. He’s mentioned you. He’s never forgiven himself for flaking out; just too scared to try talking to you again. And as messed up as Ren is, I’m… not sure he’ll hate you as much as he’s supposed to.” Kit stares into the distance, as if the basement wall holds some secret. “I know he doesn’t hate me like he should.”
Lawrence watches warily as Kit walks over the basement sink and washes the blood off his hands. He grabs a towel from a rack beside the sink, wets it, and proceeds to clean Lawrence up a little. The captive does his best not to flinch, which isn’t much.
“I am telling you all this because you might get your conversation after all, and I don’t want there to be any miscommunication. We’ll figure out what to do with you. Might be he’ll want to keep you, and I... I want Ren to have what he wants. I’d-- I’d do anything for him. If that wasn’t clear.” Kit tosses the washcloth into a laundry hamper without looking. Then he flicks Lawrence’s collar with a claw, causing a little red light on it to flicker.
“Don’t try to get away. I’ve set this thing to kill you if you try to leave the basement. And while that might seem like something you’d just get over, let me assure you that electrocution ain’t fun.” Kit sighs. “Woulda been so much easier if you just died when you were supposed to…”
“Yes,” Lawrence says softly, eyes downcast.
Kit hadn’t been expecting that.
Kit thinks hard about that ‘yes’ as he walks up the basement stairs, and is troubled.
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Kylux ‘No-Smut’ Fic Rec
As we all know, the Kylux fandom has no shortages of smut fics; we’re kind of notorious for it. But it’s not all kinks and fucking. Sometimes you just want a read a fic where there’s no sex and that’s what I’m here for! Below is a list of fics rated anywhere from General (Hux) Audiences to Mature Audiences and they all have one thing in common: they are completely smut scene free.
Canon-verse:
To Be Truly Seen by @theknitterati (G, 3.9k, Fluff, H/C, Self-Esteem Issues)
Kylo wears a helmet because he's extremely anxious about his appearance and thinks he's hideous. Hux finally figures this out and soothes him through a panic attack.
You're Awful by zamwessell (G, 2.3k, Bickering)
“Why are you trying to inspire them with speeches?” Ren asks. “I thought they were programmed from birth to obey.”
“And why would I take any advice from you, Mr. I-Inexplicably-Have-A-Black-Bucket-Over-My-Head?”
“Careful.”
“I’m sorry, Darth I-Inexplicably-Have-A-Black-Bucket-Over-My-Head.”
General Hux and Kylo Ren hate working together.
For different reasons.
To Entertain An Idea by @it-wasnt-me-really (T, 6k, Drunk Kylo, Jealousy, Friends to Lovers)
The Supreme Leader and Grand Marshal come to an understanding, which turns into a realization, which turns into a drunk freakout, which turns into something else entirely.
Captivity by @kyluxtrashpit (T, 1.9k, H/C, Aftermath of Torture, Hair Washing)
Against all odds, Kylo is taken captive by the Resistance. When he's finally rescued, he doesn't expect such simple comforts to feel so good.
Inseparable by Kittens (T, 3k, Keep Him Close Tumblr Event, Crack)
Supreme Leader Kylo Ren doesn't trust General Hux not to betray him, so he keeps him close. Really close.
Hold Me Back by @reyisaspacegay (T, 3.2k, H/C, Angst, Fluff, Past Child Abuse)
In which various things go wrong, and Hux learns just how affectionate Ren can be.
I Get By With A Little Help From My Subordinates by @obsessions-and-dreams (T, 1.8k, Crack, Fluff, Phasma Ships It)
Everyone on board the Finalizer can tell that the General doesn't get enough sleep. They decide to take matters into their own hands. What could possibly go wrong?
sunburn by @honeypothux (T, 4.2k, Angst, H/C, Exes)
“You’ve been crying,” Kylo says. The again is unnecessary. They both know its true.
black bacta bandages and other first order love stories by @lady-starkiller (T, 3.7k, H/C, Pining, Kyux Breakup Drama)
After the battle on Starkiller Base, after Kylo's defeat at the hands of the Resistance, the First Order retrieved him from the imploding planet. And the First Order remained to see him heal.
I Follow Rivers by @bioticnerfherder and @agent-nemesis (M, 14.2k, Dealing With Injuries, Dismemberment)
Kylo Ren returns to the Finalizer after completing his training to find General Hux missing in action. Determined to prove himself as a leader, he resolves to find the general no matter the cost. The Force, however, has other plans, and Kylo finds out more about the past than he does the future.
Alternate Universe:
Your Visible Soul by @obsessions-and-dreams (T, 6.1k, Modern AU, Enemies to Friends to Implied Lovers, Humour, Fluff, Cats)
Hux’s new neighbor was big, loud and messy.
And so was its owner, Kylo.
FN-1984 by @starhaxa (G, <1K, Addams Family AU, Crack, Outsider POV)
The stormtroopers know better than to say anything or even seem like they might not be minding their own business.
Comfort by @sparrowlicious (T, 2k, High School Au, H/C, Fluff)
Hux seeks refuge at Kylo's place only to find him in need of support. He gets a chance to repay Kylo for letting him hang out at his place every time he needs to.
Third Time's The Charm by @theweddingofthefoxes (T, 2.6k, College AU, Praise Kink, Touch Starvation)
Ben and Armie haven't been dating for very long, but maybe things will get more interesting on their third date. Ben's just hoping Armie won't think his praise kink or desire to be touched are weird.
Grounding by @absolutecreed (G, 1.5k, Modern AU, Dissociation, Fluff)
Hux wakes up to a phone call from Kylo, saying to come pick him up.
What makes that request odd is that it's 4am. And its their day off. And nothing is open.
Hux gets worried.
fathers & sons by @claude-lit (M, 3k, Funerals, H/C, Mentions of Child Abuse)
Han dies. Hux picks up the pieces.
Homecoming by @warlike-god (M, 69k, Modern AU, Family Issues, Slow Burn)
AU in which Kylo has cut off all contact with his parents for the past seven years, but one phone call brings him right back to his dysfunctional family, and away from his hopeful art career. Now he has to deal with Han and Leia's foster daughter Rey, Governor Organa herself, and Armitage Hux, his high school rival who seems to keep showing up at every turn. Worst of all, he has to reconcile with Han, and figure out how to say goodbye.
stet by @acroamatica (M, 17k, Novelist/Editor AU)
Kylo Ren knows how to write a bestseller. All he needs is a good enough monster and a small enough town, a cast of people who are relatable but maybe not very bright, and an editor who will sit back and let him do his thing.
First Order House’s newly-promoted senior editor Hux, however, is not that editor.
Take Me Home, Country Roads by @multi-purpose-tool-guy (G, 8k, Kylux-Adjacent Ship, Clyde Logan/Caleb Smith, Family Drama)
After the events that occurred at Nathan's home in the mountains, Caleb feels he needs to escape back to the sun-baked and beer-sticky West Virginia where he grew up. Some things have stayed the same but a lot has changed since he's been gone, including Clyde Logan, but thankfully not in any of the ways that matter.
Alternately; in more ways than one, Caleb comes home.
One Song Glory by @bioticnerfherder (T, 33k, Rock Band AU)
Over two years after graduating from Juilliard, Ben decides he wants to reunite the Knights of Ren, a cover band they formed to make rent as college kids in New York City. But two years can be long time, and the band members have moved on - friendships are strained, romantic feelings forgotten. Or are they?
featuring: Ben on vocals and bass, Poe on lead guitar, Finn on rhythm guitar, Phasma on keyboards, Rey on drums, and Hux as their songwriter/kind-of manager.
#kylux#fic rec#i couldn't find some of the tumblrs for these so if you see your name or a tumblr you know just chuck me an ask or a message and i can#change it so it links to the appropriate tumblr#just basically let me know if you spot a mistake with any of this please <3
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Women's Bodies Are Not Tools For Male Agency - An Open Letter To Peter Tomasi And Patrick Gleason
Dear Peter Tomasi and Patrick Gleason,
Last Wednesday, Superman #23 hit stores. For the most part, Superman and Action Comics have been among the bright spots of DC's Rebirth initiative. Lois and Clark are back together again, the super couple have a new addition to their small family, and their personalities are back to where they need to be.
Superman is once again embodying the hope and optimism that have been staple to his character for all of his publication history. Lois Lane is once again his co-star, and she is once again the "top-of-her game", pulitzer-winning, badass journalist that's she's always been. The first woman of comics is once again the superhero we all need her to be: the ordinary human who uses all of her resources to dig up the truth and expose crime and corruption through her own super power: journalism.
Lois is very much an action girl. She just doesn't come with weapons, a costume, and special gadgets to get the job done. Even when situations get dangerous, she doesn't stand by and wait to be rescued. She gets creative. She uses everything that is available to her to make her escape before Superman even arrives at the scene. She embodies everything most people love about Bruce Wayne, minus the toxic masculinity and his need to dress up like a giant bat (complete with bat-themed gadgets, vehicles, and an actual bat cave) to intimidate criminals every night.
All that I've described above is what I've loved about Lois Lane ever since I saw her portrayed by Teri Hatcher in Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman when I was 07 years old. When I started reading the character in various DC books (not just the Superman books) at the age of 20, I was very happy to see that comic book Lois was every bit as awesome as the versions of her I saw on the telly as a kid. I am 30 now.
I think we can all agree at this point that the idea behind the New 52 was a good one in the sense that it came from a place of DC wanting to expand its readership by giving everyone a new starting point. It was especially done invite new readers to these characters, which was one of the high points of the initiative. Where it misfired was in its execution. Too much of what people loved about these characters for decades got jettisoned and replaced with wholly unrecognisable versions of these characters.
The wholesale jettisoning of character growth in favour of establishing "darker characters" is a big part of what I feel drove away many longtime readers, resulting in lower sales for DC in the span of five years. Rebirth has been a tremendous blessing in carefully reinstating what's been missing from these characters without another reboot, and sales are back up. You and Dan Jurgens have played an important role in bringing Lois and Clark back to their core, for which I am most grateful. But this now brings us back to Superman #23 and the unnecessary dismemberment of Lois Lane in a story arc that frankly did not require it.
Aside from this being another standard fridging for shock value and manpain, what was most infuriating about your decision to dismember Lois is that it continued a long standing problem in mainstream superhero comics to use women's bodies as tools for male agency. Even if this gets retconned before the story arc concludes (and I'm sure it will), the fact is it's still a dehumanising plot device that reduces a woman's importance to how she is valued by the men in her life.
Lois' dismemberment was not about Lois making a heroic sacrifice for what she believes in or protecting the people she loves. Her mutilation was ALL about shocking and traumatising the most important men in her life: her husband and son. It was both gratuitous and traumatising for me to see. It actually made me physically nauseous and caused my heart to palpitate when I read it on Wednesday. Literally. That is not what I expected to get from a Superman comic last Wednesday--a comic that I feel should be accessible to everyone.
When DC launched Rebirth last year, Geoff Johns did so with the promise of confronting the legacy of Watchmen, and with the promise of restoring hope and optimism to the DC Universe. I was very grateful to hear those words, because while I feel Watchmen is being scapegoated here, DC--with some exceptions-- has collectively not embodied that idea in the last 30 years. It's as if Crisis on Infinite Earths did more than just jettison the last 50 years of DC continuity in favour of a completely new direction. It also did away with the idea of heroes being good people who did what they did out of a strong desire to make their world a better place, and not because of a tragic event in their lives that set them on that path. It especially fared worse for the women characters who thrived during the Bronze Age as characters with agency and meaningful storylines.
The tragic origin story became the norm in superhero narratives and the "darkening" of superheroes became the recurring trend. That tragic event in the lives of many iconic male superheroes almost always centred on the death or violent fridging of a woman in their lives, whether that'd be their mother, daughter, sister, friend, or romantic partner. If it was a female superhero, her origin story would almost always be tied to a violent past involving abuse from men--including sexual abuse--or an actual fridging like in the case of Barbara Gordon. If it wasn't a dark origin story, eventually a story arc would come along where a male villain would brutalise a woman as a way of raising the stakes for the affected male hero.
Notice how much of this darkening of the DC Universe in the last 30 years has involved normalising violence against women? This disturbing trend became so prominent within the first decade of the post-Crisis universe alone, a whole website got made around that same time frame to document all the instances in which female characters have been "depowered, raped, and cut up" in a mainstream superhero comic.
This wasn't the sort of thing that just happened in elseworlds stories anymore. It literally became mainstream DC continuity, ironically, often inspired by elseworlds stories. This is what the last 30 years of DC storylines consisted of, I would almost argue the New 52 was actually the culmination of this style of storytelling for so long. Is it really surprising that women don't stay quiet anymore whenever we see violent misogyny used casually in the stories we're invested in, especially against the female characters we identify with for shock value and manpain? Is it really surprising we respond with anger when fridging is used over and over and over again against the same heroine as a plot device? Can you understand how dismembering Lois this past Wednesday cheapens her character and continues this disturbing trend of the last 30 years, especially given the promise of Rebirth?
When it comes to the representation of women in superhero comics, our anger towards the use of violent misogyny in stories to give them a gritty texture goes way beyond our investment in the characters themselves. It is also very personal to us because it helps to normalise real life misogyny. Normalisation of misogyny in comics is what invites men with toxic attitudes towards women to these characters, and helps to foster a comics community that is actively hostile to women. It especially fosters a community where male harassment of women in comic spaces is very common place, even for being invested these stories and characters. Some of these men even become future writers and editors for comics publishers to the point where it limits women's opportunities to work for these publishers.
When given the privilege to write iconic DC characters in particular, women are rarely afforded the opportunity to develop their stories as creators and editors except in small doses. When men are given the privilege to write and edit these characters, they rarely write and edit them with women and other diverse fans in mind as part of the larger DC reading audience. We're rarely seen as an audience worth connecting with at best (even though we've always been here), and we are seen as "bad for business" at worst. That last one is especially true in the case of female fans and creators who are vocal about these ongoing problems and would like for them to change so that they are no longer a problem.
I realise that as a customer it is not my place to tell you what types of stories to write, and I am more than aware that I don't have to invest money in anything I don't want to support. All of that is true. But here's the thing: I'm not a casual customer. I am a DC Comics fan who wants to invest in these characters and books just like every other fan. They have been my heroes since I was a kid and they still mean a lot to me as an adult.
This may sound like a naive thing to say, but I believe strongly in DC's potential to be a publisher that is inclusive of everyone, given the diversity of intellectual properties and the fans they invite. I strongly believe that Rebirth is worth supporting because it's seeking to make DC less divisive and more inviting of various groups of people, older fans and newer fans alike. I strongly believe that if the quality of the stories Rebirth is pumping out continues to inspire and invite diverse audiences and creative talents to the fold, we could get to a point where we don’t need to keep having this conversation about representation in comics. It would be a thing of the past. For real!
In the same way that you wouldn't make creative choices that would offend and alienate male fans of any DC property you work on, I ask that you afford women and other marginalised communities that same respect by being more thoughtful of the way you use women and marginalised communities in your stories. To be more aware of the ongoing problems with diverse representation so that you are not unwittingly repeating these same problems in the otherwise good stories you're writing. If Rebirth is about restoring hope and optimism to the DC Universe, please honour that promise by representing women's heroes better. Specifically by writing them as characters with agency and their own storylines, and not as tools for male character development. That is all I want to see happen.
Thank you for your time, and have a wonderful rest of your week.
Sincerely,
Diane Darcy
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