Bad Company: Desiree Takes the Initiative...

I've been reading both the stories and the testimonials at Sisters in Love (warning: adult material!), and many of the yuri manga at ShoujoAi.com (ditto!), and I find myself struck by how often it's the younger sister who strikes up the relationship. And so it comes to me that even though Desiree was too passive and even mopey to be herself when I first started writing Bad Company, still the redhead has a stronger personality than her older sister Charlie. (I'll make it up to Desi when I make her the hero of Points of Authority this next NaNoWriMo by allowing her to dominate it the way she deserves to.) And though it's Charlie whom Drusilla is threatening with the "nuclear option" of child molestation charges, it was Desiree who seduced Charlie to begin with and who dominates the relationship in the long run.

This fixes up a few weaknesses in the plot.

1. Desiree is no longer a pure victim; it is her action that Dru punishes both her daughters for, even though it is up to Charlie to get her back into the relationship.
2. The hijacking of Desiree's soul by the terrorist Rashid, who is actually an incubus, becomes that much more tragic and forces Charlie to stop being so mopily passive if she wants to win the sister she adores from both the terror masters and the law.
3. The reunion of Charlie and Desiree outrages the increasingly deranged Drusilla into exercising that "nuclear option". (More on that in my next post.)
4. Desiree is now in the perfect position to prod Charlie into action and fight their mother and the law for the sake of their love.
5. And finally, in Bad Company we will witness the birth of the mighty activist warrior who will dominate Points of Authority.

So it is important to the plot that Desiree take the initiative in the affair and be the one to start it in the first place.

And so when the sisters first become lovers, Charlie is 15 and Desiree is 12. And since Charlie is worried about both the danger to her singing career and the the threat posed by their mother once they find out, Desiree will be the one to keep Charlie firmly in her arms (and her bed). She is the driving force in their relationship whenever they are together: both before Dru finds out and angrily forces them apart, and after they reunite after their year in hell. In the relationship line of Bad Company, Desiree is therefore the antagonist (note: the relationship line antagonist is not necessarily a villain; she could be the love interest or a mentor) to Charlie's protagonist in both action and relationship lines.

Come to think of it, I'll have to rewrite the relationship line climax so that the roles are reversed. The crisis decision is the answer to this question: Should Charlie and Desiree go back to being just sisters, or should they make the irrevocable decision to devote themselves to each other as lovers for life and ultimately get married? In the current version as originally written, it's Charlie who poses the dilemma to Desiree. But now I know that, properly, it should be the other way around. That's not just because Desiree started it; Charlie has far more to lose, namely her career, reputation, and even safety. If they were not as famous as they are, they could move to another city to live as lovers and hide the fact that they are sisters. But the politically powerful Drusilla Becket is their mother, and Charlie is a star. If Charlie says yes, she risks bringing down the full wrath of God and the law upon them. They're already trying to survive attacks from the Beckets and Dictel. So I'll need to rewrite the scene: Desiree pops the question, and Charlie agonizes over whether to say yes.

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