Succubus's death was tough.* I think it was a horrible, drawn out, humiliating death.* She was raped with an icy contraption of Yin's choosing, and forced to scream and climax simultaneously until her heart gave.* No, there was no blood, but that scene was rather disturbing to write.* I loved the back and forth between Yin and Yang in that scene and their choosing to escalate their powers.* But in the end, the competition got out of control with absolutely no one there to stop it.* So it was cause and effect, but it's no less tough to write.
At any rate, if you really liked Agent Succubus you should give The Agencies Frontiers #10 a read.* It wraps up the series somewhat nicely.* If you read it just to follow 1 or 2 characters that got killed off, then ya I get wanting to stay away.* But if you liked the ones that lived through #9, it's not a bad wrap up.
I feel compelled to comment on this, because I think it is very easy to hand wave desired intentions and 'thoughtfulness' as ways to deal with criticism. Obviously this is years removed, but I feel like the Succubus storyline is something that all storytellers and artists in this genre can look at and learn lessons from, and I don't think the tangible ramifications have adequately been discussed.
What these comics are about, what they are for, what they are intended to do, I think is quite obvious, but what makes them standout is how they can operate and how they can achieve their ends, but given intention, their ends should be clear. These are releases that are about eroticism, about tickling, and everything that encapsulates. In the days before the TMF, when materials were more spartan, art and comics were a way to express a crystallized passion for tickling in the visual medium, given that the cost was low to produce (time), and as a result, was able to funnel the raw energy that someone with this kink might feel towards things like massage parlors or asylums or interrogations or romantic rendezvous...so on and so forth. But there was one thing to govern this; either the lee is an conduit object for the audience's baser urges or the lee is an active participate enjoying the act either primarily or secretly. I don't think we'll adjusted men or women who get off on tickling ate candidates to kidnap hotties to tickle torture in their dungeon lair...but if you get deep into your own headspace, with your longings, your cravings, your id...this is what this can appeal to.
So why am I saying all this? Because, for the most part, what this kink, this fetish, the way it best operates in the creative endeavor, is to not try to get the super ego involved with things to the degree that it ruins both immersion and enjoyment. This is made even more acute with depictions of sexuality. I'm not going to say there isn't a time where the moral compass wasn't more relaxed than it is today. At the same time, the level of overtly sexual tickling is higher today than it was then, so application of that saw moral compass on today isn't a good test.
I am sorry, but nothing is a greater kiss of death than partaking in sexual tickling and using it as both a tool to sell units, to make the most erotic and visually stimulating product it can be, but couch it all in a darkness involving rape, mind rape, violence, and all that. Authorial intent matters. I'm not a tickle fetishist to discuss sexual politics, and I damn sure do not get gratification from stories where heavy rape themes need to be addressed within the context of content. You speak of the psychology of characters involved in these events, and to be quite frank, the material you generate, under that lens, makes the desire to generate this style of content with sexuality as a marketing point and a eroticism point quite disturbing.
It's as through there is a divorce, between the intention of stories, and the fact that tickling is even involved. It's as though there is a divorce between what the stories say and the medium in which they are sold. Again, it's not a secret why things like this are marketed and released. In many ways, this becomes self subversive.
It fundamentally breaks the fantasy.
Now, that three release Succubus story, from her giving herself up to save her friend, to the Twins working her over to the point of delirious desperation, again, I feel was the moment Agencies Publishing was creating a great ground swell of support, and the fact that so many community minds were giving input and that, it was definitely something to take notice toward. I would also say Succubus was an out and out breakout star, with a look and a background that seemed ripe with limitless potential for stories. And the reality is, this was accomplished organically. Another character like this that comes to mind is Rylie from The Ruthless, though she wasn't someone who could be a franchise headliner like Succubus. You took a character who had great potential and was the brightest shining star, you introduced her to some wicked ticklish torture, and then took things in a more sexual direction with her captivity...but in the end...she died. She was just a tool within this story to get over other characters, or other things. And not only that, it sucked the energy out of the immersive fantasy created. From a pacing standpoint, the culmination of the release should act as a highlight, as the moment the reader is so thoroughly enthralled that it leaves them reeling. When we arrived there for Succubus? It's her dead, on a slab.
Oh, and her killer is frantically fingering herself because she was overcome by the passionate flame of her sister.
This left me, the reader, with a lot of emotions, but I will never forget just how angry it made me. It wasn't just that she died. It was that this character who had so much potential was just finished off to service lesser characters than herself. This was a strong disconnect. The other disconnect? The art itself.
Now, you speak about the darkness in the world's you write and that, and I can understand it. When I wrote stories years ago, I made it a point to be dark, brooding, and very brutal and savage...because I saw people I was writing with and competing with not willing to go there. All I had to consider in this equation was text though. One of the chief reasons I think that the darkness, the twisted, the mind rape and physical assault and all of that that you apparently struggle with in your own scripting and go with isn't matched AT ALL in the art of the releases. The disturbing things, physically, mentally, aren't at all conveyed, whether it's by character composition, whether it's by color scheme, or dare I say, even in how the art and color is used to actualize what is on the page. As a viewer, none of these things were conveyed in body language. But you know what was?
The frenetic eroticism and ticklish torment that is supposed to trigger the audience.
I've seen BDSM art in other places, and one thing that I notice, especially when themes like you are presenting are prevelent, they are showcased and given their own sense of desperation, while also showcasing the cruelty of their situation. I think this is because, given the nature of what different people are into, the callous casualness of systematic rape and torture and the tears and suffering of the target are there to get the intended audience off...but the subtext of just how disturbing this all is is never lost. It's always there. The art, the colors, the lettering, the dialogue, the composition of the action within, those things within those Agencies releases are not geared toward actualizing this outside of the middle release where Succubus is subjected to the ice torture on her nipples. That's it. The rest is either just straight tickling, or literally, the sexualized desire that the tickling created. Succubus isn't shown suffering like that in that final release...it's much more her, getting off, teased, tickled, delirous, almost a glutton for more and more and more. And then there is and harsh pivot, and she gets killed in this tug of war between the two sisters. Even during those scenes, I am not getting that sense that Succubus is suffering to the point of death. The art style also doesn't lend itself to such dark, morbid things.
These are all things communicating information to the reader. Not only was Succubus not maximized anywhere near her potential as a character, but it went against the groundswell of organic fandom toward her and her potential ticklish misadventures. She was killed...and everything surrounding the build up and the like, from an artistic perspective, from a marketing perspective, was a disconnect between the darker goals of the story and the sexual execution and the manner in which it was contextually laid out, and made it so it felt completely forced. It was obvious, on some level, that Succubus was reacting positively in a physical, vocal, and mental way to what was transpiring by the end...and I think the gulf and divorce between intention and execution makes killing a character like her a monumental mistake.
The fact that there are multiple images that have come out after the fact involving her being tickled is almost a tacit mea culpa. And to see someone like Stacia Walton given literal God status within the Agencies Publishing framework, or Ying and Yang are given that level of importance...when to be honest, they do not connect like Succubus did in three issues...well...I think that says enough.
I can understand wanting to be or do something different. But this one felt like a very bad call then, and in the time since, has only become more and more galling.
I don't know if I'm a king, but when your girlfriend thinks your nerdy or weird thing you do is cool...rock on.
