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ktulaSpoilers for chapter nine abound in the interview below....
Chapter Nine!
1. I really enjoyed the slow build of the chapter! What do you think was the turning point for Kylo, and for Hux?
Turning points are such a fascinating thing to talk about because there’s, like—the turning point that there actually was, and then the turning point that they allow themselves to have, you know? When I was thinking about Kylo’s POV for this chapter, I was thinking a lot about penance, and suffering, and atonement, and how to apologize for something without just saying ‘I’m sorry’—like, how to progress beyond the words of the apology, and start working on making amends for things. I spend a lot of time thinking about what constitutes an apology, versus what actually makes amends for a wrong that’s been done to someone. And I think Kylo was slow to realize that words (and ceremony, and a promotion, etc, etc, etc) weren’t enough to undo what he did, especially when nothing about those things changed the behaviour that had hurt Hux in the first place. And because Kylo is Kylo, I think he does get caught up a bit in that concept of Suffering, which is why he lets the illness happen instead of just clearing it out of his system—but, also, it actually kind of works, in a really bizarre sort of a way, because it shifts Kylo’s perception of the world enough to knock his head out of his own ass.
But Kylo’s actual turning point? I think it’s right here:
Kylo carefully paces the rest of the observatory, checks in all the rooms, even the ones that Hux has kept closed up. He hesitates at one of the supply rooms in the basement—the door is locked, and the lock looks new. He places his palm on it, reaches out with the Force—
—and then stops, takes his hand away, and keeps walking.
There are points in the story where Kylo wouldn’t have opened the door, and points in the story where he would have, but turning away from the locked door here, even after it’s piqued his curiosity, and recognizing that it’s none of his goddamn business, that Hux deserves privacy, and will tell Kylo if he thinks Kylo needs to know—that’s a new development, and it was sorely needed.
For Hux—I think he was open to a turning point right from chapter eight, when he asked for cigarras, and made an attempt to converse with Kylo—but I don’t think he actually committed to going around the metaphorical corner on that one until there you are—I thought you were leaving, and the associated deluge of feelings that came along with Kylo’s quiet assertion that he wouldn’t, unless Hux asked him to go. When it gets right down to it, the crux of the falling-out between them was that Hux felt, rightfully so, that Kylo was ignoring his needs completely, and giving Hux a bunch of things that he neither wanted nor asked for—and then, asserting that he was correct to do so, and did Hux want more things? Because Kylo can give him more things. (And we see this in chapter seven, as well—corners that were nearly turned remain unturned, because Kylo was still being pushy about what he thought Hux wanted instead of actually asking the question, and listening to Hux’s response.)
(For what it’s worth, the room is entirely empty except for the key to the shuttle that Hux fled to Starkiller on—and it stays locked so that Hux has to go through an entire procedure if he decides he wants to go back, and the length of the procedure is long enough that he can talk himself out of it before actually getting the key in his hand.)
2. I’m really curious about how Kylo and Hux relate to illness, and the vastly different life experiences they had—what are your thoughts on it? How did you incorporate it into the chapter?
Oh, gosh. I don’t know if they could possibly have more different experiences of illness. I headcanon Kylo as someone who was rarely ill as a child—and if he was ill, he wasn’t ill for long—and I headcanon Hux as exactly the opposite, as someone who tended toward sickly, and grew up in an environment where he was lacking parental support, and had to basically take what medicine was available, keep his mouth shut, and hope he recovered sooner rather than later.
Such opposing viewpoints really lend themselves to the contrasts we see in the chapter, here—how Kylo’s cold is the End Of The World for him, and how is he supposed to concentrate on anything when He Is Dying and Has Made So Many Mistakes In His Life, whereas from Hux’s perspective, the most important thing is to scan him with the medscanner to make sure that it’s nothing serious, find appropriate medication, make sure Kylo has access to it on an appropriate schedule, and the rest of it will sort itself out.
I think Hux is really arguing with himself over this, too, and we can see that in the hot-and-cold attitude he keeps having toward Kylo’s illness—on one hand, he’s just leaving soup and water and pills by the bed, and not bothering to check if Kylo is actually taking them, and on the other hand, he keeps coming up at night to put his hands on Kylo’s face, and to touch him tenderly rather than just check his temperature with a machine and then move on with his life. There’s a bit from our cutting room floor that I thought was really poignant here—one mustn’t give a shit about Armitage, or he’ll never grow up to be a tough kid—and I think you can see hints of that in Hux here, that he’s warring with himself between how he was raised and what was modelled to be appropriate behaviour to him as a child, versus what he actually wanted from the people around him when he was ill. And I think, as Ren’s illness progresses, Hux lets himself soften, and do more of what he wants, and less of what he feels is appropriate.
It’s not a clear linear progression throughout the chapter—it’s a few steps forward, and then a few steps back—but it’s clear, I think, that Ren’s demonstrated vulnerability via his illness helped to break down some of the walls between them. I think they would have gotten there without the illness—but it would have taken longer.
3. I loved the reveal of Hux’s secret project! How did it feel working on the plug when he wasn’t quite sure he’d ever use it?
Full disclosure, in the interests of not blowing smoke up everybody’s ass, I literally forgot until you asked me this question that Hux didn’t have any toys or anything with him when he came. Like, I looked at this question, and I looked deep into my own heart, and I thought—wow, dude. You really just slid that in there and did not check your own canon.
But, anyways. How did it feel for Hux?
I think the entire project, start to finish, was intense. I think he started the project just to give himself something to masturbate with, because making sex toys for himself has always been a point of pride and has always given him an acute sense of accomplishment, and when we get right down to it, there’s not a lot of things to do on Starkiller to break up his day. I think the project was handled via a lot of starts and stops—yes, he’s going to do it. No, he’s not going to open that door. He’s fine with masturbating with his hand—no, it would be really nice to have something up his arse. And the closer the plug got to completion, the easier it was for him to keep working on it—and the harder it was for him to think of a circumstance where he would actually be able to use the thing without just thinking about Ren. And I think, in the end, when the plug was completed—I don’t think Hux used it. I think Hux put it away, deciding that he would save it for another time, for something significant, for something meaningful. For some kind of a turning point.
And I think the ritual of explicitly, verbally, giving Kylo a second chance is what Hux felt justified the use of the plug, no matter how the rest of the night went—because this is it. They’re either all in, or they’re all out, and either way, Hux can move forward with the rest of his life, without the baggage of the things that might have been.
4. We totally skipped over their first time, didn’t we?
Indeed we did! And we had a lot of good discussions about that, too—about whether we should write it, about whether it was appropriate to leave it out. About what was meaningful for the story, and what people wanted to read, versus what was meaningful for this version of Armitage and Kylo, and what they might like to share, versus what they might like to keep private.
I’m really happy with where we settled on this—we have enough information on the before and after (and some supplemental information that’s still to come) that fading to black on the actual first instance(s) of penetrative sex between them is fitting for the story. The penetrative sex is just a bonus, after everything else that has happened—the actual resolution of their character arcs comes with the vulnerability and intimacy and discussion that they have in the hot springs, and the rest, as they say, is history.
(I think we can infer that there were a lot of tears, and some giggling, and a lot of awkward communications about positioning, but that it was ultimately very satisfactory for both of them, and something that they’re both going to look back on very, very fondly.)
5. What was it like for Hux waiting in the hot springs?
Oh, gosh. Hux, sweetheart. I think that Hux, in contrast to Kylo, has reached a point of inevitability about the entire thing. He’s said what he needed to say, he offered Kylo what he needed to offer, and I think Hux is entirely focused on himself in those moments in the hot spring, in self-care via hot water and cigarras. I think that there’s part of him that wants to start mapping out his life based on the possibilities—what if Kylo shows up? What if he doesn’t? What if he shows up in the next five minutes, versus what if he shows up in three hours?—and I think he’s doing his best to just let those thoughts go completely, and just focus on the actual moment, and the solitary time he has on this planet that’s become a bit of a revelation for him, in a lot of ways.
I think, above everything else, that Hux still has hope—and that, rather than hating himself for having it, or regretting its existence, I think Hux is just letting himself lean into it here, because it’s okay to hope. He’s put everything on the line—it’s okay to wish that things turn out a certain way, and if they do, that’s the rest of his life going one way—and if they don’t, that’s the rest of his life going another, but it’s the rest of his life going another way while he knows, deep down in his heart, that he did his absolute best, and he can work on moving forward with a sense of closure that he didn’t know how to access before.
