I knew about my MMC before I knew anything about my MMC.
Back in 2024, writing Honeymoon of the Lizard Princess, I gave my FMC Juno one line about her siblings. Two were fallen warriors, one was a disowned revolutionary, and the other one was a drug addict. The mention was a throw away line to explain how a half-lizard, half-human woman ascended into corporate power in my Lizard Universe.
A year later, writing the disowned revolutionary’s story (Katrina, aka Fallon), I almost named her one living brother. My main lizard characters each get a color, honoring the Power Rangers—Juno is pink, Fallon’s yellow. The brother would be blue. I landed on the name Aciano, after a Spanish cornflower, but cut the mention and filed the name away for later.
Later turned out to be inspired by two of my favorite couples in pop culture: Jaime Lannister and Brienne of Tarth from Game of Thrones, and Lenny Nero and Lorentte “Mace” Mason from the cult classic film Strange Days. Both had the same problem, just shaped differently.
Jaime and Brienne end tragically. After their one happy night, Jaime goes back to Cersei, and the brother and sister die when Daenerys torches King’s Landing. To me, this committed one of the greatest character assassinations in pop culture. He’d been on a road of redemption because of Brienne. Throwing it away made no sense.
Lenny and Mace have what I’d call an Eponine/Watts problem*: the woman who actually loves him while he chases someone else. He comes around eventually. (And while I mention it, your required viewing is the end kiss between Ralph Fiennes and Angela Bassett. It is the stuff of weak knees.)
But as I got older, my real issue regarding this couple crystallized. Mace is smart, beautiful, and the moral center of the movie. Lenny is a smarmy dipshit. I don’t care about his soulful eyes or leather pants. He doesn’t deserve her.
So I fix those issues with Aciano and Zosia. She’s stronger and more valiant. He flails from scenario to scenario on charm and venom vendors, but eventually he demonstrates why he’s worthy of her. They earn their HEA—but they also earn each other.
*Eponine from the musical adaptaion of Victor Hugo’s LES MISERABLES. She gets the better songs (“On My Own” and “Rain Will Make the Flowers Grow”) but not the stupid handsome man, Marius. Watts is from the John Hughes’ penned-film “Some Kind of Wonderful,” which sought to correct the love triangle from Pretty in Pink but make it gender-swapped.
