You Say Dio, I Say Queen

Author's Note: I have a huge amount of respect for people that can do dialogue well. I love dialogue that captures a characters expressions and personality. Especially if you don't have any prose to back it up. So I did a dialogue exercise, and picked a topic I really like.... eighties hair metal bands. And Tom Cruise bashing. The characters are Darius and Caecus. Caecus is bolded, Darius is not.



“Why are you groaning like that? What’s wrong with Dio?”
“I can’t take him seriously. Come on, have you ever seen the music video for Holy Diver? There’s just something about the way he sings. Makes me think of Steven Tyler.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake! What’s wrong with him? I love Aerosmith.”
“He has a big mouth.”
“So?”
“He looks funny.”
“Well, you look like a woman, but you don’t-FUCK! That hurt!”
“Next time it will be harder.”
“Not while I’m driving! I don’t need to end up in a ditch. I happen to like this car very much.”
“Then don’t say I look like a chick.”
“Fine. You are the manliest man I ever did lay my eyes upon.”
“Now you’re just being ridiculous.”
“I try.”
“Don’t you fucking touch that dial! I love Rush.”
“Why do you get to change it when Dio comes on, but I have to suffer through Lee’s wailing? He needs to grow a set of balls.”
“I adore him. I think it’s the glasses.”
“He makes me think of John Lennon.”
“You wish you were John Lennon.”
“I would make an awesome John Lennon.”
“I love the Beatles.”
“Yeah... same here.”
“There, I changed it. No more Lee wailing.”
“Ah, good old White Shark.”
“I don’t like this guy either.”
“What is wrong with you?”
“I have high standards?”
“Hair metal bands don’t have standards.”
“You’re just saying that because you don’t have any standards. You listen to fucking Aerosmith for crissakes.”
“There is absolutely nothing wrong with Aerosmith. At least I don’t listen to Bon Jovi.”
“80s Bon Jovi is perfectly acceptable and sensible music.”
“The fucker sold his soul to Pop Rock. The proverbial devil, if there was any.”
“We live in Jersey; you have to love Bon Jovi. At least its not as bad as what Pete Burns did to himself.”
“Please, please, please don’t remind me. I used to fantasize about that man.”
“I’m not surprised. He was pretty.”
“Oh, please. He was sex on two legs. Don’t deny it.”
“Too much, too much.”
“Just what were you doing in the eighties?”
“Probably not what you were doing in the eighties.”
“I gathered that much, asshole.”
“Nothing, actually. I actually dated a guy in a hair metal band around this time.”
“Most of those guys have seen better days."
“I agree with you fully there. All of that drug shit and drinking finally caught up with them.”
“Can you believe that Dee Snider still does that whole bit?”
“You mean the crazy purple fishnet football outfit thing with the wild blonde hair and makeup?”
“Hell yeah.”
“He’s got to be in his fifties. I’m impressed. I saw them play once in Jersey, Klaus Nomi opened up for them.”
“You gotta be shittin me? Klaus fucking Nomi? I would pay to go back in time to see that. That’s the weirdest fuckin line-up ever. That’s like getting Dashboard Confessional to open up for Metallica.”
“If you listen to them I’m going to have to kill you.”
“Who? Dashboard or Metallica?”
“I hate you.”
“You only say that because deep down you secretly want me.”
“Darius, get your head out of your pants.”
“Sorry.”
“Greatest band of all time?”
“Led Zeppelin, hands down.”
“Holy shit. We actually agree on something.”
“All right. What, if I may, is your favorite song?”
“I can never choose between Zep’s Achilles Last Stand or the Stone’s Sympathy for the Devil.”
“I can’t listen to that song without thinking about Tom Cruise, and not just Cruise as Lestat, but Scientology Cruise. He just went fucking crazy! I love it!”
“Thank you so much. You just ruined my favorite song for me. Fuckin’ Cruise.”
“I thought you couldn’t decide on a favorite.”
“Well, apparently its Last Stand now. Thank you for choosing for me.”
“My absolute favorite song is Big Balls by AC/DC.
I’ve got big balls, I’ve got big balls, they’re such big balls!
“FUCK YOU DARIUS.”
“Sorry! I’ve got a disease!”
“You are obnoxious.”
“I get that a lot.”
“Queen!”

School Boy Crush

Author's Notes: Character development monologue for my greek character, Darius. I've been picking this up and putting down again, nitpicking with it. I will probably play around with again sometime soon. I want to make it longer. I love this character so much. oWo


There really isn’t any sort of situation where I could classify myself as shy. The slip of a girly-boy that I am, the eccentric spirited sort that craves attention and love like a serial killer craves squeezing the life from a broken body to echo their own tumultuous climax...I’m never shy. My life can be defined by exasperation and complete utter stupidity. Who can blame me for being blind and self-absorbed when there’s not a one person I can think of that is better than me. We’re all the worse for wear on this quaint ball of mud, whether it’s for the drugs or violence. We all have our misguided vices, and they are as colorful and varied as the individuals that populate existence. Cumulative society pushes us in one direction, farther and farther from the roots and carnal urges of our predecessors. Mindless sex is something of the past, looked down upon in the present, and perhaps even stamped out in the future.

It’s a me-first, instant gratification world, and I can’t help but go along with it or be swallowed up. So many of the quiet types so afraid to put themselves out there because they’ll get hit by the rest of the buzzing populace, never heard, always drowned out. The deeper meaning lost because people are always looking out for themselves. You are not without guilt, my friend. I love to be loved, but what are your faults? You can tell right up front what kind of man I’ll be. Look at my wrist and you’ll see my heart. I love my friends, I love myself. I put myself out there because I want to be noticed. I want the attention.

I only say wrist because I’m not wearing a shirt.

At least in times of unrest in the past, wonderful things would come of it.

Its unlike me to be so thoughtful and contemplative. I feel like I’ve been living the life of a rock star hundreds of years before there were any.

I’m an ambitious sort, and quite comfortable with my endless life of loveless sex and trail of lovers. I’ve always got what I wanted, and what I wanted was sex. No man was safe. There was no deeper meaning for these flings, except for the fact that the pain that came from being alone was too much to bear. So unbearable, I grew addicted to relationships. I needed them to keep me happy. So I thought.
Decades could not prepare me for the first time I fell in love. It is the most painful and wondrous thing I have ever experienced, and it was completely one-sided. Did I even think to approach it carefully and tentatively? I’m not know for tact, and like the way I treat everything else in my life, I dove right into the middle of it and drowned. It snuck up on me so I turned around and smacked it right in the face.

I feel my heart, my stupid little blood-pumping organ that keeps me alive exploding. A resistant man made me realize how blind I was, and love made me realize how fucked up I am. I’m sorry because he never asked for any of this, but I can’t help but remain angry all the same. I never asked for this either, and I certainly didn’t ask for my entire lifestyle to be turned upside down. All of my advances seem so innocent until emotion decided to complicate the hell out of everything. Don’t kiss and tell, my friend. Don’t fall in love with a man that doesn’t want you either. It took me a long time for me to realize that I didn’t want to treat this man like all the others.

Anything can become an addiction. I’ve been nursing my sex-addled brain for countless years. Had I been into any other type of drug, a man like me in withdrawal would have been dangerous. There are secret things that only my tear-stained pillow knows, and other secrets I cannot bear to think about that have come about from my refocusing.

I’m really tired. For once, the life of drinking, men, and attention just isn’t cutting it anymore. I had a good run. My carelessly constructed world is falling apart because of one raven-haired man that just wouldn’t give into my game of fuck and dump.

I can’t say I blame him for rejecting me again once after I profess my very fragile love. He can see me for the monster I really am, and who’s to say that I won’t turn on him and relapse back into my old ways. Its masochistically amusing to me because once I started putting him first, I started hurting inside.
I feel like we’re acting out a drama on a celestial scale. I’ve got the part of the Phantom, only my scars are on the inside and I’ve a pounding that won’t go away. It’s my heart beating and I’m wondering why I can’t rip it out.
When it comes to love, I’m like a bumbling school boy with a crush on the prettiest girl in the class. But in this world, bloody hearts end up in the desks on Valentine’s Day.