Don't worry guys, Agnes is gonna be fine. Please stop threatening me. ^_^

Seriously, some of you have gotten a bit scary in the comments when you thought she might be in danger...

excellent. I love your passion!

Also, I know fake-out kisses are infuriating, but hear me out:

They're a good way of giving your readers and hope and the desire to come back.

The trouble is making the fake-out organic- which from what I understand- often comes in the form of the comic relief character coming in and ruining everything. In which case, couldn't you ask him to leave? Okay, maybe it ruins the mood, but you can get it going again. It's really fun to take old tropes and cliches and think about not only how to make them unique, but how to get them to make sense, which in turn creates more ideas.

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I was thinking about the "mothership" trope (the big bad dies, the whole army does TOO) Yesterday, I had a sort of waking dream where a Dark Lord (not gonna reveal who) character visits a goblin merchant to purchase some weapons of war for an invasion, the goblin then presents a kill-switch that makes it so when the Dark Lord's killed, his whole army dies with him. 

Dark Lord says, confused, "Why would I want that?"

"Well, y'know! What's the point of invading a kingdom is to rule it, if you're killed, what's the point?"

"Wha-serious? Doesn't matter. I'm not trying to seize power, I'm trying to [spoiler objective], and if I fall, I want to make sure SOMEBODY'S around to make that happen! I don't care if it's me, just as long as it gets done!"

"...What kind of villain are you?"

"I'M NOT!"