#i'm so egregiously difficult to please when it comes to endings

[incesthemes]

also i gotta say but the more i watch of these final seasons of the show the more i'm dreading the finale because there's basically 0 setup for the payoff it offers. and by that i mean if the show wanted a truly satisfying ending that fit with the themes and motifs of the show, then they should have played it one of two ways:

sam and dean both live and survive into their old age. the reason for this is because of the heavy emphasis on their later years/possible retirement as the show goes on, and the shift from "obviously we're going to die on the job" to a more hopeful possibility that maybe things will be different. because you have that will-they-won't-they question set up, allowing them to retire is cathartic and satisfies a major theme in the show, one that's been recurring since the beginning.

they die together in a blaze of glory. a suicide bombing of sorts. i still have 13 episodes left i have no idea how they manage to kill chuck or whatever, but the point of this is that sacrificing themselves to end the story would also be deeply cathartic via an homage to swan song (taking control of your life by appropriating destiny to end the story). kill themselves to kill god. this is again a major recurring theme across the show: "if we die we'll die together" "i always thought we'd go out butch and sundance style" the thelma and louise reference etc etc.

separating sam and dean through death is contrarily deeply antithetical to the show's emotional core (again: "if we die we'll die together"), so i am really having a hard time of convincing myself that i'll find the ending satisfying. every episode i watch brings me closer to the end and it makes me not want to keep going lol. i mean maybe, maybe there's a small chance that i'll be proven wrong, but considering that i'm the themes and motifs guy and i am notoriously hard to please with regards to endings, i'm not really holding my breath.

but it's not like i'm seething with rage over this. i stopped enjoying this show even for the spectacle when the writers callously decided it was no longer The Sam And Dean show in season 12 so i've had time to adjust my expectations. i know they don't care about proper payoffs and they certainly don't care about the themes and motifs 💔

[callmearcturus]

i've never seen someone who hates MI3 more than MI2 before

(NOTE: LONG POST, HIT J TO SKIP)

MI3, how do I hate thee? lemme count the ways

The Filming Itself

the cinematography is atrocious. as Punct and I discussed in our DVD commentary track for MI3, I truly feel like JJ Abrams is aware that shaky cam exists, but not the reasons someone would use it, so the camera is shaking even in sequences it absolutely should not be. it feels to me that JJA was like "the more important/intense a scene, the more the camera should move" and like. jfc.

this is like really important because it makes it literally difficult to understand the movie as its unfolding. there's multiple moments when you lose pieces of the action due to the cinematography. two moments immediately come to mind: Zhen falling out of the helicopter and having to climb back in, and the way the camera completely ruins Ethan's base jump escape from the Shanghai building.

SPEAKING OF, there are only two good stunts in this film. one is Ethan breaking the car with his body on the bridge. which is bc that's shot as a fairly steady pull-back with Ethan running directly at camera. the other is the batshit spidercam full tilt sprint at the end of the movie where the camera holds shot for probably the longest period in the entire movie. everything else is wrecked by the shitty camerawork.

POINT IS THAT THE SHALLOWEST APPEAL OF MI MOVIES IS THE STUNTS AND MI3 HAS BY FAR THE WORST STUNTS

also why the fuck is the camera shaking during normal stationary shot-reverse-shot dialogue scenes, JJ. jesus fucking christ. can I please see the actors ACTUALLY ACTING please?

The Script

kay lets move on from my fiery hatred of the camerawork and onto my fiery hatred of this movie's script. I am a non-professional writer and i could run a fucking clinic on this goddamn script.

lets get the most egregious thing out of the way immediately: this movie tries to make you give a shit about The Team and one of the team members is literally never named in dialogue for the entire runtime of the movie. if you miss the five frame intro card for Declan at the start of the movie, you will never learn that character's name for the entire movie. that's such a fucking egregious fuck-up I almost think I can just say that and it explains The Problem With MI3

BUT THAT'S BORING SO LETS GO ON

I have seen many many people say that their favorite villain in MI is Owen Davian. that's.... fine. but is that because he's just suuuuuch a compelling character, or because Phillip Seymour Hoffman showed up and decided "I'm going to play this guy like an investment banker who went postal one day" and he's PSH and was one of the most naturally charismatic men to live?

IMO they had to get PSH bc on paper, Davian is just the most non-entity of the MI villains. there is no motivation outside of Being The Bad Guy, there's no backstory, there's a void of a character. even Hendricks from GP has all of those things and he's a villain as plot device.

also why the sweet fuck did he kill his translator. lets set aside the incredible Yikes element of covering an asian woman's face with a white woman's because Yikes but also why the fuck was she being "punished"?

WHICH SEGUES NICELY INTO PLOT CONTRIVANCE BITCHING. this movie is held together with contrivances. the grandest example is the We have to put Ethan in an unsexy bondage mask for this interrogation bc if he could speak in this scene, the movie would fall apart but the entire plot hinges on a moment when the Actual Bad Guy Musgrave literally fucking says

"Did Lindsey figure out I was the bad guy? Did she figure out all these things I did which I will now list for you? Did you the audience she figure that out? No you didn't which is why I am explaining it explicitly to camera." THIS IS. I JUST. FLAMES ON THE SIDES OF MY FACE!!!!!! I find it hilarious how GP presents the exact kind of Excuse Plot but actually does it pitch-perfectly, because it had Chris McQuarrie to actually write it.

The Entire Rabbit's Foot thing. Speaking of McQ, he had a quote that basically cemented my lust for his brain and my desire to absorb his power. fuck it here's the full quote:

"Respectfully, I’m not a mystery box guy. I don’t believe in that kind of storytelling, I feel that that leads to — I understand that it makes for very compelling narrative drive, but it brings you to the end of the movie and it inspires the three great words of cinema, which are: “And? So? OK?” And if you hear any one of those three things, it’s time to go back to the drawing board. I believe that a mystery is only as good as its reveal.”

now this was about Ghost Protocol, not intended as a criticism of MI3 but it sums up the entire problem with the Rabbit's Foot. like, it's a mystery box with nothing in it because... the contents don't matter. in the climax of the movie, you see the Rabbit's Foot and it looooooks like it miiiight be a bioweapon? but it doesn't matter. so the fact that it's VERY LOUDLY a mystery literally has no purpose and never pays off. so to quote McQ again: And? So? Ok?

Oh and that's all just my anger at the Plot Writing of MI3. that doesn't even touch on the character writing.

Character Fuckery

We've already touched on Owen Davian being a void of motivation and on the fact THEY DIDN'T GIVE US THE NAME OF ONE OF THE CORE TEAM MEMBERS lets get into the rest of it

"And did you ever.... sleep with your sister" is the worst line in a Mission Impossible movie and you made Ving fucking Rhames say it. I'm a rehabilitationist but I will make an exception for once if we can send the person who wrote that line to prison forever.

To be honest this entire movie does Luther so fucking dirty it's astonishing. He's here to artificially create conflict. I honestly find it annoying that his Defining Character Trait in MI1 and the thing that drew Ethan to him was his scruples regarding endangering people, and he has like. nothing to say about giving Davian the rabbit's foot. Okay.

THE CRIMINAL WASTE OF SIMON PEGG. Benji gets two scenes in this movie and the second one is.... frankly maybe the singular good bit of fun, engaging character interaction in the whole movie, but to get there you have to weather the Antigod Speech which. I can barely think about with IRL cringing, like my body just has an allergic reaction to the idea. it doesn't help that he's used as the mouthpiece for the Mystery Box of the movie, and we've already established its an empty box that doesn't matter.

(what I find hilarious is that Pegg is an extremely good character writer and I would bet every dollar in my measly bank account that he could have improvised a better version of that speech. god i hate it.)

Ethan and Julia. IMO Cruise and Monaghan carried this movie on their fucking backs and without them putting in the WORK with zero material, this movie would be incomprehensibly worst. Cruise and Monaghan, thank you for your service.

Punct always points out when we watch MI3 that there is a batshit moment in the climax where Julia is strapped to a chair and the camera keeps cutting to her like she's planning something to turn the tables or something but it. never happens? it's egregious and weird how the movie treats her.

actually even as much as I love Monaghan's work here and I'm the kindest to Julia, I feel like the movie doesn't respect her as much as I do. (Punct joked that JJ Abrams doesn't respect women as much as Ethan Hunt does and its hilarious and true.) but the movie keeps being Weird about Julia and putting her in tiddy-licious nighties and gives Ethan a very weird sexy dream sequence about her? and the Mission Impossible that I know and love would have objectified Ethan just as much as her, thank you very much.

Ethan and that goddamn assault rifle.

Actually I want this in its own section

Ethan uses an assault rifle at least twice to my off-the-dome recollection. Luther uses MULTIPLE REMOTE-OPERATED MACHINE GUNS to mow down a factory building. There is a massive shootout on a bridge with a JET FLYING AROUND FIRING MISSILES. Ethan DANGLES A MAN OUT OF A FUCKING PLANE.

In MI1, Ethan Hunt never fires a single shot and only holds a gun on someone once to my memory. Even in MI2, the Stupid One, Ethan is armed but only really gets into one shootout and does a lot of kicking people in slowmotion, which is silly, but My point is that MI3 feels like a Call of Duty campaign with its body count and the way it reframes Ethan's job away from Honeytrap and Spy to Generic Soldier.

and it's fucking boring. all of Ethan's guile moments are clawed out of the morass of him just shooting people, and its devastatingly boring. paired with the REMOTE-OPERATED MACHINE GUNS and the new portrayal of the IMF in MI3, it just feels like.... Ethan is one of the baddies actually? the ppl who show up with three van-mounted machine guns are not the good guys, lmao.

I don't have time to go into the visual design of this movie and how the most interesting locations are so poorly lit you can't fucking see them but we need to talk about the IMF Itself in this movie

I actually have already written my thoughts about the evolution of the IMF through the series and I'm in passionate desperate love with what that evolution signals thematically

B U T the IMF in MI3 is just a fucking crime procedural lab. there is a War Room, there's Meeting Rooms, and when stuff breaks we have The Room Where The Nerds Live. it's just CSI/NCIS/name a stupid show. which fits because IIRC this is JJA's first or one of the first films, and he's a TV man by trade. but by carrying that Weekly Procedural philosophy into MI, it reduces the texture of MI.

the montage of Ethan training Lindsey is the most unintentionally hilarious scene in the movie.

/takes a deep breath

.... is that everything?

NO WAIT I WANT TO COMPLAIN ABOUT THE VATICAN INFILTRATION. they put in a lot of work and its easily the most boring infiltration in cinema history. there is no tension, no fun, no improv.

ETHAN HUNT WAS LITERALLY IN A CATHOLIC PRIEST COSTUME COMPLETE WITH THE COLLAR AND THERE IS NOT A SINGLE LINE OF DIALOGUE ABOUT IT. THERE ARE NO JOKES. NOTHING. if this was any of the other MI movies, this would be an opening for some banter and jokes, but THEY FORGOT TO PUT THE ENGAGING TEAM DYNAMICS INTO THE FUCKING MOVIE ARRRRKSJFLSKDJHFKSD

that moment when you can kinda see Maggie Q's vag. wh. what was that.

here's the good parts of MI3

it gave us Julia, and she's still great when she returns in Fallout. even with an actively bad script, she brings gravity and grace to a movie that needs it.

Luther calls Ethan "baby" and it's great and its Luther's only good moment in the fucking movie

Ethan Hunt is at his most autistic in this movie and I love it

Ethan and Benji's second scene actually has patter and character moments and chemistry. that one scene has more character than any other in the entire movie and that's sad but also thank god.

the scene where Ethan is preparing to kill himself and is explaining to Julia how to reload the gun "just like the flashlight in the kitchen" is actually a pristine moment. i wish the camera didn't focus as much on Julia's tits while she's doing CPR but listen. i'll take it.

Ethan blocking communications in the IMF by putting the walkietalkie by the radio is very funny.

Tom Cruise really actually broke the windshield of that car with the impact of his body, goddamn.

jfc I need an Exorcism right now, I might go watch MI1 again just to cleanse

AT LEAST MISSION IMPOSSIBLE 2 KNEW WHAT IT WANTED TO BE AND EXECUTED ON THAT. In this house we may not like MI2 but we respect it.

I will fistfight JJ Abrams on sight.

[true-blue-sonic]

Phew honestly I'm glad to see I may not the only one whose first thought seeing the solicitations for those next issues was something like "oh god, please not this shit again" lmao

Although I think there are at least a few reasons to be a bit more hopeful this time around

Like it kind of makes more sense in this case he'd be looking for problems given his restlessness at being stuck in the past with no directive, he will hopefully at least partially be vindicated by the time Mimic is revealed, and of course it's not gonna get him completely ostracized by the rest of the cast

And yet, I still find that the most optimistic thought of all is like 'at least if they get it out of the way now, there'll be less temptation to do this yet again for future stories'

I recall being super excited a few months ago when we heard that Silver was going to be featured a lot more in upcoming stories.... and then that all just kind of went the Oh No Not Like This route when we got the solicits for #63 and 64, like you describe😅😅 I would agree that the whole "Silver is actively looking for problems and therefore leaps onto anything that seems the slightest bit odd" directive you describe makes sense, but it kind of already starts with the fact he is in a situation I feel he should not be in to begin with. Silver is simply not the kind of person who gets in the way of others' training, and especially not because he is oogling at and being starstruck about Whisper. Even more egregious because he could work with her just fine at the end of the Metal Virus saga! So then why is he suddenly back to being all amazed by Whisper when he is far more powerful than she is, has seen both her good and bad sides when it comes to her fighting style and personal life, and is on clear friendly terms with her? I'm not saying that you can't be inspired by friends, but the whole mysterious angle of the unknown Guardian Angel protecting him from afar in a war is all but gone now. Not even mentioning the fact that Silver is quite confident and smug about himself and his own abilities? And furthermore, since Duo appears on later covers, we know Silver is not going to be believed, in all various ways the others can tell that to him. So all that together is making it quite difficult for me to really get engaged in the plot of him accusing Duo and the resulting fallout to begin with. And the fact that the solicits literally say said fallout is going to be awkward... It makes me not look forward to the story at all, basically. I don't like seeing my favourite character be ridiculed due to him being highly OoC and said ridicule then not even leading to anything until much later. And as for whether he'll be vindicated, I am not getting my hopes up much. Indeed, the most optimistic scenario I can get from it all is the fact it'll be one-and-done now and therefore likely won't return, but I truly would rather it wouldn't be done to begin with.

[btssavedmylifeblr]

Hi bee, i hope you're doing wellI just wanna ask for some tips bc I can't seem to do the "show don't tell" thing when writing. I have no idea why, it's weirdly difficult. Any websites or good examples about it? I'm kinda disappointed in myself. Thank u for being so kind! Much love to you

Ah yes, the classic advice that everyone says but is very hard to actually define. As a beginning writer, I always found this especially confusing because all writing is “telling” in the sense that you are telling a story. You only have words. It’s also a very hard thing to find clear examples of because “telling” might only be a sentence or two but good “showing” might take a whole scene, a whole chapter or a whole novel to do right. It’s something that takes practice and, unlike rules of grammar, can’t be fixed overnight. 

I don’t always get it right (and “right” gets pretty subjective with this topic), but as an exercise, let’s compare the first scene I ever wrote to the opening scene of Void. 

Excerpt One: Opening Scene of If You’re Struggling

(Disclaimer: I am so embarrassed by this cringey-ness. There is a reason I deleted it from Tumblr. Please don’t judge me too harshly. Writing is a learning process)

To illustrate the point (and because Tumblr’s formatting options suck) I’ve put a strikethrough on all the parts I would consider “telling” instead of “showing”.

“Have a great first day, honey!” Your boyfriend gives you a quick kiss as you grab your coffee and head out the door for your first day at your new job. You’ve been eagerly awaiting this day for several weeks now, since your successful interview with BigHit Entertainment. Up until now, you’ve been working as a makeup artist on a spec basis here in Seoul, but this is going to be your first full-time job as a makeup artist and stylist.

At the BigHit offices, you are welcomed in by the head stylist whom you met at your interview and she shows you around the offices.

“Ok, we need to get to the dressing room” she says, clapping her hands. “The boys are recording their dance practice today, and we need to do their makeup beforehand.”

Your heart beats a little faster when you realize you’re about to meet BTS. A month ago you had never heard of them, but since getting this job two weeks ago, you’ve been a bit obsessed - listening to their music non-stop as you do housework, watching all of their music videos over and over, seeking out all of their Bangtan bombs and television appearances. When your boyfriend caught you watching the “Boy in Luv” video for about the 30th time on your laptop, he wrapped his arms around your shoulders and kissed your cheek.

“Do I need to be worried about you spending so much time with these boys?” He teased.

You turned your head and kissed him reassuringly on the lips. “No!” you giggled in mock offense “look at them, they’re just kids!”

You enter the dressing room and are pointed to a makeup chair in front of a mirror. You set about cleaning up your station and setting up your kit before the boys arrive. You hear the boys coming before you see them -  shouting and laughing down the hallway before they get to the door. You are still setting up your station when the door clangs open and they burst into the room.

You turn around to find a tall, older blond boy already sitting in your chair. He gives you a smile and shakes your hand. “Hi. I’m Namjoon. You must be the new stylist.” He introduces himself as the leader and offers to help you get to know the other members. “Watch out for the younger ones, they like to play jokes on each other and everyone else.”

After Namjoon, you meet Jin. He is polite and spends most of his time in the chair filling you in on his recommendations for the other members “Be sure you get underneath Yoongi’s eyes, he was up late last night”, “Don’t go too dark on Jungkook’s lip color”, and so on. When you’re finished, he smiles gratefully at you and stands up to go.

Hoseok comes running over and throws his arm around Jin’s shoulders. “Jin’s make-up is easy since he’s so handsome already, right noona?”  he teases Jin.

“Yes, precisely.” Jin replies, not embarrassed at all, but gives you a smile before heading off to hair.

Hoseok is the easiest to talk to out of all of the boys. He peppers you with questions as you do his makeup, all about where you’re from and where you’ve worked before. Before you know it, you’ve told him all about your life, including how you moved from South Korea to the US when you were six for your dad’s work and moved back when you were sixteen. “Oh wow!” He says excitedly. “We can all practice our English with you!”

While you are talking, a loud commotion comes from the back of the room as Jimin and Taehyung are playing Rock, Paper, Scissors and shouting about something.

“What’s going on?” You ask Hoseok and he smiles, a little embarrassed.

“They’re having a disagreement about who gets to sit in your chair next…” He replies. You just blush and look away.

While the younger boys are distracted with their battle, Yoongi plops down into your chair. He introduces himself with a nod and puts in headphones.  About halfway through applying his makeup, you realize that he has fallen asleep. You look over at Namjoon, “What do I do now? Should I wake him up?” You ask.

Namjoon just chuckles, “You can keep going, he’ll just sleep through it.” When you’re finished, you gently wake him back up and point him in the direction of the hairstylist. He grumbles appreciatively and stumbles off.

Jimin has apparently won the game and comes rushing over to fill the vacant chair. “Hi. I’m Jimin.” He flashes you a devilish grin, then adds “You know… you are a lot younger and cuter than our last stylist…”

You’re a bit flustered, but Namjoon saves you. “Jimin, you can’t talk to our stylist like that!” He smacks Jimin gently upside the head and suddenly Jimin is just an adorable kid again.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry” he says and you get to work on his makeup.

Taehyung watches you doing Jimin’s makeup, making goofy faces in the mirror when your back is turned, trying to get Jimin to laugh and mess up all your hard work. He slides in when Jimin is done. He spends most of his time in the chair shouting across the room to Jimin, who is now having his hair done. You keep having to gently remind him to sit still.

The maknae is last. “Hi, I’m Jungkook.” He quietly introduces himself. He is really shy and barely says anything else to you as you do his makeup, but you can tell he is trying really hard to stay perfectly still, despite several attempts from the older members to distract him.

Once all of the boys are ready, their manager comes and rounds them up and you hear them running back down the hall to the dance studio laughing and joking. You breathe a sigh of relief and can’t fight back the smile that spreads across your face.

The first few weeks of working at BigHit are fantastic. The boys continue to warm up to you as you get to know them better. Namjoon loves talking with you in English, especially really quickly so his bandmates can’t follow what he’s saying. Of course, you can’t always follow what he’s saying either, but he is so thoughtful and full of ideas. Yoongi still often falls asleep, but he also now comes in with music recommendations for you and hands you the other ear of his headphones while you do his makeup. Hoseok continues to be your favorite, telling you all about his childhood, the audition and debut process, and filling you in on the latest gossip. Jimin and V continue to cause trouble, but are so adorable when they do that you can never stay mad at them. And Jungkook continues to be quiet and sit perfectly still in the makeup chair. He is so chatty with his bandmates that you are a little sad he isn’t more comfortable with you, but it does make his makeup easier to do than Taehyung’s.

Thoughts:

So there a lot of things here like it being her first day of work, her being nervous, and the mannerisms of the boys that would have been much better if I had showed them through dialogue, description, and physical mannerisms rather than telling them outright. It would have done a lot better job of placing the reader in the scene and would read as a bit less cringey. The last paragraph in this scene is particular egregious because instead of allowing the reader to see those relationships build over time and really invest us in those characters, I just summarize in one paragraph. 

As a result, we get to the end of this scene and we know a lot of facts, but we don’t really have any good sense of who this character is or why we should care about her or empathize with her. 

Excerpt Two: Opening Scene of Void

(Disclaimer: This is also not perfect, but it is much improved from the previous)

“Can you see them?”

You blink your eyes as you stare into the microscope, squinting against the bright light. You’ve been staring into this scope for two hours, searching for tiny signs of life.

“Maybe?” you reply. Your colleague leans in closer, close enough to smell his shampoo. Your eyes begin to water as you scour the field of view, checking each fleck of dirt for your prize. But again, you came up empty. “No, I don’t think so.”

You lean back in your chair, closing your eyes and rubbing them to relieve the strain. You didn't get much sleep last night. But you can’t bring yourself to complain to Hoseok.

He groans, standing up and twisting side to side. Your back aches in sympathy from bending over these finicky slides all morning. “We’re going to run out of samples.” The corners of his mouth pull down into a frown.

“We’ll run out of kerosene first,” you mutter. You look back through the lens one last time, hoping you missed something.  

“They should have sent us with more.” Your fellow science officer stands up and walks over to chemical storage.

“Yeah, because large amounts of volatile organic liquids are a great thing to have on spacecraft." No one else on this ship would appreciate your joke. It’s not a good joke. But Hoseok humors you and gives you a small chuckle.

“Should we try an acid?” he suggests, as he examines the inside of the storage cabinet.

“Acetic?” He nods and scratches his chest as he fishes out the necessary bottle. He walks the acid back to your lab station and sets it down on the counter next to you.

He sighs and puts his hands on his hips, resuming his twisting back and forth. He clasps his hands together and does a long slow stretch upwards. Your eye catches on the sliver of exposed skin popping into view as his shirt rides up.

His smooth skin stretches across well-defined muscles, distracting your serious scientific mind. You lick your lips as you imagine how warm he would feel under your palm. You stare at the gap between his navel and the top of his pants. Not for the first time, you find yourself wondering what his skin tastes like.

“We should dilute it.” His shirt falls back down, breaking the spell. You look away, shaking your head, embarassed by your own lacivious thoughts. You’re a professional. A highly educated astronaut and scientist. You have a PhD, for god’s sake. Focus on the mission at hand.

“Yeah, we should.” You nod in confimation before standing up to get some glassware. “What concentration?”

As you turn around to reach the water tap, Hoseok moves to reach the tablet behind you. Your small lab is so narrow that you end up colliding with him. You bounce backwards off his body, cradling your beaker of water, headed straight back toward all of your ship’s glassware. You panic. Visions of shattering thousands of dollars of lab supplies fly through your head. But Hoseok catches you before you stumble into the cabinetry. You breathe a sigh of relief when you realize he’s got you in his arms.

“Fuck.” You smile. “Sorry, Hoseok.”

“It’s okay.” He laughs, shaking his head. “My fault.” His hands linger on you as you both chuckle. You feel the heat of his touch seeping through your jumpsuit.

Despite living in such tight quarters, it’s rare that you’re ever this close to him. You try to avoid physical contact with the crew out of self-preservation.

He smells good. Hoseok always smells good. While your ship smells mechanical and sterile, the man holding you smells warm and human. It’s comforting, but in a way that makes you ache with how you long to bury yourself in him.

Your colleague lets go of you and steps backwards, coughing into his shirt sleeve. He picks up the tablet and scrolls through your research materials. The warmth of his hands begins to fade from your shoulders. He finds the correct dilution factor and reads it out to you.

You measure out the appropriate amounts of acid mixing it with water. Hoseok retrieves another fragment of the meteoroid that you’re scouring for microorganisms. When he returns, you cover the sample with the acid, stopper the flask and set it to oscillate for a hour.

“Nothing to do now but wait.” You sit down on your stool and drum on your thighs. The idea of being alone with Hoseok for another hour fills you with nervous energy. It's a relief when he excuses himself to the bathroom.

It didn’t used to be this hard. When you started this mission two years ago, you had no problem being alone with any of your crew members. You were professionals doing a job together, and there wasn’t time or energy for idle sexual tension. But as the mission drags on, you have begun to feel more and more on edge. And it’s not only Hoseok. You are finding it harder and harder to be alone with any of the crew. When you spend all night fantasizing about someone, normal conversation becomes difficult.  

You stare at the flask rocking back and forth on the counter and let your mind wander. You replay your previous clumsy moment.  You imagine Hoseok catching you in his arms again, but this time you grab him and kiss him. You smell him and taste him and surround yourself in him. You close your eyes and follow the fantasy further. You imagine dropping to your knees and sucking him off up against the glassware cabinet. You imagine the way the lab equipment would clink as he bent you over the lab counter.

Hoseok returns, brandishing his tablet. “I got the new article from Geology on microfossils, if you want to take a look.” You sigh and nod.

Thoughts: So there is definitely some telling happening in this scene too. Telling is not always the worst thing in the world, although I wrote this scene nearly two years ago, so if I could go back and edit some of this out now I would. But what I want to point out here is how much information I convey without ever having to explicitly spell it out: we’re on a spaceship, the OC is a scientist with a crush on her colleague, she is touch-starved, they are searching for fossils, etc. And I think it does a much better job than the previous example at drawing the reader into the scene. 

___

In general, here some good pointers for moving more in the showing direction:

1. Focus as much as you can on the present moment. What is your character thinking right now? What are they feeling? What information are they getting from their senses?

2. Use dialogue. Dialogue is a great way to show relationships between characters and fill in backstory without long paragraphs of just “telling” your readers stuff. Just be careful that it sounds like real dialogue and not exposition masquerading as dialogue. No one tells anyone their whole life story the first time they meet them or repeats information that the other person would obviously know. 

3. Trust your readers to fill in the gaps. Readers are very good at picking up context clues. You don’t need to spell everything out for them. If you put them in the scene and describe the world around them well, they will figure out lots of things just from context.

Hope that helps! The only real solution is to play around with it and practice and see what you like. Good luck!

[calitsnow]

So I was still thinking about the trailer of the sequel to season 2 of ducktales 2017 and thinking again about this scene:

Especially when you hear Fenton screaming for Gyro. (Yes I really like Gyro, and he can be a little too involved in all my scenarios but I want emotion with this character who lives in insecurity)

It probably means that Gyro is in danger but I wonder why? Well obviously the obvious situation: the alien invasion

However, I try to find a more specific reason why Gyro could be a more "specific" target of this invasion. More during my last post speaking already of this moment, a comment of @andrewmoocow caught my attention and stimulated my imagination, it spoke about a possible alien kidnapping, and frankly it is likely, after why Gyro in particular ?

In answer I will tell you, because of the asset that it could represent in the eyes of Lunaris. I mean, Lunaris is manipulative, he skillfully (it must be admitted) led Della to hand him the rocket plan and convince his people to lead an invasion on Earth. But perhaps Lunaris wants to acquire more weapon or means to move in space to prove the power of the Moon. Lunaris seems to be a warrior who seems to want a life of combat and greatness not a coward life like his father (we can feel the backstory). However, the people of the Moon do not seem to have any intellectual asset that can fulfill the role of scientist who can build weapons and ships especially. Since they had to wait for the arrival of Della and 10 years later (I think), to finally succeed in obtaining the plan of a rocket After it is true that the people of the Moon possesses laser pistols and vessels with guns (which proves that they know how to improve the rocket), so maybe they have a deep knowledge of firepower but not how to say..... displacement (?).

Watch as he looks pleased with him when he finally gets the precious textbook.

So it would be possible for Lunaris to search for someone who could build more sophisticated ships or other things, and who better than the one who built the spear of Selene. But how Lunaris could know that Gyro is the one who created it and well because of a small detail that does not seem so important.

Okay okay I know it's a minimalist design and it could be interpreted by someone who does not know Gyro as a little drawing of support / guide but we can recognize Gyro, moreover this drawing is in the manual that Lunaris probably had to study in depth and it's Gyro, he had to leave his trademark. Otherwise it would not be the first time we slip a detail / a replica etc ... which turns out to be very important in the future or be a foreshadowing.

So Lunaris would recognize Gyro and when an opportunity arises he will try to kidnap him or kidnap him. What can explain why Fenton will have to go to Japan to learn more about Gyro to try to find out where he might be after his abduction or that Gyro was there after the invasion.

After I thought of a scenario that remains an entire speculation and which is based only on extracts of sentences that can be taken out of their context and my crazy imagination. It seems that the Mcduck family is the main target of Lunaris, why? I do not know .... because it is the family of Della who is seen as a traitor by the people of the Moon, so this family is seen as criminals and Lunaris uses them as a means of motivation for his people is favorable to the invasion for their invasion? Maybe ... but then why are not there Gladstone and Fethry?

Well let's get back to our sheep, and if season 2 ended on a crisis situation like in Steven universe at the end of season 4 [spoilers alert] where Steven embark on the ship of Aquamarine to save his friends and having them told the latter that it was Rose Quartz and we are left on this crisis situation pending the start of season 5, so why ducktales 2017 would not do the same? (Although the situation may also take place during the episode if it happens)

And that it would be this crisis situation ,which could be at the origin of Scrooge's face:

well it would be the kidnapping of Gyro AND children or at least some, I think especially to Louis. Imagine, Scrooge and his family managed to defeat Glomgold and all his team and to repel the alien invasion (assuming that these events at the same time) and then when we thought it's was over, Lunaris comes out of nowhere, gets to catch children or one of them and maybe Gyro then takes them to a ship, while using the child (ren) as a means of pressure can be and finally managed to escape with them in front of the horrified eyes of Scrooge and the rest of the family. Louie screaming desperately for his mother and Gyro for Gizmoduck. Indeed in the trailer we can hear scream Mom! Thanks a lot to @ byrdybyrd02 for pointing out me -, - 'because being a french with a sufficient level in english I can miss details or misunderstand; brief. That's why Louie could be the victim of the kidnapping unless it is Della who is a victim and who is taken away from his family still crying desperately for his children. The situation would then be repeated: Scrooge would once again lose someone important to him who could not do anything by watching Lunaris go into space. This could lead to a significant cash outlay from Scrooge to find Lunaris, which could influence the bet between him and Glomgold (I do not know if the bet / year ends at the end of season 2) . Vultures could also be involved, revealing also their potential to be antagonists as it is understood in comic # 8

The victim could also be Fenton and it would be Gyro should have saved him but .... I think it does not work.

After the other question is it would be wise to separate Gyro or Louie or children or Della from others, probably restricting their time of appearance or devoting an episode to them. Taking into account that this situation of kidnapping will last only a short time at the beginning of the season 3 and that the people of the Moon or a part is decided to stop the revolution and would remain living on the ground (?).

Firstly, if Gyro and Louie were to involve both in this situation, it would be interesting to study their relationship but Louie is already developing a link with Goldie but one does not prevent the other.

Second possibility Gyro and Della, we already had a glimpse of the relationship between Della and Gyro that seems to be electric (?). But it could really be interesting to see them both interact, and see them try to cooperate. In addition, it would be an opportunity to discover Gyro's involvement in the construction of Selene's spear and may even have noticed Gyro's guilt for Della's disappearance and how it could be affect his life. By the way the fact that it is Della who is taken could repeat his disappearance which could be as interesting. After that could also play on the possible involvement of Penumbra. I do not think she will stay with Lunaris until the end of season 2 and she will be entitled to her bow of redemption and the development of her friendship with Della. But if it is his last separate it can be complicated but Penumbra could show a burning desire to save Della to show his forgiveness.

[By the way, a little parenthesis to all this speculation]

How Della will react to the betrayal of Lunaris and Penumbra

Okay, let's go back to things a little more built. Della believes in Lunaris and Penumbra and she thinks that the next time she sees them, it's as friends. And I'm really worried about Della and her reaction when she's going to understand.

Lunaris and Penumbra are not on his side

They used it to get a way to come to earth

She is therefore responsible for the alienated invasion

That no one of the people of the moon believes in her despite all the honesty she has shown

And that Donald is now a prisoner (because of her indirectly)

I must surely forget but those are for me the most egregious. I would like to linger a little on some:

Della will probably run to Penumbra to hug her, and there Penumbra shoots her, stopping Della's momentum for joy, who does not understand the situation. Della who will react only when his family is targeted. And all the emotion when Della will understand the whole situation that she has caused.

In any case Della's confidence will surely be affected and may be more difficult to trust and to be forgiven

[End to the little parenthesis]

So we resume with our small option:

The last option is the one where only Della or Louie is kidnapped and I do not know what it could bring.

In all three situations, one can have the opportunity to explore the background of Lunaris and what is hiding behind his intentions.

And all will end up with a rescue filled with emotions.

Also (I know I insist only on this scene, but I swear I'll try to talk about the rest X) even if my theories are not the most well-founded and sometimes very extrapolated) I can not locate this scene, impossible to recognize Scrooge's collar on only one other image.

And Scrooge doesn't have his glasses!!! (Thanks @monkey-li ;)) I do not know where to place this scene, I thought it was his pajamas but no ....

That's all my thinking, I may have been carried away X) by the whole situation but I hope that you will still have seen some interesting things ^^. I remind you that a big part of all this is pure speculation and attempts at analysis.

Feel free to share your ideas (in respect of those of others of course> ~ <)

[elumish]

hi! recently I started working on a project w/ characters who have superpowers, which is heavily sociopolitically oriented. most of my main characters are poc but I myself am not, so I'm trying to be careful; one of these poc characters is a shapeshifter, and every time I start to bring up issues this character might face b/c of the way he looks, it seems egregiously obvious to me that he could just... change. I understand that the idea of a character whitewashing himself is horrible... (1/2)

So you never sent me a part 2 but it’s been 5 or 6 hours and I think I can figure out what you’re asking from this so I’m going to just answer it.

First, I need to start this by saying that I am white, and so not the most qualified to answer this, so if I get something wrong, @writingwithcolor or someone of color please correct me.

The question you seem to basically be asking is, why would anyone sacrifice identity for safety. Because that’s the choice you’re presenting here: the character can stay who they are or make themselves white as a means to protect themself. And this is a valid question–it’s a question that mogai people have to ask themselves before coming out of the closet and a question that, I assume, white-passing POC have to ask themselves.

My answer is this: he could change his skin color, his hair, etc., but he would be actively erasing part of who he is. That’s the biggest thing he loses by making himself appear white.

People make the choice to make their lives less safe by outwardly expressing their identity for a number of reasons. One of the biggest ones is that they are proud of who they are. They are proud of their history, their roots, their body, their mind, and so they express that outwardly, even when it makes their life more difficult.

This is easier for me to explain from a mogai point of view. Many cis bi and ace people have the choice of essentially pretending to be straight. If they never wear, show, talk about, or carry anything that might indicate that they are not straight, and if they either date people who are of the expected gender or don’t date at all, they may be able to get through their entire life without anybody knowing that they are not straight. And many have done that, particularly in previous decades when it was significantly more dangerous to be outwardly not-straight. But at the same time, many have chosen to be open with their sexuality because they are, in the end, not straight, and they are proud of that. That is a real-world case of people who have the choice of essentially shapeshifting their outward-facing appearing into one of being straight (the safer choice) but choose not to.

From a meta point of view, there is also a problem with having your character decide to change like that. You are essentially presenting a situation where being white is presented as being better. And while white people are safer from violence, particularly from the police and other people of authority, whiteness isn’t better.