Big Shafe's little blog

Mysteries of Love in Space #1 - “Glasses” (2019)

It’s the first draft. Use the word “suddenly.” Put as many dialogue tags and adverbs as you want. Say “he saw” “she remembered” “she felt” “they wondered” as many times as you need to. Put the em dash there, put in too many commas, use semi-colons with reckless abandon. Type in [whatever] instead of thinking up a title for something. Just write it. If you worry too much about the particulars, about all the advice posts you’ve seen saying whatever you’re doing is wrong or not good enough, you won’t get anything done. It will slow you down as you go back and try to reword what you just wrote to make it better, proper. The first draft doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to be done. And when you get to the end, you’ll find that all those “mistakes” are just clues for your future self to put together to make it all better.

The more people you have for this game, the better. It has to happen at night. The people get into a straight line, and begin to walk in that line all around the area. They cannot turn around and look at each other, and cannot speak; with the exception of the person at the front of the line.

That persons job is to begin the role call. They simply say, “Role Call!” And their name, then each person down the line says their name in turn.

Here’s the kicker: there’s one person not included in the line. The Taker. They have the job of stealing away the person at the end of the line as silently as possible. The game’s sole purpose is to instill a sense of fear and paranoia in whoever is in front, because as more people get taken, there are less and less people to say their names during the Role Call.

The front person decides when they want to start the Role Call. Obviously, the more often it’s said, the less scary it is. But as more and more people disappear, they become Takers and can then do more damage than just the one.

Some Takers can replace the person they stole, making the person directly in front of them either incredibly paranoid or safe. At least until the Role Call. Takers cannot say anything during it, so it usually ends up more terrifying to know that the person behind you is silent. Again, everyone in the line cannot make a sound except responding to the Role Call.

The game is over when the person in front is taken. There is no winning, only waiting. Waiting for your turn to go. Imagine the fear that person in front has, when they softly announce “Role Call” only to find that everyone behind them is gone.

What if supernatural creatures don’t exist anymore? What if they did once, but through the years, they slowly mixed in with humans?

You can see the blood of fairies in the way a ballet dancer hovers in mid air before he or she hits the ground. You can see it in the way that middle school girl never forgets when someone makes her a promise. You can see it in how that one little boy in the kindergarten class seems more comfortable in the forest on that field trip than the others.

You can see the blood of dryads in hikers who never trip over roots. You can see it in that suburban grandmother never lets any of her garden die. You can see it in that one kid who climbs a tree faster than his friends, barely looking at the branches as he goes.

You can see the blood of naiads in the way a professional swimmer seems to command the water to help them. You can see it in how a cross country runner needs a water break more often than his teammates. You can see it in the way that one girl in your class always has a water bottle on her desk.

You can see the blood of mermaids in a surfer who can be tossed around underwater for a long time without drowning. You can see it in a teenage boy who doesn’t have to pretend to be unbothered by the pressure when he races his friends to the bottom of a swimming pool. You can see it in the little girl who wades into every stream she sees on a hike without quite knowing why.

You can see the blood of sirens in people who never have a problem with getting people to date them. You can see it in that soprano who can hit notes most of her fellows can only dream of. You can see it in the camp counselor who all the straight girls have a crush on, who can play guitar and sing better than any of the others.

You can see the blood of shapeshifters in the way an actor adjusts their personality to become their character with scary accuracy. You can see it in the subconscious, barely noticeable changes a tween girl’s eyes make to match her outfit better. You can see it in the way you always lose that one friend in a crowd if you’re not careful, because he’s just too good at blending in.

People who carry the blood of werewolves don’t change with the full moon anymore, but you can still see it in the way your best friend always knows something is wrong, though even they don’t know they’re smelling the changes in your body chemistry. You can see it in the way that one guy always seems to eat more than the reasonable amount of red meat at an all-you-can-eat buffet. You can see it in the way that one werido never has a problem when the teacher turns off the lights before a PowerPoint presentation because her eyes adjust quicker and better than yours.

Bibbity bobbity boo!

The spider kids get another loser uncle 

Can we talk about this guy for a second? I feel like he doesn’t get enough credit even though he played, arguably, one of the most important roles in Mulan. For those of you who don’t know, this is the Chinese soldier stationed on top of the Great Wall at the beginning of the film.

After his helmet is knocked off and he sees the Huns throw grappling hooks up onto the ramparts, he calls out to the person who is supposed to be on top of the tower to light the signal. We don’t know where that person is supposed to be, but given the fact that several Huns come out from the door in this shot, we can assume they likely killed him.

But does that stop this guy? No. He judges the situation and reacts accordingly. Despite being swung at by a Hun with a large sword and being forced to pull himself up onto the tower, he doesn’t even stop to take a breather. He just grabs the torch and is about to light the signal himself when something stops him.

This guy. Shan Yu is already on top of the tower as this soldier is about to light the signal. Now, Shan Yu is already a scary mf, but I think it’s important to see how our soldier reacts to seeing him because it tells us an important detail that many people may overlook.

Look at his face. This soldier isn’t just stunned because there a massive Hun waiting for him on top of the tower, but because he recognizes said Hun. Or at least he knows enough about what Shan Yu looks like to put two and two together and assume that this is him. He knows this man and his reputation. He knows exactly the kinds of things Shan Yu is willing to do to people who stand in his way. And what does this soldier do? Does he beg for his life? Does he try to escape?

No. This bamf just looks Shan Yu right in the eye and does his duty. He lights the signal, knowing full well that doing so will likely get him killed. But, he does it anyway. And immediately after lighting the signal, he looks up the the Hun leader with this expression.

This is a man who would look Death in the face and say “Fuck you!” He knows he has maybe a few more seconds of life left and yet he stands tall. And why is this important? Because this one act of valor led to this.