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Frances: You have it together. Any problem I’ve had, quickly resolved with a bit of advice. You always have a solution. What could possibly stress you out?
Icarus: A lot of things, actually.
Frances: Like what? A dog swallowed its chew toy again? Or a horse has fallen and it can’t get up?
Icarus: Is that all I’m reduced to?
Frances: Oh god, no, I-
Icarus: I’m sorry. I could have worded that differently.
Frances: Don’t apologize to me. What I said was cruel. I’m really sorry, that was so out of pocket.
Icarus: … You’re sorry?
Frances: Very. As I’m sure you’re aware, I can be a bit much sometimes. I know I can be insensitive and I’m working on it… [ mumbles ] Yet here I am, doing it again. To you.
Icarus: Frances-
Frances: Don’t try to downplay it, I crossed a boundary this time and I am so sorry. I recognize you’re a person as well, with feelings.
Icarus: …
Frances: Icarus…? Please say something.
Icarus: I’m sorry, I’m a bit taken back.
Frances: I said something wrong, didn’t I?
Icarus: [ shakes head ] No! No, lately a genuine apology is difficult to come by.
Frances: Well... I just think you deserve better.
Winona: Sooo… What’s going on here?
Icarus: Winona!
Winona: [ snorts ] Wait til grandma hears about this.
Icarus: Please go away.
[ clears throat ] Anyways… The piece you played-
Frances: [ flustered ] Yeah total shit I know!
Icarus: Jesus Frances! I was gonna say let’s have you play it again so we can refine it.
Frances: TRUE! I have this idea… What if I added a little vibrato?
Icarus: What’s that?
Frances: OH MY GOD, we studied this!
Icarus: I told you! Musically inept!!
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thinking about the industry professional i encountered who went IN on my writing because i had a “problem” with telling and not showing.
boggled my mind and confused me because passages they would point out seemed fine to me and i really have worked on showing over telling since i started writing. we went back and forth on this for months and i got increasingly more and more confused.
anyway, after a spectacularly bewildering exchange where they said to me “‘scowling’ is telling” i eventually realized that this publishing industry professional had just invented their own definition for the phrase “show don’t tell”. their version of ‘telling’ highlighted any time i didn’t go into descriptive detail in a moment where i could have (and in their opinion should have) done so.
it had nothing to do with the actual definition of “show don’t tell”. i could have a paragraph filled with nothing but action beats and the character’s internal reactions in the moment and i would get it highlighted and sent back with “too telly”. what they meant was “go into more detail here”.
i think about this every single day. there’s no moral to this story. i just. 🫡
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The thing about Peggy is, she doesn’t even like Steve?
She patronises him. She sexually assaults him. She stalks him. She shows him compassion only for as long as it looks like her efforts to attach him will be successful, but the instant it looks like her efforts have failed she violently attacks him and sneers at his dreams.
(How could she be so vicious and so dismissive so easily, if she actually liked him? Shouldn’t she be heartbroken? It’s not the wounded relationship that matters to her; it’s the wounded pride. Steve could’ve dropped down dead, at that moment, and she wouldn’t miss a wink of sleep.)
She dines out off having slightly known Steve, despite never dating him, and yet is enraged when people point it out.
(Why is the ass-covering patronage of every other powerful man in her life acceptable, except his?)
She refuses to acknowledge any of his loved ones (shouldn’t they be beloved by her, too?) because she is so desperate to establish herself as the only legitimate connection to him. And yet she colludes with his sworn enemies, across multiple universes, and even lies about it (omits to tell him) to his face, when his life is in danger because of it.
(How could someone do this, if they actually liked him?)
Peggy thinks she is ‘not like the other girls’ who throw themselves at Steve, just because while she is throwing herself at him she also talks to him like he is a child (because that’s how she talks to all men.)
She thinks she is actually better than Steve, since he is a man, and she thinks all men are essentially terrible and that this is feminism. She must be better, even though she acts just like the worst of men, because a thing only counts as bad if a man is doing it (eg. sexual assault) and only counts as good if Peggy is doing it (eg. if actual-feminist Daniel Souza dares to speak up for women in the workplace, she will tell him to shut up. Likewise, her turning a gun on Steve is #Girlbossing but Red Skull and Alexander Pierce doing it is Evil.)
This is why, despite Steve being an internationally famous decorated war hero, a film-star and a heartthrob and the world’s only supersoldier, while Peggy is an unfulfilled unimportant desk jockey... she still turns up to announce that she will one day allow Steve to dance with her, as if she is doing him a favour.
It’s because she sees Steve as essentially the same as before serum -- that is, pathetic (in need of help to get female attention.) Still pathetic, in her eyes.
But since to everyone else Steve has become a prize, she has to take Steve down a peg by reminding him of their little secret -- that despite how great he may seem, she is superior to him -- and she really believes it’s true!
(This belief is baseless. What If accidentally confirmed that she can only match Steve’s accomplishments if she is given serum... so she is not his equal without serum, let alone his superior, despite being born with considerable advantages over him.)
And this treatment of Steve as pathetic, before and after serum, we’re supposed to see as her ‘appreciating him’ for who he really is inside.
But her treatment of Steve is only un-starry-eyed (or so she likes to think) and businesslike because Steve is a man, and she thinks all men are inferior to her. He isn’t special.
(Just as, she is the only woman in the First Avenger, and their big connection is supposed to be over the allegedly-similar discrimination levelled against women as against disabled men... but this is experienced by all women, so saying she’s ‘The’ woman for Steve amounts to saying that she only qualifies for the job because she’s female, and for no other reason.)
The fact is, while Steve pays lip service to the idea of wanting a woman, he never actually acts like he wants a woman.
And does Peggy even want a man?
She comes across as someone who has remained single because her view of herself is so inflated and her view of men is so dim that they can never match up.
It’s like she’s got a reluctant mental shopping list of ‘insanely lofty traits a man would need to have to finally be worthy of Her Majesty,’ and she only awkwardly goes about trying to get Steve at all because she has realised that this famous neatly-pressed hunk Captain America has managed to tick all of the boxes, somehow. He’s a trophy she feels she ought to have, but isn’t really bothered about having.
(But then she gets repeatedly annoyed whenever that pesky little ‘Steve Rogers’ twerp keeps getting in the way of her fantasy, wanting to do the right thing instead of just doing what she tells him, and has to be violently attacked to keep him in line.)
She doesn’t actually like Steve.
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