@bluinary / bluinary.tumblr.com
Some day I want to see a show that does the “no filler episodes” thing from the opposite direction. Just a whole season worth of low-stakes character pieces that seem to move the overall story absolutely nowhere, then episode 26 pulls all the triggers at once and this massive Rube Goldberg machine of a plot the show’s been quietly setting up in the background the whole time hits you like a truck.
Incredible one-liners as always
yes critical analysis of media is super valuable but I think suspension of disbelief isn't practiced enough
"the beginning relied so much on fate/chance meetings/a bizarre set of circumstances that could have solved the conflict if avoided" babe that's an inciting incident
to reiterate my point more clearly: suspension of disbelief and understanding conventions of storytelling is critical analysis while nitpicking like you're cinemasins is just annoying
From Tolkien’s essay “On fairy stories”
"Children are capable, of course, of literary belief, when the story-maker's art is good enough to produce it. That state of mind has been called "willing suspension of disbelief." But this does not seem to me a good description of what happens. What really happens is that the story-maker proves a successful "sub-creator." He makes a Secondary World which your mind can enter. Inside it, what he relates is "true": it accords with the laws of that world. You therefore believe it, while you are, as it were, inside. The moment disbelief arises, the spell is broken; the magic, or rather art, has failed. You are then out in the Primary World again, looking at the little abortive Secondary World from outside. If you are obliged, by kindliness or circumstance, to stay, then disbelief must be suspended (or stifled), otherwise listening and looking would become intolerable. But this suspension of disbelief is a substitute for the genuine thing, a subterfuge we use when condescending to games or make-believe, or when trying ... to find what virtue we can in the work of an art that has for us failed."
I had that exact essay in mind when I wrote this originally!!
Not to nuance my own post, but I love the idea of a distinction between a willing suspension of disbelief (something that requires obliged effort) and the rare magic spell a literary work weaves where little to no effort is required to believe the "truth" of the make-believe world.
Here comes the nuance!
Sometimes your problem with the media being "unbelievable" is because you're in cinemasins-mode and you're not even entertaining any form of suspension of disbelief (i.e. accepting the conventions of storytelling). The solution there, I might suggest, is to consume less of that brand of "critical" content (the sort who would "ding" a musical for, surprise, having all the characters belt out their feelings).
On the other hand, sometimes the problem isn't actually you (that's nice to hear!) and the media you're reading/watching/whatever is actually failing to effectively create this, as Tolkien puts it, "Secondary World". You were perhaps watching this TV show completely engrossed and willing to suspend your disbelief about dragons and unicorns and gnomes and then POP! some weird little throw-away line or plot point bursts the dazy spell you were, until then, lulled under.
Perhaps you can believe in said dragons-and-unicorns-and-gnomes but then the story brings in, I don't know, helicopters. If the writer set this up well, establishing the "laws" of their Secondary World where this could be very unlikely but still believable, still following the rules, perhaps this wouldn't burst the spell-bubble. The magic remains unbroken and effortless. But, if it was executed poorly, if the introduction of this bizarre element isn't woven into the rules of this world, it goes from very unlikely to downright impossible. It sticks out like a rupturing thorn.
In this case, you either have the chance to just accept it and "stifle" your disbelief, something that is now a chore rather than something as effortless as breathing, or I don't know, go online and make an angry YouTube video. But as a writer (and as a reader who likes good writing), it's a great exercise to critically analyze the work (Hurray! We finally got back to critical analysis!) and why it didn't work. What broke the spell? How does this violate the Secondary World? Why can't you believe it? Why is it actively lying in the face of the established "rules" that have been established?
Congratulations you're not cinema-sins nitpicking but interacting with a piece of media with sincere intent and a critical mind!
you arent going to be capable of any meaningful kind of solidarity with anyone if your response to new perspectives or information is to pretend you already knew.
if you cant say things like “i hadnt thought about it that way” or “thats a good point” (or even, god forbid “thanks for checking me on that”) when theyre appropriate, consider whether youre actually interested in developing your understanding or if youre just invested in your political self image.
Someone said “ I don’t walk away to teach people a lesson I walk away when I’ve learned mine” and I felt that.
So that’s basically how it went down
I resent just how fucking accurate this shitpost is, congratulations OP, you effectively illustrated how Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection became accepted by the wider public using a FUCKING MUPPETS MEME, here is your A+, get the hell out of my office
also-
i think rice with things on it & also some sort of sauce is like basically the best food genre tbh
Razor stays winning
you know you're good at your job when every single person tells you "thank god you're back"
Boss makes a dollar You make a dime You read unsanitary pirate slash On company time
Look if you read fanfic on the clock and everyone is still relieved that you're back you must just be that got-dang good at your job
Fam, some jobs are like being a firefighter. 90% of the time you're not doing anything that important, but by golly, when they need you, they need you.
Some jobs, you can fuck around for six hours a day, but you know what you're doing so well that the work you do in two hours would take somebody else ten.
Some jobs, you spend those two hours preventing other people from making mistakes that would take 100 hours to fix if you weren't there to steer them right.
So don't buy into the idea that if you're not working 480 minutes a day, you're not doing enough to get paid a day's wages. That's the capitalism talking.
You're a better employee when you keep your morale up, and sometimes you do that by reading fanfiction on the clock in between putting out your little fires.
My grandad worked nights for the railroad, and he liked to say that he got paid for what knew, not what he did. There would be nights without a single train, but someone had to be there to make sure that any train that came by was on time and on the right track. It could be so slow the guys set up a projector and watched x-rated films on the clock. OP, I think your okay.
The spouse is getting curious about tumblr
Edit: watcher released a new statement apologizing and changing their course of action!
jesus no
Watchergate: 4/19-4/22
