Nonsensical Ramblings

eveeyones got it wrong your mid 20s arent for going to the club or partying or picking up new crafts. your 20s are for discovering how much more autistic you are than you thought you were in high school

Don’t get sucked into the “if they really cared I wouldn’t have to say something” spiral. No matter how close you are with someone, it’s unfair to expect them to know things you haven’t actually communicated.

some people think writers are so eloquent and good with words, but the reality is that we can sit there with our fingers on the keyboard going, “what’s the word for non-sunlight lighting? Like, fake lighting?” and for ten minutes, all our brain will supply is “unofficial”, and we know that’s not the right word, but it’s the only word we can come up with…until finally it’s like our face got smashed into a brick wall and we remember the word we want is “artificial”.

I couldn't remember the word "doorknob" ten minutes ago.

ok but the onelook thesaurus will save your life, i literally could not live without this website

REBLOG TO SAVE A WRITER'S LIFE

when gerard way sings "the broken, the beaten, and the damned" and when kermit the frog sings "the lovers, the dreamers, and me" they're talking about the same people btw

Dashcon (the father)

Fyre fest (the son)

Glasgow willy wonka experience (the holy spirit)

wait i can abuse substances instead of feeling things

“oh no, my audience has begun to guess the big twists of my story and are accurately predicting what will happen!”

incorrect response: write the rest of the story to be as twisty, shocking and counter to expectations as possible, regardless of whether this is a logical or satisfying way for the plot to go

correct response:

can someone elaborate on the “make hoax” and “post angry tweet about “leak”“ part. i’m stupid and don’t understand things

sure!

(you’re not stupid. I posted this thinking it would amuse a handful of mutuals who all knew the context and that would be about it, so I didn’t think about providing any other explanation. I had no idea it would spread this far.)

I’ll start from the very beginning just to be thorough. so this is Alex Hirsch, creator and head writer of Gravity Falls, a show which had a big focus on mystery, conspiracies, codes and ciphers, etc. the whole plot is kicked off by one of the main characters finding a mysterious old journal in the woods, which detailed all kinds of weird and supernatural things, but then ended abruptly with the author saying they had to hide the journal because they were being watched. the central driving mystery of the show, therefore, was the question of who wrote the journal and what happened to them.

now, the thing about Gravity Falls is that, while it must be said that the writers weren’t always quite as sure of their plans as we tend to like to think they are, it is very much a fair play mystery, with legitimate clues to what was going on. but the writers were caught off guard by how quickly the show attracted a dedicated audience, including a lot of people outside the primary presumed demographic, who started solving the clues faster than expected. so some of the fans were able to correctly guess who the author was before it was revealed in the show, and the theory started spreading. this put the writers in something of a panic, because this was THE mystery that the whole story revolved around, with ¾ of the show building up to the dramatic reveal in the middle of season 2. they wanted it to be a mystery that could be figured out, sure, but they weren’t prepared for people to solve it so far in advance of when it was planned to be revealed, which would have really taken away from the big moment. they weren’t going to change the main story itself, but having been caught unaware by how much attention the fans were paying, they wanted to up the ante and make the mystery more complex to solve going forward–but first they needed to buy some time and throw the fandom off the scent for a little longer.

hence, Alex’s plan as described above. they whipped up a fake shot that appears to give away the identity of the author as being another character in the show, put it on a screen in the studio as if it was a real animation frame, took a picture of it, and ‘leaked’ it online. it was initially decided to be a hoax (albeit, I think, presumed to be a hoax originating from outside the production team), until Alex posted this tweet:

…before quickly deleting it (though not so quickly that it didn’t get seen, of course).

it worked well enough to distract most people for a while, and wasn’t revealed as a hoax until a year later, when an episode aired that definitively proved that the supposed screenshot could never have happened, at which point Alex owned up to the whole thing as seen in the tweet above. by then the episode with the real reveal wasn’t far off, and while people did still work it out ahead of time, it was more of an “OH MY GOD I KNEW IT!” moment than a “booooooring, we’ve known that for ages” moment, which of course was what the writers wanted all along.

personally I find this a fascinating approach to dealing with the problem of spoilers, because it doesn’t affect the story itself at all; if you watch Gravity Falls today–or if you were watching it when it aired without any significant contact with the fandom–you’d never know about it. ultimately, the problem the writers were facing wasn’t that some people might guess the answer to the mystery–they never wanted to make it completely impossible to predict–so much as it was that they hadn’t designed the story to stand up to so many people working on the puzzle together, which resulted in a sort of total output of puzzle-solving ability that far outstripped the capability of any one solo human being. so their solution is something that’s very much targeted toward delaying that group problem-solving, without actually affecting the experience of any individual person watching the show.

plus, it’s very in keeping with the overall tone of the show.

and now you know!

if your audience guesses the ending of your story

don’t:

do:

they should invent a past you can change

i talk my shit but do you guys remember being 12 and in 2008 and you heard viva la vida by coldplay for the first time and you were like fuck this is so powerful. i'm going to kick the ass of god

I sometimes see people argue about one of these circles as though it were all three circles.

Sometimes something can totally make sense in-universe, and fit with the themes of the story, the characters, etc... And you just don't like it for whatever reason. Maybe it wasn't done well in spite of that, or touched a nerve, etc.

Maybe you loved a story, and it was an excellent exploration of a character, but it would be totally fair to call out the technical nonsense, and how, even in-universe, it doesn't add up.

And maybe you thought this episode of a show was GREAT! But it was non-canon, nothing made sense, and, ultimately, it was UTTER NONSENSE.

And so on, and so forth. Heck, you could fairly add more circles to this. I'm keeping it simple with three.

My point is mostly that there's nuance to opinions, and sometimes, someone not liking something in a story has nothing to do with whether it made sense, or complimented the narrative.

Those things can be separate points. Stories don't have to be a failure at everything to be disliked, or succeed at everything to be liked, and arguing as though that were the case is silly.

(Looks at note numbers)

So I'm guessing plenty of people are tired of a lack of nuance when discussing fiction.

jobs for autism boy NO phone call NO schedule NO talking to people NO emails NO computer programming or sex work NO becoming a youtuber NO starting a band NO leaving my house NO one gets mad at me. $27 per hour please

stuck in the time loop but i just use it as a free day off. im not even trying to get out. i am teaching myself to knit. i am crocheting. i am cooking. not even doing anything crazy. just escaping capitalism for a week. day 375 and im not sure what lesson it's trying to teach but i've taught myself to hand make lace so all is well