"But if she had plenty of books she could console herself. She liked books more than anything else, and was, in fact, always inventing stories of beautiful things and telling them to herself." -Frances Hodgson Burnett
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βoh no, my audience has begun to guess the big twists of my story and are accurately predicting what will happen!β
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
(youβre 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 didnβt think about providing any other explanation. I had no idea it would spread this far.)
Iβll 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 werenβt 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 ΒΎ 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 werenβt 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 werenβt 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 forwardβbut first they needed to buy some time and throw the fandom off the scent for a little longer.
hence, Alexβs 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 βleakedβ 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:
β¦before quickly deleting it (though not so quickly that it didnβt get seen, of course).
it worked well enough to distract most people for a while, and wasnβt 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 wasnβt far off, and while people did still work it out ahead of time, it was more of an βOH MY GOD I KNEW IT!β moment than a βbooooooring, weβve known that for agesβ 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 doesnβt affect the story itself at all; if you watch Gravity Falls todayβor if you were watching it when it aired without any significant contact with the fandomβyouβd never know about it. ultimately, the problem the writers were facing wasnβt that some people might guess the answer to the mysteryβthey never wanted to make it completely impossible to predictβso much as it was that they hadnβt 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 thatβs very much targeted toward delaying that group problem-solving, without actually affecting the experience of any individual person watching the show.
plus, itβs very in keeping with the overall tone of the show.
Holy shit I did not intend to buy this many books but uhhh 1. it's my birthday and 2. a bunch of family members gave me money for books (knowing this event was coming up).
I'm not gonna dramatically say I won't buy any more books for the rest of the year as there are some new releases I'm looking forward to, but any book-shopping will have to fall into the weekly spending budget bc the Fun Treat Money budget has been depleted lmao.
Stores/list of books/etc below the cut (mainly for my own record keeping lol)
I went into this with a list of books I wanted to find, and I partially succeeded! The list was:
As much murderbot as possible
Carmilla - Sheridan le Fanu
The Shining - Stephen King
Big Swiss - Jen Beagin
Some Frieren, Dungeon Meshi, and/or Witch Hat Atelier
The Ending Writes Itself - Evelyn Clarke (pen name for V.E. Schwab and Cat Clarke)
Make Me Better - Sarah Gailey
The Lamb - Lucy Rose
Klara and the Sun - Kazuo Ishiguro
I found all of them except WHA (they only had book 1), Make Me Better (miffed that no one had it lol), The Lamb, and Klara and the Sun (tbh I forgot to look for these).
The Stores
For this crawl we went to 6 different bookstores: Slow Burn Books (romance bookstore and the only one I didn't buy anything at, sorry Slow Burn), Nocturne Books (horror themed store just down the street from Slow Burn), Words and Pictures (comic store), Forbidden Library (another romance store, though much darker aesthetically), The Next Page (my old haunt, which I sadly rarely get to these days), and Owl's Nest Books (the city's oldest bookstore and first female-owned retail business!)
Stop 1: Nocturne Books
This store is SO cool and unique, much like its' cupcake-coloured counterpart Slow Burn. I've developed an appreciation for small, genre-specific stores lol. I have a friend who loves horror and I was so glad we finally got to go here, since it's in a part of town that can be difficult to get to from our area. Also: George the skeleton:
Books purchased:
Sublimation - Isabel J. Kim (someone I follow on tumblr has been obsessed with this book recently so I decided to give it a shot)
If We Were Villains - M. L. Rio (read this ages ago, loved it, but hadn't bought a copy yet)
The Shining - Stephen King (I watched the movie last winter and really liked it, but I know King hated it so I wanted to read the book and compare. Also, the movie is very weak on the lore and I'm hoping the book has more of that)
The Road Through the Wall - Shirley Jackson (I'm always on the hunt for her books!)
Carmilla - Sheridan le Fanu (I read Hungerstone recently and wanted to read the original Carmilla to compare)
Stop 2: Words and Pictures
This was a fun store, the owners were VERY enthusiastic about a bunch of mostly thirties-ish, mostly romance-reading women taking over their store lol. They had a really great selection, but alas and alack didn't have the Home Sick Pilots or Monstress trade paperbacks that I'm missing, so I bought manga lol.
Books purchased:
Delicious in Dungeon/Dungeon Meshi vols 3-4 (I have 1-2 being shipped to me. I'm doing as the internet says and buying them chronologically lol)
Frieren vol 7 (they only had vols 7, 11 and I think 13, so I bought 7. I've read up to vol 6 so it made sense to me)
The Elegant Courtly Life of the Tea Witch vols 1-2 (this one was new to me but it looked super cute)
Stop 3: Forbidden Library
This place ended up being really cool--mainly because it's in a mall I didn't know existed, and that same mall has the legendary Video Game Trader (had only visited their booth at cons before). We visited VGT, got some lunch, and then doubled back to Forbidden Library. It's a nice counterpart to Slow Burn, being basically the goth twin of it and carrying merch thats a bit spicier (including having a hidden back nook with a shelf of Extra Spicy Erotica lol):
(I will forever be chuckling at the cockmarks)
Books purchased:
White Teeth, Red Blood: Selected Vampire Verses from Pushkin Press
Stop 4: The Next Page
Ah, my old haunt. I used to work just down the block from this place, but my office moved a few years ago. I somehow had no idea that the entire basement is filled with used or discounted books! The top floor is full enough, with delightful if logistically challenging floor-to-ceiling shelves. With a little parlour, I was able to retrieve some books.
Books purchased:
The Ending Writes Itself - Evelyn Clarke (yay, goal accomplished! I almost fell off a stepladder getting it OTL. friend bought it for me as a bday present)
The Mimicking of Known Successes - Malka Older (had never heard of this before, but it's a tor.com novella and sounds interesting!)
System Collapse and Platform Decay by Martha Wells (accomplishing the Murderbot Goal--i checked every store and these were the only two available, alas and alack. I'll hunt down the rest eventually, but for now I will make do with the library)
Cult Following: The Extreme Sects that Capture Our Imagination and Take Over Our Lives - J.W. Ocker (my friend found this for me!! really excited to have more Cult Content and the cover is very neat)
Sleeping Giants - Sylvain Neuvel (I originally had this confused with another sci fi novel, I think, but I've heard good things about it so I wanted to give it a try!)
Dragonsong - Anne McCaffery (finally found the first book in the Dragon Riders of Pern series!!)
Stop 5: Owl's Nest Books
As mentioned above, this place is kind of a local legend. Not a bad place, but considering how much I'd heard about it, I expected it to be larger. It's very much a store that tries to cater to everyone and is more family/child oriented than some of the others. Still found 5 books there though so I can't complain too much LOL
Books Purchased:
Dead but Dreaming of Electric Sheep - Paul Tremblay (saw someone recommend this for people who like Backrooms...i haven't actually seen it yet but I like the concept)
Seasons of Glass and Iron - Amal El-Mohtar (borrowed this from the library a while ago and loved it, so I had to get a copy)
Big Swiss - Jen Beagin (this has been on my list for a while, though I didn't become interested until its popularity had faded and it went from being everywhere to difficult to track down...except for at the library where it still had a massive holds list. finally found a copy!)
Station Eleven - Emily St John Mandel (another one that's been on my list for a while and I couldn't seem to find, plus the library holds list was super long)
Never Whistle at Night - edited by Shanw Hawk and Theodore C. Van Alst Jr. (this one has been on and off my radar, as I'm pretty picky about horror and anthologies aren't always a good investment (some tropes good, others nightmares lol) but I have mutual who liked it so I decided to give it a try)
Annnnd that's it! After the Owl's Nest we went to a bar/arcade downtown called Greta for dinner. I had a wonderful but expensive Sage Mai Tai (the irony of spending ??? on books and then complaining about a $15 drink lol)
It was a REALLY fun time and I'm really glad we chose to do this! Despite the rain it was a great way to spend the day (and frankly, my usual birthday plan of going on a hike would not have worked out due to the rare "rex block" weather phenomenon that's dousing the whole province). When so many other people are in a horrible heat wave I can't really complain (though I am worried we're going to get a flood or tornado).
Now it's time for me to go take a very, very long bath and then agonize over how to fit all of these on my shelves...
June book club! Odd, very unexpected, but a delightfully interesting read nonetheless (I really want to see what they did with the movie adaptation now)
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
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Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
β Live Streamingβ Interactive Chatβ Private Showsβ HD Qualityβ Free Actions
Free to watch β’ No registration required β’ HD streaming
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