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“You cannot demand a service while simultaneously degrading the people that work it.”

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:

(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.

you know the molecular principles behind digestion, yes? probably?? they're still teaching that in high school, right???

well, in case you need a refresher, I'll address meat specifically: the basic principle is that meat is FULL of useful proteins structures that your body would really like to take and use for its own bits, but there's a slight problem that needs to be dealt with first!

these proteins are FUCKING HUGE.

each protein is a sprawling 3-dimensional molecular structure containing hundreds to thousands of individual atoms, much much too big and also not quite the right shape for your body to repurpose!

and you need to start that blood vessel resurfacing project NOW, the funds were approved LAST THURSDAY for chrissake.

fuckin' contractors. never on schedule.

so what your digestive system does is break the proteins down into their component chunks, via a process called denaturing! the denatured protein loses its structure and unspools itself into a long ribbon, which can be popped apart and taken to wherever those individual proteins need to go in your body.

HEY ED, GET A MOVE ON! THOSE TAURINES NEED TO BE AT THE LIVER ASAP!

and this denaturing process is fairly energy-heavy, so your body is BURNING energy and materials to PRODUCE energy and materials, and just barely comes ahead of breaking even!

at least, if we're talking about raw meat.

see, your digestive system denatures proteins through an expensive chemical system, but it turns out there's a cheap, easy, and (almost) FREE alternative that will do the same thing, no enzymes needed!

heat.

heat denatures proteins by its very nature, and we can actually see the process happen if we pay attention!

transparent egg whites turn milky and opaque as their regimentally organized protein structures unspool and tangle each other into uselessness, and red pigment proteins in muscle fibers turn grey as their molecular structure changes so drastically that it reflects an entirely different spectrum of light!

if you're a human being, you refer to this process as "cooking".

so when humans first started chucking chunks of mammoth into the fire way back when, they found they could use the fire to pre-digest the meat into useable protein chunks that take WAY less energy for your body to do something useful with, resulting in a net energy gain in the digestive process even though no extra energy was actually added to the meat!

in conclusion:

FIRE GOOD.

A lot of herbivores have incredibly long digestive tracts to ferment those polysaccharides into something digestible (this is why cows have so many stomachs). Humans can do a little of that--that's why beans make you fart. It's the gut bacteria breaking down polysaccharides and releasing gas in the process. Pills like Beano contain an enzyme to break down the polysaccharides before the bacteria get to it.