mraky v kafi

It didn’t work. It didn’t save her. But it’s so very possible that he spent his last moments alive trying to save someone else, one of his crew, and they probably both knew that it wouldn’t work, that there wasn’t a lot of hope in a blizzard on the lakes in November, but he tried … he tried anyway. Even if it did nothing but maybe make her body easier for her family to find.

You know that Mr Rogers thing of ‘look for the helpers’? How many times has someone, facing the end, done something tiny and fragile and maybe hopeless just to try and help someone else? Whether it works or not. How many people went to their graves at least trying?

That has to say something about us. As a people. As monstrous as we sometimes (perhaps often) are, so many times we were also …

Whoever saves one life, saves the whole world.

And sometimes you can’t save one life, sometimes it doesn’t work, sometimes there’s no getting out of this for anyone, but … try anyway. Because it matters anyway.

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.

don’t:

change the ending

do:

"some people say figure improving is coded language for breast support, but –" yeah they say that because it is. Not exclusively, but that's part of it. Hope this helps

"Corsets were not Just Bras!" they were in the way that people are actually trying to make this argument, namely they served one of the main comfort related functions of bras and based on non-sensationalized discussion about them from women at the time (of which we unfortunately do not have much) responses to their most common use case seemed to run broadly the same gamut as those to bras in the present day.

The point of saying "corsets were the bras of the Victorian era" is not so much to say that there's absolutely no difference between them, but to shift public perception of their role in society from what the media constantly hammers into us, to something closer to what it actually was. Namely, a garment that did serve practical purposes frequently related to comfort for many women but which was also sometimes controversial and, for some women with sensory issues or different support needs, never going to work comfortably no matter how well it was fitted

Of course there was a silhouette element to it; no one at an academic discussion level above a Youtube comment is saying that there wasn't. but the point, and what you're unknowingly or perhaps knowingly arguing against by making these videos, is that it had a practical purpose and was not just a unilateral torture device forced upon women by the patriarchy

I don't know why dress reformers would consistently mention breast support in their anti-corset discussions or endorsements of corset alternatives if it wasn't a major function of the garment. I don't know why Caresse Crosby, considered by many to be the inventor of the modern bra, would have mentioned breast support as the main issue of going without her corset in an evening gown if it wasn't a major function of the garment. I don't know why "reducing corsets" would have been given a name as a distinct category of the garment if all corsets were primarily meant to reduce the waist

Was figure shaping part of it? Of course it was; no one is saying it wasn't. But to say that breast support wasn't the main function of a corset, or at least a significant function, it's just… I don't even know. The vibe is very "I'm not like other historical costumers; I AGREE that obviously we all know of corsets were horrible and only meant for Shapewear!!!!!"

Now That's What I Call Fallout Textposts: Ghoulcy Special Edition 2.5