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Rewatching Treasure Planet (great movie, watch it) made realize something about the way that stories convey information to their audiences. There's been a lot of discussion on the overuse of plot twists and how many stories prioritise surprising their audience over telling decent stories. However, if you instead reveal the "twist" to the audience before it becomes known to the characters, you can build tension and stakes. Treasure Planet comes right out and tells you that Long John Silver is the main villain almost immediately after his introduction (And even before he's introduced we're warned about a cyborg, so you'd have to be pretty dense to not put 2 and 2 together and realize he's a bad guy). So when the audience watches him and Jim bond and grow closer, it builds tension for when Jim finds out and it highlights the tragedy of their friendship, because we all know it's not going to end well. Then, after the truth is revealed, stakes are created because we want the friendship between Jim and Silver to be repaired, because we know it was real, but we don't know if can be after what Silver's done. And all of this would have been lost if Silver's true nature had been a cheap plot twist. The tragedy would be completely overshadowed by the surprise and betrayal, and any investment in their relationship would have been built on the false impression that Silver was a good guy.

Another good example of this is Titanic. Even if you were somehow ignorant of the ship's sinking, the film makes sure you know that it sank with its framing device of Old Rose telling her story to people salvaging the Titanic's wreak. And Titanic's plot structure could only possibly work if you know the ship is going to sink. I'm not just talking about building tension, tragedy, and stakes for the characters like with the above example, I mean that if you didn't know that the Titanic was going down walking into the film, the abrupt shift from romance to suspense-disaster would be an increadibly tough pill to swallow. But it works because we expect it. You don't walk into a film called Titanic without expecting the damn boat to sink.

However, the sad thing about both of these examples, is that despite all the benefits that came from telling the audience these things ahead of time, I think the main reason the creators didn't make them plot twists was because they couldn't have. Treasure Island is the single most influential piece of pirate media out there, and you'd have to have been living under a rock for over a century to not know the Titanic sank. So, the writers had to work around the fact that these important turning points in the narratives were common knowledge, and they wound creating incredible stories as a consequence.

I want to see more of this style of writing in stories where the writers aren't forced to do it. We've clearly seen that you can tell some really damn good stories by giving information to the audience before the characters learn it, and I just wish more works would do that instead of trying to surprise people with shocking twists.

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Welp. Google's AI horseshit has arrived. And I'm not complying. They can pry my ID out of my cold dead hands. I will simply go elsewhere. Remember folks, DO NOT GIVE THEM YOUR IDs. Do not comply. Resist, fight it, use other browsers or sources beyond youtube and google controlled services. Call them. Email them. Make noise. Fight back.

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fine I’ll be the one. Can we see some of Devoid in a bikini?

miss for height comparison! i need you all to understand just how tall devoid is

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new knight design chat

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i like ford because he is strange and off putting

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i think its really really important to remember how EASILY stan couldve dropped a "now i have to deal with you BRATS for the summer.." or ford to slip a "dont let these snotty little children near my lab again, stan." but instead they never do that like. idk.

i like how the show makes it a very important and clear point that at least hear, the twins are Loved and Cherished and Wanted. so very wanted.

stan ADORES THEM. in his bones. hes trying to give them freedom but he is so so worried.

ford goes from growling to MELTING on sight "shermie had kids?" they are his babies.

its a very good and nice point like. these children are Loved and Wanted and their guardians are trying so hard and that is the bare minimum. and Not loving your kids is a bad fucked up thing to do with bad consequences.

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thanks tumblr for taking down my piece about censorship! heres a more censored version. i think its an improvement, really

(hey. you can still see it uncensored on bluesky.)

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I pass this sign in my hometown very frequently, and as long as I can remember (over 20+ years) it has always looked exactly like this. Nothing but residential housing for a handful of miles, and yet..

IF

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“you should be at the club” Brother I should literally be sent to the seaside for my health

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Sorry we really went from free the nipple, take back the night, slut walks, and ending gender/sex segregation in sports being fucking milquetoast feminism 101 concepts to fucking girl dinner and "I just worry about fairness if we let trans girls play against cis ones" and "it was right of that woman to call the cops on a black man for existing near here in public during the day time because men are all violent monsters" and "radical feminism isn't transphobic we just need to kill all men including trans ones those oppressive traitors" and I will legit never be able to be normal about it. What the FUCK happened. I'd say I wonder what the feminists of my youth would say about this but I'm one and lemme tell ya I want to throw up. Go fucking read bell hooks or do something else useful please because all of this learned helplessness, gender essentialism, and transphobia dressed up as feminism is actively holding us back.

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thinking about how one of the first things we learn about susie is that she's so hungry she eats the classroom chalk, and its heavily implied she doesnt have any food at home.

thinking about how the first thing kris does when they rip out the soul in chapter 1 is eat the pie their mother made, and then again in chapter 4 the first thing they do with their freedom is drink chocolate milk, its implied that they dont get a chance to eat when we control them.

thinking about how susie and kris bond over the weird shit they eat and drink. the moss, the fruit juice, the apple shampoo. although the circumstances are different theyre always on the same wavelength when it comes to food.

and most of all thinking about how the first thing ralsei promised kris and susie was that he'd bake them both yummy cakes. and then he did. but he knows no matter what he bakes he cant take away their hunger. the worst curse of all; he knows about everything.

the cake isnt real, he isnt real. but he wants to be. for them, oh, how he wants to be.

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having used tumblr as a teenager is a vaccination against using tiktok today

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my favourite thing is probably the scientific name of the Grizzly bear. 

It’s Ursus arctos horribilis. “ursus” meaning bear in Latin and “arctos”, bear in Greek.

so essentially a grizzly is a “horrible bear bear.” 

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why do they have the same hairline

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every single school teacher should get paid $300,000 a year minimum and ICE agents should all die simultaneously in agony. this is my congressional budget plan

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byron donalds gave his life to christ in a cracker barrel parking lot. now you too can learn what religion you can convert to in a fast food restaurant parking lot by spinning these handy links!