#so many things I can analyze!

[monkamoo-and-more]

Cell 99

Miss Scarlet and the Duke, S1E5

[fandomunsexyman]

SVSSS is a novel with a fandom.

[ID: A Scum Villain edit of the "missing the point" meme. A bullet arcs from velinxi art of child Shen Jiu kneeling while furiously glaring. The bullet says, "People are not entirely one thing or the other and holding them to these extremes ignores the complexities that come with their humanity." It arcs over the head of a person across from it, who ignores the bullet and exclaims: "Wow!! Shen Jiu's only crime was being mean and was wrongly hated!" End ID]

[musicalmoritz]

TikTok shipping discourse is giving me a headache

So I’ve been super excited abt the recent revival of the Gravity Falls fandom because that show was a large part of my childhood. My sister and I watched it as it was coming out, I still vividly remember watching the first episode with her when it aired. It was one of my first big fandoms so I have a lot of fond memories with it (and some not-so-fond, my sister and I would always joke abt how we were just like the Pines twins so certain areas of the internet were…well, awkward to say the least)

Anyways super happy that the fandom is back but why am I seeing so much beef between Dipcifica and Mabcifica shippers??? I don’t remember there being this much discourse before, most people shipped Bill//Dip so that was the biggest rival to Dipcifica I recall seeing at the time, besides Wen//Dip. Oh and also. The other one. But usually ppl were pretty chill abt Mabcifica bcuz it went along well with the mega popular mlm pairing so like,,,even if ppl didn’t care abt them, they were content with that as a way to keep Pacifica out of the picture. There were the typical homophobes ofc but I don’t remember ppl going out of their way to hate on Mabcifica back when I was really into the fandom

This might come as a shock, but I was always Team Dipcifica. It was one of those ships I absolutely fell in love with, I read fics of them on FanFiction.Net and watched all the amvs and cosplays. I liked the idea of Dipper being the guy Pacifica could sort of run away with after escaping her toxic family because I loved her character sm and wanted good things for her. And, well, I related to Dipper a lot so there might have been some subconscious projecting going on there

So yeah, big time Dipcifica girlie but as we all know I’m also a massive multishipper and Femslash Enthusiast™️. It took me awhile to come around to Mabcifica bcuz as I was watching the show I was working through a lot of internalized homophobia, but nowadays I ship them nearly equally to Dipcifica. They are both interesting ships in their own rights with their own appeals. Pacifica was always a character in Mabel’s storylines so people shipping them romantically makes sense to me. I actually look at Mabcifica content more frequently than Dipcifica content now bcuz my main thing is sapphic ships. But if you were to ask me to pick one, I would still probably say Dipcifica

Alright now onto the current discourse. I keep seeing posts on TikTok of Dipcifica shippers explaining why they hate Mabcifica, or bashing the ship in their own edits. I also see a constant flood of comments on Mabcifica posts of ppl hating on the ship and saying Dipcifica is better. My dudes, what happened to “ship and let ship”?? Seeing all of this at the same time I’m seeing a flood of posts saying that ships don’t have to be canon or even make sense, and that ppl should let fandoms have fun, is crazy. And yes I’m gonna pull this card, it’s a little odd for people to specifically be targeting the most popular wlw ship in the fandom. “It’s toxic” mf you ship BILL//FORD

Hate whatever ships you want!! No one is forcing you to like Mabcifica. If they are then block them. But omg I thought we were trying to leave needless ship hate in the past. The ships can coexist, believe me I’m overjoyed that Dipcifica has so many canon implications but ppl are still well within their right to ship Mabcifica

I don’t even care that much abt Bill//Ford (love it and fully support it, have supported it since middle school, but I’m more of a Fidd//author girlie) but I’m glad that’s the fandom’s main focus rn, I couldn’t take it if the ONLY thing the shippers were yapping abt was which Pines sibling Pacifica should hold hands with. Another life saved by toxic yaoi

Mabcifica shippers get behind me

[ingravinoveritas]

So anna posted this picture just after the trailer the assembly got released abit it fairly obvious after the trailer showed the 1st question so is she trying to show ppl that michael happy in this photo like he smile like he happy or been made to look happy for the family photo

What ur thoughts on Al post

Ask from @kime11e, who also included a screenshot of the above comments:

(Grouping all of these together for ease of answering.)

So...whew. Of course this all had to happen on Wednesday as I was at one speaking engagement and traveling on the way to another one today. Let me just make sure I have the order of events down... - The trailer for The Assembly came out earlier in the day; - Anna then shared the above photos from the trip to Disneyland Paris; - An hour or so after that, she shared the trailer as an Insta story; - ...And then a few hours later we see that she's replied to the comment in the screenshot above.

Wow. It feels like an entire week (or month's) worth of content somehow happened in the space of a day. I will say that for me, again what this all comes down to is timing and/or PR. The trailer was released and soon all of social media was abuzz over that one particular question (It was rude! It was totally fine! Let's use this as another excuse to attack Michael! and so on...). Bear in mind that we (as of now) have no idea what Michael's answer is to that question, but that did not stop the almighty furor from the fans assuming that he must have been offended/uncomfortable/upset and so on, and this set off a wave of fresh speculation and discussion about Michael and AL's relationship.

...And just when all of this chatter is happening, AL posts the family photos. The reasons for this could be numerous, from damage control (again, without us knowing how he even responded to the question) to trying to (again) push the "happy family" image, to who knows what. Whatever the case may be, I really don't feel like the timing was a coincidence. Also again, I am baffled by her choice of caption: "We dragged him" immediately followed by the tag #itwashisidea. Two things that seem to contradict each other, leaving it unclear what the truth actually is. Was it actually Anna's idea, insisting on them going away on Michael's three days off, and using that tag as a deflection?

It becomes even more interesting when you realize that David and Georgia are currently in Disneyland as well (albeit in California, rather than Paris). Not long after AL posted the pictures, the discourse on social media immediately shifted to "Omg, are Michael and David and their families are on vacation together?" And just like that, the focus yet again shifted away from AL and back to Michael and David (as it always seems to do).

One other thing that is interesting about the caption is that one of my followers sent me the below screenshot via DM, which is of a tweet Michael wrote in 2020 for Lyra's birthday, and the similarities are quite striking:

The cadence of AL's caption and Michael's tweet could be a complete coincidence, but it's hard not to think that there is some PR aspect to this/that someone went to the trouble of echoing a previous tweet about the kids to reinforce a particular narrative.

In any case, I do think it is lovely to see Michael smiling, which he always does when the kids are there (in contrast, notably, to when we are talking about a picture of just him and AL). But what really struck me about all of this is the comment shown above, and Anna's response to it. The commenter added another response that is not shown, so I will include a screenshot of it now:

What's so interesting is that the commenter asked exactly the same question that Michael was asked in The Assembly trailer...and AL set a very specific tone in her response to that (and to this commenter).

I've been surprised to see people characterize her response as "chill," when there is really nothing chill about this at all. It's her typical passive-aggressive style, which we're all used to at this point, but it also reeks of insecurity. I have a hard time seeing how this makes her a "queen," as someone who is "unbothered" would not respond in the way that she did. Regardless of whether the commenter was asking sincerely or meant it as a dig, someone who genuinely felt confident and secure in their relationship wouldn't even respond to this comment at all. I'm also not sure what people expected her to say. Do we think she would be fully honest about her feelings or admit to any cracks in their relationship? Most people (famous and otherwise) would not, and certainly not on social media, either.

My feeling is that Anna was very bothered by this, and (again) tried to copy Georgia's snarky/quippy way of responding to comments, and likely did not at all expect that person to throw it right back at her. So why, then, bother responding at all? Why not just block the person, or ignore the comment entirely? Because from my perspective, it seems like all AL did was draw attention to it, and to the fact that it struck a nerve in her, which just does not seem to be a good look from any angle. And all of this coupled with the timing of the post directly after the release of the trailer really makes me wonder what, exactly, Michael said in his interview. We'll find out soon enough, though, since the show airs tomorrow.

That is my take on AL's post and all of the events of the past few days. As always, this is only my perspective, but I am glad to hear from my followers with your thoughts, whether you agree or disagree. Thanks for writing in! x

[sixty-silver-wishes]

me: google scholar will you please give me papers analyzing "caligari" from a disability lens google scholar: no but we have sigmund freud

me: please I don't want any more sigmund freud

google scholar:

sigmund freud

[rawliverandgoronspice]

I don't get why people hate the timeline so much, its not like you can't pretty much completely ignore it when you play the games. The only time it even approaches mattering to the story is when there is an explicit sequel like botw and totk or zelda and zelda 2

Hey sorry your ask got lost in the sauce of my broken tumblr, but: yeah!

I mean, I get why in some sense. It's been a heated point of debate and I think some people understandably resent the space it has taken not only in fandom discourse, but in how people began to understand the game and its narrative aesthetic choices. There is such a thing as over-rationalizing everything to hard logic, and sometimes it's just not the fandom for that --especially when you begin to forget it's all just fan theory and start to forget what the games are supposed to be like and evoke beyond just strict facts displayed in a linear way.

What I think bugs me with TotK in particular is that it both evokes and relies on continuity and the idea of a timeline, of archeology, of history itself, while being so loose and vacant with it that it both is doing Timeline Shit while also completely failing to understand why some parts of the fandom were invested in Timeline Shit to begin with.

But that's just my two cents of course!

[deadwerewolfgirlfriend]

Supernatural 13.20 Unfinished Business

[paging-possum]

3.5 hours of sleep does crazy things to ones brain and by that I mean. Murderbot gender thoughts

[kimbapisnotsushi]

you seem to have a good read on HQ and your takes are great, so i have a question...and if you'd rather not go there, please ignore this! but i see oikawa get called "arrogant" quite often and i'm curious, would you say he is? what is it that makes people think that? imo he has a plenty of flaws, but i truly don't think arrogance is one of them. self-centered, sure, but not arrogant i think. i'm open to being wrong, i'm just legit so confused by that particular criticism, it makes me doubting my reading comprehension. i feel like that one post that's like "free my man, he didn't do that. he did a lot of other stuff tho" LOL. if you do answer this, then thanks for your time!

oh, dear anon. this is a very very big question and i'm honored you think i am capable of providing an answer that does it justice!! i don't consider myself an oikawa expert by far, but i'll do my best because he's still very beloved to me, and i hope whatever i say helps!

(but also - maybe take what i say with a grain of salt LMAO)

anyways, to get the main point out of the way: i completely agree that oikawa isn't arrogant! i actually haven't seen any commentary about that myself (bless!!!), so i can't say for sure why some people might think that, but my guess is that they think his pridefulness = arrogance — they think that the confidence he has in himself and seijoh contributes nothing to their actual power and is utterly meaningless if they don't win, especially in the face of ushijima. which, like, come on. what kind of captain would he be if he wasn't confident in himself and his teammates? is he supposed to tell them that they're going to lose??? is he supposed to discourage their hard work and effort???

or maybe it's because oikawa acts like he's all that, but doesn't have anything to show for it. who does he think he is? what does he think his pride is worth? what right does he have to go around making grand declarations when he has nothing to his name?

(which isn't entirely true, either, but we'll get into that, promise.)

now, do i think that he can, occasionally, be flippant, shallow, and/or petty? yeah, sure. he's got one hell of a personality about it. even iwaizumi says as much. oikawa is great at being a little shit. it's one of my favorite things about him!

but is oikawa genuinely arrogant, or self-centered? well . . . i don't think so.

see, here's the thing about oikawa: he knows he's good, but he doesn't think he's good enough. i think it'd be easiest to really explain what that meant if we broke this down into two separate parts, so let's give it a go, shall we?

(buckle up, friends, because it's about to get LONG. also: TIMESKIP SPOILERS!! and there's a tldr at the start of the tags because. WOW.)

so, first things first: if people are calling oikawa arrogant, then i'm like 99% sure that they don't actually know what the word "arrogant" means.

"arrogant" is used to describe someone full of themselves. it's used to describe someone conceited and pompous. it's used to describe someone so assured of and invested in their self-importance that they don't care for other people, and if it seems like they do, then it's usually wildly off the mark and still serves to inflate their own egos.

oikawa has never once been like that. he's been pretty much the exact opposite, in fact.

and yeah, sure, by his third year of high school, he knows he's good at volleyball, and that's fine! it's perfectly all right to claim you're good at something if you have the skills/experience to back it up. confidence is healthy as long as it isn't in overabundance, and we actually see a lot of this throughout the series!

(not to mention that this was where ushijima fell short. he was overflowing with confidence. he did not believe, for even a single second, that hinata shouyou and his meager, scrappy little flock of crows could beat him.

but oikawa? he knew. he knew what it looked like to make something bloom.)

the key to oikawa's confidence that made him better was that he could pinpoint others' strengths and weaknesses just as well as he could with his own. and (bear with me, please, i might get kind of boring here bc it's nothing that hasn't been said in the manga before) i don't mean it in the way we see the coaches or more analytical players do, as observations to be taken advantage of by everyone else; i mean that in the sense of how vital it is to his position as a setter. that was always the biggest difference between oikawa and kageyama: no matter how much more raw talent kageyama had, no matter how much better oikawa believed him to be, kageyama, especially in the beginning, struggled to do what oikawa could with a team. kageyama struggled to bring out the best in each player. and it wasn't because he didn't know how -- oikawa freely admitted that kageyama had the skill for it, that kageyama, once he got his shit together, could win against him -- it was because kageyama didn't have that same confidence in himself.

(not until much later, anyways. but that's another story, for another time.)

so, oikawa's confident. he knows he's good. he can bring out the best in each player. he's got a killer serve (and a killer smile!), a mind for tactics that borders on machievallianism, and cherishes the trust he is given like it's something precious. his coaches let him lead without leaning on them. his team has the utmost respect and admiration for him. he has a reputation. from karasuno to shiratorizawa to the whole of miyagi -- there is not a single character who knows oikawa tooru and would believe that he is, in any way, bad at volleyball.

but it's not enough. despite all of that, oikawa still doesn't think he's good enough. and that, friends, brings us to the second point.

oikawa tooru is nothing if not passionate.

so were the others, of course. kageyama kept going after his grandfather's death. hinata kept going while being a nobody from nowhere with no one to back him up. atsumu kept going while osamu didn't. it's not even about just those who went pro -- kenma, kuroo, noya, and everyone else found things that they were passionate about and kept going with it. the entire story revolves around loving what you do and trying to keep that love alive, and, sometimes, that can be really, really difficult when it seems like it doesn't love you back.

oikawa was so insecure over kageyama to the point where he nearly decked the poor kid. oikawa got crushed by ushijima-- who kept telling him that his team was not good enough, that his choices were not good enough, that there was nothing good enough to be proud of -- for years in a row. oikawa was taught that there would always be someone better than him no matter how skilled he was, but if he let that stop him then he didn't fucking belong on the court in the first place.

oikawa tooru is intimately acquainted with not being good enough, but he keeps trying to be. he keeps going. he tries to keep the love alive even if he's not loved back. he pushes and practices and takes a plane far from home to become even better. even if he doesn't have the skill, even if he doesn't have the talent, even if he doesn't have the love -- he still has his pride. and what does that mean, in the end? how far does that take him?

in the end, oikawa tooru walks across a world stage and sees people who believed in him on the other side and calls it a family reunion. in the end, he gets to play the volleyball that reminds him of why he loves it and how it gives him so much love back. in the end, his pride is unyielding and unbreakable, a product of the forge. he molded it with his own two hands. he will not let it falter so easily.

arrogance would not have taken oikawa tooru this far. i hope this has proven that he is anything but.

remember: instinct is something you polish. talent is something you make bloom. and never, ever let anyone else tell you what your pride is worth.

[spikes-got-anger-issues]

⭐️ 1 ⭐️ [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18]

[sukibenders]

Suzanne Collins saying that she only writes/will only create a new Hunger Games book when she has something to say, now announcing the release of her new upcoming book AND its film release? Interesting.

[monodive]

.

[juniperhillpatient]

what it’s like loving villainous characters & acknowledging their sympathetic qualities & (sometimes depending on the character) even possibility for redemption as well as enjoying fics exploring different sides of the character without needing to rewrite canon in my analysis & dismiss the entire source material including what makes the character interesting to justify being a fan of a complicated villain

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

Phullo it is I again!

I am very glad that you actually responded and given me an actual advice since I was worried about the question I sent you.

Though besides that I have another question for you (hoorayyy)!

So, about the reading books earlier- I’m fortunately a bookworm too! It’s just that I notice I prefer reading the genre science fiction/psychological horror more than… anything else!

And while the books I am currently reading, ‘Flowers For Algernon’ and ‘I’m Thinking Of Ending Things’ (these books are seriously so wonderfully made they make want to tear my walls), DO have romantic aspects of it- it’s not really the main plot of the story..

‘Flowers For Algernon’ has amazing storytelling and is very unique- though I’m not sure if you’ve read it before but, it’s actually just the main character taking notes. Hence why there was a lot misspellings which honestly makes it a great touch if you know the context behind it.

On the other hand, ‘I’m Thinking Of Ending Things’ too shares the same uniqueness as the other, possibly even more unique if I must say so myself. Though I REALLY don’t want to make my story similar to them since I want to make it more heart warming than fucked up..

Which is why I feel like I have the need to borrow or buy at least one romantic book because, I lack of it. I mean I accidentally borrowed it one time but it was kind of disappointing.

I don’t know if its a good idea and if I should do it or not since does it really matter of the genre, or just the writing?

Still, if you have any good books that are in the romance genre. Feel free to recommend some to me!

-lots of love, from another bookworm

welcome back! happy to hear you're a bookworm as well <3 im writing those titles down since i read a criminal lack of sci-fi despite loving it

i actually don't have any straight up romance recs - i don't actively search it out (outside of fanfic), so any romance i read just comes with whatever book i've picked up. just straight up romance bores me, unless its a fic with a pairing i actively like. and even then, i need to take breaks from it unless the romance is interspersed with an actual plot. im not a romantically-geared person! i dont have single Main Plot Is Romance book on my shelves!

but imo its really just the quality of writing that helps. ive never been in a romance, im the child of two different divorces, and yet ive been told that i write romance fairly well. go fuckin figure lmao.

so actually my advice on romance is to just like. wow idk what i do is pick apart the romances i see on tv / in writing. what makes them good together, how do they act around each other, what are their love languages, what's their dynamic, what traditional romance things do they partake in, what dont they partake in, do they have anything nontraditional, do they work and why do / they dont they - does that make their relationship more interesting or is it flat. are they a good match.

you don't have to have every answer, but ive found that at least understanding their characters / dynamics, and having them interact in a way that suits them will help your romance feel natural. dont conform to tropes or tradition, that will just make the relationship flat and unrealistic. and you can always sprinkle in little things that you like / would like, which will help ground the romance and get you into the groove

tldr with romance, i think it's better to observe real life (whether that's paying attention to couples or reading reddit threads) & analyze in-love or in-a-relationship characters instead of just reading romance novels. bc honestly, and from what i can tell, they can tend to be over the top or cookie cutter

just realized you did not explicitly ask for romance advice! Oopsie! i got a little carried away here....

[thedisablednaturalist]

Unfortunately all chatgpt is good for is interview/job application stuff which I think says a lot about the hiring process as a whole

[quaranmine]

How do you go about writing mysteries? Like how your firewatch one has its slow drip of discoveries and backstories and stuff. I keep getting totally lost, cuz I already know my endings, and keep forgetting the audience doesnt and shouldnt know the same. Mysteries are fun. They are also the hardest thing ive ever tried to write.

Honestly, mysteries are SO hard. I don't really know how to write them well either. And your ask honestly surprised me some, because up until this point I have never really considered my AU to succeed as a mystery. There is some legitimate mystery in the story (as to where Mumbo is) but, as it becomes clear in chapter 10 I think, most of the things about the Forest Service, Grian's conspiratorial thinking, and finding someone to blame are just set dressing. Or, to give myself more credit, more character study than reality. Something I've had written in the outline since day one is "Is this a mystery, or is Grian just convinced it's a mystery?" Half of the mystery in the story is finding out what actually happened, and half of the mystery is actually just a character study on Grian's grief and thought processes.

I going to put the rest under a cut, it gets kind of long. I can probably talk about my AU forever honestly. And if anyone reading this isn't caught up to at least chapter 10 this will spoil things:

But anyway. I think the best advice I have is to work backwards. You say you already know your ending so it seems like you're doing that already. I knew from the moment I started working on the story how it was going to end, so working backwards from that is a matter of arranging things to be in the places you want them. Having a complete outline also helps because that's what helped me create that "slow drip of discoveries and backstories" because I wanted to reveal things at a relatively steady pace. As for forgetting that your audience doesn't know things...idk I just try to focus super hard on what has/hasn't been revealed and where everybody's povs are. I think that just becomes a learned thing. I don't just know more than the audience, I know more than all the characters too, and I have to make sure they all operate on exactly what they currently know. I think rereading your already-done work as you go helps to refresh you on this.

Another hard thing about mysteries is like....trusting the audience to make connections. I think that I often overplay my hand and spell things out because I am inexperienced in knowing where to draw the line. For this AU, I didn't really intend it to have any big twist ending. I wanted the truth to be telegraphed as the audience uses their own logic to realize that Grian's POV is biased. And even though I haven't released chapter 11 and 12 yet, I....think I succeeded? Based on the difference in comments from chapter 1 to chapter 10, I think most of my readers are where I want them to be. But I didn't know that until I actually released the chapters. Anyway, I think the surprise is less about what the answer is and more about how it all goes down.

In terms of backstories, Firewatch AU has an almost parallel "before" section. There is never a "flashback" to before Mumbo disappeared. The first scene of the story is the ground zero and we never go before that. So the timeline of the story is always "contained" despite skipping around sometimes? Over the course of the fic I slowly introduce scenes that eventually lead us into exactly how Grian got here in the present-day plot. Pretty much all the "before" sections emphasize one way or another that Grian has been struggling.

I guess I can summarize my intentions with the chapters? There's a specific structure to them and their purpose (if I could help it.) Sometimes I feel like I have this story structured within an inch of its life, which is one reason that I have been able to post as I go without needing to make any retroactive changes to already done chapters.

Chapter one: establishes the central problem in the story, introduces the main characters to each other, and introduces Grian's goals. Honestly, I think this is a great first chapter since it introduces everything it needs to. It swaps time periods more than any other one but that is because I specifically modeled it to reflect the intro of the game Firewatch.

Chapter two: introduces fire as a major plot element, and serves as character development and relationship development between Scar and Grian. Also introduces more of Grian's grief, his thoughts about search and rescue, and specifically (vitally, to the plot) allows Scar see just a glimpse of what's happening with Grian that Grian isn't telling him.

Chapter three: mostly vital character development (especially for Scar) and relationship development; I've got to set them up as becoming friends before the big stuff kicks in. also, fire lookout knowledge!

Chapter four: first big clue (found by chance, not by Grian, which sort of emphasizes the idea of things being out of anyone's control that comes up in the narrative a lot.) Bigger spotlight on Grian's emotions (understatement of the year.) Scar gets officially looped into the Real Story. From this point on the plot progresses relatively regularly.

Chapter five: more character development, and another backstory hint about Scar. also, now that Scar is looped in, he gets to contribute information to the plot by bringing the newest clue (that builds off the information revealed in chapter four) (hey grian, it turns out when you communicate to people they can assist you)

Chapter six: this chapter is mostly a flashback section, which i wanted to avoid in chapters but IIRC it was simply too long to include with chapter five. This section with Pearl serves to emphasize a few different self-destructive tendencies Grian has (isolation, his living space, his financial situation, etc.) And finally, more information Scar gives him since he has contacts from working there so long. Also, from here on out Grian's conspiratorial thinking grows.

-> side note, one part of this story being a mystery that was difficult was that like. without internet research being available in the 80s, most "detective" actions would naturally involve talking to people, interviewing, looking at documents, etc. but since grian is Alone, in the middle of the Wilderness, he has none of that. it's, uh, difficult to introduce clues when the main character has little ability to find them. I had to sit down and be like, realistically HOW can he solve this without just wandering around in the woods endlessly? It's not a fun story if all he does is hike around the forest. In the game Firewatch, that sort of worked, but that's because you're controlling Henry. It doesn't translate well to reading. But with Grian entirely on his own, exploring the forest is the only "tool" he has. So Scar is a useful addition since he actually knows people to talk to that Grian doesn't and can move things forward by bringing more information to the table. But I have to proceed carefully to ensure he isn't just a deus ex machina for any hard parts of the plot. Scar talking to someone off-screen can't solve every problem in the story or else it's a bad story.

Chapter seven: some conflict/roadblocks introduced, because Scar cannot just endlessly poke around and find information without repercussions. also, the govt loooooves to make information available only to specific people. you can and will get slapped on the wrist if you consistently overstep the boundaries of your job. also, i need Grian to contribue his own piece to solving the mystery without Scar, so with his boots-on-the ground he finds the trail Mumbo took to get to from point A to point B. He gets a dangerous idea that will later escalate the plot closer to the climax, since we're officially in the second half of the story. There's a flashback that is purposefully the first part of the story so far to have someone outright state they think Mumbo is dead (and of course it's Jimmy.) Ends with more character development for Scar.

Chapter eight: WOOOO SCAR CHAPTER! but not before some egregiously obvious foreshadowing and a distinct reminder that this is a story about fire. i break from my deep character pov for the first time just to give the readers some scientific and historical background. we finally learn more about Scar, which should in theory retroactively piece together why he specifically wants to help Grian so much: because he sees his own experiences reflected in what Grian is living through now. also, since so much of this story is Grian isolating himself and pushing help away, it is vital for him to be shown someone else Does understand him

Chapter nine: beginning of the end pt 1 of 3. we re-center fire as a risk in the story again. grian commits a few crimes, because his main motivation this whole time has been information. and he simply can't get that information sitting in a tower by himself in the woods. he is desperate to find puzzle pieces to slot together so that everything makes sense. this is also the height of his conspiratorial thinking and there's a big disconnect between how he views other people, and their actual actions. I initially didn't want the story to "leave" its main setting, I wanted it to be a bottle. But that just didn't work in practice when plotting this out.

Chapter ten: beginning of the end pt 2 of 3, and we bring the flashback scenes full circle by including grian's decision to become a lookout in the same chapter we learns he gets fired. a somewhat anti-climactic reveal of there not being all that much conspirarcy to Mumbo's disappearance, in a way that hopefully is not disappointing since hopefully everyone reading realizes Why grian was convinced of this and Why he's wrong. woooo fire again! the return of the mystical bike location that was introduced early in the plot! grian finally being forced to reckon with things he's been avoiding thinking about all story! a fallout between our beloved main characters at the 11th hour!

Chapter eleven and twelve: ???? coming soon but you can guarantee they'll deal with the loose ends here since this story is standalone in its plot

So, idk if that type of analytical breakdown is useful to you. But you can kind of see how my plot was guided by the constraints on my narrative--a lot of my choices involved either needing different characters to help grian, or needing grian to go somewhere else. but i constantly wanted to make sure that it made sense for Scar to help Grian, that Scar never overstepped his place in the narrative by being "all-knowing", and that all of Grian's decisions are driven, even to the point of Problems, by his grief. Also, to kickstart the plot, I needed at least one major shake-up to happen (in this story, finding the bike) or else Grian probably would have been just as doomed as everyone else to look in the wrong places. Since it's more or less a cold case, a breakthrough needed to happen to move things forward. So I suppose what I needed was: first, to know the ending I needed to get to; second, to know where I was starting; and third, to provide at least one major clue to give the characters an opportunity to unravel the rest.

Also, this is less about mysteries and more about characterization, but when writing Grian I put Mumbo at the highest priority in all situations. This means he is willing to tank his financial situation, his jobs, his relationships with his friends, and even commit crimes for Mumbo. He consistently does not consider his own future when making decisions. He's reactive and more than willing to take things to the extreme, which I think makes him honestly more fun to write about. I think his Drive pushes the story even when there's just dialogue sitting in a fire tower. One thing I never wanted to do in this story was soften characters' emotions or actions into something "easier."

anyway, this is a story about trying to find logic in places where there is none, coping badly and learning to cope, accepting support from others, grief, and finding closure <333 thank you for your ask it was very sweet to be asked for advice and hopefully SOMETHING in this essay helps <333