If you haven't heard, the em dash has been getting a lot of attention lately…
Because it was trained on pirated work—including freely accessible online writing (like fanfic, academic texts)—ChatGPT picked up patterns and quirks native to human writing.
Including (sigh) the em dash.
There are other victims here (RIP tapestry and delve 🫠), but the appropriation of the em dash—a punctuation mark beloved by writers everywhere—feels especially personal.
A kind of low-grade panic is ensuing. Writers who once memed their own em dash overuse—the greatest punctuation mark ever to grace the control-freak’s lexicon, frankly—are suddenly backing away to avoid accusations.
No. More. We have centuries of dash-abusing writers behind us. We will not sit quietly while AI repurposes our beloved stilted aside—or the just-one-more clarification the sentence demands—or the dramatic pause your comma could never—etc.
You don’t write like AI—AI writes like you.
Defend the em dash.
(Feel free to download/share/stick it where it matters!)
As Mabel entered what used to be the Mystery Shack Gift Shop, Dipper's eyes followed her.
She smiled at him as she set her massive suitcase on the counter besides him, as if said suitcase did not contain a sniper rifle. As if her teeth were not covered in dirt, grime, and dried blood.
Dipper opened his mouth to make a remark at his sister, but Grunkle Stan's entrance to the room interrupted him. "Mabel!" He addressed Dipper, "Excellent shot, sweetie! Dipper tells me it only took you one bullet."
If they were identical twins, this confusion would be far from a shock. But they were far from identical—Fraternal twins of the opposite gender, Mabel's long brown hair tied back in a braid almost reaching her waist, and Dipper's nearly a mullet—
They looked nothing alike.
"I- I'm sorry, kids..." Stan recovered, guilt stricken. "Ford asked for me to send you two his way once Mabel returned... I think you know why..."
The twins exchanged another glance.
Even Stan was struggling to tell them apart. Things were getting more serious.
Ford was expecting them when the elevator doors opened.
Unlike the rest of the mystery shack, Ford's lab was entirely new. After the shacktron collapsed during their retreat from Bill's Fearamid, the place it had fallen became their new permanent location.
Anything below the surface of the mystery shack had been left behind, so Ford took it upon himself to spend his days reconstructing everything from the ground up.
In this newly constructed lab, Mabel and Dipper could only stare at him expectantly.
Ford started between the two of them. As if he were planning on addressing them separately, but decided to give up before uttering either of their names.
"Our attempts to slow... your... process... have not been successful."
"You can't tell us apart?" Mabel asked, softly.
Ford shook his head. "There are some details that remain separate... but no. Each and every day, you two are becoming closer and closer to one."
Again, Mabel and Dipper shared another long look.
When Mabel looked at Dipper, he still looked like her twin brother. A little dirty, sure. His hair was overgrown, and he hadn't cut his nails in months. But he was still Dipper.
Everyone else, on the other hand, saw them as each as each other, as well as neither of them. Like they were both stuck in some sort of in-between state of their own bodies, changing more and more each and every day until they were no one at all.
"What happens next?" Dipper asked logically. He was always the logical one. Mabel could only stare in silence. "What is happening to us?"
"I believe," Ford's words got caught in his throat. He didn't want to say them. "I believe that you are no longer two siblings. I believe you are one individual."
"You think one of us died."
Dipper and Ford's head's both shot up to stare at her. Mabel continued, unfazed.
"Admit it, Ford. One of us is dead. And we all know which one—"
"No!" Dipper snapped, "We've gone over this a thousand times. It was a Pine Tree when he—!"
"It was a shooting star!"
Eeny, Meeny, Miny, YOU!
The image of a shooting star in that demon's eye was burned bright into Mabel's head, so much so that she knew it had to be true. When Bill snapped his fingers, she was the twin to die.
"Enough!" Ford snapped, before Dipper could continue to add to the argument. "No matter what happened— no matter what symbol was shown— you are both still here. We need to solve this, and debating the past will not help. Arguing over it does nothing for the two of you."
"Then what's the plan? What are we going to do?"
Mabel wished Ford had an answer for the two of them.
"I need the two of you to not panic. My research is missing what I need to help the two of you, but I'm making progress."
Dipper scoffed. Angrily, almost. "You didn't just come down here to tell us not to panic, Ford. What do you need from us?"
Ford flinched. Mabel didn't know if it was because Dipper was speaking the truth, or if it was because he was reminded that Dipper didn't call him Grunkle anymore.
Either way, he didn't address his concern, getting straight to the point.
Mabel's sniper rifle was beginning to dig into her shoulder blade.
It had been hours since the last time she moved, and she knew it could be hours more until she'd be able to move again.
So Mabel stayed frozen, ignoring the digging in her shoulder blade and the cramping in her back. She breathed through her nose, silently and lightly, barely blinking as her eyes stared at the terrain below.
Movement.
Beneath the sand, hundreds of feet below her, something moved.
She moved her sight a few degrees to the left, trying to focus in on the movement. She needed a definite target.
The shifting continued, but nothing appeared upon the surface of the sand. Mabel knew she had the vantage point of a lifetime— a shot she would never be able to take again.
But at the same time, if she missed it would burrow back down, only to be seen again when least expected and least wanted. To be seen again when she wasn't as prepared.
With a glint of red, a sharp horn protruded from the sand.
POP!
The bullet hit its mark.
A scream echoed across the planes, making trees shake and popping Mabel's ears. The creature shot out of the sand, thousands of rows of teeth bared to the sky.
Then it collapsed, going completely still against the sand and rubble below.
Mabel could finally breathe again.
Her back relaxed. Joints popped as she finally shifted out of the position she had been in for what felt like hours. For what had probably been hours.
Mabel stretched her arm back, fingers finding the black shape of a Walkie-Talkie at her waist. "Sand snake is down."
For a moment, the radio only played back static and bits of radio stations that had been dead for months.
"I'll let Ford know," Dipper's voice cut the static. "We'll probably send out a party to salvage it later... Can you start heading back home?"
Home, as it had been for the last year and three months, was what remained of the mystery shack after their great fight with Bill Cipher. Sure, the place still had a T-rex sticking out of one of the walls, and car shrapnel had been recoiled through most of their windows, but the shack had become home in a world of no shelter.
Mabel pulled apart the individual pieces of her gun, slowly packing them back into their case. Sliding this into her bag, she held the radio with one hand and slung her bag over her opposite shoulder.
"Copy that, bro-bro. I'll be home before dinner."
Instead of offering her a response, Dipper's end of the radio went silent.
One year, three months.
One year and three months since her and Dipper had traveled by bus to the cursed town of Gravity Falls, and one year since they unsuccessfully rose against Bill in the Shacktron. One year since they got their butts kicked and handed back to them.
The weirdness bubble containing Gravity falls had not yet been broken. Its borders had been pushed, spanning across all of Oregon, some of the pacific ocean, a sliver of Canada and some surrounding states. Mabel studied the height of the border from her vantage point of the mountain, slowly scaling her way back down to safe land.
He had been hopeful, at first. They would come back for him. He would be saved. But hours stretched to days, and days began to build weeks, and the weeks made him even more sure of the rotten truth.
He had been left for dead.
By his teammates. His friends. His family.
They had left him to die.
So die he did. That version of him anyway. And now, looking upon a familiar face that used to fill his heart with such love, and hope-
A character who thinks they are going to die, but as the plot progresses slowly realizes they already died a long time ago.
They start off fighting so much. They're strong, and persistent, and the most boneheaded protagonist possible.
They fight against their enemies, valiantly. Cursing their captors, even as they are outmatched, because they know one day they will escape. One day they will be stronger.
But then they noticed their hair has stopped growing. They haven't had to cut their fingernails in quite some time. And has their skin always been quite so pale?
Every single day they fight they seem to be getting weaker and weaker. Every single escape attempt is less successful.
Posion, they think.
Their enemies must be poisoning them. It's something in the food or water making them sick. But they've been careful about watching what they eat, and others have eaten the same with none of the same effects.
Their hair begins to fall out.
Their skin losens, and pales. Their fingernails turn grey, and their eye sockets seem to hollow.
And one day, when they look in the mirror, it's clear the corpse staring back at them died long ago.
There is no escaping their captors if they are already dead.
While neither of them dared say it aloud, the truth was obvious. They were stranded in the middle of a worsening snowstorm, with one med-pack, a shabby shelter, and a fire that was quickly running out of fuel.
Xavier split the ration bar— their last ration bar— with his palms, holding out both halves to Vince.
Vince only stared at him.
"It's sibling rules," Xavier explained, simply. "Whoever splits the food gets the last pick. I split it. You get first pick."
"Oh."
While Xavier had tried to make the halves as equal as possible, one was obviously larger than the other. The material was cold, brittle, and had resisted his efforts.
Vince reached for the smaller of the halves.
Xavier pulled his hands away before he could.
"You're supposed to pick the bigger piece," Xavier corrected, "That’s the point. The first person splits it as evenly as possible, and the second picks the largest piece. It’s insurance to keep the person dividing the food fair.”
"You're hungry," Vince stated. "Hungrier than me."
"But—"
"Sibling rules don't apply to us," Vince insisted, "I love you far more than a brother, Xavier."
You have been driving for hours. You will continue to drive for hours. The exit numbers repeat, but you have not seen your exit yet.
Eyes stare at you from the crop fields. Figures chase after your car, only visible by the movement of the corn. They are moving far too quickly to be natural. No one in the car mentions them.
Every rest stop is the same, even when appearing completely different. Sometimes you may enter one only to exit halfway across the country.
Truck drivers have a vast knowledge in freeway survival, but will not help you. They have a mission with a time frame, and at the end of the day, it is better you than them.
Do not drive alone between one and four am.
If you must drive on the freeway between one and four am, buckle a stuffed animal into the passenger's seat next to you. It may not save you, but it will keep you company.
When getting off at an unknown exit, expect anything and everything. Do not stop for gas or food unless you can see them from the freeway exit. Otherwise, you may never find your way back to the freeway, nor you destination, ever again.
Write down where you're going before they make you forget. You don't want to join the rest of them, traveling the endless path of freeways for the rest of time.
