i wish we could all agree on a secondary location but unfortunately when tumblr is over we will be dispersing into our own directions like dandelion seeds
Grace and Rocky, giving a tour of the Hail Mary to fascinated Eridian scientists and diplomats.
Pointing at things and explaining what they are and how the ship works, lots of awed and appreciative noises are made.
Until one of the visiting Eridians points out a specific item. “And that?”
It’s a strange, circular thing, a xenonite disk mounted upright on some sort of pivot so it can spin freely, but around the edges it has… spokes? Pegs? Sticking out of it, that hit against a stiff flap that would slow down the spinning.
It is also separated into sections decorated with crude etchings of a human and an Eridian.
“Ah,” Grace says.
“That,” Rocky says.
“That’s. Um.” Grace seems somewhat embarrassed. “That’s the sacrifice wheel.”
The Eridian visitors clearly do not know what to make of that. “We think we misunderstood Savior Grace’s word,” they say, apparently hoping this is a vocabulary mix-up. “Explain (question, polite)?”
“Didn’t misunderstand,” says Rocky, sounding very sheepish. “That is sacrifice wheel.”
“So. While we were on our way to Erid, we might have gotten… anxious about each other’s well-being,” Grace says, which everyone is already very aware is a wild understatement. “And, well, you heard what happened at Tau Ceti, and after. There were a lot of unexpected dangers for the whole trip that required a lot of, at least, attempted self-sacrifice to solve. We ended up almost dying for each other several times. And we had an argument about what we’d do if another crisis like that came up. And we couldn't agree.”
“Grace argued that Grace already was unlikely to survive long-term on Erid, so he should be the one to do any potential deadly but necessary maneuvers to make sure I was able to bring taumoeba back,” Rocky says.
“Which made sense.”
“Did not make sense! Grace already sacrificed so much for me and for Erid, wouldn’t be fair to make you do it again—“ Rocky cuts himself off with a huff. They have obviously had this conversation before. “So sacrifice wheel was compromise.”
“Yeah,” Grace says. He spins it to demonstrate; it whirls around in a blur and a rattle of the flap hitting the pegs, then eventually slows down, and stops—pointing at the segment depicting a very bad but very clear image of an Eridian. “Rocky made the wheel, I spin the wheel, and whoever it lands on, that’s who gets to sacrifice themself to save the other and the other person does not get to argue. This way, we wouldn’t waste time debating who does the self-sacrifice and who survives, it’s just a plain fifty-fifty chance. Or, eighteen-eighteen chance in base six. But the point is it could be either of us and we would have to accept the outcome.”
Rocky started fidgeting while Grace was explaining. When Grace finishes, proud of the equitable solution they came up with to allow them to die for each other fairly, Rocky says, “Now that we are back and we don’t need sacrifice wheel anymore… I have confession to make. About the wheel.”
“What about the wheel?”
Rocky doesn’t answer. Grace frowns, first confused, then suspicious, and spins the wheel again.
It lands on Rocky again.
He spins the wheel again, and again, and again, and it lands on Rocky every single time.
“Rocky!”
“I weighted the wheel,” Rocky admits.
“Rocky the whole point was that it was equal, that was why we even made it—“
“Never was necessary so doesn’t matter anymore!”
“But you WOULD have!”
“And you never noticed because you were hungry and cranky and distracted and so would have done bad job on heroic self-sacrifice anyway!”
“I would not! I would have done fine!”
(The Eridian scientists and diplomats are still here watching this btw. Slowly dawning on them that 1) these two are extremely not normal about each other 2) if Erid ever does another space mission they NEED to send a therapist aboard because this is what happens when they don’t)
“Why don’t you use ai” idk man beyond the obvious environmental and “this machine causes psychosis and encourages people to kill themselves” thing I think asking the equivalent of a solid D student who is also a pathological liar if they can answer my question/do the work for me seems pretty fucking stupid
just spoke with the funniest hater of all time. went to the optometrist, happened to be wearing my hadestown shirt. he asks me about it, I tell him it's a musical and he tells me he hates musicals and lists a few he didn't like. fair enough, but he listed mostly movie musicals, so I tell him that stage musicals are quite different. so he asks for my favorites and a few recommendations, and I also explain to him the differences between seeing a show on tour vs on broadway. I tell him he could check out the local theatre and see what's in the next season, but he says he'd rather just fly to new york and see the broadway show if it's the best version and that he probably wouldn't like it. I tell him that sometimes people will like the tour version better just based on personal preference of singer performance. he says, I don't really like singers, I just don't really like music. I get my eyes dilated. I bum around for 15 minutes before going back. he checks my eyes and shows me that he pulled up a google search of hadestown to read up about it while we were waiting. he tells me again he hates musicals and can't take them seriously, while actively looking at showtimes for hadestown at the walter kerr on broadway. I tell him each musical is very different so he should listen to the recordings of a few songs to see if he likes the vibe of a show before he wastes $200 on a ticket. he says nah I won't do that because I probably wouldn't like it, I just don't like music. the broadway showtimes to hadestown are still pulled up on a browser tab. I cannot emphasize how many times he told me that he doesn't like musicals or music while actively taking my recommendations and planning a theoretical trip to nyc specifically to see a broadway musical that he predicts he will hate. i respect it
“oh no, my audience has begun to guess the big twists of my story and are accurately predicting what will happen!”
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
(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.
Tumblr crashed halfway through me making this so if you get two my apologies!
I saw people sharing their OCs so I wanted to share one of mine I drew recently :) Her name is Clover and I love her dearly! I tried a new rendering style this time so I’m always looking for feedback :)
I like how you lit this! It reminds me of how @phoenix-before-the-flame lights a lot of their work!
Hey I know i sent one in recently but ive got another one
Trans joy is my dad (transfem, still goes by my dad) showing me that she got approval for funding for her breast augmentation and her and I (transmasc) joking how shes got that and ive also got mine for chest masculinization! And the many great joys of how her and i are already so alike in so many other ways and both being trans too (yes we do delight in making "it runs in the family" jokes haha)
oh my god this is so hyperspecific (or not specific enough) so i dont expect you to know what piece im talking about but im hoping maybe. by the grace of god. someone here has read this hahahskghk
i read an essay or article at some point by a Black woman who i believe is a professor somewhere now, i think she wrote about the idea of “The Exceptional Negro” but im pretty certain it wasnt the book by Traci Ellis. she talked about the idea of being good enough and i think about the idea from her childhood/rooted in her mind that if she Was good enough (studied well enough, accomplished great things) she could somehow “make up for” being Black. she brought up Obama’s presidency as an example of people considering him and other accomplished Black peoples “the good ones”. i remember she also talked about having published a book and her experience with lots of people congratulating her on “her big break”
it wasnt something where she was kind of wallowing in these ideas but rather talking about her awareness of these things as shes gotten older and had more experiences throughout her life. i thought it was really really eye opening when i first read it and i bookmarked it but it was saved on my school computer and i forgot to get it back before i turned it in when i graduated earlier this month
unfortunately i dont remember any other details but a recent reblog of yours reminded me of this piece and im devastated i cant remember the name or author
Well congratulations on the graduation! I feel like that's a couple of articles I've read but none of the books, so I'll leave this here if anyone else is familiar. I'm curious about it too, now 👀
everyday Black people ask the world, 'do we have the right to exist? are we people? if you prick us, do we not bleed? Aren't we alive, aren't we real, don't we matter??' and in resounding chorus, the world says HELL NO.
But like, we do exist and we are people. We bleed the same blood, we have the same wants and desires as anyone else, we love and we hate and we ponder. We matter, we're real and we count. And I think I'm just very tired of us having to justify our existence on this earth.
vaporwave
kianamaiart
ellievsbear
titsay
origamiaround
