Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-27708312-20170202163909/@comment-31166511-20170303001611

Ralphini wrote: For one, it's a series of one shots that I wrote as I thought of them, not a full story from start to finish.

Mabel breaking down about how much she hates herself for Weirdmageddon is intended to be unplesant, but her admitting her guilt is an important step in forgiving herself. The reason Dipper waits for her to finish is because he's letting her vent inthe hopes that she'll feel a bit better. When she does, he's quick to comfort her, promise he forgives her, and give her a big hug.

Were there any parts of the chapter you liked?

I don't think I ever implied that it was a full story. I certainly didn't try to critique it as one. I expected that if you ever decided to weave all the scenes together that more material would be added, so that is a lot of where I focused my attention: on recomendations of what kinds of things to add that would glue the parts into a whole.

I think you might want to call the different parts 'scenes' rather than 'chapters'. A scene is a section of plot with no overtly implied direct connection to any other scene. When animators storybord an episode, they often rearrange or completely eliminate the differents scenes each scene works both independently and as a whole to support the narrative structure.

A chapter, on the other hand, is a far more interconnected story element. Chapters come in a certain order and are tightly bound in place. There is nothing important that happen between chapter 4 and 5. And the story would fall apart if chapter 3 was stuck between them.

Mable doesn't just break down in scene 10, she's broken since Dipper's Day #1. She's been suppressing self-hatred for almost half a week. There is paragraph after paragraph describing how jacked up Mabel is, how her injuries are accumulating, how Dipper's experiences in Weirdmagedon (the source of her guilt) were so awful.

Dipper never says a word about any of the positive things that came out of his experiences in Weirdmagedon: His pride at Ford's confidence in him to protect the journals and find a solution, outwitting scary monsters who wanted to eat him, finding Wendy, escaping Gideon's discount auto-warriors, convincing Gideon to switch sides, never giving up in Mabel Land when everyone else weakened from temptation. Dipper faced challenges and grew as a person because of Weirdmagedon. It's the only way to deal with life and not crumble under the strain. You become stronger or you lie down and die.

Life doesn't award points for a really effective death scene. It rolls over the dead and the lost and leaves them behind burried in the dust and forgotten.

That's why its so important to build strong relationships with the people you love. Life is going to make you drop to one knee, or worse. But if someone is standing next to you to give you a hand up, then you are going to be ok.

But if you honestly believe that redemption for the pain of others is only achieved through pointless suffering personally...I don't know what to say. It's a popular way of thinking, has been for hundreds of years. A thosand years ago there were monks whipping their torsos into raw meat so that God wouldn't get pissed and destroy the world.

I think that if the monks had instead went out and fed one hungry person, or even just gave a single swallow of water to a dying man lying in the gutter, it would be worth ten thousand years of scar tissue.

I'll read an encyclopedia's worth of kindness, or better yet, clever kindness, than just one page of a little girl trying to get hit by lightning despite days of (admittedly mild) protests by Dipper.

Dipper doesn't just wait for Mabel to finish talking herself out in scene 10. He's been passively waiting for Mabel to finish herself off for over half a week.

How can twins who supposedly know each other so well be so completely clueless about such a giagantic issue.

Dipper knows something is bugging Mabel--but he does nothing.

Mabel knows that getting hurt would make Dipper unhappy--but she keeps it up anyway.

The girl who is the champion of honesty lies her head off about being ok and not hurting herself on purpose.

If you take out all the parts where Mabel want to suffer and die and Dipper is clueless and ineffectual, there isn't much left.

There was a movie theater they walked to. I think they played checkers, once--or some kind of board game.

The parts of the plot that didn't involve Mabel hurting herself were usually summed up in a single sentence. Even if I ignore the beatings, there wasn't a lot going on. There were a few times that Mabel shapeshifting powers were explored, but no other interesting weirdness.

The more Mabel got injured, it seemed like the less Dipper was willing to leave home, or even do much there. Dipper started out pretty inactive and got more so as time went on.

I'm going to have to rewatch Weirdmagedon again. Did it really last three days?

The only part I clearly remember right now is after Ford got taken from the belfry. I don't recall Dipper resting or eating during that time.

He fell into Wendy's nacho trap, then presumably shared a bat sandwich at her camp in the mall. Then it was non-stop till Mabel was freed and they returned to the Shack. Was it two days between Mabel handing over the rift and Ford's capture?