at worst the world will sing along

void-tiger:

willow-wanderings:

charlesoberonn:

“Subverting Expectations” used to be a good thing, referring to writers who would break the mold and rise above the tropes of their story/genre/medium to write something better than expected.

Now the term is associated with hack writers who write incomplete story arcs and disappointing nonsensical endings on purpose. All of that in order to “surprise” the audience and punish anyone who put any thought into the story at all.

I suggest we come up with a new term for the latter, so “subverting expectations” can be reserved for the former.

The term I came up with is “plotjacking” since they jack the story away from its course at the last moment. And also because it’s the figurative literary equivalence to the author masturbating their ego onto the page.

FUCKING COSIGNED

Plotjacking: the act of planned interruptions of your own plot with no other intention than to deny delivering on story beats

(credit goes to OP charlesoberonn)

Shocktwist: a specific moment of plotjacking

(first heard the term used by Red from OverlySarcasticProductions on her PlotTwists TropeTalk video on youtube)

(via stubbornasacat)