Twist endings.

Let's say you're reading a book, or watching a movie, or whatever bloats your stoat. It's going pretty well. The plot is gripping! the characters are intriguing! and you're enjoying it. John T. Everyman has finally defeated the monsters that were plaguing the city and is heading back to his family.

You're only pages from the end (or minutes, I guess, if you were watching a movie) when SUDDENLY the whole fictional world turns on its head! Everything you thought previously was a lie! It's like the writers have decided to send you a message, and the message is:

SCREW YOU.

It turns out John T. Everyman was suffering from delusions! Or the monsters weren't real monsters; they were manifestations of his inner anguish that only appeared to him; and now he's wrecked half the city for no reason! Or it was all just a dream! The whole story is not what you thought it was.

I hate it when that happens. Especially when it seems like the story has been building up to this one twist the whole time. Sometimes the twist comes out of NOWHERE. That's even worse, because it means that either I was so dumb I didn't see it coming or the writer was so incompetent that they shouldn't be writing books, let alone ones with crazy twists at the ends.

Twists in the middle are fine. Good, even. I mean, they keep the story moving and stuff. As long as they're not too random, I'm down with that. If there are still a few hundred pages left to explain why this new twist has happened, it is all fine in my book.

I'll even allow twists NEAR the end, because I'm so gracious. John T. can be in the middle of the boss battle with the biggest, most terrifying monster yet when he and his talking sword merge to form a new entity and defeat the monster, if he wants. Sometimes these kinds of things end up seeming like the writer pulled the idea out of thin air, but at least John T. is still himself and still fighting monsters. Nothing happened to ruin my perception of the book.

Because when there's any kind of twist in a book, I have to set it down. (And by set it down I mean slam it down on the nearest flat surface.) Then I have to make a noise of realization, like "ohhh," and maybe run in a few circles while I think about what this will mean for the rest of the book. If there are people around, I blurt things out to them like "John T's sister died five years ago when the monsters ate her! It wasn't really a car crash!"

Then I keep reading.

If it's a twist ENDING, I can't do that. I close the book (with a really loud snap) and throw it at something. Then I make an ANGRY noise of realization, like "what," and go punch something. Like the BRO-BOY. (No, I don't REALLY punch the bro-boy. He punches back.)

You can't do anything after there's a twist ending! There's nothing else! You just have to sit there until it sinks in that John T. Everyman has been hallucinating all his fantastic battles from a mental hospital. Then your whole world just like falls to little fragments around you until you pick up another book and hope this one has an ending that MAKES SENSE.

(By the way, this post was written by the robot that's been pretending to be Libby for the past six months. Everything she's done since then was FAKED by a cold, calculating machine. A machine that's set to self-destruct in five minutes, so you'll never get any answers.)

(Just kidding.)

(At least, that's what it WANTS you to think.)