deep-aural-fixation

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If I Were King of the Universe by Danny Abelson illustrated by Lawrence DiFiori © 1984

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As a kid, I spent quite a while staring at my family's tattered paperback cover for Lloyd Alexander's The High King, the fifth and final book in the high fantasy kid's book series 'Chronicles of Prydain.'

It's a visceral scene that pulls the viewer in like any cover should. Check out the fear in those bugging eyes. The ligaments of the knee. The ligaments on that Couldron-born zombie's neck. A lot of ligaments in this one! This image may have been my childhood introduction to the concept of ligaments.

The artist is the Belgian illustrator Jean-Léon Huens (1921-1984).

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My elder millennial ass listening to Umbra

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Art compilation of Papa V Perpetua

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Scooby-Doo, “Haunted House Hang Up”

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quit your job, join his emo band

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Bedroom, 1982.

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𝚂𝚘𝚞𝚛𝚌𝚎: Yes! You Can Cook Microwave (1984)

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oooh have you ever done a post about the ridiculous mandatory twist endings in old sci-fi and horror comics? Like when the guy at the end would be like "I saved the Earth from Martians because I am in fact a Vensuvian who has sworn to protect our sister planet!" with no build up whatsoever.

Yeah, that is a good question - why do some scifi twist endings fail?

As a teenager obsessed with Rod Serling and the Twilight Zone, I bought every single one of Rod Serling’s guides to writing. I wanted to know what he knew.

The reason that Rod Serling’s twist endings work is because they “answer the question” that the story raised in the first place. They are connected to the very clear reason to even tell the story at all. Rod’s story structures were all about starting off with a question, the way he did in his script for Planet of the Apes (yes, Rod Serling wrote the script for Planet of the Apes, which makes sense, since it feels like a Twilight Zone episode): “is mankind inherently violent and self-destructive?” The plot of Planet of the Apes argues the point back and forth, and finally, we get an answer to the question: the Planet of the Apes was earth, after we destroyed ourselves. The reason the ending has “oomph” is because it answers the question that the story asked. 

My friend and fellow Rod Serling fan Brian McDonald wrote an article about this where he explains everything beautifully. Check it out. His articles are all worth reading and he’s one of the most intelligent guys I’ve run into if you want to know how to be a better writer.

According to Rod Serling, every story has three parts: proposal, argument, and conclusion. Proposal is where you express the idea the story will go over, like, “are humans violent and self destructive?” Argument is where the characters go back and forth on this, and conclusion is where you answer the question the story raised in a definitive and clear fashion. 

The reason that a lot of twist endings like those of M. Night Shyamalan’s and a lot of the 1950s horror comics fail is that they’re just a thing that happens instead of being connected to the theme of the story. 

One of the most effective and memorable “final panels” in old scifi comics is EC Comics’ “Judgment Day,” where an astronaut from an enlightened earth visits a backward planet divided between orange and blue robots, where one group has more rights than the other. The point of the story is “is prejudice permanent, and will things ever get better?” And in the final panel, the astronaut from earth takes his helmet off and reveals he is a black man, answering the question the story raised. 

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Finally got this bit of banter in BG3, and the fact that it occurred in the Act 2 Shadowlands had me rolling:

*The companions surrounded by the constant oppressive sadness of the Shadowlands, grimly making their way through Moonrise towers*

No one:

Literally no one at all:

Gale: WIZARDS GET FREAKY ALL THE TIME, WYLL

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Kinda wild how most people generally recognize that the "too sick to go to school, too sick to watch tv/play games" mindset our parents had was bullshit but still impose essentially the exact same rules on disabled adults and scrutinize them for enjoying low-energy hobbies while being too fatigued or in pain to work a full time job (or any job at all)

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Bluebells and wild garlic

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If you use Duolingo, maybe don't anymore? The company is moving to be "AI-first" and is using AI to generate their content. Meaning, AI is now generating your language lessons.

They announced that they were going to use AI for this a while back but now they're annoucing that they're getting rid of the contractors reviewing the AI generated content. So, very soon Duolingo is just going to be AI generated slop that might not even be correct.

For alternatives, I'd recommend checking with your local library. For instance, mine offers Rosetta Stone for free if you have a library card.