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Joseph Ducreux (1735–1802) was a French artist known for his expressive and unconventional self-portraits. Unlike many portraitists of his time, who adhered to strict formal conventions, Ducreux infused his works with humor, exaggerated expressions, and an almost modern sense of personality.

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me when my nefarious schemes are all coming together

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Unmute !

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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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Kanzi the hyena gets a watermelon 🍉

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HOW TO DRAW ELLIE SPECTACULAR

and Nell

Larger images for easier reading under the cut

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the paul mccartney is dead conspiracy theory is the funniest thing in the world because i feel like if he did die and the beatles did replace him like parents replace a gold fish and the new guy managed to look exactly like him and play left handed bass, piano, and vocals in the same style and produce the same quality of music consistently for 30+ years then it'd be honestly rude to mention it at that point. like he's earned it let him have it

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when jason died, they buried him with the possessions that he carried on him all the time. there was a pocket knife tucked into his sock, the bracelet on his wrist from catherine that he never took off, a tangled pair of earbuds in his back pocket, and, in the top pocket of his jacket, the cellphone that bruce bought for him after he was adopted.

that cellphone stayed with jason in his grave. went with him when he dug his way out. somehow stayed on his person when he was taken by the league, and he managed to convince talia to let him keep it throughout all his training.

he doesn’t know why, maybe as a grief thing or maybe just because bruce forgot and it’s not like the bill effected him in any way, but he never stopped paying jason’s phone bill. his number’s still active, still working after all this time. even weirder, but dick started adopting the tradition of adding his dead brother’s phone number to each and every family group chat any of them created after ethiopia. again, jason doesn’t know why. maybe it was dick’s way of carrying his memory with them; including him in family conversations even if they all thought the number was connected to a long buried phone in the pocket of a long dead boy.

the point is that jason wasn’t dead any more. and all throughout his time at the league, he gets to watch the family chats. the mission statuses, the arguments, the rapid spiral every chat went through where they started off using it as a serious bat communication centre only for dick or tim to send a meme and instantly spiral into nothing but chaos that bruce would neither take part in or attempt to stop. jason spectates it all, always fingering the keypad but never actually typing out a message. he came close when there was a heated debate between steph and dick about the best donut types and he knew they were both absolutely fucking wrong, but luckily tim came in to educate them on the right choice last second and jason was saved from having to reveal himself.

the closest call was when little damian got a hold of his phone, attracted to the bright colours of the block game jason had been absently playing out of boredom while ra’s droned on about whatever had pissed him off that day. he’d let the kid play, sat on his lap and eagerly jabbing at the screen, and jason had only looked away for at most a minute before he’d turned back to find the screen open on the family chat, damian having accidentally clicked on the camera button and taken a selfie of the two that he’d been about to send through. luckily, jason deleted it in time, but he became much more careful about letting the kid play with his shit after that.

this is all just a long winded explanation and backstory for and au i think would be funny where jason’s reveal is literally just him deciding to fuck with his family by randomly dropping in through text like:

-in the chat-

bruce: status report.

dick: hungry :( but good!

steph: seconded, im fine

tim: drug bust went to plan, on way back to cave uninjured

cass: ^ same answer

babs: everything seems calm from what i can tell

jason: a little claustrophobic but the coffin’s kinda homely so ig no complaints from me

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several people are typing…

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godspeed u crazy faggots friday

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Hard working kitty! Lewis alerts for migraines. I didn't realize that the changes in your body pre migraine are noticeable by service animals hours before the symptoms/pain affect you

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people who want to live in lighthouse - i hear you, i understand you

but i raise you

living in water tower

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Ever since the original tape of the Wilhelm scream recording session surfaced I have been losing my mind a little bit over it