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.
I WROTE AN EIGHT PAGE FINAL PAPER ON VIDEO GAME SOUNDTRACK FOR MY COLLEGE PHILOSOPHY CLASS AND GOT FULL POINTS.
I've peaked. I'm done. I'm literally so happy. Professor just really saw me yap about Ace Attorney music and Toby Fox music and sound effects and said, "Yep. Super philosophical. A+."
I got to mention snd_weirdeffect, which is my FAVORITE sound effect in Deltarune Ch 1 and oh my gosh I can't stop yapping but I'm so happy. 8 pages of my biggest passion and it's 20/20 points! I WIN LIFE.
I literally just woke up from a dream where chapter 5 was already out
It has begun
Like genuinely. It’s always ideal of course if you can know who you are and what you’re after at a younger age, but if you’re not going to figure that all out in high school, which you probably won’t, your twenties are the PERFECT time to be truly beginning your life. Who the hell is calling people who might have just moved out of their parents’ house a couple years ago “old”?
legitimately the deluge of messaging women/girls are subjected to all their lives about how their teens and twenties are their "best years" is heinous psychic terrorism on a mass scale. not a coincidence that women are primed to believe that they're going to be "past their prime" and deteriorating like fucking spoiled milk right at a point in their lives at which they're likely to be only just beginning to truly come into their own
there is something horrifically grim to it, but illustrations for gaza and palestinians tend to catch more mass attention that actual photos of people. this made me feel incredibly helpless for a long while, seeing both how people would rather look at a neat drawing of red black green and white than look a human in the eyes, and how online platforms would rather push a viral drawing while suppressing those begging for help at the same time.
a way to cope with this feeling has been taking advantage of it to directly guide people to helping palestinians.
if art gets better traction, then there’s an incredible amount of good that can be done by creating art that immediately links to fundraisers. creating art of the many images of those who are asking for help.
within hours of posting my drawing, there has been jumps in the thousands for bashar from gaza’s fundraiser. it’s a small effort in the grand scheme of things. it’s not a fix it. but it’s something good. please take care of each other and do what you can. i think this could help a lot of people if a lot of people did it.
here is bashar. i’ve drawn him, spoken to him, and known him now for a few months. any shares help, any art helps. draw who you see, draw what you see. thanks all
i love how garnet and pearl are just continuing to use the name of their infamous guerilla military organization while their current jobs are fighting lv4 rpg monsters and giving each other basket weaving seminars. and steven has no context for this and just thinks of "The Crystal Gems" as basically the name for his mom's side of the family. so he walks up to lapis and says "you should hang out with me and my treehouse friends, the Viet Cong!"
I don’t really get the joke. Could someone explain the punchline?
also "finn cant be trans because he was still called a boy as a baby" wrong. minerva is The Best Helper in the world, she can easily tell if a person is transgender even if they were just born. especially her son. ergo finn is the worlds first amab trans guy.
Please help me. I have nothing else.
Just to be clear, Kamala conceded with grace and dignity but it is still well within everyone’s right to demand an investigation and even a recount with due cause despite a winner being declared. U.S.Americans have the right to demand free and fair elections (we don’t have a right to, say, start an insurrection like certain people did after the 2020 election).
Many, including major swing states, (Nevada, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and more) have already admitted to data and ballots not being recognized or lost and are recounting or calling for a recount. It usually takes days to count and record votes, a day after a bunch of election tampering is not enough.
If you used a mail-in ballot and haven’t yet, check if it was actually counted and “recognized.” A lot of mail-in voters from swing states found out that their ballots were uncounted today.