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Little Art

@sniffingartfor2bucksaday

Follow if u wanna see kick ass art everyday!! Tag me in anything or submit some art,! I also draw my own art @wheatthindinnner

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.

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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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IIRC “Judgment Day” was part of the inspiration for the excellent Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode “Far Beyond the Stars.”

This whole post is liquid gold for writers.

August Adipose is ON!

August Adipose is a month long drawing challenge started by kivanbay on Twitter which challenges artists to draw bodies not often represented in mainstream media!

So... why draw a fat model?

#1: Not everyone is skinny or toned. In fact, most people aren't. Drawing a fat model gives you real life practice for drawing realistic body types and shapes and helps you learn where fat can land on a human being so you're better equipped to draw convincing people!

#2: Representation matters! Since bodies vary in shape and size, seeing yourself reflected in the media you consume is important to developing a healthy body image. Fat doesn't mean unhealthy, and any little bit we can do to normalize different body types will help us unlearn years of indoctrination about skinny = healthy. You can help by including fat characters into your roster!

#3: Fat is fun! One thing I hear from people a lot is that they loved doing figurative drawings and gesture drawings of fat people the most. Let's face it - fat is really fun to draw. It gives you the opportunity to add new shapes to your artwork and can help you develop your overall understanding of light and dark.

Hope this pose helps you - happy drawing!

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mokeonn

"But if college was free, then people would abuse that and get useless degrees" hell yeah I would! If I could go to college without debt I would make it my job to get a degree in every little thing that interested me. I'd get a doctorate in film studies. I'd have a bachelor's degree for every science I like. I'd try to learn at least 5 languages with varying results. I would learn something "useful" like coding and then follow it up with a ""useless"" degree like art history. I'd be the world record speed run holder for getting every degree possible.

But I can't afford college without going into massive debt, so instead I spent the last 5 years trying to figure out what I am passionate enough about to consider going into debt over, because unfortunately being passionate about everything is extremely expensive to pursue.

- Ollie Schminkey, My Father.

ID: a poem that can be read three ways, the left side is labeled Alive, the right side is labeled Dead. Reading only Alive gives:

He walks through the trees, the sun sifting through his beard. Here I am, just a kid, a father with his favourite child. He looks so much like a dad. Here we are: birds flying; a pulsing river; a ravenous picnic; and that smile, a mouth wide open, his child, newly awakened, wrapped around his neck like rosary beads clinging to his body. I loved him long before I heard of his body failing, and I held him so. Trusting that my love is enough.

Reading only Dead gives:

My dreams every night turn to spiders that all have his face. There is a campfire burning out, and me, the white dust of only ash in my hands. In the real world, standing next to his bed again– he doesn’t look like a body about to burn to pieces. Dead silence– no voice, only an echo not quite gone yet. The pills are down his throath, the morphine into his stomach, his body only for the disease, the wound across his back becomes filled with blood, and me, standing next to the body. Grief has hands twisted, tightening in prayer: the last breath like a final amen. I could speak the prayer a thousand ways– still, God will answer for only God, never for the living.

And reading them both together gives:

He walks through my dreams every night. The trees turn to spiders that all have his face. There the sun is a campfire burning out, and me, sifting through the white dust of his beard, only ash in my hands. Here in the real world I am standing next to his bed, just a kid again– he doesn’t look like a father with a body about to burn his favourite child to pieces. He looks dead. So much silence– no voice, only an echo, like a dad not quite gone yet. Here we are: the pills are birds flying down his throat; the morphine a pulsing river into his stomach; his body a ravenous picnic only for the disease; and that smile, the wound across his back becomes a mouth wide open, filled with blood; and me, his child, standing next to the body. Newly awakened grief has hands wrapped around his neck, twisted like rosary beads tightening in prayer: clinging to the last breath, his body like a final amen. I loved him long before I could speak. I learned the prayer of his body failing a thousand ways– and I held him, so still, trusting that God will answer for my love. Only, God is never enough for the living.

End ID

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pika-memes

Yeah you say this, except there's a good chance you were chronically dehydrated as a kid. The reason you didn't think you were is because a) no one was talking about dehydration at the time, and b) the effects weren't immediately obvious.

But when my grown-up massage clients get on my table and I have to keep reapplying lotion because their skin absorbs the first layer immediately? When they have a million "knots" because their soft tissue fibers got dried out, lost their elasticity and became sticky, basically glued themselves together, and now it hurts when you move your arm like this, or your neck is always achey?

Yeah, that's chronic dehydration. That's shit that builds up over years of not drinking enough water (and/or not stretching, and/or having shitty posture, and/or not healthily processing your difficult emotions, and/or...)

Health is mostly maintenance. You have to act in "healing" ways consistently if you don't want to spend your life in a cycle of pain -> fix -> same pain again. And the younger you start, the better your results will be.

So yeah, treat the youth and yourself like beached orcas and drink that water.

And this is why schools not allowing beverages, like all of mine growing up, should be considered criminal negligence. Especially towards athletes.

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gehinnom

I've been having a lot of feelings about the downfall of quality lately.

I ordered a pair of Dickies pants because pants are hard and workwear is usually reliable. When they arrived they were the scratchiest, most papery material--I can't actually call it fabric in good faith--and fit a full three sizes too small. A week later I found the same pair in a thrift store, dated 2017. These are actual pants. They fit, they're not made of asbestos. They're only separated by time.

There's no wood used in interior design unless it's a custom build. I have a set of wealthy relatives who live in a condo. The downpayment for it was likely more money than I will see in my lifetime. The floors and the cabinets are all still laminate. I know I will never see real wood in a building constructed after 2000. Every "apartment hack" I see online has this very conspicuous, flat appearance because of all the paint and contact paper required to make these builds look personal in any way. The only natural materials are in the furnishings.

I've been harping on this for years, but everything is shit, nothing is designed to work, and "growth" and "profit" are just euphemisms for cutting corners until things are unworkable.

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macleod

everything is more expensive, and everything is getting shittier.

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macleod

Wow wtf HIV/AIDS was discovered by Flossie Wong-Staal, an Chinese-American woman, and she’s the reason the HIV test even exists. AND THEN she invented the molecular knife that lead to treatments for HIV/AIDS. And she’s STILL ALIVE. We don’t hear about the contributions of Women of Color enough, my word. Madness.

Thank you, Flossie. 💜💜💜