how to write creepy stories

your reader's imagination will scare them more than anything you could ever write. you don't have to offer a perfectly concrete explanation for everything at the end. in fact, doing so may detract from your story.

@derinthescarletpescatarian

You're saying I need to make TTOU creepier? I can do that.

i finally caved and made a ko-fi. if you wanna see any sketches, wips, or less polished artworks that i am not brave enough to post here, ill be throwing them over there semi periodically.

I was at a courthouse once, and saw an indigenous australian woman in a dressing gown very carefully and gingerly making her way down the steps outside the courthouse, surrounded by family who were helping her down the stairs. We asked if she was OK, because she looked awful. She looked like she should have been wrapped up in bed with blankets and hot soup, not on the steps of a courthouse.

One of her family told us that she had given birth yesterday evening, but that Child Protection services had taken her baby away with no warning, claiming that she wasnt prepared to look after him. What had happened, is that she'd literally only just given birth -- hadn't even passed the afterbirth yet, is holding her blood-coated, crying, newborn baby to her chest -- and a nurse asked what her feeding plan was. She was tired from the birth and distracted by the brand new baby in her arms and thrown off by the timing of the question, but still, she managed to answer, and said she planned to breastfeed him whenever he was hungry.

Well apparently that wasn't enough of a plan for the hospital staff, who reported her and claimed that she was unprepared to look after the child, and claimed that had no social supports, and that the baby was at risk if left with her. All because a brand new mother, 30 seconds after giving birth, didn't have a PowerPoint presentation ready to go that cited the timing cycle she would feed her kid on, and instead simply said that she would feed him when he was hungry.

Child Protection services showed up, took her kid, and she was told to show up to court the next day to contest custody if she wanted her baby back.

So a woman who had given birth less than 24 hours prior was forced to rally her family and show up to court to prove that she a) had a feeding plan for the child, and b) had enough social supports to justify reclaiming her baby.

It was one of the most appalling things I'd ever seen. I don't even know if she won her case. They didn't know at the time we saw them, and after that brief interaction on the stairs, i never saw them again. I sincerely hope she got her newborn baby back.

That was about 5 years ago. And the exact same kind of thing is still happening today.

News broke today from a South Australian whistle-blower of the appalling treatment new mothers frequently receive, including hospital staff taking the baby away from the mother "for medical tests," only for the mother to then be told, with absolutely no prior warning, that the baby was not going to be returned to her.

Here's the article, and here are some excerpts:

also a problem in Canada: https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/from-the-60s-scoop-to-now-canada-still-separating-indigenous-children-from-families-1.5606935

This is genocide! It is an effort to destroy culture by stealing children away from their parents.

The Stolen Generation didn't stop with one generation

I'm gonna link to the animations in case y'all either don't remember or have never heard of some of these.

A quick note: these were made in the 2000s. Comedy is subjective, there's some strong examples of dark and/or "lolz teh random" humor in these. Maybe some cultural blindness, too. That said, enjoy a time capsule of stuff made before/during the birth of Youtube, now hosted on Youtube.

Kenya

Salad Fingers, episode 2

End of Ze World

Schfifty Five

The Hamster Dance

Badgers

"Rejected" by Don Hertzfeldt

Charlie the Unicorn

The Llama Song

Peanut Butter Jelly Time

why can't I select multiple

Tintin meeting other adventure icons.

By Adam Murphy

I absolutely love this. And if you click the link he’s done a ton more. Tintin in black and white with famous monsters. Tintin with famous sleuths like Jessica Fletcher and Columbo and Poirot.

Holding out for one where he's meeting Harrier Du Bois.

Wait wait wait, in some countries the "first floor" refers to the one above the "ground floor?" Why would the first not be interchangeable with the ground? Literally the first floor built and first floor you enter into? Why would anyone decide "first floor" should be the name of the next one up in the air

ground floor is 0, first floor is above 0

The floor numbered zero would still be the "first" in every sense of the word "first" though.

I think the US is the only country that equates ground floor with first. The only time I've seen it be two separate floors is in a hospital.

But if someone wants to correct me, that's cool.

Its a relatively even split both in population and territory:

Red = G/1/2/3

Blue = 1/2/3/4 (ground is colloquial)

Pink = Both

I think we can agree Vietnam, Indonesia and the Phillipines are the real weird ones here.

People are being weird about zero-indexed lists in the replies.

The index is an offset from your starting point. foo[0] is no offset (ground floor). foo[1] is one step offset from zero.

Fortnite, are you sure about this? Did you think it through?

the experience of animal in your house never gets old. fuck yes dude there's an animal in here. did you guys know about the animal

0^0

It looks quite intentional, you can't even tell how much of my ambition I abandoned to get here!

Lol my large and handsome pig didn’t find Anything of interest in your yard

Remembering that time I got accused of gentrifying macaroni and cheese on this webbed site for saying I put a dash of vinegar in it

…you put what in it

A dash of vinegar. A bit of acid in very starchy foods helps to stop it from tasting so flat and gross.

I would try this, but I live in a family of 5 other people who may not be so open to me putting vinegar in their dinner. Maybe when I move out

Try a spoonful of mustard, or something pickled like sauerkraut. Or cooking wine if you want to be really risky. Anything with acid in it would work; fuck, lemon or orange juice would work, but I doubt your family wants Lemon Mac and Cheese either. Mustard is probably your best bet.

It's really wild that something as basic as putting vinegar in food is outrageous classism on Tumblr. Friends that is in large part what vinegar is for.

Have you seen the new show? It's on Tubu. It's literally on Heebee. It's on Poodee with ads. It's literally on Dippy. You can probably find it on Weeno. Dude it's on Gumpy. It's a Pheebo original. It's on Poob. You can watch it on Poob. You can go to Poob and watch it. Log onto Poob right now. Go to Poob. Dive into Poob. You can Poob it. It's on Poob. Poob has it for you. Poob has it for you.

nim from surface (2005)

    Quashing her natural curiosity to find out exactly what had happened, Sabriel folded the man’s arms across his chest, after first unclenching the grip that his right hand still had on his sword hilt—perhaps he had not been taken totally unawares after all. Then she stood and drew the Charter marks of fire, cleansing, peace and sleep in the air above the corpse, while whispering the sounds of those same marks. It was a litany that every Charter Mage knew, and it had the usual effect. A glowing ember sparked up between the man’s folded arms, multiplied into many stabbing, darting flames, then fire whooshed the full length of the body. Seconds later it was out and only ash remained, ash staining a corselet of blackened mail.     Sabriel took the soldier’s sword from the pile of ashes and thrust it through the melted snow, into the dark earth beneath. It stuck fast, upright, the hilt casting a shadow like a cross upon the ashes. Something glinted in the shadow and, belatedly, Sabriel remembered that the soldier would have worn an identity disc or tag.     Shifting her skis again to rebalance she bent down and hooked the chain of the identity disc on one finger, pulling it up to read the name of the man who had met his end here, alone in the snow. But both the chain and disc were machine-made in Ancelstierre and so unable to withstand the Charter Magic fire. The disc crumbled into ash as Sabriel raised it to eye level and the chain fell into its component links, pouring between Sabriel’s fingers like small steel coins.     “Perhaps they’ll know you from your sword,” said Sabriel. Her voice sounded strange in the quiet of the snowy wilderness and, behind each word, her breath rolled out like a small, wet fog.     “Travel without regret,” she added. “Do not look back.”

–

I think I’ve kind of decided to try and do comics for most of my Sabriel things. Not making any promises, but for now, there you go. They’re a nice way to play around with different ideas, in any case!

I also realize that she is totally supposed to be wearing skis but they just did not want to work for me. Haha, my badddd.

Also for the proper version of the comic with all the panels on a single page, click on over here.