Scix in the Back Row

Eraserhead (1977)

I want to write a book called “your character dies in the woods” that details all the pitfalls and dangers of being out on the road & in the wild for people without outdoors/wilderness experience bc I cannot keep reading narratives brush over life threatening conditions like nothing is happening.

I just read a book by one of my favorite authors whose plots are essentially airtight, but the MC was walking on a country road on a cold winter night and she was knocked down and fell into a drainage ditch covered in ice, broke through and got covered in icy mud and water.

Then she had a “miserable” 3 more miles to walk to the inn.

Babes she would not MAKE it to that inn.

Are there any other particularly egregious examples?

This book already exists, sort of! Or at least, it’s a biology textbook but I bought it for writing purposes:

It starts with a chapter about freezing to death, and it is without a doubt the scariest thing I’ve read in years (and I read a lot of horror fiction).

This book can be downloaded for free on Researchgate, posted there by the author himself:

The Biology of Human Survival: Life and Death in Extreme Environments

nothing is more frustrating than when I’m leading a serious discussion about the importance of learning how to properly research folklore & cultural stories from reliable sources and someone pipes in like “why does it matter if it’s all made up anyway?”

yeah dude vampires are made up and the whole “vampires couldn’t see their reflections in antique mirrors because of the silver backing” is made up so you can combine those however you want for fun.

but you can’t say “the Victorians believed vampires couldn’t see themselves in mirrors because of the silver backing, which is why Dracula has no reflection,”

because the author of Dracula was a real man who never said that and the Victorians were real people of a real era and you can’t just make up things about real people because it’s important historically for us to understand what people believed about the world and why.

Making up facts about vampires is folklore & literature. Claiming random people in the past believed that, with no evidence, is just lying.

Am I making sense??

“What if eye of newt is code for mustard seed and witches used strange ingredient names to conceal their spells’ true, more mundane contents?”

Fun, modern take on witches in classic literature.

“In the 16th century, eye of newt was code for mustard seed, and witches used it to disguise their spells. Shakespeare knew this code and used it in Macbeth.”

That’s a lie. Now we’re just lying.

Hung. Today I learned two factoids I believed are not true.

ps5 brain monday

Oh so THIS is the ps5 post. I can see why you all imprinted on it now that’s hilarious

wednesday night mood

I like that apparently Joe’s neighbors’ main complaint was “Hey Joe, open your windows so we can hear better?” which is just so charming.

To make sure their accents were accurate, the child actors in the Harry Potter movies were forced to grow up in England

just some lads, being fellows

I just found the funniest font ever

Like. What is this. Why is this. Who is the target audience of this?

The font is called "Redacted Script," it's available for free here, and I just ran to download it because I am, in fact, the target audience for this

Joanna Karpowicz — Anubis in Twin Peaks III (acrylic, canvas, 2024)

Moldy Worldbuilding, from the great Curious Archive channel. A great essay on the value of rot, rust, decay and collapse as a way to add environmental storytelling indicating the passage of time

opens box that reads "i wanna draw again". inside lies a note. the note says, "mental illness and difficult circumstances have taken years of interest, accessibility, and skill away from me. i want to forgive myself for that. i want to heal my relationship to my hobbies. i want to feel connected to something that once made me feel good, but the cyclic discouragement is difficult to overcome." i turn over the note. on the back it reads "wannta drawe sexy bodies awooga"

seems like this one really resonated with the artists who dont do art fandom

The word you are looking for is “selfish.” Not narcissist, not sociopath, selfish.

[ID: Tag that reads: #also: they're not gaslighting you they just lied /End description]

The Times-Picayune, New Orleans, Louisiana, November 25, 1900

By doug sneyd, who also made this:

And this:

Credits to @Hakusi_Katei from X/Twitter

No offense but I think some of you would be a lot happier writing a fictional atlas or encyclopedia instead of a narrative story

Concur! Go forth and write your Dragonology and your Guidebook to Fairyland! Write a traveler's diary of a setting! These are fun and legitimate things to do!

I love books that are literally just this!