That’s it.
Show’s over.
We don’t need to go beyond this.
Just let them be happy.
“Smoke and you will destroy yourself.”
1980s Russian anti-smoking poster
Can the night be just a bit louder? I need more noise.
I don’t think I can compete with this, being how silent it is here…
Another restless night where midnight and dawn blends melancholic-like.
If I waited for you until the day begins again, what would that mean for you? Would it mean something to you? Does that mean anything to you?
You always walk and pace from side to side and hope someone steps towards you. But no one dares to. You often sigh and scream in the same breath. You always need but never ask. You look to the stars but never wish for anything.
You don’t pray.
You don’t indulge in anything.
You don’t dream.
So, even if the moon drops and the night fades, even if I wait for you until the day begins again, will it even matter? Even in both of those worlds you live in, nothing can mend your heart, you burn so hot and yet act so cold.
All things that come close to you loses its purpose.
All hope and joy just ceases to exist.
Every person and memory just fizzles away.
So, to understand it all, to bring meaning to it all, to find closure in it all, I must ask you this:
Does anything mean anything to you?
zaturnz-barz-deactivated2017071 asked:
vintagegeekculture answered:

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 feel the need to clarify for those who may think this is just a piece of absurdist art: it's not.
It's a beautifully executed piece commenting on the Instagram Algorithm and how it forces content creators to use ALL it's features in order to keep the algorithm from drowning their art posts.
When you are on instagram, you don't view the content from the people you followed.
How does it decide what to show you? It culls posts which are made by accounts which don't post to Stories and Reels on a daily basis.
Instagram famously hates artists. Their platform favors uses (influencers) who post short videos or photos to the stories feature more than once per day. To an artist who may take a few days to finish a piece and may not have time to post inane, pointless little videos just to Appease The Algorithm, this guarantees that Instagram shadow bans their posts and subtly removes it from people's feeds.
So, are you on Instagram? Are you tired/annoyed of the stories your artist friends keep posting? Congratulations! Now you know why they have to do this. Now you can complain about it along with everyone else.
Political cartoonists have good takes actually
my anonymous friend sent me this and i thought this was really beautiful
it’s literally scary how much this post is me
absolutely amazing