I couldn't find any pictures of Guu cakes, so instead, here's a woman in a fish suit.

This is an issue I've had with my writing: how do you write something that is enjoyable to read, that people will want to read?

Funnily enough I find myself actually getting bored from reading a lot of my own writing, especially because it feels like there is a lot of "filler" content and even the parts that could be interesting are dragged out to the point where they get boring. (this is not a "bad habit" I've developed in here to get more OM from my posts, it's something I have problems with even IRL).
I've since received a good bit of advice from a number of friends but I wonder if you guys have a way of "writing something that people would want to read". Does it just come to you naturally? Do you proofread and delete the excess?

Amaterasu had no idea what to expect of the space beyond the portal. It could be anything: they could find themselves standing on an enormous transparent bubble containing the Frozen Fields, if Urist’s theory was true. Or maybe in a white expanse like the Nexus, or more dangerously, a sort of outer space. As Oki’s hands reached through from beyond the black portal and grabbed her arms to pull her through, she wondered what it would be. Then she was lifted up and saw herself faced with a pitch black sky, and her three friends already waiting for her.

Oki, Urist and Fiara stood on a sort of platform, or to be exact Oki was kneeling on it with his hands gripping her arms to tug her onto the surface. Was it even a platform? The only pointer to that was that they all stood there and that she met a resistance when propping her hands below herself to climb up. Urist seemed to have realized this too because he was tapping the ground in front of him with his pickaxe, checking for holes. Shuddering at the thought of what might happen if they fell into the void, Amaterasu pulled herself up and looked back.

The portal was still there. Like a window they could see the peak of the rock they had just climbed, and the snowed mountain extending beneath that. How peculiar… one could see in from the outside, but not the other way around? And extending that thought, did that mean that there were more “windows” like these where an outsider could look into a verse from? It was a creepy thought to pursue, so she decided to leave it at that. The matter at hand was a whole different one, after all…

“This en’t right”, murmured Urist. “Ah can’t see no borders ta this place.”

“What about those things?” asked Fiara and pointed at the ground. True enough, there were faint white lines that Amaterasu hadn’t noticed yet. They were blurry like paint that had been washed away by water, but the more one looked at it, the clearer they stood out.

“Leylines…” she murmured. “Could it really be?”

“Wha? Layla-ins?” Urist parrotted Amaterasu’s words.

“I think I know what this place is… none of you move”, she ordered, but a moment too late. Urist had turned around and lifted his foot to move towards them, but the moment that he did so his body flipped over and, with a surprised scream, he fell upwards as a sort of reversed gravity gripped him. Before anyone could really react to the sudden shift though the dwarf hit a surface and tumbled forward, rolling along an invisible ground and finally stopping at a fair distance from the rest of the group. Diagonally above them he sat, his head facing downwards and his face depicting such a comical grimace of confusion and shame that even Amaterasu had to laugh despite the severity of the situation. “Are you okay, Urist?” she asked once she managed to regain control of herself.

“Aye… ah, bu’ wha’ happened? Why’re ye all upside down now?”

“Stay put. The laws of space are different in this place. Moving around may fling you across the space, or worse.”

“I imagine that you’ve got a plan?” Oki intervened with a worried frown.

“Yes… there’s only one type of space that I know that this could be, one that has leylines and where the regular laws of space and time are distorted: an extradimensional hypometric area with chaos-logical antilaws.”

“...”

“... okay, that’s a mouthful, I realize. Omoikane, the Kami of wisdom, discovered it before I was reincarnated into Nippon, as a space between spaces through which lesser Kami can navigate from Tamagahara, Earth or the Underworld to any other of the three realms without undertaking the lengthy journey through Nippon. The common name we gave that place is ‘Abyss’, the realm between realms that holds reality together.”

“That I think I can memorize… so you know how we must move to get out of this place?”

“Yes and no… the good news is that I think I know where this could lead. The Abyss was a connection between the underworld, the surface and the heavens. If this place is anything like it, then it may have a connection between these realms too. We could try to find an exit that will bring us to the Nexus.” Yes, they could. But her destination was going to be a very different one. Oki raised an eyebrow and despite that he didn’t object Amaterasu suspected that he knew what she intended to do.

“And the bad news?” Fiara interjected.

“The bad news is that I will need to calculate the chaos-geometric properties of this antispace to define what antilaws govern it, and thus determine how to reverse those very same antilaws in order to synthesize a formula that allows us to determine the correct path of leylines to follow if we are to get anywhere. And that sort of calculation will take a while… depending on the magnitude of the antispace we’re in I could need a few days.”

“What if we take a path along a leyline at random?” Oki suggested. “I realize that it may not be the best course of action but we can’t leave Urist up there and it’d be faster.”

“I have no idea where these leylines may lead, Oki… sure we may end up somewhere we want to be but who’s to say that we won’t end up in the Underworld, if the Omniverse has one? Or in some other, equally bad place, like the core of a verse, or in midair where we will fall to our deaths.”

The Oina warrior shuddered. “I… suppose.”

“The leylines should be the single constant in this world, which will allow me to unravel the whole thing… you guys can travel up and down along them if you have to move, but avoid straying from them. Urist, try moving around and see if you can get your feet onto one of those lines! You should be able to navigate your way back to us.” Having said that, she took a seat, crossed her legs, closed her eyes and emptied her mind. This sort of calculations would take a while, and a single error because she didn’t concentrate could make everything else useless.


Oki observed as Amaterasu began to paint a complex spherical model into the air using her Celestial Brush. Every stroke, every blot of ink seemed to have a purpose but the pattern was getting more and more complex with every second. Before long he had to turn his eyes away because it was making his head hurt to just look at it, let alone to listen to the rows of numbers she was writing next to it and murmuring to herself. Was she even taking breaks to breathe?

Whatever the case was, the Kami seemed to know what she was doing, and the three of them could do little but to trust in her. A place like this, a plane of existence where the most fundamental laws of reality did not apply, was not a domain for a simple warrior like him, or even for a learned scholar: it was the domain of the gods.

“Urist! Do you happen to still carry that Protractor on you that you’ve been using on the maps?” Amaterasu asked loudly.

“Uhh… aye, ah should. D’ya need it?”

“Please. Throw it down to me.”

The dwarf did as told and Oki watched with great interest how the little piece of metal fell downwards from his perspective. Urist was standing upside down with gravity seemingly pulling him upwards, yet it seemed that the Protractor cared very little about that. Amaterasu snagged it from midair without turning her eyes away from the drawing.

“Oki… can you pass me a can of food from our provisions? A big one, preferably.”

“Sure”, he replied and dug around in his backpack. Strange, it felt like it was way larger and deeper on the inside than out… he quickly found one of the cans with preserved meat and vegetables and tossed it towards her. “Did you need that for your calculations as well?”

“Eh? Oh, no”, she said as she popped the lid off, then tilted the can over her mouth and swallowed a mouthful. “I’m just hungry and need some brain food.”

"I know there are many drivers out there tonight that been having a stressful day dealing with traffic and work but right now I'm about to bring you an enjoyable classic track that was made by Cutting Crew from 1986. Here comes I Just Died in Your Arms for all the emotional eighties lovers out there tonight," The radio host spoke through the speakers of the car while Jacket and Koal speed down a highway somewhere in Tier Five.



The music played loud through the speakers while Koal wasn't familiar with Jacket's style of music he's used to listening to. As the emotional lyrics were sung by Cutting Crew, Jacket sped up and slowed down at times. He even sometimes moved over into another lane to pass the slow-moving hover cars. Koal sat back quiet while Jacket smoked with his window down to let out the tobacco smoke. The demon wasn't sure what to say next due to Jacket's rollercoaster emotions right now while the corpse of Luci rides with them. Suddenly, Koal had a question in mind to ask Jacket.

"Where are we going?" Koal questioned not familiar about this part of the town.

Jacket puffs smoke out his nostrils following with a long sigh.

"I have no fuckin clue," Jacket replied while he kept his eyes on the road.

"That's an answer I don't put a lot of whole of trust in," Koal stated resting his head on the back seat.

There was an awkward silence between them while the noise of the hover car's motor hummed to keep the mood not too silent. Koal looked outside of the window of the car seeing random pedestrians walking on the sidewalk. The pedestrians were mixed with the crowd from humans to aliens and other species that are present to the Omniverse. Koal quite understood what Jacket was going through and he went through that pain of brokenness too.

Speaking about each other feelings, the demon-hybrid hasn't really done it much before. Murder usually helped his mood to calm down a bit but right now wasn't really the time and place for it. Koal didn't really want a long car ride around Coruscant and realized his stomach began to growl for food. He shifted his legs in the backseat feeling unformattable and tried to get comfortable from this long car ride. After riding for a couple more minutes longer, Koal couldn't really take it anymore. He was hungry, and Jacket's attitude was starting to bug him now.

"Listen, I know how you feel right now and I've lost so much in my previous life. As of right now, I'm starting to get pretty hungry from how long this night has been to us," Koal spoke to persuade Jacket to do something.

Jacket inhaled the tobacco substance from the cigarette and exhaled from his nose again after Koal spoke.

"Fine, I guess we'll go somewhere," Jacket said with no enthusiasm and still bothered about his girlfriend's death.

"Do you have something in mind?" Jacket questioned, flicking his finished cigarette out the window then rolling it up.

"I haven't really eaten in Coruscant before so no…" Koal stated while looking out his window.

"You wanna get Pizza?" Jacket said while making a right turn at a red light.

"What's pizza?" Koal said curiously which surprised Jacket a bit.

"You've never eaten pizza before?" Jacket questioned while focusing on the road.

"Nope," Koal answered looking at the front of the hover car.

"Well, that's what we're going to have for tonight then," Jacket replied while keeping an eye out for a local pizzeria.

Their ride wasn't too silent as Jacket kept playing some of his 80s music. After ten more minutes driving around the block, they found a little Pizzeria here in Tier Five. Jacket pulled the hovercar near the curb and parallel parked between two hover cars. He puts the vehicle in park and took the keys out of the ignition.

"Well let's go have some pizza then," Jacket said before getting out of the car along with Koal.

The Pizzeria had a flashing red neon sign outside to attract customers with letters spelling Sal's Pizzeria. This part of town wasn't too busy with traffic which made things easier for Koal and Jacket. One of them opened the door and headed inside to be met with a cheesy Brooklyn style pizza smell. Jacket definitely knew this was the kind of Pizzeria that was best for Koal to try out.

Hey, I'm Alex.

I'm working to get a manuscript of mine published digitally, but in order to like, progress any further in the process (I'm working through some online publications) I need a cover image.

Unfortunately, I'm shit fucking awful at any sort of digital art (or... art in general).  I know there are plenty of people here who are capable of like, making competent art, so I wanted to know if anyone could help me out.  Said cover doesn't have to be anything complex and I have very little requirements (novel title, author title, and a few essential things for the theme/plot that I want on there).  At the moment, I can't offer any sort of payment (being dirt poor and whatnot), but I'll obviously include your information (name and a link to a website or online portfolio if have one) if I get accepted by one of these places.

I need something by the end of the month.  Failing you guys, I'll have to start fishing around upperclassmen at my school that want brownie points.  So if you think you can help me, you can reach out to me through PM or Skype and I'll convey the details of what I need/am looking for.

I appreciate it.  Seriously do.

So today is my birthday and I'm turning 21. Not sure if I want to try out how alcohol taste like yet lol. Sucks that I won't have time to do a birthday dinner since I have class this evening but maybe on Thursday when I'm off.

I've been trying to get this gif to work as my avatar for the last 30 minutes and I just can't seem to make it work, so I come to you guys for help. I've tried cropping off the edges, but even that didn't work.

https://data.whicdn.com/images/166570970/original.gif

Is the gif in question. Avatars need to be 300 x 300 with a file size no greater than 150 kb.

You guys may not know this about me, but I watch a LOT of supernatural horror movies. I'll be the first to admit that most of them suck, leaning on trite and tired tropes, abundant gore, jump-scares, and cheap shock value. They make for good riffing fodder, and they're a decent way to cultivate a sense of smug superiority for an hour or two. However, precisely because generic slasher-flicks and creature features are so thick on the ground, more than any other genre the really great horror films stand out. Typically, this is either because they find new and different ways of framing, addressing or examining the material (Cabin the Woods, Scream) or master the tropes of the genre so thoroughly that they create a genuine sense of foreboding, mystery, magic and the macabre which lingers even after the film is over (The Void, Occulus,  Hellraiser). 

It's coming up on that most wonderful and joyous time of year again, so, with all this in mind (and because I was recently stuck on the couch for five days with nothing to do BUT watch movies) I thought I'd take a moment and talk about a subject that's very near and dear to my heart - the Christmas-Themed Horror Movie. 

Christmas horror movies are a perverse sort of beast, predicated on taking the sense of imminence and fantasy inherent in the holiday season and injecting it with a little bit of the old-world oppressiveness and deathly promise of a really cold winter. The good ones take a time that Western culture associates with togetherness and family and make it about isolation, ritual, and the dark mysteries of a holiday that's actually far older than Christ. The bad ones are slasher films dressed up in tinsel, so gimmicky that they're impossible to take seriously.

The latter kind of Christmas Horror is overwhelmingly more numerous. Before Jack Frost was a brain-stunningly shmaltzy family-film, it was a tasteless slasher movie about a serial killer who got turned into a murdering rapist snow-man. It's exactly as uncomfortable as it sounds. There are two different movies, made by entirely different people called Santa Claws. In one of them, Santa actually has claws.  No matter how heinous his crimes, a mall-Santa with a knife ( 3 different movies!) is not terribly interesting. Unless you're the sort to go in for moral outrage over the perceived defilement of a beloved holiday icon, the laziness of it gets off-putting pretty fast, never mind the lack of any redeeming element of atmosphere or story. In general, this is the level on which holiday Horror operates, and this is why the few example of quality from this niche-within-a-niche genre are so notable. So without further ado, let's talk about the good ones. 

There are, to my knowledge, only three. 

A Christmas Horror Story
It's on Netflix, and you should watch it. This is probably the best of the best for this sub-genre, able to stand on its own not just as a Christmas horror-film, but as an excellent movie in its own right. It alternates between several stories within a town where, over the course of a particularly dark and cold Christmas night, reality and history seem to be flapping loose.

 A dysfunctional suburban family visits their grandmother, and their mutual animosity unleashes a monstrous figure from teutonic myth. A couple cuts a Christmas-tree from a fenced off lot, briefly losing track of their son, and when they find him again, he isn't the same. A group of teenagers find themselves locked in the basement of their school over the Holiday break, and the echo of a decades-old tragedy is locked in with them. Meanwhile, at a North Pole workshop that despite being presented at 50's-esque Christmas-special face value feels dream-like, exhausted and ancient, something has gone horribly wrong with Santa's elves. In the face of a zombie insurrection, the illusions and comforts of centuries of myth begin to be ripped away from a post-traumatic German sun-god turned toy-maker.  

All of this is tied together by a Christmas-loving late-night radio talk-show host, played with remarkable authenticity by none other than William Shatner, who gets progressively more inebriated and disillusioned as the night ( and the movie goes on) and the town outside his studio goes mad. 

Perhaps best of all, there's a twist at the end - the kind that makes you watch the movie again.

 All the different stories are told authentically and brilliantly, even the North Pole Zombocalypse, which manages to be genuinely haunting in spite of the overt zaniness of the premise. For those who like a little bit of intellectualism in their horror, the film displays a refreshing knowledge of the history of the season, and brings it across in some surprisingly subtle ways (though by necessity certain liberties are taken as well).  Overall, the film creates a heavy atmosphere of something important to the world souring with age, and beginning to spin out of control, while still managing to be genuinely fun and entertaining.


(It's seriously really good, and has something to teach about layered storytelling. Go watch it now. I'll wait).    

SANTAS SLAY
It should be noted that this film is, by most conventional wisdom, bad. However, if you're a fan of self-aware horror, its definitely worth your time.

Santa's Slay lacks the complexity and dense atmosphere of A Christmas Horror Story, which is objectively a far superior film. However,  it makes up for much of that that with energy, irony, and sheer enthusiasm. The premise is fairly boilerplate on the face of it -Killer Santa Claus - however, it shines in the execution.  

1000 years ago, Santa, the son of Satan himself,  bet on a curling match (a game where you compete to see who can slide a stone closest to a hole in the ice without the stone falling in) with an angel - and he lost. By the terms of the bet, he was doomed to do good deeds for a millennium, rewarding the good little children with presents every year on the eve of Jesus' birthday. However, this year, the millennium is up, and Santa, played by none other than professional wrestler Bill Goldberg, is on a murderous, hedonistic rampage. A brother and sister, two of the least annoying children in movie-history, are, by virtue of a book passed down through their family the only people besides their grandfather who understand what's going on as Santa descends on their town and starts killing everybody in the absolute hammiest methods possible. They have until Christmas is over to find a way to stop an invulnerable, gun-toting, strip-club patronizing, pro-wrestling-move-using, police-station wrecking, zamboni-homicide-committing Goldberg-Claus.

This movie includes Rudolph getting shot down with a bazooka and a fairly tasteless (but oddly satisfying) opening scene in which Santa murders a room full of extremely annoying actors. It is not, strictly speaking, always in good taste, but Goldberg's physical presence and overblown acting carry a kinetic enthusiasm that drives the film to heights other killer-Santa movies can only dream of. It's not a horror movie that's trying to be scary - it knows its stupid, and it wants to be as fun as possible; By and large, it succeeds.  

Santa's Slay is not available for streaming, so if you want to watch it you'll have to look around and/or wait, however, unlike the previous film on this list, you won't actually lose anything besides a good time by missing it. 

Rare Exports
This film falls somewhere in between the other two in terms of overall character. It's a serious entry in the holiday-horror sub-genre rather than a murderous romp, but its a little silly at times. (It's also very Finnish. Personally I take that as a plus). 

The movie opens with a research team in Lapland discovers that what was previously thought to be a mountain is actually massive burial mound, constructed by the Saami thousands of years ago. In the process of excavating the mound, they blow the mountain open with dynamite, and unleash the things that were trapped inside.

Soon, the local ranchers discover that their reindeer have all been slaughtered in the night in what they initially take to be a massive wolf-attack, and they go to confront to confront the research team for stirring up the local wildlife with their blasting, only to discover that the scientists have all disappeared, and the top of the mountain has been replaced by a massive hole. Shortly after that, their children, who have become increasingly fearful of Santa-Claus, start to disappear, replaced by straw effigies. Other things are disappearing too: burlap sacks, space-heaters and other household items - and then one of the ranchers captures a feral old man in the act of breaking into a house. As Christmas approaches, and the situation degenerates, it becomes apparent that something ancient was buried in that mountain, and now its helpers are abroad in the land, going about the business required for its resurrection.

The movie is pretty dark, drawing on heavily on the mythology of Krampus and the sinister side of the Santa Claus legend, but its also feels  authentic, and never really ventures into the realm of camp. It plays like a story about something weird happening to real people rather than horror-movie archetypes. The protagonists, all working men, have both believably flawed personalities and a certain rugged charm, and their resentment towards the research team for causing this trouble strikes notes of real-world class-conflict. The parent-child relationships, which are developed instead of just assumed, have some genuine emotional heft, making the child-abductions feel like a real raising of the stakes rather than merely a gimmick, and the somewhat idiosyncratic ending - from which the movie takes its name - is almost David Lynchian. As horror movies go, its pretty unique, and definitely one of the better ones. 
  


And there you have it. Holiday Horror movies for your viewing pleasure this Christmas Season. If you've got any thoughts or recommendations to add, I'd be glad to hear them, but in the meantime, a merry Midwinter Festival to you all.

Do you want to show off your amazing desings but have the art skills of a potato? Or are you just too lazy to grab a pencil?

Worry not, while i am too a lazy potato, right now i'm too bored to do something else, so i decided to illustrate some of the cool characters here

Rules:

• OC's only, or maybe obscure characters with weird art styles. I'm not here to draw fanart of already popular characters
  
• One drawing per person. You may ask for another after recieving yours, but you will have to wait again
  
• I'm not drawing your character chilling in their ridicusly opulent mansion. I'll be doing colored sketches, nothing more
  
• Be as descriptive as posible. But for the love of the Smiling One, be direct! My english is shit - you won't believe how many times i have misunderstood descriptions
  
• Once you recieve your drawing, you may do whatever you want with it: cut it, edit it, trace it, make it your avatar, upload it somewhere else... Just don't say it's yours
  
• I'll stop whenever i feel like it, but you can request something to me anytime
  

(12-04-2017, 01:24 PM)John Egbert Wrote: Ok, new rule!
Drawings with already cool art will become low priority, and i'll get to them ONLY when i finish the others.
Unless you buy me Hollow Knight. i'll make a cool illustration to whoever buys me that game.

Separate from the Santa thread.

When I was in primary school, my brother and his friends told me that there was a vampire, a specific vampire, who was after me and that when I got home, I had to board up the house and furniture and stay awake the whole night, NO MATTER WHAT. I spent the whole day fretting about this, and the moment I got in the house, I told my mum to start boarding up the windows. My brother started laughing and the lie unravelled pretty fast, though I watched my windows that night.

We also told my younger stepbrother (when I was older) that aliens were real and that they wanted to abduct him. When he really started freaking out, my other two, older stepbrothers laughed and said "Don't worry, there aren't any aliens out there."

"..."

"BECAUSE WE'RE ALL ALIENS!"

Cue screaming.

What terrible things did your older siblings tell you, or vice versa?