I'm tired now but someone yell at me to do this early tomorrow
ALL OF YOU ARE TERRIBLE AT THIS
I am going to imagine all the goats talking like Mermando until further notice, and you can do nothing to stop this
Mark Trail also angered the goat-gods. That's why the volcano erupted for five months on that Hawaiian island
Per-standard old-timey SF/Fantasy rules, there has to be at least one hot lady living amongst the monster society.
Was there some hoax about the imprint of a goat man in a slab of rock that I wasn't aware of? This really feels like it's referencing something.
Well! That didn't make a whole lot of sense, but I liked how surreal and dreamlike it was. It kind of feels like the kind of story that would have a really good symphonic poem written about it, like The Sorcerer's Apprentice, or Night On Bald Mountain
In the very olden time there lived a semi-barbaric king, whose ideas, though somewhat polished and sharpened by the progressiveness of distant Latin neighbors, were still large, florid, and untrammeled, as became the half of him which was barbaric. He was a man of exuberant fancy, and, withal, of an authority so irresistible that, at his will, he turned his varied fancies into facts. He was greatly given to self-communing, and, when he and himself agreed upon anything, the thing was done. When every member of his domestic and political systems moved smoothly in its appointed course, his nature was bland and genial; but, whenever there was a little hitch, and some of his orbs got out of their orbits, he was blander and more genial still, for nothing pleased him so much as to make the crooked straight and crush down uneven places.
Among the borrowed notions by which his barbarism had become semified was that of the public arena, in which, by exhibitions of manly and beastly valor, the minds of his subjects were refined and cultured.
But even here the exuberant and barbaric fancy asserted itself. The arena of the king was built, not to give the people an opportunity of hearing the rhapsodies of dying gladiators, nor to enable them to view the inevitable conclusion of a conflict between religious opinions and hungry jaws, but for purposes far better adapted to widen and develop the mental energies of the people. This vast amphitheater, with its encircling galleries, its mysterious vaults, and its unseen passages, was an agent of poetic justice, in which crime was punished, or virtue rewarded, by the decrees of an impartial and incorruptible chance.
When a subject was accused of a crime of sufficient importance to interest the king, public notice was given that on an appointed day the fate of the accused person would be decided in the king's arena, a structure which well deserved its name, for, although its form and plan were borrowed from afar, its purpose emanated solely from the brain of this man, who, every barleycorn a king, knew no tradition to which he owed more allegiance than pleased his fancy, and who ingrafted on every adopted form of human thought and action the rich growth of his barbaric idealism.
When all the people had assembled in the galleries, and the king, surrounded by his court, sat high up on his throne of royal state on one side of the arena, he gave a signal, a door beneath him opened, and the accused subject stepped out into the amphitheater. Directly opposite him, on the other side of the inclosed space, were two doors, exactly alike and side by side. It was the duty and the privilege of the person on trial to walk directly to these doors and open one of them. He could open either door he pleased; he was subject to no guidance or influence but that of the aforementioned impartial and incorruptible chance. If he opened the one, there came out of it a hungry tiger, the fiercest and most cruel that could be procured, which immediately sprang upon him and tore him to pieces as a punishment for his guilt. The moment that the case of the criminal was thus decided, doleful iron bells were clanged, great wails went up from the hired mourners posted on the outer rim of the arena, and the vast audience, with bowed heads and downcast hearts, wended slowly their homeward way, mourning greatly that one so young and fair, or so old and respected, should have merited so dire a fate.
But, if the accused person opened the other door, there came forth from it a lady, the most suitable to his years and station that his majesty could select among his fair subjects, and to this lady he was immediately married, as a reward of his innocence. It mattered not that he might already possess a wife and family, or that his affections might be engaged upon an object of his own selection; the king allowed no such subordinate arrangements to interfere with his great scheme of retribution and reward. The exercises, as in the other instance, took place immediately, and in the arena. Another door opened beneath the king, and a priest, followed by a band of choristers, and dancing maidens blowing joyous airs on golden horns and treading an epithalamic measure, advanced to where the pair stood, side by side, and the wedding was promptly and cheerily solemnized. Then the gay brass bells rang forth their merry peals, the people shouted glad hurrahs, and the innocent man, preceded by children strewing flowers on his path, led his bride to his home
This was the king's semi-barbaric method of administering justice. Its perfect fairness is obvious. The criminal could not know out of which door would come the lady; he opened either he pleased, without having the slightest idea whether, in the next instant, he was to be devoured or married. On some occasions the tiger came out of one door, and on some out of the other. The decisions of this tribunal were not only fair, they were positively determinate: the accused person was instantly punished if he found himself guilty, and, if innocent, he was rewarded on the spot, whether he liked it or not. There was no escape from the judgments of the king's arena.
The institution was a very popular one. When the people gathered together on one of the great trial days, they never knew whether they were to witness a bloody slaughter or a hilarious wedding. This element of uncertainty lent an interest to the occasion which it could not otherwise have attained. Thus, the masses were entertained and pleased, and the thinking part of the community could bring no charge of unfairness against this plan, for did not the accused person have the whole matter in his own hands?
This semi-barbaric king had a daughter as blooming as his most florid fancies, and with a soul as fervent and imperious as his own. As is usual in such cases, she was the apple of his eye, and was loved by him above all humanity. Among his courtiers was a young man of that fineness of blood and lowness of station common to the conventional heroes of romance who love royal maidens. This royal maiden was well satisfied with her lover, for he was handsome and brave to a degree unsurpassed in all this kingdom, and she loved him with an ardor that had enough of barbarism in it to make it exceedingly warm and strong. This love affair moved on happily for many months, until one day the king happened to discover its existence. He did not hesitate nor waver in regard to his duty in the premises. The youth was immediately cast into prison, and a day was appointed for his trial in the king's arena. This, of course, was an especially important occasion, and his majesty, as well as all the people, was greatly interested in the workings and development of this trial. Never before had such a case occurred; never before had a subject dared to love the daughter of the king. In after years such things became commonplace enough, but then they were in no slight degree novel and startling.
The tiger-cages of the kingdom were searched for the most savage and relentless beasts, from which the fiercest monster might be selected for the arena; and the ranks of maiden youth and beauty throughout the land were carefully surveyed by competent judges in order that the young man might have a fitting bride in case fate did not determine for him a different destiny. Of course, everybody knew that the deed with which the accused was charged had been done. He had loved the princess, and neither he, she, nor any one else, thought of denying the fact; but the king would not think of allowing any fact of this kind to interfere with the workings of the tribunal, in which he took such great delight and satisfaction. No matter how the affair turned out, the youth would be disposed of, and the king would take an aesthetic pleasure in watching the course of events, which would determine whether or not the young man had done wrong in allowing himself to love the princess
The appointed day arrived. From far and near the people gathered, and thronged the great galleries of the arena, and crowds, unable to gain admittance, massed themselves against its outside walls. The king and his court were in their places, opposite the twin doors, those fateful portals, so terrible in their similarity.
All was ready. The signal was given. A door beneath the royal party opened, and the lover of the princess walked into the arena. Tall, beautiful, fair, his appearance was greeted with a low hum of admiration and anxiety. Half the audience had not known so grand a youth had lived among them. No wonder the princess loved him! What a terrible thing for him to be there!
As the youth advanced into the arena he turned, as the custom was, to bow to the king, but he did not think at all of that royal personage. His eyes were fixed upon the princess, who sat to the right of her father. Had it not been for the moiety of barbarism in her nature it is probable that lady would not have been there, but her intense and fervid soul would not allow her to be absent on an occasion in which she was so terribly interested. From the moment that the decree had gone forth that her lover should decide his fate in the king's arena, she had thought of nothing, night or day, but this great event and the various subjects connected with it. Possessed of more power, influence, and force of character than any one who had ever before been interested in such a case, she had done what no other person had done,--she had possessed herself of the secret of the doors. She knew in which of the two rooms, that lay behind those doors, stood the cage of the tiger, with its open front, and in which waited the lady. Through these thick doors, heavily curtained with skins on the inside, it was impossible that any noise or suggestion should come from within to the person who should approach to raise the latch of one of them. But gold, and the power of a woman's will, had brought the secret to the princess.
And not only did she know in which room stood the lady ready to emerge, all blushing and radiant, should her door be opened, but she knew who the lady was. It was one of the fairest and loveliest of the damsels of the court who had been selected as the reward of the accused youth, should he be proved innocent of the crime of aspiring to one so far above him; and the princess hated her. Often had she seen, or imagined that she had seen, this fair creature throwing glances of admiration upon the person of her lover, and sometimes she thought these glances were perceived, and even returned. Now and then she had seen them talking together; it was but for a moment or two, but much can be said in a brief space; it may have been on most unimportant topics, but how could she know that? The girl was lovely, but she had dared to raise her eyes to the loved one of the princess; and, with all the intensity of the savage blood transmitted to her through long lines of wholly barbaric ancestors, she hated the woman who blushed and trembled behind that silent door.
When her lover turned and looked at her, and his eye met hers as she sat there, paler and whiter than any one in the vast ocean of anxious faces about her, he saw, by that power of quick perception which is given to those whose souls are one, that she knew behind which door crouched the tiger, and behind which stood the lady. He had expected her to know it. He understood her nature, and his soul was assured that she would never rest until she had made plain to herself this thing, hidden to all other lookers-on, even to the king. The only hope for the youth in which there was any element of certainty was based upon the success of the princess in discovering this mystery; and the moment he looked upon her, he saw she had succeeded, as in his soul he knew she would succeed.
Then it was that his quick and anxious glance asked the question: "Which?" It was as plain to her as if he shouted it from where he stood. There was not an instant to be lost. The question was asked in a flash; it must be answered in another.
Her right arm lay on the cushioned parapet before her. She raised her hand, and made a slight, quick movement toward the right. No one but her lover saw her. Every eye but his was fixed on the man in the arena.
He turned, and with a firm and rapid step he walked across the empty space. Every heart stopped beating, every breath was held, every eye was fixed immovably upon that man. Without the slightest hesitation, he went to the door on the right, and opened it.
Now, the point of the story is this: Did the tiger come out of that door, or did the lady ?
The more we reflect upon this question, the harder it is to answer. It involves a study of the human heart which leads us through devious mazes of passion, out of which it is difficult to find our way. Think of it, fair reader, not as if the decision of the question depended upon yourself, but upon that hot-blooded, semi-barbaric princess, her soul at a white heat beneath the combined fires of despair and jealousy. She had lost him, but who should have him?
How often, in her waking hours and in her dreams, had she started in wild horror, and covered her face with her hands as she thought of her lover opening the door on the other side of which waited the cruel fangs of the tiger!
But how much oftener had she seen him at the other door! How in her grievous reveries had she gnashed her teeth, and torn her hair, when she saw his start of rapturous delight as he opened the door of the lady! How her soul had burned in agony when she had seen him rush to meet that woman, with her flushing cheek and sparkling eye of triumph; when she had seen him lead her forth, his whole frame kindled with the joy of recovered life; when she had heard the glad shouts from the multitude, and the wild ringing of the happy bells; when she had seen the priest, with his joyous followers, advance to the couple, and make them man and wife before her very eyes; and when she had seen them walk away together upon their path of flowers, followed by the tremendous shouts of the hilarious multitude, in which her one despairing shriek was lost and drowned!
Would it not be better for him to die at once, and go to wait for her in the blessed regions of semibarbaric futurity?
And yet, that awful tiger, those shrieks, that blood!
Her decision had been indicated in an instant, but it had been made after days and nights of anguished deliberation. She had known she would be asked, she had decided what she would answer, and, without the slightest hesitation, she had moved her hand to the right.
The question of her decision is one not to be lightly considered, and it is not for me to presume to set myself up as the one person able to answer it. And so I leave it with all of you: Which came out of the opened door,--the lady, or the tiger?
I'll tell you what's not though: You, the reader of this thread have a shot to choose the next comic I read!
You just have to guess a random number I've picked between 1-15 and I'll let you choose the next comic from my source! not only that, I'll let the person who's closest to it without getting it pick the comic after that! I've sent the number to Crystal, who doesn't read this thread. You can pick one number per day. I'll stop the voting when someone gets it.
The character art is weirdly inconsistent in this one. From panel-to-panel switching from realistic, to stylized, to outright cartoony. Like, why does Mona have witch fingers in the lower left panel of page 2?
The basic idea (random person gets contacted by the dead to deliver a message to the living) is sound, but the execution is really unfocused. Mona realizes that she spoke to a dead man halfway through the comic, and the story just keeps going. Did you want a story about ghost miners? Well screw you, here's a legal dispute over ownership of the mine, instead!
The real horror is that Walter Manko's just going to exploit his workers all over again, until he enrages the ghosts of the earth enough that they collapse another mine on him. Just like his father.
I'll tell you what's not though: You, the reader of this thread have a shot to choose the next comic I read!
You just have to guess a random number I've picked between 1-15 and I'll let you choose the next comic from my source! not only that, I'll let the person who's closest to it without getting it pick the comic after that! I've sent the number to Crystal, who doesn't read this thread. You can pick one number per day. I'll stop the voting when someone gets it.
You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
I am going to close voting tonight because someone got it.
I will not say who, though, and someone can still come in second place, so if you haven't voted yet, or voted yesterday, try again within the next three hours
You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
"Tweedledum and Tweedledee" bothered me for a bit because I always thought they were typically written the other way around but Google Trends shows the error of my ways.
I then realized my entire opinion about this is entirely based on Arthur episode "D.W. The Picky Eater" when the waiter says "Tweedledee and Tweedledum lobsters for two~" and in fact I barely even remember which characters these are from Alice in Wonderland.
You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
Tweedledum and Tweedledee are from a nursery rhyme but people only remember them from their appearance in Through the Looking-Glass now, which is funny to me
You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
So the saucers were flying because a giant threw them, fair enough.
But then...how did the one Alice flew to Wonderland on in the first place fly??
You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
That is pretty funny.
And it's like, it immediately drops Alice in this setting where nothing is adequately explained...but you can't fault it for that, since that's how the Alice in Wonderland story has always gone!
You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
I like how absurd it is that Alice in Wonderland is a story that exists in-universe, and this just happens to be another little girl named Alice, who looks just like Carroll's Alice, and who can also go to Wonderland.
I like how Alice caught on to the fact that in Wonderland Tennis she can just make up the rules so that she wins.
It kind of makes sense that the dad is so frustrated given that his daughter goes through the day cosplaying as Alice at all times, and appears to be, like, 12, which is after this behavior would be just childish imagination.
You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
Maybe Alice is some weird reclusive kid with no friends and she's obsessed with Alice in Wonderland and the entire comic is just taking place in her imagination.
Oddly enough, that makes it more relatable rather than more depressing.
You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
Nice to know that Bernie is an idiot who leaves his keys in the car when he goes to find a mechanic.
Look closely at the puzzle page: Colorist: Do not color in picture of Alice.
Comments
Well! That didn't make a whole lot of sense, but I liked how surreal and dreamlike it was. It kind of feels like the kind of story that would have a really good symphonic poem written about it, like The Sorcerer's Apprentice, or Night On Bald Mountain
Her older sisters are Larri and Rikki, I assume.
sharpened by the progressiveness of distant Latin neighbors, were still large, florid, and untrammeled,
as became the half of him which was barbaric. He was a man of exuberant fancy, and, withal, of an
authority so irresistible that, at his will, he turned his varied fancies into facts. He was greatly given to
self-communing, and, when he and himself agreed upon anything, the thing was done. When every
member of his domestic and political systems moved smoothly in its appointed course, his nature was
bland and genial; but, whenever there was a little hitch, and some of his orbs got out of their orbits, he
was blander and more genial still, for nothing pleased him so much as to make the crooked straight
and crush down uneven places.
arena, in which, by exhibitions of manly and beastly valor, the minds of his subjects were refined and
cultured.
give the people an opportunity of hearing the rhapsodies of dying gladiators, nor to enable them to
view the inevitable conclusion of a conflict between religious opinions and hungry jaws, but for
purposes far better adapted to widen and develop the mental energies of the people. This vast
amphitheater, with its encircling galleries, its mysterious vaults, and its unseen passages, was an agent
of poetic justice, in which crime was punished, or virtue rewarded, by the decrees of an impartial and
incorruptible chance.
given that on an appointed day the fate of the accused person would be decided in the king's arena, a
structure which well deserved its name, for, although its form and plan were borrowed from afar, its
purpose emanated solely from the brain of this man, who, every barleycorn a king, knew no tradition
to which he owed more allegiance than pleased his fancy, and who ingrafted on every adopted form of
human thought and action the rich growth of his barbaric idealism.
on his throne of royal state on one side of the arena, he gave a signal, a door beneath him opened, and
the accused subject stepped out into the amphitheater. Directly opposite him, on the other side of the
inclosed space, were two doors, exactly alike and side by side. It was the duty and the privilege of the
person on trial to walk directly to these doors and open one of them. He could open either door he
pleased; he was subject to no guidance or influence but that of the aforementioned impartial and
incorruptible chance. If he opened the one, there came out of it a hungry tiger, the fiercest and most
cruel that could be procured, which immediately sprang upon him and tore him to pieces as a
punishment for his guilt. The moment that the case of the criminal was thus decided, doleful iron bells
were clanged, great wails went up from the hired mourners posted on the outer rim of the arena, and
the vast audience, with bowed heads and downcast hearts, wended slowly their homeward way,
mourning greatly that one so young and fair, or so old and respected, should have merited so dire a
fate.
his years and station that his majesty could select among his fair subjects, and to this lady he was
immediately married, as a reward of his innocence. It mattered not that he might already possess a
wife and family, or that his affections might be engaged upon an object of his own selection; the king
allowed no such subordinate arrangements to interfere with his great scheme of retribution and reward.
The exercises, as in the other instance, took place immediately, and in the arena. Another door opened
beneath the king, and a priest, followed by a band of choristers, and dancing maidens blowing joyous
airs on golden horns and treading an epithalamic measure, advanced to where the pair stood, side by
side, and the wedding was promptly and cheerily solemnized. Then the gay brass bells rang forth their
merry peals, the people shouted glad hurrahs, and the innocent man, preceded by children strewing
flowers on his path, led his bride to his home
It's not Inga, she's accounted for, and it's not the doctor, I don't even fucking know. Goddamnit Golden-Age, your incoherence has gotten me again.
WALL OF TEXT OVER CAR CRASH
I will not say who, though, and someone can still come in second place, so if you haven't voted yet, or voted yesterday, try again within the next three hours
I then realized my entire opinion about this is entirely based on Arthur episode "D.W. The Picky Eater" when the waiter says "Tweedledee and Tweedledum lobsters for two~" and in fact I barely even remember which characters these are from Alice in Wonderland.
Alice is the kind of person who thinks football players are wimps for wearing helmets.