Eerie Indiana sticker by TotalTeeGeek

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Thanks to everyone who has been shopping all the stickers on at my @redbubble store!! 🖤

You can get amazing deals on Stickers on site - great for back to school and scrapbooking, making planners a little more exciting.

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Chooseday Challenge

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It's Tuesday, so today you get a choice between two prompts. Pick one, combine both, pit them against each other - on Tuesday, you choose!

This week, your options are:

Eerie Baitshop and Sushi Bar versus Eerie Deli

Unfilled Prompts for Better Weird than Dead: An Eerie, Indiana Fic Fest

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Submitted by froodle:

"A single finger on the monkey's paw curls"

Wil Williams on Death By Dying podcast

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Death isn’t unfamiliar in the world of audio fiction. Between dramatic podcasts like Wolf 359 that are ready to kill off any character to the comedic Wooden Overcoats, a podcast about funeral home directors, there’s macabre aplenty in the medium. Still, Death by Dying brings something new to the concept with a streak of absurdism and an unflinching look at human fragility.

Death and life are both absurd concepts. It’s something philosophers like Camus have discussed for as long as philosophers have discussed just about anything. At its core, this is what Evan Gulock, Niko Gerentes, and Joshua Giordan’s Death by Dying is about. Initially, Death by Dying comes across as a familiar style of audio fiction with an affection for the seemingly random–something that initially made Death by Dying feel like somewhat of a misfire for me. It was only when I listened to the first season, just five episodes, in full that I realized my analysis was the misfire. Death by Dying isn’t familiar or random to be random. It’s a rumination on feeling like life and death are equally chaotic and confusing.

Death kind of gets a bad rap. As explained by one character in the series:

Death doesn’t kill people; life does.

This is the concept that the nameless protagonist, The Obituary Writer, deals with in his small town of Crestfall, Idaho. As he starts writing the obituaries of various townsfolk–Crestfall has a shocking number of notable deaths–he finds himself incapable of letting the story rest with just his words. He investigates the cause of each death, less private investigator and more naturally curious seeker of information. Eventually, The Obituary Writer is joined by a friend, Charlotte, who he meets from one of the obituaries.

The Obituary Writer is the protagonist of Death by Dying, but Charlotte, played by Angela Morris, is one of the most standout characters. Direct, sharp, but still emotional, Charlotte takes that feeling of goofy randomness and turns it into something more tangible, something worth analyzing. It’s Charlotte who makes the stakes of the story feel genuine, turning a once-silly, somewhat fluffy show into something earnestly dramatic and even, at times, terrifying.

Death by Dying is, as I’ve laid out here, fairly inconsistent. The first three episodes are fun and interesting, but they do feel listless for listeners who usually prefer single over-arching narrative. Episode three is when things start to solidify in the plot of the first season–something which feels intentional upon a second or third listen, but may be frustrating or confusing at first. If you feel like the tone of Death by Dying is something you might enjoy, stick with it at least through the third episode before making a judgment call.

Death by Dying is a podcast that feels in the same family as What’s the Frequency? or Kane & Feels: Paranormal Investigators in its takes on the dark and the surreal, with perhaps a bit more Welcome to Night Vale leanings in structure. It’s a glimpse into what makes life absurd, what makes death feel random and looming, and the anxieties that tie them both together: quoth the raven, “What if your friends don’t really like you?” Showing the absurd, the morbid, and the anxiety-inducing here doesn’t feel stressful, though; instead, it feels emotionally accurate. It feels like a relief.

Eerie Examiner on the Eerie Indiana opening sequences

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A Frank Discussion of the Three Openings of Eerie, Indiana

1) When the series ran on Fox Kids, the show only had one opening that was used, so this was the one I was most used to. It was basically just the intro to the "Foreverware" episode, where Marshall rides his bike on his paper route, discussing his odd neighborhood. It was a great way to set up the premise and atmosphere of the show. The Fox Kids airings cut out the theme song, so seeing it for the first time on the DVD's was a little jarring at first. I have since grown used to the bizarre theme music (that seems to blend old-timey Americana nostalgia with an over-the-top "spooky" vibe), but I feel the opening was stronger with only Marshall's introduction.

2) The second opening was only used in "The Retainer" and it modified the original introduction with a few items of weirdness. Specifically, "Item: A guy that looks suspiciously like Elvis lives on my paper route. Item: Bigfoot eats out of my trash. Item: a bizarre housewife cult in town has been sealing up their kids in giant rubber kitchenware so they don't age." They show the clip of Elvis getting the paper from the first intro which originally received no commentary from Marshall. I felt that was a better, more subtle approach because it allowed the viewer to figure out the joke for themselves, rather than have Marshall repeat it. This intro ends with a set up into the dog storyline of the episode, and also ends with a morbid line: "Better weird than dead," which is very out of place and doesn't match the tone of the original intro.

This intro was used only once during the Fox Kids run, either as part of the episode or just as a promotion for the show. But the Bigfoot clip would always be used in the commercials, and it always bothered me since I didn't know which episode it came from. The "Foreverware" clip and the Elvis clip I had seen in their proper context. But Bigfoot in the trash always made me think I had missed some episode along the way. It was frustrating.

3) The third opening was kind of a combination of the first two and it would be used in every other episode in the series (save for one or two which had no intro). The monologue from the first was used, with the items from the second mixed in, except instead of "Foreverware," we got the stupid, "Item: Even man's best friend is weird," featuring a dog chasing it's tail. It breaks the established syntax pattern of the first two items, it doesn't say or show anything about why dogs are weird, and it references one of my least favorite episodes of the series. Needless to say, I hated this intro and it was the one used on 90% of the episodes.

When you wanna be spooky while still maintaining your Old Lady Aesthetic

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Mary B. Carter totally sets these out at Halloween:

Mister Sommer on Eerie Indiana

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Omg. Did y’all ever watch that kid’s show called Eerie Indiana? pic.twitter.com/joU4tC5VuB

— Christopher Sommer (@Mister_Sommer) August 20, 2019

I loved that show

— cheerfulexgirlfriend (@cheerful_ExGF) August 20, 2019

Sherrick Vision on Eerie Indiana

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I have to catch up on some rest. Maybe I’ll watch a 90s thriller before taking a nap.

— A Sherrick Warren Joint 📝💻📷🎬🎞📹📽🎥📺 (@Sherrick_Vision) August 20, 2019

Eerie, Indiana

— A Sherrick Warren Joint 📝💻📷🎬🎞📹📽🎥📺 (@Sherrick_Vision) August 20, 2019

Spike the Manticore by AwwfulAdoptables

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