jeanjwould

[jeanjwould]

fun behaviors to give dragons that aren't feline/canine based

cause as much as i love dragons purring and roaring i wish there was just more variety in how they would act

clacking their teeth together to show contentedness/happiness (budgies)

using tails as a defensive weapon in a whip like fashion (iguana)

twitching to express that they're not a threat to members of their species (hognose snake)

feeling calm when eyes are hooded/covered (birds of prey)

head bobbing as a threat display (anoles/bearded dragons)

flattening neck or sides to appear bigger (snakes/lizards)

mantling over food to protect it from hatchmates (birds of prey)

wiggling neck as a courting maneuver (budgies)

audibly grinding teeth as a warning (macaques)

maintained eye contact as a challenge (gorillas)

pounding wings against sides as a threat (gorillas)

slapping other dragons with their claws when their personal bubble is invaded (seals)

hoards used as a site to impress mates (birds of paradise)

snorting when undergoing heightened stress (horses)

making repeated loud noises with surroundings to establish territory (woodpeckers)

loud constant arguments with other dragons when roosting (bats)

building lairs that cause a domino effect of change in the land around them (beavers)

slapping their tails against the ground/water as a warning (beavers)

wiggling tail tip to attract prey (various animals)

wiggling tail tip as a warning (snakes)

plucking or scraping off scales as a sign of stress (parrots)

raising spines/frills as a response to danger and carrying on with their usual business as they believe they're protected (lionfish)

and im not saying canine and feline behaviors are wrong or bad to give a dragon (people wouldn't write dragons with those behaviors if they weren't fun in the first place!) but i feel for creatures that are mythological giant winged lizards that you can do more and get experimental with it. often the more unfamiliar behavior the more dragony the dragon feels

[jeanjwould]

this is a real struggle that i am also actively trying to figure out 💀💀💀 you are not alone soldier

any advice.. on how to talk about a wip without spoiling the whole thing?

[jeanjwould]

can we PLEASE have more shitty women characters?

i don't mean shittily written women characters, i mean women characters who are just shitty people! just complete fleabags! terrible awful miserable pathetic wet mangy women. who engage in shenanigans and make selfish decisions and whose actions are unreasonably excused by the narrative. this is EQUALITY! this is LONG OVERDUE. give me fictional women who SUCK!!!

[jeanjwould]

a little novel excerpt i wrote on a road trip!! unfortunately not from my main project atm but what can you do :P

[jeanjwould]

mihaly zichy ‘romantic encounter’ + these violent delights, micah nemerever 

[jeanjwould]

The number of unfinished WIPs I have is between me and God. All you need to know is that it is an unholy number.

[jeanjwould]

something i’ve kind of noticed with the surfacing of this whole “the best smut is a character study” kind of mindset is the pipeline to a borderline “when i write porn i do it intellectually unlike some of you SICKOS” type of mindset and i just wanted to remind you especially in our current political atmosphere that writing porn doesn’t have to be intellectual to have value. it can be just horny. thanks

[jeanjwould]

AAAAAAAAAAAAA THANK YOU‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️ i started like. feverishly scribbling some excerpts from it in my journal last night,,,,,, might post later idk,,,,,,,,

and when i actually write my intensely bisexual overly-decadent 80s rock n roll band vampire groupie the-lost-boys-inspired novel? what then?

[jeanjwould]

The word you are looking for is an ensemble cast. You like the ensemble cast. Not found family.

[jeanjwould]

and when i actually write my intensely bisexual overly-decadent 80s rock n roll band vampire groupie the-lost-boys-inspired novel? what then?

[jeanjwould]

loml, the libby app

[jeanjwould]

Lucy Undying: When Retellings Hate Their Source Material

Also on my Substack, REVIEWS FROM THE COFFIN!

I DNFed Lucy Undying. Admittedly, this was not a surprise for me—I went into it knowing that there was a good chance I just would not like it, but seeing as it was a sapphic retelling of Dracula, my favorite book, I figured I needed to at least give it a shot. I tried to be fair.

I only made it to 11%.

Here’s my question: Does Kiersten White even like Dracula?

I have to be upfront about my biases. I fucking love the book Dracula. So much so that I am in the development stage of a novel based on Dracula, centering my favorite characters (the brides). It’s a huge passion project, and one that I technically started dreaming up in 2023. Hell, I’m rereading Dracula right now to ‘prep’ for it. So it’s not like I come into a sapphic Dracula retelling without my own share of Dracula-retelling-related baggage. There are things that I do and don’t like to see. But, my own personal expectations aside, I still have to ask what the point is of writing a Dracula retelling if you only actually like one of the characters from the original book.

If you like any of the characters from the original book besides Lucy, Lucy Undying really doesn’t want you to. Virtually every character from Stoker’s novel is made unrecognizable through the fact that they are all supposed to actually be bad, selfish, disgusting people. Even Lucy’s mother, who is barely a character at all in Dracula, becomes an evil hag who Lucy hates.

I really don’t understand this choice. Something that has always set Dracula apart from its counterparts in the Gothic genre is the genuine love and camaraderie between the main characters. Like, instead of becoming enemies, as would probably happen in just about any other ‘three men competing for the same girl’ scenario, Lucy’s suitors become fast friends and work to take down Dracula together. And that’s to say nothing of their love and respect for Mina (however flawed they may be in underestimating her). I can’t fathom the decision to erase that goodness, that heart, from the narrative, all for the sake of… what? Making Lucy look more like a victim, or something? That’s the only reason I can find, and it hardly holds up. I’m not sure how White gets ‘Lucy hates her suitors and even wishes for them to die at some point’ from Lucy ‘Why can’t they let a girl marry three men, or as many as want her, and save all this trouble?’ Westenra.

What really made me decide to be done with this book was learning online that (spoiler warning) the big bad villain of the book turns out to be Mina all along. Sorry, but nope! If you’re just going to shit on every character from Dracula besides your perfect precious favorite, I will simply move on to another Dracula retelling that actually likes its source material.

Aside from my grievances with its butchering of Dracula, the pop culture references in this book majorly took me out of it and I’m sure will age it atrociously. I love The Last Of Us, but referencing it in your Dracula book is crazy work. I know not everyone minds pop culture references, but good lord, stuff like this dates a book and basically kills any sort of longevity it could’ve had, and I’m just not a fan.

This next point is definitely a nitpick from me, who is obsessed with vampires, but the detail about it being taboo for vampires to kill children kinda bored me. I like my vampires messy, fucked up, and disturbing. Having moral qualms about the age range of their prey isn’t generally something that lends itself to Gothic fascination. Then again, this book doesn’t necessarily seem to be going for Gothic, or even all that horrific, so another clear sign that it was time for me to put it down.

Also, I listened to this as an audiobook, and I’m learning that audiobooks just aren’t my thing. I’m sure that contributed to my dislike at least a little bit, because I didn’t care for the narrator of Iris’s chapters—it seemed like she was trying a little too hard for a witty, snarky, quirky tone, and I just didn’t care for it.

At the end of the day, I’m just confused why this is marketed as ‘a Dracula novel’ when it doesn’t actually seem like it’s for fans of Dracula. Like, what’s the intended audience here? People who haven’t actually read Dracula but are still interested in a retelling of it? I have to imagine that narrows your prospects just a little bit. You could’ve just made a vaguely-Lucy-esque OC, thought up a story that doesn’t spit on a whole piece of classic literature and those who love it, and called it a day. I hate for another sapphic vampire novel to fall flat after the disappointment that was Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil, but seriously, people. Do better, please!

[jeanjwould]

you say to me here is a woman. she's insane and irreparably broken and probably a danger to herself and others. and i say yay yippee woohoo! and things of this nature

[jeanjwould]

if you don't know how to end a written work you should be able to just let the words fade out like an 80s song and not resolve anything for the reader

[jeanjwould]

Google docs isn’t deleting your docs just because they have lewd text.

OP turned off reblogs of the post due to being debunked, but here’s a link of the reblog so you can still read stuff. Hate Google all you want but misinformation helps no one.

[jeanjwould]

[jeanjwould]

Not a popular opinion on tumblr I know but I would argue character death is good for stories, actually, and often a death with long narrative consequences is much better use of a character than having them linger with no more important plot beats to hit.

Character death isn’t writers being mean to viewers or something characters don’t “deserve,” it’s an important part of narrative and plotting to give stories stakes and emotional beats. The work making you have an emotion is in fact the point, not something to avoid.