#American Dream Reflections

[pebblegalaxy]

Exploring the Depths of Connection: My Profound Relatability to Jay Gatsby in 'The Great Gatsby' #writeapageaday @Blogchatter

Exploring the Depths of Connection: My Profound Relatability to Jay Gatsby in 'The Great Gatsby' #writeapageaday @Blogchatter #LiteraryConnection #JayGatsby #TheGreatGatsby #CharacterAnalysis #FictionalResonance #BookReflections #HumanExperience #Literary

In the vast realm of literature, there exists a myriad of fictional characters that have captured the hearts and minds of readers, each resonating with unique qualities and narratives. One such character, to whom I find an uncanny connection and deep resonance, is the enigmatic and introspective Jay Gatsby from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s timeless classic, “The Great Gatsby.” Jay Gatsby, the…

[coldlaugh]

𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚛𝚋𝚒𝚛𝚍

[eff-ston3mblogs]

[cametotheshowinsd]

Miss Americana & the Heartbreak Prince (1989) dir. Taylor Swift ✘ They whisper in the hallway, "she's a bad, bad girl."

[caesarsaladinn]

reblog if you are a lesser son of greater sires

[margridarnauds]

Adaptations are not even overwhelming pro-DracMina tbh. 🤷🏼‍♀️If you look at screen adaptations aka biggest widespread media type of adaptations most recent adaptation 2020 Netflix/BBC by Mofftiss had no DracMina at all. Also TV adaptations like 2002 and BBC 2006 ones had no DracMina as in both these adaptations Mina didn’t have any real genuine interest in Dracula and was his victim. 2012 movie by Argento had no DracMina either cause Drac’s interest in Mina was also completely one-sided and Mina wasn’t into him at all. The only recent example of DracMina was 2013 TV series - so 11 years ago. Before that both DracMina movies are 1979 and 1992 ones respectively- so 45 and 32 years ago.

Like, can we even say that adaptations are extremely pro-DracMina if within 1922–2024 we got only 3 screen DracMina adaptations, and two of them are ancient and most likely older than people who complain about DracMina shippers? Even if we want to count non-screen stuff then Wildhorn’s musical is also 20 years old as it premiered and flopped on Broadway in 2004. So, like 🤷🏼‍♀️

Agreed in the sense that I think that people really, really just....don't think about adaptations besides Coppola's, which gives a VERY slanted view. To my knowledge, we have:

Love at First Bite (1979), which is (1) a parody and (2) set in the modern day, with the modern character as Mina's reincarnation. Notable for being one of the earlier adaptations, but it's barely, *barely* Dracmina.

Drakula - The Hungarian musical, which...I can guarantee that unless the people complaining about this know about Hungarian musical theatre, they're unlikely to know about.

Dracula: The Musical (2010, not the other one) - Replace "Hungarian" with "Swedish."

Lovers of the Night, see above, but "was never released to mass distribution" next to "Swedish."

Dracula, l'amour plus fort que la mort - Replace the above for "French musical flop."

Dracula, el Musical - Replace the above with "Argentinian."

Wildhorn

The 2013 adaptation that most people watch for Katie McGrath as Lucy.

*Loosely* again counting the 1979 movie, because Lucy is taking the role of Mina there.

Bram Stoker's Dracula which....okay, yeah. That's the one most people know.

Fine, for books, I'm including Dracula: The Undead though I don't think any of us actually claim it because it's the "authorized" sequel. (Dacre Stoker when I catch you...)

Since I included Dracula: The Undead, I'm also going to have to include The Dracula Tapes. (1975.)

Dracula 3D - Fine, I'm adding it in.

Dracula: A Love Tale (2025), which looks like it's going to do this. And you know what? The vampirefuckers have earned this, please let it be less sexist about it than Coppola. I hope that it's every bit of pulpy, overly romanticized goodness that I love. I hope they fuck on screen.

Nosferatu - From the script leaks, which. Again. What I'm seeing is very much up my alley, including the terms "horrific union." Peter Eggers, the man that you are. The icon.

Dracula - Entre L'Amour et la Mort - Mixed, but she chooses Jonathan in the end and Drac commits suicide.

Dracula: A Chamber Musical - See above, she chooses Jonathan (again, WHY?) (I'm not commenting on Jonathan in the novel, I'm commenting on the fact that most of these Jonathans have the consistency of bland milk.)

Dracula Untold - In the loosest possible way because there is a woman named "Mina" at the very, very, very end in the modern day. Though it only barely qualifies as a Dracula adaptation.

Meanwhile, for adaptations that haven't (trying to include adaptations that at least very loosely adapt the book, or that have familiar characters/plot arcs, even if that is just "area warlord loses his wife and gets really really mad about it for several centuries", so no Hotel Translyvania...which also isn't Dracmina):

As you said, the 2020.

Dracula (Czech musical) -- This musical was doing many, many things, but this was not one of them.

Last Voyage of the Demeter - I mean. Obviously.

Renfield - See above.

Count Dracula (1977) - Nope

Nosferatu - Nope.

1930s Dracula - Also no.

1958 - He preys on her, but nope. Decidedly not mutual.

Dracula A.D. 1972 - Nope.

Dracula 2006 - Nope.

Dracula 2002 miniseries - He tries to seduce her, sure, and then she shanks him. This is not a doe-eyed Mina swooning over a bad boy.

Bram Stoker's Dracula (1974) - Nope, and makes LUCY the reincarnation of his wife.

Blacula - ...no. The reincarnated love plot is given to Mamuwalde, whose wife Dracula killed. Decidedly unromanticized.

League of Extraordinary Gentlemen - Nope. (I'd prefer it to whatever the fuck was going on with Tom Sawyer.)

Count Dracula (1970) - No (even though I don't understand when Dracula is being played by CHRISTOPHER LEE--who was saying that? It wasn't me, I didn't say anything.)

Count Dracula's Great Love - With a name like that, it HAS to be Dracmina, right, because who else could it be--an OC. They...had an OC. (Arguably Mina is an OC in some of the above as well, but the point stands: not Dracmina.)

The one "West End" Dracula concept album from 2006 that never made it to the West End.

Penny Dreadful - I mean, she gets vamped, but it's hardly a star crossed epic romance.

Dracula: Mina's Reckoning (2023)- Nope. She literally says "I do not exist tae serve onybiddy. I winted whit you had. I’d rather gie up my life than be like you."

Dracula 2000 - Insofar as Mary loosely resembles Mina...no.

Hellsing - No. He might have desired her, but it clearly wasn't more than that and I think the general consensus is he coerced her.

Mina and the Count - Given that Mina is seven and they're best friends NO. They did the 1980s spinoff animated series trend of making villains and heroes friends.

Drakula İstanbul'da - He has some kind of fixation on her, but nope.

And then there's Dracula: The Dark Prince where....yes. And no. And yes. And no. And yes. And--

What I'll point out is that while it looks like I have a lot listed for "Dracmina", a lot of these are pieces of media that are INCREDIBLY obscure to an Anglo-American audience, so most of the people complaining about Dracmina would not be aware of them. They are, likewise, also musicals, because (1) that's my area of expertise and (2) I think musicals lend themselves very well to the kind of heightened gothic romantic atmosphere that people are looking for with a Dracmina bent on Dracula. All told, when we strike off non-English media AND musicals save for the Wildhorn, which can stay, the lack of Dracmina in most widely available Dracula adaptations is notable (especially when you ALSO factor in the various Hammer Horror films where Dracula appears and Mina doesn't.) I'll ALSO point out that actually...most of the films that do it come from *the 1970s* (aka "contrary to popular belief, Coppola wasn't the first", or even the first to do the dead wife plot), whereas post-2013, most Dracula adaptations we've gotten in the Anglosphere have revolved around monstrous vampires. (The Invitation, Last Voyage of the Demeter, Renfield, etc.), perhaps as a reaction against Twilight and its subsequent oversaturation of the vampire market. (Though, it's intriguing because I don't think that Twilight...actually DID impact the number of Dracula or Dracmina adaptations, even in its heydey when people were trying to cash in.)

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Alien Throne, Valley of Dreams, New Mexico

* * * *

“Something of our relationship to the earth is determined by the particular place we stand at a given time. If you stand still long enough to observe carefully the things around you, you will find beauty, and you will know wonder. If you see a leaf carried along on the flow of a river, you might ponder its journey. Where did it begin, and where will it end? What will be the story of its passage? You will discover a thousand ways in which the leaf is connected to the water, the banks, the near and farther distances, the sky and the sun. Your mind, your spirit will be nourished and grow. You will become one with what you see. Consider what is to be seen.” ― N. Scott Momaday, Earth Keeper: Reflections on the American Land

+

“When we dance the earth trembles. When our steps fall on the earth we feel the shudder of life beneath us, and the earth feels the beating of our hearts, and we become one with the earth. We shall not sever ourselves from the earth. We must chant our being, and we must dance in time with the rhythms of the earth. We must keep the earth.” ― N. Scott Momaday, Earth Keeper: Reflections on the American Land

[theaskew]

Ernest Haas (Austrian-American 1921-1986), California, 1977. C-type print.

[chronicsymptomsyndrome]

Just called to schedule an appointment and an automated voice told me that phones are off for staff lunch every day from 12-1 and to please call back during NORMAL BUSINESS HOURS and I would just like to say, begging, desperately pleading, on my knees, sobbing, can we please universalize this concept that meal times≠normal business hours? that it is NORMAL to not only allow but require that your workers take adequate breaks for self-care? Can this be the new standard everywhere please

[mrbingley]

this post has me reeling. i am waiting with baited breath for brennan to break the fourth wall as himself. him having a literal self insert via scheherazade would be such a clever and sneaky way of doing so. it would lead to a better reveal rather than “suddenly the characters are talking to brennan himself” it’s “i’ve been here the whole time, as the author of this story yes, but also i have injected myself into the story itself as scheherazade to literally commune with you fictonal characters”. i want a character to roll a natural twenty perception or investigation check or make a nat twenty wisdom save and suddenly notice that every voice here, aside from their party of friends, has a familiarity to it, a certain timbre and cadence, as though every voice is coming from the same throat. how the voice of the stepmother and the wolf and ylfa’s grandmother are all somehow the same and how confusing and conflicting that realization would be. i want pinnochio, the puppet boy who thinks he finally cut himself free, to see strings attached to him still except these ones stretch to a place he cannot see far beyond his world.

[cheesey-rice]

I've been getting a lot of vids from international YouTube channels bc of my foreign language interests and I see a lot of international poc complaining about American poc being in historical shows and calling it the same ahistoricality as someone casting a white person to play a poc, and I've felt that I disagreed.

Just trying to articulate this from my perspective as a 2nd gen kid... I think that folks saying poc being in like British historical type shows in positions poc definitely wouldn't have been in at that period have a point when they say studios should just produce movies/shows that tell the history of actual poc instead of misrepresenting history of predominant white countries have a point in that yes, American culture and media definitely has this huge Blindspot to history outside of a certain sphere of white American culture influences... But I still feel like there is a definite difference between a white person being cast as a historical poc vs a poc being cast as a historically white person.

Bc when it comes down to it I feel like the perspective some non-americans might not have is that when you grow up in America you are raised as an American. Poc are not exempt from the American cultural concept of what our history is. Like regardless of how u feel about the musical itself Hamilton is a good example of how something that exists in our culture as American history is something that a poc creator was able to retell as their own history as an immigrant. Regardless of the quality of the piece, one wouldn't say that the people of color in Hamilton's production are talking about or reenacting American history in an unfaithful or inaccurate way because American history is their history and an immigrant writing a view on that history from an immigrant's perspective adds a level of nuance to the piece rather than taking it away.

But in the case of a white person playing an important historical figure of color, it's completely different. Like in the instance of that famous harriet Tubman case, a white person could not play the black woman who fought the white institution of American slavery her entire life. Because victimization at the hands of the institution of slavery on the basis of race in America is a history that cannot be said to be the history of all Americans. Non-black Americans and (also most black non-americans) are not going to grow up being continually affected by the social, financial, and legal ramifications of the institution that remain in this country. A person who has never experienced a life that continues to be affected by racism is not going to be able to accurately tell a story about race. And because America has relied on racial dogma to excuse free labor and human rights abuses used to build the agricultural basis of our society from the very inception of the nation, there is never going to be a story about a black American in our history that was not in some way affected or influenced by the experience of racism.

I understand that from an outside perspective seeing an American poc just say a casting choice is "racist" can sound like oh they're saying a white person isn't allowed to play this role what about creative freedom etc etc. But like, ignoring the knee jerk reaction to call everything 'cancelling' these days maybe realize that they're saying a white actor is going to do a worse job representing a character who experienced racism than a person of color and that's just a fact. It's not restricting art to criticize that the choices behind it make the actual piece worse in the long term for very obvious reasons.

[coldlaugh]

𝚆𝚒𝚗𝚍𝚘𝚠 𝙲𝚊𝚝𝚜

[josephkravis]

Echoes of Valor: Fading Stars and Stripes

Under the colors of freedom, I stand—a sentinel molded by the soil of the USA. At 68, my years are a tapestry of service and citizenship, woven through with the crimson, white, and indigo of our flag.

A silhouette of an angelic figure, possibly a representation of a guardian, stands solemnly amidst a chaotic blend of the American flag’s colors. Under the colors of freedom, I stand—a sentinel molded by the soil of the USA. At 68, my years are a tapestry of service and citizenship, woven through with the crimson, white, and indigo of our flag. You know, the Red, White and Blue! My youth was…

[supportgaza]

A Merry Christmas in Ireland while my Family in Gaza is Escaping Death Daily: Help me Evacuate and Reunite with my Family

Vetted by:

1. @el-shab-hussein and @nabulsi # 151 on the spreadsheet of Vetted Gaza Fundraisers List]

2. @riding-with-the-wild-hunt Here .

One's family is the soul of his/her soul. Is there a life without a soul?

I would never wish for my worst enemies to be in my situation (being far away in safety while every member of my family is dodging the bullets, missiles, and shrapnel daily. They live in fear and are deprived of all the necessities for a humane normal life.

I do NOT buy the manipulative misleading news about a ceasefire to be signed soon because we had heard such news countless times in the past year. Unfortunately, the genocide, chaos, loss, and killing will continue in the besieged Gaza Strip.

The atmosphere where I am in Ireland is filled with joy, gratefulness, Christmas songs and decorations, and the streets, cafes, and shops are filled with happy families. However, I look down into my heart and all I see is a broken heart filled with fear and agony. No words in the English language properly and aptly describes the fear that strikes my heart and spreads with blood through my body when my mother said: "The bombing never stops in our area and the quad copters fire their bullets at people walking in the street." Even the most gory and bloody horror movies can not reflect a portion of the terror and fear the has overtaken and consumed people.

When I hear the work Nusairat, the area in central Gaza where my family is, I get a panic attack and suddenly lose sense of my surrounding. I hear news everyday about entire families including women and children being targeted by Israeli missiles made in American and Europe, and I fear for my family. Would not you, too? Me and you are not so different after all. We are made of flesh, bones and blood. We have dreams, ambitions and aspirations. We care and fear for our families and loved ones. So, what made our blood in Gaza so cheap? When did we turn into less of human beings?

I can tell you without equivocation that we are damaged and broken beyond what you could possibly think. Entire cities in the Gaza Strip were flattened. My family's house in the north of Gaza was severely damaged and our city has turned into an unlivable ghost city.

From our family to all the families out there that care for Gaza and Gazans, please boost our campaign in whatever way you can and help us reach our final goal. Help my family evacuate and reunite in Ireland. While enjoying this Christmas break with your family and loved ones, please do not forget your brothers and sisters in Gaza who go through horrors you cannot begin to imagine.

My family is in a place where a missile can fall and tear them to pieces. We deserve to be together in a safe place away from the chaos, death, terror, and bullets. Please put your hand in mine as I strive to get them out of there. Please contribute to this noble cause in whatever way you can. Take whatever action; do something, please!

Please donate, reblog, and share.

We are at 64% of our final goal and getting closer to acheiving our final goal.

Tagging for reach <3 Please boost my family's campaign

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[theperplexedpoet]

calling all children (we sold you a lie)

calling all children we sold you a lie knew it was killed when these margins got wide some helped to build them swept others inside calling all children we sold you a lie we sold you tomorrow promised it'd be bright but too much was borrowed 'gainst dawn's early light this garden of sorrow it bloomed overnight and now on each morrow we harvest its blight we sold you a dream state endless means and trails but there is no clean slate this far off the rails the repressed and irate too long tipped the scales it's here that we all wake and watch the dream fail calling all children we sold you a lie knew it was killed when these margins got wide some helped to build them swept others inside calling all children we sold you a lie we sold you tomorrow we sold you a lot the words were all hollow we still took a shot the future is harrowed but what could we do our lies were all borrowed we were sold them too (11/26/23)

[goryhorroor]

“1950s horror movies contrast radically with their 1940s predecessors. understandably – they were reflecting a whole new world. audiences wanted stories that connected directly to their lives, to the ever-expanding technology in their homes and workplaces. they also wanted horror movies that played to their fears – stoked by politicians – of the shadows that lay beyond their immediate, personal experience of the shiny american dream (applies to some of these movies).”