#book re

[amphibimations]

[ash-tree-eyes]

Mina, writing to Lucy: I cannot wait to hear how Jonathan is doing on his travels! He must be having such a lovely time <3

Jonathan, in his diary: OH GOD OH FUCK HE CAN CLIMB WALLS LIKE A LIZARD NOW. I HAVE ONLY A CRUCIFIX FOR PROTECTION AND I AM GOING TO DIE TO A LIZARD MAN. THERE IS NO WAY OF ESCAPE SO I MAY AS WELL WRITE MY GOODBYES. FAREWELL MINA!!!

[yeehawpim]

[egophiliac]

queen of diamonds, upright + reversed 💎

I've redone this like eighty times, I have to just be done with it now and stop staring at all my mistakes oh no 🫠

[another-chaotic-bisexual-vampire]

Van Helsing & Mina: We're going to defeat Dracula with the power of friendship!

Quincey: And this gun I found!

[turndecassette2]

[thefandomlifechoseme]

me, when Jonny Sims appears in any piece of media he's been part of: oh hey. what's Jonny Sims doing in this piece of media I started consuming solely because Jonny Sims was in it.

[intothestars23]

One thing I don’t think the Fourth Wing fandom seems to acknowledge or appreciate enough is just how quickly Sawyer is willing to kill anyone who slights Violet

Jack comes back? “We should kill him again”

Cat’s still being rude? “We could bury her and nobody would find her”

Rhiannon & Ridoc will shut their ass down verbally & physically, but Sawyer will jump straight to murder lmao and I love that for him

[hoeswater]

the mortifying ordeal of being Jack Seward. God, can you imagine- you get rejected by a girl. Fine. You're a bit emo about it but you're holding up. She accepts a proposal from your close pal. Ok, that stings, but you do love Arthur and at least you have your work to focus on. You get cc'd on a message from your second close pal and it says you WILL be attending a celebratory dinner. Yeah, to celebrate your dream girl saying yes to Close Pal #1. Ok, whatever, you're a man of honor. You go. Girl falls ill. Close Pal #1 says hey man, please go medically examine my fiancee - yeah, the one that rejected you. I know it'll be weird but I insist. Please man, you're my Close Pal. Ok. Fine. This girl is still important to you. You do it. You're sitting by said Ill Girl's bedside, trying not to think about that embarrassing time when you sat on your hat, asked her out, and then got rejected, and then her MOTHER walks in and goes wow, dude, why don't you have a wife yet? You and the girl Do Not Look at Each Other Dear God Lucy Do Not Make Eye Contact With Me Right Now I Swear to God. Girl gets sicker. You phone a friend. Your friend comes and promptly breaks the ice with your Mortally Ill Dream Girl (who rejected you after watching you sit on your hat) by being like Well, You Know Jack. He Doesn't Know Anything about Women. Probably Why He Sat on His Hat and then You Rejected Him. Christ. Mortally Ill Dream Girl dies and you find yourself enmeshed in Horrors Beyond Your Comprehension and you think, well, ok, at least if I'm focused on the Horrors Beyond My Comprehension I won't be thinking about my tragic and thus far very embarrassing love story. Let me just focus on picking up this nice lady from the train station because she and her husband have some important information for us. And then the FIRST THING OUT OF THE NICE LADY'S MOUTH is Oh Yeah I Know You Lucy Told Me How You Sat on Your Hat and Then She Rejected You. Ohhhhhhh my god

[valhalla-awaitsfor-us]

the way tv shows are ALLERGIC to create interesting and plot relevant ace/aro characters, my god.

Yes, im looking at you sex education and Heartstopper. There is a bunch of tv shows and movies that i can also name, but those two are just big disappointments since they should actually uplift different sexualities… I guess we are not fun, guys.

[theghostwrites]

[amphibimations]

[ash-tree-eyes]

I really do think dracula daily/re: dracula is the best way to experience dracula the book, because it adds an entirely new level of horror and dread that a book can never truly achieve.

Because, instead of simply reading through the book in one go, you have to wait along with it. You get to see Jonathan express his terror in real time, and experience the dread of days going by with no news from him, wondering what could possibly be going on in the time you hear nothing.

Like it’s a level of horror of the unknown storytelling that Bram Stoker never could have imagined and it adds an entirely new experience to the story and i just think it’s neat

[huginsmemory]

Been thinking about how Bill legitimately had a horrifying reason (the literal progressive disintegration of the nightmare realm that erases whatever it disintegrates from existence completely) to move himself and his crew into a new dimension. Like that's terrifying. And yet he never utilizes this to his favour. He could have been honest about this with Ford, and you KNOW as long as Bill didn't mention plans of overtaking the earth, Ford would've made the portal for him, both out of Ford's own interest and because Ford when faced with these big moral questions will pull through. But this is a card Bill NEVER plays because although he needs to leave the dimension, he cannot lose face. He can't put aside his pride and admit to the humility that he needs to flee from his dimension, that he's not actually all powerful. And so instead he pretends to be a muse and when Ford figures out something else is going on, instead of being open and humble and saying that his dimension is unravelling, Bill focuses on that he's going to over take earth, that he's actually been a monster all along, surprise Ford!

And part of it is definitely because Bill's built himself up on power and violence and to grovel and earnestly ask for help, to admit that he cannot stop the unraveling of his dimension completely invalidates that; showing vulnerability? Can't do that, even under the guise of lying to get his way. And part of it makes you wonder if it's also a form of self-sabotage, because underneath his deep denial Bill is guilty over what he occurred; he sees himself as a monster and so he'll be that monster, and having people recognize that feels good in the same way that pressing a bruise feels good. But it makes you wonder what would've happened if Bill even just was open about his dimension unravelling and had lied about overtaking the earth.

It's also interesting because although Bill has SOME charisma and can manipulate people decently well (as evidenced by his cult, and pandering to people's desires with Ford, Mabel and Blendin), he refuses to be vulnerable, refuses to not be true to his off-putting self, even when if he was just vulnerable of pretended to not be himself, to put aside the (false) pride he has in himself he would've gotten a portal by now. and part of me wonders if it's because it's this false pride that built on insecurity and denial on who he is he cannot drop that mask.

Further thoughts on this!

[cemetegee]

Dying as a Skill Issue

I just made a post about Ianthe's "Dying is for suckers." quote and now I realized that "Dying as a skill issue/dying as failure" is actually an essential part of her character.

In the psychogram story The Unwanted Guest she talks about it even more. She presents several deaths of known characters to Palamedes and tells him why they have died in her opinion:

Ortus did not die because Crux was an asshole and killed him, but because he was too sad.

Abigail did not die because Cytherea murdered them, but because she brought her husband to Canaan House as her cav. (This point is especially random. As if Cytherea wouldn't have slaughtered Babs as well...)

(It's by the way interesting that she doesn't mention Jeannemary and Isaac here. Maybe even she knows that that would be hella tasteless. Ooorrrr she has a different reason.)

Dying is for suckers in her opinion and dead people died because of a lack of skill.

That even partly explains why she wants to become a Lyctor (and likely a God or even more than a God) so much: Dying would be a personal failure to her.

[lucidloving]

Richard Siken, "The Torn-up Road" // Lora Mathis, "If There's A Way Out I'll Take It"