#the canticle of canticles

[susiephone]

wtf is dracula daily?

i’ve seen a couple people ask this question on my posts about it, so i thought i’d go ahead and clear it up here!

ok so, the classic horror novel “dracula” is an epistolary novel - that means it’s told via letters, diary entries, ship logs, and news articles. (technically the term “epistolary novel” refers to works told solely through letters or emails, but many have expanded it to mean any work that is told via in-universe documents, hence why diaries and logs often get included as well. “frankenstein” is another classic example; the whole framing device is robert walton is recounting the story he heard from victor to his sister via letter. a modern example would be “several people are typing,” which is told via slack messages, or “the perks of being a wallflower,” which is told via letters from charlie to his anonymous pen pal, which is functionally more like you’re reading his diary.)

because of the nature of the narrative, we actually know the exact day nearly everything in dracula happens - the letters, news articles, diary entries, etc. are all dated.

“dracula daily” is a substack project where the novel is broken up into parts, with people who are subscribed to the project getting emails every day something in dracula happens - for example, the novel opens with jonathan harker’s journal entry on may 3, so on may 3, subscribers are emailed that entry. the action of dracula takes place from may 3 - november 6, plus an epilogue set some years later. the project started in 2021 (i think), but fucking BLEW UP in 2022, and they’re doing it again this year! lots of us are very excited - especially people like me who fell behind last time.

why not just read the book?

valid! due to some parts of dracula being told out of chronological order, dracula daily does reorder some things. for example, the first section of dracula is told entirely from jonathan harker’s pov, then the second section switches the pov to mina murray. their sections have some overlap in the timeline, so dracula daily jumps back and forth between their perspectives.

if you want to read the book as bram stoker intended, dracula daily may not be for you. but for a lot of people (myself included!), it breaks up a very long text into easily digestible chunks (....mostly. there is one entry that is 10k words), and the fact that it’s a big project means there are a lot of people reading along with you.

i think there’s also something valuable about experience the slow revelation of wtf is going on along with the characters. the book which you might otherwise get through in a few days is stretched out into months of suspense and agony as you wait for the other shoe to drop, and it’s great.

plus, the whiplash between “jonathan harker’s neverending horror” vs “lucy is basically on the bachelorette” that you get in dracula daily is very very funny.

how do i sign up?

right here! and if you sign up and fall behind in the emails, no worries - the dracula daily website posts past entries so you can catch up.

what if i prefer audiobooks?

have i got great news for you!

like i mentioned before, i couldn’t keep up with the emails last year. part of it is that it is much easier for me to focus on an audiobook or keep up with a podcast than it is for me to sit down and read, especially with longer entries.

this year, there is going to be a podcast titled “re: dracula” that was inspired by dracula daily. every episode will be a dracula daily entry, with a full voice cast! (seriously, if you listen to british podcasts, you will recognize some of these names. the magnus archives and wooden overcoats girlies are WINNING.) you can find that here.

there is also a podcast called “cryptic canticles” that has an already-completed audiodrama of dracula that i’m told is also extremely good, and was also broken up by date. you can find that here.

why do i keep hearing about paprika/the boyfriend squad/lizard fashion/cowboys?

you’ll see.

oh god am i gonna hear about this nerd shit for the rest of the year

yes. sorry.

[tomicscomics]

07/19/2024

Happy (almost) Feast of St. Mary Magdalene!

JOKE-OGRAPHY: 1. The Feast Day: This comic is based on the Catholic Church's scheduled readings for the Feast of St. Mary Magdalene (July 22, 2024). The Old Testament reading will be a portion of a love poem from Song of Songs 3:1-4. The Gospel reading will be the story of Mary Magdalene's encounter with Jesus after His resurrection, from John 20:1-17. 2. Song of Songs: The poem is about a woman searching everywhere for her missing lover. The poem's story is very cute on a literal level, but it also symbolizes the human heart's desperate yearning for the divine. For this cartoon, I rewrote the poem just slightly, keeping the story and pacing intact, but making it flow and rhyme in English. I hope I did alright! 3. Gospel of John: Days after Jesus is crucified and buried, Mary Magdalene visits His tomb but finds it open and empty. She runs to the apostles and tells them that someone stole Jesus's body. They come to investigate the tomb, but leave befuddled. While Mary stays and weeps by the open tomb, two angels appear inside and ask why she's crying. When she explains her sorrow, she's suddenly asked the same thing by Jesus, Who's appeared beside her, though she doesn't recognize Him until He says her name. 4. The Readings Combined: These two stories complement each other perfectly. All human relationships can be seen as reflections, shadows, or branches of the one relationship which every soul was created for: communion with God. By using the context of a human relationship, the poem gives a relatable, human voice to the soul's lofty instinctual longing. Read alongside Mary Magdalene's despair when she thinks she's lost her God, and her joy when she finds Him again, the poem's literal and symbolic meanings become one. It's an excellent pairing of readings by the Church, I must say. They may be on to something. I shall be watching their career with great interest.

[shewolfofvilnius]

i know I keep hyperfixating on the Solas/Ghilan'nain flashback but there is SO MUCH to unpack there and I want to talk about the VERY FIRST THING we see when we start the FIRST GAME. (DAV spoilers ahead)

The VERY FIRST

This is the very first thing we learn about the entire setting of the game. It's the foundational piece for the Chantry's concept of sin. And as we learned in one of the random Veilguard videos, The Chantry's interpretation is completely fucking wrong.

The Blight not only predates the first Archdemon, it predates the creation of the Veil and the sundering of magic into The Fade. It dates back to late period Elvhenan.

So where did the Canticle of Threnodies originate? Hint: NOT THE CHANTRY.

Slave uprisings? Oral tradition? Hmm, which people relied near-exclusively on oral tradition for centuries? Who did Tevinter primarily enslave? Who has a history of slave uprisings that predates Tevinter itself? Elves. What happened to the Elves of Arlathan after it fell? Enslaved in the founding of modern day Tevinter.

Ancient Tevinter Slaves (hint: Elves) have an ancient oral dirge about a "golden city" being "blackened", and about a singular pissed off narrator telling someone that their every step blackens the city and brings doom upon the world.

A dirge primarily sung during slave uprisings. Whose big thing was a massive slave uprising or uprisiings in Elvhenan and Arlathan?

I posit that Canticle of Threnodies 8:13 is the Chantry's translation/appropriation of Solas telling off the Evanuris once and for all, and was part of his final rebuke to them before trapping them in the Golden/Black City (Arlathan) and sealing the city off and creating the Fade.

The warning survived into Elven oral tradition as they were then enslaved by the humans in the founding of Tevinter. When the Magisters then breached the Black City and found the blight waiting for them (as Corypheus confirms, although I wonder where the Evanuris were hiding), it was retconned to apply to the Magisters when the original sin...was the Evanuris.

(PS: There are literally dozens of these examples of history retcon all throughout Thedas in past games.)

[mixtpecas]

destiel - he's a rebel

he's a rebel 'cause he never ever does what he should but just because he doesn't do what everybody else does oh, that's no reason why i can't give him all my love

the "he's a dorky little guy" of it all <3

[morsesnotes]

When your friend brought you home the other night, I didn’t see a coward. Just a man beat up too often and for too long, maybe. You’re not yellow. You’re just blue.

Endeavour Morse: brave + terrified

[l3st1b0urn3s-707]

All of these Bridge Four references are actually going to make me cry. Nomad (whose real identity I already know because I got spoiled before even starting to read the book) was thinking about Rock's stew, and made an internal joke about being airsick. Not to mention he's constantly thinking about Kaladin. And that's so cute but at the same time so sad.

[cuntyvampires]

Lestat and life mottos, Blood Canticle

[bonesesq]

why does every single vampire chronicles book narrated by lestat start out like "[something irrelevant]- WAIT a second. are you new here? *RECORD SCRATCH* i'm the vampire lestat, and i'm the most beautiful 6 foot tall blonde man with gorgeous blue eyes. this is the story of how i seduced a grown woman-"

[bubblegum-blackwood]

The Vampire Chronicles as Onion headlines - part four

(Links to part one, two, three)

Everyone to Lestat in TotBT:

Lestat and Mona in Blood Canticle:

Marius with Roman coins at the de Romanus clan family outing he got dragged to:

Magnus:

The mortal staff of any vampire:

Marius/Armand:

Lestat's concert:

Thorne roasting Santino:

Louis showing up in a dusty sweater again:

Marius/Daniel:

Devil's Minion:

lbr probably half these guys if not more:

Santino:

Marius:

[linguistwho]

Gallifreyan of the Month - August 2024:

Scarborough Fair/Canticle by Simon & Garfunkel

The Scarborough Fair parts are in green, and the Canticle parts are in red. Try putting the image over a red or green background to read them separately!

(Also the last verse is cut off because it's just a repetition of the first verse and didn't look good)

[bakathief]

Title: Shades of Tourmaline

Fandom: Detective Conan | Magic Kaito

Author: @cleflink

Artist: @bakathief

Pairing: Kaishin preslash

Word count: 13580

Rating: G

A/N: We have been working on this collab for THREE YEARS folks. And now it's finally here! We have loved creating this world together and we very much hope that you will all enjoy as well! :)

Summary:

There was a human in Kaito's forest.

[herbofgraceandpeace]

why do I never remember remember to put Marguerite St. Just on the female blorbos post??

She’s the cleverest woman in Europe, she doesn’t know who her own husband is, she’s a great actress, she gave it all up for love, she’s a triumph at court, she’s miserable at home, she’s friends with the Royal Family, she hated aristocrats once, she’s pining for her own husband, she’s blackmailed into being a spy, she’ll risk her life for the ones she loves, she’s bitter and beautiful and misunderstood and I LOVE HER

[oeuvrinarydurian]

The “It’s Too Hot For Tux Tuesday” Tux Tuesday edition.

Endeavour: Canticle

[forbiddenvc]

1990's

Who remembers these wonderful but now defunct Vampire Chronicles fanfic support sites, webrings, and spec compilation sites?

[amadeuszdraws]

I know I don't post much on here anymore, I really want to go back to making art, but I don't have the motivation or time to do so.

Anyways, until I make something I'm actually proud of, have this Claudia sketch I don't entirely hate

[cuntyvampires]

Lestat and not caring at all, Blood Canticle