#this rule is pretty consistent

[mydogtypedthis]

sometimes boys oh. uh. girls have to- op my bad. um lizard people have to track their gender fluidity on excel

[luna-loveboop]

Linktober day eleven- dance

Riju my baby. On a glass bottle because I like engraving on glass bottles. I love how much her fighting style looks like a dance

Riju in totk is great because if anyone deserves to be able to summon a giant dome of lightning death. It's her. Skyward sword link's not the only one who can catch lightning with his sword B)

Drawing lightning is fun. And I really should start using references for these.

:)

[batsplat]

Bike or Rider: Brno 2014 // Phillip Island 2018

Brno 2014:

0:00

Q: When in the past you were winning so many races with Honda, everybody was saying, was because of the bike. Now with Marquez, it’s not like this. What do you think about this? And also Honda won today.

Rossi: Yeah, I’m [...] thinking to this situation that this is the bigger difference between my period and the Marc period. When I won, in 2001, 2002, 2003 with Honda, not everybody - but a lot of people, especially the journalists - say that I won because I had the best bike. Now with Marc, racing with Honda, he won a lot of races, but because he do the difference. I don’t know why have this difference between me and him, for me it’s difficult to understand. Maybe the rivals, because, sincerely, we are better rivals than what I had. Because more or less we never complain about - a lot - about the bike, when in the past I beat especially Biaggi, he always complained that I beat him because I have the best bike... It was funny. But at the end, I change bike and I won also with Yamaha, but after I won because I don’t have rivals, so… It’s never ending. But I think that Honda is very strong, but you cannot say nothing to Marc, because he won ten races, so for sure at this moment, he is the fastest rider.

//

Phillip Island 2018:

1:52

Q: Yes, a question for Vale - Vale, what do you think is the limit of Marc Marquez, and if you think that maybe some day he will change to try the bike to be better, if it’s possible, better rider, more layered… During the past, when change Honda for -

Rossi: Ah, change the team?

Q: Yes, Honda for Yamaha.

Rossi: Oh the limit… Difficult to say, sincerely I don’t know. About the future for change the bike, it’s something very personal. He don’t have to change the bike, so, he have to feel. If he feel good with the team, with the Honda, he can make also all the career with the Honda. Depends very much, it’s a very personal choice, what you feel, what you find, for find the motivation for race. But I think that everybody have his own way. 

[adamsvanrhijn]

another day another thought about how literally all they needed to do to make the maud plotline make sense. before even making it Better. is to simply have her not go to anybody's house other than aurora's

[childofaura]

All right, it seems like I’ve got a lot of understanding and rational people who responded to my earlier inquiry about making a Claire criticism post. So I’m gonna go ahead and do it, since this is something that’s sat in my mind every time a new installment of the ToA series came out.

SO BIG DISCLAIMER BECAUSE I WANT EVERYONE TO READ THIS BEFORE ANYONE GETS MAD AT ME:

THIS IS ALL MY SUBJECTIVE OPINION. I MIGHT BE PHRASING THIS POST LIKE IT’S AN ABSOLUTE, BUT IT’S NOT, IT’S ALL ISSUES I PERSONALLY FEEL WITH CLAIRE’S CHARACTER. SO IF YOU LIKE CLAIRE, THIS IS NOT A PERSONAL ATTACK OR ME TELLING YOU YOU’RE WRONG ABOUT SOMETHING/CAN’T LIKE CLAIRE.

Now that I think I’ve got that out of the way, I wanna jump into the actual post of why I’ve never really liked Claire’s character.

If we’re being really really REALLY honest... I think the issue is mostly based off of “The writers didn’t know how to write Claire”. I’ve felt like every character in Trollhunters (specifically Trollhunters, we don’t talk about 3Below and while Wizards was pretty positive overall, that was also a lot of hit or miss, and that series plays even more into why I don’t like Claire) was executed pretty well to fulfill their roles as characters or to be compelling and pretty easy to grasp their personalities.

Except Claire.

Personality issues:

Her character’s inconsistent and flip-flops. To start off, her intro in the series is just “pretty girl that Jim likes”. We get the promising sense that she has some non-conforming interests at first, as she’s advertising try-outs for the play, but that’s just lifted from the Trollhunters book and we never see any interest in theater arts from Claire ever again after that. Her hair (and I’m sorry but I hate her hair with all the stupid hairclips in the front, it’s so distracting and it looks dumb) with the streak in it and the skull shirt she wears makes you assume she’s somewhat rebellious, maybe kind of punk, but she’s a straight-A trouble-free student who’s apparently popular with everyone, and helps her mom out with campaigning for her political career. There’s really nothing to her personality that shows itself consistently, besides the Papa Skull interest.

And then there’s how badly her character and personality was executed at first; When Steve’s about to beat up Jim, she tries to step in but gets shoved back. Great! She has a sense of right and wrong and she’ll stand up for others. But then later on, she scolds Jim for the crime of... standing up for himself? Which sends a really bad message that she’d have rather had Jim publicly humiliate himself and/or possibly get beat up. Then later she’s willing to go to a Papa Skull concert with the same guy who shoved her. That’s incredibly weak character right there.

She starts to show some more positive character when after getting mad at Jim for trashing the house, she puts two and two together and realizes something’s off, but then she just... sneaks into his house like a weirdo, even though nothing about her character suggests that she’d do something like that and she has no real reason besides “Jim wasn’t straightforward about the party”; it’s not something a normal person would do or what SHE would do given her current character development. And then this one’s a smaller gripe, but I hated her scoff in Wizards when the tournament was going on and the guards didn’t let her in, she goes “Ugh, boys’ club!”. UH HELLO, YOU IDIOT. THERE WERE FEMALE GUARDS CLEARLY EMPLOYED IN ARTHUR’S SERVICE. HELL, THE GUARD THAT BULLAR ATE WAS A FEMALE GUARD. GET OFF YOUR HIGH HORSE AND STOP PRETENDING LIKE YOU’RE BEING SLIGHTED BECAUSE YOU’RE A GIRL. YOU WERE CONSIDERED A CIVILIAN TRYING TO ENTER A TOURNAMENT FOR TRAINED KNIGHTS.

Now past all the character inconsistencies in those first thirteen-ish episodes, the second issue I have with Claire’s character is that she teeters pretty dangerously into Mary Sue territory. Everyone (I was almost gonna say “who isn’t a major villain” but EVEN MORGANA ends up liking her. So MOSTLY everyone) who isn’t a main antagonist ends up liking Claire in some way. Steve the bully? Tries to date her. Mary, whom she said she wasn’t really close friends with? Is friends with her and even has her number. Freaking VENDEL, the grumpiest character in the show, only has to hear her talk in Troll and he immediately likes her without her having to earn his trust (which also she just... never uses Troll again. Sure is convenient that she learned to speak fluent Troll just for one scene and one character to like her). Morgana takes a liking to her. Compare that to how hard Jim had to work to gain the trust of others: His bond with Draal, learning to prove himself to Vendel, engaging with Nomura in prison and befriending her. She too easily assimilates with other characters; I’d have less issues if she had to work like Jim did, but the only time she does is with NotEnrique.

Skills and abilities don’t feel earned or consistent:

And then the whole thing with her powers and her physical abilities. It was never explained in the show how she actually obtained innate magic powers not connected to the Shadow Staff itself (And no, if you have to explain it on Twitter as a writer, that’s not good writing, that’s forcing your audience to play detective). She’s just all of a sudden doing awfully-convenient high-level magic in the first two episodes (or maybe three, whenever she created that shadow-cover for Jim and the others to escape.) without explaining HOW she had got those powers, and then she performs it perfectly whenever the plot needs it (She’s literally shown to be more powerful than Merlin, how stupid is that?). Remember in the movie where everyone was like “Oh no Claire, don’t use your powers because it could hurt you!” and she does anyways and she faints for like three seconds and then has no other physical repercussions? Or how she’s somehow MORE capable than Jim when it comes to fighting, like how in the Chinese Trollmarket she manages to swipe one of the other troll’s weapons, which has an entirely different weight and size to her shadow staff and probably required extensive training, and she just uses it flawlessly to fight? The only times Claire really fails are when the plot calls for it.

Plot can’t happen without her:

And finally, she hijacks the plot constantly, more than her character should, and has more importance placed on her role in the story than anyone else. Even Blinky. She even took over the plot for Wizards, which was supposed to be Douxie’s story and Douxie’s character-focus. The poor guy took a backseat to his own story because the plot relied on Claire to move forward, literally nothing could be done without her. And I mentioned it before but even though Douxie’s character still managed to get enough development, it was hardly enough because Claire hogged up so much screen-time focusing on HER and HER magic development and HER relationship with Morgana over Douxie and HIS magic development and HIS relationship with Merlin.

And also the fact that it’s Claire who ends up either saving the day or taking priority over the others. Who was the one who defeated Morgana in Trollhunters? Claire. Who brought Jim back to life as a human, despite the fact that even Merlin stated it was impossible for him to make Jim a human again? Claire. Who was it that Jim made sure to establish his relationship with, but not anyone else? CLAIRE. That ending in the movie where he doesn’t seem to care about his relationship with Blinky, Draal, Strickler, etc, but oh we’ve GOTTA have his girlfriend!

Overall, even typing this, I don’t think it’s her fault even though I hate her character; it’s the writers’ fault for doing such a sloppy and inconsistent job because she’s boiled down to just a “girl empowerment”. Because in the book, Claire Fontaine is AWESOME. She’s a Scot descended from a warrior lineage which actually explains why she has weapon capabilities, she’s explained that she’s not really a “popular girl” but she’s super confident in herself and doesn’t really care what others think, and that’s what Jim finds charming about her, and she rips Steve a new one after hearing that he’s just trying to charm her to piss off Jim.

But Claire Nunez is a mess of a poorly executed character. And again, I blame the writers because I think Claire could have been great if they knew what they were doing with her and made her balanced.

[pookie-mulder]

Breaking news: Local 30-something woman discovers the fashion cycle while browsing the juniors’ section at Target, repeatedly exclaims, “I wore this in middle school!” with the utmost disdain like it’s some sort of revelation, and cannot fathom the fact that she’s not a teenager anymore and is therefore not the target audience for these clothes.

[alias-mike]

IVE CRACKED THE CODE (ive pieced together a beautiful way to spend $600)

[grubloved]

also i went and saw the puss in boots movie despite not having seen the first one or any of the shrek movies and i wasnt expecting much but then was genuinely thrilled :D they do some really neat stuff with the animation!! theyve got some cool stylization going on!!! a lot of subtle painterly quality to lighting and texturing, a lot of hand-drawn smears and effects that really add a lot, and some SUPER neat fiddling with the framerate that is a totally new way of using the medium. id heard they did some cool stuff but was expecting a rip-off of exactly the tricks spiderverse pulled if anything -- but no, brand new stuff!!! it was really just a cool movie to look at!

[bldwspr]

autism did its thing again.. i made matching covers for the flame trio playlists

i'm actually proud of these and the songs in them, the emalf one i had for years and i felt like i should've made one for adauchi and poemi as well, but it took me a while

either way, i think they're complete, kinda.. i will always end up finding more stuff that fits them and adding more, but i don't think any of them are lacking anymore, and that's good enough for me

[mejomonster]

To get real niche lol part of why I love old school lolita (you know besides literally growing up when that was The dominant lolita fashion style so its what got me into lolita)

Is that it embraces the 1 color dresses, 2 color no pattern dresses, lace, and less accessories.

For one, the no pattern and lace containing dresses nowadays are looked at as cheaper or something "not actually lolita" when like... in reality it was always lolita if it was a real lolita fashion brand, it's just the cheap cosplay knockoffs that were too short and actually anime outfits were copying that style more since that's the lolita dresses the anime were making skimpier and copying. And that's still mainly what cosplay cheap fake lolita like dresses look like, because anime took looks from lolita At That Time period and then it continued on as it's own beast (also anime is more likely to animate simple dresses than intense pattern dresses I'm guessing). The reality is like... lace is lolita if it's on a lolita brand dress. Period. People moved away from it, as well as avoiding black/white dresses, because as I mentioned anime and cosplay made rip off cheap fake lolita rhats too short and wrong style and bad quality and not brand (and not lolita on qualities they lack). But you CAN actually wear a real regular lolita brand good quality dress that is black and white with frills... and I think they're fucking cute.

2 a lot of older pictures online exist of old school lolita. I love how many look "cringe" in their own way the same way old emo pictures do. Some of the styles of old lolita dresses like the intense long poofy sleeves or lace trims, are generally Not popular in current lolita fashion trends. But hey, even though they're "cringy" to modern popular opinion. They're still real lolita style - the old style. So wear em if you like them!

3 the lack of Intense Accessory Requirement. There's lots of old Fruit magazine photos of people in lolita, with just a headband/hairclip and socks/tights as their accessories. I fell in and out of wearing lolita, and when I came back into it in the last couple years it's very common now to see the expectation a lolita outfit should include: lolita dress or blouse/skirt and petticoat and dress shoes (the base outfit), legwear (like before), headpiece (like before). And ALSO necklace, arm wear (bracelets or wrist cuffs), purse (I imagine hopefully optional as always since ppl use different bags), hair style done up (again i hope optional and it's just Instagram is High Glam so people tend to wear wigs or intensely style hair more for Instagram photo shoots). The big change for me though is the seemingly much higher expectation on jewelry accessories and Fancy Legwear and mandatory arm wear and some people thinking the outfit is incomplete without them. The lolita style to my knowledge started as base outfit (dress or blouse and skirt, petticoat, all in appropriate lolita shape and length) with some leg wear usually (though occasionally ppl just wear shoes) and some hairpiece (usually a bow or headband but I've seen just a hairclip or barrettes before).

I am assuming the rise in more expectations of accessories comes from: over the top styles currently being what's most popular (and yes like Decora fashion, OTT styling generally expects much more accesorizing), sweet style being currently what's most popular (heavy on patterns so in personal opinion I assume that means one may need to accessorize more or be more dramatic with say Patterned tights to get attention on elements of the outfit outside of the main piece).

On the other hand I've seen more leniency on jumper dresses without undershirts (especially chinese lolita brand dresses some of which are designed specifically to just be worn as straps without undershirts), which I think is nice because in old school lolita dresses were sometimes worn this way. I'd also like to hope in reality lolita fashion worn in person is for the peoples personal happiness and preference, versus online like Instagram where yeah people tend to dress up the Most as public eye is on them.

I just think of Kamikaze Girls lol and how I wear as few accessories as her. Now I get mine is out of laziness, and I hate the feel of so many things on my body. But I grew up wanting THAT look, not the OTT look.

And then I guess semi related? If you're into old school lolita styles (and in particular gothic lolita), I really can't recommend Atelier Pierrot enough. First of all, they have a plus size line they carry that is AMAZING. It's genuinely plus size, I've bought 3 dresses and 1 skirt from this line and love them. The plus size have open free waists and then use a tie around the waist so you can tie it as tight or loosely as your waist needs, and the overall dress shape retains the cute lolita look. The free waist means if like me you jump 20 lbs back and forth, the dresses are guaranteed to fit ans look nice even when weight changes. Also the waist can be loosened easily when bloated or in pain while still looking form fitting (which is great for my ibs lol and makes them the MOST comfortable lolita dresses I have), they're very thin lightweight good quality cotton so they can be worn in the heat or colder without feeling like you're suffocating. Buy based on the free waist size measurements when picking items. Atelier Pierrot also carries Marble which keeps a lot of classic solid color with frills kind of looks, has some plus size (but really CHECK MEASUREMENTS because marble runs very tight... I tend to buy bigger sizes Than I think I'll need). Atelier Pierrot also has an English language option on site, and international shipping options. It's my favorite lolita brand. I also really like the gothic lolita look most, and Atelier Pierrot and Marble are great for that.

Otherwise yeah I'm basic, I get bodyline stuff, because it's sturdy and true to size (though sometimes youll want to buy a size up) and has plus size items that will fit me. sometimes.

[chalk-homunculus]

I've been once again maining Klee throughout this Veluriyam Mirage questline a nd while exploring the mirage, both because I did get her skin, but also because it cheers me up so much to see her having fun.

[theriverdalereviewer]

PEOPLE OF TUMBLR… YA GIRL IS FINALLY AN EMPLOYED TEACHER!!!

[castleinthemist]

i wondered this many times while playing but how do you even come up with these types of levels. like how on earth do you design and test this stuff, especially the EX levels

[homunculus-argument]

Another worldbuilding application of the "two layer rule": To create a culture while avoiding The Planet Of Hats (the thing where a people only have one thing going for them, like "everyone wears a silly hat"): You only need two hats.

Try picking two random flat culture ideas and combine them, see how they interact. Let's say taking the Proud Warrior Race - people who are all about glory in battle and feats of strength, whose songs and ballads are about heroes in battle and whose education consists of combat and military tactics. Throw in another element: Living in diaspora. Suddenly you've got a whole more interesting dynamic going on - how did a people like this end up cast out of their old native land? How do they feel about it? How do they make a living now - as guards, mercenaries? How do their non-combatants live? Were they always warrior people, or did they become fighters out of necessity to fend for themselves in the lands of strangers? How do the peoples of these lands regard them?

Like I'm not shitting, it's literally that easy. You can avoid writing an one-dimensional culture just by adding another equally flat element, and the third dimension appears on its own just like that. And while one of the features can be location/climate, you can also combine two of those with each other.

Let's take a pretty standard Fantasy Race Biome: The forest people. Their job is the forest. They live there, hunt there, forage there, they have an obnoxious amount of sayings that somehow refer to trees, woods, or forests. Very high chance of being elves. And then a second common stock Fantasy Biome People: The Grim Cold North. Everything is bleak and grim up there. People are hardy and harsh, "frostbite because the climate hates you" and "stabbed because your neighbour hates you" are the most common causes of death. People are either completely humourless or have a horrifyingly dark, morbid sense of humour. They might find it funny that you genuinely can't tell which one.

Now combine them: Grim Cold Bleak Forest People. The summer lasts about 15 minutes and these people know every single type of berry, mushroom and herb that's edible in any fathomable way. You're not sure if they're joking about occasionally resorting to eating tree bark to survive the long dark winter. Not a warrior people, but very skilled in disappearing into the forest and picking off would-be invaders one by one. Once they fuck off into the woods you won't find them unless they want to be found.

You know, Finland.

[aethersea]

another thing fantasy writers should keep track of is how much of their worldbuilding is aesthetic-based. it's not unlike the sci-fi hardness scale, which measures how closely a story holds to known, real principles of science. The Martian is extremely hard sci-fi, with nearly every detail being grounded in realistic fact as we know it; Star Trek is extremely soft sci-fi, with a vaguely plausible "space travel and no resource scarcity" premise used as a foundation for the wildest ideas the writers' room could come up with. and much as Star Trek fuckin rules, there's nothing wrong with aesthetic-based fantasy worldbuilding!

(sidenote we're not calling this 'soft fantasy' bc there's already a hard/soft divide in fantasy: hard magic follows consistent rules, like "earthbenders can always and only bend earth", and soft magic follows vague rules that often just ~feel right~, like the Force. this frankly kinda maps, but I'm not talking about just the magic, I'm talking about the worldbuilding as a whole.

actually for the purposes of this post we're calling it grounded vs airy fantasy, bc that's succinct and sounds cool.)

a great example of grounded fantasy is Dungeon Meshi: the dungeon ecosystem is meticulously thought out, the plot is driven by the very realistic need to eat well while adventuring, the story touches on both social and psychological effects of the whole 'no one dies forever down here' situation, the list goes on. the worldbuilding wants to be engaged with on a mechanical level and it rewards that engagement.

deliberately airy fantasy is less common, because in a funny way it's much harder to do. people tend to like explanations. it takes skill to pull off "the world is this way because I said so." Narnia manages: these kids fall into a magic world through the back of a wardrobe, befriend talking beavers who drink tea, get weapons from Santa Claus, dance with Bacchus and his maenads, and sail to the edge of the world, without ever breaking suspension of disbelief. it works because every new thing that happens fits the vibes. it's all just vibes! engaging with the worldbuilding on a mechanical level wouldn't just be futile, it'd be missing the point entirely.

the reason I started off calling this aesthetic-based is that an airy story will usually lean hard on an existing aesthetic, ideally one that's widely known by the target audience. Lewis was drawing on fables, fairy tales, myths, children's stories, and the vague idea of ~medieval europe~ that is to this day our most generic fantasy setting. when a prince falls in love with a fallen star, when there are giants who welcome lost children warmly and fatten them up for the feast, it all fits because these are things we'd expect to find in this story. none of this jars against what we've already seen.

and the point of it is to be wondrous and whimsical, to set the tone for the story Lewis wants to tell. and it does a great job! the airy worldbuilding serves the purposes of the story, and it's no less elegant than Ryōko Kui's elaborately grounded dungeon. neither kind of worldbuilding is better than the other.

however.

you do have to know which one you're doing.

the whole reason I'm writing this is that I saw yet another long, entertaining post dragging GRRM for absolute filth. asoiaf is a fun one because on some axes it's pretty grounded (political fuck-around-and-find-out, rumors spread farther than fact, fastest way to lose a war is to let your people starve, etc), but on others it's entirely airy (some people have magic Just Cause, the various peoples are each based on an aesthetic/stereotype/cliché with no real thought to how they influence each other as neighbors, the super-long seasons have no effect on ecology, etc).

and again! none of this is actually bad! (well ok some of those stereotypes are quite bigoted. but other than that this isn't bad.) there's nothing wrong with the season thing being there to highlight how the nobles are focused on short-sighted wars for power instead of storing up resources for the extremely dangerous and inevitable winter, that's a nice allegory, and the looming threat of many harsh years set the narrative tone. and you can always mix and match airy and grounded worldbuilding – everyone does it, frankly it's a necessity, because sooner or later the answer to every worldbuilding question is "because the author wanted it to be that way." the only completely grounded writing is nonfiction.

the problem is when you pretend that your entirely airy worldbuilding is actually super duper grounded. like, for instance, claiming that your vibes-based depiction of Medieval Europe (Gritty Edition) is completely historical, and then never even showing anyone spinning. or sniffing dismissively at Tolkien for not detailing Aragorn's tax policy, and then never addressing how a pre-industrial grain-based agricultural society is going years without harvesting any crops. (stored grain goes bad! you can't even mouse-proof your silos, how are you going to deal with mold?) and the list goes on.

the man went up on national television and invited us to engage with his worldbuilding mechanically, and then if you actually do that, it shatters like spun sugar under the pressure. doesn't he realize that's not the part of the story that's load-bearing! he should've directed our focus to the political machinations and extensive trope deconstruction, not the handwavey bit.

point is, as a fantasy writer there will always be some amount of your worldbuilding that boils down to 'because I said so,' and there's nothing wrong with that. nor is there anything wrong with making that your whole thing – airy worldbuilding can be beautiful and inspiring. but you have to be aware of what you're doing, because if you ask your readers to engage with the worldbuilding in gritty mechanical detail, you had better have some actual mechanics to show them.

[yeah-thats-probably-it]

Hot take maybe but I think Bertie would be FAR more likely to survive the first two months of Dracula than Jeeves would be. Bertie has a healthy sense of self-preservation. Jeeves consistently underestimates how dangerous a situation might get (Steeple Bumpleigh, the club book) because he’s overconfident about his level of control over any given situation. He'd handle Dracula masterfully if they faced off in England, but on Dracula's home turf? Much more doubtful.

I realize this might be a tough sell, so I will explain further (or it's not a tough sell, and I'm going to explain further because I want to). (criteria taken from @canyourfavesurvivecastledracula) Without further ado.

Would Jeeves and Wooster survive Castle Dracula?

Jeeves

Jeeves' survival will depend on how long Dracula finds him more entertaining than irritating. On that basis, I don't think he's long for this world. On the one hand, he has a huge wealth of knowledge about English society and culture that he can recite perfectly from memory. That should buy him at least a little time with noted teaboo Dracula.

On the other hand, he would be absolutely no fun as a vampire plaything. Jeeves cannot be got. Sneaking up on him while he's shaving will yield zero reaction (though that's at least good for his short-term survival--given that, although he DID take the crucifix from the old woman out of politeness, he certainly isn't going to wear it. The rules of fashion don't go out the window just because you're in a spooky castle). Then, although managing the whims of rich jerks is not an insignificant part of a valet's job, Jeeves usually does this by bending his employers to his will. Dracula is not the sort of employer this will work on. It'll just add insult to injury when on top of being impossible to scare, NOW Jeeves is telling Dracula that his favorite cloak is several centuries out of fashion and he's not allowed to wear it anymore.

Jeeves will 100% go exploring in the areas he was told not to go-- though to be fair, he MIGHT actually get away with this, what with his superpower of appearing in rooms without being seen or heard. Said superpower might save him from the brides as well (though this is by no means guaranteed). Since I find it doubtful that Dracula would come to rescue his annoying ass, not being noticed is his best defense.

There are a couple other things working in Jeeves's favor; the question is just whether they'll be enough to save him.

He DOES know shorthand, and could try to send coded letters. He might even have the foresight to squirrel away some extra stationary where Dracula can't find it. But could he get them posted? Would it even do him any good?

He certainly has enough cultural literacy to figure out what his new boss is pretty quickly. If he didn't chuck the crucifix out the carriage window, he might start carrying it around in his pocket.

Psychology of the individual, sure, but the individual in question is a 400-year-old vampire who lives in an isolated castle in a foreign country and is regarded as a terrifying mythological figure in the surrounding villages. Jeeves has never come up against anything this alien before, he's cut off from his normal resources, and opportunities to play people against each other are limited.

He probably has enough upper body strength from all that shrimping and fishing to climb the wall, so he COULD escape if he wanted to, if he survived long enough. It's just, again, that overconfidence, and also Dracula has a vast library full of rare old books that are entirely at his disposal. He's keeping his eyes and ears alert for potential escape strategies, of course, but I don't see him being as desperate to get out as Jonathan was.

There are just a lot of "depends on"s here, and I'm not convinced that luck would shake out in Jeeves's favor, all things considered.

Bertie

Bertie is so perfect for the job of Castle Dracula Prisoner it's like it was made for him. Think about it. Being held against his will in big manor houses comes more naturally to him than breathing. He's afraid of things that are scary. A lifetime of dealing with Aunt Agatha has made him the world's preeminent expert in "curl[ing] up in a ball in the hope that a meek subservience [will] enable [him] to get off lightly." He will NEVER go exploring in places he's been warned away from if nobody is forcing him to (Rev. Aubrey Upjohn's office notwithstanding. There were biscuits in there). He's both fun to talk to and easy to toy with (and extremely English). A+ prisoner. Dracula adores him.

In my opinion, Bertie is at Castle Dracula either because Aunt Agatha got some wires seriously crossed and thinks he’s going to meet an eligible potential bride (I mean, there are certainly brides there), or because Dracula has something Aunt Dahlia wants him to steal (far less likely, given that one of Dracula’s THINGS is famously not owning anything silver). Either way, he's shown himself entirely willing and able to escape down drainpipes if a sitch gets too scaly.

He DOES take the crucifix, and DOES wear it (which is what will save him during the shaving scene, because you KNOW he's going to jump a foot and cut himself like the dickens). He's read enough supernatural goosefleshers to be genre savvy about terrified old women cryptically pushing crucifixes into one's hands. I also think his sunny disposish endeared him to the villagers, and they were particularly vehement about urging him not to go. He doesn't speak German or Romanian, but he's empathetic enough to recognize Pure Terror. So by the time he actually gets to the castle, his imagination is already running wild and he's plenty aware that he is in imminent danger.

I think the biggest risk to Bertie will be the brides; whether or not he's susceptible to trances, if he thinks they're trying to marry him, it's against the code of the Woosters to turn them down. But that only becomes an issue if he comes face to face with them, which, luckily, I think is unlikely on account of the aforementioned "won't go exploring" (and if he did, Dracula would definitely rescue him).

I'm inclined to say due to his drainpipe-escape habits that he WOULD be able to climb the wall and MAY attempt to sneak into Dracula's room to look for the keys if his desperation grows to outweigh his fear. Whether he does or not, though, he does NOT have the stomach to attempt shovel murder, and therefore won't get magic brain fever, and may very well simply walk out the front doors when the people come to take the boxes away. OR he climbs his way out like Jonathan did. Either way.

When Bertie tells this story at the Drones later, Tuppy will say that no doubt it's been greatly exaggerated and all that probably happened was that he spent a couple months in an oldish house entertaining a weird loner.