#will put stuff under a read more if it's REALLY spoilery as well

[sexybritishllama]

heads up if i liveblog any msq or alliance raid stuff from the new patch i'll be tagging it as #dawntrail spoilers and #patch 7.1 spoilers (as well as my usual liveblog tag). won't be getting started on anything until after work today at the earliest and probably gonna be prioritising the new EX and raid before msq but just fyi!!

[nadas-dirthalen]

One Single Person Asked, So Here's A Dirthamen Theory Infodump!

shoutout to @damallarky for activating MY trap card on this long af post.

Since there's a lot, the explanations are going to exist without some of their sources/context. This post can only go on so LONG lmao.

So. Dirthamen theory time under the break, to spare the eyes of anyone who doesn't want the TIRADE.

First big theory: I think Dirthamen and Falon'Din were split in two at the time of their creation into what we recognize as the Evanuris they are. And I think Elgar'nan did it, poorly, and then Mythal fixed his mess.

Oh, and I think they were an Envy demon. That's important. Now let me explain.

We know sundered spirits are possible, given both the Vir Dirthara in Trespasser (Ghil-Dirthalen, the librarian, was sundered) and also some, uh... spoilery Veilguard stuff. Sorry everyone.

Second, there's a lot to explain what Envy demons are like. They really want to be mortal, for one thing. Second, they're shapeshifters. Oh, and also?

Envy is never satisfied, however. The demon's bottomless cravings to be more—more powerful, more skilled, more inspired—cause it to seek fresh prey, leaving a trail of stolen identities behind.

Who's this sound like? Who, that Solas might have dissed for having an "endless appetite for adulation" as we went through the Temple of Mythal?

Also, Dirthamen and Falon'din are the first of Elgar'nan and Mythal's "children." Time to dip into Dalish legend and pick out what I think are the kernels of truth.

[Elgar'nan] was the first of the elven gods, born of the sun and the earth. According to elven legend, the sun grew jealous of the favor shown by Elgar'nan for the things of the earth, and so burned them to ashes. In retaliation, Elgar'nan threw the sun down from the sky, and only later relented because of Mythal's intervention. He was convinced, with her help, to restore his father to the sky on the promise that the sun would set each night.

There's a lot to go over here. I'm gonna break down why I have bolded what I bolded.

So we know that the words for "sun" and "spirit" are almost the same thing in the elvish language. And we ALSO know that the Fade is oft called the "sky," and the Deep Roads/Titan Things are referred to as "the earth." These are then contrasted in Trespasser as places where magic works differently — the "unchanging world" is described as having the "pull of the earth," forcing everything to be more corporeal, more real (and also lowkey singing of lyrium.)

Put that all together, and when I read 'the sun grew jealous of the favor shown by Elgar'nan for the things of the earth', I think about a spirit being jealous of Elgar'nan's corporeality and his work with "earthly" magic.

Then we see that "the Dalish believe that when Elgar'nan buried the sun in the abyss," this caused the dwarves to be afraid of him because of whatever happened down there. And only Mythal was able to intervene to end this process.

And my favorite point? The promise that the sun would have to set each night. The sun becoming two different things: day and night. Light and dark.

Spirit and demon? Maybe reflection and shadow.

See, my theory is that Dirthamen and Falon'Din are two natures of the same spirit: the first half wisdom, because even Envy demons hunger for knowledge, and the second half still demonic, because of everything we know about Falon'Din. His hunger for adulation. Power.

This is also echoed, faintly, in the Chant of Light. "[...] And grew jealous of the life they could not feel, could not touch. In blackest envy were the demons born." (It mentions that this is after the creation of the Veil, but I think humans just... got that one wrong.)

As well as...

Now, with their Father's eye elsewhere, the firstborn At last created something new: Envy. They looked upon the living world and the favored Sons and daughters there, covetous of all they were. Within their hearts grew An intolerable hunger. Until, at last, some of the firstborn said: "Our Father has abandoned us for these lesser things. We have power over heaven. Let us rule over earth as well And become greater gods than our Father."

So, in summary: I think that Elgar'nan came across a super jealous, super powerful demon and decided, extremely clear-headedly, to throw it down toward the Titans and... do something horrifying to it. Mythal intervened, and out came Dirthamen and Falon'Din, sundered. One cut off from its demonic nature (perhaps unwilling/not able to see/hear/speak properly? Like the priests in the Temple of Dirthamen?) and the other left with nothing else.

Second big theory: Dirthamen left Falon'Din's side and joined the Mythal-Solas side of the Evanuris war.

First, there's these mosaics. Fen'harel, Mythal, Dirthamen, and Andruil.

Second, there's Dirthamen mosaics right when you start the elven ruin part of Trespasser. (featuring my Lavellan looking less than pleased.)

And third? Bear with the fact that I have no pictures of the actual room. But in the same room in Trespasser where you find the painting of Solas removing valasslin, there are 5 mosaics lined up on both sides of that big hall, in the same order. Falon'Din, Dirthamen, Fen'harel, Mythal, Dirthamen.

To me, it reads as: Falon'Din and Dirthamen were a pair, then Fen'harel happened, then Dirthamen and Mythal were on the same side.

Third big theory: Dirthamen's valasslin tells a story.

(If you saw this on the source post, you can skip it, it's copied here just to have everything in one place.)

I'm gonna reference this post a lot, but suffice it to say: I'm going off an educated guess that triangles referenced in elven art/society represent the Veil, and diamonds represent the Fade.

That said, behold my terrible penmanship, because I've had a theory that Dirthamen bounced since I took a really critical look at Inky's and Bellara's valasslin.

I'm going off the assumption that Dirthamen's valasslin is a raven flying downward. Beak at the tip of the nose, wings spanning the cheeks. There's some third eye imagery on Inky's chin (which would be above the beak, since we're looking upside down) and, crucially, a big ring on the forehead that looks like it's been broken through.

It looks like Dirthamen has broken free of the forehead ring and has escaped. And what's surrounding that ring? You got it. Triangles. There's small triangles on the wings as well, and another on the beak. But the largest, which I haven't written down, is at the bottom of the chin. Almost like that third eye forced its way out, with massive magic. (Note also, every "feather" on the wings is a very warped triangle.)

It feels like a narrative that says: Hey. Dirthamen isn't in his prison. He got out. His mind/magic broke him loose.

I take it as Chapter One of the Dirthamen Valasslin Chronicle™, because when I look at Bellara... (please, suffer my penmanship again, I'm so sorry)

I see two birds sitting on either side of a big third eye. And what is under them (but above her eyebrows)? You guessed it!!! Triangles!!! And, on the other side of that sort of natural line of her brow? Diamonds.

(Tiny side thought: I think the birds bring on swirly branches reminiscent of Mythal's valasslin is indicative that Dirthamen was part of her side/rebellion with Solas, but that's its own post)

Anyway. Two birds sitting on this side of the Veil. The Not-Fade side. And what are they sitting around?

A huge third eye, itself on a set of two triangles. To me, it's implying all-seeing-eye energy, and also implying that Dirthamen is watching. From THIS side of the Veil.

And that, to me, is a very interesting Chapter Two of the Dirthamen Valasslin Chronicle™. A conclusion as much as a warning.

Last big theory: I think Dirthamen was involved with Andraste during her lifetime—if not as Shartan (who I think might've been an agent of Solas), then as Havard.

There's so much of this theory that's just vibes and gut feelings, but I think that all of the Evanuris had their grubby little fingers in Andraste's life, because I think that they knew she was harboring Mythal.

Andraste was born the same year that Dumat was slain. And, knowing what we know from the DA:tV combat trailer (I'm sorry, everyone), we know that the Evanuris did, in fact, have archdemons. My theory is that Dumat was Mythal's, and that either Andraste or her half-sister were born with an old god soul. Her sister's death is, I think, the moment when Mythal proper (the same piece that's in Flemeth now) entered Andraste's body.

And I think all the Evanuris knew, through their agents, through their own archdemons, through the darkspawn hivemind—you name it.

I think all the Evanuris had agents playing roles in everything in Andraste's life next. I think Solas tried to appear to Andraste in dreams as the Maker—which, mind breaking under an old god and Mythal, did not go super well or translate super clearly. When that failed, I think Solas sent Shartan to help.

But meanwhile? I think Havard and Maferath are representative of Dirthamen and Falon'Din. For starters, they were inseparable childhood friends until Maferath's betrayal. He's also shield-coded, just like Dirthamen's Wisdom is a shield. He's repeatedly referred to as The Aegis in the Chant of Light and elsewhere.

Havard pledged himself to Andraste's cause, though was too late to save her life. This echoes how I believe Dirthamen switched sides, but not fast enough to save Mythal.

Maferath betrayed Andraste (and also Havard, by consequence) out of jealousy, much like I believe Falon'din was the catalyst for Mythal's murder.

Havard carried on after Andraste's life ended, quietly bringing her ashes to a sacred temple, where those who accompanied him there would go on to guard eternally. Much like how I feel Dirthamen is still out there somewhere now, watching. Waiting. Learning.

To what end? Well, I hope we find out in Veilguard. (I kind of hope we find out through Bellara, specifically. Or Lucanis, from... perhaps... the Falon'Din side of things. Maybe, tragically, both.)

If you stayed this long, YOU'RE A HERO! Clap for yourself! And thanks for reading! And tell me if I'm wrong on any counts!

[ipatrichor]

dead boy detectives episode eight thoughts

oh my god we're here... the finale... god i have so many thoughts with this. im gonna try to keep things slightly organized and do a little wrap-up at the end but. we'll see!

moved spoilery stuff under the cut haha. but also technically everything is a spoiler? so it's just all under the read more 👍

first of all... niko my love my heart. i've moved past the shock i'm just sad now... my girl!!! i hate being right sometimes like... god she was so kind and she tried so hard and and. huauaauaghh i don't have the words for this just know im absolutely gutted 😭😭

and crystal... god i love the way they did her memories and i love that she was an asshole, but also she was a neglected kid with parents who didn't even notice when she went missing!! god. it sure does explain some things huh... idk i love the way she reacted, how scared she was of the person she used to be. but ultimately, of course, the only way she can go is forward. the only thing she can do is live with who she used to be and choose who she wants to be going forward, and she won't be doing those things alone

JENNY IM SO GLAD JENNY CAME TO ENGLAND WITH THEM. it sucks that her shop got exploded but also i think it'll be good for her, to get a fresh start somewhere else after the shit she's been through. i'm glad she's staying with the group i care her ^^

monty helping save them... alright man. you're on thin ice but you're at least back on the ice instead of falling right through so. you have earned a little bit of my respect back and im sorry that you were bound to such a shitty witch 👍

ALSO HEY SPEAKING OF EDWIN'S LOVE INTERESTS. can we talk about the gorgeous animation for the cat king's story????? HELLO that was beautiful and so impressive!!! it really transported me into the story being told and it looked so classic disney which made a wonderful juxtaposition with what was happening. i love that so much!!!!!

esther... god what do i say about esther. her acting is phenomenal, she's so well written to be funny and absolutely terrifying, i love her story and i love the way it was resolved. i absolutely LOVE that she wasn't beaten by the gang overpowering her, it was karmic. it was the retribution for the lives she's taken, all the little girls she's killed for her own selfishness, and their retribution comes to claim her. who gets justice for them, indeed

OKAY can i just say. i am absolutely thrilled with how the lilith thing went down i didn't even think they would use the image of her in esther's memories to contact her!!! i hoped she would be involved somehow, would right the wrongs that had been done to those little girls, but i did not expect it to be this amazing!!!! god i love that they put those pieces into the show so early, so we were able to guess that they'd come together and then they DO in such an amazing way!!!

and once again niko saves the day by being genuine and talking to people... god i love her so much. she learned the exact information they needed for this fight episodes ago, by talking to the woman near the beach because she likes talking to people and learning things!!!! niko sasaki the woman that you were.... god the fact that it's were instead of are. im gonna fucking cry

and the ending!!! they aren't on the run anymore it's been recognized that they're doing good so they're allowed to keep doing it and helping people!!!!! GODDD that makes me so happy i love that so much!!!!!!

ALSO I WILL SAY. when the superior didn't give them her name and then said the thing that tragic mick (finally learned his name!) told niko before she died... im not gonna lie my first thought was that she Was niko like somehow after dying she ended up in the afterlife outside of time or whatever. i don't think that's true i think it's just the theme of the show and that's why they said it twice but. for a minute i was like HELLO???

but the very ending scene!!! niko and the sprites? i think? idk im really bad with faces and recognize people through their hair so. did not help that they were dressed sensibly for the weather and their hair wasn't showing haha. BUT STILL. was that her afterlife? why are the sprites there?? what does that scene Mean is there still a chance for her to meet the group again??? please i need answers you can't just leave me hanging about my girl!!!!!! 😭😭

god this whole show has been amazing i'm so glad i watched it... thank you noble for introducing me to dead boy detectives!! i have had such a good time, it's been an emotional rollercoaster and i'm so sad it's over. i'm off to the tumblr search to reblog whatever i find and then it's to ao3 for me, with noble's profile as a starting point and then i'll scour the tags haha. thank you guys for coming along with me on this lovely experience! i'm doing a little wrap-up summary below to end things off

FAVORITE MAIN CHARACTER: god this is so difficult.... it's gotta be niko or charles, but know that i say this with the other two very close behind. they're all fantastic, it's rare that even when i imprint on a character (in this case charles) the others are all so good that it's still hard to pick a clear favorite, with niko even rivalling that imprint

FAVORITE RECURRING SIDE CHARACTER: jenny it's gotta be jenny!! i love her scenes i love her personality she's so fun i love how no-nonsense she is only to consistently be dragged into the Most Nonsense. she's a delight i love her and her proficiency with knives

FAVORITE ONE-OFF CHARACTER: kashi!!! fish guy!! he is such a goddamn delight he is the first character whose name i learned On Purpose instead of through the natural course of the show. i love him he showed up for one episode, performed his role magnificently, and swanned off to implied further fascinating adventures. love that guy

FAVORITE EPISODE: okay surprising no one ever, probably episode seven? i love what it does with the characters, i love the scene of edwin and charles meeting (well worth the wait!), i love all of it

SECOND FAVORITE EPISODE: okay this one has gotta be episode four or the jock one. five maybe? idk im torn between those two bc of the excellent charles characterization and development we get, and i've mentioned before what a soft spot i have both for the scene where he first breaks down and the scene where he and edwin hug. i love them both i cannot choose!!!

FAVORITE LOCATION: this has gotta be the dead boy detective office or maybe the inside of the fish. idk they're very different locations but they both serve their purpose very well and have a lot to offer!! oh wait shit actually i take it back the inside of crystal's mind with the tree. that's absolutely gorgeous and i love it so much

LEAST FAVORITE CHARACTER: daniel. the demon ex sorry i choose not to remember his name <3 he is daniel To Me. anyway they just did a really good job of making him a shitty asshole who also happens to be a powerful demon

FINAL OPINION ON THE CAT KING: uh. i mean i still don't respect him but he's a very fun character and i do enjoy his vibe. i actually liked him a lot better when he wasn't essentially holding edwin prisoner (imagine that!) so i think the coercive nature of that original dynamic is what really threw me off. i found myself enjoying his character a lot more with the bracelet off and them interacting on even footing!

and finally, i couldn't possibly choose so here

LIST OF FAVORITE SCENES

- charles dying and meeting edwin

- charles having a breakdown at the night nurse

- every kashi scene

- crystal speaking to lilith and when she appeared to claim esther

- simon seeing the blue light and possibly leaving hell

- pretty much all of niko and edwin's one on one talks

- the conversation between niko and crystal when they first opened up to each other

- edwin telling the cat king the binding bracelet is all he is and leaving to save his friends

- charles hugging edwin after edwin comforts him

- esther killing the cat king

- charles getting stuck in the loop of the devlin murders

- niko going out into the storm to save her friends

- niko's reading comprehension skills <3

AND MANY MORE that i am forgetting but here you go ^^ goddamn this show is good. hit me like a trainwreck though i need a fucking nap

[vickyvicarious]

I didn't want to clog up your post about being barefooted but it reminded me that now following Dracula Daily after having read the book many years ago, I have been clocking similarities+parallels between Jonathan and Lucy in several things such as vulnerable youth, condemned while betrothed, restless dreams, performativity, secrets, stolen innocence. I've seen -not on tumblr, other places- comparisons between the two girls, but honestly it looks like there's interesting comparative readings between the first two main victims to be had so I'm looking forward to re-reading Lucy's arc semi-blind after Jonathan's.

Yes! I completely agree, Lucy and Jonathan have a lot of super interesting parallels. I won't talk about it too much here - both because you're looking forward to going in semi-blind and because I also want to do a closer reading as we go along to see what I catch - but there have already been some really cool echoes/mirrors between them. Specific stuff like:

Jonathan's mirror getting broken/Lucy musing about looking into her mirror

The three vampire women attacking Jonathan/the three suitors proposing to Lucy

Dracula touching Jonathan without consent/the suitors taking Lucy's hands in a reassuring expression of friendship

Dracula deciding Jonathan's fate by giving him that deadline/Lucy choosing her own by picking Arthur

(There's specific posts in my "lucy westenra" tag talking about all of those, often in greater detail from people who noticed them first and elaborated really well, but I digress.)

And of course that is just so far and in addition to bigger themes and roles like the ones you've mentioned. The one I have been especially interested in watching is the (in)ability to speak freely and how that manifests in each of them when under Dracula's influence (a BIG thing with Lucy; for Jonathan, there are two different answers during and after the castle, both of which compare to Lucy in very interesting ways).

The performative one is super cool because I haven't thought about it in that specific way before but you're so right. Jonathan and Lucy both put on a really good act and try to hide their true feelings, but the circumstances and ways in which they do so is at the same time quite different and bearing some major similarities. I may have to think/talk more about that in the future once we get to a certain letter from Lucy.

I also love the mention of condemned while betrothed together with that stolen innocence and vulnerable youth, because they both have this big cocktail of that mixed together when they're attacked. Both of them are leaving one stage of life behind them (clerk, teen girl living with her mother) and have just embarked upon a new one (solicitor, engaged to be married - that one both but marriage is also equivalent to Lucy's career in a way) when they meet Dracula. But neither are settled into it yet. This is Jonathan's first big job and he's away from home, Arthur isn't there with Lucy and she's still preparing for the wedding. Both times, Dracula comes along right on that cusp of the life they've chosen and are looking forward to, and he tries to take it all away from them.

I'm starting to get more spoilery/talk about stuff I want to when it's fresher so I'll stop here for now but I am absolutely with you on finding a lot of interesting comparative readings to be had with these two specifically, and I too will be looking for/enjoying them as we go along!

[answrs]

Readmores And You - A Really Great Tumblr Feature!

(this is technically directed at stuff I've seen in a specific tag because of the content of said tag makes it more likely to spoiler things, but it applies to anyone likely learning the ins and outs of a new site. speaking of which, hello! welcome to tumblr!) (this got. longer than anticipated. apologies, I get bogged down in trying to make things as clear as possible. ^^")

I've seen this a lot recently in the VC tags especially, where the post goes something to the effect of "tw bloody animal!" then like six periods and the images of whatever dead thing the post is about.

I recognize this is probably being carried over from some other website (...reddit probably? maybe insta?) but please. I appreciate y'all so much for trying to do what you're doing. but this method of hiding pictures isn't effective on tumblr, but there is an infinitely better option!

"but why? it works fine on other sites?" firstly, a few extra lines typically don't even take up enough space on mobile (let alone desktop) to hide your pics, so even at a glance anyone is likely still seeing at least the top half of whichever picture you posted before even noticing the trigger warning on top. second, because you have to scroll all the way past the images at the bottom of your post anyway to get to the next one on your dash/in the tag/etc. so if someone comes across your post and the trigger warning is applicable as something they want to avoid, unless they have access to a keyboard to use a keybind shortcut that ive been here 12 years and still cant remember, they can't see any other posts after it without either having to scroll through the pics or outright block you. which is... not the most ideal of options I would say.

"but what else am I supposed to do then!?" I hear you ask.

READMORES!

tumblr has a wonderful feature known as a "readmore" that's built into the site! it creates a break in your post, which hides any content - be it words, images, whatever - that you place underneath it, not showing it unless the person viewing it clicks on the words "keep reading" (formerly "read more" - hence the name :D).

Cool, how do I do that?

on mobile you can place one by tapping an empty line and clicking the grey squiggle icon from the selection that allow you to insert an image/vid/link

which will place a squiggly line into the post you're making:

(desktop uses the same icon, it's just in a more compact row of icons.)

you can drag it around after placing it too, just like photos. (note: mobile can get finicky with this and it's usually just easier to remove it -click the big red X- and add it in the new place you want it.)

EDIT: some of the versions of mobile editor are broken and don't show the icons. to add it in manually type ":readmore:" (with the colons, but not the quotation marks) on its own line. Thank you for the reminder, LovingTogetic!

this is also a nice way to keep your blog tidy and not swamped in long and/or spoilery posts (say if you're posting 5k word fics, or extensive meta, or gushing over the ending of the latest game or TV show most people probably haven't seen yet)! it's not required, obviously, but it's generally considered a common courtesy for others that will be seeing your post cross their dashboard.

finally, an example of the readmore in action:

(ta-da!)

have fun out there y'all, I hope this is helpful ^^

as an aside (I wasn't sure where to put this but under the break seemed appropriate), you may also see a lot of personal/vent posts be fully under readmores as well, even if the post is only a sentence or two long. this is mostly so followers don't necessarily see it unless they specifically click, but there's a more frustrating history to it becoming a thing: when a post is reblogged, any content above the break is permanently frozen as it existed at the time, but anything under it will reflect edits made to the post. while not common, a certain type of user sometimes browse the various "do not rb" tags and will purposefully reblog personal posts in order to upset and distress the users. putting those things under a readmore make it so even if that happens, the text can be deleted from all iterations of the post. recently the site rolled out an option to lock a post to reblogs, but you gotta mess with the settings and it's mostly a habit after a decade here dealing with the nonsense.

[dude1818]

To Sleep in a Sea of Stars

Last week I read To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini. Full disclaimer, I had no idea that was the same author as the Eragon series until I got to the acknowledgements at the end. This was a thousand pages of hard sf space opera, and the whole time I was thinking "I should check out this guy's other stuff too!"

Imagine The Thing, but more futuristic and set on a potential colony planet. You're halfway through that story, and the alien has started attacking your research crew, when suddenly another race of aliens shows up and now you have to team up with it to fight the new aliens. That's the first hundred pages of this book. So many things happen in this story

The overarching background of the story is the war between humanity and these aliens, the Wranaui. It takes place in the 23rd century, and humanity has settled a handful of stellar systems so far and has found relics of sapient aliens, but not met any yet. The main character, Kira, is a xenobiologist who discovers the alien (more of a symbiotic exosuit) that kicks off the war. The story follows her and the spaceship crew that picked her up as they travel from system to system trying to figure out what the suit is, why the aliens attacked, and how to stop them

Sidebar: there's a really cool FTL system in this world, which makes it possible to travel between stars in realtime months. That's still long enough that crews are in cryo for the trip, and FTL communication can't go faster than that, so you get to have your cake of a multi-stellar civilization and eat the isolated worlds where things can change drastically during your travel time too. (One of the appendices is the introductory chapter to a textbook on FTL and UFT; it's so cool)

I feel like this book could easily have been broken up into two or three, there's so much happening. Around the halfway point, the (non-suit) aliens go from being a symbol of death that appears randomly in the sky into multiple defined kinds of aliens, with their own fleshed out motives and sub-factions that can be reasoned about. It all connects, but that seemed like a change in focus that would've been a reasonable pause point. (The last 10% is a much harder diversion from either of sections, but I'll put my thoughts for that under the cut because it's spoilery)

Overall I really enjoyed it. There are more works in the series that I'll definitely be checking out. The xenobiology and especially the physics were incredibly well thought out, and I haven't seen someone play with travel times in such an interesting way before. There were some weaker aspects, especially on the politics side (if Kira goes "surely we can tell the military what we've discovered and they'll apply that information in a way that's beneficial to humanity and humane to the aliens" one more time I will lose it), but at least that mostly seems to be an in-universe character flaw (spoiler alert: the military does not). It is kinda funny how Kira makes a big deal about trying not to see the soldiers who get in their way, but narratively we need a bunch of alien mooks to kill, so they have to come up with a contrived reason (alien brain backup tech) to make that not count as murder

Spoilers for the ending:

Context: the final bad guys are a different group of aliens called the Corrupted that are a sapient gray goo, and are derived from the same tech as the suit symbiote. Kira merges with their central body and takes it over, self-destructing their army and converting them towards positive life-preserving ends. That felt a little shark-jumpy, but is fine

How that played out was super cringey though. First an uncomfortable sex scene before the final battle in which she wonders if she can still get pregnant while the symbiote is attached; then she learns that the suit was supposed to be a self-directed terraforming tool called the Seed; then as part of the positive gray goo, she positions herself as the Mother, a weird archdruid-in-space. It all just gave me the ick and didn't feel like it matched the tone of the rest of the book at all

[llycaons]

now that I'm home, a brief summary of the new (historical) fantasy books I AM interested in. there are still nonfiction (essays, social commentary, biology) that are on my list but THIS is more my jam. putting this under a readmore but 1. if you've read any of these I'd love to hear your (non-spoilery!) opinion of them, and 2. if you have any recs based on this list, feel free to reply or send me an ask!

The Water Outlaws by S.L. Huang: if this book is bad I'm going to cry. it looks like it could be everything I've ever wanted. I love when lesbians are anti-authoritarian and I love wuxia settings. the rebel love interest has tattoos 😍

The Witch's Heart by Genevieve Gornichec: I haven't actually read much norse mythology-inspired stuff except that pjo spinoff that wasn't very good (and one set in 9th century greenland that was HORRIBLE) but this was suggested a few times and I think it looks very promising! it's always neat to see older women as protags and she's bisexual and maybe polyam as well, which I've only ever seen in baru cormorant and the broken earth iirc

The Forever Sea by Joshua Phillip Johnson: this doesn't look GREAT but I looovvee environmental fantasy so I'll give it a shot

The Night Tiger by Yangsze Choo: this one looks WILD

The Keeper of Night by Kylie Lee Baker: this one seems a little more YA than the others but the concept is pretty original so I'm curious to see what they do with it

Fireheart Tiger by Aliette de Bodard: the description made me cringe a bit but the idea is pretty cool and it seems like YA but it's marked at adult?

The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water by Zen Cho: another wuxia-inspired book!!! please be good PLEASE be fucking good 😭

Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse: this one is sparing in the description but I have a sense it'll be VERY intense

The Emperor and the Endless Palace by Justinian Huang: I may struggle to keep focused on this one but I thought I'd check it out bc in theory it's interesting

The Black Tides of Heaven by Neon Yang: I didn't really understand the summary but it's hopefully good? I'l always check out a wuxia and I like a sibling dynamic

Deep as the Sky, Red as the Sea by Rita Chang-Eppig: PIRATES, BABY!!!!

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, Katherine Tiernan O'Connor (Translator), Ellendea Proffer (Annotations/Afterword), Diana Lewis Burgin (Translator), Hans Fronius (Illustrator): *points* like from tumblr...in all seriousness I HAVE heard some really interesting things about this book and the relationship so I'm glad to add it to my list

The Winged Histories by Sofia Samatar: the first book of this series sounds really boring ngl but this one oohh 👀

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia: I heard high praise for this one so while it doesn't specifically appeal to me, I'll give it a shot

Sistersong by Lucy Holland: I like a sibling story!

Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh: this one could touch me tenderly I feel. I like when love interests are nice. whenever I see those setups that are like 'oh he's got an OBNOXIOUS and HOT partner' I'm like well this projection isn't working for me bc I'd leave then. I don't want to be annoyed by someone I'm supposed to like. I am aware this is a big setup for CR arc of mdzs but the annoying guy is my actual younger brother and my dear dear friend wwx so he can do whatever he wants. and also lwj really does have a stick up his ass and wwx is acting significantly more normally all things considered. anyway. this gay tree man may touch my heart

books that are ALREADY on my list/I have read excerpts from already

The Mask of Mirrors by M.A. Carrick: this one is pretty YA but I enjoy the writing and the setting, and the plot is exciting. I look forward to reading more

The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley: I think my mutual suggested this to me and I tried reading it but I found it really hard to read but I am going to try it again because it sounds so intruiging!

The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty: I'm on the fence bc while I liked the city of brass, I thought this one was a bit weaker so idk if I'll keep reading. I like the concept tho

The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro: this one's strange and mysterious and I love the almost primordial atmosphere of england 1000 years ago...the ancient and massive landmarks around the elderly characters as they go about their relatively small lives. kind of frightening, kind of magical

These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong: I haven't read any of this and it DOES look pretty YA but the setting sounds fun so why not

[misc-obeyme]

SO. I finally finally finished season four so I’m all caught up with the main story. I wanted to get through it before Nightbringer came out and I have done it.

I would like to begin by saying that I am in love with Thirteen. She's perfection.

I wasn’t sure about Raphael at first but he grew on me by the end. His enjoyment of Solomon’s cooking is concerning, but at least someone likes it??

I actively disliked Mephistopheles at first but he also grew on me by the end. Now I’d say I'm willing to give him a chance and I find him intriguing.

I still don’t feel like I know these characters well enough to write for them though. 😮‍💨 I need more content!

I have some OPINIONS but they’re spoilery so I’m gonna put them under the cut in case anybody wants to read them.

WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON WITH SIMEON I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW.

I mean, I already knew that he was human now so it’s not like I was surprised or anything. Even if I hadn’t encountered this truth by spending too much time in the fandom, it’s pretty easy to guess.

But I’m annoyed because it MAKES NO SENSE.

I really enjoyed season three and I loved the angels running the cafe, all of that was great. And I get that this happened because Simeon was already a human by that point, but there could have easily been a different reason for it.

This game isn’t exactly known for being consistent or even making sense most of the time, but this whole Simeon is a human thing feels even more haphazard than the usual stuff.

First, what even is the angel’s blessing? How does not having access to it make Simeon straight up human instead of just an angel without powers? Is he mortal now? Is he gonna start aging like a human would?

Second, Simeon saved MC and/or Lucifer’s life (depending on your choice iirc) by taking the Ring of Light. MC’s powers were so great that it was causing actual harm in the world that would only get worse. The Ring of Light fixed that without anyone having to die. Isn’t that more important than the fact that Simeon took it without permission? Is the Celestial Realm so weird about rules that they can’t see past them when it’s necessary?

I’m not exactly fond of the Celestial Realm in general. I know the brothers always seem to be like we miss it and oh yes what a lovely place and blah blah, but it sounds bonkers. They're stuck up, overly strict, and too fond of punishments that don’t fit the crime. I much prefer the Devildom where that sort of thing only really manifests as a leftover in Lucifer, at least in my opinion. (I mean, the punishment for skipping class at RAD is detention and while writing lines is pretty old school, Simeon's line was "I may smile all the time, but I'm scary when I'm angry! ♡" So you know.)

Third, Lucifer said that Simeon couldn’t go back to the Celestial Realm now. So does this mean they not only took away the angel’s blessing, but also straight up kicked him out? Or is it more like you just physically can’t get there without the blessing?

Fourth, Lucifer also suggests that Raphael is there to watch over Simeon. I find the motivations here questionable. If Raphael volunteered to be an exchange student for the express purpose of looking out for Simeon, that would make sense. Raphael seems to be genuinely fond of Simeon. So if the motivation was his own and he just wants to look out for his friend, that checks out. And it makes me like him more. But if it was more like the Celestial Realm (Michael??) being like, hey Raphael can you go watch that guy for us? Then I find it concerning.

I thought all of this might make some sense if Simeon is meant to fall completely at some point and become a demon, but no. That still makes no sense. Lucifer and his brothers fell after a major war, it wasn't like they gradually started going down or anything. And there is no mention of any other angels falling and becoming demons, so I don't know if it's even happened again.

I just don’t get where they’re going with this. Is MC supposed to help Simeon get his power back somehow? Because while I would like that to happen, it’s annoying that it had to happen in the first place. Especially since Simeon DID THE RIGHT THING.

I WOULD ALSO LIKE TO KNOW WHAT IS UP WITH THE REAPERS.

Thirteen is obviously still living in her cave, which is fine and all, but is she like one of many? It sounds like she is. And apparently they don't belong to any one realm, so are there reapers living in all the three worlds? Do they have some kind of leader? How many candles do each of them keep in their own caves? Like there are a lot of humans so there must be a pretty decent amount of reapers needed to keep track of all the deaths and what not. The existence of the brothers' candles also implies that they can in fact die, especially since that was the whole reason for going to the cave to begin with. But I'm confused about how that even happens. Like do demons just live a really really long time, but then at some point they age rapidly and fade away? Or is it more like at some point they just meet with a terrible accident or something?

I think the big issue for me personally with all of this is that I want EXPLANATIONS but this is not really an explanation sort of game. The focus really is on MC's relationships with the brothers and others, not really about how the Devildom/Celestial Realm/magic works.

But because I have so many questions, I have a tendency to want to fill in the missing information for myself. I could absolutely answer all these questions in fic form in a way that makes sense to me personally, you know? Do I have the time to do that, no not really, but do I very much want to? YES.

We'll see, maybe I'll do some more long form stories exploring some of this stuff. But I'll probably wait until after Nightbringer because with any luck they'll give us some answers! At the very least, they seem to be about to give us some Barbatos and Solomon backstory which is another thing that I HAVE MANY QUESTIONS ABOUT.

And don't even get me started on the whole student council joining nonsense, what even was all that about? A dark crevasse, really?

All I really want is for Barbatos to say he loves MC in the main story. Is that too much to ask?! You can leave all my other stuff unanswered if I can just have that. (Though it'd be really funny if that actually has happened and I just forgot about it. I wouldn't be surprised haha. But I can't remember him ever saying that or anything close to it in the main story.)

I just love him so much and I really thought he was going to say something about his feelings at the end, especially when you choose to say I love you to him, but he didn't. Even if you choose the other option, he doesn't. I want to both shake him and smother him with kisses.

Okay, okay, rant over. Clearly the brain rot is all consuming. I didn't even realize I had quite this much to say and I could keep going. Now I'm also greatly concerned for my own sanity.

But it's okay, it's about to get worse because I'm ready for Nightbringer! I can't believe it's coming out so soon! But there's no doubt in my mind that it's going to increase my obsession.

If you read this whole post, you are truly a lovely person and I appreciate you. Also if there are inaccuracies in what I've said because I forgot something or misinterpreted something, please let me know!

[dorothygalewrites]

I know this isn't really what my page is for, but I don't really have a platform to discuss books like this besides Goodreads, and while I could do individual reviews on both of these books, I want to talk about them in tandem and what I like and don't like about them. I'll put it under a cut because it'll probably be somewhat long and spoilery, and maybe when I'm done with the back half of this quartet, I'll write a review of those two as well. But no one I know has read these books, so I just want to scream my thoughts into the void and if anyone wants to add theirs, feel free. With all that being said, here we go.

I really liked the first book in the series, I think the first hundred or so pages of this were really strong. It gripped me as I read it in a B&N cafe (which is pretty good, because most books don't). It was fun and action packed and I liked Cassie and wanted to see this new environment of teens using their special talents to help the FBI solve cold cases, while also being drawn into the ongoing case. I like that it connected her to her mother. I like that even though we got the one reveal, we still don't know who killed her mom. The plot was great. The characters? Weeeeellllllll

I like Cassie, but she's about as complex and interesting as watching paint dry. I know that Michael sees all of these different emotions in her, but eh. It was even more infuriating to watch Dean and Michael fight over her when she barely said ten words to Dean (she had, at that point, said more to Michael, but put a pin in it). Like most of what I can tell you about Cassie is stuff that happened to her, not her personality. And that's a problem.

Lia was fun in a shit stirring kind of way, but I won't lie, now that I'm two books in, I'm kinda getting exhausted with her schtick. Not that I blame her, if she developed that quickly I'd also call bullshit because Cassie's only been there for five minutes. But her being a bitch and lying (and calling others out for lying because she's a natural lie detector) and playing hot and cold with everyone is starting to get annoying. I know all the Naturals stick together because there's so few of them, but I find it hard to believe that in any other social setting, Lia would be accepted at all. Let alone allowed to get away with her bullshit. But like. Lia's fine. I don't have any major complaints about her. She's a bitch and she knows it. Thank you, moving on.

The one character that is always fun, always fresh, always is a 10/10 whenever they're on the page is Sloane. Sloane is their resident data analyst and if I had to give her a character comparison, I'd say she's closest to Spencer Reid. She's always spouting facts and statistics and she's a little awkward, but she's got the spirit. No notes.

Where both books fully lose me is the love triangle. It's present in the first one, but it's worse in the second one. Which is kind of the theme of this. But here we go, Cassie goes to this school and she meets two boys, Michael and Dean. One of them is actually layered and complicated and complex, and the other one only the author thinks is. Straight up, Dean is the most boring love interest in history and I don't know why Barnes thought it would be a good idea to ship Cassie with herself except Boy Variant, especially because (in my opinion) it seems like Michael was always being set up to be the Main Love Interest. Michael's the one who kisses Cassie first of his own volition, Michael is the first to tell her how he feels, Michael rescues her from a creep and gets shot going after her to protect her. Michael's the first person she meets in the Naturals program. He's the one that gave Cassie a nickname. He's the one that tells Cassie to figure out how she feels, that he'll wait for her to make a decision. Sure, I knew there was going to be a love triangle, but there was no doubt in my mind that it would be Michael and Cassie in the end. And I was wrong. Which is fine on it's own, but not when the story doesn't support it.

Let's talk about Michael. He's a natural emotion reader. He's a rich kid with an abusive dad, so he grew up having to read his father's emotions and that helped him hone his natural abilities. He's complicated and a rebel and will push you to a fight. If they won't hit you, make them hit you because at least you'll see it coming. He doesn't like authority. He reads Jane Austen. He does stupid things for girls he likes. He's open and honest about how he feels. You get the feeling that even with all the layers of rebel bullshit, he's a good guy with a good heart. Even when he's poking the bear.

And Dean? Dean's none of that. He's your standard, typical broody boy with Daddy Issues (Blond Variant) and basically just the same as Cassie in that his dad is a serial killer and so is her aunt (on top of her mom being murdered). He's also a natural profiler like she is, so they even share that in common. He's closed off and quiet and boring. I'm sorry, he's boring. I can't even bring myself to care about his family angst in Killer Instinct because we saw it all in The Naturals with Cassie's family. He really is that redundant to the team. I for the life of me cannot figure out what made Barnes think it was a good idea to put him and Cassie together. I'm not even mad because I think he'll be a bad boyfriend, I'm mad because the more interesting dynamic, the one that was properly set up and foreshadowed, is the one that got left behind.

I know I'm talking a lot about the love triangle, but really it's the only thing in this book series worth discussing because it's where Barnes fumbles the most. Well, maybe not the absolute most. Killer Instinct basically being a Dean reskin of The Naturals is pretty bad too. Cause that's just it. There are little changes between The Naturals and it's sequel, but it's also almost an exact copy of it's former book. And like I said, idc about Dean, so that didn't help anything.

I do like the pseudo found family vibes, I just feel like that happened way too quickly (at least in terms of everyone + Cassie, the other four I can kind of see), and I liked seeing the small bits of character development from book one to book two. But it still doesn't feel like enough.

Not helping matters are the juvenile way this was written. And look, I'm definitely not the age range for YA anymore, and I take that into consideration whenever I talk about how teenagers behave in these books. However, Cassie is seventeen and this is supposed to be "Criminal Minds for teens" so you would assume it's for an older YA crowd, but it's from Disney Hyperion and the writing repeats and hammers in everything because of everyone's ability. The reader never has to question things or infer things about personality or emotions, because there the characters are, telling us what a person is like or feeling or lying about. It's definitely the younger YA crowd, and if I had known that when I started reading, I probably wouldn't have bought them, because I don't want or need that much handholding in my books. And I don't know if I should blame the writing style on Barnes (I haven't read anything else by her) or the fact that it's under the Disney banner.

Overall, there were things I enjoyed about the first two Naturals books: Michael, Sloane, the actual case solving (when the group was actually doing that and/or allowed to actually do that), but the love triangle and how it worked out and the writing style really bring down what could otherwise be a really solid book. I'm going to finish out the quartet, but my hopes of it being a new favorite are pretty much dashed, I think.

[fountainpenguin]

Blog Stuff

^ Like, "FYI if you want to block tags" stuff

Little announcement here: Factor It In is on hiatus for now, probably for the rest of 2023. I know where the story is going overall and I know where the next chapter's going, but I struggled more than expected with the "Torus" voice (took like 6 weeks longer than the other chapters and all of it painful :'D)

I don't want to face a timecrunch struggle with TJ and Rose POVs (two characters who will be new to me), so I'm taking the bi-weekly update stress away and putting the 'fic on hiatus for now. But I wrote 77k before a hiatus was needed so I'm proud of that <3

We've got some 130 Prompts coming up as well as "Unicorn Years" for Origin in September (and hopefully a special Friday the 13th piece in October). In other words, FOP stuff is still bi-weekly as usual.

-> As a reminder, the 130 Prompts are posted in the order they are for a reason. You don't have to read them all if you don't want to, but extra context is always nice. If you've been dragging your feet on "Looking Back" by any chance... I might recommend that before the next update, which is "Sentry" ;)

On the "off" Friday I'm planning one-shots for various fandoms, especially shorter character studies. Really want to practice capturing a variety of voices, some quicker one-shots, and maybe I'll try some characters I don't use a lot. Or I'll be self-indulgent and focus on my faves... who knows.

Hoping to post more Come What May as well since you guys were excited to see it back <3... and it would be nice to actually finish a non-one-shot 'fic for the first time in. 7 years.

It's probably been obvious, but I also took a long hiatus from digital art. Traditional art is more comfy for me and I've been trying new digital programs, but haven't fallen in love with anything (i.e. I've been a vector artist for 10 years and moving from my safe space to different programs and styles is... painful).

I think I'm ready to start pushing my comfort zone, but be forgiving of my digital style because I'm playing around with new tools and this is a big jump for me, ha ha. I think I'm going to do some silly, low-stress fanfic doodles with very little attempt to make them look good, just testing stuff out.

I miiiiiight have a few PMV / animatic ideas, so we'll see

By nature of me posting art for my own 'fics, spoilers be upon ye if you're not up to date with my writing. Relatively recent stuff and/or stuff I consider "big" will get the #ridspoilers tag, but stuff I wrote 6+ months ago is less likely to get the tag, so that's how that goes.

-> #Dog's Life spoilers will get a unique tag because the weekly updates and drama make me say "Yeah, a special tag makes sense," so if that's a 'fic you think you want to read someday without spoilers, consider blocking that sooner rather than later :)

-> I'm also adding a #Pixels Imperfect tag to stuff from that universe (and I'll go back and add it to the chapters I already posted). "Pixels Imperfect" is the series name on AO3 for my digital gremlin Traffic SMP content (Everyone can freely wander around New Star Station outside the game and just puts on their roleplay hats when they go in, everything under this series fits under one umbrella of universe canon, etc.)

-> #Neighborhood Watch is the series name for "we take the roleplay lore seriously, this is their life, no digital world and no roleplay hat to take off" Traffic SMP content. I haven't posted anything for it yet, but I've got stuff in the works (I'm playing with a couple "making every season as canon as possible in one storyline" pieces and </3 it's big divorce speedrun hours for Clocker fam rn)

As for the other 'fics, I've been posting stuff like Origin, the 130, and Knots for 7 years and I feel okay about how that's going- I don't normally get spoiler Asks, but my general rule is to wait 1-2 weeks before I say anything spoilery on my blog. I think that's been working fine and we've got a good system, so I'm not changing anything there.

Lastly - and this is also part of the reason Factor is going on hiatus - it sounds like Traffic SMP Season 5 is just around the corner. For my followers who don't know much about this Minecraft deathmatch series, the creators only play for a few weeks - I think the shortest season was 6 weeks and the longest was 8 - and each creator puts out one episode a week (usually Friday).

So, it's a pretty short chunk of time and I don't want to be juggling too many things while it's coming out. I think this year I want to jump in and create some nice content while it's ongoing instead of just doodling off to the side and keeping it to myself... I need to dig up my old liveblog doodles I never shared, hm.

-> The traffic story canon gets reset every season (i.e. it's unscripted play, there's no continuous plot, and each season starts relationships from scratch), so if you've been enjoying any of my Traffic SMP reblogs, consider looking into it and riding that wave while episodes come out for a couple weeks and we can be hype together <3

-> Stuff for that season will be tagged #traffic spoilers, which is the tag I use across all the seasons, and I'll make a new post with my Season 5 spoiler tag once we get the name reveal.

-> As is traditional when I liveblog, I'll also use the tag #Riddle watches Traffic so you can block that too if you like. Just wanted to let people know in case I have any Traffic SMP followers who want to go in blind and don't want to risk seeing my posts before they have time to block my spoilers tag. #traffic spoilers still covers everything, including new season.

-> I also need to look into maybe switching from Traffic Life SMP as my blog tag to Traffic SMP because I think that's. the right name and it would probably be smart to tag properly... hm.

I think that covers everything I wanted to say. I'll add a list or link to my pinned post as well so people can figure out what to block for spoilers and stuff.

Thanks for enjoying my blog!

[veilchenjaeger]

In the time it took me to recover from reading The Locked Tomb, I finally watched the second season of Good Omens (had to wait for my parents to be able to watch it with me), and I want to do a quick post of my first impressions bc I like writing these. (No, I'm not over The Locked Tomb enough to write one for that yet. Maybe soon. Or maybe for Alecto.)

The short version is that I loved it, especially the ending. Season 1 is probably one of my favourite shows ever made; it's so obvious how much love and care went into every second of it, and I'm still impressed by how it manages to both be accurate to the book and modernise and alter the story a little to fit a TV show made decades after the book came out. The pacing, the amount of creativity and very different characters it introduces, the Cold War themes that somehow still work in the 2018 version, all the stuff that just keeps happening - it's just very good. Season 2 is very different from that, regarding the pacing especially. There's a lot less going on. Its focus is a lot more narrow. It's a lot slower, and a lot of it feels like filler, up until the last two episodes re-introduce the Shit Is Happening Left And Right pacing. Ultimately, it's a bridge between the first season and the next one (fingers fucking crossed that it gets made; I'm ready to just start cannibalising Amazon executives), it very much feels like one, and I think that's what it has to be seen as. Neil Gaiman confirmed that that's what it is a long time ago. So, no, it's not as gorgeously done as season 1 - but I went into it expecting a bridge, and I did get an incredibly enjoyable and very heartbreaking bridge that I'm 100% satisfied with. I wanted to see Aziraphale and Crowley and I saw them a lot, the plot is solid, and the last episode really came in with the fucking steel chair and knocked me the fuck out. My mind is rotting in 20 different ways rn. I did not need this after Nona the Ninth.

Anyways, in case there's anyone here who's on the fence about watching season 2 (or about Good Omens!), go watch it. Be at peace. Get your heart broken. (And, like, watch Good Omens, it's so good.)

Spoilery thoughts under the cut.

Starting off with a minor intriguing thing - I was SO on the fence about Crowley and Aziraphale having met before the Fall when I first watched their first meeting, but y'know what? I like it. There really isn't anything that says that they didn't know each other already in their Eden conversation. (I think that in the book, it does read like they know each other.) And I like all the little hints we're suddenly getting at who Crowley used to be before the fall. He was a Throne or a Dominion or above??? HELLO??? If the "Crowley was Raphael" theory ends up being real, I'm gonna start walking up the walls. Anyways, it's cool, these little reminders that Crowley does know Heaven fit very well with the overall theme of criticising Heaven as an institution, and I really hope that this is all build-up for a reveal of what sauntering vaguely downwards entailed for Crowley. Aziraphale's character arc is very much a metaphor for religious trauma and being in a cult, and season 2 puts Crowley in the role of the one who got out of the cult even more explicitly than season 1 did, which... is very appropriate, considering how it all ends.

Next up, I CANNOT FUCKING BELIEVE that they made Gabriel/Beelzebub canon. Are you KIDDING me. I went through all five stages of grief watching this with my parents right next to me, who had never heard of this ship before and were just sitting there, happily watching things proceed while my entire goddamn brain melted. What the FUCK. The audacity to do this and make it work, at that. I didn't even ship this, ever, and I'm still losing my entire mind about it. Is that what Homestuck readers felt like when Davekat went canon? Absolutely bonkers emotion, 10/10 would experience again. How dare they make me like Gabriel, also. Anyways, it fucking worked, and that's what upsets me the most. This was a genuinely sweet, romantic little story. The thing with the fly? OOF. Adorable. Extremely romantic. I, too, would leave everything I ever knew to go to Alpha Centauri with someone who made me the first gift of my life, saved my memory and sense of self with said gift, and then called it perfect to my face. Crowley is taking notes for wooing his own angel as we speak.

And it's all a big Aziraphale-and-Crowley parallel, of course. It's so fun that there were two of those - I had a chat with my dad about that, and we took note of some very interesting things. Like, it's very obvious that Nina and Maggie are Aziraphale and Crowley's mirror, but it only really hit me afterwards that narratively speaking, Nina is Aziraphale. She gets all the Crowley traits, of course - she's the sceptic, she's the grumpy one, she even calls Maggie "angel" (Cute!!!), and Maggie with her outdated lifestyle and her nerves and her cheerfulness is obviously meant to read as an Aziraphale parallel at first glance. But Maggie is the one who's waiting. She's the one who doesn't quite dare to confess, but tries to get close to Nina nonetheless. And Nina is the one who's in a toxic relationship and who, in the end, says that she needs some more time to get over that, hoping that Maggie will still be there when she's ready. And Maggie of course will be there! Like Crowley has been there for thousands of years and presumably will still be there once Aziraphale finally gets out of the cult for good. I want to believe its foreshadowing - it's certainly a direct parallel to the heartbreak scene in the end, and I want to believe that Beelzebub and Gabriel getting their happy ending is foreshadowing as well. It does drive me slightly insane that every single bit of this season was at least part of a big narrative parallel for Aziraphale and Crowley. It was all about love. I'm sobbing. It's all about LOVE, and hasn't it always been? (And, well, it's not like Anathema and Newt and Madame Tracy and Shadwell weren't Aziraphale and Crowley as well.)

On that note: The emotion I felt when they kissed? Unparalleled. We're explicitly and fully undeniably in the queer main characters zone, bitches. I legitimately almost cried. Of course the love story was pretty much explicit in season 1 already, but in a show that is not a Queer Show(tm) from the get-go, that never was marketed as such, a kiss still means so much, even if it's a sad goodbye kiss.

And speaking of that, finally - I avoided spoilers as much as I could, but I did pick up on the general, uh, unrest in fandom regarding the ending. Like, people apparently hated it and were very vocal about it, to the point where I couldn't even avoid it when I went out of my way to not look at anything Good Omens-related. Fandom annoys me more and more by the day - this is definitely one more thing for the pile of annoyances - and I try not to let that ruin my enjoyment of things, but I was prepared to be let down by the ending. Which is very interesting, because the ending was hands down my favourite part of the season. What the FUCK, people, can we not complain about the episode where we get an onscreen kiss? Anyways, I'm SO intrigued by this ending and the story it begins to tell. Aziraphale as an archangel is a wild status quo, first of all, but mostly, I really like what they did with the characters here. Again, Aziraphale is metaphorically in a cult, and the fact that he cannot let go of the idea that Heaven is supposed to be good, that what Heaven does must ultimately be good, fits that very well imo. He's at the point where he has realised that angels make mistakes and some decisions made in Heaven are wrong, which makes him determined to change things once he's in a position of power, but he's still not out of his cult mindset yet. Being an angel is still an inherently good thing in his mind, so of course he's fucking ecstatic when he thinks that he's able to bring Crowley to Heaven. Only that Crowley is really not about to re-join the fundamentalist cult he already got out of once, thank you very much. So, yeah, this works, and it's heartbreaking. Poor Crowley deserves none of this.

(All of this is also very, very queer - there's the obvious cult metaphor, but Aziraphale is also absolutely a metaphor for internalised homophobia. He gets the opportunity to be with Crowley and be straight, metaphorically, to have their relationship be a socially accepted, good, not sinful one! There's also some of the "Your soul can be saved if you stop being a demon gay" thing in there. I want to give Aziraphale twenty hugs.)

Ultimately, "Come to Heaven with me" vs. "It could just be us" complete with a desperate, heartbreaking, overwhelming goodbye kiss broke my entire goddamn heart. I'm very glad that Neil Gaiman already promised to tell the rest of the story no matter what, even if Amazon doesn't play along. That's not something that can stay unfinished. Anyways, TL;DR: Loved it, will watch again once I know how everything ends and don't have to cry about the ending anymore. Will go look at kiss gifs now.

[nibwhipdragon]

15 for any character you want🙏

LOOK AT MY COMEDIC AND VAGUELY SPOILERY BREADCRUST CRUSADERS ART, DEMIGRILL

Could not be bothered to do a background <3

I think I've actually gotten better at drawing people over the last few months or so, still can improve on it though.

Things I think I did well on:

• Blood splatter. It's a comedic amount coming out of Dio's head, really adds to the picture tbh

• Joseph's single polygon tits. Absolute 10/10 in my eyes

Things I can improve on

• Hands. The classic. I do em as claws, decided to make that part of my artstyle, but they can 100% be better

•Joseph's face wasn't comedically bloodthirsty enough, Dio's face wasn't comedically harmed enough. Needed it to be more slapstick imo

Whilst making this drawing, I thought about Breadcrust Crusaders Joseph in the Dio chapter and I feel like I should talk about it a little here. It's like a little thing before the Breadcrust anniversary <3 Gonna be under the read more, there's gonna be major spoilers so be warned if you're gonna end up reading the whole duology. It's probably going to be very discorded if you do read it, I have a lot of thoughts and no idea on how to present em properly

I know that Breadcrust Crusaders is meant to be about Joseph (he was the only other character in the dream I had, other than myself and Dio), but GOD, the way I made the plot revolve around him...babygrill I'm so sorry

The fight with Dio is probably one of my favourite scenes with him, I feel it gives the most insight into his character without even being from his POV. I think the fact that the reader has to think "Oh, what's Joseph feeling right now" and extrapolate what he's feeling by putting themselves in Joseph's place instead of simply being given it through a POV is the reason why. I also like it because it's the only point in the entire duology where Joseph was pushed to his breaking point – yes, even with all the fucked up stuff that happens in The McDonald's Crisis of 1999, it never pushed Joseph to the point he snapped like the Dio fight did.

He's been carrying the self-imposed guilt of "killing" Caesar for fifty years, and though he never openly admitted it, knew Polnareff was right. Polnareff was right to be pissed, because Joseph had literally gotten Avdol and Iggy killed in his pursuit of the McRib. Joseph's also fractured the group, by making Polnareff be absolutely pissed at him. That's already a lot of guilt to be holding (wow I sure do hope his choices don't give him even MORE guilt!). And he's already vowed to keep Jotaro and Kakyoin safe so they don't end up like him and Caesar. So, of course, when Dio turns Kakyoin into a glowstick and snaps his spine, he stays and uses his hamon healing to keep Kakyoin dying of shock until help arrives.

And, of course, Jotaro gets pissed and knowingly runs headfirst into Dio's trap of getting him alone for easier disposal. And Joseph doesn't chase after him. Joseph stays with Kakyoin. He doesn't want Kakyoin to die, because he knows it'd mess up Jotaro badly. He stays with Kakyoin, faintly hoping that Jotaro's going to be alright on his own for the time being, until Polnareff or Joseph himself finds him and assists him.

And well. If any of you here have read Breadcrust Crusaders, then. Yeah. Jotaro was certainly having A Very Not Good Time.

So he end up hearing Jotaro crying to the heavens for help (Jotaro taking that massive L deserves its own post tbh) when searching for him, immediately heads in the direction of the call for help, and sees Dio just straight up fucking around with Jotaro, whose badly wounded on the ground. Quite literally like how a cat plays with the mice it catches, putting it through unnecessary suffering for its own pleasure.

Though it wasn't fully intentional, Joseph is quite a mellow character. Even when he fought Alessi, he still was playful and goofy, not really being as involved in the battle as one would expect (that whole paragraph where he's confused about the clothes he's wearing and that he'd never wear those clothes...babygrill there is a guy trying to kill you). Hell, the only time I think he'd gotten aggressive was when he snapped at Jotaro. Even then, him snapping at Jotaro was only a knee-jerk reaction to what Jotaro had said about beating Dio on his own. Joseph immediately apologised for it after as well.

And after all that had happened in the Dio chapter, he sees Jotaro in that state, and straight up snaps. He had still been somewhat lighthearted when fighting Dio previously, but at this point he just absolutely loses it. It's actually the most violent he's actually ever gotten in the duology!

And then, of course, despite the hamon healing he then gives Jotaro, Jotaro dies. He chose to stay with Kakyoin, and ended up causing Jotaro's death. I think it fits really well for the sort of themes I was going for with the fic, tragedy and how Joestars pull people they care about into pain and suffering because of fate and such. God, if only I decided to keep Jotaro dead...it would've fit a lot better.

Ok as I'm writing this I've just realised that literally every character death in the series can be linked back to Joseph and his choices. God. That was completely unintentional but holy shit it fits the theme so well. Like, he tries his hardest to have people not die and ends up killing them in the process, it gets to the point where he's actively trying to bend the narrative to his will, making threats to a God (me) that he can quite literally never follow up on because I am flesh and bone, and he's just pixels on a screen and bits of data...He needs choccy milk, maybe that'll fix everything I've put him through

Ok I am definitely going to end up getting sidetracked so I'm gonna end this little rant thing very soon. I just really love the Dio beatdown given by Joseph, it's as if his pent up feelings towards himself are being channelled into that beatdown and just. Breadcrust Crusaders Joseph my beloved

[cowsaresushi-coral]

Which fic? 👀

"Next stop, the place once called home" by shadow_oblivion! I...enjoy this fic very much. 👉👈 Highly recommend. (And I am currently working on a comic for one of the scenes. I'll make sure to spoiler the important bits by putting those under a read more, and the more general less-spoilery stuff above that to give a tasteTM. You know, for future readers. Actually, there are so many bits from this story that I like so very much, that I may draw out a couple of scenes, but that depends on how my energy levels go. Hopefully I'll be able to do it. As well as draw for other fics, aus, etc.)

At some point when I read enough fics, and the fics I've started reading have a couple more chapters to establish its plot a bit more, I'm thinking of making a list of fics I really like listed from fluff to angst. I am not terribly fond of leaving comments (I get Nervous~), so this is essentially my way of showing appreciation. I haven't done one of these in a quiiite a while. Ah, and the fics I read have no romance, cuz, I like my found-family. So, it be ace friendly! Though that's just the general vibe of submas in general. As. It. Should. BE. (I'm lookin' at that ship. Get. Out.)

Oh, if anyone has some fics to recommend, feel free telling me the name and what site it's on. Most likely, I've read it because fics are my bread and butter that keeps me running, so I read a very large quantity of them. But there's quite a few I have not read because WOW THE FIC WRITERS HERE ARE PROLIFIC AF. Don't uh, expect me to draw something for every fic because my attention is fickle, and I'll draw something if I want to. You see the art here, it's a wild card. Also besides recommendations, the more someone tells me to do something, the less likely I'll do it. That's just a fact :p

Tl;dr - "Next stop, the place once called home" by shadow_oblivion linked above. Highly recommend. Feel free sending me fic recommendations! I'll make a compilation of fics that I like as a recommendation sometime in the future (hopefully). Just don't tell me what to draw, of course ;p. But I do love to read fics.

[interact-if]

Day 4 of A/PI Heritage Month featured authors interview! Give it up for the amazing Salty!

Salty, author of Love & Friendship

A/PI Heritage Month Featured Author

Do contracted nuptial arrangements fire up your loins? Have you ever wanted to experience the high-highs and low-lows of a lady in the prime of her marriage market days? Have you ever lain awake at night lamenting your birth in a time where divorce is readily available and women no longer need to marry as their only economic means of survival?

Why not come find your happiness in the Regency world of balls, debauchery, and a surprising amount of paperwork. Become an accomplished lady of many talents and impress gentle society or use your feminine wiles and wicked wit to flirt your way into scandal and, perhaps even, ruin. Play matchmaker and decide the fate of the ladies in your acquaintance. Pursue your choice of suitor; a dear childhood friend, a lord of dubious reputation, a wealthy widow with a heart of stone, or even, the coveted gentleman with 15,000 pound a year. After all, if you can’t find love, you may as well marry rich.

Author's Ko-fi

(INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT UNDER THE CUT!)

Q1: First of all, introduce us to your project! What is it about?

Love and Friendship is a regency rom-com, a mostly light-hearted romp through the regency with plenty of opportunities for fun, friendship, and of course, love <3

Q2: If it’s not too spoilery, what are you most excited about your project?

I'm excited to introduce more of Miss Merritt's London friend circle and write more group settings. I've focused on one-on-one scenes with the ROs but I think my favorite kinds of scenes to write are ones with group dynamics, which is something this update will be bringing to the table!

Q3: What inspired the current project you’re working on?

Honestly, I just wanted more interactive regency content. When I started drafting LaF, I think I could count the if set in the regency on one hand lol. There's a bunch of new stuff out now and I'm eating it up!

Q4: Do you pull from your own identity for inspiration? How has that been reflected in your work?

Yes and no? I do put a lot of myself into the characters and world I write but I think that comes with the territory of writing. We can't help but inject bits of ourselves into our work.

I will say that I really craved queer relationships set in the regency and decided to include more female romantic options than males ones. I, also, really wanted to explore male and female platonic friendships, which is why Hugh is a platonic relationship option. I don't know if that's my identity influencing my writing or just me creating the stuff I wanted to read lmao

On the topic of identity and race, I have run into the issue of the actual regency's influence on the slightly fantastical version I'm using as a base of LaF. The British Regency was at the height of colonialism and the wealth that allowed for much of the fashion, leisure, and society in the period were the direct result of enslavement across the globe, including the country I come from. There's some irony in my obsession with the period and the oppression of my homeland. This sucks. Obviously, I don't want to excuse the horrible practices that made such a lifestyle for the British aristocracy possible. But also the fun dresses, dances, and interesting(if overly-complicated/sexist) gender politics are appealing.

I'm still parsing that one out and using a fantastical layer to reduce any trauma on my end. But writing in this time period, doing the research, and using elements in hopefully fresh fun, has been very rewarding and a small way of reclaiming that history of harm and exploitation that usually goes unmentioned in regency media.

Q5: What’s been your experience so far? With writing, with the if community...

It's been amazing! I've been so lucky to meet incredible folks and find such a welcoming community of IF writers and readers.

Q6: Do you have any future projects in the works?

I do! Just one, an Eldritch slice-of-life, partly to spite the memory of HP Lovecraft, also because I just really wanted to play something like that and couldn't find it. It's called Stygian: The Abyssal Lighthouse and the demo is currently on the back-burner while I work on LaF's update.

Here's the pitch: You just landed a sweet job as a lighthouse keeper–no rent, no utility bills, no food costs. Sounds too good to be true, yes? Perhaps the only slightly homicidal eldritch roommate might change your tune. Oh! and if keeping the emotions of alternate dimensional being isn’t time-consuming enough, strange happenings–missing townies, creeping shadows, & b҈҇͜l̸͜͡o̷͢͡o̵̡͝d̴͢͡y̸̢͝ t҉̨͡r҈̨͠a̸̢͝ç̴҇k̶̡͝s̵̨̕-you know your average Tuesday–seem to assail your new home.

Anyways, have fun fetching groceries, tinkering with the beacon, hanging with the locals, & fighting for your life :)

Q7: Finally, what piece of advice would you give to fellow authors?

Just do the thing! If you're even slightly thinking about writing if, writing just in general, go for it! Write the thing! Jump into learning twine or choicescript or whatever! I promise you there's someone out there who will see your wip and go, "YES, finally!"

[rebloggingrexan]

My Dracula Daily tags

Heyo! Big time Dracula Daily reblogger here (for the moment. i have no clue if i’ll stick with it the whole time, but chances are looking good right now. and i reblog other stuff too, even though Dracula Daily is the laaaaarge majority at the moment). feel free to follow or just to look for certain posts using my tags. like i said, big time reblogger (and i try to stay organized and consistent with the tags!). Draculadailytracker, Cattuladaily, ourgoodfriendjonathan, draculadailyreactions, and atundratoadstool are good blogs to check out too!

SO WHAT ON EARTH IS DRACULA DAILY?

‘tis a daily (kinda daily) newsletter that syncs up to when Dracula characters are doing shenanigans through the year! (or are, uh, not quite shenanigan-ing and are actually quite... dying-ing)

like, literally, it’s the 1897 novel by Bram Stoker we’re talking about here. runs from early May to some point in November idk exactly when it ends and i like it that way

you can sign up HERE and you can check out past installments HERE!

TABLE OF CONTENTS (order of sections)

IMPORTANT TAGS

ART(hur Holmwood) (i kid) (just art)

Quick character tags for convenience (LINKS LEAD TO SPOILERS, but no spoiler characters in this section! hoping to make a separate but more complete [and spoilery] character name masterpost)

BY DATE (the big one!!)

some bonus tags

IMPORTANT TAGS

(and if i miss putting any tags on a post -- or multiple posts! -- absolutely do feel free to pop me an ask or a message pointing them out. i’m trying to be organized here! :p)

• #dracula daily for pretty much all the vampire content, with few exceptions, even if not specifically Bram-Stoker-Dracula-related. if you were already following me before my Dracula Daily hype, you can block this tag. no offense taken lol

• #dracula spoilers is a tag you may want to block; it’s both for things that haven't yet been mentioned in Dracula Daily + posts that have multiple dates on them and are spoilery. e.g. if you want to look at the 3 May posts but there's also a mention of something from 5 May that might be a surprise, i'll toss the spoilers tag on there.

• #dracula important is a handful of posts that are both helpful links to things, such as a podcast that republished their work in the order of Dracula Daily in case you don’t have a chance to read the text itself (can be helpful for the longer entries and busier weeks), as well as posts that give historical context and let you know when Bram Stoker’s being especially racist or sexist in ways that many readers might miss

• #dracula notable (if you want to check this out but don’t want to get spoiled, be sure to check what date everything refers to. that might be in the header of a post or it might be in the tag label.) this tag is a combination of both especially important information (like, okay, Bram Stoker, who are you maligning today and what should we know about that) + simply some of my favorite posts. so, ’tis a mix of serious and goofs!

• #dracula meta is for background information, like how certain things would have been interpreted at the time of Dracula's publishing, info on Bram Stoker's life, his biases (heads up: RACIST RACIST SEXIST XENOPHOBIC MAN alongside other info too), and info on his thought processes. other related non-Dracula-universe info too. (regarding spoilers, same note as with the "dracula notable" tag: check post headers and tags for dates so you don't get spoiled)

(remember! you do not need to know everything about Bram Stoker’s background to read the story! this tag is a big part for fun / interest! really all you need to know is there are some questionable themes and portrayals in Dracula because of Stoker’s negative biases, but, other than that, you can just enjoy it! :) )

• #dd by itself is my non-Dracula Daily reblogs. i started that system and tag name early on and it's a bit confusing if you think about it for half a second, 'specially given my date-specific tags, but eh, it works

MORE TAGS UNDER CUT!

__________________________

ART(hur Holmwood) (i kid) (just art)

• #artsy dracula for the sincere and pretty stuff

• #dracula art for teh meems

(note that sometimes posts are tagged as both because yay)

QUICK CHARACTER TAGS FOR CONVENIENCE

(not putting spoiler info here lol) in order of appearance!

• #bram stoker (well, he’s the author and he doesn’t do any fourth wall breaking, but i’ll include him here lol)

• #jonathan harker (our good friend!!)

• #count dracula (you know this guy!)

• #mina murray (our good friend’s fiancée!)

• #lucy westenra (our good friend’s fiancée’s good friend!)

• #dr. john seward (a dude in charge of a psych hospital! [note: you don't have to like him. just know that, for the story's context, he is supposed to be a good guy, even if not necessarily a perfect guy])

• #quincey morris (a cool dude!)

• #arthur holmwood (a dude!)

• #r.m. renfield (a notable patient of Dr. Seward’s!)

(• #matt kirkland (creator of the Dracula Daily newsletter!) )

BY DATE

the format here is "dd (date) (month)," so the start of Dracula Daily and a glut of paprika memes would be "dd 3 may," but here, to make things pretty, i'll just list them without the "dd" at the start.

exceptions so far: • September is “sep,” so 3 September is “dd 3 sep”

(i may not stay on top of updating this list of all the dates, but i’ll still be tagging posts correctly!)

• no date (#ddn) (posts that aren’t spoilery and don’t have any other tag, such as those that also aren’t a “dracula meta” post and don’t relate to a specific day.)

BONUS: APRIL

• 21 April • 25 April • 28 April • 30 April (one queued for 2024 lol)

MAY

( “ &* ” just means “i need to get some entries for this date, either because i reblogged very few posts or because i didn’t reblog anything”)

• 3 May (paprika!)

• 4 May (Jonathan gets a rosary and people are scared for him!)

• 5 May (Jonathan meets the count and is served a tasty chicken!)

• 7 May (discussing the count's property in London + Dracula’s just a little guy reading the Bradshaw’s Guide)

• 8 May (RIP in pepperoni Jonathan's foul bauble of man's vanity [i.e. mirror] + Jonathan sees the Count making his bed + the count talks about his family's history and bloodline [here's a GREAT breakdown on all that!])

• 9 May (Mina chattin' with her buddy Lucy!)

• 10 May

• 11 May (Lucy replies to Mina and informs her of a crush!)

MANY OF THE DESCRIPTIONS HAVE SPOILERS AFTER THIS POINT. CONTINUE AT YOUR OWN RISK

(remember, you can edit the tags in the url or search my blog for the proper dates' tags manually if you don't want to risk being spoiled by descriptions here. again, format is "#dd (date) (month)", like "#dd 15 may", with "dd" meaning "dracula daily")

––

––

• 12 May (Jonathan is scared of the count and sees the first lizard-like crawling!)

• 13 May and 14 May

• 15 May (🦎 LIZARD FASHION 🦎 and Jonathan is trapped then finds an old-fashioned desk!) (this is one of the exceptions to the “dracula spoilers” tag. often if there’s just mention of the count doing some lizard crawling, i’ll put this date’s tag on there lol. “Once more have I seen the Count go out in his lizard fashion.”)

• 16 May (the three vampire ladies!)

• 18 May (ruh-roh our good friend Jonathan's not hallucinating!)

• 19 May (our good friend Jonathan is in the toils! [in which he has to write three letters])

• 24 May (COWBO [sic] AND DOCTOR HOURS AND LUCY HAS QUITE THE DAY)

• 25 May (Seward's first podcast installment [poor Renfield] + Quincey invites Holmwood for drinks)

• 26 May (ART! he has news that shall make ears tingle)

• 27 May 

• 28 May ( [okay, legit, Jonathan is super racist and also uses two really bad slurs. call those groups Romani instead] Jonathan tries to send some letters with the help of some Romani outside the castle!)

• 30 May

• 31 May (ruh-roh! our good friend’s papers, writing utensils, travel info, and the clothes he traveled in have disappeared!)

JUNE

• 5 June (Dr. Seward talks with his patient Renfield, who’s been collecting pet flies! cute! :) [this is an insect positive blog <3 ] and we’re told we won’t get more Dracula Daily for quite a bit of time :( )

• 17 June ( (Remember to call the locals Romani, not the g- or sz-words Jonathan calls them! those are legit really bad slurs!) some locals deliver items to Dracula’s castle! and Jonathan’s been locked in his room now!)

• 18 June (Jonathan cudgels his brains! and Renfield clears the flies out of his room! ...oh. they were for his new spiders)

• 24 June (Dracula wears Jonathan’s clothes into the nearby towns to pose as him! + Jonathan sees the woman vampires start to materialize through dust! + Dracula kills a child and then kills the child’s mother with a bunch of wolves!)

• 25 June (Jonathan attempts lizard fashion for himself for the first time and sees Dracula... asleep?? well he’s vibing)

• 29 June (Jonathan wishes he could shoot the count and is faced with wolves when he tries to leave!)

• 30 June (SHOVEL WHACK DAY + “Faugh! Mina is a woman, and there is nought in common” + “Good-bye, all! Mina!” [Jonathan attempts his final Castle Dracula escape...] )

JULY

• 1 July (Renfield cleans his pet spiders out of his room and snatches and eats a fly!)

• 8 July (Seward begins unconsciously cerebrating! ...for a while)

• 11 July

• 18 July (Demeter log begins!! the captain and crew are unsettled. and Matt Kirkland -- creator of Dracula Daily -- takes more liberties than usual in his newsletter’s layout)

• 19 July (Renfield has a lot of sparrows and now really wants a cat!! + “A kitten, a nice little, sleek playful kitten, that I can play with, and teach, and feed—and feed—and feed!” + “I only asked for a kitten lest you should refuse me a cat. No one would refuse me a kitten, would they?”)

• 20 July (Renfield eats his birds and Seward comes up with the term zoöphagous!)

• 22 July (Demeter log: a good day! everyone relieved after rough three days)

• 24 July (Demeter log: another man missing, first mate angry at panicking crew + Mina meets with Lucy and enjoys the scenery. Mina and Lucy meet some old men by the shore)

• 26 July (Mina takes comfort in her journal and worries about both Jonathan and Lucy, the latter of whom has restarted an old habit of sleepwalking)

• 27 July (Mina’s worried about Jonathan :( Lucy is doing better, but Arthur’s dad is very sick)

• 28 July (Demeter log: second mate volunteers to watch after four days of a maelstrom)

• 29 July (Demeter log: second mate missing :( )

• 30 July (Demeter log: nearing England, two more men missing; only four people left)

AUGUST

• 1 August (one of the old men who Mina and Lucy met is named Mr. Swales! yabblins! he talks about tombstones. and Mina is still worried about Jonathan :(((( )

• 2 August (Demeter log: another man missing. God seems to have deserted them)

• 3 August (Demeter log: the first mate is convinced It is on the ship and jumps offboard to save himself! + Mina worries and recognizes Jonathan’s letters aren’t quite right)

• 4 August (Demeter log: the captain finally sees Him and ties himself to the ship’s wheel!)

• 6 August (Mr. Swales apologizes for the “wicked things” he’s said of the dead and Mina and 

• 8 August (OUR SPEEDY WEATHER-LOVING CORRESPONDENT REPORTS ON THE DEMETER’S LANDING IN WHITBY + the storm doesn’t bother sleeping Lucy and Mina keeps worrying about Jonathan)

• 9 August (our correspondent reports again! this time, the report is about the search for the beloved Clearly Innocent And Harmless Doggo from the Demeter and the Demeter’s origins and cargo)

• 10 August (...goodbye, Mr. Swales :(( + dude kicks his dog at the funeral for the Demeter’s captain! and Lucy is down at the funeral but cheers up after seeing some cows! + Mina does some complaining about the New Woman [seems probably complimentary to our views, but that wasn’t Stoker’s intention] )

• 11 August (some dark figure is spotted in the churchyard behind sleepwalking Lucy! Mina daubs her feet in mud to appear as if she has shoes on and surely it's only a prick from the pin that left the marks on Lucy's neck!)

• 12 August (Lucy still tries to leave while sleepwalking, but she's feeling better! Mina's worried about Jonathan and appreciates Lucy's comforting! + SISTER AGATHA WRITES BY DESIRE OF MR. JONATHAN HARKER)

• 13 August (Sleeping Lucy points at a giant bat out the window!)

• 14 August (Lucy and Mina see a stranger with bright red eyes! + Mina catches Lucy leaning out the window in her sleep!)

• 15 August (Arthur’s dad is feeling better, but Lucy’s mom expects to die soon from a weak heart! A sudden shock would be almost sure to kill her!)

• 16 August

• 17 August (Lucy is weakening and was found leaning out the window! and her safety pin wounds seem to not have healed! + Some deliverymen are instructed on how to leave some boxes at an entirely normal house in London!)

• 18 August (Lucy’s feeling better and recalls a nightwalking event!)

• 19 August (MINA GETS NEWS FROM JONATHAN AND WILL BE SEEING HIM SOON!!! + Renfield dismisses everyone, for the Master is at hand! + the modern Morpheus, C2HCl3O H2O! ...No! None to-night! + Renfield ran to the house neighboring the asylum!)

• 20 August (Renfield’s in a straitjacket and “three nights has the same thing happened—violent all day then quiet from moonrise to sunrise”! Dr. Seward will assist in another escape!)

• 21 August (Deliverymen acknowledge the boxes were delivered!)

• 23 August (Renfield didn’t escape even with purposefully eased security--Hark! The unexpected again! He escaped. and eventually watched a giant bat!)

• 24 August ( (in 2022, accidentally sent as two parts!) HARKER WEDDING HARKER WEDDING HARKER WEDDING + Jonathan gives Mina his journal kept in Castle Dracula + Lucy starts a diary in imitation of Mina... and feels alone :((( )

• 25 August (Lucy’s mom doesn’t let Lucy sleep with her and Lucy is in distress, but she’ll try to keep a cheery face for Arthur...)

• 30 August (Lucy writes a joyful letter to Mina about the time she spent with Arthur, says Arthur called her fat (complimentary), that she’s eating like a cormorant, mentions her mom is feeling better... and announces she and Arthur will wed on 28 September!! [i’m so happy for Lucy ;;A;;] )

• 31 August (Arthur writes to Dr. Seward, asking him to check on Lucy, even though he knows it will be painful for Seward)

SEPTEMBER (a busy month!! hold on!!!)

if you want some audio readings to help stay caught up, scroll down the archives of Cryptic Canticles’s Dracula Daily audio readings to get to any dates you may need)

(note i use “sep” instead of the full “september” in these tags, e.g. #dd 1 sep)

• 1 Sep (Short. Art’s dad not doing well :( )

• 2 Sep (Seward can’t figure out the cause of Lucy’s illness and writes to a  past professor and mentor + ‘EYO A CERTAIN DOCTOR -- M.D., D.PH., D. LIT., ETC., ETC. -- HAS ALREADY WRITTEN BACK TO SEWARD)

• 3 Sep (Van Helsing first meets with Lucy and smacktalks Seward right in front of him)

• 4 Sep (Renfield is cringe [as goes the memes] and starts eating flies again, then later denies all interest in zoophagy + Seward telegraphs Van Helsing that Lucy is improving)

• 5 Sep (Lucy improving still more!)

• 6 Sep (Terrible change for the worse. Seward informs Mrs. Westenra of van Helsing’s incoming presence so they can freely come and go)

• 7 Sep (C  O  R  N. CORN! and some of Arthur’s blood is transfused into sickly Lucy)

• 8 Sep (Dr. Seward stays up as Lucy sleeps, Mrs. Westenra doesn’t see the need for the fuss, and Lucy is scared to sleep until Seward reassures her. Van Helsing will join Seward tomorrow morning)

• 9 Sep (Lucy is feeling much better and urges Seward to rest) 

• 10 Sep (Van Helsing gently wakes Seward BUT LUCY HAS WORSENED SUDDENLY :(( Dr. Seward transfuses some of his blood into her. she wakes much improved and unaware of what happened. Van Helsing will stay the night with Lucy while Seward goes back to the asylum)

• 11 Sep (garlic flowers!!)

• 12 Sep (Lucy comforted by the garlic flowers)

• 13 Sep (Van Helsing cries after Lucy’s decline from her mother removing the flowers. third blood transfusion, this time from van Helsing. Seward is confused and distressed by the whole ordeal)

• 17 Sep (Lucy’s doing much better + Renfield tries to stab Seward and laps up Seward’s blood that he drew + Van Helsing sends a letter urging Seward to be at Lucy’s but the letter is 22 hours late + THE WOLF AND THE DEATH OF MRS. WESTENRA + “UNOPENED BY HER”: A LOVELY LETTER FROM MINA) 

• 18 Sep (in 2022, a clerical error! accidentally sent in three parts. interview with Thomas Bilder the zookeeper who talks about Bersicker (Berserker) the escaped wolf

+ Seward and van Helsing are unsettlingly yet hilariously good at breaking and entering to check on Lucy and her family + QUINCEY MORRIS FOR BLOOD TRANSFUSION AND FOR TOTALLY CALLING IT ON VAMPIRES + Lucy weeps for her mother. later under hypnosis she tries to rip apart her memo about the wolf

+ another “Unopened by her” from Mina. Mr. Hawkins passed away) 

• 19 Sep (Seward doesn’t expect Lucy to live in her weakness. Quincey patrols the property and Arthur tries to cheer Lucy)

• 20 Sep (Patrick Hennessey!!! reports the day’s happenings to Dr. Seward. Renfield doesn’t respect Hennessey and escapes to attack men moving boxes on a cart + a trick of the light, Seward says, makes Lucy’s canine teeth appear longer and sharper in her illness. Lucy acts differently toward the garlic flowers depending on if she’s sleeping or awake, Lucy’s throat wounds disappear, van Helsing refuses Lucy and Arthur a last kiss and Lucy is grateful. “We thought her dying whilst she slept, And sleeping when she died.”)

• 21 Sep (Lucy and her mother’s funeral formalities are attended to + van Helsing, naturally, suggests cutting off Lucy’s head + Mr. Marquand isn’t the best at condolences + Arthur cries to Seward and wishes to not be called Lord Godalming)

• 22 Sep (Mina and Jonathan go to Mr. Hawkins’s burial, and later the Count is spotted + Mina gets news of Lucy and Mrs. Westenra’s passing from a Mr. Van Helsing + Lucy and Mrs. Westenra’s burial then Quincey and Arthur depart + KING LAUGH + FINIS)

• 23 Sep (Mina is relieved Jonathan’s doing better, and she decides to read his journal from his time away)

• 24 Sep (Mina types all of Jonathan’s journals, for she recognizes there may be crucial information in them, whether they’re strictly accurate or not + Van Helsing writes to Mina to ask her help)

• 25 Sep (article x2 about the Bloofer Lady + Mina telegraphs van Helsing to meet with her + Mina and her widdle shorthand prank to van Helsing, who ends up praising her profusely + Van Helsing and Mina write to each other to aver Jonathan’s journal is accurate)

• 26 Sep (“Doctor, you don't know what it is to doubt everything, even yourself. No, you don't; you couldn't with eyebrows like yours.” + Jonathan is assured and relieved + CORN: PART 2!! Van Helsing is obtuse to Seward in his wish to be gentle then SLAMS THE NEWS ON SEWARD + tombbreaking and “That only proves one thing ... That it is not there.” + tombbreaking and candle sperm + van Helsing and Seward leaving a child only referred to as “it” in view of a policeman)

• 27 Sep (Dr. Seward and van Helsing again stay the night in the cemetery, where Lucy’s body now lays, and van Helsing decides Arthur must be convinced too + Van Helsing writes a memo of his plan to seal Lucy into her tomb, in case he doesn’t return)

• 28 Sep (Seward realizes van Helsing must be mad)

• 29 Sep (BIG DAY OF HAPPENINGS: Quincey “Laconic” Morris + Arthur, Quincey, Van Helsing, and Dr. Seward meet tumultuously before going to observe Lucy. the observation is a horror especially to Arthur + “nosferatu” + Arthur kills Un-Dead Lucy in a terrible moment + Dr. Seward to Mina about his diary: “You see, I do not know how to pick out any particular part of the diary.” + Mina and Dr. Seward exchange their stories and Mina types Seward’s + Jonathan talks with several people to learn what happened to the Count’s cargo)

• 30 Sep (’nother long day!! Jonathan and Mina spend the night at Seward’s and Renfield asks to be released home + Jonathan talks with more people about the Count’s boxes + Van Helsing loves praising Mina, she meets the rest of the Suitor Trio, and Arthur mourns on her shoulder and sobs to her + Renfield cleans his room before Mina sees him + “Why, I myself am an instance of a man who had a strange belief.” + Quincey “Laconic” Morris: Part 2 + Scholomance mention: Part 1! + 🦇 🔫🤠 + it is decided to leave Mina out of further vampire-related matters)

OCTOBER (another busy month!!)

NOTE: OCTOBER 3 IS THE  LARGEST ENTRY, OVER 50 PAGES. MAYBE START READING AHEAD IF YOU WANT. and again, you can scroll through the Cryptic Canticles archives to listen to any dates you need

• 1 Oct (the Suitor Trio, van Helsing, and Jonathan go with Seward to meet Renfield and Jonathan is then ignored [lol] + Renfield civilly insists on his release before breaking down to try and convince Seward

+ Dracula’s home with rats and Arthur’s TINY TERRIER DOGES + Mina is tired and has queer dreams + Jonathan bribes some information from a guy + Renfield doesn’t want souls and also says, “I don't take any stock at all in such matters,” but then sets up to attract more flies

+ Arthur gets a magical time-traveling response about Count de Ville’s manor [Jonathan and Arthur meet with the person who sends the response tomorrow, 2 Oct. oops, Bram Stoker] )

• 2 Oct (Seward gives Mina a sleeping draught to help her restlessness + Jonathan finds the depite and bribes more to learn about the Count’s secound house + a reasonable laconic man is “manifestly a prig of the first water” + Jonathan goes to the Aerated Bread Company (the ABC) a man who was supposed to be watching Renfield “dozes” and then, later, Renfield is in physical peril)

• 3 Oct

(^IT’S THE DAY. IT’S THE 50 PAGE ENTRY, THE LONGEST DAY, 16,000 WORDS)

(Renfield is grievously injured, with his back broken and the right side of his body paralyzed. he talks about the night he first met Dracula, that he knew Dracula was taking Mina’s blood, and how he tried to attack Dracula. Renfield shortly after dies

+ everyone except Mina and Jonathan witnesses Dracula cursing Mina with the Vampire’s baptism -- Jonathan and Mina are in a hypnotized stupor

[+ hehe Van Helsing falls on the floor when breaking down the door]

+ Dracula burned the manuscripts about him and melted the phonograph cylinders, but fortunately Seward’s safe has another copy

+ Mina informs that Jonathan hitting Dracula with a shovel left a scar on the latter’s forehead

+ it’s agreed that everyone must know all undertakings, especially Mina

+ Mina vows she would kill herself if she finds herself possibly acting in a way that might harm those she loves, but Van Helsing urges this must not happen, or else she surely will be a tool for Dracula

+ Van Helsing discusses many of the limits of Dracula’s powers

+ Jonathan wants to stay with Mina during the day as the plan to enter one of Dracula’s properties is undertaken, but Mina insists he go, as his law knowledge maybe useful

+ Van Helsing is overexcited and insensitive about how Dracula “banqueted heavily”

+ awkward forced cheer breakfast

+ Van Helsing tries to bless Mina to protect her, but the Sacred Wafer burns and scars her forehead

+ “It was then time to start. So I said farewell to Mina, a parting which neither of us shall forget to our dying day; and we set out.

“To one thing I have made up my mind: if we find out that Mina must be a vampire in the end, then she shall not go into that unknown and terrible land alone.“

+ Van Helsing sanctifies the earth in the Carfax lair and it is made uninhabitable for Dracula

+ “I have written this in the train.”

+ a locksmith opens Dracula’s Piccadilly residence for Quincey and Holmwood, the boxes of there dirt are sanctified, and then Jonathan, Seward, and Van Helsing wait for Quincey and Holmwood to either sanctify the dirt at the additional addresses they found or for Dracula to arrive

+ Seward observes that Jonathan appears to have greatly aged in the single night

+ Scholomance mention: part 2!

+ first mention of “child-brain” and Dracula’s experiments

+ jumpy at the telegraph boy’s knock, who delivers a message from Mina about Dracula hurrying to Piccadilly

+ another knock at the door... and it’s Quincey and Holmwood, who destroyed many more boxes of dirt

+ Seward mentions how his hunting parties with Holmwood and Quincey often had Quincey as the leader and planner

+ BOUNDING IN! IT’S THE COUNT!

+ Jonathan rips at some of Dracula’s loot with his kukri, Dracula tries for an evil monologue then jumps out a window and escapes

+ one box left

+ Quincey lies down as guard in front of the Harkers’ door)

• 4 Oct (Van Helsing hypnotises Mina + Van Helsing through Seward’s phonograph tells Jonathan to stay behind with Mina) 

• 5 Oct (HAT OF STRAW DAY + why is van Helsing allowed to narrate [“with blood,” “of blood,” “child-brain”] + Van Helsing himself uses the phrase “the Vampire’s baptism of blood.”

+ Seward and van Helsing are concerned about Mina’s connection to the Count + Mina takes the minutes for one meeting, but then she, Seward, and van Helsing are concered about her connection to the Count and she askes Jonathan to keep her in the dark. “I felt that from that instant a door had been shut between us.” she is joyful afterward + weapons and transportation are discussed)

• 6 Oct (Mina convinces the men she must come with them + Quincey “Laconic” Morris: Part 3 + Jonathan makes his will to leave everything to Mina if possible, then to “others who have been so good to us”)

• 7 Oct

• 8 Oct

• 11 Oct (Mina asks to be killed if she turns + Jonathan could not bear to record the meeting and Seward himself loses his composure doing so)

• 14 Oct

• 15 Oct (the crew continues waiting for the Czarina Catharine to be sighted. Mina has regained color but mostly sleeps, and hypnotising her at sunrise and sunset has become easier + Judge Moneybag)

• 16 Oct (“Mina’s report still the same”)

• 17 Oct (Arthur talked with the ship owner, a special messenger will keep the group in the know, and Jonathan doesn’t mind being hanged for the murder of the Count or for being forceful against anyone who tries to stop the vampire hunters)

• 18 Oct

• 19 Oct

• 20 Oct

• 21 Oct

• 22 Oct

• 23 Oct

• 24 Oct ( “A whole week of waiting.” + “Czarina Catherine reported this morning”)

• 25 Oct (writing by hand irks Seward, but he’s a good noodle and does so because van Helsing says to + Mina is more lethargic, even if retaining her color, and Seward and van Helsing are suspicious of her + Seward, shut up about euthanasia. it’s good you don’t have your phonograph and weren’t able to ramble about it + Jonathan’s hands are cold as ice and he sharpens his knife + Mina’s sleepiness is more suspicious than usual)

• 26 Oct (Czarina Catherine no longer reported, but there are patches of fog)

• 27 Oct (still no news of the ship, altho Mina’s report has changed to say “the waves are very faint”)

• 28 Oct (Czarina Catherine reported + MINA IS THE TRAIN FIEND + Arthur is surprised they can’t Uber a train + Van Helsing refers to his friend Hans Andersen and talks about duck-thoughts, swan-thoughts, child-thoughts, and man-thoughts + THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP UNSELFISHNESS)

• 29 Oct (the group is taking a train from Varna to Galatz + last night, Mina needed more prodding under hypnosis and then “raised both her hands, palms upwards, as if lifting a weight.” + then she offered tea + her sunset report has changed)

• 30 Oct (LONG EVENTFUL DAY, BUT NOT AS LONG AS OCTOBER 3. Mina answers quickly under hypnotism, then cuts off and pales before waking + Quincey only speaks English and thus stays behind with Mina

+ Van Helsing, Seward, and Jonathan are aided by Mackenzie and Steinkoff [per Arthur's telegraph] and let onboard the Czarina Catherine, which "never had so favourable a run." + the CC's captain [more sailor accent!] further reports the Romanian crewmembers wanted to "heave overboard a big box" and that, in the morning, a man came aboard to receive a box marked for Count Dracula. the captain gives the name Immanuel Hildesheim and Hildesheim's address

+ fez! + Hildesheim sends the group to one Skinsky, whose body was found in the wall of St. Peter's churchyard, throat torn open

+ JONATHAN IS RELEASED FROM HIS PROMISE TO KEEP INFO FROM MINA

+ Quincey gets Mina a “Traveller’s” typewriter and Seward needs to continue writing his journal entries by hand lol

+ Mina shares a clever memo in which she figures out Dracula’s plan and Jonathan finds that super hot and Van Helsing calls her their teacher

+ Arthur and Jonathan plan to follow Dracula by steamboat [Arthur is an “experienced hand” at working a steamboat]; Quincey with Seward to follow by horse; Van Helsing and Mina also to follow by horse

+ Jonathan is wracked with memories of Castle Dracula and of Mina’s predicament. “Have you felt the Vampire’s lips upon your throat?”

+ more sexism in that Mina needs to be saved from seeing certain things :i

+ MINA GETS A GUN MINA GETS A GUN

+ Mina sings the praises of men and money

+ Mina gets a saddle with a movable horn

+ Mina and Jonathan painfully part ways)

• 31 Oct (Jonathan and Arthur continue on their boat through the cold and frighten people on the river + Van Helsing and Mina are in a group, and Van Helsing stocks up on horses while Mina wishes she could be out in the country in different conditions + Mina writes briefly about God and Jonathan)

NOVEMBER (NEARING THE END!!)

• 1 Nov (Jonathan and Arthur pretend to be Romanian authorities, and they get news that a large boat going unusually fast has gone by + Dr. Van Helsing is laconic + Mina can’t abide garlic and calls the locals superstitious)

• 2 Nov (Jonathan was allowed to sleep because he was so exhausted [thank you, Art] + Seward, Quincey, Mina, and van Helsing are busy traveling + Mina frets about her unholy uncleanliness)

• 3 Nov (short entry: Seward hears at Fundu that ship has gone up the Biztritza. and Russian Fashion!)

• 4 Nov (Art is an amateur fitter. ...he wrecked the boat + Mina is chipper and tells van Helsing she’s already eaten. Van Helsing is afraid, afraid, afraid!) 

• 5 Nov (Mina again doesn’t eat, and van Helsing and she sit in a circle surrounded by communion wafers as the vampire women taunt Mina. Van Helsing’s and Mina’s horses freeze to death + Seward sees the Romani troupe conveying Dracula + Van Helsing enters Dracula’s castle and kills the vampire women)

• 6 Nov (Mina and van Helsing watch the final showdown through binoculars, Jonathan scares the Romani with his angry anime aura, and two people die)

• 7 Nov (SEVEN YEARS LATER. Art and Seward get married [to each other, naturally, definitely], Mina and Jonathan have a son named after their vampire hunting group, Jonathan still has to focus on praising Mina)

• 9 Nov :)

SOME BONUS TAGS

• prep (posts of people hyping Dracula Daily before it starts!)

• after (recaps, epilogue-ish non-November-7-specific posts, etc.!)

• other (Dracula-related posts that don’t directly relate to the story but may be spoilery for people who haven’t read it yet! like The League of Extraordinary Gentlefolks's posts. also basically a “miscellaneous” tag for posts i can’t otherwise figure out huehue. as of adding this edit, i have one scheduled post with this tag but none currently posted)

• ddn (posts that don’t really relate to any specific day and aren’t spoilery)

NOTE THESE LINKS CAN HAVE SPOILERS. MORE BONUS TAGS:

• "do it eat dracula" for the Best Dracula Theory that Renfield should end the story by eating Dracula

• "dracula is a comedy" for yeah

• (honorary mention of the "speedy correspondent" tag because i love them)

• “dracula without context” for posts that are extra silly or confusing when not attached to a “dracula daily” tag or that simply could have believably been posted without any story context

• “dracula headcanon” is a combination of silly posts as well as posts that genuinely color how i read and understand the story

&*need to figure out:

- day Arthur’s father died; before 20 sep

[agent-bash]

Question: what constitutes a spoiler? I've been wanting to send questions into some people (You, @Imjustwritingg, etc) but I'm hesitant with all this don't put 'spoilers into people asks' and things like that?

Hey Nonny! So really I think everyone holds a different opinion to what spoilers are, it's really more about being respectful of those different opinions. For example, I don't consider anything that's been officially released a spoiler. So things like promo photos, episode descriptions, and the Access Hollywood interview, for me, that's all fair game. Whereas things like the BTS fan pics like the ones that went around for Fire the other day aren't.

BUT! Even the officially released stuff some people don't want to know. They want to go in as blind as possible. Which I get and respect, and is why I try my hardest to remember to tag all those officially released things as well. Even though I don't consider them to be a spoiler.

As to asking questions, the easiest way to do it and be uber respectful of people who don't want to see spoilers is to send a message instead of an ask. I'll tag Morgan (@imjustwritingg)for ya, because I don't want to speak for her in this regard, but I'm totally down for that. Even if you've never reached out before, it's cool, come on and chat!

If you do want to remain anonymous and go the ask route, for me what I'm going to do from here on out if I get a spoilery one, I'm gonna screenshot it, hide that under a keep reading, and title it 'spoilery ask #whatever,' so feel free to send it on in too.

Cheers Nonny!