#The Historian
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The Historian, Elizabeth Kostova
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Afternoon reading: The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
I'm having the odd experience of really enjoying every page but also really wanting the story to hurry up so I know what happens.
#cara reads the historian#the historian#elizabeth kostova#my book picture#its heckinf gorgeous outside today
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OC doodle dump
#oc#art#artists on tumblr#digital art#original story#my original work#my oc#original character#character design#drawing#my art#illustration#doodlies#doodle dump#Dreamkeeper#the historian#demon#mage#wizard#witch hat
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Elizabeth Kostova, The Historian
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Human characters from The Source in order of appearance in The Day That The World Breaks Down
#ayreon#the source#the historian#the opposition leader#the chemist#the counselor#the prophet#the captain#the astronomer#the president#the diplomat#the biologist
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Just Leave a Comment Fest 2023 Holiday Edition
Final overall comment total for @justleaveacommentfest: 76
Here’s a very multi-fandom fic rec list of a few of the fics I read (reread in some cases), loved, and commented on that were on theme for each day of the fest:
Day 1: first fandom
(BBC Merlin is not technically the 1st fandom I was ever a part of, or even the 1st fandom I ever read fic for, but I do consider it my 1st real fandom because it’s the 1st fandom I interacted with as intensely as I interact with my fandoms now and it’s also the 1st fandom I ever wrote and posted fic for)
Fandom: BBC Merlin
Prick Love for Pricking by horsecrazy/ @cbk1000
In which Arthur and Merlin hook up at a sex party.
I haven’t felt the urge to read Merlin fic in years, but then I stumbled across this fic, which is honestly one of the funniest things I’ve read in a hot minute, and now my love for Merthur has reawakened within me with vengeance
And Down the River's Dim Expanse by horsecrazy
In which Arthur is a water spirit who tries to drown Merlin. Merlin is not impressed.
Literally obsessed with this fic from the second I read the 1st paragraph
Day 2: bookmark day
Fandom: All For the Game
never said that i didn't need you by incogneat_oh/ @incogneat-oh
"Aaron, are you ready to go? The emergency room queue isn’t getting any shorter.”
Aaron feels a thrill of nervousness pull unpleasantly in his belly. He doesn’t want to spend the night in a brightly-lit, overcrowded emergency room and have strangers prodding at him. He glances back at Andrew, who looks as disinterested as ever. He’s slouched over, hands in his lap and unmoving, face expressionless. He’s facing forward, but his eyes are on Aaron.
And Aaron’s halfway out the door when he swivels. Blurts, “You’ll come with me?"
--
Aaron and Andrew spend an evening hanging out in the emergency department.
One of my personal fave twinyard-centric fics
Fandom: The Historian
among some talk of you and me by Hokuto
Reader, I pray that you will have the strength to walk with me a little longer.
I remember when I 1st found this fic I was so shocked cuz I had no idea anyone had even written fic for this book, but this is literally a perfect little epilogue because it has everything I loved from the book (scholarly nerdiness, libraries, and Dracula)
Day 3: old favorites
Fandom: BBC Sherlock
The World on His Wrist by bendingsignpost/ @bendingsignpost
First, he is shot in Afghanistan. Second, he wakes to a phone call in Chelmsford, Essex. Third is pain, fourth is normalcy, fifth is agony and sixth is confusion. By the eighth, he's lost track. (John-centric AU)
An exceedingly old favorite of mine, like literally one of the 1st fics I ever read on ao3, but I just learned today that I had apparently never commented on it previously, which made it perfectly on theme for this day of the fest
Fandom: Haikyuu!!
When the Stars Threw Down Their Spears by umisabaku/ @umisabaku
"It’s hard to understand the hierarchy when a school like Nekoma exists, putting them all together like they belong, but by the time Kenma enters high school he understands the difference. Kuroo is a black panther, rare and precious; a large predator stronger than most any other foe.
Kenma is a calico housecat. His coloring is uncommon, but he is not special."
Shapeshifter!AU. Kenma struggles with a culture and the rules of courtship.
When I was in high school and at the peak of my sports anime phase, this was one of my fave fics, and so I loved revisiting it all these years later
Day 4: fandom curiosities
Fandom: Mysterious Lotus Casebook
Three Autumns by rageprufrock/ @rageprufrock
If Li Lianhua had known this mess would be waiting for him, he wouldn't have bothered to crawl out of his own grave.
The most I know of this show is what I’ve seen through a few gifs on my tumblr dashboard, but this fic made me fall so hard for the characters it’s not even funny
Fandom: Interview With the Vampire
hell and you by quensty/ @keithal
With respect to Daniel’s life, pain in the ass is spelled A-R-M-A-N-D.
I have read one (1) book and watched one (1) episode of the show, so I barely have any idea who these characters are, but holy shit this dynamic compels me
Day 5: rec a fic
Fandom: Mo Dao Zu Shi
a made thing by animediac/ @jaywalkers
Because at the end of it all, Wei Wuxian walks away with his happy ending and the rest of them are left with nothing.
(or, what comes after everything has gone)
Fantastic post-canon fic by one of the few writers that can make Chengsang convincing to me
Fandom: Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System
Life is (not) a Hallmark Movie by mellicindi/ @mellicindi
Shen Yuan isn't lonely. He's just overseas in a new city, trying to muddle his way through a business degree, and dealing with the side effects of his stupid intestines trying to kill him. So, maybe he sometimes watches ASMR to cope with his too-quiet apartment. Maybe he has a little bit of a parasocial-relationship-thing going on with one particular cooking ASMR channel. It's 2016, who doesn't? The point is, he's content with his quiet life.
And then Shang Qinghua strong-arms him into watching one Hallmark Christmas movie, and it all goes to hell.
Or: Shen Yuan is a Hallmark movie protagonist, Luo Binghe is a Lifetime movie protagonist, and somehow they make it work.
I sadly missed the read-along this year, but this fic has been on my tbr since pretty much as soon as I started reading fic for this fandom, so I got to finally read it and it’s really fantastic
-
As always, I’ll continue to comment on fics and show all you writers appreciation for your craft <3
#just leave a comment fest#fic rec#fic rec list#bbc merlin#aftg#the historian#bbc sherlock#hq#iwtv#mdzs#svsss#mlc
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hey while i'm in my vampire state of mind, please consider reading Elizabeth Kostova's novel The Historian. May I introduce it as I first met it:
... or near enough. The copy I had was almost entirely white, the lettering merely standing out on the cardboard, no embellishment whatsoever. Or at least that's how I remember it. It was so... nondescript.
I was a bookish teen when I came across this book, and its pale cover and sparse description enticed me. It felt good and weighty in my hands. It promised secrets and mystery. I didn't realise anything was up, for a bit, until a date caught my attention: it was from a panel discussion from... a few years in the future? Surely the date was a typo. I kept going.
Letters. Journal entries. Newspaper clippings. Phone call transcripts. I was about a quarter of the way in before they dropped the name Dracula, and HOLY SHIT suddenly everything made sense. Suddenly the casual records (out of order, missing and replaced later OR recreated from memory) made sense, and the casual background white noise of fear became Front And Centre Terror as I realised who was the focus of the story.
"Child... where is your father?" FUCK. I had NIGHTMARES from that line alone.
I loved it. I kept it overdue from the library and no-one cared, no-one requested it. It's like they didn't realise the gold they had here, in this simple white cover.
A few years later I was out and about, and I saw a copy in a bookstore where someone had decided subtlety was out of style and they slapped THIS GUY on the cover.
Sure. Okay.
They have since re-released with a more understated cover...
... though I miss the white cardboard and the simplicity, the way the story itself was a shock and surprise. Any fans of Dracula are going to love this one. Please enjoy.
#dracula#the historian#book review#book covers#marketing is a beast of a thing#re: dracula#dracula daily
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Sometimes when I’m just chilling and doing my thing my brain is like HEY REMEMBER THAT HORRIBLE THING THAT HAPPENED THAT TIME DURING THE HOLOCAUSTl
So idk when this is over (jk it will never be over because I will never stop working on it because the genocide studies life chooses you, not the other way around) I need to find a therapist who specializes in secondhand trauma.
I’m not posting about this because I want sympathy, btw. And I’ve been in out of CBT since I was 19 so I know how to manage it. I post about it because people in my line of work don’t talk about it enough, and it’s an important aspect of our work.
The practitioner, as much as they understand themselves as bearing witness, or acting in service to their field, matters.
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***Spoilers for The Historian***
I think it's so funny that Dracula is like "I don't have time to catalog all my books... instead I will play threatening, increasingly convoluted mind games across continents with every academic who starts to study my life, to judge if one of them wants a job" like
a) worst job interview ever
b) dude, it's been 500 years, I think you probably had time to catalog your books
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More OC scribbling
#Marsillia#Dreamkeeper#oc#art#artists on tumblr#digital art#original story#my original work#my oc#original character#character design#drawing#my art#illustration#The Historian#traditional art#markers#sketchbook
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mans was vibin
#he’s so silly i love him#ayreon#the source#the captain#the historian#tobias sammet#james labrie#arjen lucassen#doodle#sketchbook#drawing#Spotify
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Teenage fashion, 1972.
As the first chapters of The Historian takes place in the early 70s and the unnamed narrator is 16, I thought it could be fun to have a bit of a visual to what she could have worn.
#reading the historian#the historian#elizabeth kostova#1970s fashion#1970s#dracula#vampire literature#vampire#vlad tepes#vlad the impaler#dracula daily
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The Source meme dump part.II
#no context just for fun#the source#ayreon#the captain#the prophet#the diplomat#the historian#the astronomer#the biologist#the counselor#the president#opposition leader#th-1
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Hey, to everyone out there who’s enjoying Dracula Daily, I would like to heartily recommend The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova, the best vampire novel since the original (possibly better than the original!).
It is a novel of Dracula - a truly menacing, horrifying Dracula. In an echo of the way Dracula is told via documents - letters, diaries, etc - The Historian also relies heavily on them, from letters to journals to family stories to centuries-old historical documents. It’s told in a nested style through three narrators, all of whom are historians - a young woman in the 1970s, her father in the 1950s, and his thesis advisor in the 1930s - with the letters/diaries/stories of the earlier narrators being experienced by the later ones. In this way, it’s told across three different eras of Europe and gets into all the real historical complexities and context of those periods, such as the Cold-War-era difficulties and dangers of carrying out travel and investigations in eastern Europe. It also draws in vampire mythos from a wider range of places than the original, including a truly fascinating stint in Istanbul.
It moves continually back and forth throughout the three narrators and time periods in a really delightful way, and all of the characters are powerfully engaging. On top of this, it can be a genuinely frightening and chilling read at some points - it’s captured the art of eerie, building horror without gore or cheap scares.
If you like history, or Dracula, and especially if you like both, you are going to love this book.
#dracula#dracula daily#elizabeth kostova#the historian#vampire#vampires#book rec#i don’t read my emails often enough for dracula daily to work for me#but i’m happily following along in my book
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