Just sent off for a hardback proof copy of the Dracula Daily sketch collection from the printer! It’s happeniiing!

Also had a really lovely reply email from the Dracula Daily substack crew, giving their blessings for me to publish the art book. Dracula’s out of copyright, but I wanted to make sure I wasn’t stepping on any legal toes if I wanted to sell copies, and I’m not!

but it ain’t called love without a little tragedy 🍁

Novice sewing pattern: Cut out shapes. Line up the little triangles on the edges. Stitch edges together. We've also included step-by-step assembly instructions with illustrations.

Novice knitting pattern: yOU MUSt uNDerstANd thE SECret cOdE CO67 (73, 87, 93) BO44 (63, 76, 90) 28 (32, 34) slip first pw repeat 7x K to end *kl (pl) 42 * until 13" (13, 13, 15) join new at 30 pl for 17 rows ssk 27 k2tog mattress lengthwise BO and sacrifice a goat to the knitting gods. WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU WANT "INSTRUCTIONS," I JUST GAVE THEM TO YOU

svanhildr my beloved returns

love that nobody can function without echo in the empire era. the batch keeps losing the ship, barely manage to finish their missions, and entirely forgo strategy. and then on the other hand, rex pre-echo-joining-the-rebellion was living in an abandoned garage with one singular tiny ship. then shortly after echo joins they have a whole base with like twenty troopers and real doors and actual food and a ship actually designed for long distance travel.

DOODLES

Randomly thinking about “tolerate it” (narrator voice: it was not random) and how under the cloak of fiction it is ostensibly inspired by works like “Rebecca” (which Taylor said she read during the 2020 lockdowns I believe?), with the line of “you’re so much older and wiser” indicating that the speaker is significantly younger and inexperienced compared to the person she’s speaking to and a pretty direct reference to the plot of the book.

But I saw something somewhere once that stuck with me about how it might not be referring to relative age between the characters but chronological age as in the passage of time in a relationship. And that made me think about how in a contemporary context, it might not necessarily be referencing an actual age gap between the two characters, but rather a sarcastic or cynical response to the man’s claims that he has matured (“you’re so much older and wiser [than you were before/than you were when we met/etc.]”), which then made me think about that line in relation to the woman. And that it could be taken like, “you act like you’ve matured so much in our time together and like you know everything, while I’m supposedly still stuck as the girl I was when we first met.”

Which then made me think of the “right where you left me” of it all and did you ever hear about the girl who got frozen time went on for everyone else she won’t know it and the bit in Miss Americana where she talks about how celebrities get frozen at the age at which they got famous, and how she’s had to play catch up in a lot of ways not just in her emotional growth but kind of in general. (Which also made me wonder if she’s ever been called out for immaturity/lack of curiosity/lack of education about things in her life…)

Which then made me think about the rest of the song, and @taylortruther’s posts yesterday about “seven” and “Daylight” and the way Taylor idealizes her youth yet contrasts it with an almost sinister reality in its wake, and the line, “I sit by the door like I’m just a kid,” because the discussion raised that her relationship let her recapture some of the childlike joy and wonder she’d lost. So this line is a double-edged sword: the speaker sits by the door with childlike hope that the person will come home and cherish her, but on the darker side, feels like the child dealing with the monsters she doesn’t have names for yet and the feelings of isolation she felt as she aged.

I’m not saying the song is necessarily autobiographical; like most of the songs on folkmore, it’s clearly a fictionalized story based on media she’d consumed and created, but we know a lot of the fictional songs were infused with her own feelings and experiences and… This idea swirling in my head picked up steam and now I kind of can’t stop thinking about it. Sorry but I’m a little obsessed now.

Like maybe it might start to shed light on why she identified so strongly with the novel in the first place…

do you have any thoughts on zelda not staying as a dragon? me personally I like it and am very cool with it mostly because I think zelda should get to be happy forever (and because I'm smart enough to know she changed back because of recall and not some ambiguous power of love lmao) but a lot of people seem to dislike that it made the draconification inconsequential?

i think there's like. some valid concerns surrounding inconsequentiality/"curing" the physical problems characters have as a way of giving them a "happy ending" but I think those concerns don't necessarily apply to totk in the way people seem to be applying them, especially irt zelda's draconification and link's arm.

most of the time when the criticism of this "magic cure" trope is applied to media, it's because the trope is used as a cure-all to erase a character's suffering or trauma and make them "normal" again, and often ignores the character development or themes of the story in favor of giving the character a happy ending. I don't think that applies to totk, though, because the "curing" link and zelda experience is both within the realm of possibility given the worldbuilding present in the game (recall could easily have done it, as you mentioned) AND thematically consistent with the rest of the game. One of if not the most important central themes of totk is the idea of failure and second chances. we see a hyrule that has been given a second chance after link's initial failure with the calamity brought it to the brink of destruction. we see characters who were deeply unhappy and entrenched in the shame of their precalamity mistakes like purah and zelda become active, beloved members of their communities. we see the people of lurelin village take back and rebuild their destroyed home. we watch this kingdom and its people make an unprecedented comeback after a century of struggle and ruin.

Similarly, totk's gameplay is LINK's second chance, his comeback from the initial mistake of losing zelda, of specifically being unable to reach her with his injured hand when they fell. The consequences of that--the master sword's corruption, the loss of his arm, and zelda's draconification, are all supposed to SEEM irreversible, because that's how LINK initially sees them. he believes that he doomed both himself and zelda all because of that SINGLE moment in which he wasn't enough, a viewpoint which is obviously left over from the pressure he experienced to perform to an impossible standard of perfection pre-calamity. The story of totk is about deconstructing that belief and proving it wrong. the mistake he made caused harm, but it's never too late to repair things. he can fix the regional phenomena ganondorf causes and rebuild those communities. he can revitalize the master sword. he can GET ZELDA BACK, with his own arm, uninjured and able to reach her this time. no matter how impossible those things may initially seem, no matter the perceived finality of his mistakes and their consequences, there is always hope. there is always a second chance. no one person's single mistake can doom an entire kingdom for eternity. the fate of hyrule was NEVER resting on link's shoulders alone. he was never their final hope. there was always going to be an after. the whole POINT of the draconification and the loss of link's arm is that they AREN'T final. they ARE inconsequential, because they were born of one mistake and ONE MISTAKE IS NOT THE END ALL.

Imagine a world where Bruce got really into the occult when his parents died.

He did all the things. He bought a Ouija board. He went to psychics. He held seances.

He never did talk to his parents.

But, sometimes he wasn't as careful as he should have been. Once, just once, when a Ouija session once again failed to reach his parents, he left the planchet on the board and never said goodbye.

How long would it take for something to come through? How long would it take for Bruce and Alfred to notice? The manor is so very big and it has so many lovely dark places to hide.

If things get moved around, who would really notice? Especially once Bruce adopts the Robins. So many children causing so much chaos at all hours of the day and night.

No, I expect that no one would notice until Duke moves in. But even then, who knows how long it would take him to notice one big humanoid shape hidden away in some long forgotten attic room.

Honestly I think the most unforgivable crime comitted by the new ATLA adaptation is bringing back the fucking kataang/zutara discourse🥰

Like, I can forgive a lot, but I can't forgive the fact that my own eyes, in the year of our lord 2024, have to be subjected to takes I first saw on 2011 DeviantArt

I honestly believed the world was getting kinder, in general, that we were moving away from weird creepy parasocial relationships with celebrities, that we were slowly going to stop putting celebs on a pedestal, that we were going to stop dissecting every single move they make and thing they say, because at this point we have put them up just to watch them fall hundreds of times and it could not be more clear that being famous does not make you perfect and it does not make you an expert on anything and it does not make you a good or bad person automatically. it does not give you wisdom or magically give you the correct answers to ensure you’ll never offend or hurt anyone.

instead so many people on social media continue to put celebrities on pedestals, simply so that they can gleefully tear them down over literally any move they make. and y’all are so happy to hate. and not only that, but to immediately brand anyone who doesn’t pile onto the bandwagon as the enemy.

if you find yourself wishing death on people over a fucking tv show, you’re the asshole. period. don’t even bother asking.

DannyMay Split AU Week 3 - Revenge

As the years passed so too did Danny's life without him. Even though he aged, his mentality didn't. Steadily, Phantom started taking over more and more. The villains he once fought against with near cartoonish antics now attacked mercilessly. For most it was the replacement of resentments by rage, no longer solely "haunted" by a life poorly lived. Their loss of freedom left them volatile towards Danny. For Vlad, it was much more personal.

Despite the growing collection of scars, Phantom always pressed on. Picking up the slack from his human counterpart. Regardless of his own hatred towards the teen, he had to protect the one he shared a body with.

Daisy Bell 13: I'll Write You a Song

Here. Take some finger doodles on my phone of Kanaya and Vriska.

When I find it hard to do certain things, I like to pretend I am a neanderthal living in a cave with my clan, and I must do The Thing in order to survive.

So, when I'm doing cardio at the gym, I'm actually chasing and tracking a mammoth, and when I need to cook, well, I'm not cooking on a stove top, I am hurdled over the first fire and watching the fat of our kill drip down onto the burning wood. And when I find it hard to crochet, I pretend that the first winter storm is coming and our clan needs me to make blankets to hurdle under and that I must contribute.

I hope whatever you do to do The Things will help. It is a uniquely personable trait to motivate yourself through pretend and stories. That's what makes this life interesting - that's what makes you feel larger than yourself 💛

final game of the season has been archived and linked on the doc! this little passion project of mine has been so fun to do. it really sparked an interest of archiving in me. hope to continue next season!!!