Anyone else hyped for the next round of Dracula daily?
the-best-of-the-geeks reblogged
Our good friend Jonathan Harker is getting ready to leave for his business trip, Mina Murray is picking out a new journal, Lucy Westenra is charming a gaggle of smitten suitors, Abraham van Helsing is wrapping up his lectures, and Castle Dracula is prepping the guest room for a very long stay.
Which must mean that Dracula Season is here again!
‘Dracula Season’ being a catchall term for the voracious reading, memeing, writing, illustrating, analyzing, and general fun-having that’s ensued since Matt Kirkland’s project, Dracula Daily, caught on with us back in 2022. The Substack had already been running before then, but it sparked a conflagration as time went on and readers old and new to Bram Stoker’s Dracula—the actual novel, not Coppola’s fanfiction—devoured it in a way that scratched an itch none of us knew we had. Stoker wrote the book in epistolary fashion, clumping sections together as needed for the pacing without perfect adherence to chronological order. Matt went ahead and put all the events in order and proceeded to set up a lovely chain of emails that delivered entries on those correlating dates.
This style of organization and pacing turned out to not only make the virtual book club that much easier to engage with, but left space in-between to stew on the story and relate with the characters themselves. Every day of waiting in the book feels weightier when you have to pace and sweat and worry in tandem with poor Jonathan trapped in the castle or Lucy wasting away or Mina running out the clock before she loses the fight for her own humanity. And while we sat with the story or the lulls between Dracula Seasons, some of us found ourselves craving more of that ghastly gothic horror goodness to the point that we figured:
“Well. Why don’t I make something?”
And then we did! Tons of creative works have been churned out in the wake of Dracula Daily’s high. I figured that while we’ve still got a bit of time to wait for May 3rd, we should check out all this new stuff in the meantime. (Plus a handful of neat stuff that just clicks with the Dracula itch overall.)
So, in the interest of Dracula Season pregaming, let’s take a look at…
FICTION
- Blood of My Blood – A recent addition to the Dracula Bad Ending AU pile, and definitely one of the most harrowing and addictive group-produced narratives I’ve ever come across, Blood of My Blood is the dramatically gothic currently-WIP work of @ibrithir-was-here and @animate-mush’s devious design. Give or take a heap of other fascinated folks (hello!) adding ideas to put more Horror into the Horrors that our cast has to face. The premise:
The Transylvanian climax went fatally sour and the Harkers were forced to shelter with Dracula himself, including their half-vampire son, Quincey. Cut to two decades later, and Quincey finds himself out in modern London, smitten with Lu, adopted daughter of Arthur and Jack, and diving into certain bloodstained old documents that detail the real history of how his parents came to live in the castle. Said revelations coming not a moment too soon, as a storm is coming for him straight from the Carpathians…
- Dracula Daily Sketch Collection – An array of illustrations that captures every entry beat by beat, the Dracula Daily Sketch Collection by Georgia Cook, alias @georgiacooked was dished out over the course of the last Dracula Season. Some of the most fun character designs out there.
- Fanfiction Spotlight: BlueCatWriter – With a whopping 99 works devoted to the novel Dracula (so far, the number may have gone up since I blinked), @bluecatwriter is one of the most prolific and talented fanfiction scribblers out there. Romances, nightmares, and overlaps between the two seem to crop up the most, give or take a crossover. Seems fitting that those blue paw prints have contributed to BoMB too.
- The League of Extraordinary Gentlefolk – An ongoing comic in which all your favorite characters from the Classics section get together and tackle some perils ranging from the mundane to the monstrous. Started by the amazing @mayhemchicken and posted on @lxgentlefolkcomic, this series is a love letter to beloved Victorian era lit, with a spotlight on the two couples leading the League. Namely, the Harkers, ala Dracula, and the Nortons, ala Sherlock Holmes,’ “A Scandal in Bohemia.” Mina and Irene are the driving investigative and steering forces here, and still deeply in love with their likewise-infatuated husbands, just like in their canons! What a concept! Alan.
Without spoiling the full character list, just know there are going to be a ton of familiar faces roaming around before you finish reading the first arc. Said arc having conveniently wrapped up just a few days ago! Give the comic and its bonus silliness a look if you’re in the mood for a new comfort-adventure epic.
- Re: Dracula – Probably the most well-known and incredible thing to come out of the initial Dracula Daily wave. This podcast is a full audio drama that follows the same format as the Substack, with episodes coming out in time with the entries themselves. And it has an unfairly cool soundtrack. They have a Tumblr with @re-dracula, a site and a Patreon to check out before the series kicks up again on May 3rd. (Also, keep an eye out for their next work, an audio drama in the same style with Carmilla.)
- The Soldier and the Solicitor – Another treat from @ibrithir-was-here, this one involves a bit of time travel trouble. Quincey Harker has stumbled out of World War I and into the same dark forest where his father once fled for his life…then runs into the man himself, on that same night. Jonathan Harker, young and starved and lost, who has no choice but to trust this stranger while the Weird Sisters are at his heels…despite said stranger having no shadow. It’s a tasty emotional trek, already complete on Tumblr, but now it’s turning into a Webtoon. While Ibrithir is juggling a number of other stories, she’ll be redrawing spruced up versions of the comic and adding a few new scenes as things unfold.
- Substack Stack – You know what’s better than one emailed-out public domain book club? A mountain of them. Just. So, so many of them. You’ll see that a lot of these are finished, but some are still ticking along. Either way, they’re all great picks if you’re craving some more old school lit to fill the void between undead emails.
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…The Beetle Weekly – The Beetle (NOTE: Do Not Read This.)
- The Vampyres – A novella I finally wrenched through the gears of self-publication as of March this year. Starring a petite but powerful paranormal cast, The Vampyres, centers on an unscrupulous undead fellow who finds that the revenants of the world are being mowed down by an entity known only as ‘Quinn Morse.’ Between trying to save his neck and figure out where the shadowy bastard came from, the Vampyre in question crosses paths with a new paramour and handy human shield in the form of a grieving Good Samaritan. He’s even polite enough to invite the Vampyre into his home while he’s in dire straits! Surely this will end well. All the info is available here and a little author site is over here.
- What Manner of Man – This is the one made for everyone who started out hoping there’d be a real love story with our good friend Jonathan Harker and the Count when he was at his most charismatic. Where that sea of wonders dried up into a mire of horror, What Manner of Man by @stjohnstarling keeps things firmly on the romantic tracks. This Substack stars the letter-writing priest Father Victor E. Ardelian as he finds himself meeting with one enigmatic Lord Alistair Vane. It isn’t long before interest turns into intrigue and intrigue into undead intimacies.
The entire novel has been completed—along with multiple epilogues in the author’s Patreon, allowing readers to choose for themselves just how the uncanny romance plays out in the end—and the Substack now has a number of other gothic goodies piling up in the meantime.
NONFICTION
- Dracula Daily: A Unique Reading Experience: This one comes courtesy of @realwomenofgaming. It’s a short and sweet piece that amounts to a fun snapshot of the entire Dracula Daily ride. A cozy couple-minute read.
- ‘Dracula Daily’ is the One Substack You Need a Subscription To: Features my favorite Matt Kirkland interview. @mattkirkland, if you’re still floating around on here, thank you for dispatching our vampire newsletter again this year.
- Dracula Daily is Tumblr’s hottest new book club: Alright, the ‘new’ part is worn out by now, but this one is still a delightful article to swing back around to. Two years on, this Polygon piece is a time capsule of those early months when people outside our bookworm bubble realized we were all happily receiving letters from our favorite classic gothic horror blorbos.
- “How Mina Murray Became Dracula’s Girlfriend” – Princess Weekes, if you ever read this, thank you, thank you, thank you. I am sending oceans of love and millions of rewatches to your video essay. If you haven’t seen it yet, “How Mina Murray Became Dracula’s Girlfriend” is one of the most refreshing and well-made breakdowns of both the title subject and numerous other issues that have proliferated in the public view of Dracula’s cast and plot as adaptations endlessly warp or outright bastardize the actual novel. An incredibly cathartic watch.
- Literary play gone viral: delight, intertextuality, and challenges to normative interpretations through the digital serialization of Dracula: A mouthful of a title for an even more elaborate article about the Dracula Daily phenomenon. This one is a full-on study that analyzes just what happened within the big bloodsucker book club surge and how its ‘wandering reading practices’ enriched the experience for participants.
- “The Undying Undead: An analysis of the Dracula Daily community for a theory of online community formation and interaction” – We have a thesis on here! Look at that! @sirangelothebestest’s MA thesis used our vampiric book club as the bones for a massive brick of an academic piece that definitely deserves a look.
…And I think I’ll go ahead and cap things here.
This isn’t everything I got recommended, but if I had squashed all of it in here, I think folks’ eyes would start to fall out of their head. I hope you can find something cool to comb through here. Or, if there’s something great I overlooked, tack it onto the list! We’ve got just two weeks to go until we’re off with Mr. Harker. Let’s enjoy our respite before those castle doors close behind us.
the-best-of-the-geeks reblogged
Anonymous asked:
there's a new initiative organized by let's talk palestine on instagram called funds for gaza - they will prioritize 6 urgent fundraising campaigns at a time and replace them when they achieve their goals. you can suggest your campaign at tinyurl.com/gazafundform and here is the link for their instagram post about the initiative instagram.com/p/C4q81woo_Kq/?igsh=MWp1eG50YWxyZHk0Nw==
Thank you! Here’s the link to suggest the campaign as well as a full list of campaigns. Here’s a direct link to the rotating linktree for anyone interested! And here’s the post I made about it + Operation Olive Branch for anyone who wants it 🇵🇸
My comfort video essay collection > engaging in critical thought processes at work
the-best-of-the-geeks reblogged
there’s absolutely nothing better than reading a 100k word fanfic, that is until you remember you have a body that is starving, thirsty and incredibly sleep deprived and hasn’t used the bathroom since the sun set 8 hours ago
me cross eyed and seeing double:
the-best-of-the-geeks reblogged
Impulse bought a set of cooking pans and cutlery for £155.67 only to find out they were made of cabbage.
the-best-of-the-geeks reblogged
We're TRENDINGG for no REASONN just like god DECREEDD, so here are 5 fics that would steal your breath away:
1. My breaths are run by your compass by regulusrules. [T] [20K+] [post-camlann fix-it] [golden age but merlin stabs arthur in his heart first].
Not because it's my fic and it's genuinely so insane you won't believe it, but honestly, it's the best idea I've ever come up with, even better than the widely beloved my heart is readily yours. For me, it's the perfect continuation of their story, and the most unhinged plot twist you could find in a fic.
2. Half of my soul by @clockwrkpendrxgon. [G] [2K] [MCD] [golden age growing old together]
This fic is half of my soul, or what the poets say. It's so much better as an ending than what they've given us. At least this is filled with such golden love it makes you ache. At least this makes sense.
3. from hearth and ashes, we’re reborn by @remuscariad. [G] [5K] [canon era magic reveal].
This fic is so good you'll be on your knees from it. The prose, the characterization, the tropes used... it will linger in your mind and fester there from how beautiful it all is. And the art in it by @onepeppercorn... stunning.
4. Our broken pieces by @aramblingjay. [T] [10K] [canon era established relationship]
You can pry this fic from my cold dead hands. I will never stop recommending it until it gets the fame it deserves. One of the most beautiful fics ever written about them, and genuinely encompasses their characters so perfectly.
5. gentle as an early spring breeze by @prattery. [G] [2.5K] [canon divergence golden age]
They are alive and in love and we're all living in this fic because it's what they righteously deserved. The way their life was written here and the love between them... I swear this author could write anything and I'd kudos it before even reading it.
the-best-of-the-geeks reblogged
So I just saw a post by a random personal blog that said “don’t follow me if we never even had a conversation before” and?????? Not to be rude but literally what the fuck??????????
I’ve had people (non-pornbots) try to strike conversation out of nowhere in my DMs recently, and now I’m wondering if they were doing that because they wanted to follow me and thought they needed to interact first. I feel compelled to say, just in case, that it’s totally okay to follow this blog (or my side blog, for that matter) even if we’ve never talked before.
Also, I’m legit confused. Is this how follow culture works right now? It was worded like it’s common sense but is that really a thing?
Saw a sharp increase in my follower count after posting this. The legitimacy of it is driving me nuts so I also feel the need to say that you can follow anyone on here regardless of whether you’ve interacted with them or not. People like the above mentioned blog are exceptions. Perhaps they themselves think they aren’t and therefore will act like they aren’t, but they are, trust me.
Just follow anyone you wanna follow. The worst thing that can happen is maybe getting soft-blocked by the other person, but if they do soft-block you, then they were never that worth following in the first place.
wow. really hope this isn't actually a norm taking hold with new users! this isn't facebook, you don't need to know people before following them
this is the '10 year mutuals you've never spoken to once' site
the-best-of-the-geeks reblogged
Every time someone says “dragon” in How to Train Your Dragon
hicupp
i cANT BREATHE IM LAUGHING SO HARD
frillious
if you listen closely to my deep, inner mind this is what you’ll hear
keetongu
iT SOUNDS LIKE A REALLY INTENSE DEBATE ABOUT DRAGONS HELP
dragoncalibrator
I feel like this completes my blog
missmurrka
muh draggins
tigerhazard
this audio file accurately describes the inside of my head at all times
dragons draggins dragons DRAGONS dragons DRAGGINS draggins
🎉 HAPPY 10TH BIRTHDAY TO THIS POST 🎉
Dragon Heritage Post
the-best-of-the-geeks reblogged
Smart girls are the fucking best
But like
They did such a good job
The poses
Massive props to the camera person too
the-best-of-the-geeks reblogged
Unmute !
Oh my goodness, that's a lot of opinions.
Rolling AND crispy meows.
the-best-of-the-geeks reblogged
They say you die three times, first when the body dies, second, when your body enters the grave, and third, when your name is spoken for the last time. You were a normal person in life, but hundreds of years later, you still haven’t had your “third” death. You decide to find out why.
You sold some shitty copper, man, I don’t know what to tell you
Happy 24th birthday to the earliest known use of UwU
Howy shit is dis my biwthday??? OwO
anywayssss, CEWEBWATOWY CAKE UwU
UwU <3
the-best-of-the-geeks reblogged
Studying linguistics is actually so wonderful because when you explain youth slang to older professors, instead of complaining about how "your generation can't speak right/ you're butchering the language" they light up and go “really? That’s so wonderful! What an innovative construction! Isn't language wonderful?"
And you too can be like this! Without even being a professor!
utah-mountain-drifter-deactivat
the-best-of-the-geeks reblogged
Seeing a post that you know a mutual will like and reblogging it to add enrichment to their dash like giving a tiger in a zoo a cardboard box
Thanks
huh i didn't realise that was an actual thing
You didn't?
My dude
It is Such a Thing
I'm so excited to introduce you to it