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a dracula book review.

ok team yk what this world really, really, really needs. from me specifically.  

A DRACULA BOOK REVIEW 

dun dun dun. we will be looking into bram stoker’s original 1897 edition which I vaguely pirated online but it is ok!! because copyright is over  (if u wanna read use this link here: https://www.bramstoker.org/pdf/novels/05dracula.pdf) 

so on one hand Dracula is an icon. but on the other hand the novel was written by an Englishman in the 19th century. I went into this thing not knowing what to think and honestly idk what I expected but it was mid. that is my claim and my thesis. the characters are like grain crackers without cheese. the plot is okay and vaguely interesting but not enough to carry the mounds of dialogue and description that you sloooooooooooog through. but if it helps Dracula is kinda hot. (disclaimer: this opinion depends on your taste) 

the beginning has all of the trappings of gothic horror. man goes to creepy abandoned house. man meets creepy suspicious guy. creepy suspicious guy is creepy and suspicious. boohoo yadda yadda. the protagonist figures out that Dracula is very sus within the first few weeks, since man is less subtle than the worst amongus imposter. at this point we’re like fifty pages in and I’m fearing spending the next three hundred pages reading about Dracula and the protag running around in circles. luckily that doesn’t happen and the plot actually moves out of dracula’s castle at a pretty quick pace. this is commendable: the antagonist is quickly introduced in an interesting manner and after this little tutorial we have enough knowledge to confirm that Dracula is the bad guy. this was likely pretty important for first-time Dracula readers back in 1897, when vampires were less mainstream and you couldn’t identify one by his elongated fangs and how he literally goes “When the Count saw my [bleeding] face, his eyes blazed with a sort of demoniac fury, and he suddenly made a grab at my throat.” again, man is unsubtle. 

as a quick aside there are some interpretations of Dracula as embodying “transgressive but compelling sexuality” (from Jeffrey Jerome Cohen’s monster culture (seven theses) if anyone is curious) which I find hilarious and can definitely make a reading more interesting. you’re welcome. 

ok now that the intro is over we get acquainted with the rest of the characters and let me tell you they are dryyyyyyyyy. to make my point I will now rank them from most to least uninteresting. 

Arthur Holmwood: man is literally just there to mourn his fiancée and act as a big strong man to increase the anti-Dracula attack force. only thing he brings to the plot is 1. money 2. he is attached to his fiancée I guess. 3/10. 

Jonathan Harker: our MC who is vaguely an audience insert and as per such reacts averagely to anything. his character does almost nothing surprising. you see a lot of the story (especially the beginning) through his eyes so you do get familiar with him in that way but he is an utter milquetoast. 3.5/10 

Quincey Morris: an unmarried American version of Arthur. he is kinda cooler in that he has a personality. “American” isn’t much of a personality but Arthur doesn’t seem to have one at all so he wins. 3.5/10  

Lucy Westenra: ok she is not boring (if only because of all the stuff that happens to her) but she is so goddamn annoying. she seems like a little doll who doesn’t do anything despite everything occurring and can only wait for people to rescue her which is infuriating at best. does not pass the sexy lamp test. 4/10 

Dracula: weird evil man who has weird evil motives. his lack of nuance is a shame since the novel does mention interesting lore about him like how he lives on “the ground fought over for centuries by the Wallachian, the Saxon, and the Turk” and how “In some faculties of mind he has been, and is, only a child.” but it's not explored and in the end he’s just a villain who kills because he needs to kill to survive. a shame. 5/10 

John Seward: ok he actually has like. unique feelings about what is happening. his romantic interest for Lucy v. not being able to marry her v. his distaste for vampires is kinda entertaining, or at least more entertaining than whatever Arthur has going on. he makes some unique actions (for instance, calling Van Helsing) that make him seem more reliable 6/10 

Mina nee Murray Harker:  

she is cool but severely undermined by how sexist the book is. 6.5/10 

Abraham Van Helsing: ok he is cool if only because he has all the puzzle pieces (apparently) and actually seems to know what’s going on but it has to be acknowledged that his reluctance to explain what he knows screws people over. 1/10 teammate 6.5/10 

Renfield: his personality is nothing to write home about but what happens to him is the most interesting thing by far. 7/10 

u need to spend a lot of time with these characters since the story is told from their perspectives. the storytelling method is also really interesting—it’s told in first-person via the characters’ journals, audio recordings, and diaries, which is admittedly clever. the method that a character uses to record their thoughts is also indicative of their personality and profession. Mina uses a typewriter since she wants to be a secretary. I really like this aspect of Dracula. unfortunately, the plot and characters are still something you have to trudge through. the plot itself is a typical adventure gung-ho “let’s go defeat the villain” type beat, which isn’t particularly inspiring. Dracula’s supernatural abilities also seem utterly random, which makes the mystery of “what does Dracula do??” significantly less interesting since turning into a tornado and sucking blood doesn’t seem to be related at all. why bother predicting this character’s powers if they’re completely absurd? a shounen battle anime could do better (Naruto-excluded).  

TL;DR: Dracula is mid. it is 357 pages of dried bread characters, an average plot, and not even that terrifying gothic horror. read it if you want, it’s a classic, but honestly it’s not really worth it. #sorrydraculafans 

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Sephiroth is a catboy, but like, the realistic kind that leaves bodies on your doorstep

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aerti foreverrrr

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Do you think suguru would trust gojo to take care of mimiko and nanako?

i think it'll depend on the situation if we're talking about this AU

and your ask made me draw a whole comic out of it lollol

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This is what you get for being the only one carrying a school bag

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ep26 doodles

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Why is KOSA not trending? This bill aims to take down fandom related sites INCLUDING TUMBLR!!!?? Like we need to get this to #1 on trending and FAST! Please reblog posts on the tags with more resources and spread the word people, this is actually terrifying!!!

Also it doesn’t even end with KOSA, the Earn It Act and many more censorship bills are trying to slip through our legislature and I haven’t seen many people talk about it!

Remember everyone, this isn’t about “protecting children,” because if it was they’d go after actual R34 sites instead of queer people trying to live their damn lives!

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Cloud Portrait

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aerti foreverrrr

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cloud

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“Lost

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I got this comment on a story from my Other AO3 Account this morning.

(Info redacted because I prefer keeping these accounts separate but no one follows me on the side blog I have for that account.)

The story was posted almost a year ago and is relatively “popular” by my average statistics even though it has tropes and themes that are big turnoffs for a lot of people (hence separate accounts). This popularity is undoubtedly because it’s a Marvel Loki story and that fandom is massive.

So there is obviously an algorithm or a bot scrubbing ao3 statistics and leaving this comment on fics that meet a certain metric with the main character of the fic inserted into the comment.

I had a little time to kill this morning so I decided to investigate further. And y’all this is so predatory. Come on this journey with me. It made me mad. It may make you mad.

First, if you go to Webnovel’s website, you HAVE to choose between male lead or female lead stories before you can go any further. WTF?

And that’s weird, but this gets so much worse. This is basically a pay-to-read site that has different subscription models. Which… okay BUT! The authors don’t get paid! Look at that comment again. They’re promising a supportive and nurturing community, but zero monetary compensation. It’s basically, “post your stuff here so we can get paid and you can get… nice vibes?” I mean look at this Orwellian writing:

Using the phrase “pay-to-read model” in the same sentence as “qualitative changes in lifestyles for authors” deliberately makes you think that you can get paid and maybe even make a living on this website. But that’s not actually what it says and authors will not receive one red cent.

Oh but wait, the worst is still to come. In case this breaks containment (which I kind of hope it does) this is where I mention that I’m a lawyer in the US.

I don’t do intellectual property or copyright law but I do read and write contracts for a living. So I went to look at their terms of service. It was fun!

Highlights the first, in which Webnovel gets a license to do basically whatever they want with content you post on their site. This is how they get to be paid for people reading authors’ writing without paying them anything.

Highlights the second, in which Webnovel takes no responsibility for illegally profiting off of fan fic. This all says that the writer is 100% responsible for everything the writer posts (even though only Webnovel is making money from it).

Highlights the third which say that by posting, the author is representing that they have the legal right to use and to let Webnovel use the content according to these terms. So if a writer posts fan fiction and Webnovel makes money from people reading the fan fiction, and the House of the Mouse catches wise, these sections say that that’s ALL on the writer.

So that’s a little skeevy to start off with but the thing that is seriously shitty and made me make this post was that these assholes are coming to ao3. They are actively recruiting people in comments on their fan fiction. And they are saying they are big fans of the character you’re writing about and that they share your interests.

They are recruiting fan fiction writers and giving every impression that you can make money from posting fan fiction on their site and hiding the fact that you absolutely cannot but they can make money off of you while you try, deep in their terms of service which no one but a lawyer who writes fan fic and has some time to kill will read.

I see posts on here regularly from people who don’t understand how this stuff works, don’t understand that they (and others) can not legally make a financial profit from fan fiction. And there are tons of people who will not take the time to dig into the details.

Don’t deal with these bastards. Fuck Webnovel.

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I like flustered Cloud

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Based on a conversation between Rosa and Jake in B99.

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Before departure

（post ac timeline continuing from the last piece eternal life paro!

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“transition poses some ethical questions. Such as, from what age should you be allowed to irreversibly change your body.“

This of course completely ignores the fact that puberty makes irreversible changes to your body. But let us just rephrase the question: “from what age do you gain bodily autonomy?” Now it gets very easy to answer: From the moment you’re fucking born.