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Happy Valentine’s Day! I felt the Harkers were a suitable choice for a Valentine’s Day piece haha. It’s been awhile since I’ve used my other style for any Dracula art, just cause I feel it’s usually out of place with the tone. But I felt that this would be a good use of it!

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Wild hope is just that: wild, untamed, something that will beat back against you sometimes, something that you might have to fight to hold on to.

If it feels like it's thrashed so far out of reach now, remember we're a species of resilient hunters. We hunt in groups, we rely on each other, we rest, we start again.

[somnesca]

Wild hope is just that: wild, untamed, something that will beat back against you sometimes, something that you might have to fight to hold on to.

If it feels like it's thrashed so far out of reach now, remember we're a species of resilient hunters. We hunt in groups, we rely on each other, we rest, we start again.

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Any tips for not falling into permanent despair?

I suppose remembering that there is no greater act of defiance that living a full life

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when something major goes down in a fandom you're not a part of

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They say the home is where the hearth is and fire heals the soul, but you've been trudging through the cold, you have been traveling through ice and snow. 'Cause time isn't an arrow, it's a dagger at your throat, and you are numb from head to toe, and all your blood has turned to stone. So come home to me, the fire's warm and I am making tea. The day has turned to night and all the snow has hardened into ice. Your boots are stained with slush, and the northern winds ain't letting up, and your best coat can't compete with an evening in good company. Frozen half to death, you need a hot meal and your bed, you need a blanket and some rest, you need a toddy and some buttered bread. You wear the mantle like an albatross and never take it off. You let yourself grow numb 'cause you're too proud to need someone. So come home to me, the fire's warm and I am making tea. The day has turned to night and all the snow has hardened into ice. The cold has got its claws in you. Oh, the weather she can be so cruel. But home is where the healing starts, so come in from the dark and find the hearth.

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I do not, as you know, take sufficient interest in dress to be able to describe the new fashions. Dress is a bore.

Here's an example from April 1895* of the kind of new fashions that Lucy is bored by:

Note the relatively muted colours (at least compared with earlier in the century), high necklines, low waistlines, skirts that are fuller towards the back (though the hardcore bustle era of the 1880s was over) and obviously, the massive sleeves.

*putting it halfway in between 1893 and 1897, probably the two most popular options for when Dracula could be set.

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"He says that I afford him a curious psychological study, and I humbly think I do."

This line has that vibe of that scene in like, season 1 of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, where Gina is, to use Rosa's words, "dazzling some psychologists."

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If you're a new reader for Dracula Daily, I wholeheartedly recommend listening to today's episode of Re: Dracula - Isabel Adamakoh Young's performance is the best possible introduction to Mina Murray, my beloved:

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it was played as a joke but

there's something genuinely harrowing about gorgug and kristen on the deck of the ship, pelted by rain, swarmed by dragons, these two teenagers looking at each other with wide eyes trying to bury the fear down deep, and

do you remember when we died?

they were freshmen, they were children, they were two years younger but it feels like a hundred hundred years ago

it feels like yesterday, because deep down they're still that boy hiding his too large frame behind a metal flower and a girl stuffing her too large personality into the pages of her bible

do you remember when we died?

the ship rocks violently with cannon fire, hands of fear and divinity and loss creeping from the clouds

do you remember the day you lost your faith?

do you remember a forest so sharp it cut you clean through?

do you think we ever woke up?

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Oh do tell me more, Harker Jonathan…

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Again and again and again and again

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Alright. So this episode was great, but in terms of themes & setting the stage for the rest of the story, this line really stands out:

"You feel something. You look, the Night Yorb twinkling. You've spent your whole summer chasing this. You know all the things you've missed. Your whole summer vacation, all of your friends. Some of you had birthdays on the road this adventure, and yeah, there's lots of adventure, but all of you feel a tiredness in your bones knowing that the reward for saving the world yet again will be going back to school and having another year of working just this hard forever."

This monologue from Brennan is the most thematically/foreshadowy thing we get in the episode, and it does set quite the stage. This is a story about exhaustion and the price of adventure. It's a story about what the hells these six people are going to do with the rest of their lives.

Fig releases something at the end of the episode. Some piece of magic that will certainly mean something later. This is how it's described:

"You've been holding onto a piece of magic for a long time... If you take me, you know what you would save. And you smell something sour and curdled."

"There is a flash of light, a kind of lemony yellow creamy light that flashes out over the hangvan."

Pay attention to that word choice. The magic is "sour" and "curdled" and "lemony yellow creamy." Is it reminiscent of anything?

Gilear's connection with yogurt is established pretty early on in Fantasy High, and yogurt in general serves as a symbol for everything that Gilear is. A sad, pathetic adult and A Normal Guy. Brennan is very insistent when reading out Gilear's stats for the first time that he's just a guy! Some people have to be normal!

But our Bad Kids aren't normal. That's the whole point of them. They've saved the world. Falling to Gilear's level is terrifying. It's literally Fabian's nightmare.

From that part of Pirate Brawl:

"You hear a voice behind you" [Gilear!Fabian] "say: 'It's all going to be all right... I know it seems very far off, but there is a way for you to be happy.'"

And of course, the yogurt, the symbol of mediocrity, is here too. "The yogurt curdles in your stomach." Curdles. The same word used to describe the magic coming out of Fig. The yogurt that Fig gives to Fabian while he's having his breakdown in Leviathan is lemon flavored too.

Of course the primary conflict seen in the trailer is about difficulty graduating. That's a normal problem. That's a normal concern for normal people.

The fear of mediocrity can be strong. Especially for people as exceptional as the Bad Kids. But the fear that you'd be happier taking the easier path, that the road less traveled isn't inherently better, that your hardship is for nothing... that's even worse.

The reasonable thing for Fig to be releasing would be the red growth seen on the minis in the trailer. But no. She releases something lemony and creamy and sour and curdled.

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Singing a new year's song with 爱妃/Ai Fei ("Beloved concubine", a term of address Chinese emperors used for their favorite concubines/consorts)

English added by me :)

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some fantasy high suggestions from over on instagram to celebrate the new trailer!!

🏈 kofi link in bio if you’re feeling generous 🏈

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im so tired of being nice. entering my villain era *sends an email with only one exclamation point*