Ya'all.

quick and dirty guide to recognizing stolen content on tumblr

there is RAMPANT art and photography reposting on this stupid website, and it occurs to me that folks might not know how to recognize it. here are the mental gymnastics i go through every time i see a sus post

1. is there a caption? most creators tend to leave one. maybe it's so their url is prominent, or to express their thoughts about the piece, link their shops/websites, etc. most reposters leave the captions blank

2. look for credit in the picture. is there a name, handle, or watermark? does it match the url?

3. check the original post. often you'll find that the original poster actually linked the artist. go forth and reblog that version!! for some godforsaken reason people keep REMOVING CREDIT on this website and i will MANIFEST INSIDE YOUR HOUSE IF YOU DO SO

4. check the tags of the original post. beyond the main fandom/character/subject tags, creators tend to have a #my-art tag or something similar. photographers often use #photographers-on-tumblr/lensblr. sometimes they'll also have thoughts about their work there. this doesn't always work, but personally i never see reposters adding tags like this

5. look at op's other posts and bio. is there anything about being an artist or photographer in the description? does the art they post look the same? usually this is where you'll Know if it's a serial reposter, because their blog will be FULL of reposted shit with no captions that all have different styles. also half the time their blog description straight up admits it

6. check the notes to see if someone added the proper credit. at this point, if you know it's a repost but still wanna reblog it, at least give credit where it's due. see if someone else already did the work for you

7. reblog and add a link with creator credit. if you know it's a repost, and you can't find credit, consider doing your part to help creators get their well-deserved recognition. usually you can just google the watermark in the picture. otherwise reverse image search on google or tineye is your friend

8. if the original creator is on tumblr, reblog their version of the post. if you've gotten this far it's not hard to search their blog for it

9. consider letting the artist know their art has been stolen and send them the link. this way they can take action and file whatever claims they need to get it taken down

10. finally, support original content creators! look at the #artists-on-tumblr and #photographers-on-tumblr tags, follow your favourite creators and reblog their work. seriously it can make a huge difference

if you read this far, THANK YOU. making sure content creators get their credit is literally the bare minimum we can do to be respectful of the countless hours they spend on their work. especially when that content is freely accessible

Dracula

Angry neckbeards in 2007: I wish those ignorant Twilight girls would read Dracula and know the TRUE TERROR of the vampyr.

Those same girls 15 years later, reading Dracula as part of a giant internet book club: Fucking hilarious.

i know hearing people on this website love to pass around those posts with links to free sign language lessons but you know you need to actually put effort into learning about Deaf culture, too, right?

already got a blazed marvel post. the adpocalypse is closer than we think so heres your daily PSA

don't interact with corporate tumblr accounts

yes even to dunk on them. i don't care if you have the sickest burn of the century lined up, don't even give them the time of day

the eventual and inevitable fall of twitter marks a change in the advertising industry, and tumblr is unclaimed territory. if we want tumblr to remain the social media bastion it has become, it needs to remain as unappealing to corporations as possible. do not engage. in a marketing strategist's eyes, any kind of attention is good attention. don't "silence, brand" them. don't kungpowpenis them. don't send them hate anons. don't hate-follow them. corporate tumblrs are not a single entity and they will not be harassed off this site. we only have a shot at repelling them because of tumblr's lack of an algorithm. so turn off recommended posts on your dashboard, put it chronological order, and install an adblocker. if you don't seek out these blazed posts and actively ignore them when they happen upon you, the corporations will starve. in this case, the best kind of protest is a silent one

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.

Frankenstein Weekly – Frankenstein

Jekyll and Hyde Weekly – The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Voyage of the Nautilus – Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

Letters from Watson – Sherlock Holmes

The Invisible Mail – The Invisible Man

Letters from Bunny – E.W. Hornung’s short stories of the eponymous Bunny and Raffles

Letters Regarding Jeeves - P. G. Wodehouse’s Bertie Wooster short stories, including the novel, Right Ho, Jeeves

…

……

………

…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.

Various retail shops by AZB, a Japanese architecture firm headed by Etto Francisco Ohashi & Takamaro Kouji Ohashi (1999-2000)

“Austere, cool and futuristic, α-compiler looks like a spaceship that’s just landed on the pages of a Japanese sci-fi manga. Clad in easy-maintenance FRP (fibre-reinforced plastic), the off-white building steals the show in downtown Akita. AZB wanted to create an ultra-simple form with no superfluous details and, using the traditional culture of Japan as a point of departure, to sketch an image of the future. Automatic sliding entrance doors that slant backwards are, according to the designers, the first of their kind in Japan. Most display units on the first floor are made of stainless steel, including the honeycomb shelves. Certain units are incorporated into the surface of the floor, while others resembling large illuminated refrigerators line the walls. Everything is rounded and soft.”

Includes images of these works: α-compiler, α-assembler, and azb2000 (Akita & Kanazawa, Japan)

Can a full grown man aged 43 be a "discord kitten"

Lost followers after reblogging that whole thing about JKR being radicalized over the years, and that disturbs me.

Like if you think saying that people can be radicalized and manipulated into hate is somehow justifying it, yikes. And if you think that people are somehow just good or evil and that you are not at risk of buying into propaganda, have I got some very red flag news about that!

Idk if its because I am an older Millennial maybe (most who unfollowed were younger) but I watched a ton of that generation slide from one of the most progressive to the far right before my every eyes. Hell, my dad fought alongside his black friends in the Detroit race riots and now he watches Fox News 24/7 and talks about the border wall. Yet still claims he could never be racist because of how he used to be. He doesn’t even realize what he has become.

JKR isn’t a deluded old woman or innately evil, but in fact THE prime example of how well-meaning ignorance and privilege can be weaponized and encouraged down a pipeline, until it turns into a force of hate, and should be a cautionary tale about why educating and being open about these issues are necessary. Because there are those out there who will use those divisions and ignorance to their own ends. And just digging in our heels and saying “that could never be me!” is the very thing that puts you more at risk. I’ve lost so many loved ones down that pipeline and it is more slippery than most realize.

Stay alert, stay compassionate, stay humble, and make sure you move through life guided by reason rather than reaction. I love y’all and don’t want to see your passion twisted to get used against the world.

Just so we're all on the same page with the writer's strike.

If during the strike, it's announced about AI generated shows. We are not watching them. Not even out of curiosity. Let them fail every AI generated show they try make.

The human voice can not be replaced by AI. Don't let them try.