the thing about cracking open a long-established popular ship tag on ao3 is that it allows you to be extraordinarily picky, and i think it must be the closest thing i will ever experience to being filthy rich. i scroll along at super speed like no today i am only interested in fics with this precise range of words and one of these three tags. only authors i’ve heard of, please. hmm, i suppose i could consider an unknown quantity given its apparent popularity with the people, but… no, no, this summary doesn’t do it for me. no particular reason, it’s just… eh, i don’t need to explain myself. bring me 50 more like this for me to choose from and we’ll see.

someone just lamented that their new pairing has only 5000 works ("where's the rest of them?") which is approximately the size of the pairing i was celebrating in the original post, and it really threw into relief that it's impossible for us to even conceptualize the extravagance of a true scrooge mcduck fandom if we've never been in one. i am a reasonably well-off dentist who takes her family to cancun once a year.

state of the union update at 45k. my unscientific analysis reports a fairly even breakdown between:

bonus shout out to:

Oklahoma School for the Deaf has opened up FREE ASL COURSES for the Fall season this new school year and anybody can join. The courses close on December 31st of this year (2023) so if you've been thinking about learning ASL here is your opportunity to get professional lessons for FREE

If you're interested, here's the link: https://courses.osd.k12.ok.us/collections

This is a GOLDMINE for information because not only do you get free video lessons by professionals that you can do at your own pace, but there's also graded quizzes as well as resources to educate you on the history of Deaf culture as well as sub-communities within, with links to loads of different websites to read up on Deaf-related topics.

Sucking Gangrene Out of a Wound

So last year, there was this feeling of incredulousness about Van Helsing's little story about how Jack saved his life! People had heard of sucking poison out of a wound, but actual gangrene? Jack must have used medical equipment right? He didn't actually use his mouth, RIGHT??

Unfortunately for all of you lovely readers, not only didJack suck the "gangrenous blood" from Van Helsing using his mouth , but its very likely Bram Stoker really did mean it in earnest! Because SCIENCE. Those sciencifically minded bros were SO OPEN MINDED!!

I had the unfortunate displeasure of reading excerpts from this book on Victorian medical history, about all the ways doctors and surgeons had to be incredibly quick thinking and open minded as to not, y'know, kill their patients. One of the famous examples given is of Eric Erichsen, chief surgeon at London's University College Hospital, who used his mouth to suck out infectious blockage from a woman's throat. Yup you heard that right! HIS MOUTH.

Literally, a woman came in for surgery because she had a blocked larynx, most likely laryngitis that had gone on way too long. And during surgery Erichsen realized even though he cut through her throat, the offending material was difficult to get out. So he just used his God give mouth and OH MY GOD GROSS. Anyway, she survived the operation??? He died when he was 78 so this operation didn't impact his health AT ALL??? Yeah.

So anway....yeah. Do I think Bram Stoker knew of this case? No, although three of his brothers were medical doctors. People have also suggested Thornley Stoker was the direct inspiration for Van Helsing because of implied spoilers. But I think he had heard of enough similar tales of surgery gone wrong that it doesn't seem too out of place.

Of course that's not even touching the thematic and symbolic importance of blood sucking in a novel all about Blood Sucking....Either way, yes it would have been entirely possible for Jack to really save Van Helsing's life from succumbing to gangrene. Everyone say Thank You Jack!

I commissioned the amazing @elena-illustration for the most tender helward piece EVER <3

I LOVE how it turned out, they look so tender and in love and UGH!! The image of Jack sitting in Van Helsing's lap wouldn't leave my head so you all must gaze upon this as well!!

Thank you once again, Elena!

bro all the characters in dracula love each other so much... why is this gothic horror novel so full of love

mina, lucy, harker, seward, quincy, arthur, and van helsing all have matching friendship bracelets

So Prismo got recast in the Fionna and Cake show cuz Kumail Nanjiani's agents didn't let him know the crew was trying to get him back to reprise the role

I remember back in 2011 there was a little flap caused when Weird Al put out his song “Perform This Way” for free online because Lady Gaga had denied permission to put it on his album (permission he never needed, but always got anyway). He’d been asked to supply not just lyrics but a recorded version before being denied, hence putting it out online. Fans of both artists were surprised and upset by this news.

One Weird Al fan who was massively surprised by all this was Stefani Germanotta, better known as Lady Gaga. It turns out that her manager had been the one handling the situation and never actually played the song for her. She quickly OK’ed it, and the song was still the lead-off single for the Alpocalypse.

And just makes me wonder how many of these “we actually asked but your team said no without consulting you” things happen.

Fun fact, this happened with Gary Larson and Jane Goodall!

Larsen made a Far Side comic- this one, actually-

And the Jane Goodall Institute (then) executive director hired a lawyer to sent a Cease and Desist, or a litigation threat or something of the like. BEFORE actually talking to her (she was out of the country at the time). When they actually talked to her and showed her the comic, she laughed and found it amusing, specifically saying "Wow! Fantastic! Real fame at last! Fancy being in a Far Side cartoon!" and when she found out "she" was suing him, she called it off and sent a letter of apology (with some delay because of being a world-renowned scientist and having 100 different plates spinning, I'm sure)

They actually ended up becoming friends, she wrote the Forward for one of his comic compilation books (I believe it was Gallery 5, but I don't remember) and he went on a guided excursion with her. And the cartoon ended up getting used for a T Shirt to be sold for the JGI, and raised a bunch of funds for them lol

(Only a portion, but the forward in her own words is fun to read lol)

you HAVE to fag it up every day so that little girls at the antique mall know they have options

dracula is just like *writes journal entry* *writes journal entry* *subtle homoeroticism* *writes journal entry* *cowboy* *unsubtle homoeroticism* *wri

jonathan batista, mayu odaka, dayoung jung, alvin tovstogray, sam jones, and walker martin photographed rehearsing as quincy, lucy, mina, dracula, arthur, and harker for michael pink's dracula

dracula movies will do any dumb shit. theyll let dracula fuck. theyll switch peoples names around for no reason. theyll cut out half the characters. lets start using that power for good. lets make an adaptation where renfield lives & gets to be part of the friend group & everyone hugs him a bunch

they all have a picnic together bc thats what friends do i think & mina is like “i made a shoofly pie” & renfields like A Fucking What👁👁

Hermit crab, but it’s a soul that moves to bigger and bigger discarded bodies as it grows

why’re y’all leaving all the good stuff in the comments

yeah i'll take 'things i would say if i also had amnesia.' for 400.

welcome to the inconvenience store how may i hinder you today ?

hey why is tumblr becoming unusable on all ways to access the site

on mobile (and for reference i haven't even updated in months) you can't turn off tumblr live, can't double tap to zoom, the video player can take you somewhere completely unrelated if you don't commit a series of hyperspecific acts to exit it. ads take up the entire screen, music pauses randomly, it turns my phone hotter than the sun after fifteen minutes

on desktop i need an entire user-created extension to even access the site i'm used to. adblockers to hide the main issue, inspect element to hide literally the most annoying ad campaign i've ever had the issue of seeing for maybe thirty seconds (which has happened Twice now), can't message half the time without panic refreshing to make sure i actually got the message that they sent. defaulting to the for you tab for new users.

this sucks

dnd character idea; warlock that calls their party "chat" and their patron "mods"

"mods can we ban this guy"

In the future, children will think our ways are strange. "Why do old people always grow so much milkweed in their gardens?" they'll say. "Why do old people always write down when the first bees and butterflies show up? Why do old people hate lawn grass so much? Why do old people like to sit outside and watch bees?"

We will try to explain to them that when we were young, most people's yards were almost entirely short grass with barely any flowers at all, and it was so commonplace to spray poisons to kill insects and weeds that it was feared monarch butterflies and American bumblebees would soon go extinct. We will show them pictures of sidewalks, shops, and houses surrounded by empty grass without any flowers or vegetables and they will stare at them like we stared at pictures of grimy children working in coal mines

We will be feeding our grandchildren strawberries and raspberries we grew in our gardens, dragging them along to the farmers' markets for tomatoes and eggs and goats milk and pickles and pecans and salsa and sunflower seed butter and jars of honey, as they complain and drag their feet because Gramma always stands around talking to people for like an HOUR

and we will say "When I was YOUR age, fruits and vegetables came from a supermarket and they were bred to get shipped 1000 miles in a truck and sit on shelves for weeks, and they tasted so sour and watery it was like eating paper compared to these ones. It wasn't even legal in some places to grow your own food"

and they will roll their eyes like yeah yeah just because everything was miserable in the 20s doesn't mean I have to have a smile on my face standing in the hot sun while you listen to that one guy talk about his bees FOREVER

But they will go, because there might be baby goats.

Since I made this post, dozens and dozens of people have left tags telling me that it was the first thing today that made them want to continue living, that it was the first thing that made them consider that they might be okay years in the future, that they might grow old, that it was the first and only post of its kind they'd ever seen—the first post that boldly predicts a future where we make it.

And many other people have been just spitting, foaming at the mouth fucking FURIOUS. How dare I have the audacity to imagine a future where things get better?

Don't I know how BAD things are? Am I not aware of the TERROR and DEVASTATION of climate change and fascism and biodiversity loss? How dare someone be so bold, so callous, as to imagine something other than misery and suicide. How dare someone suggest it will get better. How dare a person propose that there is a future where we will be okay, in the face of so much terror. Hasn't she seen the abyss opening its jaws before us?

Well? What do you think?

Do you think I've seen the abyss?