Seward is the type of babygirl who would wear a sweater on a sweater, maybe even a scarf on top of everything
... why do people keep casting me as Seward? I am offended!!
Is this a historically accurate outfit? Well, I used Victorian reference photos, but no Victorian man would wear a sweater jacket completely unbuttoned like that, so he looks completely modern.
Yeah dude I'll totally I'll totally make dinner tonight even though I have leftover pizza that could sustain me for a few days sequestered in my room. I'm just gonna--
--I SLEPT AN HOUR.
I have many ideas so many ideas I need to stick to what I already have and FINISH IT but this new idea would be colourful and fun—
But it requires drawing John Seward smiling. A lot.
reading classic lit with an online community is admittedly fun but sometimes i see posts like "scholars are so stupid" and "academics are nothing compared to us!! we on Tumblr truly understand the text best" and i get Worried like. its just a joke. its just a joke haha right? right? because it becomes a specific flavour of... not quite anti-intellectualism but adjacent to it, enough that it legitimately becomes difficult to differentiate the two. theres a lot to criticise about academia but this overgeneralisation of it as some fixed monolith rather than an ever-evolving landscape leaves a foul taste.
ive met academics i know that are the most stubborn people alive refusing to adapt to change despite seeing it happen right in front of them. ive also met academics that are unfathomably kind and openminded, and so so supportive of the weirdest essay ideas imaginable. literary analysis is ripe for weird shit! open to marginalised identities in a way so much else isnt. augh it just feels bad whenever i see a post decrying the competence of academics, like yea ive read my fair share of articles with obtuse language and shite ideas but just. maybe don't dismiss the entire field?
"Thank God," I said to myself, "she cannot be far, as she is only in her nightdress."
He was only in his night-gear, and cannot be far off.
The parallels here (and the contrast of the way Mina cares for Lucy vs. Seward's treatment of Renfield) are making me gnaw on the furniture.
"She's only in her pajamas." (affectionate)
"He's only in his pajamas." (derogatory)
I feel like I need to write write write something for today-- may not be Renfield because I don't have anything in stock.
MINA FINALLY ATTAINS NEWS OF HER BELOVED. And she lets Lucy take care of her luggage (bring her with you please bring her with you please Mina) because it will be a long journey and possibly a longer stay. The moment she knows where he is, she rushes to where, feeling so blessed to know he is still alive. He's truly still alive, he's only waiting for her. She shall travel fast like Lenore to get to her love and finally have their wedding night, but unlike Lenore, her love is not already dead.
Always, Seward says something, and I am like "I.. hum... please don't say that. Oh, don't say that." Jacky-boy, I know it hurts your little ego to not be seen as higher than your employees... but comparing yourself to an eagle and all others to sparrows? It seems you are the one who will soon call himself God. Especially considering that sparrows are Renfield food. He's wondered previously if Renfield would eat a man, but he considers himself higher than other men. So, we know that, if Seward were to abandon his morals (thankfully, he won't), he's not going to put his own life at stake, not when he is a mighty eagle and he has sparrows to spare.
ALSO RENFIELD'S VOICE MMMM. He's so good.
Me: *finally posts an update after hours days weeks of labour*
Two Authors Whom I Respect: *also post, lol*
Me: "You... come into my house. On the night of my daughter's wedding."
Jonathan Harker, 17, dressed in black to commemorate the life and death of beloved detective Sherlock Holmes: The world is a cruel uncaring place. This is true suffering. Things could not get any worse for me.
canon now
Canon now.
Canon Now.
Mr. Renfield remarks upon his guest, Mr. Harker. Dr. Seward remarks upon them both.
I completely forgot to post an update, this was posted on the 24th.
Totally missed my first read around; Jonathan is being taken care of by a sister agatha. Usually nuns are named for their patron saint; and Agatha is the patron for rape victims, bell founders, breast cancer patients, and victims of tourture! Idk how much Anglicans do as far as patron saints, but she is the one with the titty cupcake holiday
OH MY GOD YOU’RE RIGHT!!! TIDDY CUPCAKES!!!
For Lore: Agatha of Sicily took an oath of chastity because she was a Christian and this awful bastard Quintianus wanted her to abandon her faith and marry him. She wouldn’t, so he outed her as a Christian, but she still denied him. He sent her to be imprisoned in a brothel, but she didn’t yield. He put her through unimaginable torture, including tearing off her breasts with tongs (hence why she is depicted often holding a plate with her breasts on it). She was going to be burnt at the stake, but an earthquake prevented it, and she instead died in prison (St. Peter visited her in prison and healed her wounds).
Fuckin badass woman, if you ask me.
i'd love to hear your thoughts on or analysis of the "weird sisters"/wives/brides
Bride 1:
The first victim taken to keep Dracula. I imagine Dracula being in something of a more maddened/not-quite-whole state following his turn to vampirism paired with his time in [SPOILERS]. Maybe closer to Nosferatu's stilted mindset when it came to behaving like a man. That, coupled with an unknown amount of time pacing alone in his dead castle, only finding contact in screaming meals and fleeing chattel, likely prompted him to go seeking permanent company.
I picture the girl he chose as one with a habit of inspiring laughter. Perhaps a jovial eldest sister who cheered her sisters, her family, her friends and suitors. He's always loved stealing away what others might love. So he picked her and stole her and she spent her final months of humanity trying desperately to amuse and cajole him into not doing the inevitable.
Bride 2:
Centuries pass. Dracula wants a new flavor. He takes it in the form of one of his own men's girls. A wife? A sister? A daughter? It doesn't matter. What matters is she has known of Dracula all her life. Known what it is the people she loves, she shares blood with, do for this thing pretending to be a man. It's a deal with the devil. She knows that too. To disobey is to bring death and worse.
Dracula takes the girl the way all predators take caregivers who forget the former are not now or ever tamed to safety. Worse, perhaps it is her own kin who offer her up or turn blind eyes. It's for the good of the whole, dear, you understand. Her last hours are spent at a familiar window, alternately calling for and cursing those she'd loved.
Bride 3:
A newcomer. Perhaps a last straggling escapee of witch hunt fever, seeking with distance and a final pocketful of funds a safety from the pointing fingers of monstrous men. She doesn't know of any demons in the mountains and wouldn't care if she did. Men have proven to be greater monsters than any local legend. She even takes a home, startlingly cheap, near the edge of Borgo Pass despite all warnings.
She meets her one and only neighbor there. He is a magician of sorts, he tells her from the other side of the dilapidated fence--he would not set foot on her land without invitation, young lady! In truth, he is far more a witch than any poor powerless soul deemed unholy enough to slaughter. Such barbaric times, these. It is a comfort to see one such as her rightly escape such cruelty...
Perhaps he cajoles her into inviting him in. Perhaps he beckons her up to the castle, the caleche driving her on. Perhaps it doesn't matter either way. She is the last Bride for a long while. In time, she blends into the cadre of the others, these Weird Sisters, these bloodstained cats he keeps even as they scratch and laugh at as much as with him, because he cannot stand to be a tyrant alone with only himself to menace.
They are his. He can never part with what's his, even when it so rarely brings him joy. But time passes and the joy fades and if he is not a mad monster now, he is a steadily more sullen one when not faced with company to perform for. He is Master. He is the Devil. He is the owner of all that lives and dies in his land, his castle.
And yet he lets the castle rot. Lets himself wilt. He goes without succor even as he fetches meals for his 'loves.'
(He too can love. So he calls it, so it must be.)
They are no longer here for his pleasure, but to give him an excuse not to bite at himself like a rabid old wolf tearing at himself in confinement. England will be a respite. The start of something new. Conquest! New blood! New thralls! New subjects and victims! He will return to himself and his rightful mode with that renewal.
Groom:
And with the preparation comes a delightful surprise. If the Brides are his ungrateful cats, Jonathan Harker is a charming young pup. Primed to be groomed into a new addition.
Just the right word, that.
Groomed.
And is it not fitting that his first Groom is the one to bring him so much joy? So much vigor and play and giddy prelude to supple England? Yes, yes. This one has made him happiest of them all. Thank you, my good friend. I cannot wait to see more of you.
Oh, Lucy. Lucy, Lucy, Lucy.
There are few characters in gothic horror, or fiction in general, that better exemplify the hell of being caught in a chronic state of highs and lows. I would jump straight to chronic illness--her battle with commandeered sleepwalking and vampiric exsanguination is very clearly that--but also the endless limbo state of one being preyed on by a stalker.
Right now, Dracula must be away, and so she's better for his lack of a new visit. His earth-boxes are being moved to their initial destination in Carfax Abbey, his respite in Whitby and toying with Lucy now paused. Lucy appears to be out of danger.
But she does not live in Whitby either. She must be on her way eventually. And even first-time readers can guess what's on the bleak and bloody horizon once she goes home.
It won't be a constant thing. A steep sudden drop and an ending. No.
Like sickness, like the menacing of a sadist who savors, Lucy's condition in Whitby has been a series of hills and valleys in wellness and ailment, joy and dread. The monster is jabbing a needle (two needles) into her over and over rather than skewering her in one go and being done with it. When he wants to collect a victim, he makes sure the uncomprehending fear, anxiety, and power play of the collection lasts.
More proof is to come on that front later. But Whitby's miseries are a great prelude. Highs, lows, hope, despair.
Lucy, Lucy.
I'm so sorry.
Lucy: *describing her scary dream in an irreverent way, presumably trying to lessen her fright with humour*
Mina: "... This is making me uncomfortable. I've decided that it's bad for your health to continue talking."
Lucy: "What? So, you like listen to Mr. Swales make fun of suicide victims at length, but when I talk about my trauma--"
Mina: "Our trauma."
Lucy: *pouts* "A great deal of it is mine."
Trying to research interpretations of Lucy's actual medical condition pre-Dracula is suffering. Unrelated but
I have a vague suspicion that Lucy becomes the focus of Dracula's attention because she sleepwalks but that could just be a silly me thing
This is very true after all my favorite scene so far was when Lucy Westenra set her own corset on fire
New lore about Lucy's sleepwalking father dropped?
... At this point I'm truly asking if these people are doing the equivalent of trolling in an academic setting, or if they are gaslighting eachother with these types of literary analyses.
......show me where in the text Lucy is independent
"frankly enjoys the courtship of three men"
Mmmm, yes, and she shows this enjoyment by *checks notes* crying
Well clearly she's crying because she can't have the harem of her hedonistic dreams and this attracts Dracula due to her excess
Funnily this is a... pretty mild (and the standard) take after having read several others, it's just the one I was reading just now. All those movies depicting Lucy this way may have been informed by those analyses, too. But yeah these scholars have read the book, so it's not like they've just watched a bad movie, but something they do a lot is that they cite the text less than they cite fellow academics.
People who shouldn't be allowed to breathe: "You see Lucy is actually a Slutty Feminist and Deserves Bad Things because she walks Outside At Night and we all know the only people who walk outside are Prostitutes."
Lucy's late father, who also sleepwalked:
Mina, who went for a walk late at night the other day and wasn't assaulted though Lucy, asleep at home, was:
Lucy also sleepwalked when she was a child and (spoilers) a lot of children wander around late at night in this book, so unless these "academics" want to admit some questionable shit about how they think of children?? Maybe drop the comparisons of a sleepwalker to a so-called "lady of the night".
I mean, are we sure they read it? And not just recycled points from other papers? Anyone can quote the book, here I'll do it:
"I too can love."
Uhh you see this quote means that Dracula is smexyyyy. Context of the quote? Uh... he said it to a girl.
doing a drawing inspired by the outfits in @gabrielisdead's post
Jonathan looks a lil derpy right now, I know.
THEY ARE ADORABLE AND I LOVE THEM AND I LOVE YOUR ART AND I LOVE YOU TOO AND SO SHOULD YOU BECAUSE YOU ARE A BEAUTIFUL MANIFESTATION OF THE UNIVERSE AND ALSO YOUR ART IS GOOD
Hiding my face rn.
Billington sounds like a snotty ass bitch, good voice acting, guys. He sound's like he'd turn up his snotty nose at me and call me a slur but like a very obscure one so I wouldn't know to be offended until far later, after the interaction, when I'm looking up the word out of curiosity.
If this guy had turned up at Dracula's Castle he'd be dead in like the first week just as Dracula originally planned.
So, I was complaining about the dashboard change to my mother, talking about how they moved everything to the left of the screen, like heathens, rather than the top right corner where it should be. She made a comment like "ah so the European way".
I was confused like "wait do you mean only European websites put things in the top right corner...?" before realizing she meant me complaining about stuff being on the left. As in driving on the left side of the road. Because all of Europe... does that, right?
The British have thoroughly gaslit the American people into thinking America is the only nation to drive on the right side of the road, it's utterly bizarre. It is, in fact, not the only nation to drive on the right side. A British tour guide chastised my group when we were in Europe (unprompted mind you, no one gave a shit what side of the road we were on), saying how we're stupid Americans who don't understand that the right side to drive on is the left.
And then once we left England we drove on the right-hand side of the road for the rest of the two weeks. Almost like... driving on one side of the road rather than another side of the road... does not denote American degeneracy... but rather that... British patriotism is bizarre, inconsistent, and incorrect.
