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#And I say that as someone who's read dracula
shitpostingkats · 1 year
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What people think I mean when I say "the Wheel of Time polycule": Rand al'Thor and his three girlfriends.
What I actually mean: Rand al'Thor and his girlfriends and his boyfriend and his girlfriends' girlfriends and his boyfriends' boyfriends' girlfriend. Friendly exes and platonic bonds and casual partners and the shrimp colors of relationships. The most complicated web woven around a single load bearing dumb bisexual of a chosen one. An amino acid. A polycule that stretches from the Spine of the World to the Aryth Ocean.
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thecagedsong · 2 years
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Oh no! The cast of the novel Dracula read the novel dracula, but they read it as non-fiction instead of fiction and were unable identify the symbolic correlation between forcing characters into traditional gender roles and terrible things happening!
Now they are enforcing traditional gender roles, bad things are going to happen! 
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ladsofsorrow24 · 9 months
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damn dracula the book is surprisingly a pretty fun read
i rarely get into novels these days so i am pleasantly surprised to discover just how fun the book is
like here i am being very excited on what kind of sickness dr seward and van helsing gonna discover that's plaguing lucy
and i wonder how mina and jonathan gonna get involved again in this plot, now that dracula has actually arrived at england 🤔🤔 who's gonna kill this bitch i wonder
before i even read dracula, i've know the gist of the story, but to actually read it word by word...
such a fun experience
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I am so worried for my best friend Jonathan!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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sluttish-armchair · 2 years
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yeah I’m gonna edit the script a little (not now); I woobified Winston too much
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dathen · 9 months
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We’re so used to the sexual reading of the entire book of Dracula, which takes the sensuality of the early chapters and jams everything that follows it into the same metaphor no matter how poorly it fits, but I feel the segment we’re approaching works much better with a lens of chronic illness and disease.
Vampire legends are inextricably intertwined with disease. Many of them are said to have been birthed by burying victims of disease too soon, who later seem to rise from the dead. But what’s more is that Stoker and his family have deep-seated trauma over disease: his mother had to flee her hometown at the age of 14 because of a horrific cholera epidemic, and Stoker himself was bedridden as a child from an illness that no one could identify.
Found this quote from Irish Historian Mary McGarry:
Bram as an adult asked his mother to write down her memories of the epidemic for him, and he supplemented this using his own historic research of Sligo’s epidemic. Scratching beneath the surface (of this essay), I found parallels with Dracula. [For instance,] Charlotte says cholera enters port towns having traveled by ship, and can travel overland as a mist—just like Dracula, who infects people with his unknown contagion.
I bring this up because a lot of academic analysis insists that Lucy sleepwalking is proof of her being the Slutty Woman archetype that needs to be punished. This suggested symbolism is hilarious when put next to the text saying she inherited it from her father, but I’d like to suggest a different angle from the lens of disease suggested earlier:
Lucy’s sleepwalking is a condition that predates Dracula but makes her an easy target for him to prey on. Through the lens of disease symbolism, she now is someone with chronic illness or disability who is especially vulnerable to infectious disease. This becomes a cross-section of Stoker’s trauma regarding disease: his own mystery illness and his mother fleeing a plague.
To wind down my rambles with a bit of a soapbox, I feel this adds a very poignant layer to the struggle to keep Lucy alive. The COVID pandemic showed a horrifying level of casual ableism vs disabled and immunodeficient individuals, shrugging off their vulnerability and even their deaths with “well COVID only kills them.” There’s something deeply gratifying at seeing the way everyone around Lucy fights to the bitter end to protect her and refuses to just give her up to Dracula, whether it’s Mina physically chasing him away or the suitor squad pouring their blood into her veins or Van Helsing desperately searching for cures. The vulnerable deserve no less than this. They’re not acceptable casualties.
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thewomaninlilywhite · 2 years
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time to add a new tag to my block list  🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂
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ellastone-olsen · 3 months
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The Legend of Sleepy Valley - Wanda Maximoff (part 1)
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★Pairing: Vampire!Wanda Maximoff x f!reader
Summary: no one had ever seen the family members living in the huge estate nearby. maybe this is not just the case and they are hiding something. legends surround this place and soon you will find out for yourself where is the truth and where is the lies. this is the first time a vampire will not kill her victim.
★Warnings: NSFW 18+ (in future parts), dark au, blood, stalking, mentions of murders, nightmares, slowburn
★Word count: 2.6k
★AN: I decided to re-read Dracula and an idea came to me. this is my first series fic and the first part is preparation for the most interesting things. maybe there will be one or two more parts, I don’t know how much my imagination will suffice.
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The small village of less than one hundred fifty people could not boast of special wealth, but as they say, human blood is not water, this is the true wealth that these people had. If only they knew about it.
Away from the crowd of dilapidated houses stood the old estate of the Maximoff family, whose history dates back to ancient times. No one could say exactly how long ago they settled, but every generation of people who lived here knew who lived in the ancient “castle” as the locals called it. Family members did not often catch the eye of the village residents, preferring a secluded life without “good neighbors” nearby. All you knew about them was information gleaned from the legends that parents told their children, passing on these terrible stories from generation to generation.
One of them said that it was the Maximoff family that was behind the disappearance and fatal diseases of ordinary peasants who lived in these parts. If someone’s livestock died, it means that people’s turn will soon come. No one could explain exactly how they were involved in this, which is why they were legends. Some said that all the troubles began with the arrival of the first ancestor - Konstantin Maximoff. As soon as this man set foot on the dead, poor soil of these regions, terrible things began to happen.
But who are you to believe in stupid old legends? Now is not the time when people rely on fairy tales. This was the age of computer technology and the Internet, so you could read horror stories on Google. It’s a shame that the stories turned out to be true, what’s even worse is that you learned this from your own experience.
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“Why did you kill me? Why did you kill me?" You looked in horror at the doorway in which stood a man... no, a child, judging by his height, about 7 years old, but his face was not visible. Only glowing beady pupils and a dark silhouette, that’s what you could make out in the pitch darkness of the tiny room. “I didn’t do it, I didn’t kill you.” You tried to move, but it was all in vain. The body froze like a heavy marble stone. The brain was already awake, but the limbs were stuck to the mattress of the bed. Heart beat out a fast, ragged rhythm, threatening to jump out through ribs. No one would come to the rescue, you knew. “Why why did you kill me.” The hallucination repeated these words like a prayer in the temple of the Lord God, to which you were ready to go any minute. What to do, what to do, probably the same as always. Scream.
An eardrum-breaking screech escaped from your chest, maybe someone will hear it? But absolutely everything that happened was only in your head. Together with the scream, flashing flashes began to hit eyes, a good sign that the method was working. If anyone had heard the screeching, they would probably have gone deaf.
You suddenly sit up in bed, breathing as if you had run a marathon and won. It was all over, but the fear remained. Sleep paralysis was never limited only to the state of paralysis itself; even after them, anxiety was with you, sticking to the subcortex of consciousness like soft molasses. You turned on the light in the room and picked up the phone. The clock showed 3:42 am, if you are lucky, within an hour you will fall asleep again. Your finger clicked on the messenger icon and you entered a chat created specifically for communication between people living in your village and surrounding area.
Your eyes quickly scanned hundreds of messages and ads for old junk when photos of the scene caught your attention. It was talking about another cattle killing of one of your neighbors. People, as always, wrote that these were wolves or pumas, which often live in these parts. At least the claw marks were definitely not left by a human. A terrible bloody mess, what more can you say. Soon panic will sweep the village again, because everyone knows that this will be followed by the death of one of the residents. Damn it, sitting at home all day long again was the first thing your sleepy brain generated. Well, let it be, but you will get some sleep for the first time in the last couple of months.
The phone slowly fell from your hand onto the soft, fresh sheets and your lead-filled eyelids fell into your eyes. Finally the long-awaited dream. You saw your past, but more exaggerated. Winter frost, a scarf that covers half of your face and you don’t know where to go. The picture changed and you found yourself on the red carpet, walking towards the door at the end of a hundred-meter corridor. There are white walls and camera flashes all around. You didn't know where you were going, but it seemed like a good place. The door opened revealing a round room with a bunch of people and animals. A ginger cat similar to yours came up to you and you extended your hand to pet him, but the animal grabbed you with its teeth, biting over and over again. The claws passed along your forearm, leaving red droplets of blood, the wonderful dream again became a nightmare and you opened your eyes.
Your room again. The lights were off. It's strange, you didn't seem to turn it off. Perhaps mom woke up and walked past the room. Your gaze could not focus on anything, you looked around, blinked a couple of times and looked into the doorway. Someone was standing there again. A woman with long hair, you would think it was your mother, but she had short shoulder length hair. Again, hallucination is the first thing that came to your mind. You tried to bend your leg to make sure that this was the case, but the movement was easy and you sat down in fear. The figure was still standing in place and eyes accustomed to the darkness could discern clothing in the form of a knee-length dress, boots and a jacket, it seems? The head of the unknown woman in your room tilted to the side, she was also looking at you. She studied, as if deciding what to do next. It seemed that being noticed was not part of her plans.
"Who are you?" the vocal cords did not produce anything louder than a whisper. And only now did you notice a strange pain in your hand, in the same place where the cat scratched you in your sleep. You grabbed the forearm of your left hand, feeling the moisture under your palm and lifted it to get a better look. You couldn’t see anything in the darkness and you licked your palm to feel the metallic taste. Liquid scarlet blood was streaked and still leaking from the scratches, not deep enough to leave scars.
In response to your action, the stranger loudly sniffed air and seemed to... growl. But people don't know how to make SUCH sounds. “Did you do this?” you extended your palm to her, but instead of answering, the dark figure disappeared outside your bedroom. You wanted to catch up with her, but got tangled in the blanket and fell to the floor, cursing under your breath. When you went into the common room, no one was there anymore. Not a trace of anyone else's presence.
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The morning greeted with the rays of the sun, which lay softly on your face. The smell of homemade pancakes wafted from the kitchen, the recently returned birds chirped on the tree branches as if they were wound up.
The phone was still lying next to you and the clock on the screen showed noon. Among hundreds of notifications overnight, you found a message from your friend Lily, which read: “I’ll pick you up at one o’clock in the afternoon.” Well, at least you had an hour to get ready. Surely, after those messages about the murder, your parents would lock you at home, and you wanted to have time to take a walk in the first days of spring.
While you were sitting in the kitchen and looking at one point, while finishing breakfast, your thoughts returned to this night. There was no doubt that the first thing that happened to you was sleep paralysis, but what happened then? How could someone sneak into your family home so silently and without a trace, why did this woman need to watch you, and even more so... You could write off the incident as another nightmare, but your forearm still stung. Raising your hand, you saw scratches that were already covered with a blood crust and were in the process of healing. Oh no, it wasn’t definitely a hallucination. When you got out of bed, the first thing you did was check your room for missing valuables, but everything was there. Apparently the only thing this strange woman touched was you. Today before going to bed you need to check all the locks in the house, all the windows and make an impregnable fortress out of it.
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“Are you sure you want to go there?” The question hung in the warm spring air. Your friend was dragging you by the hand to the so-called Sleepy Valley. The children of your village were not allowed to go there, firstly because flocks of sheep usually grazed there, and secondly...
“Y/N, do you know why this place is called that way?.” Of the two of you, you knew more about local folklore, so you easily found the desired legend in the memory archives. The legend of the Sleepy Valley.
“My mother told me that there were always sheep grazing there, but one day a shepherd came into the valley and the whole flock was lying on the grass. It looked like someone had thrown cotton balls around. It looked as if the animals were simply asleep, but when the man approached one of the sheep, he realized that it was dead. They were all dead. Some maniac or animal ripped out the throats of the poor animals. This is where the name comes from.” You finished the story and were walking through the wild forest when you saw an opening. Perhaps there were such stories around this place, but there was no other place for walking cattle in the vicinity.
As the tall trees retreated, a majestic field stretched around, with a herd of fluffy white sheep as usual. Lily pulled you by the arms a little away from the animals to sit on the fresh green grass looking up at the sky. The two of you just lay there and listened to the chirping of tits, voluminous white clouds rushed above you, forming bizarre shapes. Life seemed unreal at that moment.
Only in the forest from where you came out it was watching you. Red eyes scanned everything that was happening, and acute inhuman hearing caught your conversation even at a distance of twenty meters. Your night visitor did not miss the chance to follow the first person whom she, for some reason unknown to her, did not kill during close contact. Wanda was patient, even too patient, and something about you caught her attention that night. Maybe your peace of mind or... No, it’s too early to think about that. In any case, she spent the rest of the night waiting for you to wake up and leave the house.
For so many years that she lived on this sinful earth, the daughter of the Maximoff family could tell a lot from a person’s blood. She drank dozens of people dry and each was unique in their own way, from the first sips one could understand what kind of life a person lived and what it was like, blood for her was a thing in which the essence of human nature was hidden. None of her victims had aroused an iota of interest or compassion in her, until that day.
Once every few months, Wanda’s family could afford such a delicacy as a few people from the village for whom no one would grieve. She liked to stretch out the pleasure and start with cattle, leaving human lives for dessert. Then she decided to watch the future victims and find the most tasty morsel in her opinion; in the end, her choice fell on a young beautiful girl like you. When life is in full swing, taking it away is many times more pleasant and sweeter.
That night, her plans included killing you, drinking to the last drop like everyone else before, but standing right next to you, she froze. Something was wrong. Why were your eyes open but you didn't move? She heard your heart that was ready to jump out, but it was not because of her. It seemed like you saw something that she didn’t see and she became curious. The woman walked into the darkness of the room, to the farthest corner, and watched. So you woke up, jumped out of bed and nervously turned on the light. Wanda sensed your fear, but did not understand what it was connected with.
Waiting for you to fall back into the world of dreams, she turned off the light that was blinding her and came closer, running her sharp nails along your arm to collect a small portion of blood for testing. When the first drops touched her tongue, her pupils dilated, covering the irises of the vampire's red eyes. The blood was saturated with adrenaline and was even sweeter than she expected and your personal taste. There was something about it that she couldn't place, something familiar. She took a closer look at your calm face, noticing what a cute little thing you were in her hands. No, killing you was too great a loss, she turned on her heels to hide as quietly as she appeared, but a rustling was heard behind her.
Wanda stood in the doorway and watched as you woke up for the second time that night. It’s surprising how you didn’t notice her right away, but when she saw your wet, rough tongue running over your palm, licking the scarlet substance, something clicked in her. “Did you do this?” your voice, hoarse from sleep, has long since become a spring deep inside her being. She needed to leave right now if she didn't want to kill you or take you by force.
The woman silently left the house and sat down nearby in the wild raspberry bushes. "She was beautiful, but who the hell was that?" Thoughts were heard in her head, but they were not hers. She heard your thoughts and her eyes widened, remembering what her stepmother told her many decades ago. If her memory did not deceive her, and it did not deceive her, then when sampling a person’s blood, if they arent killed, she will be able to hear all the thoughts associated with her. Then, being a recently converted vampire, Wanda did not attach any importance to this, because she did not think that something would happen that she would not complete the job. Apparently this was very arrogant on her part.
But since this has happened, why not entertain yourself for the first time in the last two hundred and ninety-seven years. From that moment on, she had her own personal human.
Part 2?
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drac-kool-aid · 8 months
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Seward's bone deep desire to run away from the asylum is not exactly surprising. There have been a lot of really good meta posts about how the return of Van Helsing into his life is the turning point where we see the caring and good side of him and how we can interpret his life as a student in Amersterdam as one of freedom and happiness. How he is part of the tragedy of manners, how strict social expectations allow Dracula to persist, and how they only exacerbate the unhappiness of the characters.
And I think the tragedy of Seward is that, really, he should not be the head of an asylum. It's a job that brings him no joy, and he's BAD at it. We can all recognize that if your first reaction to going back to work is "What if I just leave it all." That isn't a healthy work environment.
Now, in the modern day, the ability to pick and choose a work environment, even to leave one that is damaging your mental health, is a privilege. (IT SHOULDNT BE, but it is). And, although it is definitely reaching crisis levels in modern times, major changes in your career have almost always been difficult (unless you are really rich, or a particular brand of academic in the 17th-18th century, or both).
Seward can't just leave and become a surgeon. To give up the lofty position of "Head of an Asylum" would be unthinkable in the 1890s, especially for a reason like "Being here is basically turning me into the Joker." Like, how would Seward explain that in polite society? Would they accept that reasoning? Would they create salacious gossip if they didn't? Can Seward leave his position without losing a great amount of social capital?
Probably not.
His rise to head of an asylum, as many have pointed out, was meteoric, to say the least. It has afforded him status and respect and also left him deeply, deeply fucked up. And he can't leave!
I think his desperate attempts to quantify Renfield's behaviors into a new mental illness are telling in this regard. Maybe he is too used to having to meet some sort of expectation, and now he thinks this is the logical next step (It's NOT, but I digress). The feeling of having to keep performing above expectations, grasping at straws to do so, and subsequently burning oneself out (as well as others around you) and engaging in unethical practices? Idk. It sounds like something that would happen today. (tbh there are probably a ton of Sewards out there today, as there are still systemic problems within the mental health system that allow for the dehumanizing and abuse of patients).
It doesn't excuse his behavior. Nothing he does to Renfield is excusable, but I think it does explain some of the *why*. He isn't just cruel for cruelty's sake.
So, tldr I guess: I think reading Seward as someone who got stuck on a career path that he realized was unfufilling and that he ends up hating. Social conventions restrict him from just quitting without and a (socially acceptable) good reason to do so, and a lifetime of being regarded as one of the smartest people in the room means he can not allow himself to fail. Unfortunately, this also means he can not admit when his actions or his ideas are wrong when it comes to his job.
(But he can show that uncertainty FOR Lucy, and TO Arthur and Van Helsing, which speaks his trust and love for them)
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cambion-companion · 6 months
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BG3 Companions on a Halloween Date
YES I was itching to do something for the BG3 gang for the season. You could say it's been bugging me. Hah. Ok sorry it's the influence of my pfp.
Let's start with
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You want a cozy night in under the covers, watching scary movies (or puppet shows or whatever the heck is the equivalent in Faerun) but he's not sold on the idea. "I've seen enough horror to last me several lifetimes, darling."
Instead Astarion would take you out in the crisp Autumn air, under the distant sun, for a walk crunching through the dried leaves of brown and red.
He'd want to go to the pumpkin patch to find the perfect gourd for a Jack-o-Lantern.
When the sun set so very early in the afternoon, you'd retire back to your cozy abode and set to carving faces into your pumpkins.
Astarion of course would make short work of his, dexterous as ever with those knives, and he would do his best to shape the face into what he hopes he looks like.
Either that or, depending on where you're at in his character arc, he'd remake Cazador BEFORE gutting it and making a whole show of utterly eviscerating the poor Halloween decoration. "Astarion, this is supposed to be relaxing." "This IS my ideal downtime."
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You want someone who will snuggle under the covers and watch Hocus Pocus with you? Wyll is your man. But sorry I'm trying to keep to a less modern AU.
Wyll seems like the kind of guy who would put on some fitting music as you two cooked together, dancing in the kitchen intermittently and almost forgetting to check on the cookies before they burned.
He's such a sweetheart, checking to make sure you're happy with just spending an evening indoors with him. "We can go out on the town if you desire, sweetheart." "No, Wyll, I've told you this is absolutely perfect."
Depending on the choices you've made with him thus far, Mizora might pop in to dip her finger in the batter and bamf out again, giving ya'll a cheeky wink. "Ta ta, love imps. You make me physically ill."
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Sigh, you're back for more bones hm?
Alright I'll entertain you.
You ask Withers to dance to Spooky Scary Skeletons. He looks at you, unimpressed. "Get thee hence." "Wilt thou harass someone else?"
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Ideally I would propose and she'd say "yes". Oh what? Sorry, I was miles away.
For a Halloween date. Hm. A corn maze. Definitely.
She'd be all about her tutelage under Shar's freaks followers and want to show off her sneaking skills.
It would turn into a game of hide-and-go-seek and then it'd get a little creepy before she'd inevitably pounce on you and you'd end of in a fit of laughter together.
"I wasn't going to hurt you!" "Well, Shaddy, sometimes I wonder." "Good to keep you on your toes, then." "Careful, I saw a pond on the way in."
Then you two would go and get some candied apples and chat about memories and flowers that bloom in the gloaming.
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Oh Gale.
He'd love to read to you out of a classic gothic novel (cough cough Dracula cough cough) while you two cozy up under some blankets.
He'd probably get fresh with you and run a hand up your leg or something, OH SORRY this is post the patch that fixed that? OK. He'd wait an extra hour.
Tara would curl up next to you and listen as he read from the book, the firelight crackling and warming your bodies as the night grows dark outside.
Afterward he would ask if you'd like to be guided into the Astral plane where you can look down on the All Hallow's Eve festivities below.
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yeah, gotta give Tiefling daddy some love. Especially since I still feel bad for massacring them all my last playthru.
Zevlor is another who has seen his fair share of horror, and he would opt to do something more lighthearted with you for a Halloween date.
He seems like a family kind of man, so I expect he would invite the whole gang over for a delicious dinner. Mol and her friends, Arabella and her parents. Rolan and Zorru and maybe even Auntie Ethel will sneak in there. Then it really WOULD be a Halloween experience.
After the dinner and the guests are snoozing or already left he'd wrap an arm around you and pull you close. "Would you accompany me outside? I would like to show you the stars and tell their tales. It's been so long since I've gotten to properly admire them. Or you."
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Of course I have to include the daddy devil, who do you think I am?
Raphael would take you to a haunted house, of course. OF COURSE.
Hell, what better house that is haunted than the House of Hope?
It would be horrifying for you, since the no touching rules don't apply there, and most amusing for him.
You'd practically climb the cambion in your efforts to avoid the ghosties, especially that one who constantly says "huuuurt meeee, pleeeaaase."
Raphael would enjoy watching you squirm, and remind you such a fate would not be yours only IF you followed his rules.
Oh yeah, and maybe if you're lucky, or perhaps very unlucky, he'll invite you to his Boudoir.
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Oak Father frowns on dissecting pumpkins for the sake of creating superfluous lanterns (or something...I heard it from a friend who heard it from a friend, ok)
Instead, Halsin would druid craft you vines and harvest fruits in whatever shapes, sizes, and colors you desired.
He'd also want to go trick or treating so BADLY. "But Halsin, you're eight feet tall and built like a linebacker. No one is going to mistake you for a kid." Then he'd cast Disguise Self and you'd be forced to take him out on the town in hunt of candy.
Poor guy didn't have much of a childhood and wants to experience the finer things in life. Get those king sized candy bars...just once.
You are a bit huffy, having expected a more...romantic evening than this. But he'll make it up to you later winkwonk , till you can bearly stand it.
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Aw
You guys would get all CUTE and gussied up together.
Go out on the town.
Pick the best looking victim to be a sacrifice to Lolth.
Wait...what?
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captainclickycat · 9 months
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I feel like a lot of the cultural reading of Lucy being this primarily horny promiscuous character comes from her line about “why can’t I just marry all three of my suitors”, which people (read: Coppola and the like) interpreted as “tee-hee I want to fuck them all” and decided this was the basis for her entire character. But honestly in context what she’s saying comes across as more “I can’t bear to hurt any of their feelings” and fits in much more with her overall personality as someone who can’t stand to be a bother or disappoint or upset anyone.
And listen just as an addendum: I love the “they’re all in a polycule” interpretations of Dracula as much as anyone and possibly more. If someone made a film adaptation that leaned into the polycule interpretation and treated it with sensitivity and nuance, I’d be on top of it. But the whole “Lucy said she wanted to marry multiple men and that means she’s a promiscuous minx who wants to bang everyone!!” thing feels mighty disingenuous at best.
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So here’s the thing
24 Aug: Lucy journals that she is dreaming and weak again, and it's noticeable enough for Arthur to worry 25 Aug: Lucy heard flapping at the window, had bad dreams, and wakes pale and with a sore throat (clearly was attacked that night) 30 Aug: Lucy responds to Mina’s letter about her wedding, says she is healthy, full of life, and no longer sleepwalking: “I think I have not stirred out of my bed for a week” 31 Aug: Arthur is so worried about Lucy that he asks Seward to come check on her. He says “she looks awful, and is getting worse every day.”
So options are: 1. Lucy was getting better but Dracula attacked again the night of Aug 30th (which is possible, it’s been five days since the last known attack, but Arthur’s description of her illness doesn’t sound like a sudden change) 2. Lucy was lying to Mina so as not to worry her, especially in her own time of happiness (which is pretty consistent with what we’ve seen so far)
I think both options can work and honestly both are sad. Finally hopeful and looking forward to a happy future only for a sudden change for the worse, or more of the suffocating propriety and emotional secrecy leading Lucy to isolate herself even more. There is one cool thing that comes of it though, which is that Arthur sees through it all, pushes past her reluctance to care for herself, and makes sure something is done about her illness. I just think it's really sweet that Lucy, who prides herself in being hard to read (especially by someone like Seward who kinda does it for a living) and literally practices hiding her emotions in the mirror, is in love with and being cared for by the man who sees and accepts all of her.
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greenapplebling · 2 years
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Tim after getting to that part where Dracula says "I too can love" to Johnathan: Wait- Is Dracula gay??
Jason, a literature nerd: What kind of vampire novel isn't gay?
Tim: *nodding* That's fair
Dick, who had a vampire phase on his teens: To be fair, if you were an immortal being who didn't care about anything but satisfying your own desires, wouldn't you at least be curious?
Dick: It's like if you had a whole ice cream stand all for yourself and you only get vanilla
Tim: Did you just compared genders to ice cream flavors?
Dick: My point still stands. I bet everyone had fantasized about someone from the same sex at least once. Right, Jason?
Jason with his face slowly turning bright red: *trying to cover his face with the book he was reading*
Dick:... Is there something you want to share with the rest of us mortals?
Jason: Not particularly, no
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morerawerbreath · 1 year
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Fictional Men Ranked Least to Most Likely to Eat Pussy
When I’m bored my powers turn to evil. Happy to announce that @earlymodernlesbian is not only is an enabler but wrote a gay companion piece which you can and should read here!!!! 
10. Mr. Rochester — Jane Eyre
No chance of oral here. Sorry, I don’t think he puts Jane first once in this book. She’s too busy being a ministering angel to ever consider anything above and beyond her wifely duty and I don’t think Rochester ever really stops being a narcissist long enough to consider her desires or even, you know, her life. I bet his french mistress asked him to do it once and he was like “ew, no”
9. Rhett Butler — Gone With the Wind
Rhett says shit like “you ought to be kissed and by someone who knows how,” and then I bet would go down on you one time just to show you what you were missing out on, and then he’d tease you about how much you liked it for months afterwards and refuse to do it again. Imagine how much more normal Scarlett might have been if she was getting regular oral.
8. Konstantin Levin — Anna Karenina
Definitely knows about eating pussy and can’t stop thinking about it. I think he might even shamefully obsess about it in conjunction with his dirty peasant laborer fantasies. However, he also has the ascetic monk thing going on so I bet he hardcore represses his desires to actually do it. That being said, I think if he ever got over himself he’d be way into it.
7. Mr Darcy — Pride and Prejudice
I’m not convinced Mr. Darcy even knows going down on girls is a thing, but once Bingley had filled him in I bet he would try it. Elizabeth I’m sure would not object but I can’t see this happening more than once or twice.
6. Oliver Mellors — Lady Chatterley’s Lover
Mellors has the distinct advantage and disadvantage of being the only character from a book that actually describes sex acts. If it was based solely on what he said (being turned on by getting women off, not shutting up about Connie’s ass, talking about how much he wants a “real” woman with a “real” body), I’d say absolutely he wants to get down there and would use the cringiest words possible to describe it. However, they textually do almost everything else so I feel like if he ate her out DH Lawrence would have told us 😔
EDIT: he goes down on her in the most recent movie!!! vindicated
5. Jonathan Harker — Dracula
Jonathan is obsessed with Mina (rightfully) and loves her to the end of the earth, so of course he’d do anything for her, including eat her out. However, there’s so much putting women on goddess pedestals in Dracula that he might just like, repeatedly kiss her between her legs and and be like, “am I doing this right?” and Mina would be like “I love you so much Jonathan” but she wouldn’t actually get off, you know? 
4. Heathcliff — Wuthering Heights
Someone who is willing to dig up your grave would definitely be down to lick your pussy. Cathy and Heathcliff are so rabid about each other I bet oral is like, one of the least weird things they would have done to each others bodies if they had the chance
3. Gabriel Oak — Far from the Madding Crowd
Not intimidated by Bathsheba’s independence and position of power. Could take care of her and spoil her if she ever let him and they both know it. Plus, not afraid to get down and dirty and do farm work for her. If a man cures your sheep and saves your hay before a storm, what else will he do for you? 👀
2. Mr. Knightley — Emma
Mr. Knightly is the definition of a service top. 100% confident in his masculinity and completely comfortable putting Emma’s needs and wants first, but not gonna let her get away with being high and mighty. Excellent combination of obsessed with her but still in charge. ;) She would get neurotic about it and he would tell her to chill out and he’d be right.
1. George Emerson — A Room with a View
George chugs his respect women juice and is so turned on by the idea of women as individuals with unique desires he can’t stand to see Lucy betray herself by marrying a robot. “I want you to have your own thoughts even when I hold you in my arms” ?!? “The desire to govern a woman lies very deep, and men and women must fight it together before they shall enter the Garden” !! What’s not to love about a pro-Eve humanist who enjoys swimming naked and is constantly telling everyone to be less embarrassed about desire and the body? No question George is going to be eating Lucy out every day of their lives and getting off on it himself.
Bonus: 
Marius Pontmercy — Les Misérables
Shy, but also French. Not sure which one wins out here. 
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I'm sure I'm not the first person to talk about this, but I really want to give a big shout out to the @re-dracula team for making the Re: Dracula experience so accessible. And I'm not just talking about offering the whole thing for free, though that's still defintely an aspect of it.
For one thing, every podcast has a full and proper transcript. By "full and proper," I mean it not only covers the actual text being read, but who says what, what parts are said by which people, and crucially, describes all of the extra sound effects and musical cues they put in. Some transcripts are just a text dump, but this is a properly formatted script with all the bells and whistles.
Another thing is that each episode is prefaced by content warnings, where applicable. That is not something you can get from the original text, nor even Matt Kirkland's extra notes that come with each entry from previous years. Someone (or in all likelihood, multiple people) had to review the full manuscript for each podcast and figure out which themes required warnings. They then had to figure out how to make them specific enough to be useful but vague enough not to just be a flat out spoiler. That took extra effort and care, but it's going to make the whole thing so much more accessible to those who need them.
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Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dreden, from the Dresden Files
Mr "The building was on fire and it wasn't my fault", Wizard of Chicago, magical right hand thug of Winter, Dad of a small girl and a spirit of intellect, owner of a temple foo dog and a perfectly normal cat, etc. Has canonically fought vampires of the "black court" which are similar to Dracula. Has met the Dresden Files version of Dracula and survived barely.
Survivability will change according to where you are in the series, so let's say at the current book Battlegrounds. If you like, compare with him at the beginning of the series, Storm Front.
"Survived, barely" I think is Harry Dresden's whole mode of being.
I think the question here is going to be less "will Dracula kill Harry" and more "can Dracula kill Harry." Like of course Dracula wants to kill him. Everyone wants to kill Harry Dresden all the time and they're usually right. He aggros vampires on purpose because he is, if you'll pardon the expression, A Little Shit.
Yeah I was gonna say by Dresden Files rules we probably wanna say Dracula is Black Court? I am going to admit right now that I haven't read the books but I have designed a homebrew Sentinels of the Multiverse villain deck around them so I am broadly conversant with them. I've been told the wildest stuff. Santa Claus is there.
(I have seen the TV series but this is about the books)
The thing is... Harry Dresden is protected six ways from Sunday. He has every anti-vampire measure and he knows how to weaponize the rules of hospitality. He'll find some way that Dracula can't harm him while he's a guest in his home, and use that technicality to be an insufferable brat. He's owed favors by tons of ridiculously powerful entities that would love to see him dead. He's a whole wizard, and, unlike some, actually pretty good at it. He's the Winter Knight (is he still after the whole ghost thing?? I can't keep track?) which has got to do something.
And like, he's got that Jim Kirk sex appeal, rendered all the more inexplicable by the fact that he's fundamentally scrungly. For no reason that I've ever been able to determine (again, it might be more clear if I actually read the books), hot immortal women keep sacrificing themselves for him. It would be entirely in character for one or more of the Girlies to be his ex who hates his guts - but then ends up sacrificing herself for him anyway.
I think mechanically Harry should be able in principle to be just fine, BUT because this is Harry "born to suffer" Dresden he will find ways to make trouble for himself and everyone around him. He's creative like that.
......honestly now I want to put Harry Dresden and Harry DuBois in a room together and see what happens. Someone who knows these guys better than I do get on that.
Anyway I don't think it's a Dresden File unless Harry gets beaten within an inch of his life at least in part due to his own poor life choices.
So in all likelihood Harry Dresden, Wizard of Chicago, can survive Castle Dracula. But, as you say, Barely.
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