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#but i only see dracula/agatha and dracula jonathan

supermauswithagun · 9 months

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What did Jonathan Harker see in Budapest? pt. 2

Our dear friend Jonathan returned to Budapest! Except that he is not in the condition for more sightseeing. :( This time he will only see, as follows:

an ambulance. (No victorian era gentlemen were harmed while taking this photo. This is just a demonstration where doctors of the first ambulance company of Budapest were showing off their newest equipment at the 1896 Millennium Exhibition.)

The Old Szent János Hospital. Last year I’ve made a post about how the Hospital of St. Joseph and Ste. Mary did not exist, and why I think Jonathan spent his time recovering in the Old Szent János. Basically that was the only hospital in Budapest close to the Buda Hills where nuns were tending male patients. Jonathan asking for money to pay for his hospital stay suggests that he was in the Old Szent János, since this hospital mostly admitted poor and homeless people who could not pay for their treatment. (A new and more modern hospital was under construction, but it was opened a few years after Dracula was published.)

Except that I was wrong. Some people suggested that because of poor Jonathan was rambling about vampires and such things, he could have been taken to a mental hospital, and the Lipótmező Asylum fits Sister Agatha’s description just as well. Lipótmező is also in the Buda Hills, nuns were taking care of the patients, and it resembled a sanatorium more than the Old Szent János. Despite being an asylum, Lipótmező was a state owned hospital under strict medical supervision so there were no random experimenting like our other dear friend Dr. Seward did in Carfax. Anyway, here’s a picture of the Lipótmező as well, you decide which one you prefer for your upcoming fanfics.

And of course the nuns. In case of both the Old Szent János and the Lipótmező, they’ve belonged to the Company of the Daughters of Charity. Here’s one of them with a patient in front of the New Szent János Hospital in 1938.

Sadly I did not found any photos of the interiors of said hospitals, but here we have a picture from the 1896 Millenium Exhibition, showing hospital beds and a doctor’s uniform.

And if we were talking about fanfictions, let me be a little bit overindulgent here. I just love to imagine that after their wedding, when Jonathan starts to feel better, he and Mina try to use their remaining days in Budapest to make some good memories together before [spoiler]. They should really visit the Buda Hills, and have a picnic at the Normafa.

Or, if Jonathan feels up to it, they should walk all the way to the Gloriette at the top of the János Hill.

I just want them to be happy, okay?!

Again, all the pictures are from around 1897, the year when Dracula was published (except the one with the nun).

Sources under the cut:

1. Ambulance: Fortepan / Budapest Főváros Levéltára. Levéltári jelzet: HU.BFL.XV.19.d.1.10.250

2. Old Szent János Hospital: postcard published around 1890.

3. Lipótmező Asylum: illustration in Vasárnapi Újság from 1895.

4. Daughters of Charity nun: Fortepan

5. Hospital furniture: Fortepan / Budapest Főváros Levéltára. Levéltári jelzet: HU.BFL.XV.19.d.1.10.180

6. Normafa: Fortepan

7. Gloriette: postcard published around 1900.

#personal #history #hungary #budapest #bram stoker #dracula #dracula daily #sightseeing with our friend jonathan #i love to be a librarian

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peachesanmemes · 6 months

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I saw your DD graph asking for other ideas, so... if you still have any desire to do further Dracula graphs I'd be curious to see how the word count per character breaks down (not how much they speak but how much they write. Adding all their diary entries together, etc.). Obviously Mina wins by default from having typed up the whole novel but outside of that detail, how much did each person author?

Thank you so much for this ask! What an interesting data set this one is! Lots of unexpected information.

So first off, if you just want to visualize the author breakdown, ta-dahhhh!

Seward was staunchly in the lead, talking his head off and burning through those wax recording drums like no ones business. Poor Mina for having to transcribe it all. In total his words made up 39.3% of Dracula. Nearly 40%!

Seward unsurprisingly had the most individual entries overall at 47, and had the longest streak for being the narrator in an entry at 10 days (09/02 - 09/11) with Mina following right behind at 9 days (08/10 - 08/19)

Mina surprisingly was 3rd overall both in word count and number of entries. She wasn't even in the top 3 for most words in a day which is as follows.

1 - Seward October 3rd - 9942 words

2 - Seward September 29th - 7206 words

3 - Jonathan October 3rd - 5944 words

Van Helsing only had 9 entries total but still came in number 4 for word count, in front of Lucy. It's interesting to note that the amount a person writes doesn't correlate to the amount of time they are being written about/appear. Which is why Arthur and Quincey don't even beat out the newspaper clippings for words, lol.

There are lots of authors we only hear from a single time, like Sister Agatha. So I've decided to make a small fry pie as well. (Authors under ~500 words)

The captain of the Demeter and Van Helsing both had more days written than Lucy! Though I didn't break up number of entries, like when the log of the Demeter had 3 or 4 on one day or Lucy wrote a letter and in her diary.

If there is any data I haven't presented here that you're interested in feel free to tag me or shoot me an ask like this lovely person did!

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anncanta · 7 months

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***

@alma37

There is one more thing in the ending of ‘Dracula’, which probably seemed so obvious to me that I almost never said it. The point is that the final scene, the moment with sex, represents not only the expression of Dracula's feelings but – perhaps most of all – Agatha's own desire.

It's hard to explain. We saw those understandable coincidences (which are never coincidences, especially in Moffat's writing) in other episodes where Dracula drinks someone's blood. Just drinking blood is one thing, especially in order to satisfy physical hunger. Here we are not talking about hunger at all, and not about the process of drinking blood as such. We see two people between whom a very specific dialogue is going on. Very precisely and openly spoken one. A dialogue in which the words are so carefully chosen that no one is left in doubt about what we are witnessing.

Someone has already noted that of all Dracula's victims, only Agatha sees him in her dream, and more than openly in the finale. And we, I hope, will talk about this again. But it is important to remember that Dracula ‘gets’ out of his victims their secret thoughts and desires, something that they may not always admit to themselves.

Remember the conversation between Agatha and Jonathan? Jonathan is obviously ashamed of his dreams about Mina. This is clear from Agatha's words. If Jonathan had been ashamed to talk about these dreams, she would have said so, ‘There is no shame in sharing this with us. It is not only what you did in Dracula's castle that is important, but also everything you thought about and what you felt, right down to your fantasies and dreams.’ She literally says this when they return to her question about whether he had sexual intercourse with the Count. And then she suddenly drops her usual pragmatic tone and begins to talk about dreams as heaven in which we can sin without fear of being punished.

I think this is the same pragmatism, only in relation to something else – ‘stop being ashamed of your dreams and tell me about them.’ Agatha sees perfectly well who Jonathan is, and she understands perfectly well that if he decides that talking about something is wrong or ‘undignified’, he will never tell – even if she threatens to cut him into pieces. Therefore, she, like a smart investigator, uses reasonable tactics that will help her counterpart talk.

Jonathan's dream and its meaning are clear to Agatha precisely because she is looking from the outside. She doesn't notice her own infatuation with the Count – until she stumbles upon Mina's shocked look in response to the words that ‘Dracula is the best among vampires,’ and immediately corrects herself – ‘the most successful one.’ She can see a situation, though: Dracula gives the victim what he wants. And Moffat and Gatiss want us to remember this. Then this will be repeated several times, but not as clearly as with Jonathan.

In this context, by the way, Zoe's reaction is interesting. Dracula, just like with Agatha, is quite frank with her and, unlike other victims, drags Zoe ‘to his home.’ But there she reacts like everyone else – immediately manifesting her desires. ‘You are killing me?’ And, just like with the others, Dracula gives her what she wants, ‘It doesn't have to hurt.’

But let's return to Agatha. From what we've seen, it's clear that the ending is a gift for her because that's what she wanted. Whether she realized it or not, whether she thought it was normal or unacceptable, she wanted to make love to him. And he wanted it too.

That's why the ending is so harmonious. And so even those who don't like it conceptually often can't stop rewatching this part.

Such is the power of art.

#bbc dracula #count dracula #dracula 2020 #dracula bbc #agatha van helsing #dragatha #zoe van helsing

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see-arcane · 2 years

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Barking Harker TEASER

The following is a rough draft of the first chapter for the in-progress horror novel, and alternate ending Dracula sequel, Barking Harker.

It will contain unsettling imagery.

It will contain unsettling possibilities.

It will contain things that bite, bleed, scream, and laugh.

If all this is acceptable, then welcome. Enter freely and of your own will.

And leave all of the happiness and humanity you bring.

For a version that isn’t in Tumblr format eye strain mode, check out the Google Doc version HERE.

Link to Barking Harker TEASER 2 is HERE.

Barking Harker

TEASER

C. R. Kane

Preludes and Interludes I:

Nights in Asylum

SISTER AGATHA’S OBSERVATIONS

The Hospital of St. Joseph and Ste. Mary brought Jonathan Harker into its care on the 8th of July. While not the worst case admitted in Sister Agatha’s time, he was several leagues away from the best-off. The Englishman, so his manner and voice gave him away long before ever uttering his address, was like one trapped at the point of waking from a supreme nightmare. A persistent dread kept his eyes wide and wet, his body taut, his brown brow puckered in a constant flux of distress and distrust.

Less of the staff than of the reality around him.

“I cannot trust me,” he told her over his broth. Whether hearty or thin, his meals seemed perpetually doomed to chill half-eaten on their tray. Appetite had withered in him even before his arrival to judge by his gauntness. “I cannot trust that I am awake and safe. I cannot trust that the nightmare I left was genuine or some spiraling betrayal of the mind. I cannot—,”

She’d watched him rub furiously at the side of his neck, as though trying to scour something away. A hoarse noise left him.

“I cannot be like them. Mina’s waiting. Mr. Hawkins will be wanting an update. I cannot be…”

Scrubbing, scrubbing, scrubbing at his neck. Fresh dew balanced on his lashes.

“Like who?”

The question nettled him. His lips twitched up in a rictus, the false smile of one doing their best not to shake apart in a fit.

“Any of them. The women in the castle. The monster in the box. The dream in the hail storm.” The smile broke open on an awful laugh. More a sob in dismal disguise. “The unhappy couple stolen from their dirt in Exeter. Not them. Please, not any of them.”

Scrubbing, rubbing, scratching, clawing.

Before he could draw blood, she asked, “Does your neck itch?” The assault stopped. He stared at his hands for a spell, regarding the crescents of topmost skin now embedded in his nails. He rubbed circles in one palm, then the other.

“No, there is no itch. It does not even ache. It ached before. After they…” The grey eyes rolled up to her like cloudy marbles. “Do you see anything there?” He dragged at the shirt collar. Sister Agatha looked. Aside from the tint caused by the fresh clawing, the skin was the same unmarked umber complexion as the rest of him. Albeit an unhealthily pale shade of copper, considering. He seemed like a man fresh from living in a cave.

“No, it looks quite fine. No rash, no injury.” Just as there had not been with their initial medical examination. A trial in itself, as he had suffered a scandalized anxiety at his being even half-bare before male doctors and female nurses alike. One of the newer girls had touched him—only to pluck a mote of cotton from the hair at the nape of his neck—and he had sprung away as if she’d struck him. He had stood rigid, seeming to judge the merits of running versus snatching up the nearest items at hand for a weapon.

Registering his own state, he’d apologized profusely to her. At a distance. The girl had stammered her own apology back, mumbling about the cotton.

“Not cotton,” he explained, eyes flitting to a wall mirror. An expression mingled between relief and misery had taken his face. “Only my hair.”

Sister Agatha had rarely seen the reality of ‘shocked white’ locks over the years, and even then it was often with those patients someplace past forty years. Jonathan Harker was scarcely past twenty. Whatever the truth of his experience was, it had been so titanic that it had burst his mental state like an egg against brick. That it had the trappings of an abrupt attack, mingled as it was with plain fever of the brain and body, alongside malnutrition, gave her hope that it was an instance of trauma rather than outright mental impairment.

Something monstrous had happened to him, and so his mind, at once a traitor and good-intentioned aide, had costumed the event with genuine monsters.

By the second week of August, when the worst of his symptoms would cool, Sister Agatha would do him the courtesy of writing ahead to his employer and his fiancée. The latter would include her postscript, trimming his ravings down to mere babble of wolves and poison and blood; of ghosts and demons; and the rest, she confessed to good Mina Murray, she withheld out of fear.

Yet not a fear for the young lady’s opinion of the poor bridegroom-to-be.

Truth be told, it was a fear she would never commit to paper. Not to any record, lest she look back on it and recall the whole of the young man’s stay. To examine such details too closely was to risk opening an abyss within her mind. One which she suspected to be bottomless and greased with a wonder untouched by the benevolence of miracle, and edging instead towards…

Well.

It was not worth the ink for her notes. Nor even her own breath, wasted on choking out the particulars she witnessed—or supposed she witnessed—to another ear. This was a place of healing and faith, not superstition, they would tell her. Supposing they did not invite her to enjoy the other side of their hospitality outright. Jonathan Harker’s early period was a warning against risking such a change of status. As illustrated by the escapade with the glass.

After Sister Agatha had confirmed there was no mark upon his neck, he had asked for a mirror. Seeing in the glass that she spoke the truth, he had loosed two small tears, his lips twitching as he uttered a single sentence. A whisper so low she almost missed it.

“It is a foul bauble.”

In the next instant, he had shattered the glass against the wall and tried to take a shard to his throat.

Sister Agatha and two others had to wrestle with him to get the piece away, though he succeeded in nicking his stubbled cheek. It had taken a fourth to get his arms down and the wrists fastened. Later, the doctors would remark that it was an incredible feat for a man half-wasted away. Yet said flicker of vitality was hardly noteworthy compared to the hideous reaction that followed as they fastened wrist and ankle. It was less a result of his being bound, but the action involved to make him so.

He had bellowed oaths at the flurry of bodies, fighting and bucking like a rabid thing.

“No more! You will have no more from me, you leeches! I will not go back, I will not be your stock! Get off me, get off me, you damned—,”

Then the sedative needle pierced his skin.

It stunned all present by how immediately opposite the intended effect was. Namely, Jonathan Harker shed all semblance of censorship, sanity, and human address, instead erupting with curses to make a sailor swoon, followed by a nigh animalistic series of howling screams that would leave him hoarse on waking. All the while, he kicked and yanked at his restraints with a redoubled strength. The struts creaked dangerously for a moment before the drug began to win the battle.

As they finished binding him, those miserable grey eyes blinked rapidly, fighting sleep as much as consciousness, muttering all the while, “No, no, no, not again, please, I cannot do it again, no, no…”

He slept. Poorly.

Even in better weeks to come, unbound, harmless and charming, Jonathan Harker would never sleep well as long as they had him. He spasmed, shivered, and moaned as nightmares sent memories to hunt him even in his rest.

Sister Agatha was there when he woke from that first drugged stupor. She felt her heart twist into knots as the epiphany dawned across his face. It was not an unfamiliar expression in her work; sane, mad, or ill, finding oneself immobilized was never a happy discovery. Yet in the Englishman, the sight became a relaxant. He untensed even under the gleam of sweat and tears. Whatever invisible wires kept him rigid were cut and he sank deeper into the mattress like a thing gutted.

“Here. I am here,” he murmured to himself. Then he turned to croak at her, “My apologies for the outburst. I thought you were someone else.”

“So we took it.” It was already being circulated among some of the staff that, assuming there was more than an imagined impetus for his behavior, his mind had translated the work of some human jailor to more legendary horrors. Sister Agatha regarded again the pallid tint of him; a man who had lived too long without sun. Her eye drifted to the fresh cut scabbing on his cheek. “Yet that does not explain your desire to commit one of the worst sins against oneself, as much as God. You claim you have a loved one waiting for you. Your fiancée.”

“Mina,” he breathed. The word left him like prayer. “Yes, Mina is at home. I could not let them keep me. Not like that.”

“Yet you would end yourself rather than go home to your Mina? You appear to have fought terribly to get as far as you have.”

“I did not think clearly. I am not thinking clearly.” His throat bobbed with a dry gulp. “The trouble is I can no longer tell if I am safe to return to her. They did it, you see. Him. The sisters. They got what they wanted. Those three, they almost dragged me back that night in the forest. Perhaps they might have if they were not so eager for the meal. They took their turns right there in the clearing just as he had his in the bedroom. But they overindulged. Even depleted, I was still able to slip them, content as ticks as they were. Or else they allowed me to escape, knowing what would become of me.

“Yet it was so strange, Sister. The blood, the pain, they happened. But by sunrise, the evidence was gone. I got to the trains still thinking it may have been a nightmare. I was so focused on the worst of possibilities; perhaps it had invented the scenes of room and forest alike to purge itself. Which feels absurd. I did not imagine the fear any more than I imagined their cold hands or the ivory pins of their teeth. Unless I did. Unless, unless, unless. That has been my state since I fled the place. Especially since I truly do not feel the pain in my throat or find the wounds. Gone, all.

“If I am suddenly mad, I am no longer worthy to be with Mina. If I am not mad, if what happened was reality, then I fear I am not safe to be with her. Not until I know for certain that, as sure as the Devil inflicted his kin upon me, God has done me the mercy of a miracle. The bite came more than once. I was siphoned and marked. But come daylight, any sign was erased. I have prayed for answers. For confirmation to prove one answer is truer than the others. As yet, I still cannot tell. All possibilities have their drawbacks.

“I dread to be mad. I dread the idea that the Hell I left and all its smiling devils were real. But at least the third, with its blessing, also proves the kindness of God in blotting out the monsters’ parting gift. For that, I pray most.” Jonathan Harker blinked up at her, the greater bulk of his desolation evaporating away into a simpler mask of request. “May I ask you for one thing, Sister?”

“What is that, Jonathan?”

“I should like to be held here at least a month. Regardless of how well or ill I appear, I plead for a month, barred in by the Cross and steadier heads than mine. More than anything, I require trustworthy senses that can observe objectively, with God’s eye over your shoulder. Whatever expenses shall be incurred by my stay, I can give you information and addresses to see to payment; as well as, if it is allowed, a surplus to aid those who come after me. Is such an arrangement possible?”

“It is, Jonathan, absolutely. But I would ask you something in return. Two things.”

“What are they?”

“The first, that you feel free to call me Sister Agatha. The second, that you will eat fully at your next meal.”

“I will, Sister Agatha.”

Now clearly set upon his own deadline of a month, the restraints were undone, though a watch was kept to ensure he did not have another grisly change of heart. With the exception of the man’s persistent nervousness and fitful sleep, the larger part of his trouble should only have been the fever. Indeed, under more ignorant circumstances, Sister Agatha would gladly have assigned all the strangeness of his stay to that dreary illness.

The poor fellow seemed in a constant state of warmth, saturating his clothes and the sheets with perspiration like a boiling clockwork. Neither medicine nor ice seemed to blunt the heat. A fact that was not made better with the young man’s insistence that he was scarcely aware of his own temperature. Certainly not half so much as he was aware of things beyond the small world of his sickroom.

For instance:

“Did they ever find the culprit who took Frau Brodbeck’s ring?”

The name struck her like a cold pin.

“Pardon?”

He must have seen some accusation in her face, for he half-hid behind his glass of water. Still, he nodded at the door.

“From the room across the hall,” he murmured. “The lady there, Greta Brodbeck, found me reading last night. I flatter myself that my German must have gotten better to understand her, for she spoke all in a rush.”

Sister Agatha felt an entire bouquet of icicles sink in her bowels.

“That was—that is how Frau Brodbeck speaks as a rule, Jonathan. Barely a pause to breathe.” As she said it, her own breath cramped in her throat. “What was it she said to you?”

“She insisted her wedding band was stolen and swapped with a paste replacement. She says to confront Dr. Weiss about it, for she claims the thief is one of his new hires, some fellow with a mole under his right eye. Her band had a diamond and two rubies. The swapped ring she showed me has a dull crystal and a spray of false emeralds. She seemed quite upset about it, as she’s to leave the hospital soon and none of the staff have listened to her about the matter.”

“Well, that will not do. This is the first I have heard of it, but I know there is time. She does not leave until the morning,” Sister Agatha said, impressed at her own placidity. It was the stillness of thin ice over a lake wild with life swimming in frenzy, but it held. She even smiled. “I will bring it up with Dr. Weiss.” Before she could reach the door, there was a creak as Jonathan sat up in bed.

“Before you go...”

“Yes?”

“Do you know whose dog it is on the grounds out there?” She turned to blink at him.

“What dog do you mean?”

“The one that was barking under the window last night. I confess, it frightened me at first. Imagination almost remade it into a wolf and I have had more than my share of the creatures. Transylvania and Munich both seemed intent on inflicting their company. But the pitch out there,” he gestured to the window, “was wrong. The bark was too deep to be anything other than some large purebred’s noise. I managed to hobble to the window to look for it, but I only caught sight of it running off around the hospital’s east corner. Certainly big enough to pass for a wolf, but for the shape of it.”

Saying so aloud brought some measure of relief to his tired features. Sister Agatha smiled in turn, now with less performance in its upturned corners.

“I’d not realized we were playing host to the animal. We would have heard if it was bothering the patients, so it must have snuck in some way and fled again.” Jonathan nodded at this, cloudy eyes rolling to the window.

“Perhaps it’s lost. Some household may have misplaced a family member.”

“We shall keep an eye out should it return. Try to rest, Jonathan--and please, do let someone know if you need help leaving the bed next time.”

Sister Agatha left him as he gave her his assent.

She waited until she was at least three doors away before her idle step turned into a brisk march.

Six doors turned it into a pace just short of a jog down to the building’s bowels.

Greta Brodbeck was waiting for her there, as patient as any corpse pending delivery to those with the duty of collection. In this case, her granddaughter. The ring on her wedding finger was as Jonathan described it. Faux crystals presented to him by an incensed old woman who had been dead most of the day before. The same Jonathan, she knew from the staff, who continued to break his bedridden streak only to force himself around in unsteady circuits of his room for his legs’ sake, to use the facilities, or to stare out the window. With the exception of his failed dog-watching, this was always done with a steadying arm and another’s assistance.

He had never been down to the morgue. He never even left his room.

These facts were shelved in the cellar of Sister Agatha’s mind as she went to Dr. Weiss, claiming to recognize the ring as a fake, and to ask the new young man, Arnold Baum, about where the diamond and ruby original might be. It took little pressing to force the fellow’s truth and the ring out of him, along with some hastily engineered tale to do with a sick relative, or perhaps a friend, who desperately needed the money, and really, Frau Brodbeck was hardly going to miss such a thing…

The trouble sorted, Sister Agatha briefly thought of telling Jonathan what state Frau Brodbeck was in when she made her complaint to him.

Would a ghost story help a man in his condition? Yes, it could be a miracle. It could also be a fantastic illusion born of the fever. All he would see is a tally mark to the monstrous theory he now holds about himself and the shadows of the world. Hush, Agatha.

Even so, she battled herself over it.

She found her fretting was moot upon her next visit. One she had put off until the evening, almost hoping he was too drowsy for pleasantries. But when she opened the door, she found Jonathan propped up in a chair beside the window. Grated as it was, he was allowed to let the glass up for a much-needed breeze. He was peering down at something when she came in. Smiling.

For a moment, Sister Agatha thought it hung strangely on him. Like a carved slit more than a true expression.

“What has you in such a fine mood, Jonathan?”

“Mm?” He blinked and the smile flickered out of place. “Apologies, my mind floated off for a moment. Do I seem in a fine mood?”

“You were smiling at something.”

“Was I? Oh, well, there was good news today, wasn’t there?” The smile returned, this one less static. “Frau Brodbeck stopped in to tell me you rescued her ring in time for her exit. She was most grateful. Though there were some parting words she had regarding the thief that I doubt I should repeat.”

Sister Agatha felt the blood drop out of her face even as she buttressed her own smile. Jonathan seemed to note this and was on the verge of a question Sister Agatha was still unsure how to answer, when a dog began to bark. The young man whipped his head back around so quickly she worried something might snap. Instead, he leaned into the glass and the strange smile curled again.

“I’m here, I’m here. Hello again!” His eyes swept back to her. They seemed even more faded against the exhausted bruise-brown shadows that ringed his gaze. The grey had faded almost to a misty hue. She thought briefly of Greta Brodbeck’s dead stare as she returned her stolen ring. The eyelids had cracked open in the interim between visits, revealing the clouding that marked all cadavers’ eyes within days. They seemed to watch her now, set in Jonathan Harker’s living face. “It’s our visitor,” he laughed. “He really is a hefty one. There must be some hole in the fence he’s wedging through.”

As if in answer, another bark sounded. It was a thunderous noise. The kind that belonged to breeds made for fighting bears and winning. Sister Agatha joined him at the window. She followed his gaze out and down to what looked like a black mountain on legs. True, the shape of it denied any lupine heritage, but its stature was gigantic. Two children could ride on its back without buckling, perhaps three.

Children with no fear of death, her thoughts amended.

The iron-dark hound stared up at their window with eyes made lambent in the lights of the hospital and the bright half-moon. Almost yellow. Its stare never broke to blink.

“Watch,” Jonathan whispered, not looking from the dog. He moved slowly aside, away from the frame, until he was no longer visible through the grate. The dog barked again. It boomed loud enough to shock the heart. Jonathan chuckled and bowed back into view. The black dog settled. It did not wag its tail, nor did it pace or whine. Only watched the Englishman watch it. As if she’d spoken aloud, he nodded and hummed, “He’s a serious one. Some manner of working dog.”

“It could be,” Sister Agatha agreed, trying to distract herself with squinting for a collar hidden in the black pelt. “Yet no one I asked mentioned any sightings of him and no one has come to call about their missing pet.”

“Not a pet,” Jonathan told the grate. “He is self-employed and takes his duties seriously when they come to him. But now he waits on his associate. The white dog.”

“There’s another?”

“Not yet. But soon.” There was a languid note to the words she did not care for. Turning, she saw that Jonathan seemed to have fallen asleep sitting up. His shut eyes still faced the window. “Black dogs do much. But the white dog is made for more. It smiles and laughs even when it hates. Hurts. Most of all when it is hungry.” His temple rested against the window frame, the dark eyelids revealing the dance and twitch of a dreaming mind. A small sound leaked out of him. Something that stuttered in a way that could have wept or giggled. His lips split over his teeth in a hard grin as tears traced his cheeks. Then, plaintive as a child, “I do not want the white dog to come.”

Sister Agatha roused him just enough to guide him to the bed where he sank down on top of the sheets, shaking and cooking in his own illness. When she went back to the window, the black dog was gone. She spoke to the others, warning them of the massive hound and insisting on a search of the surrounding fence for gaps it might be winnowing through. None cared to think of what damage such a creature might do to patients or staff cornered outdoors. Yet daylight revealed no openings in gate or fence suitable to be its threshold.

Regardless, the black dog returned the following night. On many nights more. According to Jonathan, it did not bark so long as it could see him. But despite his initial fondness for the animal, or what passed for fondness on realizing it was not a wolf, he now dreaded his visitor.

“It knows things I don’t,” he told Sister Agatha, led again to his sweat-soaked bed. “It knows what the white dog will do, what the white dog will demand if it gets to me here. And it will. Frau Brodbeck told me so. She seemed sorry to tell me. And—such an absurd thing to say!—she claimed I could take what I needed when the white dog came. I did her the service of the ring, so she would do a service in turn. Isn’t that strange?”

He giggled and sweated and sobbed into his pillow until sleep dragged him down. Said sleep twisted and twitched terribly, his dreams full of hunting and hauntings, a gibberish of pleas flying from him in supplication to God, to dogs, and to some unknown specter:

“I do not want it, I don’t want any, please, I don’t…”

Far more bitter fits mingled fear and wrath against those initial demons who ushered him into their haven, making his lip curl and hands clutch violently at the air:

“Why do you walk and talk and feast? Why do you not fester in your box? Why are you not the prey of your pets, of the birds and the flies? Come, my friend, let me take you home…”

All the while, he burned hotter and hotter within the oven of his flesh. Almost three weeks of this wretchedness passed before he reached his hottest point. The thermometer screamed red to its tip. They prepared an ice bath.

He let them carry him to the tub’s edge, but insisted on stripping under his own power. This he did without blushing before his audience. Such might have been taken as an improvement if he had not continued to claw mindlessly at himself—as though his skin were a last stubborn garment to be removed. He let the attendants’ hands stop his own without fuss. The grey eyes, now so wan around the pupils they were almost gone, tipped wildly in their sockets.

His only words were a sing-song burble:

“Burning above in old lands of sand, cool in the graves below. They burrow deep and they burrow far, where only dead and worms know. One of the dogs taught me that. Can you guess which, Sister Agatha?” His laughter came in a soft mad stream between his bared teeth, giddy as a hyena.

At least until his eyes rolled entirely into his head and his mind rolled away with them. When they brought him out of the bath, the ice had melted and he was solidly, implacably unconscious. He did not stir through the rest of the day. Nor the night. Nor the day after that.

“His temperature is dropping.”

“Good. I have yet to see a fever so stubborn in its breaking. It’s a wonder he did not set the bed alight, poor boy.”

“Doctor. His temperature has been dropping two degrees every hour.”

Down, down, down, out of fever and into a frigid cold. The window was shut, blankets were piled, and warmth was fed thinly into the cool statue that was Jonathan Harker. His breath was the only sign they were not nursing a corpse. On the second night, Sister Agatha was stirred from a brisk nod she took for a nap.

The black dog was barking again. That she felt the tremor of it in her chest failed to surprise her. Even Greta Brodbeck’s presence did not manage a shock.

“Because you are dreaming,” Sister Agatha insisted to herself. “You are dreaming and you will wake and all that makes sense now will make none then.”

Is this a dream? the dead woman asked in her usual rush. So Sister Agatha assumed. Frau Brodbeck’s lips did not move and the words were not words. Yet she did speak. Are you certain?

Sister Agatha was on her feet now, knowing she had to be out. Jonathan could not appease that awful hound as he was. Frau Brodbeck walked with her. She was dressed in her fine funereal attire and her ring winked prettily as they marched down the halls. None were there to see them. Sister Agatha could not bring herself to call for anyone.

If it was a dream, it would not matter. If it was not, what would happen if they saw what she did? What would happen if they didn’t?

Her attention flicked back to her companion. Frau Brodbeck seemed as whole as the day she was taken away for burial. And yet there seemed to be something hidden beneath the wrinkled shell of her. A secret and unpleasant core.

“Is your soul not at rest, Greta?”

I rest. He eats.

The black dog barked.

Something barked back.

It froze Sister Agatha as surely as bolts driven through both feet. The sound of it was not powerful for its volume, nor did it carry the same implicit threat of the black dog. Yet it struck deeper for the...what? The wrongness.

Yes, the wrongness of it. It ate through her ears, burrowed in the coils of her brain like insects and flourished there, sending a pestilence rippling outwards. Bile leapt in her throat, gooseflesh shriveled her skin, and a noxious pit fell open in her stomach that could not decide between a reaction of revulsion or terror.

“That is not a dog,” she heard herself croak. “It cannot be a dog.”

It is and it is not. Leave him be, Agatha. He will be a good boy once he’s done.

Another thunderclap bark from the black dog. Another eldritch answer from his companion. It nearly cackled.

“Greta, is that the white dog out there?”

When Frau Brodbeck did not answer, Sister Agatha turned to her. Regret slammed through her like a giant’s open hand.

Greta Brodbeck was only a third there. A rotten Greta, a piecemeal Greta, more skeleton than flesh in the remains of her burial garb. Only her left hand was perfectly intact, along with its ring. The maggots had given those fingers the courtesy of being their final stop. Elsewhere they were busy weaving in and out of the pallid scraps of meat still left on the rest of her bones. Even that was sparse.

For the other two thirds of Greta Brodbeck had been stolen. Snapped bones jutted from the residual decay, with the marks of great animal teeth and clawed gouges making even this much ragged. It was as if she had been worried at by wolves. Or—

Bark, bark.

What remained of Frau Brodbeck’s face smiled. Half her head was too stripped of meat to do anything else.

Do not worry. I will not miss such a little thing. She raised her left hand—the only hand—and laid it on Sister Agatha’s shoulder. The grip was light, but solid. Cold. If you look, you will regret it.

Sister Agatha blinked. She was alone in the hall. She remained alone, still hearing the barking of the things that were not dogs.

“This must be a dream. I would not do this otherwise.”

For she found herself almost running out into the terrain of the hospital grounds. She was struck only for a heartbeat by the tilted beauty of the night; an alien landscape of flowers and gates and hills she did not know under the pale moonglow. But this respite ended with mayfly speed and any bud of poetry withered and died with it.

Sister Agatha saw the dogs.

The black dog, a hill of fur and lantern eyes, sat as if posed for a portrait. There were no features to it but the eyes, the shape, and the vivid white daggers of its teeth. A decayed human calf was clamped in them. At its feet, slowly disappearing down a different gullet, was a tidy heap of rotting anatomy. Bones and meat and a tumble of organs on which flies and moths hopped, taking their minor fills before the greater maw descended. The maw of the white dog.

The latter was a vision that offended immediately and entirely. Not least because it was a creature that seemed stretched and pressed into the rough mold of a man. The result was a horrid pastiche of both.

It sat stooped on its haunches, the back turned to her as the head bowed low and tore at human gristle. It had hands to hold its meal close, thickly knuckled and set with heavy claws. A hide that was an imperfect tint of deathly grey-white pallor and a dim living brown sheathed the botched architecture of bone and muscle. Its only note of true white was the hair. The bulk of its wild pelt stood along head, shoulders and the stark ladder of the spine. Sister Agatha thought abstractly of mange.

Her hand went to the Cross as God’s words came through her lips. Hearing her, the black dog slowly raised its head. Sister Agatha spoke louder. Faster. The black dog growled once around its mouthful of leg. Sister Agatha knew at once that the black dog could split her with paw or jaw if the urge came.

It was older than the names men had given it. Older than the English’s fatal joke of the church grim, older than Black Shuck. Older than any title breathed upon humanity’s dirt. Older than the hammer and nail and the Son destined to dangle from the trinket at her neck. The black dog had a duty to a force as old as life itself.

Do not interrupt.

“Deliver us—deliver us,” the words were caught in her. “Deliver us from—,”

The white dog turned to look at her. Its mouth was a huge and impossible hollow. It hung wide and grinning as a serpent’s mouth. Just the size for the head staring out at her between the vise of teeth.

Jonathan Harker’s dead gaze met hers just as the jaws snapped shut.

“Sister! Sister! Agatha, it’s alright!”

She woke to a circle of wide-eyed faces hovering over her. One was Sister Klara paused in the act of bringing salts to her nose. Another was Dr. Weiss, looking near a faint himself. The third was—

“Jonathan?”

The young man had stumbled from his bed to come crouch and worry with the others. She recognized the his room, albeit seen from the wrong angle. For some reason she was on the floor.

“Good morning,” he tried to laugh. She found it somehow relieving that he couldn’t. The relief redoubled at the sight of his eyes—grey, yet unclouded. Bright.

“What is this? What’s happened?”

“What happened is you were screaming loud enough to scare the birds,” said Dr. Weiss.

“You were already on the floor,” Sister Klara added, tucking the salts away. “We thought it was a fit until Jonathan pointed out you were asleep.”

“I tried to wake you,” Jonathan murmured, “but at the time I assumed I was still dreaming too.” This time he managed a true and sheepish smile. It sat right on him. “Not a good night’s sleep for either of us, it seems.”

Sister Agatha muttered an agreement and spent the next twenty minutes trying to shoo ensuing questions from her fellows the way one swats at flies. It was not until late afternoon that she returned to check in on Jonathan. Though his hands trembled, he was making steady progress through a meal, forkfuls of beef disappearing one after the other.

“I think this is the first time since you arrived that you have eaten with any appetite.”

“Mm?” he hummed, still chewing. He swallowed hastily and fidgeted with apology. “I think you’re right. A belated gluttony, but for a special occasion.”

“What occasion is that?”

“A twofold celebration. The first, that my latest temperature sees me at 37 °C, and it appears to be holding. The second being our point on the calendar.” Here a bittersweet sort of joy lit him up. Washed out and lean though he remained, Sister Agatha could not deny there was some new ember of vigor struggling to stoke a fire in him. “It has been over thirty days since I arrived here. In those thirty days, yes, I was sick. Last night was…” The chipper new edge to his features wavered. He had laid aside his tray and now rested both hands—rather, clamped them—upon a book in his lap. The only volume he had on his person when the hospital collected him. The only one he had read and reread during his stay.

A small traveler’s journal, a third of its pages made dark with writing. To her knowledge, he had not asked for pen or pencil since coming. He gripped the little book until his knuckles showed white.

“It was a particularly bad one, if only in my head.”

The hands relaxed. He brightened again.

“Yet that itself should be taken as good news. It and the passage of time have, at the very least, provided an overdue confirmation. Whatever concerns lay ahead for me now, they are not the ones I feared most. I will take whatever victories I can in this state. All that said, I think I am about due to take my troubles off your shoulders. To that end, I would ask for one final piece of help.”

It was the 12th of August when Sister Agatha wrote the letters he could not, sending them the same day. There was no barking in the night.

It was the 24th of August when Mina Murray arrived, boiling over with equal parts relief and dismay at the sight of her fiancé. The latter feeling was not helped by the revelation that his current state was a vast improvement to how he had arrived. Still, the couple left St. Joseph and Ste. Mary’s happy, for the Superior saw over their wedding vows right there in Jonathan’s room. They departed as husband and wife and many remarked that there were few couples of greater health or wealth who could boast even a fraction of the joy carried by that blissful pair.

Sister Agatha felt a warm release unfold in her chest as she watched Jonathan Harker depart. A tired young man, his dark hair still feathered with that premature sprinkle of white, but one who transformed with every look at his beloved into the handsome youth he must have been before his shock fractured him. As if Mina Harker’s presence alone were medicine and the fellow’s brain was finally sending orders to mend the body into a presentable shape. She wished the couple well, asked the Lord to shelter them, and rejoiced at another silent night.

It was the 26th of August when Sister Agatha received belated word that there had been some madman at work in a churchyard not a day’s ride away. This she heard from one of the hospital’s cooks.

“Happened two weeks ago, my brother said. Some vandal tore up our poor Frau Brodbeck’s plot. Some fools have tried to put it on wolves, but it is so much ignorance. Wolves have food enough aboveground. They would not put a pack’s efforts into digging up the lady’s fine coffin and rattling her old bones apart.”

“How do you mean?” Sister Agatha asked, praying against an answer. The cook shook her head without lifting it from her work. A hen deprived of its bones, chopped fine, then finer. Something greasy moved in Sister Agatha’s throat at the sight.

“They found her coffin pried open and most of the dear woman torn away. I expect they blamed wolves more than any graverobber or lunatic because her wedding ring was left alone. Even madmen, they think, would not have left the jewelry behind. But Lorant says it must have been a man and a dog, for all the paw prints tearing up the earth about the spot. Which I take to be doubly evil, if I may say it. Staining one’s own hands with such vile work is one thing. Dragging one of God’s kindest creatures into it is cruel. The poor things are too loyal not to go along with their master’s whims and there are such fiends in the world who would abuse it…”

Sister Agatha nodded and excused herself.

There was no barking that night either. She dreamed just the same.

In it, Jonathan Harker had finished the supper of Greta Brodbeck and proceeded to eat himself bite by laughing bite.

SANITARIUM SUITE

Cozening the madman at the window was taking more time than he would normally have suffered if the need were urgent.

As it was to be the first misdirection of many, the lunatic’s invitation would need to happen soon to cement what the valiant knights would declare the timeline of their remaining woman’s violation. The Penelope to her friend’s Helen. He had intended to collect them as a pair anyway, but circumstances had altered his itinerary. Surprises abounded.

Her aid in the would-be crusade, for one.

Jonathan Harker for another.

Oh, but it had taken all his will, and no small amount of interest in another notable face, not to turn his head in Piccadilly as the young man spotted him. All the while gawping and shaking against his wife. If he had not reached out and pressed his screeching mind down to sleep on the bench, his and Mrs. Harker’s small holiday would have been spoiled, and that would not do.

Now here was the lovely couple again. Hale and happy and dreaming whatever the righteous dream of.

He had gained entry to the sanitarium scarcely an instant after the young doctor offered it as their personal sanctum to operate from. Dr. John Seward thought himself a king of this meager castle, his subjects either loyal or too disempowered to do any ill against him. But, like with so many soft rulers of the age, he lost sight of how easy even the strongest foundation could be chipped at with an axe of gold.

In a guise, he had feigned the role of a man seeking a place to store an ‘unwell’ wife. Might he have leave to examine the cells? Cost was no object and he would not cast his dear madwoman into anything but the finest of padded boxes. He had been toured about the place, the madman of the window being already pressed to sleep and his prey busily fussing over his demise floors above. In, out, and gone with the stamp of invitation carried away for future use. Such as now.

Now, when the deeper part of true sleep was pulled ever deeper, until the Harkers drowsed too heavily for dreams. The girl would know nothing of his presence until future visits masked him in the veil of a nightmare. Her young man would not know him at all. Not for some time.

He took a moment to idle once the fog congealed to flesh and bone. His pacing went soundlessly around the room as he lifted this, nudged that. He pondered the merits of silently rearranging the entire room’s furnishings, including the bed and its sleepers, for the lot of them to wake to. It would almost be worth it to imagine their faces. The thought tickled enough to make him lay a plotting hand on the headboard.

But no, it would be too much a waste. They did not know of his premature access and it was best to keep them blind until the madman caved to him. There was time enough to play later. For now, work. Insomuch as he could call the matter any sort of labor.

He circled to Mina Harker’s side of the bed and lifted the whorls of hair off her neck. Simple access. But on the chance that her husband or their assembled champions had the wit to check one another’s throats, a less obvious location was called for. And really, he had started this excursion in the spirit of holiday. Why not indulge?

Pressing at the couple’s minds again, he sank them just short of a comatose stupor, then peeled away the covers. Her nightdress was already rucked suitably high. The mark he left upon the handle of her hip was small. A pinprick that might be attributed to any number of scratches and jabs from her daily ensemble. More, unless she was the sort to twirl bare before the mirror, only her husband would manage to spot the pinpricks. Despite the young man’s experience, even he would not recognize so meager a wound.

His bite broke her skin as daintily as toothpicks sinking into fresh bread. One sip. Another. Done.

The impatient hedonist in him stamped its feet and demanded a deeper drink; such a small nip was barely enough to slick his teeth.

“A moment, a moment,” he hummed to himself. He slit his finger on a canine. “Business comes first.”

The cut dripped a murkier red than living blood, but it was his, and that was key. With one hand he parted the girl’s lips and slid the bleeding digit down onto her tongue. The blood ran on its destined route. A pitifully dull sight compared to what was to come. He had rehearsed the eventual pose in his mind a dozen times already, likewise the inevitable gnashing of fangs and wicked litanies. Even clever children needed pageantry to goad them along now and then. His theatre with Mrs. Harker was destined to be one of his gaudier performances. The people of this land were such cringing sorts. A glimpse of his bloodied breast in her shrieking mouth would stick them all like a hot spur. Especially her dozing neighbor.

“I wish I could be there as it happens,” he whispered to the sleeping faces. He took the finger back and saw, to no surprise, it had healed already. His knuckle tipped her chin up until the mouth closed. “I know there will be much more to see. Far greater sights to share.” His hand drifted to Jonathan Harker’s head and crawled in the brown-white field of hair. The hand crept to the shelf of his cheek as he traced the vanished trail of that slipped razor. “But I hate that the game needs so much distance in this stage.”

His claw swiped open a new red line. He bent to it, tasting the cut until, as before, it sealed. The young man slept on.

He floated away to the cupboards and drawers of the little space. Here was the typewriter standing like a beacon of temptation on the desk. It would take only the smallest note to upheave them all:

My Friend,

Thank you for tonight’s drink and those before it. See you soon.

—D

Again he resisted.

Though not quite enough to ignore the collection of typed memorandum Mrs. Harker had amassed. Hours crept by as his practiced gaze flew through the assorted narratives. Much of it bored him to the point of pain, bar the doctor’s description of his poor Helen—ah, no, Lucy—and her cruel demise. He had felt her destruction even at a distance, like the severing of a limb. Brisk as their time had been, she had been his, and the robbery would have demanded recompense even if the knights were not striving for his end.

“When the time comes,” he told the shape of Mrs. Harker, “do not take your new lot as my seeking a mere replacement. I mean that sincerely. It will be a revenge. You have done sizable work here,” he rustled the pages, “and are deserving of a retribution for your own sake. I would not short you such a private attention.”

There was scarcely anything else worth noting beyond the scant half-truths the Dutchman was feeding them. It was pleasing to see that the nonsense with the garlic flowers and the crucifixes had been swallowed like honey with only a few days’ playacting and toying with the wolf. He wondered if they would get to the Wafer trick with him before the game moved to the next phase.

Setting aside this latest drudgery, he thumbed until he found a surprise wedged near the bottom of the stack, a buried treasure. His eyes flashed like suns as he turned the horrid crescent of his smile to the man in the bed.

“You kept a diary? Wherever did you hide it?”

Mr. Harker stayed silent on the matter. So he remained as his translated entries were devoured page by page. His reader nearly sulked as the section reached its end. The newer entries were perused, but there was little enough intrigue in them. Nothing but loving foam and earnest goodwill and yet more swooning over the apparent genius of the Dutchman. Yet there was some gold to sift from the dirt. Of the two ills that had rattled him since his miraculous departure, it had been the fear of madness more than monsters that wounded his spirit. Uncertainty had been the thing to unmoor him. Even a reality populated with demons could be shouldered so long as he knew it to be reality.

“Good man,” his reader intoned. “Too many take the opposite turn. They break and never repair. But look at you, my friend. Ready to hunt once the goal is set. It is almost worth it to have you run away from home.”

Smiling, he set the typed pages back where he found them. It was even shorter work to unearth the journal itself. No longer afraid of spies, the good solicitor had tucked the slim volume under his pillow. His wife had done likewise. Still in the damned shorthand, he saw. He had intended to begin studying the art of that curt cipher once he was established in his desired estates. Rather, as fate had conspired, if he was settled. He shook his head. Such a thin holiday, this!

A last impetuous urge tugged at him to make off like a burglar with the journals. Perhaps even the typewriter. The pens, the pencils, the paper, the ink…

“No, I will not,” he sighed and tucked the diaries back in their places, laying the sleeping heads back in the dents of their pillows. “A poor attempt at our old fun is no reason to spoil our time to come.” He walked his nails under Mr. Harker’s jaw. “Thirsty work lays ahead, my friend. Would you mind terribly? Your darling scarcely spared a drop.” His young friend gave wordless assent. “My thanks.”

Memory rolled back to that final night shared in June, the pretense dead, the door swung open, the crucifix’s nettle-sting cast away with a swat as the awaited meal was thrust screaming into his teeth. His friend had been far too addled with consciousness to be pressed into sleep or trance. No, it had come down to the comic tragedy of a struggle. He almost laughed now to think of how the shaving razor had been waiting behind the crucifix, wanting to harvest something from the expected thief.

Again, too fast for such flailing.

He had drunk deep with his friend awake and hating and wetly muted against any prayer that might have come to mind. Finished, he had snatched the razor away and left his guest to mull the next night and those to follow with his eager keepers. Good-night, good-night, my friend, thank you for all you have given.

Once away, he had related much of the scene to his loves before their laughing lot shut themselves in to sleep. Not to worry, not to worry, the young man was not depleted. Nor would he ever be, should all go well. Too much good evidence suggested it would. Even Mr. Harker’s escape from his hostesses was a positive sign.

“Do not think I failed to notice all you did not write, my friend,” he spoke against the unmarred throat. “Was it because you thought it brought no merit, leaving them as a living man? Or because you knew others would read the whole of it? What would she think of that night? Of all the ones before it?” The spires of his teeth shined. “I wonder.” They slid into the pulse with perfect neatness.

The sleeping face hardly twitched. Seconds passed. A minute. Then he was unhooked from the red fountain and nursing the residue from his gums. The punctures closed before he counted to ten. He drummed his fingers over the spot.

“Much quicker than our misadventure in Munich, yes? I thought that fretting little soldier might have gone after you even with the officer there. He almost popped your skull even before he saw the mark. I do wish that scene had made it to your diary, if only to see how you might scramble to make it rational. Did you disregard it as imagination? What do you think of it now, my friend?” He bent until his mouth was nearly in the shell of the young man’s ear. “I have saved you more than once since you first crossed the water. Despite how you chose to repay me.” He took up one of the sleeper’s hands and pressed the fingers to the unchanged scar upon his white brow. “I would be most annoyed at this if it did not prove me right. A shovel, Jonathan! Of all things!”

He bit back a tide of laughter and laid the limp hand down upon Mrs. Harker.

“No, please, you need not apologize now, nor pour out your thanks. All will be mended in due time. We have aided each other already, as is only right for friends.” He righted the clothes and the covers until the couple was as they’d been. “My Harkers, my Harkers. We have such work before us. And play, where it can be taken.” He was all but vapor now. Eyes and a smile pinned to smoke. “I look forward to it.”

With that, the last of him faded and leaked away into the far corners of the night.

#dracula #dracula daily #barking harker #my writing #teaser chapter #jonathan harker #monster jonathan harker #dracula bad ending #horror #be advised: This is a Big Read+#grab yourself some candy from the trick-or-treater bowl and get comfortable #and have a Happy Halloween!

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tenebris-lux · 9 months

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Quite an episode today! So many good parts.

Ben Galpin did a wonderful job voicing a man who’s recovering from something horrible and dark. Jonathan is careful with his words, as talking just enough to tell Mina that he needs to steer clear of that time is still treading the edge of unstable ground. Poor man. The fear and dread in his voice as he talks about just this much….

The music at this point had suspenseful ambiance. We all know what he went through, but Mina has no idea. But she can see him here, see what the experience (whatever it was) has done to him; hear his words as he says her full first name. Galpin’s delivery was perfect. Just through hearing his voice, I could imagine how Jonathan must be staring at the closed journal in his lap, the way his fingers grasp it as he doesn’t dare open it; like it’s Pandora’s box.

When I read the book again earlier this year and Mina talked about her wedding present, I was worried. I was thinking, “oh no, don’t make that promise, Mina. It’s well-meant and sweet and noble, but NOT a good idea.” I kept thinking of it as a visible proof of trust between them. While that is part of it, however, now through hearing it, I’m having second thoughts. She wrapped it up like a package, which disguises the appearance of it and puts it in a state to still some of the moving chaos in Jonathan’s mind. He won’t wonder, “Has she read it? Should I read it?” or tear himself to bits with worrying about it. It doesn’t even look like the journal he took on his trip to Romania now. It’s locked up. If the journal is Pandora’s box, Mina just put a bolt and padlock on it, so there’s no getting in there without effort. And I missed it earlier, but she didn’t promise to never open it; she’d only do so if some kind of crisis happens, in which case opening the journal wouldn’t be the cause of chaos, but could only possibly become an aid. So now I think that was a really clever idea. As for the visible proof of trust aspect, it’s there because if Jonathan has doubts in his own mind, he can at least count on her. That’s the real message there. He can trust her and her judgment.

I loved Sister Agatha’s insight. She won’t break confidentiality, but she can put some possibilities to bed. I don’t think that Mina thought at all that Jonathan had an affair since she got Agatha’s letter, but the possibility probably crossed her mind a few times during the long silence before that, when she had nothing to go on. So when Agatha brought it up, I think Mina realized she had forgotten about the idea and was relieved that she need never wonder again.

The music turned … the words that come to my mind are “victorious” and “triumphant”, when they got married. And well it should be. I wouldn’t use the word “joyous”, although there was joy in Mina’s voice and in the music. I think the feeling of victory and overcoming is appropriate here. It’s a triumph that Jonathan escaped and is alive; it’s a triumph that Mina’s helpless waiting was rewarded; it’s a triumph that they are reunited, and at last, at long LONG LAST, they are married. Jonathan’s not completely okay now, but he will get better. They crossed a giant hurdle, and can make each other stronger.

That’s the feeling the music conveys.

But then the abrupt change as we switch to Lucy.

The fear is back. Beth Eyre’s Lucy is always quiet and gentle, but the quietness is different this time. It’s tense, nervous, dreading. We all know that Dracula has resumed his feeding off of her. And now she’s alone. No bedmate to hang onto the key, or pull her back to bed if she sleepwalks. And no one to scare off the bats and shadows haunting Lucy.

She’s on her own. Smart of her to start keeping a diary, now that no one’s there to bear witness (her mum being a helpless case).

#Mina harker #jonathan harker #sister agatha #lucy westenra #dracula #re: dracula #dracula daily

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magpiefngrl · 1 year

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2022 Book Review

so the first thing I noticed, looking back at what I read this year, is that I haven't read any books that blew me away (with one exception, see below). Unlike 2021 (see last year's posts here and a short one here) when I read books that left me with my jaw on the floor. The other thing I noticed is that in 2022 I went for a lot of rereads. I'm a big re-reader, if I love something I want to expose myself to it as often as I can, but this year I reread way more than I normally do. Then again, I've had a super busy summer and some pretty tough months following that, so it's not so surprising I sought out familiarity and comfort.

Total books read: (if I finish current read) 82 81

Books that stood out in 2022 and other musings:

I. The Queen's Thief series (you'll also see me refer to it as The Thief). Prob my most enjoyable read of the year. Two of the six books thrilled me in a way I hadn't felt in yonks and the other four were pretty good too. Also: A. I'm proud of starting and finishing a series in the same year, it doesn't always happen. B. jfc I have a new blorbo I'd die for.

II. The Wimsey books. I started going through them chronologically and read all of them (bar one, I think). I'm pleased that I started the series and finished it--like I said above, it doesn't often happen, esp in recent years. These are murder mysteries featuring a Duke's younger brother as the amateur sleuth. The mysteries aren't Agatha Christie level of competence (I figured out several murderers before the reveal and I'm not even particularly good at this), nor are all the novels equally good, but Sayer's witty prose was a true joy and her dialogue is a masterpiece.

III. Other top books of the year:

Siren Queen (queer SFF), Black Sun (native American inspired SFF), The Atlas Six (dark academia SFF), How to Bang a Billionaire (contemporary m/m romance), The Goldfinch (contemporary literary), Hogfather (fantasy, humour), and Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (historical fantasy, am at 70% and really loving it).

IV. I'm always excited to see fanfic authors moving on to original fic and I try to support those authors when I can. I've now created a shelf on my GoodReads so I can keep track. This year I read A Restless Truth, the sequel to Marvellous Light by Freya Marske, which was tremendously engaging, and I also read the self-published duology Magpie Ballads (Elegy is the first novel's title) by Vale Aida (only on Amazon atm). This author is superb, I truly love their writing style and how confidently they handle their craft (description, dialogue, narration etc). I have Thoughts TM on plot and story, but overall a very strong debut.

V. The exception (mentioned above): Lymond. What else. I finished Pawn in Frankincense in January and it destroyed me. Absolutely left me in a puddle weeping on the floor. I'd stalled in the book (and series) halfway through for years now. Each 1st Jan I'd be like "...and I need to finish the Lymond books this year!!!!" and it never happened--but then, in 2022, it (almost) did. I also read The Ringed Castle in autumn and am one third in Checkmate. Progress! (I had high hopes of finishing CM before NY but alas. Still trying to finish another long book.) Anyway, Pawn in Frankincense is the novel that blew me away in 2022.

VI. The new thing of the year: receiving daily-ish emails in my inbox with chapters from a classic book. I didn't go for Dracula as I read it some years ago but I signed up for Dangerous Liaisons. I was familiar with the plot, having watched the amazing adaptation (and the other, less than amazing one), but I still enjoyed the book a great deal. Receiving the letters in my inbox was a new and fun experience.

VII. Disappointments! Let's have some of those. The Glass Hotel: found it bleak and dull; DNF'ed it but I might return to it when I've got the energy for a slow story. Wilder Girls: not quite a disappointment but it could've done a lot more with that unique premise. Time Is A Mother (poetry collection): sacrilegious perhaps, but Vuong's Night Sky with Exit Wounds is unparalleled and this one suffers in comparison. Alix E Harrow has turned out to be a hit-or-miss author for me after all. Although I loved the first installment of her fairytale verse, I found A Mirror Mended lacked the depth of the first novella. Good but not memorable. And finally Nghi Vo's Into the Riverlands, the third novella of her Singing Hills Cycle, was OK. A decent read but nothing more.

VIII. I don't read non-fiction at all, it's really not my thing, unless it's books on the writing craft. I used to seek them out avidly, but not anymore. After going through a couple dozen of these books, you realise they all start sounding alike. That being said, writing craft books can be motivating during times of block and often you might find a few gems of advice that can be very inspiring. This year I only read one such book (Writing 21st Century Fiction by D. Maas), which was nothing ground-breaking but included a few exercises that I'm eager to try.

What were your fave reads of 2022? Let me know or tag me, I'm very curious about the books people love.

#books #2022 books #long post #book recs

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lena-after-dark · 2 years

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Masterlist

Who I write for is listed below:

Individual masterlists will be linked as they are created. Don't see a character you like? Send me an ask! I may be willing to add them.

American Horror Story

The Countess Dandy Mott Misty Day

Bates Motel/Psycho

Norma Bates Norman Bates

Blade

Deacon Frost Eric Brooks/Blade Mercury

Bleach

Byakuya Kuchiki Findorr Calius Gin Ichimaru Jin Kariya Kenpachi Zaraki Kensei Muguruma Mayuri Kurotsuchi Retsu Unohana Ryo Utagawa Sosuke Aizen Szayelaporro Granz Yoshi

Cabinet of Curiosities

Jenkins Brown (possessing Walter) Richard Pickman Walter Gilman

Cobra Kai/The Karate Kid

Da-Eun Kim Daniel LaRusso John Kreese Terry Silver

Courage the Cowardly Dog

Black Puddle Queen Freaky Fred

The Crow

Eric Draven Myca Top Dollar

Bruce Wayne/Batman (Bale) Edward Nashton/The Riddler (Dano) Edward Nygma/The Riddler (Carrey + Smith) Fish Mooney Harley Quinn (Robbie) Jervis Tetch/ Hatter Jonathan Crane/Scarecrow (Murphy) Joker (Ledger + Phoenix) Orm Marius Oswald Cobblepot (Taylor) Victor Zsasz (Carrigan)

Dead to Me

Jen Harding Judy Hale

Disney (* denotes live action only)

Claude Frollo Cruella DeVil* (2021) Diaval* Maleficent* King Stefan*

Evil Dead Rise

Ellie

The Faculty

Edward Furlong Elizabeth Burke Joe Willis

Firefly Trilogy

Baby Firefly Otis B Driftwood Foxy Coltraine

Final Fantasy

Cid Bunansa/Dr. Cid Kadaj Loz Lulu Rufus Shinra Sephiroth Seymour Guado Vayne Solidor Vincent Valentine Yazoo

Funny Games

Paul Peter

Game of Thrones

Brienne of Tarth Cersei Lannister Jaqen H'Ghar Margaery Tyrell Melisandre Petyr Baelish Ramsay Bolton

House of the Dragon

Aemond Targaryen Daemon Targaryen Larys Strong

Hunter x Hunter

Chrollo Lucifer Hisoka Morou Illumi Zoldyck Uvogin

Insidious

Josh Lambert + Parker Crane possessing Josh Steven "Specs" Fisher

Jujutsu Kaisen

Choso Kamo Geto Suguru (+ Kenjaku) Mahito Mei Mei Nanami Kento Ryomen Sukuna Toji Fushiguro

The Legend of Zelda

Ganondorf (Twilight Princess) Ghirahim Midna Sidon Zant

The Letter for the King

Jaro Viridian

Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit

Beorn Grima Wormtongue Thranduil

MCU

Agatha Harkness Heimdall Hela M'Baku Melina Vostokoff Namor/K’uk’ulkan Natasha Romanoff Norman Osborn/Green Goblin Okoye Olivia Octavius/Doc Ock Otto Octavius/Doc Ock Peter Parker (Maguire) Ultron Wanda Maximoff

My Hero Academa

Enji Todoroki/Endeavor Shota Aizawa/Eraserhead

Naruto

Deidara Hidan Kakazu Kisame Orochimaru

One Piece (Live Action ONLY)

Buggy Garp Kuro Sanji

Repo! The Genetic Opera

Amber Sweet Luigi Largo Nathan Wallace Pavi Largo

Saw

Adam Faulkner-Stanheight Amanda Young John Kramer

Silent Hill

Pyramid Head Vincent Smith

Stranger Things

001/Henry Creel Dmitri "Enzo" Antonov Joyce Byers

Thirteen Ghosts:

Dana Newman/The Angry Princess Dennis Rafkin Horace Mahoney/The Juggernaut Royce Clayton/The Torn Prince Ryan Kuhn/The Jackal

Us:

Abraham Tex

Wednesday

Larissa Weems Marilyn Thornhill

Would You Rather

Julian Lambrick Shepard Lambrick

X-Files

Cecil L'ively Dana Scully Fox Mulder Luther Lee Boggs

Misc. Characters

Adrian Tepes/Alucard (Castlevania) Albert Shaw/The Grabber (The Black Phone) Bill Cipher (Gravity Falls) Bo Sinclair (House of Wax) Cesaire (Red Riding Hood) Commodus (Gladiator) Creepy Thin Man (Charlie's Angels) Daniel Robitaille/Candyman (1992) Doug Davis (Cooties) Dracula (Lugosi + Bang) Ellie (Evil Dead Rise) Habit (EverymanHYBRID) John Ryder (The Hitcher) John Wick Kruger (Elysium) Kusuriuri/Medicine Seller (Mononoke) L Lawliet (Death Note) The Man (Hush) Moira (The Princess) Quentin Shermer/The Blissfield Butcher (Freaky) Rachel Summers (The Uninvited) Ransom Drysdale (Knives Out) Ross Humboldt (In the Tall Grass)

Celebrities* (see request rules)

Angela Bassett Idris Elba Jeffrey Dean Morgan Kathryn Hahn Patrick Wilson Sigourney Weaver Vera Farmiga

#masterlist #fandom list #character list

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rallamajoop · 2 years

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Dracula canons in Yuletide 2022

Unsurprisingly, in the wake of that whole Daily Dracula thing, there were a lot of Draculas nominated for this year's Yuletide exchange this year ‒ not just a lot of Dracula characters, but whole different adaptations of the novel. And being that kind of terrible Dracula-nerd, I figured I'd make a list and share some notes on which-version-is-which. Now, I've only seen about half of these, and can't speak to what all the other folks who actually nominated them loved about them, but I'll take any excuse to ramble on about different Dracula-adaptations at this point, so here we go.

We've got a couple of movies, a couple of telemovies, a TV series and even a musical to cover here, so I'm just gonna put them all in chronological order, starting with the novel.

Dracula - Bram Stoker (Novel 1897)

Nominated characters: Abraham Van Helsing Arthur Holmwood The Correspondent Dracula John "Jack" Seward Jonathan Harker Lucy Westenra Lucy Westenra's Mother Mina Murray Harker Mr. Hawkins Mr. Swales Quincey Morris

Damn, Daily Dracula has done it's thing: folks have nominated basically everyone. (Well... except Sister Agatha. GDI, where's Sister Agatha, people?! Has that 2020 Moffat/Gatiss version put everyone off?)

But, moving onto the adaptations-

1. Dracula (Movies - Hammer) (1958-1974)

Nominated characters: Dracula Lawrence Van Helsing | J. Van Helsing Lorrimer Van Helsing

Okay, yes ‒ this nomination was me. Look, Peter Cushing's Van Helsing was being reincarnated into whole new eras and having confusing chemistry with Christopher Lee's Dracula long before anyone ever thought to do the reincarnation-thing with Mina, and I want all the fic about it, is that so wrong? (Or, you know, the excuse to write some myself. Or really anything about these versions of the characters interacting ‒ I'm not picky!)

2. Count Dracula (1977)

Nominated characters: Abraham Van Helsing Jonathan Harker Mina Harker Renfield

One of the two British telemovie Dracula adaptations to come out of the 1970's (the 70's was a BIG decade for Dracula). This one was the more faithful to the novel ‒ too faithful, if anything, since some new ideas or creative storytelling could have gone a long way to distract from the limitations of the budget. That said, I did like their Dracula: the costuming isn't much to write home about, but he has enough presence to elevate every scene he's in (and, I mean, if you're going to get one thing really right in a Dracula adaptation...)

3. Dracula (2006)

Nominated characters: Abraham Van Helsing John Seward Lucy Holmwood Mina Murray

Yet another British television Dracula, this time one where Arthur Holmwood is tricked into helping bring Dracula to British shores by a vampire-worshipping cult, in the mistaken belief the Count can somehow cure him of congenital syphilis. No, really! Seriously though, my biggest disappointment with this one was it didn't go wild and weird enough ‒ the sad soap opera life of Arthur & friends just can't hope to compete with all that high-gothic camp, and 90 minutes just isn't time for all these ideas to breathe. But it must be said, Marc Warren makes a surprisingly compelling Dracula, and his one big vampire-sex-scene with Lucy is... quite something. Basically, I can definitely see why someone might want fic about these versions of the characters ‒ there's lots in this universe left to expand on.

4. Dracula: l'amour plus fort que la mort - Ouali (2011)

Nominated characters: Jonathan Harker Poison Satine Sorci

Well, okay. This one is, er, a French musical version? XD God, do I love the stuff you'll find nominated for Yuletide! So: not a version I'm familiar with, but going by this one summary I found, what we have here is one of the (MANY) post-1991-Coppola-version rip-offs where Mina is a reincarnation of Dracula's wife... but also one where Dracula hasn't spoken since his wife's death, and now employs three very gloriously campy servants to speak for him (Poison, Satine and Sorci, from the noms above). As someone who doesn't speak a word of French and knows this thing only from 5 minutes on youtube (I mean, the whole show's up there, though the quality's not great), these three are great value, and I can totally see why someone would nominate them for Yuletide.

5. Dracula (TV 2013)

Nominated characters: Lucy Westenra Mina Murray Alexander Grayson | Dracula Jayne Wetherby

A short-lived TV series reimagining of Dracula, where the Count shows up in London posing as an American steampunk inventor called Alexander Grayson, and yet another of the (many) post-Coppola versions where Mina is the reincarnation of Dracula's tragically-dead-wife, etc. Admittedly, this is an adaptation I know only by its reputation as the show that that finally gave us lesbian!Lucy (!!!) only to have her turn around and sleep with Jonathan for dubious plot reasons (theFUCK?) ‒ but I'd be the last to judge anyone who enjoyed it as a guilty pleasure and/or just wants to run away with the characters and let them have some real fun.

6. Bram Stoker’s Van Helsing (2021)

Nominated characters: Abraham Van Helsing Arthur Holmwood John Seward Lucy Westenra

Huh. Well, okay. First point: the poster is a lie ‒ this actually seems to be a fairly-straight, (very) low-budget film adaptation of the novel ‒ just one that starts about when Van Helsing arrives (ie, when Lucy is already very ill). So, more drawing-room-drama than Hugh-Jackman-material. Have not seen it, but have a trailer! Now you know just about as much about it as I do.

Honourable mentions

In the "do I even count this?" bonus round, we've also got the 2016 Van Helsing TV series (nominated characters: Axel Miller and Catherine) ‒ a show set post-vampire!apocalypse and starring a Van Helsing descendant. There's also a character called Van Helsing nominated for the Kyuuketsuki Sugu Shinu | The Vampire Dies in No Time manga, and a "Dracula Vance" nominated for a video game called Panilla Saga, about whom google will tell me nothing very illuminating. Ah, well. Seriously though, the total number of different Van Helsings nominated in this year's Yuletide must be some kind of record.

I'd also be remiss not to mention that the original 1872 Carmilla is also nominated, as is the excellent 1970 Hammer adaptation The Vampire Lovers. And rounding out our list of Victorian vampire lit, some weirdo has also nominated Varney the Vampire, but that one really needs its whole own post...

#Dracula #Dracula Daily #Yuletide 2022 #Hammer Dracula #Count Dracula (1977)#Dracula (2006)#Dracula: l'amour plus fort que la mort #Dracula (2013)#Bram Stoker’s Van Helsing (2021)

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vickyvicarious · 2 years

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I woke with the dawn, and heard the birds chirping outside of the window. Lucy woke, too, and, I was glad to see, was even better than on the previous morning. All her old gaiety of manner seemed to have come back, and she came and snuggled in beside me and told me all about Arthur. I told her how anxious I was about Jonathan, and then she tried to comfort me. Well, she succeeded somewhat, for, though sympathy can't alter facts, it can help to make them more bearable.

This bit is really sweet but also kind of sad to me. Lucy, freshly hopped up on "Dracula drank from me" energy, is finally her old self again, and starts talking excitedly about her fiance. That's not terrible by any means (other than what caused this sudden burst of energy), and maybe only refers to her seeing past all her recent nerves/stress to why she agreed to marry the guy in the first place. She's looking on the bright side, not worrying about their parents' health or how the wedding will have to go perfectly or what her new role in society will be or whatever else has been making her so nervous. She wakes up with the sun shining, birds singing, and thinks 'I'm in love.' She's focusing on the good again, and wants to share that with Mina.

Which is where it gets a little tone-deaf, perhaps? On the one hand, Mina is certainly the kind of friend who isn't going to mention what's bothering her until Lucy is taken care of. She doesn't want to stress Lucy out further or give voice to her own fears. She's written about Jonathan in pretty much every single journal entry but rarely longer than a line or two, like she’s afraid to dwell on it too much even in her own private diary. I don't think she has been confiding in Lucy at all - not wanting to stress her friend only more, and maybe distracting herself somewhat by taking care of Lucy instead.

On the other hand, snuggling up and bragging about your fiance to the lady whose own fiance is off in a foreign country and hasn't been heard from in a long time, well after he was supposed to return home... it's kinda rude, no matter how little she has been actively saying about it. I think the options are Lucy being a little forgetful, given her own sudden change of mood and the fact that Mina hasn't spoken much about how scared she is, or Lucy deliberately showing Mina that she's okay in a way that leads the conversation to Jonathan so she can take a turn comforting her friend.

Either way, its a bit sad that it came to all this before Mina finally was able to really voice her fears and be comforted by someone. She's been holding it together for a long time - thank goodness she'll get Sister Agatha's letter in a bit. And I'm very glad she was able to finally confide in Lucy here.

#dracula daily

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mzannthropy · 11 months

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From time to time I like to muse about what book adaptations I'd like to see Sam Claflin star in (like, there is no law that say he can't do more of them, is there). More under the cut:

Of course, the first one I will say is Agatha Christie. There are quite a few suitable characters that he could play, be it murderers or heroes. Remember Chris Evans in Knives Out, particularly that scene when the will is read out, where he goes "eat shit" at everyone--Sam would totally kill it playing someone similar. Benoit Blanc films are Agatha Christie derivative and Ransome is a very typical Agatha Christie character, so he could be one of those. As for the heroic ones, there's still plenty, for example I've just thought about Angus from Towards Zero. The good thing about Agatha's books, aside from them being fantastic mysteries, is that there is almost always a love story (usually two people who met thanks to the crime and may have been suspects but are innocent getting together), so there'd be that too.

My second favourite author is L.M. Montgomery, and you know who I'm gonna suggest as a character for Sam to play--it's got to be the one and the only Barney Snaith from The Blue Castle. (For those unfamiliar, he's the swoon worthiest of all swoon worthy romantic heroes, also go read the book, it's in the public domain.) That is if people are okay with a British actor playing a Canadian. Sam would have no problem getting the accent right, but seeing as LMM is such a cultural treasure, they might prefer a Canadian actor.

Anne Bronte's Tenant of Wildfell Hall surely needs a new adaptation. I'd like to see Sam playing Gilbert Markham, the main male character of the story. Anne doesn't get as much recognition as her sisters bc Charlotte cancelled her, but she deserves it as much as them. The book is about a woman escaping from her abusive husband, undoubtedly an important topic.

Dracula, if we could finally get a proper accurate adaptation. Sam could play any of the suitor squad (Jonathan should be someone younger, imo), but the one I think he'd capture best is Jack Seward.

These are the main ones I thought about. Not much, but then my reading has been... tragic for the last decade or so. I like Daphne du Maurier, though I've only read some of her works and Sam's already done My Cousin Rachel. But the other day I imagined Sam as Jem Merlyn in Jamaica Inn and got myself all hot and worked up.

#sam claflin #samblogging #book adaptations #agatha christie #l.m.montgomery #lmmblogging #dracula #daphne du maurier #mypost

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ranthebow · 1 year

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Thoughts about BBC Dracula

So, I ended up watching the entirety of BBC Dracula yesterday and I have thoughts. Don’t know how many will make it here and how coherent they will be, but I’ve just been thinking about it all day and I’d like to just write them down. Warning, spoilers ahead.

On one hand, I think I quite enjoyed watching it. There is clever dialogue, fun sexual tension with the women clearly being the top (Sister Agatha’s verbal whipping of Dracula in the first episode is such a delight). They also took the story of Dracula and tried to do something new with it, taking characters and situations we know and turning them into something new and surprising, just enough to keep me, an avid Dracula fan, on my toes.

However!

So, so many things were just...bad, at the same time. The clever dialogue sometimes turned into cringey, modern one-liners, because that’s just what shows do these days. Character’s actions didn’t make sense based on what we knew motivated them, usually within the second or third act of their own character arcs. Queerness was kind of thrown into the mix, in a really random way, just to say it was there? Like, yes, Dracula has a lot of queer energy, especially his interactions with Jonathan, even in the book, but considering how they handled that as the episodes went on (starting with a very dramatic “Did you have sexual intercourse with Count Dracula?” at the beginning of episode 1, just for the shock), it really felt awkwardly placed in there. The first episode was so queer coded. There was so much potential!! And then Jonathan dies, and all that potential is thrown out the window. It was strange. And then, the worst of it all...the very last episode.

Episode 1 was focused on Jonathan Harker’s experience and escape from Count Dracula, as well as introducing Agatha Van Helsing and having her interact with Dracula in a very confident, sexually charged way, with her tentatively winning. That is, of course, until the end of the episode, where Dracula gains the upper hand and does something with her (we don’t know what yet). Then, episode 2, Dracula has the upper hand in another sexually charged battle of wits with Agatha. Only for...Agatha to die and episode 3 (the final episode) to be set 100 years later? With an Agatha look-a-like? This comes back to the idea that things were set up, had so much potential, and they went for the easy shock, rather than a satisfying conclusion. Like, yes, I was very shocked when Dracula walked out onto the beach and was immediately surrounded by helicopters and cars, indicating that he was no longer in the time we had just seen him in. But then it quickly became clear that was all they had planned to do with it. All the character interactions we had come to love and expect, just gone. Everything we know to be true about the world, gone. It’s new and alien, even for the viewer. So much of episode 3 was just spent on setting up new characters. And for what? That’s not what I had hoped to see at that point. Agatha had won, than Dracula had won, making them equal for one last showdown in what could have been a very interesting episode 3. But that’s not what happened! It made me want to not care for the new characters, almost out of spite of how different the show suddenly felt. And the writers tried to rectify this problem (clearly showing they knew it was going to be a problem) by...essentially making Zoe be possessed by Agatha? Like, why though?? Zoe clearly was a different person and didn’t have the same chemistry, or history, that Agatha did with Dracula. And the writers knew that was the main hook of the first two episodes, the interactions between Dracula and Agatha. So to tie it all together, they had to bring Agatha back somehow? When they killed her in the first place, just for the shock of it? And then!! Even more annoying...they had set up this big thing, from episode one, that there was a singular reason that ties all of Dracula’s lore together, from his fear of the cross to his inability to stand the sun, all things that only he experienced, no other vampire. And it was just because he had convinced himself to be afraid? That’s what made him different from other vampires? That he was a coward? Then how did he stay sane for hundreds of years when, apparently, no other vampire can? Everything was made to seem so clever, only for everything that happened at the end, that ties it all together, to be so silly. That entire final scene in Dracula’s apartment is so unsatisfying, until the very end, when he is killing her (and killing himself in the process). That scene was lovely and an actually great ending. But it was clearly Agatha at that point again, so what was the point of making it modern in the first place?

Okay, I have so many more thoughts haha, from how BBC Dracula missed the point of Dracula (which I still want to see, even when adaptations do cool, new stuff with the story) to more things that I actually liked about it, because there is a lot more than I mentioned (like Lucy. I really liked Lucy...until they messed up her motivation just as she died too), but I feel like I wrote a lot so that might come later. Hey, if nothing else, this is a piece of media that made me think! I had fun with it, for sure. The more I like something, the more likely I am to critique it, especially when my like of it feels like such a guilty pleasure considering all these things I clearly didn’t like about it lol. I’ll always be a sucker for Dracula content, it’s true

#bbc dracula #dracula bbc #dracula #dracula discourse #agatha van helsing #van helsing #my thoughts #dracula 2020

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anncanta · 4 months

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***

It's amazing how some things reveal themselves when you look at them from the outside, through someone else's eyes, or after some time, when you forget the details that lie in the foreground and therefore seem obvious.

I couldn't figure out where I got this pattern in which Dracula in my fanfictions is very careful with Agatha the first time he bites her. It was so bright and acutely palpable, and it appeared again and again. Dracula behaves gently, he does not rush her and somehow makes her understand that it will not be painful and scary, and interesting discoveries await her. You see, it seemed to me that this was just my fantasy. Well, you never know what kind of kinks a person can have. Such light BDSM in a vampire way.

And then I understood, thanks to @moremoveslessannouncements-blog and her post, why. It's in the text. Fanfiction never lies. Fanfics always show what is in the canon, it just may be the main feature of the hero or plot or a secondary one. But in this case, everything was right before my eyes.

You see, I always thought that in the scene in the workshop, he was threatening her. ‘I will make you last’, ‘You'll be part of me’, ‘You'll travel to the new world in my veins’ ... This text is truly threatening. If it weren't for the body language that accompanies it.

Context is important, especially the physical, bodily context.

This is not a threat.

This is a threat.

If you forget about the text for a moment and watch what Dracula is doing, he slowly approaches her, looks at her intently, and gently runs his hand along her neck.

Let's turn on the sound and look at everything together. And again we ask the question – what is he doing?

I mean, not what are his actions, but what are they about?

And I'll tell you. He explains to her what will happen.

And when I realized this, I realized how blind I was. Because, well, look. How many of his victims did Dracula explain what he was going to do to them and how it worked?

Jonathan didn't even know what Dracula was doing until he found himself exhausted at his desk with the prospect of being locked in a box in a couple of weeks.

The Grand Duchess was eaten during a passionate waltz, without further ado.

Abramov and Portman were devoured almost without ceremony.

With Dorabella, Dracula made a good attempt to be polite and gallant but did not go into details of what was happening.

I purposely describe this so cynically so that it is clear what I mean.

Agatha is the only one of all Dracula's victims (perhaps except for Lucy, but that's a separate discussion) to whom he explains what would happen.

I only now realized what it was.

Let's return to Agatha's workshop. Dracula lets Mina go, and he and Agatha are left alone. He knows she's scared. He doesn't see, he knows it. He has an animal sense and can smell her fear. Agatha can be calm outwardly as much as she wants – he senses it. This is not yet Dracula we will see in the third episode, so it doesn't even occur to him to let her go. But he is interested in her. He likes her. And he – clumsily, in his own way, as best he can – calms her down. ‘Don't be afraid. You won't disappear. You will become a part of me. Your life will continue in the new world in a new form.’ And then this touch on the shoulder: ‘Hush, it won't hurt.’

I heard it. This appears in literally every text I write about them, one way or another. But I sincerely thought that it was my imagination.

If anyone still doubts it, then there is a scene between Dracula and Zoe in the third episode. Here, Dracula has already come a long way and therefore can express what he feels, not only with a gesture – now frankly intimate – but also with words. He can tell her this, still rather rudely and seasoned with mockery, but directly: ‘It doesn't have to hurt.’ The scene in his mind palace is not only a dialogue with Zoe here and now. This is a memory. He can afford more now. And he does. But it's still not quite ‘that’. We will see how he succeeded in the finale.

Well, to summarize, I would like to note that this entire storyline is missing in the script. It has the text that Dracula speaks on all three occasions (episode 1, in Agatha's workshop, episode 3, in the mind palace, and the finale), but it doesn't have the body language and subtle interactions that create this entire plot. Which is logical – the film and the script are not the same thing, the film is formed in the process of working on it, and some things are simply born on the set. But when the text is ready, they are impossible not to be noticed and impossible to be ignored. Luckily, fan fiction exists.

Thanks again @moremoveslessannouncements-blog.

#dracula bbc #dracula 2020 #bbc dracula #count dracula #agatha van helsing #dragatha #fanfiction

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goblins-riddles-or-frocks · 2 years

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Giant Dracula Daily Catch Up Post Of Doom

August 14th to September 10th

x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x

August 14th

The atmosphere is so well built. Lucy is so very doomed, triply so considering the standards of genre convention, prior knowledge of the story, and simply being behind on the serialization and vicariously hearing how much worse things get. It’s such a slow, creeping tragedy.

August 15th

I completely forgot that Lucy’s mother has a deteriorating heart condition. I wonder thematically how that ties in. It’s such an interesting choice.

August 17th

I find it really interesting the way tension is building despite our protagonists ostensibly doing nothing. So many of Mina’s early journal entries they really have no clue anything is amiss so they’re doing nothing to even attempt to combat it.

It definitely falls in line with Hitchcock’s school of suspense, where the audience being aware of a bomb beneath the oblivious characters’ table sustains and builds much more dread.

I also love how the format of Dracula Daily gives us a bird’s eye view of what’s happening as it happens, and how Sister Agatha may have previously written her letter, but logistics simply haven’t allowed its delivery yet.

August 18th

I’m really intrigued by the claim that Lucy is NOT anemic. I love the juxtaposition that to Mina’s eye, Lucy appears better, and she is not sleepwalking, but meanwhile her dream is so eerie.

August 19th

The building dread is so good! Renfield is at his most Renfieldy, The trope codifier of a vampire’s minion. He’s generally so interesting.

I think Renfield is particularly instrumental in establishing Dracula as a force of nature, and as someone who has his claws in a large number of things. I think Renfield serving him greatly expands his perceived area of influence, because otherwise we’ve seen him attack Lucy maybe, and we know he was slowly picking off the crewmates of the Demeter and before that the people surrounding his castle. But those are still fairly focused horrors? You can still ascribe that to like a single character with a single goal, just out to be cruel and to have a meal lol. But Renfield (and the letters about Carfax to an extent) paired with these already existing things, work to imply a larger plan, and the general feeling that he’s a pall over the city.

Anyway I love Mina’s breathless happiness at finally hearing from Jonathan. Because it is so clearly short lived. Things are only going to go downhill.

August 20th

I feel so bad for him

August 21st

I do love the immersion in seeing how the logistics are playing out. And the way it continues to build the dread that things are developing and Dracula is furthering his unknown plan. I think how vague it is— just the very concept that he’s here and evil and wants to do something evil— is a really good way to build horror and mystery.

August 23rd

I do find it hilarious that Renfield refuses to run away when they want him to. And then later does when they do not want or expect it.

Also the epistolary format and the implication that this is Seward’s journal, and the entirety of his entries as opposed to simply excerpts, makes it really funny to consider from a Watsonian perspective. Stoker probably just didn’t want to bog down the book in needless detail that didn’t progress the plot, but the end result is that Seward is out here uniquely obsessed with this one patient out of the many. And the only thing breaking up his entries on this fixation is the occasional paragraph dedicated to being sad about Lucy.

Also I love Renfield talking to a bat.

August 24th

Mina and Jonathan are so cute 😭

August 25th

I really enjoy how this tells us exactly what happened but Lucy has no clue. It’s so unnerving.

August 30th

I find it fascinating how this book keeps dangling mini false highs in front of the reader. Where things frequently get better every once in awhile in very small ways.

August 31st

The juxtaposition of this next to the previous entry! Never mind, I think the implication is that she was just lying about feeling better so as not to worry Mina.

Also it’s really interesting the way both Lucy and her mother are grievously ill but neither is being made aware of the other’s condition bc idk it would be too disturbing for their poor feminine health lol. Dracula is such a Victorian novel.

September 1st

I like that we only get the telegram that Arthur is unavailable with no notice of how this effects their plans to get Lucy to a doctor.

September 2nd

Van Helsing my beloved!!!!

This must’ve been so awkward though after the refused proposal and all of Seward’s entries generally pointing to him very much not being over her.

YESSSSS MY BLORBO

I also love Seward describing him as a “seemingly arbitrary man”

September 3rd

Van Helsing just kicking Seward out and he’s like “I took the hint”. Sir. I would not call that a hint.

September 4th

I love this description very much but also lol at Seward being in his “it’s as miserable and ugly as my heart!! stage of melodrama

September 6th

I love that the 5th’s entry is just a telegram that “the patient is greatly improved” and then today we get a full about face and actually it’s an emergency, and things are very bad.

September 7th

Look! He’s good corn.

I forgot the transfusion was so soon. Poor Lucy’s on her way out :(

The transfusion scene is generally really good and marks the meat of the second act of the novel. I love when Seward and Van Helsing finally see the bite marks and that feeling of pay off, that they’re finally going to start piecing things together.

Anyway this was also very funny to me! And also the very concept that Van Helsing is old, and Seward is a flimsy goth nerd, but Arthur’s a jock, perfect candidate for the transfusion.

September 8th

The tension and dread continue to be great. That being said, I’m struck by how much of a non factor both Lucy and her mother are in the business of saving her. The mother if ever mentioned, is only an obstacle. She is too frail to be informed of the full situation, and too ignorant not to get in the way.

In the previous entry, I don’t think they even bothered to tell Lucy that they were going to either drug her or give her blood. Van Helsing offers Arthur kisses, *from her*, when she’s already unconscious. She really barely matters in the scenario.

It’s such a patriarchal, condescending perspective. It’s certainly not shocking, but it is interesting.

September 9th

Lucy being so happy and cheerful 😭😭

Also LOL at her feeling inexplicably close to Arthur, as in she’s actually somehow sensing his blood in her veins I guess.

September 10th

Ah, and Van Helsing’s random exclamations in German begin. Sir. You’re Dutch!

This, next to the suggestion that Arthur may become jealous if he hears that Seward also gave Lucy blood, is such an interesting stance to take in a vampire novel that is also decidedly not romanticizing the vampires.

I’m leaving off here because this is already ungodly long and I hit the picture per post limit.

#dracula daily #dracula #I ramble sometimes #*writer's cap*

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see-arcane · 1 year

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i read your wip and i cant help but feel.... pity, for penclosa. for choosing to do this, choosing the most harmful, horrible path. of course. of course he is. of course Jonathan is like catnip to her- but that doesnt mean she has to do This Bullshit in another, kinder world, perhaps she decided to be less of an Absolute Bastard about things and found love and caring and respect in some other heart, and genuinely Just Did Therapy On Jonathan. at least her persona, the face she puts on, seems to be a genuinely Cool Lady. it is a shame she has chosen this most awful cruelest path because she has the power to. i pity her because i feel like she could make a Different Choice where this story has a far happier course and ending for everyone- but, of course, she didn't. and now mina is going to fucking Get Her. as she should

You hit a lot of nails on their heads, Anon.

The tragedy of 'You Didn't Have to Do This, You Could Have Been Our Friend,' hits much more truthfully and so much more sourly when it's with this cast of characters versus Miss Penclosa's original story. In, "The Parasite," we can see the foundation of her plans for Austin Gilroy almost from the outset. Even if she wasn't thinking of enslaving him from day one, she still made her move after only a week of interaction with the man, pouncing on the very first occasion when she got to mesmerize him while the two were alone.

One week. Just one week with Gilroy, in which I imagine he was only ever anything but professional with her--especially as his thoughts on her are made hideously clear even before she started tightening the mental collar. (Ick, she's over 40. Ick, she's 'deformed' for having a bad leg. Nothing like his sweet young Agatha. Never mind that he's in his thirties. But moving on.) Gilroy gave her only the barest amount of regard in that period.

But the opportunity was there. Her want was there. Her loneliness. Her power.

Why not, Helen? You have your hooks in now. You have him. Why not? You can make it real. You can make him love you. And what does a pretty young bauble of a girl like Agatha need him for anyway? She'll get another, girls like her always can. Go on, Helen. He's yours for the taking. He will love you in time, with enough prompting...

I stand by some personal theories about why she goes the route she does. Potential bleak origins come into it that I'll try to flesh out in the story, but the most important factor is what her goal is in the present. Because really, opting for coerced affection rather than literally anything else she might wring out of a victim is telling. Hypnotism is notorious in fiction for being used to carry out thefts and sundry violent dirty work and, as with Dracula and the Brides' victims, a paralytic allowance to have themselves be preyed on. But the uniquely intimate (and so uniquely dread-inducing) decision to try and puppeteer someone into being your personal paramour is special in the worst way.

Love is the highest priority in Miss Penclosa's hierarchy of needs. She wants to have a partner (puppet) who will adore her and tell her so and be as smitten with her as she (thinks she) is with him. And, as seen in "The Parasite," she also likes it when that trapped puppet-lover verbally agrees with her that his actual fiancée is dull and worthy of insult. She wants to be the only one for her beloved and wants him to disparage all others. Interesting results to come on that front with Mr. Harker. Anyway.

Now we come back to the problem of the Harkers. In the case of Austin Gilroy, her original unhappy 'beau,' we had a protagonist who wasn't exactly a prince. Loyal and loving to his Agatha, true, and suitably horrified at being forced to follow Penclosa's orders (and she does order something quite nasty as a parting shot)...but he's also a bit nasty on his own. He insults people who believe in clairvoyance or the supernatural, he's snide about Penclosa's looks in the extreme, and is generally not that great a guy to anyone but his fiancée and close friends.

But Jonathan Harker? Sweetheart supreme? Him walking into the picture is like Penclosa being starved and just now seeing she'd been scrabbling after stale crumbs this whole time when a five-tier wedding cake existed for the taking all along.

The catch is that the Harkers are far, far, far more endearing than Gilroy ever was. One of their best friends is an old professor whose guest they are at the party. They owe a debt of more than gratitude to at least two older women, Sister Agatha and the unnamed lady who gifted Jonathan her own crucifix as protection. Both of them have suffered ailments beyond mortal ken, and only escaped them by the charity and heroism of others. These are the least judgmental young people in all of England. Though both were understandably skittish about her kind of mesmerism, they were still open to her, still prepared to be outright friends.

You could have been their friend, Helen. You could have. This one weakness, this one obsession, is the only thing between you and a companionship that is natural, organic, untainted by the conditions of being a circus performer for your friend's husband and his precious study. Real friends, Helen. All of them would be.

He would be.

...But that isn't enough.

Of course it isn't. Jonathan Harker is the romantic daydream come true. He is not the man a woman settles for--he's the beloved prince every girl dreams of when she's still young enough to believe romance exists outside of books and stage plays. He's real, Helen. He's right there for the taking. And who can stop you but you?

Helen Penclosa wants what she wants. And if the means are there, if the prize she had thought all this time was only a fantasy is sitting in front of her, if this is her one chance--well. Why would she settle for mere friendship? Why feign happiness with a freely given slice when she can run off with the whole cake?

It is a tragedy in the making. Because Miss Penclosa is a woman of depth, a woman of character, a woman who is canny and witty and wise, a woman who could so easily have been a friend for life if she had just given her help and done no more. But she is also a woman whose vices are sequestered in the greedy pit of her heart. And that pit's needs come first.

#today is a day for rambles I guess #what's the reverse of NaNoWriMo? because I think I need that #penclosa #helen penclosa #jonathan harker #dracula #austin gilroy #arthur conan doyle #bram stoker #my writing #crossover

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asylos · 2 years

Text

Dracula Daily Responses (Aug 11-15)

Previous Days on AO3

August 11

Multiple pages from my friend Mina today. She must have had a most eventful day. Let us see what has transpired for her and her friend Miss Lucy.

Oh dear. It seems Miss Lucy made her escape in the night, dressed only in her nightdress, to flee to their favourite seat near the seaside. Some shadowy figure was there, leaning over the contrasting white of her sleepwalking friend, but they fled when Mina called out to her. Mina is a most considerate friend, giving Miss Lucy her shawl, and her shoes, and going barefoot back to the house so that Miss Lucy was protected from the elements. Clever of her too to cover her own feet in mud to disguise their bare nature to protect their reputation should they chance to meet anyone in these late hours. She safely conveyed her friend home and back into bed. So caring, my dear Mina. It hurt her so to see she must have pricked Miss Lucy with the pin of the shawl while securing it. But is that the cause? She was so careful with everything she did.

I am glad they were able to spend a happy day. Still, the lack of news from Jonathan brings melancholy to my dear Mina, but there is still hope in the air, and plans for a good night’s rest.

August 12

Foiled again, it seems. Twice more this night Miss Lucy has risen from her bed in her sleep. She seems undisturbed by this however, waking in good spirits, while Mina’s rest is most uneasy. At least she is there to give comfort to Mina in her distress over Jonathan.

Ah, but what’s this? I do not recognize this hand. A letter to dearest Mina. News! News of our dear Jonathan at last! It seems he has found himself in the care of kindly nuns this last six weeks, with a violent brain fever. Oh great thanks Sister Agatha for this blessed news. She gives warnings to dear Mina of the crazed ravings Jonathan speaks in his delirium. They think them to be the result of the fever, but I know from his journal that they are the truth. His time with the Count, and his daring escape, have not left him unscathed. But a few more weeks, and he will be well enough to reunite with Mina once more!

August 13

Another night of awkward sleep for Mina. It seems she has not yet received the letter from Sister Agatha that I had privilege to intercept. Soon, Mina, soon. This night she woke to find Miss Lucy pointing at the window, and there she found a great bat flying about. How odd.

August 14

An odd day for the girls today. Miss Lucy speaks of seeing red eyes, and walks about in a half-dream state. And then falls asleep on the window sill with a bird for company! She has been giving dear Mina much cause for concern. My friend has so many worries on her mind between her friend and Jonathan. Hopefully the news reaches her soon that Jonathan is safe and will be home soon enough.

August 15

A mix of news good and bad for dear Mina this day. Miss Lucy has received word that her father-in-law to be has taken a turn for the better, and the wedding is to proceed soon. But Miss Lucy’s mother confides in dear Mina that she is ill herself and not long for this world. It is so much for poor Mina to carry this secret knowledge along with all her other worries.

#dracula daily #miri writes

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