#makes them so certain in their course. characters like julia ; stokes ; even dr. guthrie –– all accredited ! all very bright ! | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

widowshill · 6 months

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reminder to myself to find and upload the article about the gendered enlightenment/scientific reason vs superstitious persecution in Carmilla and it’s resulting ambiguously supernatural narrative because. it’s so formative to the way I think and write about ds lmao it needs to be on some kind of blog syllabus.

#carmilla ... but written by dr hoffman instead of dr hesselius. when she eventually writes that book she was supposed to be doing.#more than anything anything else carolyn's death scene in hods is a PERFECT echo of carmilla's slaughter.#framed in that perfect condemnatory v of the male head of household figure surrounded by militant police – where carolyn's overall sin is #not lesbian transgressive female desire but incestuous (even though she's still a lesbian in my heart)#like ! i don't know. vampires real true they are both metaphorical AND literally going to suck ur blood. same with phoenixes.#but there's a lot there to .. consider. many fractured reflections of cut crystal rather than a pane of glass? you hear me?#➤ ooc. ┊ she’s nauseous，she’s hysterical，and she’s exhausted.#i think... this is true particularly at the end of arcs where the threat is vanquished. things are always rather abrupt in a way #that leaves me reeling a tiny bit and not always in a conclusion that's ... certain beyond all doubt? there's often some little qualifier.#or you hear it relayed back to the family. collinses noted always for their truth telling to their own clan! esp when making their own myth #and i always ALWAYS think the obfuscating that goes on between 1795 and the 60's. joshua concealing the nature of his son and #of his wife's death. barnabas choosing to retell the josette myth in a way that favors him and his desire.#the way institutions like the hospital or windcliff or laura's sanitarium in phoenix are resting on an uneasy boundary between #straight medicine and superstitious practice –– often as a tool to suppress supernatural wrongdoing or a bandaid to fix it.#and what makes the link to carmilla so compelling to me is that the Studied Experts are the ones with the supernatural knowledge that #makes them so certain in their course. characters like julia ; stokes ; even dr. guthrie –– all accredited ! all very bright !#and in a similar vein the endless quest for the Logical Explanation is seen as (somewhat rightfully) silly – i.e. roger's stubbornness #in refusing to buy into the time travel – witches – laura as reincarnated phoenix – etc etc #when We Know the monstrous truth and he's clinging to a silly fancy of logic – of reason.#anyways am i making sense. i fear not.#compels me though

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