#seward summary
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So! The book Draculais over a hundred years old, and has some very dated and terrible understanding of mental health and psychiatric care as a result. I encourage everyone to skip whatever you feel you must in order to take care of yourselves. I think I will try and provide some pared-down notes on Seward's entries for anyone who wants to know more than the day's memes, but cannot stand to read Seward's parts.
Seward is Very Sad after Lucy's rejection so he throws himself into work
He picks a puzzling patient and does his thing
He introduces the patient as Renfield, and doesn't specify what his deal is
He makes some mention of Renfield being very strong and smart, and "dangerous if unselfish" (as in, if he's driven by a cause, caution isless of a factor)
After that it's Quincey! Scroll down to that and read Quincey's letter.
#dracula daily#i think i pared this down enough#please tell me if i did not#i am but one moron andi am doing my best#let me know if i should do this for anything else#i just know seward can be dodgy and there's a lot of him#seward summary#going forward i will tag these with that
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The more I learn about Civil War politics, the more I'm convinced that Lincoln's most impressive and useful leadership trait was that he never let his pride get in the way of doing his job.
Other people in Lincoln's position would have come to Washington with something to prove. They'd have resented the insults and tried to disprove them. They'd have tried to seize power and credit, rejected help, spent a lot of time trying to reach a certain level of respect.
Lincoln's response to, "You're just a backwoods lawyer with no executive experience who makes too many dumb jokes," was pretty much always, "Yeah. And?" He had no interest in petty personal power plays. He had a country to run. There was a war on. It didn't matter what people thought of him so long as the job got done.
He was aware of his personal shortcomings and was always willing to accept advice and help from people who had more knowledge and experience in certain areas. He presided over a chaotic Cabinet full of abrasive personalities who thought they were better and smarter than him, but he kept working with them because they could get the job done. For example: Stanton was absolutely horrible to him when they were both working as lawyers. Just incredibly mean on a personal level. But when Lincoln needed someone to replace Cameron, he swallowed his pride and appointed Stanton as Secretary of War, where Stanton proceeded to be mean to everyone in the world, but he whipped that department into shape and kept it running efficiently through a very chaotic war. Pretty much no one except Lincoln would have been able to put up with that. He could put up with people who were personally difficult if they could do the job he needed them to do--which he was only able to do because his own ego didn't get in the way.
Lincoln's example is a prime demonstration of how humility isn't underrating yourself--it's being so secure in your own abilities and identity that you don't need to attack anyone or defend yourself to prove your worth. He knew his shortcomings, but he also knew his strengths. He was willing to give other people credit for successes and take blame upon himself for failures if it kept things running smoothly. He was secure enough in his own power that he could deal generously--but firmly--with people who tried to undermine him. In a city full of huge egos, in a profession that rewards puffed-up pride, that levelheaded humility is an extremely rare trait--which is what made it so impressive and effective.
#history is awesome#presidential talk#so i went to a teeny backwater thrift store today#their tiny history book section just happened to have an old lincoln biography#i opened to the page about the cabinet#which describes the situation like 'seward was calling himself premier and lording it over everyone'#'blair was causing problems everywhere'#'welles was insulting everyone in his diary and especially hated stanton grant and seward'#'and stanton hated absolutely everyone in the whole wide world'#and as i was reading this i was internally kicking my legs with excitement and cackling with glee because this is the good stuff#i don't know why but i love these horrible petty men#they're like a bunch of raccoons fighting over territory in a dumpster fire it's so great#i read the whole chapter right there in the store#and it impressed upon me yet again how impressive lincoln was to put up with all these guys#(the writer was a bit simplistic and made a lot of these guys come off as worse than they were)#(like he made seward sound like a complete incompetent when he was a pretty good secretary of state)#(he had some grandiose ideas but the man deserves a lot of credit for keeping england out of the war)#(but for a one-chapter summary of these guys it wasn't exactly wrong and it was a ton of fun)#i very much did not want another book especially another american history book#but it was only fifty cents and i have a pouch full of spare change#and the writer's style was so much fun that i decided to take the book with me#i don't plan to read the whole thing (i'm sick of lincoln bios) but it's fun to dip into for things like this#and i had to talk to you about it
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July 19
Renfield now has a whole family of sparrows in his room, and requests a kitten. Dr. Seward inquires if a cat would be better, and Renfield says he'd much prefer that. Dr. Seward then denies his request, which angers Renfield.
He returns to Renfields room later to find him brooding. Renfield then begs for a kitten, claiming his salvation depends on it.
#dracula daily#dracula#dracula daily daily#dracula daily summary#dracula daily spoilers#jack seward#renfield
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Breaking down Dr. Seward’s June 5 Diary Entry
Seward’s Diary can be a little hard to read so I’ve provided a breakdown, line by line. Happy reading! (My commentary/annotation will be in square brackets and purple text for easy reading)
Dr. Seward's Diary.
5 June.—The case of Renfield grows more interesting the more I get to understand the man. He has certain qualities very largely developed; selfishness, secrecy, and purpose. I wish I could get at what is the object of the latter. He seems to have some settled scheme of his own, but what it is I do not yet know. [As the days go on, Seward continues his study of Renfield, finding it increasingly interesting the more time he spends with the man. He notes some of his more noticeable traits are selfishness, a tendency to secrecy, and also a sense of purpose, though he has been unable to determine what this “purpose” is. Renfield seems to have some kind of plan or goal but Seward can’t figure out what it is.] His redeeming quality is a love of animals, though, indeed, he has such curious turns in it that I sometimes imagine he is only abnormally cruel. [Although Renfield is odd and unsettling, Seward does note his love of animals, or at least his appearance to have a love of animals, sometimes his behaviour towards them swings so far the other way that Seward wonders whether this love is an act or a farce, and he thinks in cruel or uncompassionate ways the whole time, but only shows it sometimes. There is also a possibility that Renfield does not know he is being cruel, like a child ignorantly removing the wings from an insect with no real understanding of what he is doing.] His pets are of odd sorts. Just now his hobby is catching flies. [His pets are strange. Right now most of them are flies (It is important to note here, to a contemporary audience flies were not yet known to be unsanitary but viewed as more of a nuisance. Renfield keeping flies would not necessarily - at least initially - been seen as gross or filthy but simply a strange and curious behaviour, admittedly quite an off putting one.)] He has at present such a quantity that I have had myself to expostulate. To my astonishment, he did not break out into a fury, as I expected, but took the matter in simple seriousness. He thought for a moment, and then said: "May I have three days? I shall clear them away." Of course, I said that would do. I must watch him. [The number of flies Renfield has got to such a degree that Seward protested to keeping so many of them. Instead of responding in anger like Seward expected him to, Renfield responded reasonably and calmly. He asked for three days in order to “clear them away”, which Seward accepted. Seward notes he must watch Renfield in the coming days to see what he does.]
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I'm not going to write a post about this myself, but amidst the fun of the three suitors in today's entry, if you're a first-time reader who may have psychiatric abuse, institutionalization, etc. as mental health or trauma triggers, I recommend checking out this excellent post by @crepuscol last year which marks off which Seward updates involve the asylum and doctor-patient interactions, as that part of the story involving him and Renfield starts tomorrow on May 25; I know someone last year also wrote detailed summaries of those entries for people who might not want or be able to read them directly, but I don't remember who it was - if anyone does, please add a link!
This could be an entire post itself, so I'll try to keep this brief, but Seward is arguably the most complex character in terms of morality in a story where everyone else is either Good or Evil, as he is ultimately capable of both great heroism and great harm, even if he harbours no evil intent; as such, he is a difficult character to discuss on many levels and things will get heated for understandable reasons, but it's important to remember that we should look at his character as a whole - neither sanitizing nor exaggerating his bad actions, neither erasing his good actions nor using them to excuse the bad ones - in good faith when analyzing him, as all aspects of him are important to the narrative and themes.
Also, since we're all doing Dracula Daily for fun, no one is obligated to read those updates if you can't or don't want to, and similarly, be understanding of those people even if you disagree, especially when a lot of the ableism in those entries still happens today, as psychiatric wards are the modern successor to asylums.
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Almost every main character parallels Dracula, in their own unique ways, but the hows and whys will be apparent in August-November
Jonathan: Gothic doubling and reverse parallels essay would be needed, even a summary would be long.
Mina: Parallel to Dracula and also a foil to the 3 Sisters. Again, essay.
Van Helsing: The other foreign, mysterious, self-made old man armed with the powers of the Old World and blood. Narrative foils, baby! There's so much going on here, again.
Seward: His entire thing with Renfield is an age-reverse mirror with Dracula and Jonathan.
Renfield: Both old, both seek eternal life, by consuming life. Dracula is the ultimate power. Renfield, despite his class, is under both Seward's and Dracula's power. Their relationship is a Dracula/Jonathan contrast, almost a Dracula wish-fulfillment (Renfield lacks Jonathan's youth).
Arthur: They are both aristocrats, old money people. One is old and uses his wealth for his personal overseas mission. The other is young and uses his wealth for a common overseas mission.
Quincey: STEEL GRIP. Jonathan is bound to both.
#this is like a placeholder for me to expand on later#dracula spoilers#jonathan harker#dracula daily#van helsing#mina murray
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James Kivetoruk Moses - Inupiat/Inupiak, (1900-1982) - untitled, depicting a woman and a man standing in front of their home.
James Kivetoruk Moses - untitled, depicting a bowhunter, his seal prey, and a confronting polar bear .
James Kivetoruk Moses - untitled, depicting a seal hunter casting his hook.
James Kivetoruk Moses - untitled, depicting a hunter with his catch working his way across ice flows.
James Kivetoruk Moses - untitled, depicting a hunter in his kayak bringing in a seal.
James Kivetoruk Moses - untitled, depicting a man coaxing a harnessed reindeer.
"Mr & Mrs Napasuk Big Chief East Cape Siberia", depicting a woman and a man posing in front of their camp.
When strong gusts flipped a small plane landing near Teller, on the Seward Peninsula on August 14, 1953, one 50-year-old Inupiaq Eskimo hunter, trapper, and reindeer herder injuring his leg lost all means of support. “No more work, no more hunting,” he said about the event that caused a career change. “Is only way…drawing pictures.” Recovering, James Kivetoruk Moses resumed a teenage habit now leavened by anecdotes, legends, and knowledge accrued over five decades during which the land had taught and sustained him.
At heart, he remained a herder. And modest. Asked about his pictures’ appeal, he admitted lacking refinement. “Young people try to be artists,” he said. “They come up good artists, very good drawing because they were school. But no experience. Don’t know nothing [about] living.”
Untitled, depicting a shaman treating a sick man
In 1975, weakened by strokes and surgeries, Moses, with his wife, Bessie, resided in Nome, a non-Native commercial hub since Yankee-whaler days. Their cabin, abutting the Golden Goose saloon, sat a stone’s throw from black, foam-flecked Bering Strait beaches. Bessie, first acting as his bookkeeper, peddled a briefcase of Moses’ nostalgia at local hotels. She kept a percentage of the profits for herself, she once joked. For an extra five dollars she provided a handwritten summary of the subjects, of routines, beliefs, and a past beyond her clienteles’ ken.
Untitled, pen and ink wash on card stock
Accompanying this drawing is one of those five dollar handwritten summaries by the artist's wife Bessie, dated August 12, 1975:
"This pretty girl is from N. East Siberia. Her uncle and her folks were well to do family and they came across to our mainland from there every spring after spring to trade more than one skin or whole lot of them come same time all the way to Katzebue. They brought reindeer skins black and spotted skins, wolverines and wolfs skins to trade with all kinds of furs. This girl came with her mother because the father had to take care of their business. She was helpful and good to the people and everybody learn to love her every place. They want to help them on account of her wanting to marry. But since they were traveling the mother + father wouldn't leave her behind being the only girl. Hope the true happening is a good story. So long + good-by
By Bessie Moses"
Postcard - James Kivetoruk Moses - "Eskimo Men & Woman" - Anchorage Museum
#James Kivetoruk Moses#art#artists#native american art#Inupiat#kivetoruk moses#nome alaska#alaska#bessie moses#eskimo life
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MinaxJonathan, knife, waiting for the Czarina Catherine while Mina is gradually changing more and more
His and Hers Knives
(Summary: PG-13 for mentions of suicide and a swear
Jonathan has knives for Dracula, or for anyone else who might try to separate him from Mina, and Mina has a knife of her own.)
The gentle scrape of blade upon whetstone did not awaken Mina. It was a quiet, soothing sound, though Jonathan doubted even the passing by of a circus could rouse her from her slumber before she was ready. Regardless, he tried to keep quiet while she slept, and he doubted this sound would have even bothered her before she’d been bitten.
Not that he was the sort to sharpen knives in the wee hours, before. Much had changed in the past few months. He wasn’t the same man who had set out on a train to Buda-Pesth and beyond for an ailing Mr. Hawkins.
A few more strokes had his kukri knife razor sharp. He set it aside and drew another knife, a Bowie, from a sheath within his waistcoat. He wet the stone, then began sharpening its blade.
He kept four knives on his person, these days. The kukri was the most obvious. It was the statement, and the other concealed blades whatever punctuation it required. Let it not be said that Jonathan Harker wasn’t communicative.
He sharpened the Bowie, then his boot knife, and finally the curved karambit. This had become his nightly ritual, almost a knightly ritual, as he watched over Mina’s unnatural slumber. Dracula had come upon her in their bedchamber. Never again. Though Dracula was far away, concealed in the bowels of the Czarina Catherine, Jonathan still kept his vigil.
It wasn’t only for Dracula that he sharpened his blades. Van Helsing and Seward’s eyes were ever on Mina, assessing her sluggish pulse and her sharpening teeth and that terrible burned mark upon his pale forehead. If they could not hunt down and destroy Dracula to free Mina’s soul, they would come for her.
And if they did, they would find Jonathan.
There would have to be a strategy to the order in which he addressed them, he knew. If they brought Godalming and Morris along, they would have to be dealt with first, though he’d have to be wary of Seward’s right hook if his phonograph entries were to be believed. Van Helsing would be last. Though his brain was the biggest threat to Mina’s continued existence, his body was slow and frail with age, and with the others gone, he would be easy to dispatch.
“Jonathan.”
If the two doctors came alone, that would be better. They might, if they underestimated Jonathan’s devotion to Mina. Then he could silence them, and catch Morris and Godalming unawares.
“Jonathan.”
It wouldn’t be easy to take a life, but he could steel himself for Mina’s sake. A man had to protect his wife. ‘Til death do us part,’ what weak resolve was that? He would be hers beyond death, beyond ‘un-death’.
“Jonathan!” Chill hands and an insistent voice drew him from his dark thoughts, and he finally blinked and saw that Mina had awoken and taken his hands in her own around the hilt of his kukri, which he must have picked back up at some point of his musings. Mina’s hands looked ethereally pale against his.
“My love, where were you?” she asked. Here she was, so sickly pale, yet worried about him. He shook his head.
“Lost in thought.” He put the knife down so he could take her hands properly. “I’m sorry.”
She kissed him, just a chaste press of lip to lip. They had not known each other as husband and wife since she’d been bitten. Mina felt herself unclean, and though Jonathan thought her still as pure and holy as an angel, he would not press her into couplings she did not enthusiastically welcome. These light touches would suffice him.
“I fear I’ll be asleep again soon. Come lie by me, while we still have time.”
Jonathan sat his kukri on the bedside table and joined Mina in bed. She pulled something from beneath her pillow and pressed it into his hands.
It was another knife, in a leather sheath, its handle wrapped in a black ribbon tied securely in a knot.
“I asked Mr. Morris to get me a blade. It’s a fine one, isn’t it?” Mina motioned for Jonathan to unsheath it.
He drew it out. It was a simple boning blade, thin and straight, almost delicate, especially when compared to his kukri. Jonathan ran his finger along the flat of the blade, then against the silk ribbon-wrapped hilt.
“I see you decorated it.”
Mina smiled at him. “Yes, it’s silly, but I wanted to make it my own. Will you show me how to sharpen it?”
Jonathan nodded. There was nothing he could deny her, except… except that which she’d asked at her ‘funeral’.
“In the daylight hours, when you’re more awake,” he promised. He slid it back into its sheath and handed it back to her.
“Good. I need it to be sharp.”
“God be willing, you’ll never get close enough to Dracula or any other enemy to need a sharp knife,” he said. He reached over and picked up the kukri. “That’s what this is for.”
She smiled again, lips closed. All of her smiles were like that, these days. Hiding her teeth, fearing the day they became fangs.
“I know it is. Each thing has its purpose, Jonathan. This knife is not for him. It’s for… it’s for me.”
Her voice caught, and Jonathan looked up at her sharply.
“No,” he said. He reached over to take the knife from her, but she drew it away and cradled it to her breast. He could have wrested it away from her, but he couldn’t bear to handle her so harshly, so he drew back, letting her keep the little blade.
“Listen to me, husband,” she pleaded. “I can feel myself changing. I am clinging to the same hope we all are, but… but we must be ready, in case that hope fails.”
“That is what the kukri is for,” he said again. “If we cannot be together as man and wife, then I will serve you as your protector and thrall, and keep away any who would harm you. You can have my blood, my body, my life. As long as we’re together, I don’t care about anything else!”
“But I do!” Mina’s voice rose to match his own in volume and passion. “Perhaps you could find it in your heart to love me as a vampire, but I could not love myself. I must be human, or else I must be a corpse. If you love me, listen to me.”
Jonathan loved her, and so he listened. He forced his hand to release the white-knuckled grip on the kukri’s handle.
“Go on, then,” he whispered.
She nodded, and her eyes shone with tears as she continued.
“I borrowed a book on anatomy from Dr. Seward to be sure. This little blade should be long enough to pierce a heart. If Dracula escapes us and the transformation is upon me, I want you to…”
A sob interrupted her, and she swallowed hard. “I want you to use it on me. I’m very afraid, but I think if it’s such a thin blade, and if it’s plenty sharp and in the hands of someone I love… I think, then, that I could bear it.”
Jonathan couldn’t hold back his tears at the thought of that, and both of them took each other by the hand, crying.
“A-and I would w-want you to go on with your life, and find happiness, but…”
“Without you? There could never be such a thing,” Jonathan interrupted.
Mina nodded, and wiped a hand at her eyes. “I know, my love. And if that be the case, then, this knife can be for you as well.”
Jonathan drew her into his arms. “Thank you, my dearest. Thank you.” Her words delivered to him such profound relief that he hasn’t known since she’d arrived by his side at the Hospital of Saint Joseph and Saint Mary in Budapesh to marry him. He could face whatever peril, so long as at the end of it, he ended up where she was, be it heaven, hell, or their home in Exeter.
“It’ll be romantic, in a way,” Mina said, head nestled into his shoulder, her tears beginning to soak through his nightshirt. “Our hearts’ blood, mingled together on one blade. Together to the end.”
Jonathan nodded. “I c-can draw up our wills, that we will be buried together, in the same coffin, with this knife laid beside us if you’d like.”
He felt her nod against his neck. His wonderful, perfect bride and her obsession with the macabre. How he adored her.
They held each other until their tears had all been shed, and then Jonathan wiped first her eyes, then his own with his handkerchief.
Mina’s eyelids began to sink lower, her pulse slowing. She yawned, but made barely a sound.
“I fear… I cannot stay awake much longer….”
Jonathan lowered her down onto the bed. “Sleep, love.”
He tucked her in, and took his seat once more. Now he had five knives to sharpen during his vigil. He held the kukri in his right hand, the little boning knife in his left, considering both. Dracula would die, or the Harkers would.
He raised the kukri up, admiring the deadly sharp edge of the blade. It would be Dracula or the Harkers, and they knew where Dracula fucking slept.
#dracula daily#dracula spoilers#drabble#jonmina#cw: mention of suicide#jonathan harker#mina harker#jonathan harker can say 'fuck' as a treat
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Jack Seward: openly loathes writing things out by hand and has given quick summaries of the past few days only when asked
Also Jack Seward: transcribes Van Helsings inscrutable ramblings about ducklings and man-brains word for word
#dracula daily#abraham van helsing#jack seward#its because he hangs on van helsings every word#all the jokes about him wanting a good grade are 100% right#his man-brain just wants praise from van helsings man-brain#i legit have to slow down so much whenever theres a van helsing speech#figure out what the goddamn fuck he is trying to get across
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Meward
Summary: Within the mad and macabre months caught in Dracula's fangs, we have seen wolves and bats and rats forced to work toward evil results.
Now let's see the difference a cat can make.
For a proper visual for the eponymous Meward, head to Tumblr user @myroomismytardis' amazing blog and take a look at all the cat-ified characters from classic literature on display. Jack Meward, the little black cat with the gigantic eyes, is just one of many fine furry friends in The League of Extraordinary Kittyfolk. Thank you for making such an inspiring design, friend.
Ao3 link here
“Intolerable, unacceptable, and utterly, irrevocably insufferable. That’s you, you pretender. Yes, I said it! Pretender! Fraud! The most insidiously false example of your kind there ever was or will be! No, don’t you dare deny it. These last few weeks have been more than proof enough that you are entirely unsuited to the task required, to say nothing of your whole line. Nay, your full genus. And look at you there gloating! As if you were as proud to disappoint your bloodline as much as me! You little cad!”
Dr. John Seward had been standing outside the door with two attendants for the past five minutes listening to this and similar diatribes concerning some unknown traitor to a joint cause. There had been insults flung their way and apparent insults implied in silence as the man scoffed and gasped over his affronted sensibilities, stalking the room as he did. So far there had been rants and rancor and richest ire thrown about in such a way as to make the most churlish heirs pale before their fathers. Indeed, there was such a lilt to Renfield’s aggravation that it spoke of an almost paternal disappointment. He had worked and he had slaved and reared this unknown other up with his own two hands, and for what? Disobedience! Abuse! Mockery!
And so the ramble would circle around again.
John passed a glance to the men bookending the other side of the doorframe as if he might read an explanation on their faces. But no, his own confusion was reflected there. It was a strange twist in a madman already so full of sporadic facets, but this one doubly so for its seeming divergence from the major habits of his illness. Whether he was plying John for bait and animals to feast on for power’s sake or hailing the sudden religious apparition he had crowned with the imagined ability to bestow nameless gifts, there appeared to be a central focus on acquiring new strength for himself as constant motive. An impetus that always involved turning his gaze upward to cozen or coax for boons.
Now here he was inventing some entity to berate; an accomplice responsible for deceiving him or spoiling some goal outright. It wouldn’t be an entirely shocking result in other patients. Even ordinary prisoners of long sentences were known to either seek out or manifest some subordinate other to exercise authority over. But Renfield, he of the legion of flies, spiders, and birds, oh my, was already a veritable Cronus lording over a throng of tiny lives at his mercy. Perhaps he’d assigned some personification to one them..?
But no. That way laid the issue of many a new farmer or butcher who found themselves abruptly unable to take the blade to whatever livestock they’d made the mistake of naming and petting as they fattened.
“Look at this!” Renfield suddenly barked, stomping his way to another corner of the room. “Just look how simple I made it for you! Sitting there, whole and ready, and still you go for only a sip and nibble of what’s brought in the other way! Disgraceful. Wholly disgraceful. What? Oh, don’t you pretend it’s a matter of inability. You’re well past drinking alone. Yet even with what you’ve gained, still, still you are a mere mote. A speck. A crumb among the veritable giants that slink and prowl so efficiently on their lonesome. I could flick you right back out, do you know that? I could! You are that laughable a specimen!”
Renfield stalked and stomped and huffed. Then, in a conspiring tone:
“In fact, I will. I will flick you out. But not by the way you slunk in, oh no. You’ll not break in again, you cheat, you burglar of time and effort. There are authorities about who can deal with you in expert fashion. You are evicted as of today. Oh? Think I’m bluffing?” There was a sudden pounding against Renfield’s side of the door, so quick and heavy it rattled the thing in its frame. “Doctor! Get Dr. Seward here at once! There is an intruder in my room! Doctor!”
The attendants looked to him. John nodded. When they unlocked the door, Renfield was in his usual safe distance from the threshold, his arms crossed in a manner that seemed more fitting for a landlord smug at the sight of the police coming to remove an itinerant tenant.
“Well, what fair timing that you were passing by.”
“So it was. I heard you have someone here you want to be rid of?”
“Most expediently. I have tried, Dr. Seward. Most earnestly and most fruitlessly I have tried to wring the results and compliance I’d hoped for from this lost cause of a fellow inmate, but I can try no more. The cause with him is hopeless because he is hopeless. Mad I may be, but at least before him I did not suffer the madness of one trying to grow a tree from a beansprout or, more aptly, trying to yield a full harvest from a field of salt. If ever there was an entity made on this Earth who could order their very anatomy to be an instrument of sabotage, it is the preening villain who has imposed on my hospitality and patience.
“Weeks! Nearly an entire month I have tried to make progress with the thing, and I’ve barely an ounce of proof to show for it on him! And his stubbornness! His stubbornness, or else sheer weak-willed cowardice in the face of instinct, has frustrated me as I never thought possible for so insignificant a creature to inflict! I cannot tolerate his presence any longer and I plead, no, demand you excise the lout before I am forced to take my own measures.”
John nodded cautiously at this. Inwardly he was ticking over the possible responses he might have to make to appease the man without sparking some new fury. Did he expect them to pantomime carrying out an invisible intruder? If so, where were they meant to grapple the air? It was as John was pondering this that his eye happened to fall upon two glints of color shining under Renfield’s bed. A pair of emeralds twinkling in shadow.
“Renfield—,”
But his patient had followed his gaze already. With a mix of triumph and irritation, the man darted down and swiped at the dark. Then plucked a piece of the dark away as if scooping up a ball of cinders. The cinders mewed thinly.
“Ah, thought you could hide from your ousting, did you? Think again. This is the criminal himself, Dr. Seward. A thief of potential and promise and, as you can see, a clear failure as a cat. Look!”
With his other hand he gestured to the corner of the cell nearest to the door. A freshly dead bird laid there. As did a small saucer that looked to be of the kind used for the patients’ meals, with some bits of nibbled food still present.
“Again and again, he chooses the plate over the prey! I tried only giving him birds, but he refused anything more than a sniff before he went sulking and starving away. I had no choice but to suffer his spoiled wants and feed him from my own meals or else lose the opportunity entirely. An opportunity that was itself a lie. He is too small, Dr. Seward, and he seems determined to remain so despite my best efforts. Even if he were a veritable rugby ball of a cat it would not matter, for he has no lives in him but his own useless nine! Oh, I know, I know, you will say, ‘But he is only a kitten, Renfield, growth takes time, Renfield, even stray cats will turn to scraps before they deign to hunt, Renfield!’ I tell you, he is an exception. He conspires, Dr. Seward. With his own body, he conspires. I shall suffer him no more.” Then, in a voice so small John almost did not catch the addendum that seemed almost to choke him, “I cannot risk it.”
Before he could register it, John found Renfield had cut the distance between them and thrust the tiny handful into his custody. The attendants tensed to act behind him, but Renfield shot just as quickly away to make a show of glowering out the window with his back to the lot of them. His arms were crossed again and his hands gripped his elbows so tightly they shook.
“Take him away, Doctor. Foist him on some pampering lady or other with room in her reticule for the ridiculous little thing. I wash my hands of him.”
“…Of course. I’ll see what I can do. Thank you for bringing this to our attention, Renfield.” The kitten gawped up at him. Then tried to turn and wriggle to face Renfield. Another half-mute mew escaped. Renfield bristled at the sound.
“Get it away, Doctor. Please.” John gestured to the attendants. They all retreated into the hall, locking the door after them. Almost the instant the bolt slid home, there was another shout, “Dr. Seward! Doctor, are you still there? There is one thing more! It’s important!”
“Yes, I’m still here,” he called through the door. “What is it?”
Then, quite clearly, so that the attendants could hear it too and only half-succeed in stifling their grins when they caught it: “His name is Meward.”
“…Pardon?”
“Meward. Doctor Meward in full, but we know each other well enough to dispense with titles.” John would swear he heard a smile in the man’s voice. “That’s all, Doctor.”
This was, naturally, not all.
Not when word of ‘Dr. Meward’ had circulated first through the staff, then the patients, and even to the occasional visitor to the asylum before the week was out. For reasons that defied logic, Dr. Seward found he did not have the heart—or, more pressingly, the appropriate opportunity—to donate the creature to another caretaker. He had thought perhaps there was a chance that Lucy might take him on. It really was a spectacularly pitiful animal and so was prone to pulling heartstrings with the power of his massive evergreen stare.
In fact, he had expected himself fully in the clear when he made a somewhat red-faced return to the Westenra estate in tow with Arthur and Quincey. Lucy, at first showing a slight pale strain under the ruddy vigor she had shown on their last encounter, had bloomed anew with delight on seeing the scanty mound of fur in his palm. Her jubilation doubled on hearing the creature’s regrettably unchanged name.
“Oh, that is a perfect choice, absolutely perfect!” she cooed as she cradled the bundle now purring in her hands. “He’s got much the same eyes as you, John.” But as soon as the compliment dared to light a blaze in his cheeks, her next words doused it: “I do wish I could keep him all to myself, but my mother always falls into hacking fits around cats. I’m afraid I can’t have him here.” She looked plaintively from Meward to John to Arthur. “Maybe..?”
“The dogs are amiable enough,” Arthur admitted, if sheepishly. “Though they’d need to get acclimated. They have a habit of chasing after any little thing that moves. But I’m sure once they got used to each other it would work out well enough.” An unspoken, ‘Maybe,’ hovered at the end of his words and glowed doubtfully in his face.
It was much the same as Quincey’s expression had been when he admitted, “Well, sure, I had a few old mouser cats as a boy. Only, I don’t claim to know anything about raising a kitten. I wouldn’t trust myself not to botch it, Jack.”
Regardless of these snags, Lucy spent the visit thoroughly enraptured with Meward to the point that she took one of her own hair ribbons off her head for him to play with. Once he’d tired of it, he allowed her to fasten the thing about him as a collar.
“You can’t have him going around bare, John. Otherwise they won’t know he’s anything but a stray. You must get him a proper collar soon.”
John had promised to look into it.
Some short and endless months later, the ribbon would remain. Meward would be too fond of it to let it go. Likewise for John.
But that was for later.
For now, John had to reconcile with his tiny shadow. More, with the unignorable fact that his presence seemed to have a positive effect upon the atmosphere of the asylum. Almost irritatingly so. What had begun as him simply running out of friends to trust with the animal, combined with his not having any personal home staff to entrust with the minding of him on top of household duties, was now a matter of ‘improving morale.’ So he languishingly informed his phonograph. Whether in his office or in the hall, Meward’s perching on a shoulder or chasing his feet seemed at once to quell anything from ire to melancholy to simple boredom in onlookers.
Often with shouted cries of, ‘Afternoon, Dr. Meward. And associate.’ Or else just, ‘Hello, Doctors,’ always nodding first to the kitten. Renfield appeared to be in much repaired spirits upon catching wind of this, now demanding to speak with ‘his’ doctor before offering any word to John.
“Ah, see?” he hummed to Meward as the animal stared at him. “Is it not wise that I shooed you from your lacking status as a failed catalyst for my purposes? Clearly your chicanery has endeared you to the medical profession.” Renfield gestured broadly at John. “You even have your own nurse.”
The obvious jab did not land as well as it might have on an earlier date. He had too much of curiosity and worry for the man to feel any real brunt of insult now. From the increasingly wild swings in his mood to the lapses of haunted lucidness, R.M. Renfield now stood nearly even with John’s distress for Lucy’s condition. Though if even a fraction of Arthur’s worry proved as true as his latest message implied, his own worry was due to triple. Laconic though Quincey may be, it was Arthur who was the fellow of infinitely fewer words in their trio. Whenever he deigned to offer a phrase in speech or text, it mattered. For the moment, he shelved such thinking in favor of his patient who sought to agitate to hide agitation.
“And have you anything you wished to share with doctor or nurse tonight, Renfield? You seemed upset over something from what the attendants implied—,”
“No!” Renfield gnawed his tongue so hard that it bled. He sucked at it, his face convulsing between exultation and concern. “No. I was mistaken. Or, no, I cannot say. And I cannot say why I cannot say. Never mind.” He gnawed, sucked, paced. Meward turned his owlish gaze up to John. A small paw swung gingerly at his mouth while his tongue flicked out and tapped his black nose. As he did, a whiff of briny breath puffed out on the air. Memory prickled. John cleared his throat.
“I’ve discovered something he likes to hunt. Other than bootlaces and pens.”
Renfield slowed in his pacing.
“Oh? What is that?” He cast a sidelong glance at Meward, who paused in his assault on John’s lapel to gape back. “He certainly doesn’t look much bigger. Though I suppose his coat is better.”
“As it should be. He’s taken a liking to fish.” He coaxed Meward’s claws out of his shirt collar and moved him to another hand. “It’s only an occasional treat, but he seems to be aware enough of where it comes from that I have caught him trying to prey on market displays of seafood when we’re out. Which I believe shows a clever choice on his part. Marine life is consistently healthier for the plate than any cattle or pork. And,” he was careful not to look directly at Renfield, but in a nigh scheming way into Meward’s eye, “they are almost always bloated with the nutrition of animals they’ve eaten prior to finding themselves in the fisherman’s net.”
Renfield’s pacing slowed to a stop.
“Is that a fact?”
“It is. I don’t often go poking beyond the edges of medical sciences, but recent reading from a French naturalist, Professor Pierre Aronnax, has been most illuminating. While hardly all of the ocean’s livestock are carnivorous, the bulk of sea life we collect for our own dinner is redolent with underwater hunters of little lives versus the farmland’s bevy of coddled cows, pigs, and hens.” He still did not look up any higher than Renfield’s frozen feet or Meward’s glistening stare. “Which is all without mentioning the miracle a man devours whole every time he treats himself to a crustacean. Lobsters especially. Not only are they fellow omnivores, but this Aronnax fellow theorizes that they may have properties suggesting an extraordinary longevity. It is only a hypothesis, he writes, but he believes that if the creatures are left to their devices without a fatal attack by a predator, they can live well over a hundred years.”
“Do you take me for a child?” Renfield snorted. “I am well grown out of such fairy tales as immortal beasts. Especially supposed immortals one can boil and set on a platter with a side of butter sauce.”
“Not immortal, simply endowed with an anatomy that lasts longer than the expected norm. I found it a strange supposition myself, but he makes a fair case, especially in tandem with the examples he’s put forth in the article—,”
“What article would that be? Some journal of quackery? You must not believe everything you read, Doctor.”
“I don’t. I only thought it an interesting concept, and one with impressive enough evidences that it was worth wondering about. Imagine tucking into a bit of shellfish only for taste’s sake, not realizing you were eating an animal who might have had more than a man’s whole lifetime ahead of it before you swallowed it all down. It is almost sad to picture.”
“Yes. Terribly.” Renfield fidgeted another moment. From the corner of his eye, John saw he was eyeing the window suspiciously. Perhaps searching. Apparently satisfied, the man donned one of his more familiar sycophant performances, sidling near enough that the attendants stood up straighter. Then, “Again, Dr. Seward, what article might you refer to? I am certain it will at least be good for a laugh and it would be such a welcome diversion from the usual softcover twaddle I flip through…”
John provided a copy of Aronnax’s piece a quarter of an hour later. That morning, he heard that Renfield’s latest crop of spiders had disappeared—flung out the window in a skittering spray that nearly scared a pedestrian out of their wits when a harvestman landed on his shoe. Not long after, Renfield had started wheedling the attendants to ask the kitchen if there wasn’t any seafood to come on the menu. Summer’s seasonable window was well past, he knew, but he had just now been struck with a terrible craving for seaside cuisine. He would trade every spider in the world for a crabcake and every bird for a lobster tail.
Hearing this, John had looked to Meward. The kitten had his own paperwork to ponder on the desk now; quite blank, but he refused to leave John, his forms, his pen, or his beleaguered hand alone until he had his own work to attend to. His unblinking eyes lifted up to find John’s.
“My thanks for the consultation, Doctor.” He set down his pen. Taking the sign, Meward trotted across the desk and bunched himself up under his palm. “A brilliant idea.” Meward purred his agreement.
A note was made to make inquiries as to budget and ability in getting the kitchen a stock of fresh seafood. He would see to it once this trouble with Lucy was taken care of.
Lucy’s trouble was taken care of. Twice.
R.M. Renfield’s only once.
It was not until after the Harkers’ trouble was seen to—this time finally, finally by seeing to the end of the one seeding trouble all along—not until after Quincey Morris went into the ground as a last miserable toll, that John could bring himself to visit any of the graves alone. Lucy’s. Quincey’s. Renfield’s.
On visiting the last’s simple plot, John brought along Meward in his coat. No longer quite a kitten, but still petite enough to fit in an inner pocket. The cat stared wonderingly at the marker for a time. He then paced away, seeming to search for something among the other graves. He returned on dainty steps with that something in his mouth. A dead bird. He laid it on Renfield’s plot and then curled himself around John’s leg, staring up.
If asked, even by Van Helsing, he could not have explained why this was the moment that burst the dam anew.
Nor why this eruption was so horridly raw compared to his past collapses. He had wept whole oceans since the loss of Lucy, it seemed. For twice dead Lucy, for Mina and her damned undying, for Quincey bleeding his life out on the snow, and now, here, last and so criminally considered least until it was too late, Renfield. Renfield who had died as a man neither comprehended nor heeded in his last desperate throes. Renfield who had died to shield a young woman he had befriended for all of an hour over simple kindness and equal regard. Renfield who Dr. John Seward had never healed, only housed or hindered or harkened to for study’s sake.
He crumpled to his knees there among the dead who’d died ill and insane for lack of understanding. Face in his hands, all the horror and hate of self folded back on itself a hundred times over. Arthur did not need his shoulder. Van Helsing did not need his confidante. The Harkers did not need his brave face. His staff and his patients did not need his professional posture or imposture. Nothing was needed here, for no one was alive to need anything.
So out it came. All those deepest acidic tides of unshared grief that could never be dared in the audience of friend or phonograph or the fierce eyes of those who saw and judged the faintest failure of mind as failure of soul, because that was what he was, a failure of psyche and ability who was nothing, who could do nothing but look on, be a warm body, a recorder of others�� misery while he sat and stared and failed and failed and failed them—
A warm ball of fur was worming its way onto his lap. Then up under his jaw, trying to squeeze itself between his hands and his tears.
John looked down. Meward looked up. Blinked once, slow. Then resumed trying to grate himself against John’s face and hands and neck and anywhere else he could reach, purring like thunder as he did. John snuffled and swallowed back another hoarse noise. He laid both hands on the cat to stroke him. Minutes passed on and on until they became an hour. John picked himself up, cat in hand.
“Thank you, Doctor,” he breathed, pausing to tidy the skewed ribbon. “You have a true talent.”
Meward mewed. It was a purely affected sound. The kind he made either to win another round of petting or a treat or a dash of catnip. John supposed he could pay for his services with a medley of all three at home.
A year later, with the asylum behind and the future ahead, the private psychiatric practice of Dr. John Seward was making elated waves through the medical grapevine. It was recommended by most anyone in the Purfleet area—likewise for even the most distant neighbors—that Dr. Seward was the man to go to before anyone started throwing around panicked thoughts of sanitorium stays or the druggist or a mesmeric cure. Go to Seward first, comes the suggestion from all walks.
Talk to him. Talk until you’re blue. Let him hear it all, however strange, however haunted or haunting, and he will neither balk nor sentence you to a straitjacket. Dr. Seward actually listens. More, he keeps confidences. He lays out alternatives the patient themselves might take before being flung headlong to the pharmacy or a locked room. Talk. Be heard. Be helped.
And don’t mind the cat staring in the corner.
He is a colleague and he’s there to help too.
#taking a break from tormenting Jonathan Harker for fluffy kitty fic time :3c#Now Back to the Horrors#really though little bitty Jack Meward's design is ridiculously charming#I made my own plushie of the little guy I loved him so much#and now he's got his own fanfic#fanwork turducken#jack meward#meward#jack seward#john seward#r.m. renfield#dracula#my writing
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Terrarium Lights 3.4
Previously on Terrarium Lights: Gail got plot-twisted and now she's trying to do something to help about it.
Most of the other customers had already moved on, so the café was largely empty by the time Gail made it in.
Mrs. Mary Seward saw her as she came in, and waved at her.
They knew each other due to the annual festival held at the lighthouse, and because the Sewards had recently started attending Gail's church—though perhaps it was better to say that they were familiar with each other rather than knew each other. They had talked some, and were vaguely filled in on each others' circumstances, but they were little more than pleasant acquaintances who got along well at after-church lunches.
As such, Gail was both surprised and unsurprised that Mrs. Seward came out to serve her personally, instead of the worker that… did not seem to be there at the moment, actually. Odd. They typically made a point to employ some of the youngsters from the surrounding area.
"How are you doing, Mrs. Goffrey?" she said cordially, pulling a pad of paper out of the front of her apron and smiling pleasantly.
"The good Lord made the sun," Gail replied, sitting down at a hopefully private table further in the corner, "and it's shining as it ought. So I reckon I'm doing well. How about yourself?"
"Busy," Mrs. Seward laughed. "We've had to cut down on some of the days we have extra hands about the place, so it's a bit heavier on us. But business is good. Speaking of which, anything I can get you?"
"One coffee, please," Gail said, "black, no sugar. And if you have any fruit pastries, I think that would go with it well."
"Coming right up," Mrs. Seward confirmed, jotting down things on her pad. She whisked herself away to the kitchen, and left Gail to wonder how on Earth she was going to be able to learn what she needed to. Over-thinking was something she took pains to avoid, but at this precise moment it looked more like she hadn’t done any thinking at all. Another prayer, it seemed, would be in order.
Beside her, she noticed that Samuel had made his appearance, materializing through the doorway as if he had just walked in. He waved at her tentatively, then stuck his hands in his pockets.
Gail nodded at one of the other seats at her (admittedly) small table. Inwardly, she wondered how well she'd manage to deal with a sensitive conversation to someone she didn’t know very well, plus an involved spectator that only she could, but well, it would be rude not to invite him. Besides, it would rather cut down on time (and an elaborate game of mailcarrier) if he could just hear what was going on, himself, and not rely on her second-hand summaries.
He hovered near the table but didn't take a seat.
The last customer (presumably belonging to the one remaining gearmount out front) carried their cup and plate to the kitchen counter, and left with a merry jingling of the café bell.
It wasn't long before Mrs. Seward returned with one of her fruit dumplings and a cup of steaming coffee.
"There you go," she said, sliding the plate onto the table. "Made fresh this afternoon."
"Thank you, Mrs. Seward," Gail replied. The smell of warm dough and fruit—mango, she'd guess—mingling with the strong, bitter smell of the coffee struck her stomach with the force of realization: she hadn't brought any extra food, and she was hungry after having walked this far. "It looks delicious."
Mrs. Seward smiled politely. "Thank you."
Gail patted the table, indicating the seat across from her. "Sit, get off your feet a bit. There aren't any other customers here, and if any new ones come in, you'll see them fine."
Mrs. Seward hesitated.
"How about this," Gail said, "I order one more of the dumplings, and you get a snack out of it, too."
Mrs. Seward coughed a surprised laugh. "I couldn't take your money for food for me to eat in my own café."
"Nonsense," Gail retorted. "I couldn't ask you to sit and share your valuable time with me and not reimburse you fairly. We don't get time to talk often, and I haven't had much opportunity for socialization or chatting with Michael gone."
"Well…" Mrs. Seward sighed. "I suppose that's true. And if I need to get up and working, I'll be able to get back on my feet right quick."
"Of course. I wouldn’t dream of keeping you longer that you’d want."
Mrs. Seward’s smile felt less polite and more genuine. "I'll be just a second."
Gail exerted a great deal of self-control and did not scarf down the entirety of the (thankfully large) dumpling before Mrs. Seward got back.
"Ahhhh." Mrs. Seward sank down into the seat opposite, thin cheeks flushed from the warmth of the ovens in the kitchen. "I will admit, sitting down does feel nice."
"You seem to be quite hard at work," Gail agreed. "Why are the part-timers off-duty?"
"We're needing to save a bit more money just now," Mrs. Seward said, slicing into the dumpling neatly.
Gail was already several forkfulls ahead of her. "Oh? Is the lighthouse not doing so well? Repairs of some kind?"
"No, all of that's going well," she said. Now that she was sitting down and eating, her early reticence had dissipated. "Something else happened that is quite a miracle, so I'm very grateful for it, though at this exact moment it's a bit difficult."
"Oh?"
"Well, it's all a bit strange, but a close friend of my son's showed up again after having gone missing for six years, and we've been needing to pay the doctor to be here regular, since he hasn't woken up for the past three or so weeks."
Gail nearly spat out her coffee. Apparently, she had not needed to be concerned about information.
It, belatedly, occurred to Gail that if something big and surprising had happened—such as a young man appearing at the lighthouse one day—she would likely have had more trouble avoiding the topic than not. She bit down onto her fork with enthusiasm and general gratitude.
Wait.
"Your son?"
"You’re familiar with the annual remembrance festival, right?" Mrs. Seward replied, giving her a quizzical look.
"Well, yes," Gail replied. "We've only been attending since a few years ago, but yes. A festival of remembrance for those lost at sea, and for those brought home again, right?"
Mrs. Seward chuckled a bit, taking a delicate bite of her neatly sliced up dumpling. "Well, it actually isn't specified where they were lost. Your son was lost at sea, though, wasn't he?"
"Aye. David."
"We lost our son six years ago, but it was under unknown circumstances. The next year we wanted to give something back to the community that helped us through such a difficult time, so, in honor of him and those around us who we knew who had also suffered losses, we started the festival of remembrance."
"O-oh." Gail found she didn't have much of an answer.
"But, well, we still haven't found our son. We may never." She pushed her fork slowly into the dumpling, contemplating it. "But, again, we never thought we'd find his friend again, either, so there may be hope yet."
#heh#surprise#gail goffrey#terrarium lights#the ghost#the lighthouse#ocs#inklings challenge#inklingschallenge#inklings challenge 2023#team: lewis#genre: portal fantasy#theme: burial#theme: visiting the sick#story: finished#salt and light#the santa juliana files#scribe writes#scribe does inklings
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Seward Summary!
Hooboy, going up late today, but I've got some time so here we go!! Let's dive right in.
WARNINGS: fly-eating
We're back to dealing with Renfield, who had a violent fit yesterday at exactly noon requiring Seward's men to use all their strength to hold him back.
After only five minutes, he calmed down and fell into a melancholy funk that persists until the present.
Upon his return from visiting Lucy, and his arrival into the situation, Seward had had to immediately deal with several other patients disturbed by Renfield's screams.
It's now dinnertime and Renfield is still sullen, but Seward can't tell why.
Later! Around 5 pm Renfield was suddenly happy again, and catching flies, eating them, and keeping track of them, just like he used to.
He apologized and asked Seward politely to be let back in his old room and to return his notebook. Seward allowed this, and soon Renfield was happy as a clam - spreading his sugar on the windowsill, catching the flies, and putting them in a box, and already hunting for a new spider.
Seward tried to get details out of him, but all Renfield said, in a sad tone, that "he has deserted" him, and that the only hope for him would be to do it himself. He then promptly asked for more sugar, it would be good for him, because the flies like it so he likes it too.
Seward gave him more sugar.
Midnight! Time of recording, not time of events. Seward returns from visiting Lucy, who is doing better, and was watching the sunset when he heard Renfield screaming again. He turns and is struck by how dark and gothic his abode is, and how he's lonely.
He arrives to Renfield as the sun sets, and finds that he gets calmer the lower it sinks. Then he flops to the floor altogether the moment it dips below the horizon.
Seward has the attendants not hold him to see what he does. Renfield proceeds to brush away the sugar, dump his flies out the window, throw away the box, close the window, and sit down on the bed.
When asked, he says he's sick of "all that rubbish" about keeping flies. Seward is frustrated at not understanding Renfield's mind.
Seward does think maybe there's a clue in the timing of the fits - high noon and sunset. Maybe some influence of the sun, comparable to how the moon was believed to affect some people.
We conclude with a telegram from Seward to Van Helsing, simply telling him that Lucy is still fine today.
Okay! Whew! Y'all this is tough while away at con but the con's nearly over and you all are lovely.
#dracula daily#daily dracula#seward summary#this summary brought to you by the hugos which i am watching right now
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me? infodumping about the Abraham Lincoln centric musical I’m writing? HELL YEAH HERE WE GO!
This project has been in development for the last several years, and I unabashedly adore it more than anything I’ve worked on before. So uh … you’re gonna get a preview of it in the form of snack pack sized facts whether you like it or not.
SUMMARY: “𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇 𝐌𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐂𝐄 𝐓𝐎𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐃 𝐍𝐎𝐍𝐄: 𝐀 𝐍𝐄𝐖 𝐌𝐔𝐒𝐈𝐂𝐀𝐋” dives deep into the tortured psyche of Abraham Lincoln and tells the story of our Sixteenth President’s tumultuous years in office like it has never been told before.
Orchestrally, it holds the most similarities to Les Misérables, Hello Dolly, Newsies, and Anastasia. The narrative structure of the production is comparable to Evita, Jekyll and Hyde, and Hadestown.
this production will be A STUDY IN … the five stages of grief, leadership during turbulent times, the joys of fatherhood, spirituality and the occult, the quest to discover and establish one’s self-identity, courage in its many forms, collaboration between opposing personalities for the sake of the greater good, the transformation of a team to a brotherhood, legacy and the historical narrative, mental health, personal agency, and the horrors of war.
The musical is narrated by Robert Todd Lincoln, who in 1922 at the Lincoln Memorial’s dedication strives to clear away misconceptions regarding his father. Similar in archetypal design to Evita’s Che and Hadestown’s Hermes, he tells the musical’s story as a flashback, and has an omniscience granted to him by historical hindsight. He tells the story so that history won’t repeat itself and no matter how much he wishes to do so, it cannot be altered.
Although it certainly appears otherwise at first, there are no human antagonists within this storyline. William Henry Seward deceives the audience into believing that he is the antagonist during act one; however, this character arc is resolved by the development of his friendship with Lincoln. The real antagonists are the institution of slavery, the civil war itself, and Lincoln’s own depression.
Rather than the Gettysburg Address or Emancipation Proclamation, Willie Lincoln’s death is Act One’s final scene. This creative decision was made to highlight the show’s focus on mental health, and to render the Civil War an entirely personal affair. The last number of Act One offers the audience a glimpse into Lincoln’s personal struggle with the death of his son. In the timespan of a single musical number, he speedruns the Five Stages of Grief, eventually accepting that his son is dead and he must persevere through the pain. If he crumbles, more fathers will lose their sons.
The second part of Act Two’s opening number sheds light on Mary’s approach to the grieving process. Upon realizing that she became “so devoted to [our] political advancement” that she neglected her religious beliefs, Mary begins to wonder whether she was to blame for Willie’s demise. Robert briefly abandons his role as narrator to become Mary’s subconscious mind, poisoning her thoughts with the concept that Willie was struck down by a higher power as punishment for sinful behavior.
There are several musical numbers and scenes whereupon Abraham communicates with two versions of himself — version one being the nine year old Abe, and version two being the Abe that has just arrived in Springfield. From his younger selves, he seeks advice, reassurance, and listening ears.
That’s all the details you’ll get for now, folks! Feel free to reach out if you want to be part of the creative team for this show, or even just to suggest an idea.
#can y’all tell that this show is being written by an English Lit major yet?#musical theatre#american civil war#abraham lincoln#history#american history#broadway#child loss tw#child death mention#tw grief
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July 8
Dr. Seward notes that Renfield has been using his spiders to catch a bird, which he has tamed, and that he's been catching more spiders to feed the bird with the flies he's been catching with his food.
#dracula daily#dracula#dracula daily daily#dracula daily summary#dracula daily spoilers#dr seward#renfield
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Pod-Together Day 10 Reveals 2023
Mirdala Jetii'ad [text, audio] (Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types)
written by vamprav, performed by DuskDragon39
Summary: When Obi-Wan Kenobi comes back from Melida/Daan he was grounded for a few months. Qui-Gon Jinn decides to call in the assistance of his estranged master to monitor his padawan while he goes off on another mission. That one decision changed quite a few things, starting when Master Dooku is called out to deal with a situation on the minor planet Galidraan.
The Amusement Park Job (Leverage)
written by s0ckpupp3t, performed by dapatty
Summary: Saving a group of high school kids prom? Piece of cake. Trying to not involve themselves in amusement park shennanigans? Harder than you'd think.
Lake Kane (Stranger Things (TV 2016), Firewatch (Video Game))
written by SSLeif, performed by Rambling_company and Elle_dubs
Summary: It’s the summer of 1985, and construction of the New Mall expected in Hawkins has been Delayed. Steve Harrington, newly graduated, newly cut-off, needs a summer job. Hargrove is still in town, so Steve’s absolutely not going to lifeguard this year.
Eddie Munson gets caught that one-too-many’th-a-time, and Hopper makes it clear he needs to find some gainful employment, ideally elsewhere, and Hop does not want to see Too Much of him this summer, Or Else.
Robin Buckley needs a summer job, ideally something that lets her do college prep work at the same time… And the forest service is having trouble retaining fire lookouts in this one… mysterious… stretch of woods.
.
A Stranger Things/Firewatch AU
a work in progress (Ted Lasso (TV))
written by meyml, performed by roseszain
Summary: “Were shit, weren't I. Me teachers, they always said I’d left me head out on the pitch.” Jamie drums his fingers on the table as his eyes scan Dr. Sharon’s bookcase.
**
Jamie Tartt (Maybe Possibly Perhaps) Has ADHD
Star 69 (Deadpool - All Media Types, Spider-Man - All Media Types)
written by nemorps, performed by Elle_dubs
Summary: Wade's just trying to live his mercantile life to the fullest when circumstances leave him house-bound with nothing to do but watch TV and jerk off, so of course he calls his favorite phone-sex hotline.
Peter's just trying to make it through college and superheroing in one piece. Thankfully, his job as a phone-sex operator allows him to work a schedule that accommodates both. It's all going swimmingly until a new soulmark shows up on his wrist out of no-where.
The Price a Man Pays [text, audio] (Dracula - Bram Stoker (Novel 1897))
written by estelraca, performed by artax_risen
Summary: In a world where men have long been a minority, often sold to groups of women, Van Helsing will do anything he can to help his younger friend Jack Seward save his friends from an ancient evil.
Be by my side (Check Please! (Webcomic))
written by DesignatedGrape, performed by Amanita_Fierce and HowOldAreWe
Summary:
Kent: I wish you were here
Whiskey: I wish I was, too. xx
Or, still separated by a thousand miles and an international border, Kent and Whiskey try to keep their relationship casual. Spoiler: they're not very good at it.
little echoes (Avatar: The Last Airbender)
written by sulkybender, performed by Dr_Fumbles_McStupid
Summary: “I think,” Zuko says slowly, “we may have angered the spirits.”
Sokka scoffs.
“Spirits are bullshit,” he says.
“Okay,” Zuko says, “so what do you call this?”
He waves his hand generally at them both, the state of them. Zuko is still on his back, half-incapacitated; Sokka is sitting up, but hardly better off.
“There’s a rational explanation,” Sokka says.
Zuko arches his eyebrow.
“There is,” Sokka insists. “Stop that. Don’t smirk at me.”
“So what is it,” Zuko says, smirking.
Sokka thinks for a moment, wildly.
“Static… electricity,” he says.
Zuko bursts out laughing.
“Okay, okay, I get it,” Sokka says, ears burning. “It’s a working theory.”
The Downpour (LEGO Ninjago (Cartoon 2011-2022))
written by legonerd, performed by ReformedTsundere
Summary:
The sword burned his hands.
What if Wu was wrong, and Kai wasn't the Master of Fire?
Stones of the Soil - Rebuilding (Rubble) (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, A Stitch in Time - Andrew J. Robinson)
created by BardicRaven and RisalSoran
Summary: Waking from a nightmare, Garak remembers another dream.
A better dream: Doctor Julian Bashir coming to Kardassi'ya - despite everything. Despite Bashir's Starfleet career; despite what happened to Kardassi'ya.
But was it really a dream?
And if it wasn't, what will the future hold - for himself, for Julian ... and for Kardassi'ya?
#podfic#fanfic#star wars#leverage#stranger things#firewatch#ted lasso#deadpool#spiderman#dracula#check please#avatar the last airbender#lego ninjago#star trek deep space nine#a stitch in time
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Yuletide 2023!
I got two most excellent gifts this year!
One Dracula fic that gave me a lot of polycula feels, and was a delightful coda to the book.
Harmless Phantoms On Their Errands Glide (14346 words) by calliopes_pen
Chapters: 4/4
Fandom: Dracula - Bram Stoker (Novel 1897)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Jonathan Harker/Mina Murray Harker
Characters: Jonathan Harker, Mina Murray Harker, Quincey Morris, Abraham Van Helsing, Arthur Holmwood, John Seward
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Journey to the Castle, Kissing in the Snow, Mina tackle hugs Jonathan, Jonathan's skills concern everyone, Quincey has a secret, Ghosts, Found Family, Friendship, Happy Ending, Sharing a Bed, Quincey Morris Lives, Seward's bed might be haunted
Summary:
In the wake of the Count’s final defeat, it has begun to snow in earnest. Having nowhere else to go, as night falls our crew is forced to head for the castle for sanctuary from the storm. During the course of the night, they will forge a new destiny for themselves.
And a lovely Yuletide Madness treat for The Witch King!
Put Your Head in My Lap (596 words) by misura
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Witch King - Martha Wells
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Bashasa Calis, Kaiisteron (Witch King)
Additional Tags: Gen or Pre-Slash, Late Night Conversations
Summary:
"You're the only one who isn't throwing yourself at me," Bashasa said. He sounded a little drunk and a lot dramatic.
I only managed to write the one fic for my recip this year, and lol no points if you guessed this was me because it was extremely obvious :D
all together in the dark (2470 words) by yasaman
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 17776: What Football Will Look Like in the Future - Jon Bois
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Nine (17776), Ten (17776), Juice (17776)
Additional Tags: 5+1 Things, Dialogue-Only
Summary:
So what is there to do besides watch football?
Five alternatives to watching football that Nine considers trying, and one that they actually do.
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