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yallemagne · 7 months

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Jonathan is not comfortable with leaving Mina out at all. You can hear it in his voice, you can read it in his constant insistence: "this is the right thing to do even if it hurts, even if it seems wrong, it is right and I was wrong to ever burden her with the truth".

1 October, 5 a. m.—I went with the party to the search with an easy mind, for I think I never saw Mina so absolutely strong and well. I am so glad that she consented to hold back and let us men do the work. Somehow, it was a dread to me that she was in this fearful business at all; but now that her work is done, and that it is due to her energy and brains and foresight that the whole story is put together in such a way that every point tells, she may well feel that her part is finished, and that she can henceforth leave the rest to us.

Jonathan is the only one to praise Mina for more than her "goodness" or whatever crap. He praises her strength in letting the men take the reins. Why is it so strong of her to be left out? Because the mental stress of being forced into helplessness is worse than the stress knowing the awful truth. Jonathan knows this for himself. But how could he doubt Van Helsing for even a moment? No, nooo, of course, the man must be right, and Jonathan is still suffering from his earlier madness. Jonathan also praises her energy and intelligence. He hopes that Mina can be satisfied with the irreplicable work she has done for the team and finally rest.

VH praised her intelligence as well, but patronizingly, and to another man as opposed to her. No, to her face, VH praises only her woman-ness, because he would like her "woman's heart" to flourish and for her "man's brain" to cease its work.

I came tiptoe into our own room, and found Mina asleep, breathing so softly that I had to put my ear down to hear it. She looks paler than usual. I hope the meeting to-night has not upset her. I am truly thankful that she is to be left out of our future work, and even of our deliberations. It is too great a strain for a woman to bear. I did not think so at first, but I know better now.

Jonathan didn't think that Mina was incapable of bearing the strain until VH claimed so. VH, the same man who granted him clarity. How could he ever doubt him? Even if he knows deep in his gut that something is wrong with Mina and that this isolation is bad, he doesn't trust his own judgement in the matter, he can only trust the doctor.

Therefore I am glad that it is settled. There may be things which would frighten her to hear; and yet to conceal them from her might be worse than to tell her if once she suspected that there was any concealment. Henceforth our work is to be a sealed book to her, till at least such time as we can tell her that all is finished, and the earth free from a monster of the nether world. I daresay it will be difficult to begin to keep silence after such confidence as ours; but I must be resolute, and to-morrow I shall keep dark over to-night's doings, and shall refuse to speak of anything that has happened.

It is difficult for him to keep her out of it. This is not natural for them. They function best as a unit. Even when they are apart, they can work toward the same goal and strengthen each other's resolve when they reunite again. But Mina isn't allowed to work and Jonathan isn't allowed to confer with her. Jonathan is still able to be productive but is severely held back by this limitation.

I rest on the sofa, so as not to disturb her.

Jonathan punishes himself by forcing himself to sleep on the sofa. He denies himself closeness to Mina, excusing it as not wanting to disturb her. But why would her husband joining her in bed disturb her so terribly? He has no reason to assume it would unless he suspects that he is the cause of her quiet misery.

I am tired to-night, and want sleep. Mina is fast asleep, and looks a little too pale; her eyes look as though she had been crying. Poor dear, I've no doubt it frets her to be kept in the dark, and it may make her doubly anxious about me and the others.

Jonathan, again, recognizes that this decision is doing more harm than good.

But it is best as it is. It is better to be disappointed and worried in such a way now than to have her nerve broken. The doctors were quite right to insist on her being kept out of this dreadful business.

But he goes ahead and says the doctors are right. The evidence and the conclusion don't add up, Jonathan. He worries about Mina's nerve being broken, the same thing he suffered himself. In fact, VH's warnings about Mina being tormented by memories of what they saw in Carfax allude to Jonathan's own PTSD. VH has passively leveraged Jonathan's PTSD against him, saying "you know how bad it is to suffer from nightmares every night. you don't want to force that on your wife, do you?"

I must be firm, for on me this particular burden of silence must rest. I shall not ever enter on the subject with her under any circumstances. Indeed, it may not be a hard task, after all, for she herself has become reticent on the subject, and has not spoken of the Count or his doings ever since we told her of our decision.

Even Mina's doing better at the whole "don't tell Mina anything" job than Jonathan. He's grasping at straws at this point. "See! Mina is content with this awful awful secrecy! I can be, too!" But notice how he... sorta rewrites what happened at the meeting. "...since we told her of our decision." It was not a group decision. This was VH's decision that he had Jack sign off on. But Jonathan pretends that it was a group decision that they all discussed at length together because it feels less helpless that way.

Jonathan knows something's up. But he can't bring it to anyone's attention. He has been forbidden from confiding in his wife, he's surrounded by complete strangers he just learned the names of, and the man whose methods he has a problem with is one he respects greatly.

#dracula #dracula daily #jonathan harker #mina harker #jonmina #abraham van helsing #re: dracula #october 1

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vickyvicarious · 7 months

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I went with the party to the search with an easy mind, for I think I never saw Mina so absolutely strong and well. I am so glad that she consented to hold back and let us men do the work. Somehow, it was a dread to me that she was in this fearful business at all; but now that her work is done, and that it is due to her energy and brains and foresight that the whole story is put together in such a way that every point tells, she may well feel that her part is finished, and that she can henceforth leave the rest to us.

Jonathan starts out feeling fairly confident in the decision to leave Mina behind. He hopes she will feel like she's done enough already, and he definitely is relieved that she isn't going with him to the Count's home.

I hope the meeting to-night has not upset her. I am truly thankful that she is to be left out of our future work, and even of our deliberations. It is too great a strain for a woman to bear. I did not think so at first, but I know better now. Therefore I am glad that it is settled. There may be things which would frighten her to hear; and yet to conceal them from her might be worse than to tell her if once she suspected that there was any concealment. Henceforth our work is to be a sealed book to her, till at least such time as we can tell her that all is finished, and the earth free from a monster of the nether world. I daresay it will be difficult to begin to keep silence after such confidence as ours; but I must be resolute, and to-morrow I shall keep dark over to-night's doings, and shall refuse to speak of anything that has happened.

But then, after the expedition is done and he returns to find her looking pale in her sleep, he is way less certain already. He goes back and forth doubting this decision and trying to convince himself it is correct.

Mina is fast asleep, and looks a little too pale; her eyes look as though she had been crying. Poor dear, I've no doubt it frets her to be kept in the dark, and it may make her doubly anxious about me and the others. But it is best as it is. It is better to be disappointed and worried in such a way now than to have her nerve broken. The doctors were quite right to insist on her being kept out of this dreadful business. I must be firm, for on me this particular burden of silence must rest. I shall not ever enter on the subject with her under any circumstances. Indeed, it may not be a hard task, after all, for she herself has become reticent on the subject, and has not spoken of the Count or his doings ever since we told her of our decision.

When he comes home the next day and finds her asleep and pale again, with evidence of crying, he continues to doubt hard and try to convince himself - this time adding in the justification that she must be onboard since she hasn't talked to him either. While there's less back and forth here, it feels notable that he needs to talk himself up at even more length and frame it as a burden he must bear. This is no longer a comfort even to his own mind, but something he hates yet is determined to see through since everyone else says it is best. (Also, I think he's definitely thinking of himself in that line about having her nerve broken. He doesn't want Mina to suffer the way he did.) And Mina thinks so too, he justifies: if she wanted to know then surely she would have asked me?

Maybe before, when you always were open with her. But now that you're shutting her out she feels like she can't ask. Out of care for you, she's going to keep silent. And, out of care for her, you're going to keep silent too as long as you think that is what will be best for her. And it's making you both miserable.

#dracula daily #jonathan harker #mina murray #jonmina #AUGH #my meta

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curi0us-gh0st · 5 months

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Reward (Lia Kim & Mina Myoung)

pairings: Fem!Reader x Mina Myoung (established relationship), Fem!Reader x Lia Kim.

word count: 2.215

genre: smut.

summary: you are the reward of absolute forgiveness.

warnings: Drunk Mina Myoung, teasing, lots of use of "good girl", fingering, masturbation, finger sucking, cunnilingus, a little degrading, overstimulation (if you squint??), squirting, let me know if anything happened. [NO REVIEW]

a/n: Thank you for encouraging me with this dirt, no words for it... just mommy Lia, just.

The moment you and your girlfriend stepped into the celebration party venue, all eyes turned to you, full of curiosity, awe, and disbelief. Instantly, you were with your friends already known at Deep N Dap, chatting with Soll and Minny while having a drink here and there, watching the others dancing on the dance floor.

While you were distracted, you felt a hand holding your wrist and you looked at the person to scold them until you saw Mina, her cheeks were red, her lips between her teeth and laughing, she was drunk, she held your hand right and approached the mouth of your ear.

"Baby, I need you to come with me." She asked softly, pulling away to give you a lost puppy look that you couldn't deny.

You nodded, saying goodbye to the girls and gathering your things, Mina held your shoulders to take you where you needed to go, whispering things in her ear, which seemed more like instructions.

"You need to behave properly, like the beautiful doll you are, okay?"

"Be very good with what they give you, you hear?"

"You'll do fine, I'm sure. You just have to be you."

These were one of the phrases he heard during the journey to a corridor in the place, Mina taking him to one of the last doors, opening it and pushing him inside. Her eyes on her girlfriend, trying to figure out what she was trying to say until the additional voice in the room was heard.

"Mina, Mina, Mina." A tone of pride, souring the speech.

Her body became rigid, turning so slowly until she looked and saw Lia Kim sitting on the sofa in the room. Mina stood next to her, holding her shoulders and a huge smile graced her face.

"Look. I brought it, I can share it with you, like I said… To make up for our fight." Mina smoothed her arms up and down, as if she were a valuable auction prize, her face frowning as she looked at her in disbelief.

"Mina, what the hell-"

"I didn't think you actually brought your girlfriend as payment for our fight." The leader of 1Million stood up, walking towards you. "I would find it rude if I were your girlfriend.”

She looked you in the eyes, like you were funny and arrogant, you swallowed hard when Mina pushed you forward, almost throwing you into Lia's arms.

Well, since Deep N Dap's elimination, Mina had said that she had started talking to Lia, her old friend, and was happy to finally ask for forgiveness and return to friendship, but she also complained that she still felt selfish and arrogant towards her. Lia, that none of her excuses could be forgiven. But her brain numbed with alcohol, she thought that by sharing her girlfriend, it would be a good match to obtain absolute forgiveness.

"You have good taste." Lia continued, lifting her chin to look into her eyes, her peripheral vision watching how Mina smiled proudly and shyly at the older woman's praise.

"I'll like it if I play with you." She smiled naughty at you and you felt a chill run down your spine, making your body shiver, your nervousness only increasing.

“Wait, what do you mean by that..”

Your speech was cut off when Lia stepped behind you, holding your shoulders and pushing you towards the sofa she was sitting on a few minutes ago, you fell onto the sofa on your knees, holding on to support yourself to back away therefore being stopped by Lia's hand. at the bottom of its coast.

“Your girlfriend and I have an agreement, proposed by her. So I want what I was offered, right?” She pronounced with a firm tone close to her ear, you just shook your head. “Mina, you can lie down on the bed.”

Her head turning to look at her girlfriend shyly walks to sit down, legs rubbing together and her eyes unfocusing to the smile Lia had on her lips as she watched her.

“Give your girlfriend a show, honey.” She whispered in her ear, kissing her earlobe, trailing the kisses down to the side of her neck which brought goosebumps.

Her hand on her back, smoothing her waist, going down a little further, lightly scratching her thigh and lifting the hem of the skirt you were wearing. You felt her smile against her neck as she ran her hand over your exposed ass, squeezing lightly when you moaned softly.

“I'm sure you were thinking about having sex with Mina today, right? Look at that lingerie.” She pulled away, holding your skirt with one hand and the other wandering over your pert ass, smiling in the white lingerie you chose before leaving the house, she was right.

A slap on her ass made you suddenly scream at the unexpected act, the area burning as Lia's hand caressed it again.

“Come on pretty girl, answer me.” She demanded with a sensual tone of voice, a blush forming on her cheeks, lowering her head in shame.

“Y-yes… I… I was hoping to have sex with Mina today…” You replied shyly, hiding your face from the older girls’ view.

"Hey." Lia guided a hand to lift her chin, carefully turning to look at her. “Don’t feel embarrassed, okay? Just look at… Us.” She smiled.

You nodded shyly before she leaned closer and gently kissed her lips, a slow, achingly slow kiss. Feeling her lips moving so slowly, as if she wanted to record the touch of their lips together, ending in licking her lips, an unusual touch making her cheeks burn again, feeling one of Lia's fingers playing with her covered pussy, feeling the wetness through of the fine fabric.

“I barely touched you and you’re already wet, what a dirty little girl, huh.” She laughed next to her ear, making the tips of her ears turn red.

She hooked her panties with two fingers pulling them up, exposing her soaked pussy as she teased with the fabric, pulling it or moving it to the sides, earning sly moans that fell from her lips.

“See? Your girl and her dripping hole wanting attention.” Lia teased, but it wasn't with you, it was especially with Mina.

Her face turning to look at her girlfriend sitting with her legs half open, her fingers teasing her swollen bud in need of attention, her eyes full of tears, she was dying to fuck you. Realizing the position she was in, the glorious view Mina was getting of her exposed pussy as Lia teased them both.

“Stop teasing, L-Lia Kim!” Mina whimpered like a lost puppy in need of attention.

“Uh-huh. My reward, my way.” She responded quickly.

Lia set her panties aside to give her fingers access to glide through her wet folds, gathering moisture as she teased her hole that clenched into nothingness, needing attention. With her fingers wet, she could hear Lia giggle before sucking her own fingers, murmuring, tasting her.

"Cum." She cursed. “You have wonderful taste!” I could hear the excitement in your voice

She smiled when she saw you taking her luscious fingers, a mixture of your juices and Lia's hot drool. Pulling back, clicking his needy little button, teasing and playing with him as the room filled with his moans that sounded like music to Lia and Mina's ears.

Sliding her fingers into her hot interior, her walls squeezing the fingers of the older woman who bit her lips, her moans encouraging her to explore her pussy.

“Please…” You asked as if you were out of breath, Lia looked at her face, kissing her shoulder.

“Please what, little girl?” She teased, she wanted to hear you say it completely in front of your girlfriend who was touching herself in the background just watching you.

“More… Please, more… I-I need more… Please, Lia…” You moaned, turning her face to meet Lia’s lips, kissing her.

“Your request is an order, princess.” She nodded, curling her fingers inside you, her movements back and forth, going as deep and fast as she could while hearing your moans get louder and louder.

The wet sounds of her fingers slapping her soaked pussy echoing through the room, her nails digging into the leather of the couch. Biting her lip when Lia began to suck on the skin of her shoulder, leaving red and purple marks across the area, smiling at the sounds you made.

“Please don’t stop… I… Ugh… I’m close!” She screamed the last part, sensitive and on edge as the choreographer touched you in a surreal way.

“Come on pretty girl, show your girlfriend how good you feel.” She encouraged.

The fingers going as fast as possible, touching your sensitive spot that made you arch your back and let out a scream, Lia raising another hand to tease your clit, the knot in your stomach almost making you explode. A moan catching your attention, looking with teary eyes at your girlfriend who was masturbating at your sight, Mina whispering something silent, but you understood, letting out one last loud moan and cumming on Lia's fingers, Mina accompanying her orgasm and coming undone soon after you.

"Great job." Lia praised, taking her fingers out of you and sucking your juices, moving away from you, her eyes catching the sight of Lia Kim sticking her luscious fingers into Mina's mouth who moaned at the taste of her.

His body tired, turning to lean against the shore, trying to regulate his breathing before letting out a surprised cry when Lia spread his legs.

“Wait, I can't…” she tried to move Lia away from her legs.

“Of course you can, pretty girl.” She pushed her hands towards you. “Because that’s how bitches like you behave.”

The degrading speech making her pussy pulse, a smug smile on the choreographer's lips while her fingers playing with her sensitive lips, spreading her fingers, teasing her sensitive pussy, distributing kisses over her thighs, her groin, her clitoris, whispering how beautiful her pussy is. hers was.

“Look at that pussy.” Kiss. "So beautiful." Kiss. “Ready for me.” Kiss. “For my fingers.” Kiss. “And for my mouth.” Kiss.

You moaned feeling her lick a long stripe of your dripping pussy, from bottom to top, teasing your luscious folds.

“You’re going to behave like a good girl and cum in my mouth, okay?” She asked against her pussy and you just shook your head.

“Come on little girl, say it out loud so Mina hears it too.” Lia slowly stopped her movements. “You’re going to make a mess of my face, right? And will you let me abuse your body tonight?” She kissed her clit.

You shook your head, pushing your hips closer to her fingers. “Ahh, yes! I-I’m going to make a mess..” she muttered impatiently. “Please... I'll let you do anything to me, just please... Don't stop.”

Her eyes filled with tears as she begged to be touched by Lia, making her ego grow more and more that night. Without hesitation, Lia attacked her needy pussy, licking it like there was no tomorrow, sucking her lips as his gaze penetrated her soul, sucking her clitoris as her moans turned into screams asking for more, Lia smiled against her pussy, moving away from her minimally. .

“So greedy.” She spoke, the vibration of her voice giving him goosebumps.

Her fingers playing with your pussy again as she went back to sucking your clit, her fingers entering without warning making you arch your back off the couch, feeling her smile against your pussy before moving her fingers, going back and forth until she found your spot. spongy and sensitive, hitting him as you screamed.

The room filling with her and Mina's moans, full of sex, the temperature so high in the room it seemed like it wasn't even an October night. Your rapid breathing, your loud, choking moans as your legs shook, warned Lia that you were so close to your climax.

She kept pushing her fingers deeper into you and sucking you so hard that your eyes rolled back, your hands desperate for support, scratching the sofa until they caught in Lia's hair, pushing her head into your pussy more and more. , until he finally lets out a strangled scream and squirts on his face and fingers.

Her chest rising and falling, feeling Lia's fingers slowly leaving you, her closed eyes slowly opening to see the sight of Lia licking the side of her mouth and sucking on her luscious fingers, a smug smile on her face.

“Good girl, you made a nice mess.” She massaged her trembling thighs.

She sat down next to her, brushing a few strands of hair off her sweaty forehead before pinching the nipples of her hard, neglected breasts, making her murmur, she brought her mouth closer to her ear to say:

“I think your owner needs attention too.” The gaze moving towards a sweaty Mina looking at the ceiling, the bed sheet between her legs wet with her juices. “I’ll be good enough for me and her to have fun, just like old times, right cutie?”

You took a deep breath, your night was far from over, especially when there was a Lia Kim, eager to enjoy every last drop of her reward of absolute forgiveness.

#👻 gh0st fic !#smut #swf 2 #swf2 x reader #lia kim #lia kim x reader #mina myoung #mina myoung x reader

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synthient · 7 months

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Probably observations that have been made by plenty of people over the last century, but:

Fascinating how the Evil and Unnatural control that Dracula wields over people, is mirrored against the Good and Natural control of men over women; the rich over the poor; the British over backwards and savage foreigners; doctors over the insane.

Fascinating how much the Jonathan's Spooky Castle Adventure segment is subtextally about the horror of feminization. On the obvious level of being subject to sexual violence, sure, but also on the level of being trapped in a domestic space that you're not allowed to leave. The person who's the greatest threat to you is the also the person you've been made absolutely dependant on. You have to keep up a cheerful facade, play along with his social games, and pretend to be too stupid to realize you're a prisoner, if you want any hope of survival.

Fascinating how much the rest of the (surface level) text is dedicated to frantically backtracking that (early, subtextal) insight. The Heteropatriarchal Gender Order is actually the greatest thing in the word! Look how rosy and wholesome the scooby gang polycule is! (Again, our cute jokey pseudo-polygamy is mirrored against their barbarous 3 brides). Yet all the while, the inherent grotesqueness of these relations can't help bleeding through the sentimental trappings - the "euthanasia is such a beautiful word" bit springs to mind

Fascinating how our Three Heroes are, respectively, representatives of The Psychiatric Order, The British Nobility, and American Colonial Expansion (Quincy specifically gets congratulated on the recent Texan secession from Mexio). Fascinating how Dracula and Van Helsing never actually face off directly - everything is mediated through Mina, and it all comes down to a brainwash-off to see who can control her better.

Fascinating how Jonathan's feminization narrative is also haunted by the specter of institutionalization (via the Renfield subplot, which barely ties in with the main story on a surface level). It's not the horrors themselves that affect him the most - it's not being able to trust his own perceptions. (It's the idea that if he really had been "mad," then his imprisonment would have been justified).

Fascinating that the book later goes to great pains to show that he's Regained His Manly Vigour And Has A Knife Now, yet his emasculation still clings to him in the Dracula-based cultural consciousness: he's composited with Renfield to keep that emasculation from infecting the hero in the 30s; he's the unappealing weak prettyboy of the 90s love triangle; he's Shaggy in the scooby gang (unrelated to the Serious Analysis, but it is deeply funny how obvious the Velma=Mina/Daphne=Lucy/Fred=Arthur inspo is now).

Fascinating how much the ultimate question of the book is "What's the Right way to do gender? (and therefore do whiteness/Britishness/patriarchy/colonialism/capitalism?) The answer, apparently, is that both sexes should aspire to a "a woman's brain and a man's heart" - Mina's man-brain, and the Five Guys' woman-sensitivity - while still dutifully playing the roles of their "natural" power dynamic. The obvious inverse is a woman's brain with a man's heart - and is that not Dracula and his "child brain;" the brides and their "cold hard voluptuousness"?

Fascinating to read Mina and Jonathan as effectively the same character (with Mina picking up the gender-power themes Jonathan left off, in a more socially-acceptable vessel). Fascinating how strong the religious cognitive dissonance is throughout. And of course, the whole thing is drenched with Bram Stoker sending some gay little letters to Walt Whitman (as every single victorian gay guy apparently did), then seeing the Oscar Wilde trial and Freaking Out

#[shows up 2 years late with a book instead of an email]#dracula

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bloomblitz · 2 years

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Dracula Daily October 28

Harker smiled—actually smiled—the dark, bitter smile of one who is without hope; but at the same time his action belied his words, for his hands instinctively sought the hilt of the great Kukri knife and rested there. Poor Jonathan’s changed so, SO much over the course of this story.

I am the train fiend Immaculate title, Mina!

there I have hope that our man-brains that have been of man so long and that have not lost the grace of God, will come higher than his child-brain that lie in his tomb for centuries I miss when Helsing spoke of corn. That made more sense.

The Count's child-thought see nothing; therefore he speak so free. Your man-thought see nothing; my man-thought see nothing, till just now. Good gawd there’s a TEXT BLOCK of this.

Mrs. Harker began to clap her hands and her eyes sparkled Mina can understand all that? Give this woman a degree!

And so I have written it whilst we wait their return Dr. John ‘I hate writing’ Seward wrote an impressively long entry because Helsing asked.

#dracula daily

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finalgirlfall · 2 years

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When it was over, Van Helsing stood up and said:— “Now, my dear friends, we go forth to our terrible enterprise. Are we all armed, as we were on that night when first we visited our enemy’s lair; armed against ghostly as well as carnal attack?” We all assured him. “Then it is well. Now Madam Mina, you are in any case quite safe here until the sunset; and before then we shall return—if—We shall return! But before we go let me see you armed against personal attack. I have myself, since you came down, prepared your chamber by the placing of the things of which we know, so that He may not enter. Now let me guard yourself. On your forehead I touch this piece of Sacred Wafer in the name of the Father, the Son, and—” There was a fearful scream which almost froze our hearts to hear. As he had placed the Wafer on Mina’s forehead, it had seared it—had burned into the flesh as though it had been a piece of white-hot metal. My poor darling’s brain told her the significance of the fact as quickly as her nerves received the pain of it; and the two so overwhelmed her that her overwrought nature had its voice in that dreadful scream. But the words to her thought came quickly; the echo of the scream had not ceased to ring on the air when there came the reaction, and she sank on her knees on the floor in an agony of abasement. Pulling her beautiful hair over her face, as the leper of old his mantle, she wailed out:— “Unclean! Unclean! Even the Almighty shuns my polluted flesh! I must bear this mark of shame upon my forehead until the Judgment Day.”

— Dracula, Bram Stoker ed. Brooke Allen

Then He said, “What have you done? Hark, your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground! Therefore, you shall be more cursed than the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. If you till the soil, it shall no longer yield its strength to you. You shall become a ceaseless wanderer on earth.” Cain said to YHVH, “My punishment is too great to bear! Since You have banished me this day from the soil, and I must avoid Your presence and become a restless wanderer on earth—anyone who meets me may kill me!” YHVH said to him, “I promise, if anyone kills Cain, sevenfold vengeance shall be taken on him.” And YHVH put a mark on Cain, lest anyone who met him should kill him.

— Genesis 4:10–15, tr. the Jewish Publication Society, 1985

Oh that I could give any idea of the scene; of that sweet, sweet, good, good, woman in all the radiant beauty of her youth and animation, with the red scar on her forehead of which she was conscious, and which we saw with grinding of our teeth—remembering whence and how it came; her loving kindness against our grim hate; her tender faith against all our fears and doubting; and we, knowing that so far as symbols went, she with all her goodness and purity and faith, was outcast from God.

— Dracula, Bram Stoker ed. Brooke Allen

#*#literature #web weaving #vampires #dracula #college #bram stoker #brooke allen

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thequeervampiric · 7 months

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“I wish you would take yourself and your idiotic brain theories somewhere else.”

unless there’s something that I don’t remember, the only time I recall Van Helsing mentioning much to do with brains is his whole “Madam Mina has a man’s brain and a woman’s heart” thing.

in the very same and following paragraph, Van Helsing and Seward talk about how terrible circumstances are no place for a woman, and how if she had continued with them in their campaign to take down Dracula, “it would in time infallibly have wrecked her.”

therefore the men had left her at home while they searched the Count’s new place of residence…where she was undoubtedly attacked by Dracula.

she was in more danger being left out of it and being left alone than she might’ve been if she’d gone with the group, and I think Renfield resents them for this. feminist king /lh

#dracula #dracula spoilers

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muchadoaboutnot · 9 months

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First interaction, let's go!

"How much will you give me if I tell ya?"

"I've got... A hundred on me."

"Deal."

It's simple. If you see a guy acting suspiciously at three in the morning, especially in Gotham, you leave them alone. Unless of course you yourself can be considered up to no good. Which, she really isn't, Mina is actually doing her job. Somewhat.

Said woman pulls out a crumpled hundred dollar bill, passing it to the rough-looking individual before her. Already she knows he profiled her, sized her up, most likely thinking to mug her for all she has. Except she knows well enough to flash her concealable, the shoulder holster snuggled against her body and underneath her beat-up jacket. It's enough to stave him off. Clearly, he just wants to keep things simple in what he's doing, nothing more, as he takes the money and tosses her an illuminated green question mark object.

"Won't your boss be mad?"

"He's not my boss, just some guy that paid me to set this up right over there. But who cares, I got paid from you AND that guy now. See ya."

Mina watches him walk off, leaving her alone in the stillness of the autumn night, or early morning however you wanted to look at it. And when she knows she's alone and safe for the time being, she looks down at the object in her hand. It's mechanical in nature, however, the neon part of the question mark illuminates beautifully in the darkness. It's well crafted. And It's a trophy. One that belongs to The Riddler. Something she should not be messing around with, yet out of sheer coincidence she had happened upon the man setting up a trophy for The Riddler.

"Gotcha."

Mina was only a private investigator, she didn't work for the GCPD, and didn't take things on other than missing people's and cheating cases. Those sorts of things. Nothing like this. Nothing that ever had to do with the hardcore villains out there, or bad guys, or weirdos. Whatever you wanted to call them. But curiosity and just the thought of interrupting whatever plan that man had for this trophy was too good to pass up. Either way, she flicked the switch on the trophy, turning the light off, before gripping it and walking forwards towards what looked like a half-set-up puzzle.

The area the man had pointed out where he was supposed to set it up was in a secluded corner. Off the side of the bridge and close to the sewer lines here in the park, the area she was originally there to look for clues on her case. Missing person. Apparent suicide the GCPD had left it unsolved, her clients however were adamant about knowing what happened to their family member.

Mina's reputation preceded her, she was known to find people even after a case had been closed for years. Something she felt pride in. And this was another one she'd like to solve, however, at the prospect of playing games with a certain man of puzzles... She decided danger wouldn't be all that bad. Maybe something was wrong with the connections in her brain, or maybe she felt as long as he never knew who it was. She could do as she pleased, right?

A buzz nearby had alerted her to a tossed-off flip phone, something the man from earlier had thrown away. Leaving the half-set-up puzzle, her boots crunched a few fallen leaves in the grass as she left the sidewalk to pick up the device. It was the type of flip phone you bought at a corner store, or the free ones government officials would give to low-income persons. Upon opening the phone a series of text messages notification were blaring up at her from an unnamed number. [Text: 3:12 AM] Did you place it? [Text: 3:12 AM] ? [Text: 3:12 AM] ??? [Text: 3:12 AM] ?

[Text: 3:13 AM] I'm waiting.

[Text: 3:15 AM] If you think you can steal from me you'll soon find out what happens.

[Text: 3:16 AM] Therefore activate the puzzle already! The texts were laughable to her, all they did was show her the man behind them; The Riddler, was a huge child. Impatient. Spoiled.

But... She made quick work of texting back.

[Outgoing Text: 3:18 AM] No.

[Text: 3:18 AM] No what? No, you didn't set up the simple puzzle with my simple instructions? No? What is no?

[Outgoing Text: 3:19 AM] No. I didn't set it up.

[Text: 3:19 AM] Is this some sort of sick joke? Set. It. Up. I paid you for a reason because I thought you could follow a set of instructions a five-year-old could understand. But as it seems I was incorrect.

Snorting, the woman flipped the phone closed and looked around the area. In a stroke of genius, or really, just an idea to be difficult. Mina picked up a pine cone from the ground, turning on her heels she headed back to the half-laid challenge. Setting down the pine cone in the middle of the sorta dangerous-looking mechanism, before using her booted toe to gently push on one side of it to set it. It sprung up around the pinecone and activated the actual puzzle a few feet away. One that Batman was supposed to solve no doubt. And she only knew that from snooping on the GCPD and their radio comms.

Immediately the burner phone buzzed in her hand.

[Text: 3:25 AM] Good. It shows online. I don't need you any longer, toss the phone and I'll remember you. Incompetent. Not someone who can attend to a simple task.

Holding up the phone, Mina snapped a picture of the pinecone where the trophy should have been. Sending it to the unknown number who was obviously The Riddler.

[Text: 3:26 AM] No! [Text: 3:26 AM] No! [Text: 3:26 AM] No! [Text: 3:26 AM] No! What did you do!? Why did you do that!? What kind of moron does this?? Do you know who I am? I will find you!

[Outgoing Text: 3:26 AM] lol

Flipping the phone closed again, she felt the heavy buzz of it in rapid-fire successions. He was texting back a storm but she could care less. Instead, she walked over to the side of the bridge and threw the phone into the dark water below. She did however give a good look over the Riddler trophy in her hand, turning it around, now she knew she'd have to open it up to make sure there wasn't any sort of signal device inside of it. Because she was defiantly going to keep it. A nice knick-knack for her shelves at.

Now, however, as much as she'd like to look around for her own clues on her own case. Mina knew she'd have to flee for now since obviously puzzle man was down a trophy and would have to replace it.

Walking off, Mina had no idea what she had started.

#xo. lovefool #**mine

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kpop-zone · 3 years

Text

Change of Mind | Mina

CEO!AU | meet messy | “You confuse me.”

Wordcount: 1,430

“Dang it! Who comes late to a job interview?!”

You cursed yourself breathlessly as you ran down the street towards the tall glass skyscraper in front of you.

This morning, everything that could have gone wrong went wrong. First, you didn’t hear your alarm. Then, you spilled coffee on your shirt which ultimately caused you to miss the last subway that could have gotten you here on time. Now you were already running five minutes late and you hadn’t even entered the building yet.

“Who am I even supposed to meet?”

Panicked, you tried to recall whose name you had read in the mail, but you completely blanked. While silent curses rolled off your tongue, you hectically fished for your phone in your bag as you kept running in full speed. You probably should have known that your attempt at multitasking couldn’t end well, but in midst of all that stress, you ignored the red flags. It wasn’t until you ran into something, or better someone full force that you were humbled again. The collision knocked the air out of your lungs, but you were even more bothered by the hot liquid that seeped through your shirt.

“Are you serious?!”

A voice quivering in anger made you flinch, and you reluctantly lifted your gaze to look at the victim of your clumsiness.

“Oh no.”

The moment you laid eyes on the person, your face became paler than ever, and your heart stopped beating. This couldn’t be. No one in this world could have that much bad luck.

The person standing in front of you was none other than Myoui Mina; youngest female, self-made multimillionaire of the country and the CEO of the company that you wanted to work for.

“M-Ms. Myoui, I-I’m so sorry.”

You stuttered ashamed but she didn’t even seem to hear your apology.

“Do you know how expensive this shirt is?! You shouldn’t make other people pay for your obvious incapability to manage life.”

She growled while patting a napkin on the huge coffee stain that was ruining her perfectly white, and very expensive looking blouse. Ashamed, you looked to your feet and endured her yelling silently.

“A diligent and decent person wouldn’t have to run anywhere. That’s what differentiates the successful from the scum. I would-“

The young CEO went on and on until she finally looked up from her shirt, causing her to suddenly stop cursing you. Her fiery gaze met yours before it wandered down your body as she examined you shamelessly. Your cheeks seemed to have caught fire and you helplessly stood there, not being able to utter a word while you let the woman do whatever she wanted.

Eventually she was done eyeing you and looked into your face again with an unreadable expression. She seemed to enjoy making you sweat bullets though as she stared at you silently with an amused glint in her eyes until you couldn’t even remember what a beating heart felt like. Everything around you seemed to be so distant as all of your attention was drawn to her flawless face. She seemed to be casting a spell on you that only she would be able to break, which she did by clearing her throat.

“Aren’t you late to something?”

She eventually piped up, causing you to gasp; you had totally forgotten about that.

“Um...I- yes. I- your shirt.”

You stammered, still not being able to think straight. Nervously, you started searching for your purse in your bag to compensate for the ruined blouse when the CEO suddenly put her hand on top of yours.

“Go.”

She ordered you with a stern expression on her face that forbade you to be disobedient. Awkwardly, you bowed to her while mumbling incomprehensible apologies before rushing to the entrance of the company.

You still felt dazed as you walked to the reception in the huge foyer to announce your arrival. The lady behind the counter looked at you disapprovingly, making you remember that you had a huge brown stain on your shirt while your hair stuck to your sweaty face.

This whole morning was a disaster.

Therefore, you weren’t even surprised when the head of the department responsible for your job interview instantly started yelling at you when you entered the conference room.

“Who do you think you are? Do you think I’m only waiting for you? And then you appear here looking like that?”

He pointed up and down your body and you felt a lump forming in your throat. You were slowly reaching your breaking point. But the head of the department didn’t even look like he was close to being done with you. He inhaled deeply, getting ready for another batch of accusations when a different voice caused your breath to hitch in your throat.

“Is that how you deal with all of our applicants? Do you think that’s good publicity for my company? My god, you must have been raised by animals. Your incompetence is truly astonishing.”

All of a sudden, Myoui Mina appeared next to you and you stared at her with wide eyes.

First, she yelled at you and now she was defending you?

Calmly, she looked at you while the head of the department stammered justifications and apologies. Once again, she had that same unreadable expression in her face that made you lose all sense of reality. If she could make everyone feel this way, you had no trouble understanding why she was so successful.

“Well, I don’t really have time for your irrelevant babbling. For your sake, however, I hope that you will quickly fill this position with the right person. Otherwise...well, I think I will not be having any use for you.”

Calmly, the CEO averted her gaze from you to look at the head of department with a cold smile on her face. He looked like he had seen a ghost, but Mina didn’t bother to lose any more words, choosing to turn on her heel and strut out of the room instead. Now you were almost feeling sorry for the poor guy in front of you. He was looking even worse than you now and nervously asked you to sit down before starting the shortest job interview that you had ever experienced. After only five questions, he offered you the job to your surprise, but you weren’t dumb enough to question his decision. Therefore, you gratefully accepted the offer before leaving the conference room after only 10 minutes on shaky legs.

Why did this day feel like it was 48h long?

So many things had already happened that it seemed to be too much for one day alone. Therefore, you closed your eyes as soon as the door to the conference room closed to take a deep breath. You really needed to do something to steady your heartbeat if you didn’t want to die of a heart attack right on the spot.

But apparently you weren’t granted to catch your breath.

“Congratulations.”

For the third time this day, the same voice caused your heart to skip a beat.

Slowly, you turned your head to see that your future boss was leaning against the wall right next to the door of the conference room. Perplexed, you stared at her. Had she been waiting for you? What did this mean? All of your thoughts were jumbled in your brain and you had trouble finding an answer.

“I- thank you. It’s just-“

You stammered, feeling completely confused as to why this woman was suddenly so nice to you. Expectantly, she waited for you to finish your sentence until she realized that you were at a loss for words again.

“It’s just what?”

She chuckled while pushing herself off the wall to move closer to you, causing you to gulp.

“It’s just...I don’t understand why you’re doing this for me. You confuse me.”

You blurted out without thinking, causing Mina to laugh.

“You’ll figure it out soon.”

She stepped even closer to you to the extent that your bodies were almost touching, causing goosebumps to run down your spine.

“Anyways, see you Monday.”

All of a sudden -like she had not just caused you to almost faint- Mina stepped back before winking cheekily and turning on her heels to walk away.

Completely dumbfounded, you stumbled backwards, having to support yourself on the wall to stop yourself from falling as you watched her disappearing around the corner.

Was this all just a fever dream?

You couldn’t have truly caught the attention of the richest, most beautiful but also most intimidating woman ever...or could you?

#drabble game #mina drabble #twice drabble #mina #twice #girl group drabble #girl group #girl group scenario #kpop scenario #kpop drabble #kpop #idolxreader

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anncanta · 3 years

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Hierogamy: Dracula BBC and the myth about Kora-Persephone

Today I would like to talk about the mythological drama in the series Dracula and some of its aspects, without which, it seems to me, the perception of this text will remain incomplete, and the understanding will not be as deep as it deserves.

But first, perhaps, it is worth saying a few words about why it seems to me that it is so significant to consider the mythological drama in a work of fiction in general and in Dracula in particular. Isn't it enough just to look or read, perceiving the text as it is, and not going into the study of some complex deep layers? Sometimes it's enough. But more often – no, it isn't. The answer to the question of why so lies in the very nature of a story and the art of storytelling.

The mythological drama is never fully developed in the text at the formal level, although there is where it precisely can be seen. This seems to be a contradiction just at first glance: the drama (in its original ancient Greek meaning) is a kind of ‘deep development’ underlying all events and scenes. It is like a labyrinth, a skeleton, a matrix on which the rest is built and grows.

That is, why is it important to look ‘from here’? For the same reason that it was important for Jonathan Harker in the film to find a map: in order, firstly, to understand how the castle is arranged (and therefore Dracula himself), to relate himself to it in a certain way – and to get out of its boundaries, that is, to include the castle in a wider context, which will allow the character to find freedom.

Finding freedom, in this case, should be understood quite literally – as going beyond the limits of restrictions and, as Dracula and Jonathan each correctly note in their own way, – a look from above.

This view has many advantages, but the main thing is the ability to perceive what was seen in its integrity.

Because in a good story, ‘how’ is always ‘about what’, so if you don't understand ‘how’ or ‘for what’, or even ‘what it was’ in general, most likely you haven't read the text, and it remained for you something like a set of colored spots on the wall, beautiful or annoying, but – as researchers of the brain and psyche never tire of reminding, – in the absence of a ‘key’ such thing does not exist as the story itself.

It is not at all necessary, by the way, should be a mythological or psychological, archetypal, or fairy-tale ‘key’. Or all at once. At one stage or another in life, each viewer and reader needs their own set of the ‘keys’ or a specific one. First of all, it is the literal sense of the story at the plot level. But without a ‘key’ at all – there is no text. At least because the text itself, as a phenomenon consisting of – whether linguistic, pictorial, or auditory – signs, is a key – to our ability to imagine things that do not exist ‘in reality’, and to ideas, images, and meanings.

But back to the text.

In Dracula, the mythological drama is present at all levels, and there are no parts, ideas, or interactions between characters in any moment of the film where it would not be important in one way or another.

We will not consider all aspects in which the mythological context directly manifested itself, as it will take too much time. Let's see just one – the one that is the main motive of the film and somehow creates the main plot collision, and with it – the metaphor and essence of the story itself.

And this is the motive of hierogamy.

Hierogamy as a concept can be considered in two aspects. The first is mythological, in which it represents the name, description, and modeling in the ritual a sacred marriage (from the Greek ιερός γάμος, Latin hieros gamos) of the god and goddess, and the second is alchemical (archetypal), denoting the combination of male and female principles in the process of creating a philosopher's stone.

Hierogamy in one way or another includes a sexual context, in the sense that it puts at the center of the event and experiences ‘connection’ and ‘dissolution of boundaries’ to create a single one that will be greater than the sum of its parts.

In Dracula, both of these aspects are present and can be recognized from the very first minutes.

We will not go into details, just list a few examples.

The most obvious and conspicuous is Dracula's castle as the fruit of love between Petruvio and his wife (whose portraits hang side by side on one of the floors and, as we learn later, are the ‘entrance’ to the mystery of the castle and its structure, and at the same time – the ‘exit’ to the outside world), Jonathan as the bride of Dracula, thanks to the interaction with which the Count is able to leave his ‘prison without locks’, the connection of Mina and the remnants of Jonathan on the verge of space separated by the sacred bread, allowing Dracula to penetrate inside and give rise to a new interaction of the male and female, and so on.

But the fun begins to happen in the second episode.

Given as a prototype, a form and a plot configuration, the mythological drama of hierogamy has so far been satisfied with literal images of heroes and disclosure at the level of the plot. It was difficult to suspect something more in it than a direct (allegorical) depiction of mental and emotional processes. But in the second episode, a new layer appears in this story. Or rather, it stops hiding.

It's so simple, so obvious and so cheeky frank that when you watch it for the first time, you miss it in an attempt to follow the plot. And only by the end of the episode you do guess that you should follow something else.

Yes, we do not yet know – and we have nowhere to find out – that the action of the prologue of the second episode takes place on the same ship, which will become the stage for the internal and external drama, but the style and images, the very structure of the situation, gradually suggest what will be discussed here.

And it will be the drama of Kora-Persephone.

Let me briefly recall the content of the underlying ancient Greek myth about Kora, Hades, and Demeter.

The daughter of the goddess of fertility Demeter, Kora, attracted the attention of the ruler of the underworld, the god Hades, and he kidnapped her, taking her to him, to the lands of the dead. There Kora spent some time, communicating quite closely with Hades, after which she begged him to let her go to the ‘upper world’ for a while so that she could see her mother, whom she was terribly longing for. Hades fulfilled Kora's request, but on the condition that she would return, and gave the girl several pomegranate seeds for the journey. During her stay in the kingdom of Hades, Kora refused to eat anything, so by the time she received the gift she was very hungry, and therefore, soon after she found herself on earth, she ate the seeds. And since the pomegranate is the fruit of Hades and the symbol of marriage, this made her return to Hades a must. Meanwhile, in the ‘upper world’ fields and plants ceased to bear fruit, and eternal winter came, as Kora's mother, Demeter, mad with grief and longing for her daughter, turned away from people and nature. Zeus found a solution to the problem. He decreed that Persephone (that was the name of the goddess who had ceased to be a girl) should spend six months on Olympus, that is, with her mother, and six months – in the kingdom of Hades, now her husband.

Thus, the myth, on the one hand, describes in the language of an archaic worldview the logic of the changing seasons (Persephone on Olympus – Demeter rejoices, spring and summer come on earth, Persephone in the kingdom of Hades – Demeter suffers, autumn and winter come on earth), and from the other, represents the mystery cycle of successive transformations of a girl into a woman and the unification of male and female in sacred marriage.

Let's see how this mystery cycle unfolds in the film – on a formal and substantive level.

The ship on which Dracula sails to England is called Demeter. In the center of the plot of the episode are the abduction of a virgin (a nun is by definition a virgin, if not physically, then symbolically) and the interaction of the hero with her on a ‘lower’, deep level. Lower, in the sense – detached from the everyday, visible to everyone, taking place in the light of universal attention and perception.

The hero who kidnapped the virgin (by the way, we have no doubt that he kidnapped her, from the very beginning – just do not know how exactly it happened; and therefore our desire to follow them closely is so intense) does not completely belong to the world of the living, although he does not belong to the world of the dead either. He seems to live on the border, not being part of either of these two realities. So that no one has any doubts about who he represents, let us recall that Hades was not always associated with death among the Greeks, and was never considered the master of hell and a synonym for death and destruction. He created a kingdom for himself, which he called by his name, in order to live away from everyone. And only later did he become the ruler of the world of the dead.

Obviously, the description of Dracula's life in the castle refers to the reality of Hades in the underworld, largely parodying it. Because, although Hades is the king of shadows, he is still a king, and his kingdom is real. Whereas Dracula lives, in fact, in a dump filled with bad memories and rotting broken dolls, locked in the boxes.

But Hades also kidnapped Persephone, not on great terms.

Both stories, the mythological one, and the story told in the film, lead us to the fact that the hero (the masculinity, the organizing principle) for completeness and development lacks a partner, another view of the same world, a beloved-opposite.

Dracula finds her at the gates of the convent and, according to the logic of the mythological drama, drags her to him. There is an interesting moment: hardly, having captured Agatha, Dracula went with her immediately to the ship. Most likely, he first brought her to his home, that is, to the castle, and only after that, when the time came, he sent her to Demeter. So, their interaction began in the castle, in the literal realm of the dead, and continued on a ship in the middle of the sea, in a transitional space, in a space of changes. This fully corresponds to the myth of the transformation of Hades, who has gone from voluntary loneliness to becoming a king in the world of the dead, where everything is indefinite, mobile, unsteady and although it does not change in the sense in which it happens on earth, it represents the idea of change as it is.

Everything is possible in the space of changes, therefore, here the most important thing for the whole film takes place, and that will give the story an impulse to move forward and being resolved in the form, which we see in the third episode.

Let's turn now to Agatha's story.

On the ship, she travels in the role of Kora – at first, abducted and held in the ‘underworld’ and not realizing her position (Hades, let me remind you, having kidnapped Kora, did not immediately make her his wife, and she was sort of his guest – until the moment when she persuaded him to let her go to earth to see her mother), and then – in fact, the mistress of this very kingdom.

Why mistress? It is rather difficult to answer this question. But there are details in the text that give hints and, on close examination, leave no room for double interpretation.

The simplest and most obvious is the physical location of the characters in the frame. They are on an equal footing, both in the center, and although Agatha is shorter than Dracula, she is as ‘in her place’ as he is and feels just as confident.

The second is how they communicate. In addition to the fact that the dialogue, the beginning of which we see in the prologue of the episode, is quite friendly and mutual (no one hangs over anyone, does not threaten anyone, and does not try to pressure – for those who have forgotten what it looks like, there is the final conversation in the convent), Agatha's position is read from the phrases thrown by Dracula in passing, but very eloquent. Such as ‘You choose’ – in response to the question of who will play black and who will play white. And this is only the upper layer of interaction, there are more of them, and on each one, it is acutely felt that here Agatha is not a prisoner, but a partner.

You might say, – of course, this is all part of an insidious plan to keep Agatha in the dark, and no real courtesy (not to mention real respect and closeness) is out of the question. Dracula is just playing with his victim. But this is the essence of the story and what happens on Demeter, as well as in the space of the original drama. Hades kidnaps Persephone as something alien, beautiful, and unfamiliar, something that attracted his attention in the distant upper world and that, like a fruitful grain, fell into his dark hermetic kingdom and ignited the spark of life in it.

Hierogamy and everything that precedes it is a mutual process, otherwise it makes no sense.

But then a moment comes in the story, which in the mythological drama corresponds to the stage of the earth, empty due to the grief of Demeter and the despair of Kora, yearning for the upper world.

On the ship, which has lost most of the passengers and half of the crew, because of Dracula's appetite, tension grows, and in the same way, it grows inside Agatha, who despite her quite comfortable position, begins to realize that something is wrong here.

Internal and external tensions converge at one point – on both sides of the doors of cabin number nine. And when the doors open, the mythological drama comes to the surface.

Interestingly, the story here does not even try to hide what it really is – from a detective in Agatha Christie's style, turning into a mystery action. Moreover, it directly admits it – when Dracula invites passengers and crew members of the ship to cabin number nine and brings them to Agatha's bed, he opens the curtain.

But what is going to happen here?

Let's see what the situation is in terms of structure.

The hero, who for a long period of time keeps a woman abducted by him from the ‘upper’ world, alien to him, experiences the invasion of this very world and is forced to present this woman to those around him and somehow explain her presence in this place and their relationship. Let us recall that the relationship between Kora and Hades also remained ‘unnoticed’ for the time being, or rather, until the moment when its uncertainty began to create problems.

Let's forget for a while about the individual needs and questions of passengers and crew – the important thing here is that all the ‘inhabitants’ of the ship demand to explain what is happening and to open cabin number nine.

Demeter demands Kora to her. She does not agree to put up with the current situation and calls Hades to account.

What remains for the hero? He, as in the Greek myth, acts with cunning: in this case, in the film, he tells the story that the woman lying in (his) bed is a murderer, the terrible eater of people whom passengers and crew have been unsuccessfully looking for throughout travels.

Dracula is trying to explain Agatha's presence here and now, on this ship and in these circumstances – not only to deflect suspicions from himself, but also to structure the situation in which they find themselves – not so much because he wants it, but because that he has no other choice.

What happens on deck is a logical consequence of his decision. Brought to light Kora is no longer the same as before – having visited the kingdom of Hades and entered into a close relationship with him, she can no longer remain a girl and just a daughter of her mother. Her innocence is left in the arms of the lord of the underworld. And since he really does not intend to let her go, all that remains for him is to make their relationship ‘legal’.

The hanging scene, entirely built on the interaction of Agatha, Dracula, and the ‘choir’ consisting of the crew of the ship and passengers, looks like another erotic at the same time (after the first scene in the convent), in which Agatha again from above and again largely dictates conditions, – and as a kind of coronation scene.

But not only the one.

There are so many meanings in this scene, and they are so closely intertwined and interconnected, that in order to see them all, you should carefully examine it – slowly, gradually.

First, Agatha is placed on a barrel and a noose is thrown around her neck, intending to execute her.

It would seem, what does Hades' marriage to Persephone have to do with it?

According to ancient pagan beliefs, the remnants of which are also preserved in Christianity, the bride, who left her home and married the fiancé, was considered dying for her previous life and being born for a new one.

Not everyone on the ship agrees that an unfamiliar and barely breathing woman is indeed guilty of the murders on the Demeter, and a dispute erupts between the judges hungry for justice. Among others, the captain speaks out and says that the woman standing on the barrel is the wife of the mysterious Mr. Balaur, who paid generously for her transportation in cabin number nine, without attracting unnecessary attention.

The word ‘wife’ is important. Firstly, because Dracula (Hades) still knows more than Agatha (Kora), even if he did not fully formulate it for himself. And secondly, because in the mythological reality in which the characters undoubtedly are, words matter. Let us recall that events still take place in a transitional space in the midst of changing and constantly moving waters. In this reality, what is not uttered is not defined. What is not shown does not exist. (I don't think I need to explain to anyone that cabin number nine is Schrödinger's box.) Thus, the one who utters the word determines this reality.

In the noise that arose after the recognition of the captain, most of the spoken words are lost, but two of them are heard clearly and turn out to be the main ones. This is the word ‘bride’, declared as a negation, and ‘wife’ disputed by no one.

At the plot level, this is just a confusion, a skirmish of frightened and distrustful people, but at the symbolic level, everything is clear and logical.

First, the bride announced that she is not the one (‘I'm not Balaur's bride!’).

Second, another person declared publicly that she was the wife of Mr. Balaur. Who, in turn, is nothing more than a mask, a pseudonym for Dracula. This is not enough for marriage, you say. Yes, sure. At the plot level, no doubt. But the characters are in symbolic space. And here, in this space, it is important who utters these words.

The captain pronounces them – a person who, by his position, is the master on the ship, who has the right to judge and resolve disputes, the right to execute and pardon, and – to seal marriages.

But this is not enough either. There are almost no coincidences in such texts. It was not in vain that I mentioned that the word ‘wife’ was not disputed. A mythological drama is being played out before us, but it is being played out in a nineteenth-century setting. Therefore, for a legal marriage, another formula becomes significant.

‘And if there is anyone among us who knows the reason why this marriage should not be contracted, let's tell now or be silent forever.’

Then one final touch is missing to complete the ceremony.

The moment when Agatha asks who has the courage to knock over the barrel and hears Dracula's answer: ‘Me,’ on a metaphorical level, ‘closes’ the frame of the ritual action.

The fiancé approaches the bride and makes a movement to ‘end the game’ – literally to kill Agatha, and symbolically, to complete her transition from bride status to wife status. Here even blood is present as an attribute of the loss of virginity, even though, in this case, the bride has long since said goodbye to it. But we are talking about the symbolic aspect of what is happening.

Let's not forget, however, that the lord of the underworld kidnapped Kora-Persephone and involved her in marriage without her direct and informed consent (more on this later). Therefore, Agatha's actions, when she spits blood in Dracula's face, literally designed to reveal his vampire nature for everyone, symbolically signify the resistance of Kora-Persephone and the desire to escape from her husband. But some things, having started, are quite difficult to stop, so Dracula still knocks over the barrel. Having successfully landed surrounded by ‘guests’ at the wedding, Agatha survives. But on a symbolic level, her death was not the goal. The goal was to physically separate one part of her life from another. This is exactly what happened.

Thus, we can conclude that after the end of the second episode, we are no longer facing Kora, but Persephone – the queen of the underworld.

But, as in the myth, Persephone at this stage is still the point of intersection of the conflicts of several characters. This is Hades, who wants her to return to him from the upper world, Demeter, who does not think to retreat, and... Persephone, who needs to deal with herself and who she is now, and how she will continue to be.

At the mythological level, it is the conflict that will become central in the third episode.

In the myth, at the request of Persephone and Demeter, Hades released Persephone to the upper world, giving her (some sources say – forcing to eat, but this is unlikely since it does not correspond to the function of that types of objects in myths and fairy tales) several pomegranate seeds... It was because of this that Persephone, having eaten them already on earth, was forced to return back to the underworld.

Do you remember what happens in the third episode?

Zoe van Helsing (a doctor, who, by profession, every day deals with the reality of both the ‘upper’ and ‘lower’ worlds, and exists and works on their border) – who can be considered a kind of ‘earthly’ incarnation of Agatha, Persephone from ‘upper world’, meets Dracula, whom she did not think to meet. By her own admission, she never really believed that Dracula would be found. And Dracula, seeing that his ‘wife’ does not remember him and does not want to return, gives her his blood and offers to ‘read’ it – if Zoe guesses how to do it.

That is, you understand – he does not directly offer her to drink his blood. He only gives her what she wants. Just like in the myth.

Zoe is a researcher, and besides the fact that she may have hoped that Dracula's blood would somehow help her recover from a fatal disease, she probably really wanted to know the secret of vampire blood, as any real scientist, inquisitive and hungry for knowledge.

Now let's turn to myth again. Persephone ate the pomegranate seeds that Hades gave her because she was hungry because she refused food all the time she was with him.

By the way, these seeds originated from drops of Dionysus blood.

The connection of Dionysian ecstasy, wine, blood, intoxication, and the processes occurring at the level of the ‘lower world’ – the world of the corporeal and the unconscious, is spoken directly in the text several times, but I think there is no need to dwell on this here.

After that, it is not surprising that the symbolism of the field appears here, – in the middle of which Zoe finds herself after drinking Dracula's blood. If in the second episode Demeter was present as a ship, a womb, a mother, carrying the potential of the future and protecting her child, then in the third she appears before us as a fertile layer, a bed, giving Agatha-Zoe-Persephone her blessing and, thus, the opportunity to complete the transformation and become a full-fledged spouse of her husband, at the same time, keeping the connection with the mother on a new level.

All this allows the story to unfold in the finale in a mysterious – alchemical context.

The fact is that the cult of fertility, the cult of Kora-Persephone, presumably formed the basis of the Eleusinian mysteries, mythology, and philosophy of which greatly influenced the views of medieval Western European alchemists. From here comes the similarity and continuity of images, ideas, and descriptions of processes, a close, often inherited metaphor, and, in a certain sense, an underlying common myth.

As the screenwriters themselves remind in one of the interviews, Dracula is a story of resurrection. So there is nothing surprising in the fact that in the finale of the third episode and the entire film, the mythological motive of Kora-Persephone and the alchemical one – coniunctio oppositorum* – are combined in one hierogamy.

This is openly stated in the text as well. In one of the last scenes of the series, Dracula says, addressing everyone present at once, and indirectly to the viewer: ‘Journey's end. Lovers meeting.’ This is a literal description of the alchemical stage of the union of the masculine and feminine principles.

Therefore, in the final scene, he and Agatha are making love – at the level of the plot, this is due to the development of their relationship as individuals, as a man and a woman, but at the symbolic level this is because the opposites they represent have reached a state where they can merge to give the beginning of a new one.

It is important to remember here what the story is constantly showing visually: there is what is happening on the ‘outer’ plane and what is on the ‘inner’ plane. The space of the film is constantly divided into two levels-states: Dracula's castle and the monastery, the monastery and the area in front of the monastery gates; what is happening in Agatha's workshop and the same thing – recorded in Dracula's blood and played in Zoe's head, Dracula and Agatha, lying on the table in Dracula's apartment, and Dracula and Agatha together in a golden light.

Let me remind you again: a real myth, an archetypal drama, very rarely unfolds in front of the viewer or reader directly, told in literal, poster language. Most often they turn out to be ‘wrapped’, embedded in the shell of a legend, parable, or fairy tale. In this sense, nothing has changed since the time of the ancient Greeks. The basic narrative structures are the same. How, perhaps, we all remained the same. Therefore, stories like this work. Therefore, they are important.

And also – because they are all-conquering beautiful.

* Сoniunctio oppositorum (Latin) – the combination of opposites. One of the key stages of alchemical Work.

P. S. In conclusion, I would like to show a few symbolic images from alchemical treatises. I will not show the corresponding scenes from the film – I think you yourself will recognize them. The first two illustrations are prints from the Splendor Solis, the third – from the Rosarium philosophorum.

#dracula 2020 #bbc dracula #count dracula #agatha van helsing #meta

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vickyvicarious · 2 years

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"More than all do I rejoice that this, our first—and perhaps our most difficult and dangerous—step has been accomplished without the bringing thereinto our most sweet Madam Mina or troubling her waking or sleeping thoughts with sights and sounds and smells of horror which she might never forget."

She looks paler than usual. I hope the meeting to-night has not upset her. I am truly thankful that she is to be left out of our future work, and even of our deliberations. It is too great a strain for a woman to bear. I did not think so at first, but I know better now. Therefore I am glad that it is settled. There may be things which would frighten her to hear; and yet to conceal them from her might be worse than to tell her if once she suspected that there was any concealment. Henceforth our work is to be a sealed book to her, till at least such time as we can tell her that all is finished, and the earth free from a monster of the nether world.

"Friend John, it does rejoice me unspeakable that she is no more to be pained, no more to be worried with our terrible things. Though we shall much miss her help, it is better so."

"I agree with you with all my heart," I answered earnestly, for I did not want him to weaken in this matter. "Mrs. Harker is better out of it. Things are quite bad enough for us, all men of the world, and who have been in many tight places in our time; but it is no place for a woman, and if she had remained in touch with the affair, it would in time infallibly have wrecked her."

Poor dear, I've no doubt it frets her to be kept in the dark, and it may make her doubly anxious about me and the others. But it is best as it is. It is better to be disappointed and worried in such a way now than to have her nerve broken. The doctors were quite right to insist on her being kept out of this dreadful business. I must be firm, for on me this particular burden of silence must rest. I shall not ever enter on the subject with her under any circumstances.

*grits teeth*

I mean I guess it at least sounds kind of like Jonathan is still trying to convince himself this is the right move against his (better) instincts, but... can these idiots stop patting themselves on the back.

#dracula daily #i know this is going to come back to bite them and the back-patting only emphasizes that #(well it already is. except biting mina not them)#but it's still so ANNOYING

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shad0ww0rlder · 4 years

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Hi everyone! So a few weeks ago, @julemmaes messaged me and asked me if I would be interested in a project for World Autism Awareness Day, which is today, April 2. Since Ty Blackthorn from The Shadowhunter Chronicles is supposedly an autistic character, the idea was to write something or draw something or make an edit about him. So here's my contribution!

Even though it is from Kit's perspective, I hope I'm able to convey the purpose of this project. Enjoy! :)

The Postcard

Kit Herondale was having his usual saw that movie/read that book fight with Tessa as both of them prepared the breakfast. Tessa appeared to be mixing some gross-looking, bland paste for Mina, which Kit knew Mina would throw away or spit out the moment it neared her mouth. And then Jem would make a loving comment about how his lovely little daughter was actually a wee little devil and Tessa and Jem would share a sappy smile, but after a while Tessa would get annoyed and hand the responsibility of feeding Mina to Kit. They had recently discovered that Choo- Choo train or airplane noises were much more believable when they came from Kit’s mouth, because both Tessa and Jem were 150 years old, and Jem had never even been on an airplane before. Kit usually offered one of his fingers to Mina, and she would clutch it tightly in her tiny hand and look at him with excitement bubbling in her large, sparkly eyes as he made train and plane noised and zoomed the spoon near her mouth. She would let out a peal of laughter and Kit would snatch that moment to stuff the food in her mouth. Tessa claimed that she was immensely grateful for his help, and it made Kit feel that he was useful, so even though he complained about his task everyday, he secretly loved it.

The door opened and Jem entered with Mina in his arms from their morning stroll. “Good morning, my love,” he said to Tessa with that quiet, beautiful smile and bent down to kiss her cheek. Mina leapt forward from his arms to catch Kit’s finger. Kit grinned down at her. “Hey there, Min-Min. How was your trip?” Mina made babbling noises and Jam ruffled Kit’s hair.

“Min-Min has a present for her favorite brother, doesn’t she?” Jem said with a grin and Kit looked at him in surprise. “Oh, did that bakery woman’s sister give me her number? I mean, it’s cool that she called me a beast, but I don’t really want her number.”

Perhaps if he took the number, he could make a new friend. But Kit didn’t want to. The thing that had happened with his previous friends still made his chest hurt at the mere thought of it. A vivid image of Ty’s beautiful curls bathed in the silvery light of the ritual and his intense grey eyes flashed in Kit’s mind and he brought himself back to the present with great effort.

“- something even better,” Jem was saying, “here,” he said and in his other hand which wasn’t holding Mina, he held a small rectangular piece of paper. Kit blinked. “A… letter?” He said dubiously, not quite believing what he was seeing. “It’s a postcard,” said Jem and he gave it to Kit, who automatically took it without being aware of his action. “It’s for you.” From the corner of his eyes, Kit saw Tessa and Jem share a curious glance and he turned away, shielding the postcard from their sight.

The postcard had a beautiful photograph of a mysterious landscape printed on it. Kit stared at it intently. It wasn’t a place that he’d ever seen. The picture was taken some time after sunset, and the sky was inky blue. The silhouettes of the mountains were dark and ragged and beneath them lay a bottomless, dim lake with water as still as a rock. Who had sent it? Kit thought, rolling the question in his mind, over and over. Magnus, perhaps? But why would it be addressed to him, then? Magnus was a friend of Jem and Tessa, and though Kit liked Magnus, he was sure that Magnus was definitely not interested in being his pen pal. Jace perhaps, he thought, but Jace had made no efforts to reach out to Kit again. Kit wasn’t upset about it at all. Kit was happy. With Jem and Tessa and Mina. Kit’s fingers slowly turned the card over and his heart came to a screeching halt as he saw the neat, elegant handwriting.

It was as though his brain had forgotten how to breathe, his heart had forgotten how to beat and his fingers shook and his throat felt dry. Kit touched his face numbly as he felt something on his cheek and realised with a start that they were tears. He wiped them quickly, as discreetly as possible and then began reading the letter, his eyes devouring every word in front of him as fast as they could.

Dear Christopher,

Ty had written. Ty, Ty, Ty. Simply looking at his name scrawled in Ty’s handwriting was enough to make Kit’s guts clench. He recalled how Ty wrote, how he took notes and scribbled down observations in that little notebook, how the pen moved smoothly and the ink flowed easily from his pale, nimble fingers, how his hair fell in his eyes as they were intensely focused on their task; the sheer serenity of Ty’s presence. Kit took a shuddering breath and read on.

I was about to write Watson instead of Christopher, as I used to call you when we were together a while back. However, my twin Livia insists that since this is the first interaction we are having in a long time, I should address you by your Christian name. And now she is admonishing me for sounding too formal.

There is not much space on this postcard, and therefore my handwriting is infinitesimally small. I must apologize for it. Magnus delivered the necklace you sent for Livvy and I. Livvy says it is very pretty. I would like to thank you for it. I have been noting down various observations about Livvy’s ghost form. This necklace will allow me to study the effect of its magical qualities upon Livvy.

I am afraid that I must take your leave now, as according to my schedule, I have to feed Irene.

I thank you sincerely for the necklace.

Much obliged,

Tiberius Blackthorn.

Kit ran his eyes wildly over the postcard again. It had already reached its end. Kit didn’t want it to. Absentmindedly, he ran his fingers softly over Ty’s beautiful, precise handwriting, and couldn’t help but smile. No one used this kind of language now, not even Jem and Tessa. But Ty did. Ty had gotten Kit’s necklace. It would help Ty. It would protect him and Livvy now, which was something Kit had failed to do.

Kit read the letter again and again and again. It was so short.

Ty seemed happy. He had made a schedule for himself, it appeared, at Scholomance, and knowing Ty, he would follow it religiously every day. Kit remembered how uneasy Ty got when something was out of line or when something unusual happened. Ty’s hands would flutter at his sides like butterflies or he would play with the lighter Julian had got him. If it got too much, he would put on his headphones and block out the world that was too bright, too harsh, too noisy for him.

The night at the London Institute flashed in Kit’s mind like a lightning bolt, how it felt to hug Ty, how soft Ty’s hair was, how devastatingly clear and true those vivid grey eyes were. And then Kit remembered another night by the lake in Idris, and his own hand on Ty’s shoulder and his own words echoing in the empty space, “I love you, Ty. I love you.” Kit also recalled seeing Ty on the beach with Dru, Livvy floating beside them silently. He had seemed so much at peace, Kit had not been able to bring himself to say goodbye to him. And now Ty had written to him. After months and months of silence, Ty had written to him.

Kit squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. “Kit?” he heard a gentle voice say and opened his eyes to meet Tessa’s concerned ones. Kit blinked multiple times.

“I’m going out,” was all that he managed to say with a tight throat before rushing out of the house and running wildy along the familiar path towards the hill.

The air was chilly, and the wind bit at his face, making his eyes and nose water but Kit didn’t stop running for a long time.

#TyBProject #TBP #ty blackthorn #kit herondale #the dark artifices #the wicked powers #the shadowhunter chronicles #cassandra clare

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bidean-byedean · 3 years

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Drop the essay 🥺 it sounds so interesting

omg I’m so flattered! ❤️ I’ll put it under the cut here (it’s 3600 words lol), just a few things:

Anon is referring to this post

I wrote this for my Gothic Lit + Film module during my BA - 3ish years ago. This clearly isn’t the final version (uncited works, missing bib, etc.) and there’s a lot I would change now. God, I might rewrite it for Victorian Gothic or just for kicks... I got so close to making some really great points lol so forgive Undergraduate me for being almost smart.

And yes, I looked at Interview with The Vampire so #tw: Anne Rice lol

‘Love Never Dies’ (tagline from Bram Stoker’s Dracula)

Explore the Treatment of Homoerotic Desire in Gothic Fiction and/or Film

The Gothic genre is one of transgressions and transformations. It crosses the boundaries of everyday societal norms to explore and express cultural anxieties by reforming psychological worries as physical monsters. Influxes of immigrants from around the Empire and the publication of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution created a huge social shift, undermining religious beliefs of creation and human’s superiority over the natural world. However, it also gave rise to more ‘scientific’ moral categorisations, being twisted to suit the needs of the white colonialists and justify the prejudices of the time by “grounding them in “truth.”” This new Scientia Sexualis, the bringing of sexuality into the psychoanalytic, political and scientific discourse, created new categorisations for sexuality and encouraged identification with these new categorisations.[1] This, for the first time, linked sexuality and identity and now meant one’s sexual practices and preferences came with a “truth” about the person. Homosexuality, as it was now known, was pathologised and seen as a new “species”[2] entirely, one that was a defective, lesser evolution than that of the traditional heterosexuality. Using the Gothic monster meant that authors could explore the ‘queer’ space in society, which means to blur boundaries of sexuality and gender[3] to explore repressed desires and curiosities raised by cultural anxieties over sexuality and gender. In Victorian Gothic, Le Fanu’s Carmilla and Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde are two of examples of using the genre’s transgressive nature and monstrous metaphors to express veiled desires and vicariously act upon them. Although the Gothic gives a home to all that is abhorrent and unacceptable in everyday society, Rice’s Interview with The Vampire explores how the Gothic can treat something on the edge of acceptability. Writing in a time sexual liberation and progressive thinking, Rice’s treatment of homosexuality and non-conventional relationships could be seen to threaten the traditional allegorical use of the genre.

The vampire has long been a sexual being often representing foreign or ‘monstrous’ sex desires and appetites, and Carmilla’s portrayal of aggressive, homoerotic female desire is one the earliest and most complex of these examples. Although one cannot be certain about how progressive Le Fanu wished his novel to be, it can definitely be used to argue against the misogynistic and repressive Victorian gender roles. By using the Gothic genre, Le Fanu explores the ideas of transgressing boundaries, most prominently between life and death, but also using the boundaries of the domestic space being transgressed by Carmilla as a metaphor for the structure of society. The Victorians saw the woman as the ‘angel in the house’, ethereal and asexual, therefore Carmilla’s demonic invasion of the house and her inherently seductive nature is directly antithetical to the socially acceptable version of femininity. However, Carmilla’s “perfidious and beautiful” appearance is confusing for both the other characters, in particular Laura, and the reader themselves. Le Fanu’s expression of female sexuality and gender identity through vampirism conforms to the fact that the “monstrous is transgressive and unnatural because it blends those categories that should be classified as distinct.”[4] Carmilla represents a blurring of the gender boundaries set for women by Victorian society, with vampires being traditionally fluid characters as they “straddle the borders of the living and the dead,” it is natural for Carmilla’s vampirism to give her a freedom akin to that of masculinity. Carmilla excites and threatens the heterosexual male audience with her aggressive sexuality and choice of female victims. On the one hand, she is full of the voracious libidinal energy that is viewed as desirable in sexual objects, but on the other, because of her sexual power and freedom she can be read as a “potential castrator” by becoming a superior sexual predator. Crossing the boundaries of homosocial to homoerotic, Carmilla provides Laura with a relationship separate from her father, one that allows to grow outside of the parameters of the submissive, obedient and asexual daughter. The relationship between Laura and Carmilla means that they have, as Irigaray describes it, “refused to go to market.”[5] The queerness of Carmilla and Laura means that they no longer have to be commodities in the patriarchal market, passed from man to man, but created their own exchange between each other. By engaging in relationship with another woman Carmilla and Laura have “become masculine,”[6] they no longer need to seek masculine assurance outside of themselves or each other.

The group murder of Carmilla by the dominant men in Laura’s life is seen almost identically in Stoker’s Dracula. Lucy is staked by the three men from which she has had blood transfusions in a heavily sexually violent scene where the rebellious female is ‘penetrated’ and subdued by the heterosexual patriarchy. Once Carmilla has been destroyed, Laura is placed safely back under the dominance of the men around her and relies on them to relay Carmilla’s true identity. The confusion between whether they have killed the vampire or the queer woman becomes blurred by Le Fanu here. Laura is told that vampires stalk their victims with the “passion of love” and the use of “artful courtship,”[7]implying that she is not only being warned against vampires, but monstrous queer women. The men in her life invert her homosexual desire into warning signs of a vampire; that she must listen more carefully to the “abhorrence” she feels and ignore the “pleasure” that is akin to the “ardour of a lover.”[8] The novel seemingly ends with the message that many works in the genre embody:

“The Gothic may kill off the monster in such a way as to effect catharsis for the viewer or reader, who sees his or her unacceptable desires enacted vicariously and then safely ‘repressed’ again.”

Carmilla is no exception when it comes to reinstating the status quo after destroying the monstrous queer body it used to be able to safely blur and cross boundaries of societal norms.[9] However, this can also be argued. The novella ends with Laura reminiscing on the time since Carmilla’s destruction, and while she says: “it was long before the terror … subsided”, she also admits there is an “ambiguous” nature to her memories. The male authorities in Laura’s life could see Carmilla’s vampiric nature long before Laura could and despite insisting to Laura that Carmilla was nothing but a “demon”, making it clear that Carmilla’s desire was solely to kill Laura, she still feels affection for her lost friend. The very last sentence of the novella clearly shows her conflicting, but continued desire for Carmilla:

“sometimes the playful, languid, beautiful girl; sometimes the writhing fiend I saw in the ruined church; and often from a reverie I have started, fancying I heard the light step of Carmilla.”

Though the novella is, on the surface, wrapped up neatly with the white, patriarchy dominating over the queer female body, Fanu’s parting sentence emphasises the idea that it might not be a happy ending. Although Carmilla was literallya monster and would have killed Laura had she not been caught, she has clearly had a profound and positive emotional effect on Laura, who was briefly allowed to experience both same-sex support and desire.

Much of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were “shadowed by the growing focus on the dangers of … close male friendships and signifiers of homosexuality,”[10] causing a repressed and paranoid time of ‘homosexual panic’. Men of the upper classes moved in almost exclusively male circles; all of their significant relationships outside of marriage would have been homosocial and therefore, plagued with worries about being seen as taking these relationships too far.[11] This paranoia manifested itself in the Gothic literature of the time as frantic and often contradictory.[12] Socially acceptable misogyny allowed male writers to praise homosocial relationships above those with women, who were seen as weak and hysterical, as seen in Stoker’s Dracula when Mina Harker is described as remarkable because she has “the brain of a man.”[13] However, the more insistent and heated misogyny only serves to emphasis what the writers are trying to avoid: being read as homosexual. Stevenson’s novella The Strange Case of Jekyll and Hyde exemplifies the idea ‘homosexual panic’ manifesting closer to homosexual repression. The invisibility of women, apart from being placed near or as victims of Hyde’s violence, not only speaks to Stevenson’s feelings about women, but also his feelings about men. Hyde’s aggression is often triggered by being faced with female sexuality: he is angered by the prostitute that offers her “venereal box”[14] and the saleswomen that exude “lurid charms” and “coquetry.”[15] While this could be a product of his evilness or lack of moral development, Jekyll retells the former story as the woman offerings a “box of lights,” even though it is clear to both the characters and the readers what really happened. This reluctance to admit to Hyde’s anger towards female sexuality implies an awareness and an anxiety around profound misogyny, particularly if it is female sexuality that repulses Hyde, which leads the reader immediately to ideas of homosexual desire. Through the Gothic genre, Stevenson is able to explore man as “truly two” by creating a physical outlet for this anxiety and repression felt around homosocial relationships that dominated men’s lives. Gothic literature is often full of mystery and secrecy, and like the vampire, which has been linked to the plight of homosexuality because they are forced to live in the shadows, hiding their abhorrent desires and constantly plagued with the fear of being caught and destroyed - Jekyll goes through the same fears with Hyde. Although homosexuality was no long a capital crime (the last men executed for it in the UK being in 1835, the law was changed in 1861, before the publication of both Carmilla (1872) and Jekyll and Hyde (1886)), it was still punishable by law. Jekyll creates Hyde as a criminal outlet for his “concealed pleasures” that he saw as incompatible with his high social status and unworthy of a man respected so greatly by his peers.

Like with the vampire, the Gothic allows for Hyde to be an example of the “monstrous queer” with his “evil” actions reflected in his “deformed” “ape-like” body. In the eighteenth century, ‘monstrous’ was synonymous with queer, linking same-sex desire with the demonic.[16] Similarly, Stevenson’s use of language to describe Hyde is full of natural and evolutionary imagery. He constantly emphasises the fact that Hyde is animalistic, beast-like or, specifically, ape-like to distance Hyde from the respectable and civilised Dr. Jekyll. Hyde is presented as a step down on the evolutionary chain, he is a lesser creature and incapable of higher reasoning and moral thinking. Due to this lack of moral and reasoning capabilities, homosexuals were also seen as inherently selfish and indulgent. The purpose of their sexuality was solely to satisfy personal pleasure rather than transcendental values and contribute to the wider society.[17] This is linked to thinking that Edelman coined as “reproductive futurism,”[18] which is the idea that capitalism’s hold on cultural thinking pervades even to police sexual practices that it deems “unproductive” and therefore, “unnatural.” However, through the Gothic monstrous body, Stevenson can apply natural imagery to Hyde’s impulses and desires while still concealing them under the guise of a “deformity” or a lesser developed being. Through the paradox of his closeness to nature making him ‘abnormal’, Stevenson can tap into the language of the culture and exploit the reader’s psychological justifications for how they view these ‘social disgraces’ (homosexuals), but he can also challenge them.[19] By presenting Hyde as a grotesque Gothic monster the contradictions in viewing homosexuality as both closer to nature and a “deformity” are subtly, but clearly, there for the reader to understand, should they look into the coded meanings of the text.

Anne Rice’s Interview with The Vampire (1976) signalled a new kind a Gothic queer, one living in the age where to identify with homosexuality, personally and socially, was becoming more and more acceptable. One review by Jerry Douglas states that Rice’s series “constitutes as one of the most extended metaphors in modern literature”[20]because it made clear to the mainstream audience the deeply embedded parallel between queerness and the vampire. However, Douglas seems to have missed that almost a century has passed from the first uses of Gothic as an ‘extended metaphor’ for being queer, and it is not the homosexuality that is now hidden in subtext. The homoerotic content of Rice’s novels was so explicitly clear that despite buying the film rights in 1976, impressively the same year as publication, Paramount Pictures did not manage to successfully market the film for production for another twenty years and it was finally released in 1994. Although this proves that society’s view on homosexuality was still decidedly cold and the mainstream audience lacked a palate for viewing homoerotic desire in the cinemas, it also emphasises the leap that Rice was making through her Gothic novels. While homosexuality no longer needed to be coded and staked in a scene reminiscent of gang-rape by white men, the presentation of homoerotic desire and non-conventional relationships still needed the Gothic monstrous body to encourage the audience into a world of blurred boundaries concerning sexuality and gender. One of the revisions for the potential film was to make Louis female, apparently Rice herself offered up this change because she saw it as “consistent with his passivity.”[21] This compromise flags as one of the first indications that Rice’s works may not be the epitome of queer representation in modern Gothic literature, but in fact, she consistently seems afraid to truly obscure and distort societal boundaries of sexuality and gender because of internalised misogyny and homophobia. The film adaptation of Interview with The Vampire, although also written by Rice, downplays the homoerotic content to playful subtext and tension, refusing to risk alienating the mainstream, heterosexual audience by being too transgressive of norms. Coupled with the casting of blockbuster favourites Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, and Antonio Banderas, whose appeal was deeply entwined with their heterosexuality and masculinity,[22] the novel that was too explicitly queer for the 70s became a cautiously heterosexual-aligned film in the 90s. Perhaps one of the most significant dampeners on the Gothic novel’s queerness and transgression of boundaries was the AIDs crisis, which took hold of western media and created general panic in the 80s. This made the triad of homosexuality, blood, and multiplicity of victims, which appears in the novel, a direct and unavoidable link to the negative misconceptions about and unsympathetic feelings towards AIDs and its victims.

One of the ways in which Rice succeeds with transgressing boundaries is in her portrayal of the vampire and the way in which the reader is encouraged to relate to and sympathise with the monster. Carmilla and Hyde, though metaphorically complex, are essentially blood-thirsty killers, lacking in capabilities of higher moral thinking and reasoning compared to Louis’ very human existential suffering. The vampiric predecessors subscribe to an explicit separation between vampires and humans, but this opposition between fiend and man has ceased to exist within Rice’s Gothic world. Louis and Lestat, though monstrous and, at times, deeply unlikeable, are never presented as inherently evil. By making the previously monstrous relatable and understandable, Rice inadvertently played a progressive role in attitudes towards those with AIDs, by blurring the lines between the monstrous “them” and the moral “us.” The vampires, particularly Lestat and Claudia, do not try to be ‘good’ victims, they are ruthless and constantly hungry for their next hunt, which they deeply enjoy. Lestat describes his ability to transform others into vampires as a “gift,” encouraging Louis to ingest his contaminated blood and make the transformation from human to out-casted other. The AIDs allegory fits neatly into the traditionally sexualised moments of feeding and initiation, which are also the moments in which the physical boundaries between the vampiric-other and the human-us is most blurred. Much like Jekyll towards the end of Jekyll and Hyde when he loses control over which physicality manifests, the sharing of blood fuses the Gothic monstrous body and the normal, human body, rendering explicit physical boundaries ineffective. Along with Louis deep suffering with guilt and self-loathing, the ‘us’ reader is drawn into a sympathetic corner in this metaphor, even if they do not hold one for the real-life counterpart. The monstrous ‘other’ manifests only in the literal sense of being a vampire, he is no longer a physical embodiment of immoral desire, less evolutionarily developed and repulsive, but deeply emotional and craving acceptance and familial support. The unorthodox family unit of Louis, Lestat and Claudia is in many ways a comical parody of the bourgeois family, with estranged, asexual parents and a spoilt child, created in hopes of strengthening the marriage bond.[23] Unfortunately, Rice perpetuates the harmful ideas that homosexual units mirror heterosexual ones, therefore prioritising heteronormativity by remaining within its boundaries. Rather than choosing to portray a positive queer family unit or completely distort the norms of the family unit, the trio are a demonic, abhorrent “deformed” version of the conventional heterosexual family. This links to Rice’s suggestion of Louis’ gender transformation: she, whether consciously or unconsciously, projects the idea that even in a homosexual couple there must be a submissive ‘female’ and an aggressive ‘male’. The creation of this dysfunctional family also serves to later emphasis beliefs that were explored in Jekyll and Hyde, that homosexuality is inherently selfish and purely to satisfy personal pleasure. When Louis meets Armand, he is infatuated with a “longing … so strong it took all of [his] strength to control it,”[24] and Claudia is immediately jealous, she knows he is attracted to him and is threatened by Louis’ homoerotic desire. Claudia cannot fulfil her role as a child or a lover to Louis, and her death by the hands of his new lover is indicative of the conservative fears that sexually immoral people, like homosexuals, cannot be trusted to have a family for they are not bound to the reproductive process or inclined to sexual monogamy.

While homosexuality and homoerotic desire remain politically and socially contested, there has always been a space for the manifestations of non-conventional sexual practices and relationships in Gothic. The monstrous body is deeply metaphorical and without that sense of transgression, it lacks the conviction of otherness, which is used to frighten or morally awaken the reader. Although in all three novels explored homosexual desire is treated as a social taboo and something to be morally condemned, by using the Gothic genre the authors can sub-textually create an argument against the status quo. In both Carmilla and Jekyll and Hyde, the destruction of the monster does not mean that the text has a ‘happy ending’. Laura is left feeling melancholia and lonely without Carmilla, often dreaming that she has come back to her as the “beautiful” friend that challenged her male dominated life. Similarly, while Dr. Jekyll may be overpowered by his monster, Hyde ultimately chooses to take his own life, implying that he feels a sense of shame and comprehends the moral consequences for the indulgences in his desires. On the surface Stevenson is saying that allowing the darker side of oneself to surface can only end in losing one’s civilised self, but underneath that he does not seem to condone repression either. The last sentence of Dr. Jekyll’s final note is: “I bring the life of that unhappy Henry Jekyll to an end.”[25] Stevenson employing the same literary tactic as Le Fanu, by ending the novel on an ambiguous note that queer readers could understand differently to heterosexual. Even in Rice’s novel, the source of much of Louis’ pain is his lack of self-acceptance and desperation to find a family in which he can belong to. The monster that haunts all of the characters in these novels is conformity and the expectation of repression of self to suit societal conventions. Through the monstrous body authors are given a channel through which to transgress boundaries and vicariously act out repressed desires, providing two moral lessons: confirmation for those wishes to conform, and reassurance of kinship for those who have found they cannot.

[1] Michael Foucault, History of Sexuality, trans. Robert Hurley, (New York: Pantheon Books, 1978), p. 54

[2] ibid, p. 43

[3] Max Fincher, Queering Gothic in the Romantic Age: The Penetrating Eye, (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), p. 69

[4] Fincher, Queering Gothic, p. 68

[5] Lucy Irigaray, ‘Commodities Among Themselves’ in This Sex Which is Not One, trans. By Catherine Porter, (New York: Cornell University Press, 1985), p. 196

[6] ibid, p. 194

[7] Sheridan Le Fanu, Carmilla, (iBook Ed.: Public domain, 1872), p. 102

[8] ibid, p. 34-35

[9] Eric Savoy, ‘The Rise of American Gothic’ in The Cambridge Companion to Gothic Fiction, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 198

[10] Jarlath Killeen, History of the Gothic: Gothic Literature 1825-1914, (Online: University of Wales Press, 2009), [accessed: 11 Jan 17]

[11] Savoy, Rise of American Gothic, p. 199

[12] Killeen, History of Gothic

[13] Bram Stoker, Dracula

[14] William Veeder, Children of The Night, p. 141

[15] Robert Louis Stevenson, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, (1886), ed. by Martin Danahay, (Claremont: Broadview Press, 2015), p. 34

[16] Fincher, Queering Gothic, p. 69

[17] Carolyn Laubender, "The Baser Urge: Homosexual Desire In The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde", 17, (2009), Paper 12, <h p://preserve.lehigh.edu/cas-lehighreview-vol-17/12> [accessed: 11 Jan 17], p. 25

[18] Lee Edelman, No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), p. 2

[19] Laubender,”The Base Urge”, p. 23

[20] James R. Keller, Anne Rice and Sexual Politics: The Early Novels, (Jefferson: McFarland & Company, 2000), p. 13

[21] Ramsland Prism pp. 268-69

[22] Tony Magistrale, Abject Terrors: Surveying the Modern and Postmodern Horror Film, (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc. 2005), p. 44

[23] Keller, Anne Rice and Sexual Politics, p. 15-16

[24] Anne Rice, Interview with The Vampire, (London: Random House Publishing, 2010), p. 256

[25] Stevenson, Jekyll and Hyde, p. 83

#let's talk gay monsters #im buzzzzzing #anon asks #personal #my asks #a literal essay #queer lit #gothic lit #lottie does a masters

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wildtige429 · 5 years

Text

Karma

@lynea-kureji

Here is an AU of the most satisfying villain defeat of the century. For those who enjoy sweet payback, this is the AU version of Cleaved. Has references to Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark and Netflix’s Castlevania. And a character referenced from DC.

----

It is done.

Star, her mother, Moon, and Eclipsa have successfully destroyed magic, redeeming the previous queens’ sins and destinies. And with the magic destroyed, Mina Loveberry and her Solarian armies have been defeated.

When they saw the rogue warrior arrive on the beach, her defiance high despited being powerless without her magic and the Solarian Sword, that has been taken away by the Metaltail tribe in order to honour a fellow warrior after Mina left it behind.

Kurogane the Spinosaurus, Kurogane the Tatzelwurm, and Razor snarled with hatred at the sight of the terrorist. Toshi clenched his guns tightly, his trigger fingers twitching to put some bullets into her brain. Mint and Toffee felt the same way with their own weapons.

“If you think I’m done here, but you’re so wrong with what’s in here,” Mina smirked, despite her defeat, “Ideas. My ideas will show you all. And Toffee’s Son, Toffee and Mint is going to be really mistaken for trusting them.”

“He has a name!” a woman, a member of the Solarian army, scowled, “It’s Toshi!”

Mina scowled at the crowd of defeated Solarians, “Most of you got some nerve turning against me and Queen Solaria!”

“Toshi SAVED those people!” a man pointed out, “And his parents helped too!”

“Not to mention you tried to MURDER an innocent child for throwing rocks at you and saying you hurt Mint!” a girl accused.

“He turned against a hero and Solaria! Even if sacrifices must be made! Especially monster smoochers that turned against us!”she argued.

The former Solarians gave very dirty looks at her, muttering amongst each other, “Toshi was right all along! We shouldn’t have listened to you! The only monster here is YOU!”

The rogue warrior’s eyes twitched with insanity, “FINE! I’M FINE DOING ALONE!!! ALL I HAVE IS MY IDEAS!!!”

“I have an idea JUST RIGHT FOR YOU!!”

Before Mina could react, she saw a fist flying straight at her face and she was sent flying into a rock, knocking her out a bit. Her fist dripping with her foe’s blood after that sucker punch, Ruby breathed heavily through clenched teeth, her anger unwavering.

“That’s.......For KILLING MY MOM!!!” she snarled with vengeance.

“Ruby, it’s done....,” Toshi reassured her, slowly putting her arms around her to comfort her, “It’s done.”

With Mina barely conscious, a group of Metaltails approached her and clasped her wrists, and legs, put a tight metallic strait jacket on her and laid a muzzle on her. Heaving her onto the vehicle, they got onto the post-apocalyptic truck and drove away into the direction of a mountain.

“I want her to ROT IN HELL!!” she hissed with hatred.

“I know....I know,” he repeated, watching the truck disappear into the distance, “And I bet she’ll never see daylight or hurt an innocent life ever again.”

“What’s going to happen to her?” Star asked the lizards.

“She’ll be sent to a very special place built for her,” Toffee answered, “Metaltails are a force never to be reckoned with. Even if she’s a warrior and worthless without her magic alone, she wouldn’t take down an entire tribe.”

“I hope that place has a torture chamber,” Axel smirked, “That’ll give her a thing or two.”

“Actually......” Toffee tapped his lip, “There are some top men that will keep her company at that place.”

“Who?” Mint asked, unsure of who he’s referring to. Her husband gave her a stern look, trying to give her the message of what he meant.

“Top.....MEN!” he repeated, sternly.

---------------

Metaltail guards escorted the chained up Mina, who is dressed in orange garbs that humans on Earth wear in prison, down a dark tunnel, leading her to a huge cell that will be her new home. Shoving the madwoman in, they stood guard at the entrance, hands behind their backs.

“Mina Loveberry....” a deep woman’s voice resonated from the darkness. Glaring at the figure, Mina is met with a big tall Septarian woman with neatly combed grey hair put into a ponytail, held by a golden ring, black scales, red eyes, some white spike tattoos under her eyes and is dressed in a white and black business suit, fit for a woman of her authority.

“Servant of Queen Solaria the Monster Carver and one of Mewni’s greatest warriors,” the woman listed out with grim disappointment, “Now degraded to bloodthirsty, murderous, delusional terrorist. What a disappointment.”

Mina glanced away with a scowl, not wanting to look at this warden. She did take a peek at the lizard woman’s name tag and sees that her name is Steelia Fierce.

“You and your little cult that you brainwashed through your hatred has destroyed most of Mewni in order to destroy the monsters and their sympathisers,” Steelia points out, striding around the prisoner like a vulture circling a carcass, “You even dared tried to kill a child. It’s no wonder your cult turned against you.”

“They are brainwashed by those lizards,” Mina grumbled.

“No,” she shook her head, “Solaria’s purpose is to protect her citizens from the monsters. Not kill innocents all because they turn against you. Everybody would know that what you did is wrong. Not to mention, you tried to kill Solaria’s daughter.”

“She turned against her kind,” Mina tried to reasoned.

“No,” Steelia declined again, “Yes, it is betrayal. But what she did.....is something that can end the feud between monsters and Mewmans. By bringing a child of both worlds to this world as a beacon of peace. And you tried to destroy it.”

“Monsters shouldn’t exist,” Mina hissed.

“People like you shouldn’t exist,” Steelia growled, forcing her to look into her piercing gaze, “You maybe a follower to Solaria, but you have no warrior’s honour and pride. And therefore, you have brought yourself to this mess.”

“Blame it on the monster smoochers!” the rogue warrior spat.

Steelia’s eyes turned cold and hard, “Your hatred has blinded your sight, mind and heart. You have no clue of what you’ve done. If you have really listened to reason and have a little conscience, then you wouldn’t be in here in the first place.”

The Metaltail warden released her chin, and the guards gave way for the warden to pass through. Stopping, she turned her head over her shoulder, “And most importantly, you’re not doing it for Solaria. Because you stabbed her in the back.”

Mina’s eyes widened in realisation and shock. And just before she could utter “Stop!” and catch up to the warden, the giant metal door slammed shut in her face, blocking her screams of defeat and frustration. And it brought satisfying smiles on Steelia and her guards’ faces.

“Make herself comfortable in Skullcatraz,” she ordered her guards, “Because this will be her new home for a long time.”

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

MAN! I ALWAYS WANTED TO SEE KARMA BITE MINA IN THE ASS FOR A LONG TIME!!!! AND IT IS SO SATISFYING!!!!!!!

youtube

This will be Steelia’s theme song after the lock the door on Mina’s cell.

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draculalive · 5 years

Text

Dr. Seward's Diary.

28 October. -- When the telegram came announcing the arrival in Galatz I do not think it was such a shock to any of us as might have been expected. True, we did not know whence, or how, or when, the bolt would come; but I think we all expected that something strange would happen. The delay of arrival at Varna made us individually satisfied that things would not be just as we had expected; we only waited to learn where the change would occur. None the less, however, was it a surprise. I suppose that nature works on such a hopeful basis that we believe against ourselves that things will be as they ought to be, not as we should know that they will be. Transcendentalism is a beacon to the angels, even if it be a will-o'-the-wisp to man. It was an odd experience and we all took it differently. Van Helsing raised his hand over his head for a moment, as though in remonstrance with the Almighty; but he said not a word, and in a few seconds stood up with his face sternly set. Lord Godalming grew very pale, and sat breathing heavily. I was myself half stunned and looked in wonder at one after another. Quincey Morris tightened his belt with that quick movement which I knew so well; in our old wandering days it meant "action." Mrs. Harker grew ghastly white, so that the scar on her forehead seemed to burn, but she folded her hands meekly and looked up in prayer. Harker smiled -- actually smiled -- the dark, bitter smile of one who is without hope; but at the same time his action belied his words, for his hands instinctively sought the hilt of the great Kukri knife and rested there. "When does the next train start for Galatz?" said Van Helsing to us generally.

“At 6:30 to-morrow morning!" We all started, for the answer came from Mrs. Harker.

“How on earth do you know?" said Art.

“You forget -- or perhaps you do not know, though Jonathan does and so does Dr. Van Helsing -- that I am the train fiend. At home in Exeter I always used to make up the time-tables, so as to be helpful to my husband. I found it so useful sometimes, that I always make a study of the time-tables now. I knew that if anything were to take us to Castle Dracula we should go by Galatz, or at any rate through Bucharest, so I learned the times very carefully. Unhappily there are not many to learn, as the only train to-morrow leaves as I say."

“Wonderful woman!" murmured the Professor.

“Can't we get a special?" asked Lord Godalming. Van Helsing shook his head: "I fear not. This land is very different from yours or mine; even if we did have a special, it would probably not arrive as soon as our regular train. Moreover, we have something to prepare. We must think. Now let us organize. You, friend Arthur, go to the train and get the tickets and arrange that all be ready for us to go in the morning. Do you, friend Jonathan, go to the agent of the ship and get from him letters to the agent in Galatz, with authority to make search the ship just as it was here. Morris Quincey, you see the Vice-Consul, and get his aid with his fellow in Galatz and all he can do to make our way smooth, so that no times be lost when over the Danube. John will stay with Madam Mina and me, and we shall consult. For so if time be long you may be delayed; and it will not matter when the sun set, since I am here with Madam to make report."

“And I," said Mrs. Harker brightly, and more like her old self than she had been for many a long day, "shall try to be of use in all ways, and shall think and write for you as I used to do. Something is shifting from me in some strange way, and I feel freer than I have been of late!" The three younger men looked happier at the moment as they seemed to realise the significance of her words; but Van Helsing and I, turning to each other, met each a grave and troubled glance. We said nothing at the time, however.

When the three men had gone out to their tasks Van Helsing asked Mrs. Harker to look up the copy of the diaries and find him the part of Harker's journal at the Castle. She went away to get it; when the door was shut upon her he said to me:---

“We mean the same! speak out!"

“There is some change. It is a hope that makes me sick, for it may deceive us."

“Quite so. Do you know why I asked her to get the manuscript?"

“No!" said I, "unless it was to get an opportunity of seeing me alone."

“You are in part right, friend John, but only in part. I want to tell you something. And oh, my friend, I am taking a great -- a terrible -- risk; but I believe it is right. In the moment when Madam Mina said those words that arrest both our understanding, an inspiration came to me. In the trance of three days ago the Count sent her his spirit to read her mind; or more like he took her to see him in his earth-box in the ship with water rushing, just as it go free at rise and set of sun. He learn then that we are here; for she have more to tell in her open life with eyes to see and ears to hear than he, shut, as he is, in his coffin-box. Now he make his most effort to escape us. At present he want her not.

“He is sure with his so great knowledge that she will come at his call; but he cut her off -- take her, as he can do, out of his own power, that so she come not to him. Ah! there I have hope that our man-brains that have been of man so long and that have not lost the grace of God, will come higher than his child-brain that lie in his tomb for centuries, that grow not yet to our stature, and that do only work selfish and therefore small. Here comes Madam Mina; not a word to her of her trance! She know it not; and it would overwhelm her and make despair just when we want all her hope, all her courage; when most we want all her great brain which is trained like man's brain, but is of sweet woman and have a special power which the Count give her, and which he may not take away altogether -- though he think not so. Hush! let me speak, and you shall learn. Oh, John, my friend, we are in awful straits. I fear, as I never feared before. We can only trust the good God. Silence! here she comes!"

I thought that the Professor was going to break down and have hysterics, just as he had when Lucy died, but with a great effort he controlled himself and was at perfect nervous poise when Mrs. Harker tripped into the room, bright and happy-looking and, in the doing of work, seemingly forgetful of her misery. As she came in, she handed a number of sheets of typewriting to Van Helsing. He looked over them gravely, his face brightening up as he read. Then holding the pages between his finger and thumb he said:---

“Friend John, to you with so much of experience already -- and you, too, dear Madam Mina, that are young -- here is a lesson: do not fear ever to think. A half-thought has been buzzing often in my brain, but I fear to let him loose his wings. Here now, with more knowledge, I go back to where that half-thought come from and I find that he be no half-thought at all; that be a whole thought, though so young that he is not yet strong to use his little wings. Nay, like the “Ugly Duck” of my friend Hans Andersen, he be no duck-thought at all, but a big swan-thought that sail nobly on big wings, when the time come for him to try them. See I read here what Jonathan have written:---

“That other of his race who, in a later age, again and again, brought his forces over The Great River into Turkey Land; who, when he was beaten back, came again, and again, and again, though he had to come alone from the bloody field where his troops were being slaughtered, since he knew that he alone could ultimately triumph."

“What does this tell us? Not much? no! The Count's child-thought see nothing; therefore he speak so free. Your man-thought see nothing; my man-thought see nothing, till just now. No! But there comes another word from some one who speak without thought because she, too, know not what it mean -- what it might mean. Just as there are elements which rest, yet when in nature's course they move on their way and they touch -- then pouf! and there comes a flash of light, heaven wide, that blind and kill and destroy some; but that show up all earth below for leagues and leagues. Is it not so? Well, I shall explain. To begin, have you ever study the philosophy of crime? ‘Yes’ and ‘No.’ You, John, yes; for it is a study of insanity. You, no, Madam Mina; for crime touch you not -- not but once. Still, your mind works true, and argues not a particulari ad universale. There is this peculiarity in criminals. It is so constant, in all countries and at all times, that even police, who know not much from philosophy, come to know it empirically, that it is. That is to be empiric. The criminal always work at one crime -- that is the true criminal who seems predestinate to crime, and who will of none other. This criminal has not full man-brain. He is clever and cunning and resourceful; but he be not of man-stature as to brain. He be of child-brain in much. Now this criminal of ours is predestinate to crime also; he, too, have child-brain, and it is of the child to do what he have done. The little bird, the little fish, the little animal learn not by principle, but empirically; and when he learn to do, then there is to him the ground to start from to do more. ‘Dos pou sto,’ said Archimedes. ‘Give me a fulcrum, and I shall move the world!’ To do once, is the fulcrum whereby child-brain become man-brain; and until he have the purpose to do more, he continue to do the same again every time, just as he have done before! Oh, my dear, I see that your eyes are opened, and that to you the lightning flash show all the leagues," for Mrs. Harker began to clap her hands and her eyes sparkled. He went on:---

“Now you shall speak. Tell us two dry men of science what you see with those so bright eyes." He took her hand and held it whilst she spoke. His finger and thumb closed on her pulse, as I thought instinctively and unconsciously, as she spoke:---

“The Count is a criminal and of criminal type. Nordau and Lombroso would so classify him, and quâ criminal he is of imperfectly formed mind. Thus, in a difficulty he has to seek resource in habit. His past is a clue, and the one page of it that we know -- and that from his own lips -- tells that once before, when in what Mr. Morris would call a ‘tight place,’ he went back to his own country from the land he had tried to invade, and thence, without losing purpose, prepared himself for a new effort. He came again better equipped for his work; and won. So he came to London to invade a new land. He was beaten, and when all hope of success was lost, and his existence in danger, he fled back over the sea to his home; just as formerly he had fled back over the Danube from Turkey Land."

“Good, good! oh, you so clever lady!" said Van Helsing, enthusiastically, as he stooped and kissed her hand. A moment later he said to me, as calmly as though we had been having a sick-room consultation:---

“Seventy-two only; and in all this excitement. I have hope." Turning to her again, he said with keen expectation:---

“But go on. Go on! there is more to tell if you will. Be not afraid; John and I know. I do in any case, and shall tell you if you are right. Speak, without fear!"

“I will try to; but you will forgive me if I seem egotistical."

“Nay! fear not, you must be egotist, for it is of you that we think."

“Then, as he is criminal he is selfish; and as his intellect is small and his action is based on selfishness, he confines himself to one purpose. That purpose is remorseless. As he fled back over the Danube, leaving his forces to be cut to pieces, so now he is intent on being safe, careless of all. So his own selfishness frees my soul somewhat from the terrible power which he acquired over me on that dreadful night. I felt it! Oh, I felt it! Thank God, for His great mercy! My soul is freer than it has been since that awful hour; and all that haunts me is a fear lest in some trance or dream he may have used my knowledge for his ends." The Professor stood up:---

“He has so used your mind; and by it he has left us here in Varna, whilst the ship that carried him rushed through enveloping fog up to Galatz, where, doubtless, he had made preparation for escaping from us. But his child-mind only saw so far; and it may be that, as ever is in God's Providence, the very thing that the evil-doer most reckoned on for his selfish good, turns out to be his chiefest harm. The hunter is taken in his own snare, as the great Psalmist says. For now that he think he is free from every trace of us all, and that he has escaped us with so many hours to him, then his selfish child-brain will whisper him to sleep. He think, too, that as he cut himself off from knowing your mind, there can be no knowledge of him to you; there is where he fail! That terrible baptism of blood which he give you makes you free to go to him in spirit, as you have as yet done in your times of freedom, when the sun rise and set. At such times you go by my volition and not by his; and this power to good of you and others, as you have won from your suffering at his hands. This is now all the more precious that he know it not, and to guard himself have even cut himself off from his knowledge of our where. We, however, are not selfish, and we believe that God is with us through all this blackness, and these many dark hours. We shall follow him; and we shall not flinch; even if we peril ourselves that we become like him. Friend John, this has been a great hour; and it have done much to advance us on our way. You must be scribe and write him all down, so that when the others return from their work you can give it to them; then they shall know as we do.”

And so I have written it whilst we wait their return, and Mrs. Harker has written with her typewriter all since she brought the MS. to us.

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