Zoro will say he doesn't believe in God and then turn around to give Luffy some of his food when no one's looking and kneel beside him when he's just won a fight to say "they never stood a chance against us, did they, captain?" and laugh until his stomach hurts when Luffy's doing dumb shit while drunk and do whatever it takes to get Luffy's strawhat if it gets blown/taken away and says "thanks" when Luffy kisses him and only falls asleep until he's made sure Luffy's heart still beats restless, unbothered, protected and will follow until the end of this world and the next the call of his captain and lives so he can make sure his crew is safe so they can all make it to the end together and doesn't hesitate when drawing his swords in the name of his captain and calls him an idiot yet does exactly as he says and smiles when Luffy shows the world again and again how he will do everything to become king and
391 notes
·
View notes
On Horror, Queerness, Mirrors, and Dracula
Your wish is my command (you may or may not regret this).
Here’s the thing - I love horror, and I love patterns, and I think the best horror is always in some sense symmetrical. It might not be obvious, but what’s the point of staring into an abyss if you can’t see your own face reflected back? The symmetry itself comes in any number of different twists, whether it is familial, communal, erotic, or individual, and most of these apply to Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
The centre of our novel rests on the Harkers. So, starting with Jonathan - his experience in Transylvania is a twisted version of his life back home. Dracula is reserved but eloquent, seemingly caring and occasionally affectionate, he reads train schedules and they spend hours upon hours in conversation; which is a dark mirror to Jonathan’s train schedule-loving, passionate but serious Mina. It may even be said that the Count is re-enacting a caricature of traditional heteronormative domesticity - he maintains the household, waits on his guest himself, and blows him kisses from the stairs. His possessiveness of Jonathan is the only way a vampire like Dracula is capable of understanding the bond Jonathan shares with Mina. The Count states that he, too, feels love; but he is written by a closeted gay man in the late 19th century, so his imitation of married life is both a lie and a tragedy. He is a shorthand for forbidden, wrong, and corrupting desires.
At the same time, Mina herself also has a same-sex connection in the beginning of the story, and her relationship with Lucy mirrors the relationship between Jonathan and Dracula. They cling to each other, in a sense; despite being excited about the prospect of their impending marriages, there is some trepidation associated with this new stage in life. A common part of a dowry used to be a shroud, simply due to the frequency at which Victorian wives died in childbirth soon after the wedding; and even provided a survival, the transition to married life was still a loss of innocence. As such, Lucy’s affection for Mina is the last expression of her girlhood, and she herself is the personification of Mina’s. Lucy is, therefore, the direct antithesis of the Count; her death and subsequent rising change Mina the same way that Dracula does Jonathan, establishing a firm duality between the Harkers and their respective vampires.
The other characters are reflections of each other, as well; the suitors defend while the brides terrify, Van Helsing wants to preserve life while Renfield wishes to consume it - and even further, the old Hungarian lady cares enough about a stranger to give Jonathan a cross for protection, while Lucy’s own mother lets Dracula into the house herself, selfishly ignorant of her daughter’s needs and the doctor’s orders. Another parallel is drawn again between Jonathan and Renfield, who represents directly what he could have been, had he not escaped from Dracula’s grasp; which makes Renfield’s vehement, last-ditch attempt to protect Mina perhaps all the more poignant. In him, she sees the resilience of Jonathan’s humanity; while he gets to see exactly what she could become after her turning - in Dracula himself. These dualities are integral to the story’s thematic structure, and therefore inextricable from each character’s development.
There is really too much to say about each individual dynamic to fit into one rant, but for the current purposes, I can forgo the details. They all converge as it is on Jonathan and Mina, and thus, the central theme of this story is devotion. If Jonathan had truly broken, like Renfield, Mina would have stayed by his side; and if she had fully turned, like Dracula, he would have adored whatever shred of her still remained. In madness and in death, in happiness and sorrow, in sickness and in health - until the echoes start to sound like wedding vows.
@stripedshirtgay
@bluberimufim
474 notes
·
View notes
valerius being an antipaladin automatically made him sexier than when he was an inquisitor tbh
9 notes
·
View notes
And there's so many ways to leave a person
And I wouldn't wanna do 'em
But somehow you, you cut me loose
So many ways to leave a person
Can't do it to you
Been to Nebraska, I've been to Rome
I've walked the desert and swam below
Climbed many mountains, traveled the skies
I've been to Heaven, oh, how I've tried
To get you out my mind but
You're still home
5 notes
·
View notes
Scathach and Carmilla pressing kisses against the other’s clothed wrists, necks and chests is what it’s all about
4 notes
·
View notes
"I hated Harrow so much at the beginning" could NOT be me. She has flair, she has panache. She stays up all night scrabbling in the dirt burying bone fragments just for the drama of the reveal. She stabs herself in the cheek so she can sign in blood. She is a control freak who puppets her dead parents around and bullies Gideon into a vow of silence. She is a singleminded swot who maps out all the doors in a massive decaying mansion the very first night. She makes herself a bone cocoon before passing out. She leaves bread in a drawer. You don't see a grimy little freak and want to put them in a blender??
11K notes
·
View notes