Valzhyna Mort, from Music for the Dead and Resurrected: Poems; “Genesis”
Text ID: I’ve always preferred Cain. / His angry / loneliness, his / lack of mother’s / love, his Christian / sarcasm: “Am I / my brother’s keeper?” / asks his brother’s murderer. / Aren’t we indeed / the keepers of our dead?
before pride month ends i would like to once again recommend queer serial, an american LGBT history podcast that covers the movement pre-stonewall (and a little bit thereafter.) it is so important to learn about our history and culture and keep it alive. if you feel like you don’t know that much about LGBT history please take the time to learn. this podcast is a great foundation. if you have the opportunity to speak to older LGBT people, please do so. it is in the interest of our oppressors to have us forget this history, forget the power we have, and make us feel more alone than we really are. we have always been here and we will never go away. no matter how many times we are erased and censored. never forget that.
When I was writing my university bachelor's degree thesis (that I'm still to defend) about Penny Dreadful as a modern adaptation of Frankenstein I noticed how the original novel's homoeroticism is realized by the series in an interesting way.
In the way he is presented, it seems to me that Victor secretly desires men, but thinks that only through creating a perfect one by himself he's allowed to touch other man's skin. His endeavour to pierce the veil between life and death is an excuse, since Victor from the series grew up lonely after the death of his mother and he searches for companionship, for someone who would love him unconditionally, like his mother used to. He believes he can find such love only in a person he creates himself, brings from the dead, and who would see him as his only friend, calm and obedient. Yet his first instinct is to make a man, not a woman, and a handsome man at that.
I can imagine both Rory Kinnear and Alex Price are not everybody's cup of tea (I do find them attractive, they are quite charismatic), but the way the original Creature and Proteus are shown makes them attractive. Proteus we see through Victor's eyes, when he is tending to his body before its even reanimated, when he sketches him (a sure sign of affection) and when he teaches him how to eat in a way that becomes seductive, because of how the camera lingers on his lips and then, in a closeup, on his fingers running down his long throat, immediately bringing to mind erotic imagery. Some may argue that Victor tries to emulate the relationship between his mother and himself taking the parental role and projecting onto Proteus the role of his childhood self, and as much as it is partially true, their relationship bears these marks of hidden desire on Victor's part from the start. The image at the end of the first episode when Proteus is born shows Victor trembling, teary-eyed, looking at the body, a torn and stitched back together, but human body, of a naked man. He's afraid, but not necessarily of the man, but of finally getting what he wanted, it's a fear resulting from excitement. Then the man is touching his face tenderly and Victor, still trembling, cannot stop himself from a little smile. Their faces are softly illuminated by the orange light of the gas lamp, creating an intimate atmosphere of a warm bedroom. Victor practically gasps hearing his own name smoken by Proteus. I doubt all of it was intentional in the way I read it, but it doesn't change the fact that the final scene can be easily interpreted this way.
Then the original Creature, with the violence surrounding his return, presents him as highly masculine, smart, powerful, a direct opposite to the delicate, clueless Proteus Victor could easily form into whatever he wanted. The Creature throughout the entire series is perceived as ugly by some and easily tolerated by others, making his ugliness purely subjective, since, despite his small deformities he remains strangely alluring with his gothic qualities (black long hair, black lips, white skin, yellow eyes, proportional features) of a dark brooding gentleman. With blood on his face he becomes vampire-like (vampires always a symbol of hidden desires and 'depraved' sexuality, the Creature and Victor becoming a mirror image of Vanessa and vampire Mina, both Creature's and Mina's monstrosity an indirect result of Victor's and Vanessa's desire towards having a same-sex companion). The Creature touches Victor's face, a callback to Proteus doing it, but the Creature is not gentle, he smears blood all over Victor's face (blood in vampire narratives was always a symbol for other bodily fluids, that's why it seems so sexy, it also gained another meaning in the 80s, due to the HIV epidemic, which no filmmaker can shake off if they tried, I could discuss it more with The Lost Boys, but no time for that right now).
The dynamic between Victor and the Creature is a reversal of Victor's budding relationship with Proteus, experience winning over innocence. Victor is under another man's rule, and it terrifies him, because it would force him into a position of having to admit his attraction, whereas as the one in control he could have still easily deny it. The Creature, with all his attributes, symbolizes carnal love, he's all 'body', where Proteus was virginal, pious love (to an extent). In one of the scenes where we see Proteus he looks up into the skylight at Victor's apartment and appears angelic, as if in a halo of white light.
It's revealed Victor never had a woman, and the series wants the viewer to believe it's because of his awkwardness and passion for science that consumed him, but his dedication to creating himself male companions instead of searching for a living female one is exactly what makes him seem more queer coded.
It's clear that the lack of paternal figure results in Victor quickly becoming close with older men he encounters (Sir Malcolm, Van Helsing), but it also puts him into a position where he's constantly surrounded by men, with whom he feels more at ease, and is intimidated by women. The rivalry between him and Ethan is that of siblings, until the moment when Ethan teaches him how to shoot a gun. It might be a stretch (it is a bit of a stretch, I admit), but a gun often, especially in horror, alongside a knife, represents manhood and masculine power. Victor allows Ethan to touch him and encourages him to show off with the gun, which is a scene all too familiar from many other movies where the role of Victor is reserved for a woman and the interaction is flirtatious (can't pull examples out of thin air, but if you saw over 1400 movies like me you know I'm not lying). All this adds to the general image of Victor.
The Creature and Victor, when they are on a walk, have a very revealing conversation in which the Creature points out how quick Victor was to grow attached to his more perfect man, and Victor doesn't deny it, he admits that he did in fact feel affection towards Proteus, although the meaning of it as the scorned past partner expressing jealousy over the love he didn't get while someone else did is largely subtext. When the Creature says that he's lonely, Victor answers 'I cannot love you' (paraphrase, because I can't find the exact quote right now) and the Creature, disillusioned, mocks him, 'I do not want what you cannot give' suggesting that Victor, by making himself a meek obedient man, is selfish, cruel, manipulating, and a coward, therefore could not have loved Proteus truly. Then again, Victor cannot bring himself to love his original Creature, because he's not the ideal man he envisioned and by then the Creature being too aware of his flaws of character. The Creature/Caliban/John Clare knows that Victor is 'monstrous', not just because he's someone who desecrates dead bodies, plays God and abandons his creation, but because of his queer desire. It's important that in the case of Penny Dreadful 'monstrosity' signifies many different things, literal (being a vampire werewolf, witch, and so on), metaphorical (bad deeds, like letting your son die a horrible death, cheating, killing etc.) and wholy subjective, merely condemned by ignorant society (Sembene's blackness, Brona's sex work, Lily's want to be equal or greater than men, Vanessa's want for sexual freedom, the Creature's ugliness, Angelique being transgender and other cases), so it's NOT that much of a stretch this time.
We also have the whole problem with Lily. Victor is so attached to Lily (who takes up both Elizabeth's and creature's bride parts in the novel) because he believes that only by possessing a good woman he'll be redeemed for his 'sinful' desires, but he's foolish to think that. This belief reduces a woman to a semi-maternal, semi-virginal angelic ideal with no sexual urges or agency, like virgin Mary. Lily is a true replacement for Victor's mother, and his imagined redemption. As long as she's similar to Proteus, in that she's not sexual, and pure like an angel. Yet Lily is not a woman in that sense. She is another of Victor's creatures, so she partially also takes over the role of the original Creature from the novel, a male. She's not an ideal of a Victorian obedient wife, she has power, or tries to have it, but power in the context of patriarchal society is masculine by nature. The moment she drops her pretenses of a weak delicate wife-like girl Victor does not want her like this. He doesn't want a woman that is sexually liberated, because he doesn't like women in this way, and yet, by being similar to the first Creature (from Victor's perspective, from hers John Clare is similar to Victor-a man, I could delve into Brona's sexuality, but later, this thing is already way longer than I intended) she's 'the man' he wanted.
There is also Henry. Henry Jekyll takes the role of his namesake in the novel, Henry Clerval, Victor's closest friend, and a character most often cited to have homoerotic tension with Victor. It's true that some of the eroticism might be accidental, stemming from the prevalence of homosocial interactions in 'Frankenstein' which in turn is a result of misogynistic nature of 19th century Genevian society and in-novel universe reflecting it, but like I mentioned before, it still feeds into the queer reading of the text and translates beautifully into Jekyll and Victor being both extremely misogynistic towards Lily and their mutual homoerotic tension. In the scenes where Henry purposes his plan to Victor he practically seductively purrs it into his ear, Lily becomes merely a female buffer that allows for that interaction, a female presence which is an excuse for male closeness (here I have a couple of examples actually: Dead Ringers, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Scream (in a roundabout way, through murder) and a couple others, but that deserves its own article). I won't even mention more references to the novel, because that's a lot already.
Penny Dreadful, although I believe largely unintentionally, expands on what is already there through the changes it introduces in relation to the novel's plot. I have nothing else smart to say, I just think it's worth considering.
*I use the word 'queer', because that's the umbrella term we use in academic writing for years now and even our lgbt+ group at university is called 'queer', so don't come at me with stupid takes
drax, with a pause spent determining that peter is probably joking and then a hearty guffaw: but my muscles and fighting power is several times your own! your death would be meaningless!
The trouble with public art installations is that even among those that don’t strive to be inoffensively bland, too many of them are designed to be cute or inspiring or edgy or otherwise provoke a specific, well-defined emotion. What we need is more public art whose intended reaction is “what in the goddamn…?”
Honestly, make sure you know the character you’re writing for. For example, if you’re writing for damon, maybe watch an episode before you write, so you can watch him and get his way of speaking down and his mannerisms so you can portray that, if you so choose. Make sure you use language the characters in the show would use.
I think having an understanding of vampires and the mechanics of them in tvd is important, because honestly vampires are so different across different versions that you don’t want to get them mixed up. That goes for werewolves and witches as well. Just make sure you know the rules the show has set if you plan on sticking to them.
Most importantly, it’s fanfiction. I think you can write whatever the hell you want and have fun with it, if a character isn’t necessarily acting how they would in the show, so be it! You wanted to write them that way, so do it! And have fun with it!
you think this is on of my shitposts, but when bone material first evolved in organisms about 1.5 billion years ago, it was in the form of exoskeletons/shells. they served as protective shields. you know, like with turtles, or sea urchin spines.
exoskeletons helped protect the softer anatomy, but also restricted movement and surface sensory organs. eventually bones evolved to be inside the body instead of outside. this had a lot of benefits, and led to the evolution of vertebrates.
@arsanatomica does a great job of illustrating it here!
a neat fact is all this started when violent tectonic plate movements deposited huge amounts of minerals (including calcium) into the ocean (where life was based). this allowed organisms to develop hard body parts, such as shells or spines.
earthquakes caused bones and i think that’s nifty!
do you think there’s ever been a point in the avatar cycle where everyone was just waiting for them to pop up in one of the water tribes, but instead they reincarnated into one of those waterbending swamp hicks in the earth kingdom? because I really like the idea of a swamp avatar with a little leaf hat and a southern drawl.
so apparently with the tribes that have, like, discrete sites of power, the Avatar would rotate where they were born. Which for Air meant it would go something like Northern->Western->Southern->Eastern, and for the water tribe meant it would alternate between North and South, which is part of why the Southern Tribe had been so depleted; Sozin knew that was where the next Avatar would be born.
but. The swamp is ABSURDLY connected to the spirit world, and definitely should have gone into the rotation, and I’m just. Just imagining. An AU where Aang didn’t make it and Sozin just assumed the Southern tribe was next and anyway twenty years later this goddamn fully realized hick from the sticks Avatar emerges from the swamp and puts the hurting on the fire nation.
“If we were to compare ourselves with novelists who write in English, we might find our minds infused with countless unsavory sentiments such as jealousy, ill-will, anger, despair, and apathy, as if we had opened Pandora’s box. Yet, just as “hope” was left inside the box, there is one thing left for us. On this one point, we have absolute superiority over novelists who write in English. For those of us who know we are living in this asymmetry are the only ones condemned to perpetually reflect upon language, the only ones forced to know that the English language cannot dictate “truths” and that there are other “truths” in this world that cannot be perceived through the English language. Of course, I am sure that many novelists writing in English also reflect upon language just like we do. Yet they are not condemned to do so in the way that we are.
They are not condemned to know, for instance, that the works that are usually translated into English are those that are both thematically and linguistically the easiest to translate, that often only reinforce the worldview constructed by the English language, and preferably that entertain readers with just the right kind of exoticism. They are not condemned to know that there is thus a perpetual hermeneutic circle—that in interpreting the world, only “truths” that can be perceived in English exist as “truths.” They are not condemned to know that this hermeneutic circle is further consolidated by the honorable Nobel Prize in Literature, which inevitably suppresses all the problems inherent in the act of translation. Only we are condemned.”
Minae Mizumura, The Fall of Language in the Age of English. Tr. Mari Yoshihara & Juliet Winters Carpenter
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