#the demeter

[carefulzombie]

i know the actual reason the ship is being steered about all crazy is bc the captain tied himself to the helm and Dracula can’t touch it but

the “Dracula can’t steer the ship because he ate all the fucking crew” jokes will never not get a chuckle out me i’m sorry

[rikiteekeetavee]

[moonsun2010]

Made another Dracula video—this time in ✨️colour✨️

You can get a (free) pack of the frames here on my Ko-fi.

If you'd like to see more, I've another animatic that also covers the entire book here.

English subtitles done by myself and @ignitingthesky 's generous help.

[agentem]

the demeter bits are the scariest to me. like the most horror that dracula gets. all these guys poor, working-class guys don't even get [full] names. i'd be one of them they're not lords or doctors so they don't have cowboys or minas to protect them.

i feel bad.

[treesaspen]

Reminder that the Captain of the Demeter tired himself up on the steering wheel with a crucifix. That's a pretty significant thing that happened. Dracula is very much not steering the ship.

[immediatebreakfast]

It's incredible how it took Dracula the first three days of the journey to start to terrorize the workers who are responsible for moving him, and his wooden boxes to england.

Not a single care of how they are the ones that keep the ship moving, all of them are expendable victims in his eyes.

[draculas-hairy-palms]

I love the Demeter sections of Dracula because they have such classic horror-movie vibes, but they’re some of the most obscure in terms of Dracula’s goals and motivations.

One option is that Bram Stoker just said “fuck it, in this section he’s just scary shadow monster as manifestation of Fear of Plague on the open ocean” — but I reallllly want to find a satisfying reading that takes into account Dracula’s character-based motives.

The crux of the issue is that Dracula wants to go to England. He has spent so much time, effort, and money organizing his move to London, his army of solicitors, his transportation network for his boxes at both ports… so why would he risk anything but a smooth journey?

Why kill every sailor aboard? Why lash the boat with storms? Why mire them in fog? Again, doesn’t he want to arrive with his boxes in one piece?

A simple answer to the first question is just that he’s hungry. But has been fasting the entire time Jonathan was with him (as evidenced by his elderly appearance), so presumably he can go quite a long time without blood. Is it harder to keep the thirst in check once he’s “off the wagon”? Possibly. Is there a certain extent to which he’s disposing of witnesses? Maybe, although the dude can be mist, so why does he keep getting seen?

I’ve shared my theory before that his MO suggests he would have tried to seduce a willing sailor (Petrofsky) — it’s possible there were witnesses to his initial appearance, but that still doesn’t really explain why he and-then-there-were-nones the entire crew. It also doesn’t explain the storms and fog.

I’m kind of at a loss here, so please share your theories! He is such an extremely calculating operator as he’s planning his journey to England, I just can’t bring myself to believe that he would have jeopardized his safe arrival for the sake of a scary reader experience. Is this all part of a grand plan? Is he spiraling out of control? Tell me!