#the squaw

[doodleferp]

Kitty Aileen, even if she is ferocious, doesn’t faze her husband in the slightest.

[doodleferp]

Hellsing Fanfic Ramblings 3: Cat Aileen

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Edit 2024: This has since been edited to rename my OC since I'm starting to put my name to things. Allison's new name is Aileen.

So I’ve been doing more concept stuff for Aileen's animal form; seeing how Alucard has Baskerville, I wanted to give her one to compliment him. I mentioned Cat Aileen (Catleen? Huh) in the first rambling.

So I’ve decided to name Catleen “Squaw”, in reference to a short story by Bram Stoker that was published after his death. In the story, a British couple are on a honeymoon vacation and see a stereotypical American man in their tour group inadvertently kill a kitten by tossing rocks at it from a hotel balcony. The kitten’s mother, The Squaw, then goes into a blood rage and starts to stalk the tour group. For some reason the group is shown a torture chamber, and the man demands to be tied up and put in one of the devices so he can do a Houdini. The husband of the British couple then sees The Squaw nearby and the cat attacks the curator, who lets go of the rope holding the man. The man is killed by the torture device and The Squaw drinks the man’s blood, “purring in erotic delight”. Terrified, the husband takes a sword and cuts The Squaw in half. (Side note: if I had a nickel for every Bram Stoker story I’ve read that involves blood-drinking antagonists, I’d have two nickels, which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it’s happened twice.)

In my original vision, Squaw is a bit different from Baskerville in that she’s one of Aileen's alternate forms and not a familiar. Allison can turn into a normal-sized housecat, and also turn into a giant, tiger-like cat. If needed, she could also separate the cat from herself to go om nom nom on peeps she “deems worthy”.

But I’m also in a weird spot where I’m not entirely sure what she is. Aileen and Alucard could have been on a trip and seen the man do this to the cat, wherein Allison flips out and decides to revenge on him by turning into the kitten’s mother and killing him in poetic justice: in the story, the wife leaves the torture chamber because she’s disgusted by the display, and then The Squaw shows up after she leaves. Allison could’ve pretended to be queasy (well, maybe not pretended) and left so she could turn into the cat and kill the man while not actually getting her own hands dirty - which would also explain why The Squaw drank the man’s blood.

On another note, The Squaw could’ve been an entirely separate entity from AIleen. Aileen is queasy and leaves the tour group right before The Squaw attacks, and when she comes back and sees the cat there, she would remember what happened and feel sympathy for it, and take its soul into her body so its death wouldn’t be in vain. This would make Aileen a bit more like Baskerville.

Anyways, I’ve got no idea where to go from here and I’m open to any suggestions if people have them. For a long rant, here’s Squaw and Baskerville chilling together.

[woundedwizard]

The third story (The Squaw) is absolutely... revolting

As in "I wanna hurl" revolting. So extremely visceral

Major trigger/ content warning for this story: Animal abuse, racism

Elias P. Hutcheson can seriously go fuck himself

[hellyeahhorrorlit]

Complete text of the short story Bram Stoker.

I read this when I was a pre-teen and was pretty horrified by the goriness. Reading it again as an adult, I'm more horrified by the cartoonish figure of Elias P. Hutcheson. 

This line from the intro also stuck out at me:

Amelia also declares that she has, as a result of that experience, advised all her friends to take a friend on the honeymoon.

Considering what happens just a few paragraphs later, that seems doubtful.

I know Dracula is a masterpiece of gothic vampire fiction, incredibly influential, etc. but I find most of Stoker's work raunchy and distasteful.