It's Thaum!

help i do not know how to this website

[thaumpenguin]

Finished the Count of Monte Cristo last night, absolute masterpiece. What does Château-Renaud even do when he's not hanging out with his employed friends

[thaumpenguin]

If you can't remember who Château-Renaud is, he's the guy in the rich boy friend group who is not the heir, nor the journalist, nor the minister's secretary/extramarital affair. He quips and laughs and is just sort of there.

[thaumpenguin]

Finished the Count of Monte Cristo last night, absolute masterpiece. What does Château-Renaud even do when he's not hanging out with his employed friends

[toothwormfactory]

[toskarin]

I think it was ivy who said at one point that the oft-missed lesson of higurashi being good is that you should write about places you know intimately, which is why contemporary games set vaguely "in rural japan" by people unfamiliar with it don't really have that same intimacy

anyway setting that aside, purely observationally, nobody has taken this more to heart than poland

[toskarin]

american indie developer deciding on a setting: in a cozy mountain town surrounded by wholesome yokai, ghibli inspired cooperative sustainable cherry blossoms and you can pet the dog

french indie developer deciding on a setting: in a world where the gestalt misery of colonisation's victims has manifested into a sort of misery elemental, three church-like religious organisations hav[nine more paragraphs that leave you feeling like you know less than you knew before you started reading]

polish indie developer deciding on a setting: warsaw👍🇵🇱 it is very bad

[technoturian]

Having now gotten to the end of the book, I gotta ask... How on earth did we get here, where in almost every stinking adaptation of this book for over a century has decided the characters worth trimming down or completely cutting out are the two who actually kill Dracula.

[jupiterlandings]

“And when you say my name,

may it never give you pain.

I don’t wanna go

but it’s time to leave;

you’ll be on my mind,

my destiny”

Dracula Aesthetics - Quincy P. Morris

[see-arcane]

We go to seek the place where my poor darling suffered so much. God grant that we may be guided aright, and that He will deign to watch over my husband and those dear to us both, and who are in such deadly peril. As for me, I am not worthy in His sight. Alas! I am unclean to His eyes, and shall be until He may deign to let me stand forth in His sight as one of those who have not incurred His wrath.

Oh man, oh boy, I was not ready to hear this spoken aloud it turns out. I am going to have to personally fight Stoker and @re-dracula for emotionally compromising me this early in the morning.

Just...the hurt in those lines. The confused shame, the fear, the desperation. The essence of 'Whatever I did to earn this, I'm sorry. What did I do to earn this? I must have done something. I will be good now, Lord, I will be better if You let me survive this, if You deign to love me again. Even if not, please protect the one I love, protect our friends as You failed to protect Lucy and so many others. Please, God?'

As much as she cannot write it, cannot say it, cannot bear to think it, I believe this is as close as Mina comes to acknowledging the unfairness of the whole situation on an existential level. Hers and Jonathan's faith has been proven true--God is real! God has power against the undead and unholy-supernatural!--but now also has burned-in proof that He is fickle and unmoving when it comes to those afflicted, even against their will. Her only chance at salvation is in the hands of mortal friends who themselves are at risk of death and worse. No matter how good, how pious, how spiritually deserving the people involved are, God can and will let her and the others be just another handful of tally marks in Dracula's long winning streak.

But she cannot express that. Cannot accept that. Cannot dare to meet eyes with that reality here at the crux of things. And so she prays. Pleads. Begs.

While she's still 'loved' enough to be allowed such things.

[thesporkidentity]

i love today's entry. this is, if i'm remembering correctly, only the second time we've had van helsing as the recorder rather than just appearing in other people's entries, and he is definitely different in the privacy of his own memorandum. in everyone else's he is so effusive that, despite his supposed advanced age, he always seems rather powerfully larger than life. (how old he actually is is never specified, but he's introduced with red hair without any gray so it's unlikely he's truly agèd.) but in her recent entry, mina describes him as old and gray, perhaps a more figurative expression than a literal change in his hair color like jonathan's, but this situation has definitely tired and aged him, washed him out.

and now we get him, unfiltered, in his own entry, and he does sound old and gray (kudos to alan burgon who has been fantastic this entire time). there's none of that barely restrained energy, no meandering metaphor about corn or immortal parrots. instead, he's surprisingly straightforward recounting the events, and what he does write is just...he sounds for the first time old and scared. the weather is cold, cold, so cold, and the land is wild and rocky like the end of the world. and he is alone save for madam mina who sleeps all day and watches him with shining eyes in the night, and he is afraid, afraid, afraid.

(side note, mina's laugh is so scary)

and, just like last time, he isn't writing a general "to whom it may concern" to make sure their story is told to whomever finds this letter; he writes, specifically, to jack. it's just so very human that when they're scared, they all reach for connection, they write to the person they love most as a last desperate way to hold onto them, to talk to them, even in absentia, before they die. so mina writes of jonathan, and jonathan writes of mina, and van helsing writes to his old and true friend john seward

[itspapillonnoir]

HITMAN: WORLD OF ASSASSINATION ➔ safehouse

[apocalyptikal]

These are the few screenshots I took while playing Hitman III. This game is a masterpiece. It's so beautifully made. One of the best games I've ever played.

[dathen]

That single line of how Jonathan held onto Mina’s arm “the way he used to in the old days” is VITAL in his characterization and portrayal. Him taking comfort in femininity or enjoying gender reversals or identifying with a woman’s role isn’t the result of being “feminized” by his imprisonment by Dracula or anything like that—it’s how he’s always been. It’s his happy place that he took refuge in while imprisoned, rather than being the threat itself or some evidence of ‘destroyed masculinity.’

His relationship with gender is fascinating, and I love how much it contrasts with the simultaneous scene of Jack stressing over the gendered elements of Van Helsing’s breakdown.

[thaumpenguin]

An important thing to note about Jack Seward is that he's the character who most embodies the "enlightened rationalism" of Victorian Britain, the precise rationalism that leaves them such a perfect victim for Dracula. Most of the western cast fit into this mold to some degree or another, but Seward is the asylum keeper, the ultimate authority on what is Reasonable and what is Nonsense. His entire worldview is built on the idea that everything, even the minds of madmen, follow certain rules, can be explained. He is not flexible in this.

Jack Seward is also the only link between Lucy and van Helsing. From early on Abraham realizes that this young woman is being preyed upon by a genuinely supernatural being. But he's only able to help her as long as his old student, Jack, maintains his view of van Helsing as an ultimately reasonable and sensible man of science. But Abraham knows Jack, knows that in that head is a mind that sees a world of cogs and chemicals. His only hope of saving Lucy is to keep his cards close to his chest while prodding his actually-quite-neurotic former student in the right direction. Occasionally, force him to confront surely undeniable evidence.

But Seward is inflexible. He sees the bites, the inexplicable and repeated blood loss. Yet his mind refuses to connect the dots. A part of him can sense that if he were to accept the conclusions of the evidence in front of him, the very foundations of his world would shatter. Irrational, inexplicable, unknowable.

And that, is scary. His mind leaps away from the possibility like a critter from a snake. This is an instinctual defence mechanism, meant to keep this particular human machine from breaking, as inflexible things often do.

What van Helsing sees when Jack reads Lucy's memorandum is a panicking animal. Here is someone unpredictable, someone just as likely to double down as to break.

And so, the rationalist becomes irrational. His reason kept on a leash.

But some day, in a moment of weakness, that reason will break free, and charge at the conclusion it always sensed was there.

What happens then?

[drac-kool-aid]

Seward's bone deep desire to run away from the asylum is not exactly surprising. There have been a lot of really good meta posts about how the return of Van Helsing into his life is the turning point where we see the caring and good side of him and how we can interpret his life as a student in Amersterdam as one of freedom and happiness. How he is part of the tragedy of manners, how strict social expectations allow Dracula to persist, and how they only exacerbate the unhappiness of the characters.

And I think the tragedy of Seward is that, really, he should not be the head of an asylum. It's a job that brings him no joy, and he's BAD at it. We can all recognize that if your first reaction to going back to work is "What if I just leave it all." That isn't a healthy work environment.

Now, in the modern day, the ability to pick and choose a work environment, even to leave one that is damaging your mental health, is a privilege. (IT SHOULDNT BE, but it is). And, although it is definitely reaching crisis levels in modern times, major changes in your career have almost always been difficult (unless you are really rich, or a particular brand of academic in the 17th-18th century, or both).

Seward can't just leave and become a surgeon. To give up the lofty position of "Head of an Asylum" would be unthinkable in the 1890s, especially for a reason like "Being here is basically turning me into the Joker." Like, how would Seward explain that in polite society? Would they accept that reasoning? Would they create salacious gossip if they didn't? Can Seward leave his position without losing a great amount of social capital?

Probably not.

His rise to head of an asylum, as many have pointed out, was meteoric, to say the least. It has afforded him status and respect and also left him deeply, deeply fucked up. And he can't leave!

I think his desperate attempts to quantify Renfield's behaviors into a new mental illness are telling in this regard. Maybe he is too used to having to meet some sort of expectation, and now he thinks this is the logical next step (It's NOT, but I digress). The feeling of having to keep performing above expectations, grasping at straws to do so, and subsequently burning oneself out (as well as others around you) and engaging in unethical practices? Idk. It sounds like something that would happen today. (tbh there are probably a ton of Sewards out there today, as there are still systemic problems within the mental health system that allow for the dehumanizing and abuse of patients).

It doesn't excuse his behavior. Nothing he does to Renfield is excusable, but I think it does explain some of the *why*. He isn't just cruel for cruelty's sake.

So, tldr I guess: I think reading Seward as someone who got stuck on a career path that he realized was unfufilling and that he ends up hating. Social conventions restrict him from just quitting without and a (socially acceptable) good reason to do so, and a lifetime of being regarded as one of the smartest people in the room means he can not allow himself to fail. Unfortunately, this also means he can not admit when his actions or his ideas are wrong when it comes to his job.

(But he can show that uncertainty FOR Lucy, and TO Arthur and Van Helsing, which speaks his trust and love for them)

[vickyvicarious]

I love Lucy's voice so much. That little catch/breath in between "Lucy Westenra's diary -" and "25th August" already has me feeling so emotional for her. God, and then the hesitation after "Mother--" I CAN'T STAND IT. The way she delivered that line is soooo good, speaks volumes about their relationship. Every single pause does, showing us a spot where Lucy is almost censoring/rephrasing to herself to make things more palatable and put the best spin on things:

"Mother-" (refused to let me stay with her) "did not seem to take to my proposal."

"She seems..." (very concerningly ill) "not too well herself and-" (is hiding it from me as she usually does) "doubtless she fears to worry me."

That little moment before "I tried to keep awake" speaking of how scared she is and how she was left alone to face this fear. Even if she can't remember exactly what she is dreaming about, she knows it reminds her of that night when her sleepwalking took her all the way across town and could have ruined her. And she doesn't have Mina to help her anymore. Even without her health worsening that memory alone would be more than enough to make her terrified of sleeping.

"but...... when the clock struck twelve, it it waked me from a doze, so I must have been falling asleep." Longest pause yet and must I think reflects how nervous she is about this. Even though on the face of it there's nothing weird about falling asleep late at night even when trying to stay awake, the delivery (and the very fact that Lucy who does not journal is making an effort to record this) tells us that somehow it weighs heavily on her mind.

Every moment when she hesitates while describing the "scratching - or flapping" and "at the window... but I did not mind it" and most of all "as I remember no more... I suppose... I must then have fallen asleep" all reflecting her uncertainty and her struggle with her failing memory. I think especially when she has a clear sense of bad things happening yet no clear memory of anything bad, so it's just scary and unsettling.

"More bad dreams. I wish I could remember them." Another pause as she lingers on those thoughts, because how could she not? And the next thing she brings up is her physical state. On the one hand it could be chronological progression - she described last night, now on to this morning - but I feel like even lacking the context we have Lucy still can feel the connection between her illness and the night, even when she can't say why. The one thought leads to the next.

"my throat pains me. [slight inhale] It must be something wrong with my lungs - for I don't seem ever to get air enough." The breathing! The almost-stops being for composure or maybe for air because she's lost too much blood and cannot breathe and does not know why! Poor, poor Lucy. The edge of desperation on those last two words is so painful to listen to, as is the way she gets breathier throughout the sentence.

"I shall try to cheer up when Arthur comes." The stop, the shaky breath, as if trying to turn a sob into a laugh and lacking the energy to complete either. The fear it reveals (I want to be happy, I want to be happy with him, I don't want to be a worry or a burden and I want this to be over, I want to be well again and not so scared) before she finishes with only words looking out for others: "or else I know he will be miserable to see me so."

The sigh at the end...! She sounds like she's steeling herself for a great effort, a miserable trial. I can only imagine pretending to be well is exactly that. And it's a battle she already seems in part resigned to lose - because she simply does not have the strength, is not well enough, to put on a convincing enough show. She's exhausted already at the thought of it. And yet she can't stop. She must follow her mother's lead and try to hide away what's happening to her, she must try to please everyone and look out for them because they already are dealing with so much (Arthur's father so recently so ill, she can't make him worry over her too; her mother obviously ill herself, she can't make her worry again after the sleepwalking upset her so)... so she keeps trying to swallow the pain down and cover it up with a smile.

Some other major highlights this episode: the dull thump of Dracula at the window was so creepy. I also loved the kind of staticky background sound. The lack of music throughout the episode (once Lucy started talking) except the disquieting chords when Lucy mentions Mrs. Westenra's illness, and then eerie music creeping in when Dracula does - SO GOOD, SO SCARY.

The way Lucy says, "I am horribly weak" with a slight tremble kills me. Same with all of this episode honestly but especially also "my throat pains me."

[treesaspen]

The nuns had every indication to treat Jonathan as a lost cause, a madman.

His one possesion, his journal, is in shorthand. That's scribbles, they might as well be nonesense from his confused mind.

He has been rambling about horrific things that make no sense. Ghosts, demons...

He remembers nothing and no one for six weeks.

Yet they keep his journal, they pay attention to what he says without disregarding it, they wait patiently until he remembers something, anyone. All while taking care of him in a sanitorium.

Treating "madmen" like human beings makes them get better slowly but surely, instead of worsening their condition.

The Hungarian St Joseph and Ste Mary hospital is the foil of the London Asylum.

[myfanfictiongarden]

Maybe its just me, but perhaps this is meant to showcase how an institution based on cold scientific facts (the London Asylum) lacks the means to fully treat its patients as it only looks at them from an distanced way of study and ignores the role of treatment of the soul as well (maybe?). We should not forget that Victorian England was all about the scientific future, the Industrial age has long and firm left its mark on country and people as did the Anglican Church. Not to say that dr. Seward’s intentions when working with his patients are ill in any way, but they are first and foremost mechanical and distanced. In comparastment, the Hospital of St. Joseph and St. Mary (a Catholic institution) is described as a place of warmth and light where even someone considered nearly a madman manages to heal.

[drac-kool-aid]

Y'know, something that gets me, is that in the book, Dracula's intentional predation of Lucy starts off with an accidental meeting. Sure, Lucy slept walked, and an argument could be made her path might have been supernaturally influenced, but I say she'd already been a known sleep-walker, and she went directly to a place she was familiar with.

Her stumbling onto Dracula's hiding spot in a very vulnerable state was just an accident, and from there, he intentionally set out to harm her, and through that, everyone around her he could get.

This is sort of related to Jonathan, too. Had Mr. Hawkins not come down with a bad case of gout, Jonathan wouldn't have been sent to Castle Dracula in his stead. Sure, Dracula probably would have had his fun with Hawkins before inevitably killing him, but I doubt he would have drawn it out so long or taken so much delight.

Dracula never sets out with a master-plan to attack Lucy or Jonathan. They just end up in his path and spark his interest. We know that if he isn't interested in you, he'll kill you. He'll, he breaks Mr. Swales neck doesn't even bite him. But the two victims he decides he's going to make suffer the longest he possibly can, he just stumbles upon and goes "oh this will be fun". Later, we see him start choosing victims as a way to retaliate, but for the two inciting incident victims upon which the rest of the story hangs...its just wrong place wrong time.

The reason this struck me is that I was misremembering. For some reason, which I now believe due to thinking about the *through gritted teeth* Coppola film, is that Lucy is sort of hand-picked by Dracula to be his victim. And yeah, the fucking film ain't subtle in its blaming of Lucy's victimization on the fact that she was Too Pretty and Too Flirtatious and Dracula psychically drew her into the garden in a flowing diaphanous dress, but it's really her fault....I hate this movie.

Like, i just read the films Wikipedia plot synopsis, Dracula "psychically seduces" Lucy before biting her. He chooses her out of everyone in England deliberately.

And just...no. That's not what happens. Lucy got so stressed from her wedding that her latent sleep walking started again. Mina gets so tired from the constant stress she falls asleep without meaning to. Lucy went to their favorite spot...Dracula just happened to be there and took advantage and both Lucy and Mina weren't floating along softly into a garden with a fan letting their hair blow, but cold, scared, and covered in mud and blood, and forced to sneak back to the house that way, facing not only the supernatural but the very ordinary horrors of being caught outside at night by a strange man.

Idk. The tragedy is that Dracula didn't set out to fuck with these people. It's just that they were the ones who crossed his path that he took an interest in, and he decided to draw it out as long as possible.

(Oh fuck, this is the crew of the Demeter too. It isn't like Draculas got some big plan. He just decides he's going to play with his food. Had he boarded any other ship it would have ended up the same way.)

I guess in conclusion, I find it odd that adaptions seem to need to find a reason for him doing what he does. Like, Coppola has to conjure up a whole reincarnation backstory at one point, but I don't understand why!! Let Dracula just be an opportunist, his casual cruelty knowing no reason. That makes him scarier.

[cappychino]

“Seeing from his violent demeanor that he was English”

top tier hit from Irish king Bram Stoker