#Demeter captain

[lostamber]

A second crew member has gone missing aboard the Demeter

[rain-13s-blog]

I forgot how creepy the song on August 4th is. Soul chilling!

[treespen]

Remember: The boxes in the Demeter are all firmly sealed.

Dracula's box has a few holes (for misting himself in and out of it), as Jonathan observed, but the boxes are all firmly nailed shut.

There is no way for a person to get out of those. The Captain knows this. That's why he doesn't suspect anyone hiding in there.

[immediatebreakfast]

"I can't make her out," he said; "she's a Russian, by the look of her; but she's knocking about in the queerest way. She doesn't know her mind a bit; she seems to see the storm coming, but can't decide whether to run up north in the open, or to put in here. Look there again! She is steered mighty strangely, for she doesn't mind the hand on the wheel; changes about with every puff of wind. We'll hear more of her before this time tomorrow."

Let's pause the grieving atmosphere between Mina, and Mr. Swales' words about to see the funniest dark comedy tone of the situation.

Dracula, a wealthy nobleman who has been landlocked for god knows how long, decided that the sailors who were just doing their job were expendable enough for him to kill and torture. Why would he care about the fate of simple humans when they are there to serve him as both food, and entertaiment at the expense of their lives; the Count only needs them to steer the ship near enough to Whitby right?

Well, after Dracula pushed the captain towards absolute terror after this trip from hell, which in return strengthen his indomitable human spirit, which made him tie himself to the wheel with the holy object that symbolically makes the ship herself untouchable to Dracula's hands... There he is.

The mighty conqueror of romania, the terrifying shadow that lurks the night, a living myth defying time as he feeds on the life of his victims... trapped in a ship where he cannot touch anything that matters thanks to his over indulgence, lack of actual care for his own plans, and once again underestimation of humans.

A shovel was not enough to make Dracula truly understand.

[barghesthowls]

Now I don't personally believe that Dracula was for real terrified of Mina, however, he did flee after seeing this dainty girl (who saw him in the graveyard with his red eyes and immense figure) not faint or scream or freeze or flee despite her obvious fear but run straight at him.

Dracula is at his worst when something he wasn't anticipating happens. He wasn't expecting Jonathan to pick himself up and literally crawl up the castle walls and dare try to kill him. If he was expecting that, he'd not be having a scar now. He wasn't expecting the Captain of the Demeter to defy him by tying himself up on the wheel with a crucifix. If he did, the logs would have been gone now.

Mina woke up and ran into the night defying every fear, convention, risk, to save Lucy from man or beast. That wasn't on his Bingo card. He was forced to stop hurting Lucy and fled.

Then Mina wakes up again, sensing something wrong, and goes to the window and spots him. He flies closer a couple of times but she remains there. He's forced to flee again. Mina believes she scared the 'bat'.

To me, these two scenes establish a few things.

-Bravery as a core trait for Mina.

-Mina as the one who hunts Dracula down.

Jonathan wounded him in his box, the Captain denied him apotheosis, but Mina made him run.

[bluecatwriter]

Despite being a foreigner and his apparent madness, the people of Whitby buried the captain as a hero. Although he had no connection to the locals but crashing to their shore, they treated him like one of their own. It's reminiscent of how the people of Transylvania cared about Jonathan despite the fact that he wasn't one of them and offered him their wild roses, garlic flowers, mountain ash, crucifix...

I was thinking about this too when I listened to the entry a few days ago... it's such a lovely echo of the townsfolk of Transylvania doing what they could to help Jonathan. Dracula really is all about reaching across divides of culture, space, and understanding to see the humanity in other people. This is such a touching scene!

[see-arcane]

The Wrong Ship

Dracula, misting out of his dirt box: Finally! Time to enjoy this seafood buffet--

The Captain: I see you’re new to the operation.

Dracula: ...You’re surprisingly, unappetizingly calm about a living corpse man leaking out of a box. 

The Captain: Mm.

Dracula: To drink people.

The Captain, checking his watch: Mm.

Dracula: Well, you’re boring me. Point me towards your underlings so I can get on with my meal. As payment you can die overboard. 

The Captain: Ah, very new to the operation. There is no crew that you’ll find aboard this vessel.

Dracula: I can smell blood enough to call you a liar.

The Captain: It’s no lie. You will find no crew here no matter how you search. Sniff them out, chase shadows, run laps around the deck. They’ll be there, but never found. Plenty of fog, though. You should feel quite in your element. If a bit peckish.

Dracula, about to chomp the good (?) captain: Not when you are in reach.

Captain Peter Lukas, dissolving into vapor before the Count can get a bite in: I do hope you enjoy the cruise. It’ll be longer than you think.

[another-chaotic-bisexual-vampire]

whenever i gotta do something inconvenient like take out the trash or do the dishes, i say to myself with all the airs of a tragic hero:

[d-emeter]

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Johnny Mactavish who realizes he likes his girls a little bigger

Soap with an international partner headcanons

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König

you're König's favourite porn star, but neither of you are aware

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Love goes through the stomach (or: you compliment Rudy's (mom's) cooking)

Valeria Garza

Nothing here yet!

Poly!141

Teamwork makes the dream work — Ghost x reader x Soap

Secret Santa on base (but the 141 is desperate to pull you)

The world has gone to hell, but you've found your own paradise (or: zombie apocalypse au with task force 141)

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Types of lingerie they'd go a little feral over

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[vickyvicarious]

It seems like the general first impression was "The Demeter crew is suffering and sleepless and dying, while Mina is having a nice sightseeing vacation", but... Doesn't it seem less of a contrast than that?

Lucy's now increasingly odder sleepwalking was there from day one of Mina's arrival, making Mina sleepless. While the crew sleeps with one eye open.

Even on the first day on Whitby, Mina was taking about death and lost ships. While the crew was beginning to lose men. Mina and Mr Swales talk about tombstones and suicide. While the First Mate jumps to his death.

*Mina voice*: the reports of my hot girl summer have been greatly exaggerated...

You're onto something here, definitely. Of course, in the original book, we don't see anything from the Demeter until a little ways into Mina's stay, so it (re)reads as more foreshadowing than it seems like a parallel, but that's one of the really fun things to notice in the daily format! I'm reminded of Lucy's three suitors and her letters about looking into her mirror coming so soon on the heels of Jonathan's encounter with the three vampire women and with his mirror getting broken.

I never noticed just how much a lot of Mina's storyline here lines up so well with the Demeter though. And now that I'm thinking about it... There's a bunch of those kinds of connections!

Of course, there are overall ones. Like you said, Lucy's sleepwalking begins right away, and it robs Mina of her sleep. Meanwhile, the crew of the Demeter are kept awake by storms, by double-watches, by having to pick up the work that no one else is left to do. But though that's pretty overarching, there are also some moments that line up really well. For example, July 27: "Lucy walks more than ever, and each night I am awakened by her moving about the room." and July 28: "Four days in hell, knocking about in a sort of maelstrom, and the wind a tempest. No sleep for any one. Men all worn out."

Then there are Mina's conversation with Mr. Swales, especially the latter one with its talk of suicide, of going to hell - only two days before the mate leaps to his death rather than allow Dracula to get his soul. Mr. Swales also parallels the first mate a bit in being, as Mina says, "a most dictatorial person in his day" and very insistent that there's nothing supernatural going on, though as yet he's not been proven so terribly wrong about that the way the first mate was.

On July 24, Mina says there is "a buoy with a bell, which swings in bad weather, and sends in a mournful sound on the wind. They have a legend here that when a ship is lost bells are heard out at sea." That same day the Demeter is approaching more bad weather, and later on they get lost in the fog. (Though we never get mention of any bell ringing.)

Mrs. Westenra is afraid of Lucy's sleepwalking because she "has got an idea that sleep-walkers always go out on roofs of houses and along the edges of cliffs and then get suddenly wakened and fall over with a despairing cry that echoes all over the place." On August 2, the captain is awoken by a cry that sounds close, but which he cannot see the source of in the fog. The next day, the mate runs up onto the deck crying out after being figuratively 'wakened' to the true horror of who he's up against just before he leaps over the side of the ship. Also on August 3, Lucy goes about searching for the key so she can get out, and the mate went searching through the boxes in the hold. He clearly found what he was looking for, and it had terrible consequences; if Lucy finds what she seeks in her sleepwalking, what might happen to her?

And, one that I can't believe never occurred to me before... Mina's not only worried about Lucy, of course. She's very afraid for Jonathan. Because he, much like the men on the Demeter, has vanished unseen. He went off to his work (on watch/work trip) and hasn't been seen since. Even when she hears from him, it's brief and she can sense the letter is uncharacteristic of him, short and lacking detail. The reason, though she doesn't know it, is of course that Dracula stopped him from saying anything else/more. Jonathan's real sentiments and words were 'lost in the fog' so to speak (the false trail laid by the letters being the metaphorical fog here). It reminds me of the one sailor's cry that awoke the captain. And even with that, she's still waiting for more word of him and should have had it by this point. But he's simply gone.

It's not endless horrors for Mina at the moment, but the ominous tone is certainly building over time despite more positive moments happening too. To use a weather metaphor, more and more stormclouds have been gathering over time, looming threateningly overhead. And it looks an awful lot like the weather Dracula brought to the Demeter.

[lostamber]

[ultranerdygirl]

I listened to both the new Re: Carmilla and the new Magnus Protocol and this is how I find out that Sasha Sienna voices Georgie.

[thedupshadove]

So weep, until your eyes do blur

For the valiant Captain of the Demeter

Yes, weep, until your eyes do blur

For the Captain of the Demeter

[immediatebreakfast]

Of course the verdict was an open one. There is no evidence to adduce; and whether or not the man himself committed the murders there is now none to say. The folk here hold almost universally that the captain is simply a hero, and he is to be given a public funeral. 

This part warms my heart so much. Even if the News Correspondent makes the more logical point of how the Captain could had some mania that became worse as the Demeter sailed, this doesn't matter to the people of Whitby.

In the original narrative standpoint the entire log of the Demeter was done through a single continuous flashback. For us, with the slow paced day by day schedule this log becomes a horrifying ordeal in which we see innocent men picked one by one by an ancient monster until the Captain's last fateful action of pure human hope. However, to the people of Whitby this log reads as one of the most bravest acts of duty that they have read for while.

The captain maintained his head high, and his hands steady even when he was filled with pure despair as he, although futile, faced a supernatural threat who was at the end seemly defeated by unbeatable faith. Even with the dead crew, even with the News Correspondent taking a more neutral stance, the people of Whitby (a town filled with ghosts either real or false) recognized the captain's sacrifice as it is.

[chickenscratchstudios]

So uhhh character parallels amirite

[bluecatwriter]

Thinking about how the Captain of the Demeter and Lucy Westenra both:

-write a record of the horrors that have happened while in the middle of Dracula actively hunting them

-protect those documents to the point of death/near-death

...and how both those records are key for unraveling the mystery of Dracula and bringing him down. Their courage and presence of mind to record what's going on is a parallel I hadn't noticed before.

The captain, August 4th:

I am growing weaker, and the night is coming on. If He can look me in the face again, I may not have time to act.... If we are wrecked, mayhap this bottle may be found, and those who find it may understand; if not, ... well, then all men shall know that I have been true to my trust. 

Lucy's entry, September 17th:

I write this and leave it to be seen, so that no one may by any chance get into trouble through me. This is an exact record of what took place to-night. I feel I am dying of weakness, and have barely strength to write, but it must be done if I die in the doing.

Both know that they are going to die. Both of them put the last of their energy into creating a record, in hopes that others will avoid their fate.

(While I was looking through entries to get the quotes, I just noticed that the Captain's "Four days in hell" is contrasted later by Lucy writing "Four days and nights of peace" right before she is attacked by the wolf. Excuse me while I dissolve into a puddle of tears.)