#and not just bc of dracula

[terrified-spider]

"...Then he began promising me things, not in words but by doing them." He was interrupted by a word from the Professor, "How?" "By making them happen. Just as he used to send in the flies when the sun was shining. Great big fat ones with steel and sapphire on their wings. And big moths, in the night, with skull and cross-bones on their backs." Van Helsing nodded to him as he whispered to me unconsciously, "The Acherontia Atropos of the Sphinges, what you call the 'Death's-head Moth'?"

Dracula, by Bram Stoker

[gellavonhamster]

Very late to the party, but that MA thesis on Jonathan and Mina's gender presentation that circulated on Tumblr some time ago (Jonathan, Mina, and the Holiest Love: Intimations of a virtuous queerness in Dracula (1897) by Viktor Karlsen Hessen) really is so, so good. From a deep dive into Jonathan as a Gothic heroine, complete with step-by-step comparisons with an actual Ann Radcliffe's heroine as well as the other female characters he's paralleled with in the text - Scheherazade and Lenore - to an exploration of how Mina's masculine traits are treated as positive throughout the novel and survive into the ending. Also, the author is very careful and rational when talking about Stoker's personal views and sexuality, neither jumping to conclusions based on a few facts nor disregarding those facts at all.

Also, there's a section comparing Mina to other female characters in Gothic literature who do not act in accordance with the Victorian gender norms but are punished for that - Helen Vaughan from The Great God Pan and Marjorie Lindon from The Beetle, and I personally am 1) always there for some The Great God Pan talk, 2) always there for dragging The Beetle.

[mistandshcdow]

love that hammer!dracula makes a bunch of hot vampire wives and then spends his every interaction with them pushing them away and acting annoyed with them bc he rlly wants to go homoerotically choke van helsing instead

[diamondcitydarlin]

"All hail to the Realm of Raj!"

AMC's Interview with the Vampire 01x07

[helloitshaley]

Peter Cushing is the hottest Van Helsing (so far) and yes I'm putting him above Hugh Jackman

[cjbee]

Or

My Husband And I Are Being Stalked By Dracula And So I Have To Level Up My Vampire Hunting Skills To 100

[the-crooked-library]

The intimacy is important to show the contrast between Thomas and Orlok in the movie. Thomas repeatedly fails throughout the movie. He fails communication and understanding test with Ellen, he fails self-imposed masculinity test in general, he fails sex and intimacy test with Ellen. He even fails fully acceptance and full love test with Ellen because till the end he expects that Ellen can be somehow cured from her powers, and killing Orlok should do the trick, meaning he’s incapable of just accept her fully the way she’s without trying to correct it. The part that Ellen was happy for awhile with Thomas because for that time her powers were blocked is a big giveaway, that it’s already in fact wasn’t working between them from the start because if she could only be happy with him while suppressing huge part of herself, then such foundation was bound to crumble. Orlok meanwhile fulfilled the crucial basics for Ellen - understanding and acceptance of her nature and powers in full, intimacy and sexual realisation the way Ellen wished and imagined.

yessss exactly - as much as I do like Thomas as a character, and as much as he might care for Ellen, he's not a good fit for her, and she knows this!.. She wants, desperately, the sort of emotional connection that he will never be able to give without first unpacking the prejudices and insecurities that instruct his entire life and his opinion of her; and while that is not impossible, it is still quite unrealistic, given his background and societal context.

The reason Orlok is able to think outside those bounds, despite also being a man from an even older society, is because he exists in opposition to its restrictions. His attitudes are not reflective of whatever people around him would've thought of women or queerness or neurodivergence when he was alive; they are, however, directly informed by his making "covenant with the devil." Unlike the proper, god-fearing, Rational people that dictate Ellen's daily life, he accepts and desires every aspect of her that is considered "sinful" - her sexuality, her lack of deference, her eccentricities; and it is this fundamental understanding that she craves.

TL;DR -

"you could never satisfy me the way he does" was about emotional connection, not sex - and, of course, Thomas went straight ahead and proved her right

a relationship that is blocking her powers and allows her to be "happy" as long as she acts normal and hides her real self is not a good relationship. regardless of how one may interpret her connection with Orlok, Ellen's marriage to Thomas is an allegory for being in the closet/masking - and I personally think she deserves better

[abrahamvanhelsings]

the way mrs westenra says lucy is so much better now and then proceeds to take credit for it and then van helsing and jack walk into lucy's room and she's actively looking like a corpse. woman your perception checks cannot be this bad are you wilfully ignoring the evidence of your own mistakes or are you lying to keep the doctors out.

[kaisadraws]

i just needed to get this out of my chest

[midnightanddiamonds]

Me, every time Whitaker has a scene in The Pitt:

"Look at my funky little vampire man go 🥹"

[a-pain-in-the-neck]

a few studies of the late Lucy Westenra for a project

[dathen]

Begging for the love of all things holy for Drac Daily repeaters to use a time loop tag or something we can filter for those of us who don’t want to read it as an inescapable torment nexus. You do you but PLEASE TAG IT PLEASE PLEASE

[postillfastill]

what is it about reading moby dick that completely changes someones dna. i dont see nearly as many people coming out the other side of reading other classics half as fucked up as folks who succumb to the moby dickening.

[verpine-art]

d4 vau if you please

[the-crooked-library]

I noticed something near the end of Dracula when Jonathan and Mina separate for a final time (so she can go to Dracula's castle), that a difference between Harker and Hutter is also near the end.

For context, several chapters earlier Jonathan gets two weapons “put these flowers round your neck”—here he handed to me a wreath of withered garlic blossoms—“for other enemies more mundane, this revolver and this knife;.

Then when Mina and Van Helsing are about to depart for their ride to the castle, Jonathan keeps the knife and gives the revolver to Mina. Even for me a large-bore revolver; Jonathan would not be happy unless I was armed like the rest.

I know the phallic analysis of the weapons in the book are overstated in scholarship but I think it's telling that Jonathan insists Mina to be armed with a big gun while he lets her go do what she wants without him. Thomas didn't arm her and likely wouldn't even it were suggested imo.

omg yes! That is definitely another detail that really stood out to me during my watch, and yet another reason I genuinely start getting annoyed whenever people conflate Thomas with Jonathan - because frankly, that is allowing Thomas to reap what Jonathan sowed, so to speak. I've seen a lot of people absolutely in love with him, and yet the traits they list as the reasons are none that he possesses; in fact, the great majority of them are in exact opposition to his canon personality, and this is one of them.

Don't get me wrong, I love Thomas as a character. I think he is quite sympathetic - and, on the Watsonian level, really trying his best; but at the same time, I think it is essential to acknowledge that he is deeply flawed, if only because on the Doylist level, these flaws are fundamental to his arc in the story. It is purely a question of structure and function; because, at the end of the day, he is a fictional character, and thus, a narrative component, rather than a person.

In this case, his choices prior to the vampire hunt provide the viewer with further evidence -> of an aspect of his characterization -> that acts as one of the driving forces behind the plot of Nosferatu. Specifically, he does not notice that Ellen is lying to him; he leaves her at home as he goes off to "fight"; he doesn't even consider arming her; and he does all these things because, even though he does care for Ellen, he never really thinks of her as a person.

Thomas doesn't notice that Ellen is lying, even though she is clearly nervous when she does it, because he doesn't know what she looks like when she's hiding something (I personally think it is because she masks around him, at least to some degree - throughout the film, he is uncomfortable every time she's honest). He doesn't bring her to the hunt because it doesn't occur to him that she could help with tracking down Orlok - despite him being aware now of her immense psychic abilities, despite Von Franz describing her as a native in a world he is only visiting. And, exactly as you said, he doesn't even think to leave her a weapon; because, even as he sets out on his "quest," even after she's told him of Orlok's obsession, even though the point of the hunt is apparently to "save" her, he doesn't consider the possibility of Orlok going after her.

Contrast that with Jonathan - who knows Mina so well that they can get concerned over three lines of writing, who works with Mina's brief psychic connection to Dracula in order to track him, and who arms Mina before the final fight, because he is not satisfied unless he can do everything in his power to ensure her safety. When it comes to their relationship, Mina's revolver, while not exactly phallic (seriously, why is that topic so overwrought?..), becomes a narrative symbol of his thoughtfulness.

The difference here is that, while Ellen is important to Thomas, this importance only extends insofar as she is his wife. He sees her as a responsibility, but never as herself; and, ultimately, he never actually considers her a factor that could conceivably affect his - or anyone's - decision-making. He plans their life without even asking what she wants from it, he neglects her emotional needs, and he leaves her like a sitting duck during the hunt, without a weapon or anyone to guard her. She continuously slips his mind, utterly inconsequential beyond whatever their surrounding society defines as her role and value; and Thomas, tragically, is unable to overcome this ingrained, rigid set of rules.

This is an essential aspect of his character - because, as stated previously, the plot wouldn't happen without it. If Thomas took Ellen's wants into consideration, he wouldn't have been so hell-bent on chasing a promotion, and he wouldn't have left her right after their honeymoon to go to another country, especially if she begged him to stay. If he knew her better, he would've picked up on the plan she made with Von Franz - or she would've told him!.. Most certainly, if he saw any real personhood in her, he wouldn't have dreamed of leaving her unarmed and undefended.

Nosferatu is about Ellen's continued systemic dehumanization. The point of the story is that every single human character contributes to it on some level, despite whatever love and best intentions they might have for her. It's about the inherent monstrousness of being othered by humanity, and Thomas is - inherently, narratively, crucially - human.

[fraternum-momentum]