rachello344 - Tumblr blog

[rachello344]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Hazbin Hotel (Cartoon) Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Alastor/Vox (Hazbin Hotel) Characters: Alastor (Hazbin Hotel), Vox (Hazbin Hotel), Charlie Magne | Morningstar, Vaggie (Hazbin Hotel), Angel Dust (Hazbin Hotel), Husk (Hazbin Hotel), Cherri Bomb (Hazbin Hotel), Valentino (Hazbin Hotel), Rosie (Hazbin Hotel) Additional Tags: Established Charlie Magne | Morningstar/Vaggie, Minor Angel Dust/Husk (Hazbin Hotel), Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha Alastor (Hazbin Hotel), Omega Vox (Hazbin Hotel), Mating Cycles/In Heat, Mating Bites, Knotting, First Time, Intersex Omegas, Asexual Alastor (Hazbin Hotel) Summary:

Alastor has spent a long time running from Vox. Vox has chased after him almost as long. When suppressants fail throughout the city, they finally collide.

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Chapters: 7/7 Fandom: Hazbin Hotel (Cartoon) Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Alastor/Vox (Hazbin Hotel) Characters: Alastor (Hazbin Hotel), Vox (Hazbin Hotel), Valentino (Hazbin Hotel) Additional Tags: Minor appearance from Charlie and friends, Mind Control, Masturbation, Tentacles, Tentacle Sex, Bondage, Anal Sex, Wire Play, Like the wires in Vox’s head, Getting Together, Top Alastor (Hazbin Hotel), Bottom Vox (Hazbin Hotel), Dom/sub Undertones, Minor Valentino/Vox (Hazbin Hotel), Asexual Alastor (Hazbin Hotel), Post-Season/Series 01 Summary:

Alastor and Vox finally come to an understanding, both of each other and of what they each mean to the other. Their relationship evolves accordingly, one concession at a time, until they both get everything they could possibly want: power, companionship, and even love.

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Hello there! I've been reading your book long time ago >< and to be honest I love your works, I was wondering if where can I reread again the 'Let Me Take Care of You' book. I've tried to search it but I couldn't find it >< that book looks so sweet and has been one of my favorite dcmk fanfiction.

Hi! Thank you so much! You can read that fic here (link below), but you’ll need to be logged in to the archive. Because of the AI stuff, I locked all of my fic for the time being. Thank you for your interest, and I’m happy to know you enjoyed it! ❤️❤️❤️

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Spirk Recommended Fic Masterlist

James Tiberius Kirk x S'chn T'gai Spock (A.K.A The Space Husbands)

Key:

❤️‍🔥 - Smut

☁️ - Fluff

💢 - Angst

🍬 - Sweet

📚 - Multi-Chapter

You and I by  @krazzeeaj1701 (AO3) ❤️‍🔥 ☁️ 💢 🍬 📚

Despite what they've both told themselves for years, Jayme and Spock can't actually live without each other. Or, the one where Spock left more than just Vulcan behind after that meeting.

Papers in the Roadside by @kianspo  (AO3) ❤️‍🔥 ☁️ 💢 🍬

Non-Starfleet AU. Jim owns a small bar in Chicago, keeps on picking up strays and taking care of everyone no matter how hard it makes his own life. Spock is a journalist writing feature articles for the Chicago Tribune; he depicts the world with uncanny skill, but hides more than one personal drama and is possibly under surveillance from the Vulcan royal family. They meet by accident just before their lives start to spin out of control.

Veritas by theproblematique (AO3) ❤️‍🔥 ☁️ 💢 🍬 📚

Captain James T. Kirk and Lieutenant Commander Spock are hereby charged with negligence and wanton misconduct due to their emotional compromise with each other.

Leave No Soul Behind by whochick (AO3) ❤️‍🔥 ☁️ 💢 🍬 📚

If you're Starfleet, you spend your whole life wishing you never see an EPAS uniform right up until the moment they become your only hope. Whether you're dying a slow, cold death in space, or a long painful one on some godforsaken planet, they're going to come for you. So count your last breaths, son, and hold on tight. They leave no soul behind.

Bluebird by @waldorph (AO3) ☁️ 💢 🍬

“Jim Kirk.” Jim whipped around so fast most of his drink ended up on Spock, who was reaching for the phaser that wasn’t there. The Enterprise crew was parting like the biblical seas before Moses, and Jim could feel the temperature dropping. “Mom,” Jim croaked.

Measure of Happiness by @writeonclara (AO3) ❤️‍🔥 ☁️ 💢 🍬 📚

When Spock chose Starfleet over the Vulcan Science Academy, he had not anticipated cohabiting with the most illogical, irrational, emotional human he ever met.

On the flip side, Jim never asked for a Vulcan chaperone, especially one as snotty as Spock, son of Sarek.

A Starfleet Academy AU in which Spock adapts to human life, Jim learns very, very quickly never to play a prank on a Vulcan, and there are far too many people after Jim Kirk's life.

AT THE SAME STARS by spicyshimmy (AO3) ❤️‍🔥 ☁️ 💢 🍬 📚

First Officer Spock of the USS Enterprise is part of the away team that discovers the survivors of Tarsus IV. Captain Pike assigns him to the curious case of James Tiberius Kirk, who steals one of Spock's sweaters. There were no sufficient Vulcan poetics to describe the emptiness of the colony as it was found on the morning of stardate 2249.43. The fully-completed residential sector was neither ugly nor beautiful but simply remote; a hollow landscape of metal alloys and sensible architecture, with determined vegetation growing alongside the support beams. They did not flower.

cast out fear by @s0mmerspr0ssen (AO3) ☁️ 💢 🍬 📚

Kirk saves Vulcan from Nero at high cost to himself. It falls to Spock to pick up the pieces.

Something Smart to Do by @kianspo (AO3) ☁️ 💢 🍬

In which Jim finds himself fake-married to his first officer every other month. It's not his fault. Mostly. Dowries and Klingons are involved. Starfleet is decidedly not amused.

Atlas by @distractedkat (AO3) ❤️‍🔥 ☁️ 💢 🍬 📚

Between what was and what will be stands James Tiberius Kirk, in all his fractured patchwork glory. Because saving the Federation was only the beginning.

A novel-length continuation of the 2009 movie told in four parts. Cross-posted from FFN.

West of the Moon by @distractedkat (AO3) ☁️ 💢 🍬 📚

They meet Jim in phases, and through him find each other. Once the layers begin to peel back, though, the future bridge crew of the Enterprise finds more than they ever could have dreamed. When the fight to keep him starts in earnest, the cadets and officers of Starfleet begin to learn that not all wars can be won.

Because long before he had friends, Jim had Family, and the Scaretta crime syndicate didn't survive to the 23rd century by letting go of its own.

Jim Kirk will always be a frustration to Spock--even when that's not his name.

a sequence that you never learned by annataylor (AO3) ❤️‍🔥 ☁️ 💢 🍬 📚

"'Spock,' Jim breathes out, completely overwhelmed by the gesture—not quite believing that Spock knows him so well, that's he's already started researching, that he trusts Jim with a member of his own endangered species."

When Jim gets it in his head to adopt an eight year old Vulcan, Spock presents a logical solution to the issue of Jim's humanity: marriage to a Vulcan citizen.

The Genetic Soap Opera (or, One of the Less Dignified Royal Weddings) by waketosleep (AO3) ☁️ 🍬

Turns out Jim Kirk's more than meets the eye, genetically speaking. There are a lot of consequences, mostly for Spock and his sanity.

Treasures by @yeaka (AO3) ❤️‍🔥 ☁️ 🍬 📚

Sometimes the other Vulcans wonder how Spock managed to obtain such an exotic bondmate, and sometimes Spock wonders himself.

Helloooo, Nurse! by @lalazeewrites (AO3) ❤️‍🔥 ☁️ 💢 🍬

Jim Kirk is the only male nurse on the Enterprise. He’s also the only one with any experience with Vulcan biology. You can guess who he’s been assigned to.

Antigravity by sinestrated (AO3) ☁️ 💢 🍬

Five times Spock was surprised by the brilliance of Kirk's mind, and one time he totally saw it coming.

Please don't touch the Vulcans by @museaway (AO3) ❤️‍🔥 ☁️ 💢 🍬

The "yes" is out of Jim's mouth before he can think about it.

master of a nothing place by strzyga (AO3) ❤️‍🔥 ☁️ 💢 🍬

Jim wakes as the birds fall silent. Beside him, Spock is still asleep, eyes twitching beneath the lids. His eyelashes are thick and dark against his cheekbones, and there is the faintest green flush to his skin, delicate like the flesh of a melon. Jim's breath hitches. Heat washes over his skin. He'd always noticed, academically, that Spock was attractive. This is different. He knows what Spock's dick feels like, knows how the blanket of dark fur on his chest feels when it scrapes against Jim's back.

Things will never be the same. He has already been irrevocably transformed.

Miscommunication by sinestrated (AO3) ☁️ 🍬

Jim's brain gets scrambled during an away mission gone wrong, with interesting results.

Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I'm Yours) by @kianspo (AO3) ☁️ 🍬

In which Spock contemplates the laws of attraction and realizes what a slippery slope that is only after he has already fallen. There's no help for him now.

Though My Soul May Set In Darkness by @pastmydancingdays (AO3) ❤️‍🔥 ☁️ 💢 🍬 📚

Six months into the Five Year Mission, the Enterprise has reached the outskirts of the known galaxy, and its Captain has fallen ill. With a growing sense of unease, and increasing desperation, Spock takes it upon himself to manage both the ship, and Jim’s failing health, determined to save them both.

Because Khan’s blood was never going to be a permanent solution.

Entering Orbit by @museaway (AO3) ❤️‍🔥 ☁️ 💢 🍬 📚

Jim escapes to Iowa to avoid the media frenzy following the Narada incident, but a late-night miscommunication results in Spock turning up on his front porch.

K'diwa: A Steamy Novel of Interspecies Romance, by Jim Kirk by @branwyn-says (AO3) ❤️‍🔥 ☁️ 💢 🍬 📚

Jim wrote a romance novel just to prove he could. Then someone leaked it on the public Starfleet server, and suddenly his embarrassingly smutty and sentimental Human/Vulcan love story is all over campus. Luckily for Jim, no one knows that he’s the author. Unluckily for Jim, someone forwarded the novel to the staff of the Vulcan embassy. Now, every Vulcan in San Francisco is reassessing the logical merits of taking Human bondmates.

Spock reads a Human/Vulcan romance novel because he can hardly avoid it. Suddenly, he is consumed by the need to locate the author, ascertain their wellbeing, and instruct them in the way of Vulcan mating bonds. Luckily for Spock, it doesn't take long to identify the author as Jim Kirk. Unluckily for Spock, Jim is unconscious and surrounded by interested Vulcans who also read the book.

Echolocation by Darksknight (AO3) ☁️ 💢 🍬

Kirk and Spock don’t realize that they’ve bonded right away. The rest of the crew is a different story.

So Wise We Grow by @youhideastar (AO3) ☁️ 💢 🍬 📚

"Commander Spock, we have located your son," the Vulcan lady on the screen says, which would be great, except Jim can tell by the look on Spock's face that he's never heard of this kid before in his life. "If it is expedient, the child will be sent to join you on the Enterprise within the week."

The Trouble With Vulcan-Human Hybrids by quantumgirl (AO3) ❤️‍🔥 ☁️ 💢 🍬 📚

A story in which Spock and Kirk meet their future children when accidental time travel happens. Future Spock and Kirk have twin children, a son and daughter, who each take after their parents in unique ways. After a bit of an accident, the two children are thrown into an Enterprise where Dad and Father are still only coworkers, learning how to get along with each other. ......

“He’s got hobgoblin blood, too.” McCoy shook a vial of green blood for them to see.

Kirk had finally set the PADD down, at the foot of Spock’s hospital bed. “So he’s half me and half Vulcan?” Kirk’s eyes flicked over Spock’s face. “Is this a joke?”

“I was going to ask you that,” McCoy shrugged at Jim. “You have yourself here a Vulcan-Human hybrid...a Vulcan-Kirk hybrid.”

THE MARRIAGE OF TRUE MINDS by spicyshimmy (AO3) ❤️‍🔥 ☁️ 💢 🍬 📚

Prince S'chn T'gai Spock of Vulcan, engaged to Prince James Tiberius Kirk of Earth through an arrangement made by their parents many years ago, writes to his intended on the day of his birth in the interest of diplomacy. Jim is not interested in diplomacy. Though there is no precedent set for the commencement of a written correspondence begun due to these specific parameters, I will strive to maintain, to the best of my abilities and with ample preparatory research previously conducted, the appropriate level of formality between us, based on a number of factors, primarily examples of a similar nature.

[rachello344]

Hand in Unlovable Hand (2800 words) by Rachello344 Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi (TV) Rating: Explicit Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi/Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi/Darth Vader Characters: Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker | Darth Vader Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Post-Episode: s01e06 Part VI (Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi TV), Amputee Darth Vader, Dubious Ethics, Fucking Anakin Skywalker Back to the Light, Traumatic Injury, Previously Injured Genitalia, Mustafar fucked Vader up in Many Ways, Prostate Milking, Oral Sex, Anal Sex, Inappropriate Use of the Force, Jedi Mind Tricks (Star Wars), Praise Kink, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Force Bond (Star Wars), Fix-It of Sorts, Happy Ending, Top Obi-Wan Kenobi, Bottom Anakin Skywalker, Dom/sub Undertones Summary:

Post Kenobi Part VI: Instead of leaving Vader for dead, Obi-Wan finds himself unable to abandon his dear friend again and so takes him with him. How can Obi-Wan Kenobi live without the other half of himself?

Whatever it takes, he will drag Anakin back to himself, kicking and screaming.

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Don’t Embrace the Past (12664 words) by Rachello344 Chapters: 5/? Fandom: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi/Anakin Skywalker Characters: Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Ahsoka Tano, CC-2224 | Cody, CT-7567 | Rex, Padmé Amidala, Sheev Palpatine | Darth Sidious, Dooku | Darth Tyranus Additional Tags: Established CC-2224 | Cody/CT-7567 | Rex, Slow Burn, Top Obi-Wan Kenobi, Bottom Anakin Skywalker, Pining, love advice, Past Obi-Wan Kenobi/Satine Kryze, Rating is for later chapters, Past Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker Summary:

Despite having married Padme, Anakin comes to realize that he doesn’t know much of anything about love. His gradual re-education changes his destiny, one lesson at a time.

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Chapter 5 of my fic is now posted! The plot thickens and now features Count Dooku!

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Anakin my beloved. 

Shop

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Don’t Embrace the Past (8561 words) by Rachello344 Chapters: 3/? Fandom: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi/Anakin Skywalker Characters: Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Ahsoka Tano, CC-2224 | Cody, CT-7567 | Rex, Padmé Amidala, Sheev Palpatine | Darth Sidious Additional Tags: Established CC-2224 | Cody/CT-7567 | Rex, Slow Burn, Top Obi-Wan Kenobi, Bottom Anakin Skywalker, Pining, love advice, Past Obi-Wan Kenobi/Satine Kryze, Rating is for later chapters, Past Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker Summary:

Despite having married Padme, Anakin comes to realize that he doesn’t know much of anything about love. His gradual re-education changes his destiny, one lesson at a time.

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Check out my gf’s shop, guys!! She makes a lot of super cute stickers!!

Get these stickers at my SHOP, and check out my twitter @ bakaramia for my n$fw Obikin that can’t be posted here! I run regular polls to decide what I should draw next, and I have a lot of merch in the works, including Obikin plushes, tiddy mousepads, and acrylic stands! 

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I don’t think I posted Chapter One here, but here’s Chapter Two! Slow burn Obikin fix it fic, teaching Anakin Skywalker what love really is! Featuring talking about feelings and introspection!

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I just started my second Obikin fic! It’s gonna be a bit long, I think, slow burn with lots of pining, so I hope you guys like it!! 8)

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At the link above: the full text of Octavia E. Butler, “Bloodchild” from Bloodchild and Other Stories. Originally published in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine (1984).

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I did end up writing Dracula fic, but I'm only sharing it here with the understanding that you guys'll be cool about it. It's dubcon and I would say hard M or light E. Enjoy, friends!

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I've been seeing a lot of... troubling takes on Bram Stoker in the Daily Dracula tag, so I want to be really clear here. Dracula is a queer novel, and Bram Stoker was almost certainly a queer man (and while he married a woman (who may have refused to have sex with her husband after their son was born) and had one child, he was very likely in a long-term commited relationship with a man named Henry Irving, a man he named their son for; said son resented his first name so much that he changed it because Henry Irving took up ALL of his father's time and he hated him for it).

Anyway, we don't know how he would have identified, but... Well, I'm going to quote the 2,000-word "fan" letter he wrote to Walt Whitman* as a young man (decades before he wrote Dracula), because I think it speaks for itself. *It is important to note, Walt Whitman himself was long thought to be queer, even during his life, largely due to the subject matter of his poetry. His poetry was mocked largely for its queer themes. If you read the letter in full, Stoker alludes to this response and how it contrasts with his own. Anyway, there's a lot of information about Walt Whitman's possible homosexuality, and quite a bit is simply on his wikipedia page, check under "controvercies" or "criticism" or something. I forget what the header is.*

The rest of the pertinent quotes (under the cut) are listed in chronological order, but this one (the final quote) is the most important and the most direct:

"How sweet a thing it is for a strong healthy man with a woman’s eye and a child’s wishes to feel that he can speak to a man who can be if he wishes father, and brother and wife to his soul. I don’t think you will laugh, Walt Whitman, nor despise me, but at all events I thank you for all the love and sympathy you have given me in common with my kind." -- WIFE TO HIS SOUL. IN COMMON WITH MY KIND. And people want to call THIS man a homophobe??????????

"I only hope we may sometime meet and I shall be able perhaps to say what I cannot write." -- Something he wants to say that can't be put to paper where it could someday be used as evidence in a trial against him as homosexuality was in fact punishable by law?

"If you are the man I take you to be you will like to get this letter. If you are not I don’t care whether you like it or not and only ask that you put it into the fire without reading any farther." -- "If you're also queer, please read; if not, please burn this and never speak of it again."

"If I were before your face I would like to shake hands with you, for I feel that I would like you. I would like to call YOU Comrade and to talk to you as men who are not poets do not often talk. I think that at first a man would be ashamed, for a man cannot in a moment break the habit of comparative reticence that has become second nature to him; but I know I would not long be ashamed to be natural before you. You are a true man, and I would like to be one myself, and so I would be towards you as a brother and as a pupil to his master." -- I genuinely don't have words for how sweet this is. Being near him would make him feel UNASHAMED???

"You have shaken off the shackles and your wings are free. I have the shackles on my shoulders still — but I have no wings." -- Have you ever seen a more "I long to be out like you, but I can't leave the closet" than this???

"I will only hope that sometime I may meet you face to face and perhaps shake hands with you. If I ever do it will be one of the greatest pleasures of my life." -- Do I even need to explain this one? I mean WOW

"One of them had your book (Rossetti’s edition) and was reading aloud some passages at which both laughed. They chose only those passages which are most foreign to British ears and made fun of them. Something struck me that I had judged you hastily. I took home the volume and read far into the night. Since then I have to thank you for many happy hours, for I have read your poems with my door locked late at night and I have read them on the seashore where I could look all round me and see no more sign of human life than the ships out at sea: and here I often found myself waking up from a reverie with the book open before me. I love all poetry, and high generous thoughts make the tears rush to my eyes, but sometimes a word or a phrase of yours takes me away from the world around me and places me in an ideal land surrounded by realities more than any poem I ever read." -- A bit of a longer quote this time to point out as I noted above, they were laughing because it seemed gay. He heard a small selection and it pinged on his gaydar and he READ IT WITH HIS DOOR LOCKED (for privacy? for reading POETRY???). WELL INTO THE NIGHT. Also the sweetness of queer poetry as escapism is just a delight.

"But be assured of this Walt Whitman — that a man of less than half your own age, reared a conservative in a conservative country, and who has always heard your name cried down by the great mass of people who mention it, here felt his heart leap towards you across the Atlantic and his soul swelling at the words or rather the thoughts." -- Again, is there anything more uniquely queer and closeted about this feeling???

"I have been more candid with you — have said more about myself to you than I have said to anyone before. You will not be angry with me if you have read so far. You will not laugh at me for writing this to you." -- This is just so fucking sweet.

There's more in the link, but these were the most obvious quotes for our purposes today. And seriously, please look into his relationship with Henry Irving because like "and they were business partners" lol Stoker's marriage was absolutely a way to cover up his actual relationship with Irving (who left his wife in favor of his work as an actor a few years before they met).

Also, worth noting: The description of Dracula very strongly resembles pictures we have of Walt Whitman as an older man. Very possibly the personality comes from Henry Irving. Just... food for thought.

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OKAY, so as a former lit major (with, to be clear, a master's in literature), I have some really fun information to share with the class for this last installment of Daily Dracula.

Now, first thing's first, I'm going to post the section I'm talking about specifically so we can refer back to it more easily. Namely:

In a voice which, though low and almost in a whisper seemed to cut through the air and then ring round the room he said:— "How dare you touch him, any of you? How dare you cast eyes on him when I had forbidden it? Back, I tell you all! This man belongs to me! Beware how you meddle with him, or you'll have to deal with me." The fair girl, with a laugh of ribald coquetry, turned to answer him:— "You yourself never loved; you never love!" On this the other women joined, and such a mirthless, hard, soulless laughter rang through the room that it almost made me faint to hear; it seemed like the pleasure of fiends. Then the Count turned, after looking at my face attentively, and said in a soft whisper:— "Yes, I too can love; you yourselves can tell it from the past. Is it not so? Well, now I promise you that when I am done with him you shall kiss him at your will. Now go! go! I must awaken him, for there is work to be done." ... They simply seemed to fade into the rays of the moonlight and pass out through the window, for I could see outside the dim, shadowy forms for a moment before they entirely faded away. Then the horror overcame me, and I sank down unconscious.

Now there is a Lot to unpack here, and a lot of people have already pointed out the surface layer homoeroticism (I mean, he says "love" outright and clearly means it), but there's some stuff I haven't seen anyone mention yet.

First of all, if you haven't seen it yet, please take a look at this post which shows Bram Stoker's notes on the novel. The important takeaway is that Bram Stoker had one line of dialogue from pretty much the very beginning: "This man belongs to me." It repeats thrice, and well before the characters are more than "Old Count."

What this says to me is that Stoker was, like any of us, writing his novel to write that One Scene that just fucks so hard. This scene was written to be horny. It is meant to be. Stoker wrote this scene with his whole dick in the way of all the horror greats. He's my hero. By this time, Stoker had already at least acknowledged his own leanings (see Stoker's love letters to Walt Whitman, the first of which was written well before he wrote Dracula), so we can guess that he had this image and wanted to see it on paper for himself. (Good for him, and Same.)

Straight audiences would have seen Jonathan's feminization by the narrative and the Count's clearly sexual interest in him as horrifying (cowards), but queers are and have always been queer. And I suspect they all read this scene in the same way we're reading it now. BUT they had an extra bit of info that we've since lost track of.

In the peak of epistolary writing, there was a bit of well-known shorthand. (If you've seen Mamma Mia, this is the equivalent to the "dot dot dot" in the mom's diary from her slut phase.) In epistolary novels, when your heroine is alone with a man, and she says she swoons... She got laid. Now, how far it went, I couldn't say, but this was At Least heavy making out, if not full on sex (I suspect it may have been up for interpretation, but I don't know). My professor pointed this out with a young woman swooning while alone in a carriage with a guy she was kind of seeing. "She says she swooned because this letter is to her father figure, but the audience would have known exactly what she meant."

So Jonathan swoons, and when he wakes up, he is undressed and in his own bed. The readers at the time would have immediately read this as a sexual assault.

For a long time, I was confused by how passive Jonathan is throughout this part of the novel, but he is playing the role of the maiden fair, trapped by the diabolical (and much older) seducer. And then, he is in survival mode as he is assaulted more than once, his virtue stolen before he can marry his beloved.

I mean, God, you have this whole romantic build, the count saves the maiden Jonathan and plans to "awaken him, for there is work to be done." And then Jonathan swoons, and the Count carries him to bed? Not to put too fine a point on it, but... well, it really only makes sense if Dracula DID wake Jonathan up and... made his claim abundantly clear. Clear enough, too, for Jonathan to feel like his "gloomy" rooms are in fact his only sanctuary. And like... Jonathan was undressed by the Count. That really does mean exactly what it sounds like.

So uh. Yeah, after that supremely possessive display and declaration of love, the Count fucks Jonathan (as with all maidens of the time, his consent is... dubious. Would he consent if he were able? We'll never know tbh) and carries him (undressed) to bed. Bram Stoker knew EXACTLY what he was doing, and I hope you all enjoy that fact. I know I will. ;D

ETA: Sources for my information about swooning are in my reblog, but you can also find them here, here, here (this blog post is referred to in more than one article), and here, and this one references this exact scene directly.

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I've been looking for sources all day, and I finally found some that are suitable!! My professor never bothered to give us sources (it was more discussion than anything that day, and she was referring specifically to the novel "Clarissa"), but please do read these (I found the first especially compelling):

https://s-space.snu.ac.kr/bitstream/10371/2391/3/englishstudies_v29_148.pdf

There is a lot of research on this subject, but a lot of it is unfortunately behind paywalls (the articles are scholarly and from experts in the literary field). Try searches like "swooning as an implication of sex in literature" or "swooning and sex in literature."

And seriously, never feel bad for asking for a source!! I was having trouble finding a good one when I first posted, so trust me the lack was one I was aware of. ;D

ETA: How about this one?

"Booth offers a reading of Bram Stoker’s��Dracula in which the carnival of swooning, involving both male and female bodies, ends up resembling a swingers’ party from the 1970s. No sooner has Jonathan Harker arrived at Dracula’s castle than he falls into a swoony sleep, only to be roused by three exquisite young women towards whom he feels a “wicked, burning desire that they would kiss [me] with those red lips”. Just as he is about to get his wish – “I closed my eyes and waited in a languorous ecstasy” – the scene is interrupted by the arrival of the Count himself, who claims the droopy young man for himself and carries him off to bed." (found here)

OKAY, so as a former lit major, I have some really fun information to share with the class for this last installment of Daily Dracula.

Now, first thing's first, I'm going to post the section I'm talking about specifically so we can refer back to it more easily. Namely:

In a voice which, though low and almost in a whisper seemed to cut through the air and then ring round the room he said:— "How dare you touch him, any of you? How dare you cast eyes on him when I had forbidden it? Back, I tell you all! This man belongs to me! Beware how you meddle with him, or you'll have to deal with me." The fair girl, with a laugh of ribald coquetry, turned to answer him:— "You yourself never loved; you never love!" On this the other women joined, and such a mirthless, hard, soulless laughter rang through the room that it almost made me faint to hear; it seemed like the pleasure of fiends. Then the Count turned, after looking at my face attentively, and said in a soft whisper:— "Yes, I too can love; you yourselves can tell it from the past. Is it not so? Well, now I promise you that when I am done with him you shall kiss him at your will. Now go! go! I must awaken him, for there is work to be done." ... They simply seemed to fade into the rays of the moonlight and pass out through the window, for I could see outside the dim, shadowy forms for a moment before they entirely faded away. Then the horror overcame me, and I sank down unconscious.

Now there is a Lot to unpack here, and a lot of people have already pointed out the surface layer homoeroticism (I mean, he says "love" outright and clearly means it), but there's some stuff I haven't seen anyone mention yet.

First of all, if you haven't seen it yet, please take a look at this post which shows Bram Stoker's notes on the novel. The important takeaway is that Bram Stoker had one line of dialogue from pretty much the very beginning: "This man belongs to me." It repeats thrice, and well before the characters are more than "Old Count."

What this says to me is that Stoker was, like any of us, writing his novel to write that One Scene that just fucks so hard. This scene was written to be horny. It is meant to be. Stoker wrote this scene with his whole dick in the way of all the horror greats. He's my hero. By this time, Stoker had already at least acknowledged his own leanings (see Stoker's love letters to Walt Whitman, the first of which was written well before he wrote Dracula), so we can guess that he had this image and wanted to see it on paper for himself. (Good for him, and Same.)

Straight audiences would have seen Jonathan's feminization by the narrative and the Count's clearly sexual interest in him as horrifying (cowards), but queers are and have always been queer. And I suspect they all read this scene in the same way we're reading it now. BUT they had an extra bit of info that we've since lost track of.

In the peak of epistolary writing, there was a bit of well-known shorthand. (If you've seen Mamma Mia, this is the equivalent to the "dot dot dot" in the mom's diary from her slut phase.) In epistolary novels, when your heroine is alone with a man, and she says she swoons... She got laid. Now, how far it went, I couldn't say, but this was At Least heavy making out, if not full on sex (I suspect it may have been up for interpretation, but I don't know). My professor pointed this out with a young woman swooning while alone in a carriage with a guy she was kind of seeing. "She says she swooned because this letter is to her father figure, but the audience would have known exactly what she meant."

So Jonathan swoons, and when he wakes up, he is undressed and in his own bed. The readers at the time would have immediately read this as a sexual assault.

For a long time, I was confused by how passive Jonathan is throughout this part of the novel, but he is playing the role of the maiden fair, trapped by the diabolical (and much older) seducer. And then, he is in survival mode as he is assaulted more than once, his virtue stolen before he can marry his beloved.

I mean, God, you have this whole romantic build, the count saves the maiden Jonathan and plans to "awaken him, for there is work to be done." And then Jonathan swoons, and the Count carries him to bed? Not to put too fine a point on it, but... well, it really only makes sense if Dracula DID wake Jonathan up and... made his claim abundantly clear. Clear enough, too, for Jonathan to feel like his "gloomy" rooms are in fact his only sanctuary. And like... Jonathan was undressed by the Count. That really does mean exactly what it sounds like.

So uh. Yeah, after that supremely possessive display and declaration of love, the Count fucks Jonathan (as with all maidens of the time, his consent is... dubious. Would he consent if he were able? We'll never know tbh) and carries him (undressed) to bed. Bram Stoker knew EXACTLY what he was doing, and I hope you all enjoy that fact. I know I will. ;D