#posted a day or two before the start of dracula daily so anyone wanting to eat along has time to get their shopping in

[thethirdromana]

Mem., get recipe for Mina: a food guide to Dracula Daily

Inspired by There and Snack Again (in which you eat along with the LOTR movies), this is your guide to eating and drinking along with Dracula Daily.

All under a cut because there's no way I can do this without extensive spoilers. I strongly recommend not reading this unless you already know what happens in Dracula. Also only if you're comfortable reading about alcoholic drinks - there's a lot of booze in this novel.

Let's eat!

2 May We start with the famous paprika hendl. Google "chicken paprikash" and choose whichever recipe most strikes your fancy.

3 May For breakfast, choose from mamaliga (cornmeal porridge, similar to grits), "impletata" (vânătă umplută - stuffed aubergine) or anything with more paprika in it.

4 May For dinner, Jonathan has robber steak: "bits of bacon, onion, and beef, seasoned with red pepper, and strung on sticks and roasted over the fire".

5 May Slivovitz, if you'd like it (Jonathan declines). Then, for dinner, Dracula serves up roast chicken, with some cheese, a salad and a glass or two of Tokaji wine.

6 May "A cold breakfast" for Jonathan. In Romania a cold breakfast might include boiled eggs, telemea (sheep's cheese), franzela (bread) with assorted spreads, sliced cucumber and tomatoes, and sunculita taraneasca (sliced smoked pork). Jonathan also has "an excellent supper", but doesn't tell us what that includes.

16 May Would it be too bleak if I suggested eating a symbolic Jelly Baby?

26 May A glass of wine as Quincey and Jack congratulate Arthur and drown their sorrows.

18 June There's a kind of Scottish fruit slice called "flies' graveyard". That might make a suitable snack given Renfield's meal today.

24 June I guess a gingerbread woman, for the wolves? IDK, it turns out doing this for a horror novel is a bit grim.

8 July Thankfully the internet has hundreds of ideas for spider-themed cakes so you can eat along with Renfield.

18 July The voyage of the Demeter begins! Celebrate by eating like a sailor: have some salt pork, or make ship's biscuit.

20 July Renfield has just eaten several sparrows. Provide redress by feeding birds near you, bird flu guidance permitting.

24 July Imitate the "feet-folk" from York and Leeds by drinking some tea or eating some cured herring.

10 August Lucy and Mina enjoy a "severe tea". There are lots of severe teas in Victorian literature, but few writers actually describe what's in it - e.g. the Churchman's shilling magazine, 1868, has a story with a severe tea "which implies coffee, tea, and muffins, with substantials". What are substantials? I have no idea, but that's what you should eat today.

11 August Dracula has a little nibble on Lucy. I don't suggest doing this for every vampire bite in the novel, but given this one is particularly significant, how about marking the occasion with some black pudding?

30 August No food details for a while, but in this entry, Lucy notes that she "has an appetite like a cormorant" and "Arthur says I am getting fat". Celebrate with some cake.

3 September Van Helsing has been! And surely he wouldn't have come all the way from the Netherlands empty-handed? Acknowledge his visit with some gouda or a stroopwafel.

4 September Eat some sugar, which Renfield has requested for his flies.

7 September To stay in line with what the characters actually eat and drink, have a glass of port (though ideally not if you've just given blood). But for the real spirit of the day, consider a corn-on-the-cob.

9 September Free space! Jack has "an excellent meal" but doesn't say what it is. Dig into your favourite dinner.

10 September A sip of brandy, with which Van Helsing wets Lucy's lips.

11 September The garlic flowers arrive. There's lots that you can make with wild garlic - personally, I like it in risotto.

17 September A boxful of garlic flowers arrive for Lucy every day. Time to make chicken with 40 cloves of garlic. Other options for today include more black pudding (in honour of Renfield lapping up Jack's blood) or sherry.

18 September The Zookeeper enjoys a teacake, and so shall we.

20 September No food, but the labourers have "a stiff glass of grog". This is rum diluted with water, but you could also add lemon or lime juice, sugar, and/or cinnamon.

25 September Nibble another Jelly Baby for the Bloofer Lady.

29 September A lot happens in this entry, but there's not a lot of food. There are thirsty labourers, however. Maybe have a beer?

30 September Mina makes everyone a pot of tea. Also, we don't know what they have for dinner, but they eat it at 7pm, if you'd like to time your evening meal accordingly.

1 October More tea! Since this is being gulped down by a working man, make it builder's style - strong, sweet, lots of milk.

2 October Jonathan visits the Aërated Bread Company. He only has a cup of tea, but you could have whatever you like best from their menu:

(source)

3 October Dracula forces Mina to drink his blood like "a child forcing a kitten's nose into a saucer of milk". You could either have some more black pudding, or drink a glass of milk in solidarity with Mina.

15 October The Crew of Light aren't focusing much on meals any more, but they have travelled on the Orient Express. Here's the 1887 dining car menu.

(source - I can't vouch for the accuracy of a random person on Twitter but it looks plausible)

29 October No one is thinking of food in this bit of the novel (though Mina makes yet more tea), but as they're heading to Romania, have some sarmale. These stuffed cabbage rolls are the Romanian national dish.

31 October Mina and Van Helsing have "a huge basket of provisions". Have a picnic in their honour, if it's warm enough where you are.

1 November Mina and Van Helsing have "hot soup" into which the local cooks have put an extra amount of garlic. Consider having a truly extra amount of garlic with this 44-garlic-clove soup.

7 November The Crew of Light return to Transylvania. No details of food, but in honour of their journey, I would suggest a final round of chicken paprikash, to bring us back to where it all began.

[lutiaslayton]

It’s coming.

Hellooo, just giving you all a little update and teaser regarding the event I have mentioned for a while, and which is finally about to begin!

Yes, it is finally time. To reply to an earlier reblog I saw some time ago: yes, I guess we are going to Dracula Daily the Layton novels now. Or at least I will try to keep this up for as long as I can. I am very much hyped too 👀

The Eternal Diva novel will be cut into about twenty parts,

so this will be a twenty-week journey (unless one part happens to be extremely short, then maybe I’ll merge it with the previous or next one for example). And after that, hopefully by then the transcript of another novel will have progressed enough to start all over again with a different story! So far, a French friend (who doesn’t have a tumblr) is helping me make a transcript of the Illusory Forest novel; so fingers crossed, as this might be the next in line! Yep, for those interested in my theories, it is the very same novel that I’ve talked about for so long, and it is arguably the craziest of all. Just the way it starts is an absolute roller-coaster.

Also, I lied. Updates are going to be on Mondays now.

I was not ready to post yesterday, Sundays already have their Layton-related weekly event, and since I am too impatient to wait until next week, I thought I might as well make this a thing for Mondays instead. Gotta end the first, universally depressing work day of the week, with something uplifting, am I right? :3

I am going to give you a warning, though: as much as I’d like to keep the translations as close to the originals as possible, I am also, unfortunately, a fanfic writer, and the novels’ writing style is very different from what I usually write. Also there’s some weird stuff such as verb tense consistency in Japanese… Ohhhhhhh dear this part is such a nightmare. You can have verbs in the present tense and others in the past tense in the same sentence. You can have a sentence in the present tense and another in the past tense right after. I hate this. I hate everything about this.

So, I will try to restrain myself (because if you already took a peek at SLS, you already know what my writing style is really like), but I sometimes couldn’t help but add a sentence or two, cut a sentence into multiple ones, make the dialogue less robotic and more lively, that sort of thing. For example, if there’s a lot of dialogue going on and on without any narration in-between, I might sometimes add a sentence or two just to break it up a bit and make the scene sound less static. That sort of thing.

I will try my best to make it sound similar to what the official game translations did, in the end! The Japanese dialogue is usually rather bland and repetitive, but the official translations added a lot of details and quirks that are completely absent from the original text, but which also make the characters feel like, you know, themselves as we know and love them.

So here’s a reminder that if you want to know what the real Japanese text says, do NOT take this fan-translation series as a reliable source. I spent months writing a transcript of the real novel precisely so that people willing to know what the original Japanese text says (including me) would be able to check it out and compare, regardless of what anyone else translating it will say. Even without speaking Japanese, you can copy-paste the Japanese sentences into a translator such as DeepL, and so you’ll be able to see which parts exactly are in the novel, and which parts I pulled out of my magic hat. The “9/10 accuracy, WhatTheHeckIsThis/10 readability” translation is going to take a LONG time to make, but it will also come eventually (though don’t expect much before at least something like 2024).

So now, with all that being said:

See you all tomorrow at 6PM (France time) for the first chapter of our reading journey!

Though if you have preferences for how you would rather see things (e.g. better time that fits the majority), then I am open to suggestions! I can easily rename a tag or reschedule my queue.

[queeniegalore]

Our Dear Friend Jonathan - an Academic Analysis of Dracula Daily

I’ve had a little interest, so I'm posting the short project I did on DD for my Digital Humanities class at uni way back in June! A few caveats - this is technically an 'analysis of a digital artifact' and not an essay, so it's not hugely in depth, plus I was only given 1000 words (which i exceeded by quite a bit, whoops) so I didn't get to included nearly as much as I wanted to. Also tumblr only let me include 10 images, so I've cut out a few of the memes I'd used (it also erased my links but I have them all saved so I'll add them in list form if anyone wants me too). Finally, I've contacted all the artists included and obtained permission to post their (credited!) work! Enjoy!

Our Dear Friend Jonathan

Substack, Tumblr, and the Digital Intimacy of the World’s Biggest Book Club

By Rebecca F

Dracula Daily, created in 2021 by Matt Kirkland, is an astonishingly simple concept on the surface. Utilising the email subscription service Substack, Kirkland divides Bram Stoker’s 1847 epistolary novel into emails that are sent on the real-world date that corresponds with the in-fiction date of the events. Protagonist Jonathan Harker starts a travel diary detailing his trip to Transylvania on the 3rd of May, and the rest of the novel continues in journal entries, letters, newspaper clippings, and even a diary kept on phonograph, all dated, up until the final entry in November. Some entries are pages long, some only a few paragraphs, many days (almost two weeks in June) don’t have an entry at all. Every entry, however short, is emailed on the correct date, and unless the reader wants to go out and buy a copy of the book to ‘cheat’ and read ahead, that’s all they get. Interestingly, the book itself doesn’t present all of these entries chronologically – dates tend to skip back and forth. Reading via subscription, then, changes the fundamental experience of reading Dracula in more ways than one. In 2021 the mailing list slowly spread by word of mouth, and Kirkland ended up with 1600 subscribers. In 2022, after the idea went viral on popular internet social media sites Twitter and Tumblr, Dracula Daily has 200,000 subscribers – and climbing (Martinelli).

1. Image Header for the Dracula Daily subscription

How does reading Dracula via email change the experience of reading Dracula? For this analysis I’ll be dividing this question into two parts – firstly, the actual physical, practical and individual act of reading the novel via email and the way that effects the intended experience, and secondly, the wider, communal ‘book club’ aspect, which is the real reason Dracula Daily has gone so viral and become such an important moment in what I have coined digital intimacy.

2. Dr Seward by Tumblr user @crepuscol

Playing With Time

Dracula by Bram Stoker is a famously claustrophobic novel. The opening chapters with Jonathan Harker travelling to Count Dracula’s castle only to be held captive there lean on the sense of being trapped and confined with a monster – but these chapters are over in fifty or so pages, freeing the reader quite quickly and bringing a sense of relief before the slower build up to the main climax. Reading the book chronologically, however, changes all that. Having to wait for daily updates really intensifies the sense of time – we can feel how long Jonathan is trapped with the Count, and we can slowly see his mental state deteriorate. Occasionally, unlike in the novel as published, we escape the castle entirely, leaving him there alone, to read letters from his fiancée Mina, her friend Lucy Westenra and Lucy’s three suitors. These are amusing and engaging asides that nonetheless leave us screaming for the focus to return to our trapped protagonist. This builds a sense of intimacy, we’re now directly invested in Jonathan and every entry from him feels like a letter written personally to us. As Tumblr user @atundratoadstool puts it, “We all will–in fact–be skipping ahead some chapters in a few days to meet another narrator only to skip immediately back to catch up with our collective friend Jonathan Harker… You can’t have your dread or anticipation undercut by future events. Like all the characters you’re going to meet, you just have to wait for Dracula to act upon you,” (emphasis mine) (@atundratoadstool). Another user, @soup-is-here, describes it thus, “I think at this point the dread of Jonathan's isolation is so much worse than the idea of him actually being bitten, especially in this email format. It really demonstrates just how long the Count kept him there in a way sitting and reading the book wouldn't,” (@soup-is-here). So, we realise that the act of digitising this novel changes the nature of the novel.

In their essay “Universal Design and its Discontents,” Richard H Godden and Jonathan Hsy discuss the pervasive nostalgia that sometime overtakes discussions about digital culture, quoting Adam Kirsch who asks, “Is it actually true that reading online is an adequate substitute for reading on paper? If not, perhaps we should not be concentrating on digitizing our books but on preserving and circulating them more effectively,” (Godden and Hsy). One can’t help but wonder what traditionalists like this must think of a project like Dracula Daily, which seems to embody everything they despise about the digital humanities – and one could also feel a level of frustration that they would miss or dismiss the excitement that these readers are experience in discovering a new way of reading and meaningfully engaging with an old text.  

3. Dracula going out in his lizard fashion by Tumblr user @horseboneologist

4. Jonathan Harker and Count Dracula by Tumblr user @nehezt

Digital Intimacy

Dracula Daily, as a movement rather than the literal subscription, really came to life on Tumblr. A quick browse through the Dracula Daily tag will show up thousands of posts, a combination of art, memes, discussion and – perhaps surprisingly – serious and thoughtful analysis, all with anywhere from dozens to thousands of interactions. At one point, Dracula Daily trended on Tumblr above popular Marvel Cinematic Universe release, the Eurovision song contest and hotly anticipated Dr Who casting news (Kuppermann).

Marketed as a youth pop culture microblogging site and having somewhat of a reputation for frivolity, one could be excused for being baffled that a 125-year-old piece of classical literature has gathered such a huge and devoted following. But it seems that the digital intimacy the subscription forges between the readers of Dracula and its characters also translates to the readers of Dracula and each other. In short, the act of reading the novel all together, one tantalising piece at a time, has created an exclusive 200,000-member strong book club, and in order to be part of it – to enjoy the in-jokes, to get the memes, to contribute to the meta – one has to keep up with the story.

Every day when the email arrives – the same time for everyone across the world – the Dracula Daily tag becomes flooded with people sharing their thoughts on the latest entry, replying to and reposting each other’s posts, adding to the discussion, arguing, analysing, and joking. This demonstrates a remarkable collective level of reading comprehension and critical thinking skills, as readers mine every sentence of the daily entry for material. There are blogs now to keep track of the different posts, one, who responded to my request for help in putting this project, has entries archived meticulously with tags like “memes,” “reference,” “serialisation,” and “analysis” (@draculadailytracker). And while the Tumblr denizens do tend to run with jokes like Jonathan Harker’s preoccupation with paprika, there is a surprising amount of intelligent literary discourse. An example of this is that when Jonathan writes an entry about the "g*psies" who show up at the castle, a number of posts sprang up acknowledging and discussing the racism, Orientalism, imperialism and anti-Romani sentiments that are embedded through the novel. There have also been mature discussions about the sexual politics of the book, as well as the homoeroticism and queer themes. The literary establishment has tended throughout the years to be overwhelmingly white and male, this is an excellent demonstration of the ways the digital humanities can work towards democratising and opening up these discussions.

 In her essay “Whither the DH?” Lee Skallerup Bessette talks about the way Digital Humanities – in an academic sense – can help foster communities amongst disparate groups of people, she even likens it to the practice of letter writing between artists and intellectuals in years past (Bessette). This Tumblr phenomenon is an unusual demonstration of this, and all the more fascinating because it is entirely organic and without an official organising body. The only thing that holds Dracula Daily together is the daily email. There isn’t a real club, there aren’t prompts, there’s no incentive to join in. The material itself isn’t even new – it is merely presented in a new way. “When asked, Kirkland can only guess why people have been fascinated by the project,” writes Jacob Kupperman. “He proposes that the “gap between ‘vampire cliche’ and ‘actual Dracula’” driven by Dracula’s long cultural legacy may play a role, as well as the communal nature of reading the text via newsletter,” (Kuppermann). Or as a tumblr reader says, “not only is it free and making the novel available to just anyone who has an email, which is by far the most integral and necessary aspect of subscribing or interacting with anything these days in a formal way, but it's introducing this story in an ingenious, new format that gets the readers to interact with it not as a novel but as if, our dear Jonathan Harker, is emailing us personally,” (xmichaelmyers).

Ultimately, it remains to be seen whether Dracula Daily will survive the June posting drought, or make it to the end of its run with anywhere near the same amount of hype and engagement it received in its first month. But this phenomenon is a remarkable achievement in dh – it’s organic, it’s grass roots, and an excellent example of how literature can be reimagined through technology. As we collectively await updates from our dear friend Jonathan, we’re doing it together, intimately engaged, in the world’s biggest and most active book club.

Works Cited

atundratoadstool. Where Wild Flowers Grow of Their Own Accord. 7 May 2022. 10 June 2022. <https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/atundratoadstool/683528925666770944?source=share>.

Bessette, Lee Skallerup. "W(h)ither DH? New Tensions, Directions and Evolutions in Digital Humnities." Kim, Dorothy and Jesse Stommel. Disrupting the Digital Humanities. Brooklyn: Punctum, 2018. 419-454.

draculadailytracker. Tumblr Book Club. 10 June 2022. 10 June 2022. <https://draculadailytracker.tumblr.com/>.

Godden, Richard H and Jonathan Hsy. "Universal Design and Its Discontents." Kim, Dorothy and Jesse Stommel. Disrupting the Digital Humanities. Brooklyn: Punctum Books, 2018. 91-116.

Kuppermann, Jacob. "Dracula in Real Time." Long Now 19 May 2022. <https://longnow.org/ideas/02022/05/19/dracula-in-real-time/>.

Martinelli, Marissa. "Why Hundreds of Thousands of People Are Reading Dracula Together Right Now." Slate 17 May 2022. Website. <https://slate.com/culture/2022/05/dracula-daily-bram-stoker-book-newsletter-jonathan-harker.html>.

soup-is-here. Absolute Unit. 31 May 2022. 10 June 2022. <https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/atundratoadstool/683528925666770944?source=share>.

xmichaelmyers. The Wolf's Den. 05 May 2022. 10 June 2022. <https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/xmichaelmyers/683421341500751872?source=share>.

5. The Three Suitors by Tumblr user @marghen

[cosmogyros]

I know I haven't been on here lately ahhhh but I have been spending every free moment READING, because with every year older that I get, I feel less and less knowledgeable... and I must remedy this. Although, frankly, I think I might be overdoing it a bit because. um. my full-time job also requires reading eight hours a day. And I'm starting to feel a bit Worn.

That said, here's my "currently reading" list with disorganized commentary:

Miteinander reden - Friedemann Schulz von Thun (I am enjoying this one but moving through it very slowly so far because it keeps giving me Ideas that I need to write about immediately or else message friends about, and then I forget to return to the book and keep reading)

Capitalism: A Very Short Introduction - James Fulcher (crap I forgot I was reading this actually, I need to get back to it)

Le lieutenant de Kouta - Massa Makan Diabaté (This is progressing slowly because I'm hand-copying it as I go, but at least it's generally quite an easy read, and particularly interesting to me because it's set in Mali, a country that is a special interest of mine)

Et si c'était vrai - Marc Levy (I started this, paused it when I briefly lost interest, then restarted; we'll see if I can maintain the motivation this time)

Dracula - Bram Stoker (yes! I am doing Dracula Daily! oh it's such a treat to return to this wonderful book ❤️)

Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma and Consensual Nonmonogamy - Jessica Fern (I posted about wanting to read this book and then two friends messaged me separately saying they'd been wanting to as well, so obviously I did what anyone would do and made a group chat, introduced 'em to each other, and we're a mini-book-club now)

Sauve-Moi - Guillaume Musso (I started this just for the heck of it and I'm sorry but it's so bad so far. so bad. The protagonist looks in the mirror after a shower as an excuse to have her describe herself. And yes, she mentions her breasts. And then she wonders if, at 28, she's still desirable. I may not be able to stick this one out.)

Delusions of Gender - Cordelia Fine (I have been having memory issues again recently, so I can't remember a blessed thing about this book despite having started it... mayyyybe two weeks ago? I should probably stop reading so many things at once and give my poor brain-damaged head a break 🙃)

The ABCs of Socialism - Bhaskar Sunkara et al. (I have sooooo much to learn about socialism, and I guess I am starting here; already learned the difference between private property and personal property, so we're off to a good start)

Les Fiancés de l'hiver - Christelle Dabos (not my usual genre but I spontaneously joined a French book club that chose it as our first book, so hey! and it's not bad so far)

Mating in Captivity - Esther Perel (one of those "been on my TBR forever" books that I finally dove into when another friend mentioned starting it and I said "ooh ooh I'll read it with you!")

I also started reading Les Misérables and Le deuxième sexe but I am trying to FORCE myself to hold off on them for now and finish my somewhat more accessible French books first, before returning to those heavy-hitters. Oh and there's Vere aux Fantazie, the collection of short pieces in Esperanto that I really have no excuse for not having finished yet, seeing as I started it... a year and a half ago.

But honestly right now my current-reading list is too full of non-English stuff and/or nonfiction, and I think it would be wise to ease up on myself a bit and read some nice light compelling English-language fiction to balance out the rest of this mess. The last fiction book I finished in English was Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, a recommendation from a friend, which threw me for a fucking LOOP when I finished it a few days ago. Instantly went on my favorites list, but damn, I'm still licking my wounds.

[thisbluespirit]

James Maxwell TV/Film List

More of a guide than a recs list, because old tv/film depends so much on availability.  It’s also hard as there’s nothing surviving that’s really like SotT for him (his voice is always slightly different, too & rarely the grand one from SotT) - I found it hard to find where to start back in the day, so I hope this makes it easier.  However, I have starred my favourites (rated for JM content only). 

I’ve divided things into categories and @jurijurijurious​ (or anyone) can make up their own mind as to what to go for.  (Also @jurijurijurious I have NO idea what old telly you’ve already seen, so forgive me if I’m telling you things you already know.)

Where to find it:  Luckily in the UK, it’s not too bad!  Network Distributing are the DVD supplier to keep an eye on (they do great online sales), you can find secondhand things cheap on Amazon Marketplace & eBay, and several Freeview channels show old TV & film, especially Talking Pictures.  I’ll note if things are on YT or Daily Motion, but they come and go all the time, so it’s always worth searching.

***

Film serials (ITC mainly)

British TV made on film in the US mode with transatlantic cash, so generally pretty light,  episodic (continuity is almost unheard of) etc.  Some turn up on ITV3 & 4 on a regular basis (colour eps). 

*** Dangerman “A Date With Doris” (ITC 1964)  James Maxwell is a British spy friend of Drake’s (Patrick MacGoohan) called Peter who gets framed for murder.  Drake goes to Fake Cuba to rescue him by which time JM is dying from an infected wound and faints off every available surface, including the roof.  It’s great.  On YT.  (The boxset is v pricey if you just want 2 eps.)

“Fair Exchange” (ITC 1964) JM is a German spy friend of Drake’s called Pieter who helps him out on a case.  Not as gloriously hurt/comfort-y as the other, but it does have some excellent undercover dusting. (Why  Patrick MacGoohan has JM clones all called variations on Peter dotted around the globeis a mystery.)  On YT.

The Saint “The Inescapable Word” (ITC 1965) This is pretty terrible, but  entertaining and James Maxwell plays the world’s most hopeless former-cop-turned-security guard. With bonus collapsing.  On YT.

“The Art Collectors” (1967).  JM is the villain of the week.  It does include a v funny bit, though, where the Saint (Roger Moore) goes for JM’s fake hair (and who can blame him?  How often I have felt the same!)  This one’s in colour so should pop up on ITV3 or 4. 

The Champions “The Silent Enemy” (ITC 1968).  Surprisingly good JM content as the villain of the week who drugs sailors and steals their clothes before realising that maybe he should have worked out if he could operate a sub before he stole it.

The Protectors “The Bridge” (ITC 1974, 30 mins.)  Not worth seeking out on its own, but ITV4 seems fond of it and James Maxwell gets to do some angsting and wears purple, so it’s worth snagging if you can, but too slight otherwise.

*** Thriller “Good Salary, Prospects, Free Coffin” (ITC 1975; 1hr 10mins, I think).  James Maxwell moves in with Julian Glover and runs an overcomplicated murdery spy ring where they bicker a lot in between killing girls by advertisement and burying them in the back garden.  What could possibly go wrong??  Anyway, it’s solid gold cheese, has bonus Julian Glover and a lot of natty knitwear.  What more does an old telly fan want?  (tw: Keith Barron being inexplicably the very meanest Thriller boyfriend.)  On YT but tends to get taken down fast.

***

Films

Design for Loving (1962; comedy).  Can be rented from the BFI online for £3.50.  Isn’t that great or that bad (or that funny either), but does have JM as a dim layabout beatnik, which is atypical.

***The Traitors (1962).  This is a low-key little 1hr long spy B-movie, but it’s also thoughtful and ambiguous with a nice 60s soundtrack and location work (it’s a bit New Wave-ish) and the central duo of JM and Patrick Allen are sweet and it all winds up with James Maxwell going in the swimming pool. One of the things where JM is actually American. (Talking Pictures show this occasionally & it is out on DVD as an extra on The Wind of Change.)  The quality of the surviving film is not great, though.

***Girl on Approval (1962).  A Rachel Roberts kitchen sink drama about a couple fostering a difficult teenager.  It’s dated, but it’s also really interesting for a 1950s/60s slice of life (and very female-centric) & probably the only time on this list JM played an ordinary person.

***Otley (1969).  Comedy that’s generally dated surprisingly well & is good fun, starring Tom Courtenay +cameos from what seems like the whole of British TV.  JM is an incompetent red herring & there are more cardies and glasses as well as a random barometer. 

Old Vic/Royal Exchange group productions

(Surviving works made by the group that JM was involved in from drama school to his death, made by Michael Elliott or Casper Wrede.  I like them a lot mostly, but they are all slow and weird and earnest & not everybody’s cup of tea.)

Brand (BBC 1959).  The BBC recording of the 59 Company’s (the name they were then using) landmark production, starring Patrick MacGoohan.  This was a big deal in British theatre & launched the careers of everybody involved.  It’s very relentless and weird but interesting & I’m glad they decided it was important enough to save.  First fake beard alert of this post.  It won’t be the last.  On YT & there is a DVD, which is sometimes affordable and sometimes £500, depending on the time of day.

***Private Potter (1962).  The original TV play is lost and this film has an extraneous storyline, but otherwise has most of the TV cast & gives a pretty good idea of why as a claustrophobic talky TV piece it made such an impact.  Tom Courtenay is Private Potter, a soldier who claims to have had a vision of God during a mission & James Maxwell his CO who needs to decide what to do about this strange excuse for disobeying orders.  Tw: fake eyebrows (!) and moustaches.  Only available on YT.

[???]One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch (1970).  Again, no DVD release (no idea why), but it is on YT.  I haven’t seen this yet, but it’s another Casper Wrede effort starring Tom Courtenay and apparently JM is especially good in it.  (I’m just not good at watching long things on YT and keep hoping for a DVD or TV showing.)

Ransom (1974).  A more commercial effort starring Sean Connery & Ian McShane; it gets slated as not being a good action movie, but is clearly meant to be more thinky and political with the edge of a thriller. JM’s part isn’t large but Casper Wrede shoots his friend beautifully, & it’s a pretty decent film with nice cinematography, shot in Norway, as was One Day.  I liked it.

[I think this post might be the longest in the world, whoops.  Sorry!]

Cardboard TV (the best bit, obv)

One-off plays etc./mini-series

Out of the Unknown “The Dead Planet” Adaptation of an Asimov short story; this is very good for JM, but hard to get hold of unless you want the boxset.  I think someone has some of the eps on Daily Motion.  (His other OotU ep is sadly burninated.)

The Portrait of a Lady (BBC 1968).  Adaptation of the novel; JM is Gilbert Osmond, so it is great for JM in quantity and his performance, but depends how you feel about him being skeevy in truly appalling facial hair.  Do the bow ties and hand-holding make up for it?  but he’s in 5 whole episodes, and Suzanne Neve, faced with Richard Chamberlain, Edward Fox, and Ed Bishop as suitors, chooses instead to marry the worst possible James Maxwell.  Relatable. XD

***Dracula (ITV 1968, part of Mystery & Imagination).  JM is Dr Seward, fainty snowflake of vampire hunters, who falls over, sobs and can’t cope for most of the 1 hr 20 mins.  More facial hair, but not as offensive as last time.  Suzanne Neve is back again, although now JM is nice, she’s married Corin Redgrave, who’s more into Denholm Elliott. Anyway, I love this so much because it turned out that I love Dracula as well as shaky old TV with people I like in getting to fight vampires and all be shippy.  Good news - TP keep showing M&I, the DVD is out, and there are two versions of it up on YT.

The Prison (Armchair Cinema 1974).  This is the one with Lincoln in it, but it’s not that great & JM isn’t in it that much, so depends how curious you are for the modern AU!  (But my Euston films allergy is worse than my ITC allergy, and I watched this when very unwell, so I may have been unfair.)

Crown Court “Fitton vs. Pusey” (1973) - part of the Crown Court series, set in a town full of clones who all keep returning to court.  JM is on trial for his behaviour in (the Korean war?  I forget?) although he ought to be on trial for his terrible moustache.  It’s not that great, but it is nice JM content.  He probably did it, but for reasons, and he wibbles & panics whenever his wife leaves the courtroom.  Also on YT.

*** Raffles “The Amateur Cracksman” (ITV 1975) - He is Inspector Mckenzie in the Raffles pilot & is a lot of fun.  At one point when there was a Raffles fandom someone in it claimed he was too gay for Raffles, which I’m still laughing about, because Raffles.  Anyway, watch out if you try to get the DVD because it is NOT included in S1, whatever lies Amazon tells. It is up somewhere online, though, I think.

Bognor “Unbecoming Habits” (1981).  Some down marks for possibly the worst 80s theme & incidiental music ever, but fun & has been shown on Talking Pictures lately.  JM is an Abbot running a honey-making friary that is actually a hotbed of spies, murder, gay sex and squash playing.  This is the point at which he chooses to strip off on screen for the first time, because strong squash-playing abbots do that kind of thing apparently.

Guest of the week in ongoing series/serials

Since even series with a lot of continuity tended to write episodes as self-contained plays (like SotT), these are usually accessible on their own.

Manhunt “Death Wish” (1970).  This is one of the most serialised shows here, but this episode is still fairly contained.  WWII drama about three Resistance agents on the run across France.  JM is... a Nazi agent & former academic trying to break an old friend (one of the series’ three leads, Peter Barkworth) with kindness, possibly??  (Manhunt is very angry and psychological & dark and obv. comes with major WWII warnings (& more if you want to try the whole thing), but it’s also v good.)  Up on YT, I think.

Doomwatch “The Iron Doctor” (BBC S2 1971).  “Doomwatch” is the nickname of a gov’t dept led by Dr Spencer Quist that investigates new scientific projects for abuse/corruption/things that might cause fish to make men infertile etc. etc.  JM is a surgeon who comes to their attention because he’s a bit too in love with his computer for the comfort of one of his more junior colleagues.  (I think it’s perfectly comprehensible & a nice guest turn, but it is hard to get hold of outside of the series DVD.  Which, being a cult TV person, I loved a lot anyway, but YMMV!)

***Hadleigh “The Caper” (S3 1973).  Hadleigh is a very middle of the road show, but watchable enough (lead is Gerald Harper, who’s always entertaining) and this is pretty self-contained as it centres around an old con-man friend (JM) of Hadleigh’s manservant causing trouble by pretending to be Gerald Harper, for reasons.  JM seems to be having a ball.

Justice 2 episodes, S3 1974.  He guests twice as an opposing barrister & gets to be part of some nice showdown court scenes.  Again, a middle of the road drama, but stars Margaret Lockwood, who was still just as awesome in the 1970s as she was in the 1930s & 40s.  On YT.

Father Brown “The Curse of the Golden Cross” (1974).  JM is an American archaeologist getting death threats; stars Kenneth More as Father Brown.  Just a note, though, that 1970s TV adaptations tended to be really really faithful and this is one of the stories where Chesterton comes out with an anti-semitic moment...  (JM was unconscious for that bit and, frankly, I envied him.)  But otherwise lots of angsting in yet another fake moustache about someone trying to kill him.

The Hanged Man “The Bridge Maker” (1975).  Confession time, I have v little idea what this one was about apart from Ray Smith being an unlikely Eastern European dictator, as this whole series went over my head and was not really my thing.  (Ask @mariocki they’re cleverer than me and liked it & can probably explain the plot!)  I don’t know if it’s available anywhere off the DVD but on a JM scale it was v good/different as he was a coldly villainous head of security & it wouldn’t be too bad to watch alone, but there was an overarching plot going on somewhere.

Doctor Who “Underworld” (1978).  This is famously one of the worst serials in the whole of classic Who, but largely because of behind-the-scenes circumstances, not the guest cast.  There is some nice stuff, though, esp in Ep1 (JM is a near-immortal alien who’d like to lay down and die but still the Quest is the Quest as they say... a lot) & it’s bound to pop up on YT or Daily Motion.  The DVD has extras that include v v brief bits of JM speaking in his actual real accent (which he otherwise does in NONE of these) & making jokes in character.  Honestly, though, this is the only DW where the behind-the-scenes doc is genuinely the most exciting bit as they desperately invented whole new technologies & methods of working to bring us this serial, and then everybody wished they hadn’t.

*** Enemy at the Door “Treason” (LWT 1978).  This is a weird episode but I love it lots - from a (v v good) series about the occupation of the Channel Islands.  (So obv warnings for WWII & Nazis.)  JM is a visiting German Generalmajor, but he’s come for a very unusual reason - to ask for help from his brother-in-law, a blackballed British army officer (Joss Ackland).  It’s all weird and low key and JM is doomed and nevertheless probably my favourite thing of his that isn’t SotT.

* The Racing Game 2 eps (1979).  Adaptation of Dick Francis’s first Sid Halley novel Odds Against (ep1) + 5 original stories for the series.  This is an interesting one - JM plays Sid’s father-in-law & they have a lovely relationship that’s central to the book BUT Dick Francis loved this adaptation and Mike Gwilym who played Sid and was inspired to write a sequel Whip Hand, which he tied in with TV canon - and adopted at least three of the cast, including JM.  Which means that all the Sid & Charles fanfic is also JM fic by default and it’s quite impressive. (There’s not much but it’s GOOD.)  On YT.

Bergerac “Treasure Hunt” (1981).  Not a major role, but pretty nice & it’s one a Christmas ep of the detective show (also set on the Channel Islands) that involved Liza Goddard’s cat burglar, which was always the best bit of Bergerac.

His guest spots in Rumpole of the Bailey (1991) “Rumpole a la Carte” and Dr Finlay (1994) are both really just cameos, but both series come round on Freeview; the Rumpole one is funny and the Dr Finlay one his last screen appearance before his death the following year.

Not worth getting just for JM: Subway in the Sky; Bill Brand and Oppenheimer.

These films only have cameos but some quite fun ones and they come around on terrestrial TV: The Damned (1962), The Evil of Frankenstein (1964) & (more briefly) Far From the Madding Crowd (1967).  (I think his cameo in Connecting Doors must be at least recognisable as someone spotted him in it just based off my gifs, but it’s not come my way yet.)  I’ve never been able to get hold of any of his radio performances, not even the 1990s one.

ETA: I forgot The Power Game! This is the one surviving series where he occurs as a semi-regular (at least until halfway through S1 when he went off to the BBC to be in the now-burninated Hunchback of Notre Dame).  This isn’t standalone, but it’s a good series and it is on YT.  See how you go with crackly old TV before you brave it but it’s the snarkiest thing ever made about people making concrete and stabbing each other in the back.  JM is a civil servant who tries to run the National Export Board and is plagued by Patrick Wymark and Clifford Evans as warring businessmen.

***

[... Well, now I just feel scary.  0_o  In my defence, I have been stuck home bored & ill for years, and often unable to watch modern TV while trying to cheer myself up with James Maxwell, so I didn’t watch all of this at once.  It just... happened eventually after SotT. /waves hand 

But if anyone feels the need to unfriend my quietly at this point, I understand. /o\]

[tekka-wekka]

Vlad/Lisa Fic Idea Posted to Show I Still Have Creative Thoughts

So I love all of Netflix's new Castlevania show, especially the first five minutes where toll Dracula falls head over heels for smoll Lisa. Because we only get five minutes with the happy couple and don't even get to see them coo over little Alucard/Adrian, my brain is of course spinning fic ideas.

So I don’t have to invite more OCs than my brain can handle, I’ll borrow some canon from Castlevania: Curse of Darkness. Dracula-Was-Right-Blonde-Doctors-Are-The-Best-Hector, Tight-Pants-Tattoos-Bondage-Jewelry-Isaac Laforeze, and Why-Can’t-My-Brother-Flirt-Normally-With-Men Julia-Laforeze. The two Devil Forgemasters and the witch, respectively, hang out in Castlevania and give Lisa and Drac someone besides themselves to talk to.

This is going to be an AU where Lisa gets to live at least a little longer, so I’ll put it under a cut in case that doesn’t interest some people (but how could it not??).

Dracula makes one request of Lisa--bathe and brush her teeth daily, because he has a sensitive nose. Lisa’s fine with this, but has some questions about this “indoor plumbing” Dracula keeps talking about. Julia takes responsibility for teaching the only other human-ish woman in Castlevania about hygiene technology and is patient enough to listen when Lisa raves about the incredible impact plumbing could have upon human mortality.

Lisa is one hell of a driven student, pushing herself to study for such long hours that even Dracula has to remind her hey, you humans have to sleep sometimes, right? Dracula falls harder for her every time he has to gently wake her and get her to sleep in her appointed room instead of a laboratory desk, which is always. Dracula also smells Lisa bleeding, assumes it’s merely her “monthly courses,” and says nothing because that would be rude.

(He isn’t interested in the blood because hey, menstrual blood is all mixed up with mucus and uterine tissue, it’d be like a human eating a scrambled egg mixed with chicken shit and feathers)

About a week after Lisa comes to the castle, she asks Julia for help. Lisa has some wounds on her back she’s attempted to treat, but they’re in too awkward a position for Lisa to clean out and bandage properly. Julia gets one look at Lisa’s back and immediately calls for Dracula, because this is far, far above her skill level.

Dracula arrives full of curiosity that turns into rage when he sees Lisa has several infected whip marks on her back. Apparently the clergy in Lupu didn’t like a woman claiming proper wound care was as important as prayer when it came to healing injuries, and she was lashed as punishment.

It’s an ugly business, but Dracula takes care of the wounds as best he’s able. The treatment hurts like hell, and he’s impressed with Lisa’s ability to joke even while he’s applying antiseptic to open wounds. “I must be as blind to the truth of God as the priest claimed, since I’m lying down topless and allowing some sinister man with secret knowledge to touch me.”

Dracula grows super protective as he helps disinfect and heal Lisa’s wounds. By the time her wounds have healed into some gnarly scars, he’s spending most of his waking hours researching human biology with his “patient” and generally being amazed and delighted at how goddamn quick she learns. They rave about the possibilities of medical science together, argue over the effectiveness of teaching peasants how to heal injuries with proven remedies, and debate whether Dracula and his servants are demons from hell.

(Dracula and Isaac are convinced they are. Lisa, Hector, and Julia think otherwise)

Dracula reveals his past to Lisa--once he was Mathias Cronqvist, Crusader. His wife Elisabetha died of an illness while he was fulfilling “God’s” will by besieging the holy land. His twisted desire to avenge himself on “God” by becoming a vampire ended in the death of Sara Trantoul, an innocent woman and the fiance of Leon Belmont, Mathias’s dearest friend. Dracula is now pretty damn skeptical of the existence of God but is damn sure that the Church uses faith to enslave humanity and keep them weak, sick, and poor while the clergy grow in wealth and power by the day.

Even Lisa has to agree he has a point with that, but never stops believing that skepticism towards the Church or not, that’s no reason to hate all of humanity and turn a blind eye to their suffering, especially if someone has knowledge the improve humanity and the power to escape the Church’s efforts to squash said knowledge.

Dracula has to concede she has a point there.

One winter evening, Dracula and Lisa are taking tea and talking on one of Castlevania’s innumerable balconies when snow starts to fall. Dracula has a spark of inspiration and brings out one of the laboratory’s portable microscopes so Lisa can see the hidden symmetry of the snowflakes. Lisa is delighted.

“What incredible beauty, simply awaiting the right tools to reveal itself to the human eye! Think of what wonders are simply waiting for humans to find a way to see them.”

Dracula watches Lisa catch snowflakes and rush them to the microscope and realizes he has to have her around forever, or at least for as long as she’ll tolerate him. He proposes marriage to her right then and there.

(Look Alucard is AT LEAST 18 by the time Trevor and Sypha find him, and Lisa was murdered only 20 years after meeting Dracula. It’s canon Dracula jumped to put a ring on it).

Lisa accepts and gets the shock of her life when she realizes Dracula is serious about giving her a ring, a dress, a ceremony--the works. If he’s gonna marry her he’s gonna marry her.

Dracula designs at least three different wedding dresses, because Lisa deserves the best but he’s not sure what the best is. We’re talking lace and pearls and swan feathers, people. Lisa just sits back and lets him enjoy himself.

And the Ring! The soon-to-be Lady of the Castle must have a RING, one fitting her station. After several long talks with Lisa and poring over several arcane tomes, Dracula and Hector forge a ring out of silver, moonstone, rubies, and Dracula’s own blood. Not only will it protect Lisa from the nasties roaming Wallachia, she’ll have some power over Castlevania itself--enough for the castle to recognize her as someone it must protect.

The ring also fits her perfectly and will never tarnish, but those are side considerations.

The wedding is the supernatural event of the millennium. Werewolves howl in homage as succubi escort the bride to her groom, Lisa outshines the full moon with happiness as Dracula lifts her veil, and Castlevania itself shakes with cheers as Lisa and Dracula exchange rings. 

The wedding night is awkward, at first. Lisa’s never had sex and Dracula hasn’t had sex in a while. They take several treatises and manuals to bed and study them before and during the act. It’s awkward. There’s laughter. There’s also a lot of satisfaction.

Lisa convinces Dracula to “travel as a man” for the first time after their week-long honeymoon. (Lisa enjoys being a married woman but not even vampire lovin’ can keep her away from the books for more than a week). Dracula lasts all of a week away from Lisa before paranoia (and horniness) drives him back to Castlevania and the marriage bed.

With Lisa and Dracula always being so happy to see each other, it’s not long before Lisa notices hey, my period’s late and the smell of food cooking in the morning makes me want to blllLLAAARGH oh thank god I turned away from the books in time. 

Dracula worries over Lisa’s sudden illness until she tells him she’s likely pregnant. Then he’s PANICKED.

After Lisa calms him down and convinces that yes, I know women die from pregnancies, yes I want to keep our baby anyway, yes I acknowledge our baby may not be human but I still want to TRY and keep it, Dracula becomes the most involved father Wallachia has ever seen. 

He visits every single midwife in Translyvania and nearly gives several heart attacks. The finest craftsmen in all of Eastern Europe find themselves inundated with orders for beautiful gowns that fit loosely around the middle, jewel-encrusted cradles, rattles and bottles and booties fit for an imperial princeling.

Like with their wedding, Lisa sits back and lets Dracula enjoy himself. It gets him out of her hair. She’s got enough to deal with, now that blood smells oddly tasty. Carrying a vampire’s baby has some weird side effects.

Trevor Belmont’s father hears rumors that Dracula is forcing some poor peasant woman to carry his demonic seed. The Belmont clan has been enjoying not having to storm Castlevania, but Trevor’s father gears up to see if Lisa needs rescuing. There’s nearly a fight when Trevor’s father finds Lisa and Dracula sees a warrior with a whip near his beloved wife (Dracula always and reverently kisses Lisa’s scars when they are in bed together). Fortunately, Trevor’s father is amendable to reason and willing to let Lisa stay with Dracula. The Belmonts have enough to deal with when it comes to cyclopes and werewolves and lesser demons, why the hell stir up Dracula when he’s living quietly with his wife?

When Adrian is born, Dracula is banished from the room. No one’s concerned about him smelling blood and trying to eat Lisa; they’re concerned about him smelling blood and becoming the first vampire to die of a stroke.

Adrian is perfect and nothing anyone could ever say would convince Dracula and Lisa otherwise. Lisa wants more. Dracula’s not sure he could survive the fear and joy of seeing her with more of their children.

When Adrian grows up and brings home his lover Trevor Belmont and his lover’s lover Sypha Belnades, Dracula’s not sure he’ll survive that, either.