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[thegoatsongs]

Sad thought, but do you think Quincey could recognize his dad pre-Dracula? In the bad end au he's always known Jonathan as a hollow whisp of a man with permanently sunken in eyes. If he saw his parents' marriage photograph, Quincey probably wouldn't recognize him.

It’s a very jarring image for sure

(Changed it to a courting/engagement photo for greater contrast, as Jonathan was still pretty worn looking when he got married. A little something for the two to find when they drop by the old Harker home in Exeter)

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Reblog to hug prev poster (they need a hug)

[thegoatsongs]

media: the very serious brooding asshole character is actually super deep and complex

me: ok

media: the dumb joke character is actually super deep and complex

me: ghhogoohhh. ohhhh oh mygod. oh m. oh. are you kidding me. oh i am going to throw the fuck up over this

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how?? just how?

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Well what’s the fucking point then

[thegoatsongs]

the brothers karamazov, fyodor dostoyevsky

[thegoatsongs]

MinaxJonathan, knife, waiting for the Czarina Catherine while Mina is gradually changing more and more

His and Hers Knives

(Summary: PG-13 for mentions of suicide and a swear

Jonathan has knives for Dracula, or for anyone else who might try to separate him from Mina, and Mina has a knife of her own.)

The gentle scrape of blade upon whetstone did not awaken Mina. It was a quiet, soothing sound, though Jonathan doubted even the passing by of a circus could rouse her from her slumber before she was ready. Regardless, he tried to keep quiet while she slept, and he doubted this sound would have even bothered her before she’d been bitten.

Not that he was the sort to sharpen knives in the wee hours, before. Much had changed in the past few months. He wasn’t the same man who had set out on a train to Buda-Pesth and beyond for an ailing Mr. Hawkins.

A few more strokes had his kukri knife razor sharp. He set it aside and drew another knife, a Bowie, from a sheath within his waistcoat. He wet the stone, then began sharpening its blade. 

He kept four knives on his person, these days. The kukri was the most obvious. It was the statement, and the other concealed blades whatever punctuation it required. Let it not be said that Jonathan Harker wasn’t communicative.

He sharpened the Bowie, then his boot knife, and finally the curved karambit. This had become his nightly ritual, almost a knightly ritual, as he watched over Mina’s unnatural slumber. Dracula had come upon her in their bedchamber. Never again. Though Dracula was far away, concealed in the bowels of the Czarina Catherine, Jonathan still kept his vigil.

It wasn’t only for Dracula that he sharpened his blades. Van Helsing and Seward’s eyes were ever on Mina, assessing her sluggish pulse and her sharpening teeth and that terrible burned mark upon his pale forehead. If they could not hunt down and destroy Dracula to free Mina’s soul, they would come for her.

And if they did, they would find Jonathan. 

There would have to be a strategy to the order in which he addressed them, he knew. If they brought Godalming and Morris along, they would have to be dealt with first, though he’d have to be wary of Seward’s right hook if his phonograph entries were to be believed. Van Helsing would be last. Though his brain was the biggest threat to Mina’s continued existence, his body was slow and frail with age, and with the others gone, he would be easy to dispatch.

“Jonathan.”

If the two doctors came alone, that would be better. They might, if they underestimated Jonathan’s devotion to Mina. Then he could silence them, and catch Morris and Godalming unawares. 

“Jonathan.”

It wouldn’t be easy to take a life, but he could steel himself for Mina’s sake. A man had to protect his wife. ‘Til death do us part,’ what weak resolve was that? He would be hers beyond death, beyond ‘un-death’.

“Jonathan!” Chill hands and an insistent voice drew him from his dark thoughts, and he finally blinked and saw that Mina had awoken and taken his hands in her own around the hilt of his kukri, which he must have picked back up at some point of his musings. Mina’s hands looked ethereally pale against his.

“My love, where were you?” she asked. Here she was, so sickly pale, yet worried about him. He shook his head.

“Lost in thought.” He put the knife down so he could take her hands properly. “I’m sorry.”

She kissed him, just a chaste press of lip to lip. They had not known each other as husband and wife since she’d been bitten. Mina felt herself unclean, and though Jonathan thought her still as pure and holy as an angel, he would not press her into couplings she did not enthusiastically welcome. These light touches would suffice him. 

“I fear I’ll be asleep again soon. Come lie by me, while we still have time.”

Jonathan sat his kukri on the bedside table and joined Mina in bed. She pulled something from beneath her pillow and pressed it into his hands.

It was another knife, in a leather sheath, its handle wrapped in a black ribbon tied securely in a knot.

“I asked Mr. Morris to get me a blade. It’s a fine one, isn’t it?” Mina motioned for Jonathan to unsheath it.

He drew it out. It was a simple boning blade, thin and straight, almost delicate, especially when compared to his kukri. Jonathan ran his finger along the flat of the blade, then against the silk ribbon-wrapped hilt.

“I see you decorated it.” 

Mina smiled at him. “Yes, it’s silly, but I wanted to make it my own. Will you show me how to sharpen it?”

Jonathan nodded. There was nothing he could deny her, except… except that which she’d asked at her ‘funeral’. 

“In the daylight hours, when you’re more awake,” he promised. He slid it back into its sheath and handed it back to her.

“Good. I need it to be sharp.”

“God be willing, you’ll never get close enough to Dracula or any other enemy to need a sharp knife,” he said. He reached over and picked up the kukri. “That’s what this is for.”

She smiled again, lips closed. All of her smiles were like that, these days. Hiding her teeth, fearing the day they became fangs. 

“I know it is. Each thing has its purpose, Jonathan. This knife is not for him. It’s for… it’s for me.”

Her voice caught, and Jonathan looked up at her sharply.

“No,” he said. He reached over to take the knife from her, but she drew it away and cradled it to her breast. He could have wrested it away from her, but he couldn’t bear to handle her so harshly, so he drew back, letting her keep the little blade.

“Listen to me, husband,” she pleaded. “I can feel myself changing. I am clinging to the same hope we all are, but… but we must be ready, in case that hope fails.”

“That is what the kukri is for,” he said again. “If we cannot be together as man and wife, then I will serve you as your protector and thrall, and keep away any who would harm you. You can have my blood, my body, my life. As long as we’re together, I don’t care about anything else!”

“But I do!” Mina’s voice rose to match his own in volume and passion. “Perhaps you could find it in your heart to love me as a vampire, but I could not love myself. I must be human, or else I must be a corpse. If you love me, listen to me.”

Jonathan loved her, and so he listened. He forced his hand to release the white-knuckled grip on the kukri’s handle.

“Go on, then,” he whispered.

She nodded, and her eyes shone with tears as she continued.

“I borrowed a book on anatomy from Dr. Seward to be sure. This little blade should be long enough to pierce a heart. If Dracula escapes us and the transformation is upon me, I want you to…”

A sob interrupted her, and she swallowed hard. “I want you to use it on me. I’m very afraid, but I think if it’s such a thin blade, and if it’s plenty sharp and in the hands of someone I love… I think, then, that I could bear it.”

Jonathan couldn’t hold back his tears at the thought of that, and both of them took each other by the hand, crying. 

“A-and I would w-want you to go on with your life, and find happiness, but…”

“Without you? There could never be such a thing,” Jonathan interrupted. 

Mina nodded, and wiped a hand at her eyes. “I know, my love. And if that be the case, then, this knife can be for you as well.”

Jonathan drew her into his arms. “Thank you, my dearest. Thank you.” Her words delivered to him such profound relief that he hasn’t known since she’d arrived by his side at the Hospital of Saint Joseph and Saint Mary in Budapesh to marry him. He could face whatever peril, so long as at the end of it, he ended up where she was, be it heaven, hell, or their home in Exeter.

“It’ll be romantic, in a way,” Mina said, head nestled into his shoulder, her tears beginning to soak through his nightshirt. “Our hearts’ blood, mingled together on one blade. Together to the end.”

Jonathan nodded. “I c-can draw up our wills, that we will be buried together, in the same coffin, with this knife laid beside us if you’d like.”

He felt her nod against his neck. His wonderful, perfect bride and her obsession with the macabre. How he adored her.

They held each other until their tears had all been shed, and then Jonathan wiped first her eyes, then his own with his handkerchief. 

Mina’s eyelids began to sink lower, her pulse slowing. She yawned, but made barely a sound. 

“I fear… I cannot stay awake much longer….” 

Jonathan lowered her down onto the bed. “Sleep, love.”

He tucked her in, and took his seat once more. Now he had five knives to sharpen during his vigil. He held the kukri in his right hand, the little boning knife in his left, considering both. Dracula would die, or the Harkers would. 

He raised the kukri up, admiring the deadly sharp edge of the blade. It would be Dracula or the Harkers, and they knew where Dracula fucking slept.

[thegoatsongs]

Being as Dracula Daily is starting up again in about three days, I think this is a perfect opportunity, as we follow along this year, to play the PG-13 game.

For the unfamiliar, the PG-13 game is as follows: you are allowed to insert one and only one instance of the word "fuck" into the text as written. For maximum impact, where do you put it?

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Just saw a goth girl on a dating app. Spider tattoo on her neck, purple hair, black nails, fishnets, etc. Her top spotify songs were all taylor swift. This is a prime example of Batesian mimicry, in this essay, I will

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Ensemble, 1900 - 1901

[thegoatsongs]

Being as Dracula Daily is starting up again in about three days, I think this is a perfect opportunity, as we follow along this year, to play the PG-13 game.

For the unfamiliar, the PG-13 game is as follows: you are allowed to insert one and only one instance of the word "fuck" into the text as written. For maximum impact, where do you put it?

[thegoatsongs]

Scott McCloud’s incomparable “Understanding Comics”.

I swear you can open this book to any page and it’s amazing.

(ps it’s actually a digital image of a printed copy of a drawing of a painting of a pipe)

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Bisclavret, 2022 by Walton Ford (b. 1960)

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Herbert James Draper (English, 1863-1920)

“Go Lovely Rose! Tell her that Wastes her Time and Mine”

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He who supposes he knows God's greatness diminishes it; he who does not wish to diminish it does not know it. Magnitudinem dei qui se putat nosse, minuit; qui non vult minuere, non novit. --Minucius Felix, "Octavius" 18.9