#Edmund Ruthven

[drawings-and-sketches]

(ID: Ruthven (white, black hair, silver eyes) and Grisaille (black, brown hair silvering on the ends, and red eyes). Both are vampires from the Greta Helsing series by Vivian Shaw. Image one is Ruthven lying in a bed, eyes closed and frowning as he speaks. We just see his shoulders and chest (though under covers). Image two, the "camera" moves back to reveal Grisaille sitting on the bed, his hand over Ruthven's. He is smiling and speaking, and Ruthven is smiling, not speaking. Both are wearing dark red pajamas. Text: Ruthven: Sorry, I'm not terribly entertaining at the moment. Grisaille: You don't have to be entertaining, you just have to be you, that's all. End ID).

This is a scene in Grave Importance by Vivian Shaw.

[mask131]

I made a brief introduction to the "fantastique" genre right here. I wanted to talk a bit more about the genre, by talking about some classifications of themes and archetypes. This is not a serious post just some small talks.

Jacques Baudou, in his "Encyclopedia of the fantastique", took back a classification made by Stephen King in his Anatomy of Horror, describing the four main figures of the fantastique as four types of "monsters" or "supernatural". For each, Baudou gave what he thought was a "key" work of the subgenre, plus additional texts.

Type 1: The Nameless Thing. Starting with the legend of the Golem and its literary or cinema adaptations, the "Nameless Thing" archetype was most famously embodied by Mary Shelley's Frankenstein - with the section of the book exploring the long literary and cinematic history of the Frankenstein Monster.

Type 2: The Vampire. Of course, the vampire fantastique is most famously embodied by Dracula/Nosferatu and their heavy, sprawling cultural heritage. Baudou also mentions the other literary vampires before Dracula (Lord Ruthven, Varney the Vampire, Carmilla).

[Baudou also also takes time to present the other fantastique works of Bram Stoker: The Jewel of Seven Stars, The Lair of the White Worm, The Judge's House, The Secret of the Growing Gold, Burial of the Rats, The Squax...]

Type 3: The Werewolf. Baudou speaks of the long and complex history of werewolf literature and werewolf movies, but for him the "key" fantastique works to reinvent the werewolf with is "Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde", as well as its many adaptations and rip-offs.

Type 4: Ghosts. Baudou mentions many authors who made famous the "ghost story" genre - Sheridan Le Fanu, Charles Dickens, Montague Rhodes James, and many more... But for him the highlight of the "fantastique ghost" is without a doubt The Turn of the Screw and its many adaptations. [As with Stoker before, he also makes an aside to list other fantastique works of Henry James: The Romance of Certain Old Clothes, The Last of the Valerii, The Ghostly Rental, Sir Edmund Orme, Owen Wingrave, The Real Right Thing, The Private Life, The Figure in the Carpet, The Friends of the Friends, The Jolly Corner, The Sense of the Past...]

To these four "main types", Baudou briefly adds two "minor themes" for him (others would argue they are MAJOR themes more prominent than vampires or werewolves, but I'm talking about Baudou's King-inspired classification).

Motif A: The Double. Most famously embodied by "The Portrait of Gray", but also present within Edgar Allan Poe's "William Wilson", Algernon Blackwood's "The man who was Milligan" or Guy de Maupassant "Lui?" (Him?).

Motif B: The malevolent item or cursed artefact. The most well-known use of this motif is W.W. Jacobs' The Monkey Paw, but one can also include in those Conan Doyle's The Silver Hatchet, Robert Bloch's The Pin or Agatha Christie's The Dressmaker's Doll.

However, before all of these, Baudou deems that the first figure of the fantastique, the original embodiment of the supernatural in the genre, was the figure of the Devil. It is widely considered that the root of the fantastique goes back to Jacques Cazotte's Le Diable amoureux (The Devil in love). It is not fantastique yet, but it is considered the first "supernatural modern novel", and to have opened the way for the fantastique genre to even exist (Nerval rather classified this novel as part of the "illuminism" genre). The main "myth" of the devil in literature and arts, especially within the fantastique genre, is of course the legend of Faust and its many adaptations. But Baudou offers many other early-fantastique works that explored the devil as a character: William Harrison Ainsworth's The Lancashire Witches, James Hogg's The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, Charles Nodier's Dead Man's Combe, Baudelaire's The Generous Gambler, Théophile Gautier's "Deux actes pour un rôle" (Two acts for one role), Emile Morice's La Griffe du Diable (The claw of the devil), Alphonse Karr's "Dieu et diable" (God and devil), or Gérard de Nerval's Portrait du diable (Portrait of the devil)... And while he is not a character in there per se, the devil is omnipresent as an obvious motif and implicit force in E.T.A. Hoffman's The Devil's Elixirs.

To Baudou's classification I want to oppose (or rather I present alongside it) the motifs chosen for the "Great anthology of the fantastique" that has been released in France in the 70s. They take back similar concepts above but present them as all equally important, and they can roughly be grouped as such:

The return of the dead, divided between "Ghosts" (spirits, apparitions, visions) and "Undead" (the dead returning in body, or variations like vampires).

Magic, divided between "Occultism" (esotericism, alliance with otherwordly powers or supernatural beings) and "Curses" (evil spells and other enchantments).

Demons, devils, infernal beings.

The double.

"The monster" (creatures and entities that do not fit any of the categories above)

The breaking between reality and un-reality, classified in three categories: "delirium" (madness, hallucinations, insanity), "nightmares" and "aberrations" (distortions, wrongness or abnormalities with space and/or time).

[lauralot89]

Incidentally, my introduction to Lord Ruthven was in the 2017 novel Strange Practice by Vivian Shaw, and here are a few of the reasons why I'll never be able to take him seriously as a threat:

He handed her a large pottery mug. She recognized it as one of the set he generally used for blood, and had to smile a little, looking down at the contents—and then abruptly had to clamp down on a wave of thoroughly inconvenient emotion. There was no reason that Ruthven doing goddamn latte art for her at half-past four in the morning should make her want to cry.

He was good at it, too, which was a little infuriating.

—

"Really," Ruthven had said when the question of his nature had first (awkwardly) arisen, early in their acquaintance, "the easiest thing is to think of me as a large well-dressed mosquito, only with more developed social graces and without the disease-vector aspect."

—

Slightly cheered up, Greta went to check on her latest patient and found Ruthven sitting by the burned monk's bed reading, yesterday's tie loosened, his shirtsleeves rolled up. Some of his hair had even escaped its usual aerodynamic styling process and drooped over his forehead. Absurdly and suddenly she wished she could draw, wanting to catch the scene on paper: Casual Dracula.

—

She hurried down the steps, and then had to stop for a moment, blinking, to fully take in the sight of Edmund Ruthven cradling a very small ghoul in his arms. His expression was not one Greta could ever recall having seen on those patrician features before: a kind of besotted astonishment. Tiny green hands clutched at his shirt.

[olroxistiredofeverything]

"I had a wife. Your grandmother, Lydie. And a friend too, if you can believe that. His name was Maxim. A vampire killed them both. Lord Ruthven." -Juste Belmont

Trying to research Lord [Edmund] Ruthven brought up some interesting details, considering that according to lore, he was the first vampire created in media before Bram Stoker's Dracula. I headcanon that he as old as Dracula and had a truce/friendship with the other till Vlad's demise.

When he went after the Belmont family, Ruthven successfully killed Lydie and mortally wounded Maxim before he fought Juste. He survived, but not without wounds and disfigurement.

Ruthven is a charismatic individual, relying on his good looks and decent mannerisms to seduce his prey. His favorite being young, pure women who are unwed. He lures them with the promise of marriage and once they have exchange vows, he slowly bleeds them out for over a year before they finally succumb.

This provides him with longevity and adds to his power/magic abilities. A British aristocrat with a selective taste in hunting, he also has studied dark arts that aid in becoming a high-tier vampire. Ruthven is also an excellent master when it comes to sword play.

also shoutout to @dahliadreamcraft for discussing this character with me

[lacedspine]

favorite canonical fruit

[ID: a digital drawing over a photo of a notebook of edmund ruthven from the greta helsing novels. he is drawn with pale skin, dark hair, and large silver eyes. he is wearing a partially unbuttoned red dress shirt and has a neutral expression. end ID.]

[lumau]

Oh, why, hello! If that isn’t Edmund Ruthven, your friendly neighbourhood vampire!

[hiridraws]

so yesterday i got my copy of strange practice and absolutely fucking loved it

so here’s a ruthven because i love my new gay sensible vampire dad

@ceruleancynic @vivianshaw

[sylphidine]

Tagged by @ksclaw

Rules: list your ten favorite characters from 10 different things and tag ten people.

1. Piki Black [Nightmare Dork University - online fandom]

2. Edmund Ruthven [STRANGE PRACTICE by Vivian Shaw - book series]

3. Charlie Francis [FRINGE - television series]

4. Vivian Charles [PUSHING DAISIES - television series]

5. Teddy Roosevelt [NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM - movie series]

6. Amelia Ducat [DOCTOR WHO - television series]

7. Fflewddur Fflam [THE CHRONICLES OF PRYDAIN - book series]

8. Vir Cotto [BABYLON 5 - television series]

9. Jeremy Hillary Boob [YELLOW SUBMARINE - movie]

10. Danny Oldsen [LOCAL HERO - movie]

Tagging:

@bowlingforgerbils

@drsquee

@fearking

@hurtbywhisperedmuses

@monsterbrush

@lithefider

@askthejackfrost

@w-i-s-s-l-e-r

@lunarlittlelight

@charmed7293

[drawings-and-sketches]

(ID: fanart of Ruthven (White) and Grisaille (Black), vampires from the Dr. Greta Helsing series by Vivian Shaw. They are on a red couch. Ruthven is sitting on it with his hands resting on the cushion and over Grisaille's hand. Grisaille is lying down, his head on Ruthven's lap. Both are smiling and have their eyes closed. Floor is brown and walls are pinkish. End ID)

[sylphidine]

I am enjoying this trilogy of books so much.  I don’t know *WHY* this series floats my boat so much, when much of current Big Five urban fantasy leaves me cold, but it’s possible that it appeals precisely *because* your AuntUncle Macabre identifies more than a wee bit with both Ruthven and Fass, as your AuntUncle Macabre is a caretaker at heart.

[I understand that Vivian Shaw started out as a fanfiction writer before contracting with Orbit.]

Strange Practice is a great book and you should read it too! 

[tudorhqs]

Below you will find the assigned pairs for the plot drop. We encourage all members to have at least one thread between you and your partner pertaining to the events. Pairs are to remain as stated below, unless a member decides not to participate whereupon they may be adjusted, and cannot leave the rooms they are in until the lock down is over. If there are any questions please do not hesitate to ask! 

Marguerite of Valois & Henry Tudor Ellie Tallboys & Juana of Spain  Francis of France & Charles V  Henry Carey & Eleanor Brandon Caelan Maddox & Katherine Stanley Anna of Cleves & Felix Etienne du Vallon Juan Alvarez & Edward Seymour Jane Seymour & Mark Smeaton Antoine de Conde & Francis Weston Elena Darrell & Serge-Louis Baro Philip Habsburg & Isabelle of Lorraine Catherine Parr & Thomas Wyatt Alastrine Seymour & Anne Boleyn Grace Sherrington & Soren Feldt George Boleyn & Grace Cromwell James Stewart & Mary de Guise Joanna of York & Sebastian of Portugal Li Shi & Octavia Lennox Elizabeth Blount & Violette de Gruchy Amalia of Cleves & Maria of Austria Owen Mountbatten & Sarah Talbot Harvey de Gruchy & Thomas Cromwell Ciaran Darcy & Mary Tudor Edmund Fiennes & Mary Fitzroy Bridget of York & Nicholas Seymour Barnat Fodor & Dorothea Stewart Ruthven Henry Fitzroy & Phillip of Warwick Anne de Pisseleu d’Heilly & Clement Stafford Eleanor of France & Mary Rose Tudor Evanna Caomhanach & Elisif Almstedt

[singinrevelry]

Monte @personalmephistopheles tagged me to list 10 fav characters from 10 different things! Here we go!

Lord Edmund Ruthven, the Greta Helsing novels

Jean Tannen, the Gentleman Bastards Sequence

Sand dan Glokta, the First Law Trilogy

Faramir, LOTR

Guinan, Star Trek Next Generation

Garak, Star Trek Deep Space Nine

Bertie Wooster, Jeeves and Wooster stories

Anne Lister, Gentleman Jack

Gann of Dreams, Mask of the Betrayer

Rasaad yn Bashir, Baldur’s Gate

[lacedspine]

someone made the mistake of rbing my ruthven art and now i have to go back and read all the scenes in book 3 that contain him

[drawings-and-sketches]

(ID: Grisaille (black), a vampire from The Dr. Greta Helsing series by Vivian Shaw. He has long dark brown hair in dreads and red eyes. He's wearing a blue robe with silver feathers on the collar, and a silver belt. The background is red, an an off-screen voice is saying "Why do you look better in my robes than I do?" End ID)

[drawings-and-sketches]

(ID: Five images, digital fanart of Dr. Greta Helsing (female, white) and Edmund Ruthven (male, white) from the Dr. Greta Helsing series by Vivian Shaw. Greta is kneeling on the ground feeling Ruthven's ankle, which is propped up on a red footrest with gold legs. He is sitting in a blue armchair, watching her. She looks mildly irritated in every image, and Ruthven's expression doesn't change till the end when he looks guilty. The background is bare, brown floor and light tan wall with no decoration.

text (image number and name of character speaking at beginning)

2, Ruthven: Are you mad at me?

3, Greta: *sigh*

4, Greta: I told you to stay off your ankle, and you didn't listen to me.

5, Greta: So what do you think? End ID).