#TRANSPHOBES DO NOT FUCKING INTERACT

[doofnoof]

In Defense Of Mrs. Westenra:

This is going to sound absolutely insane, but I understand why Mrs. Westenra removed the garlic from Lucy's room, and think it was a genuine attempt at kindness rather than a selfish act done entirely foolishly, though regardless of her motives she's still doomed poor Lucy to death.

Let me explain: we're seeing some masterful use of dramatic irony here, I almost wish I could buy Bram Stoker a drink for how positively stunningly he's put the dramatic irony into motion, because it is absolutely sickening and heartwrenching knowing that Lucy is well and truly going to get even sicker and then die, because her mother removed the one thing protecting her from Dracula from her room.

We the audience are fully aware that this is a bad thing Mrs. Westenra has done, that she's doomed her daughter and is putting her directly in danger, that her smugness at the situation is so entirely misplaced that we want to scream and cry and curse and pull our hair out the way Van Hellsing did the instant she left the room, or the way Seward's anger is barely contained as he writes out today's entry. Bravo to the Re: Dracula cast for how downright upsetting this episode was, from hearing a usually silly man weep aloud to almost being able to see Seward's jaw clench from how he recounts what happened. You can almost imagine how Van Hellsing must have wept when his son died, as he loves Lucy as if she were his own daughter.

But here's the thing. Mrs. Westenra has been left out of the loop of what's happening with Lucy, she's unaware that Lucy knows she's sick, and with only a little time left she needs to get Lucy well enough to get married, so that when Mrs. Westenra inevitably dies Lucy is taken care of, she has enough money and a good enough reputation to get the care she needs when Mrs. Westenra can't try to provide it for her anymore. This is a very old-fashioned way of thinking, but Mrs. Westenra was raised in an old-fashioned time, likely when there was a cholera outbreak in London and the bad air theory first started to circulate, while Lucy is being raised in a new and (what must seem to Mrs. Westenra) frightening London, and old people are often set in their ways even now.

How many times have you, the audience, been told by a well-meaning older person in your life to "just hit the streets" when out looking for a job? They don't understand that times have changed, and it's easier to just nod and smile and say "sure thing, you're absolutely right Peepaw, I'll do just that" than to argue with them on it, because they're looking at the world through their lived experiences, the past, rather than how the world is currently.

Mrs. Westenra is also a disabled woman, she has a congenital heart disease that has only recently been fully diagnosed, and her life is slowly dwindling to an end, and she is watching helplessly as her daughter is sick with a disease no one seems able to cure. She has every right to be suspicious of Van Hellsing and Seward, because they can't and won't even tell her what's causing Lucy's illness, won't explain the garlic, and didn't even tell her they'd put garlic in her room.

Van Hellsing knows it's a vampire and can't fill anyone in on it, because that's supernatural hogwash, old-fashioned buffoonery, flying in the face of logic and science and everything the New London is striving for. Nobody would believe him anyways. Lucy thought the garlic was ridiculous, and even Seward himself felt as though Hellsing was being irrational (when Seward was Hellsing's student, and looked up to him as though he knew every secret in the world, but still questioned him on this one thing, fearing Hellsing was turning to Oujia Boards and Crystal Balls instead of Science and Logic,) and both only understood and accepted that Hellsing knew what he was doing from his intense and dead serious response to being questioned, and then seeing for themselves that Lucy had slept well, and had color in her cheeks again.

Mrs. Westenra saw none of this. She does not knows who Hellsing is, doesn't know that Lucy trusts him more than she trusts anyone else in the world save for Mina, and she doesn't know that he's helped Arthur save Lucy's life, nor does she know that Seward is in much the same boat, that he'd given his own blood and sleep and sanity for Lucy's sake out of love for her and his friendship with Arthur and Hellsing, who in turn trusts him with Lucy's health and safety.

Mrs. Westenra does know some things though. She knows that doctors, who rely on science and logic, weren't able to catch her heart problems in time to save her life, that she's dying and becoming rapidly unable to take care of her daughter, who is also sick with an illness doctors previously haven't been able to diagnose and treat. It went away on it's own, and came back again worse than ever before later in life, much like Mrs. Westenra's heart problem. This may seem foolish, but part of why I love Dracula is because every character feels like someone you might meet today, rather than a person almost 100 years ago.

How many times have we, the audience, heard of medical malpractice going unpunished and ignored, especially because the target of the malpractice was a woman? There must be at the very least a handful of you. I know from experience (personal and from being there for friends and family) what it's like to be told you're imagining your pain (in hysterics), you're being over-dramatic, (you're hysterical) it's just normal period pain and will go away (women and the constant fainting at the slightest pain, amiright fellas), have you tried losing weight, have you tried exercise and fresh air, have you tried eating this one diet or another, maybe it's all mental, go to this doctor or that and doing exactly as you're told only to be met with a door to the face, and if you're lucky, eventually getting diagnosed and maybe even given medicine for your ailments instead of just a bill and a smack on the ass. Mrs. Westenra finally got a clear answer for herself as it was revealed she's dying. Lucy has yet to get an answer.

So lets put all of this together. Mrs. Westenra is watching as strange men sneak around her home and into her daughter's room, she's just been diagnosed with a disease that is killing her and there's nothing the doctors can do to fix it, I doubt she trusts any doctors right now even though we the audience know she's dealing with a really wonderful doctor, even Mr. Medical Malpractice Warning himself is doing everything in his power to make Lucy well again, and for the first time since his introduction with his proposal to Lucy, he's putting logic aside to be kind to someone who is relying on him for help, promising to wake Lucy from her sleep if she has nightmares. Mrs. Westenra doesn't know this. She's going to die, her daughter is keeping secrets from her, and her saving grace is that Lucy is going to be married to a good and kind gentleman who will use his wealth to keep her relatively healthy seeing as Lucy is going to be his wife, and she can't have anyone making Lucy seem like an unchaste woman lest her plan falls apart and she's not able to make sure her daughter is wed and thus, safe. Mrs. Westenra knows that even gossip of Lucy sleeping around could make the whole thing fall apart, because Arthur has a reputation to uphold, and so does Lucy. Lucy is a new woman in a society where the old ways are dying or being reborn, and likely doesn't understand her mother's fears, knows that her friends would never hurt her, but that doesn't matter in the eyes of society because at the end of the day she is an unwed woman left alone with a man, a prior suitor no less. She walks into her daughters room and sees these men have left flowers everywhere, and worse is that they stink to high heavens.

Lucy seems better, but Mrs. Westenra has never gotten to see what Lucy looked like after Dracula fed on her, so to Mrs. Westenra these heavily scented flowers are going to look like something doing more harm than good. She knows from being raised in an old-fashioned society that fresh air does a lot of good, that's why Lucy went on that vacation with Mina, and she doesn't know how bad Lucy's sleepwalking got because everyone stopped telling her anything after they found out about her heart, at Lucy's behest no less. She feels like fresh air works, and these idiot doctors trained in the new ways (that have proven unhelpful, they couldn't save her could they, so how would they know what Lucy needs?) have gunked up her daughter's room and are inadvertently making her worse with the foul smelling flowers. Mrs. Westenra was probably alive as well when the cholera pandemic was in full swing and explained as being caused by bad air, and she can see her daughter is sick and wants to help her. So she takes the noxious flowers out of Lucy's room and opens the windows, and tries to get the men-folk to understand that they're no longer needed, not understanding herself that her attempt to rid the room of bad air has instead let what's keeping Lucy sick in rather than keeping it out, and by trying to protect Lucy from being preyed upon she has inadvertently let a very evil thing who is going to prey on Lucy in every meaning of the word into her room, where she should have been safe.

She doesn't know she's in a horror novel, and she only has what she can see as evidence. She made the wrong choice because she loves her daughter and is trying to take care of her, even though she's failing miserably because she's applying a bandaid to a burn wound, so to speak. Right now many people hate Mrs. Westenra for her smug attitude and for letting something evil hurt her daughter, for undoing all the hard work Seward and Hellsing have given up sleep and blood for, but I think it's a little unfounded. She's an old fashioned woman in a new world, doing her best for her daughter's sake, and it's not her fault she doesn't know all of the details, and she can't know the details because it will kill her and possibly make Lucy's situation even more dire.

That's what makes Lucy's death so tragic. To save Lucy they'd need to scare Mrs. Westenra and she would die, which would affect Lucy horribly and more than likely kill her as well. If Lucy dies Mrs. Westenra will follow suit. So they have to keep both alive, and that can't happen as long as Dracula has his sights set on Lucy. It's dramatic irony because only we know that it's Dracula, that the garlic helps, that the supernatural is real, that Dracula is a thinking thing that intends to kill Lucy. Van Hellsing can't tell Seward what's killing Lucy, and even if Seward believed Hellsing, he would never be able to tell the Westenras because their health is caught in such a fragile balancing act, and they'd never believe either of them anyways. The only thing that could save Lucy is Jonathan, and he comes back to London far too late, half out of his mind and trying desperately to live the life he'd always wanted with his new wife.

It makes the scene where Dracula well and truly fucks up by feeding on Mina that much more powerful, because Dracula doesn't understand nor realize that Jonathan will kill him for doing to Mina what he had done to Jonathan, and the Harker's friends, Lucy's suitors, experienced firsthand the suffering of losing someone they love more than life itself. Lucy had to die for Dracula to be vanquished. Lucy's mother had to make the bad decision so the story could end with Dracula's death.

Without her death, Lucy's Polycule wouldn't have had the push they needed to band together for the Harkers (who get to have what Lucy lost. Lucy and Arthur could have been married happily, so entirely in love, and seeing as Seward and Quincey both almost had that with Lucy had they not been rejected and are Arthur's closest and most trusted friends, all of them suffering in unison because of Lucy's death, Lucy is the piece that ties everyone together. Everyone in Dracula loves Lucy. The polycule knows what it's like to lose the love of their lives, and they see Dracula trying to put Jonathan through that same suffering, they see Dracula hurting Mina who Lucy arguably loved the most out of any one of them, and decide they can't let it happen ever again.)

[gr3at-s4ge]

@tailgxted dont even worry about it!! dumbasses who wanna be transphobic recieve the Block Of Shame and arent allowed to my comedy night :)

nonbinary lesbian coming out of a haunted house voice that scared the she/it out of me

[yourlocalbadgerscales]

Trans rights you fuckers. Y’all know who you are.

Just clogging your tags before you can clog the toilets with all your shit. No need to thank me, terfs <3

[loseiso]

This is what happens when you go against trans people btw.

The trans community has been TELLING you that cis children will be hurt by the extreme transphobia in the last few years.

But go on continuing saying trans women are the biggest threat to feminism you dumb fucks.

[burningtheroots]

People when a "transphobic" person posts about women experiencing violence & speaks up against misogyny:

"Yeah sure but OP is transphobic"

People when a misogynistic person posts about transphobia & speaks up for the trans community:

"Yay!!! Thank you!!! Love you!!! You‘re so right!!!"

Do you see the difference? You can’t tell me that you haven’t seen it yourself.

When someone speaks against misogyny/for women, it becomes irrelevant to these people as soon as OP is "transphobic" BUT when someone speaks against transphobia/for the trans community, it doesn’t matter if OP is misogynistic or not.

Just like you‘ll see countless "transphobes/TERFs dni" but rarely to never "misogynists/male supremacists dni".

[radykalny-feminizm]

The jokes write themselves at this point

[2econd2ight2yd]

real pic of me going through the gnc lesbian tag and having to block a zillion terfs/radfem blogs

[luminous-lavender]

Got an ask on my main blog asking me if I was trans. I want to die.

[sentientsky]

“gender critical” bbg you’re just transphobic scum u can’t hide it behind pseudo-academic jargon and pretend that makes you anything more than a fucking piece of shit

[inniave]

so fucking sick of the constant misgendering. it's exhausting. even from fellow queer people??????? who know me?????????? HELLO?????????????

[jaegerisim]

what makes someone trans? if a black woman wasn't black, she'd still be a woman. if a disabled woman wants disabled, she'd still be a woman. if a heterosexual woman wasn't heterosexual, she'd still be a woman. if a trans woman wasn't trans.... she'd be a man 👨 😩 🤣 😂 😭 👨

[thatonegaybrit]

; update so apparently Myles is " obsessive " over xis identity but xe did js witness a transphobe counter xis arguement by sending xim countless ( like 50+ ) images of 'interestedly' dressed trans people as a " GOTCHA !! TRANS PEOPLE ARE WEIRDDD SEEE " and honestly xe did an irl slowly backs away. Xe is so very uh. Emotions.

[lem0nademouth]

finally ripping the bandaid off and saying my worst, most violent experiences of my queerness have been in interactions with the lesbian community. y’all need to get your shit together.

[assmaster-8000]

why don't clothes fit me the way they do on a skinny cis guy (<- isn't a skinny cis guy)

[willowroom]

Why is it that 9/10 every transphobe/terf is like blatantly a pedophile. Like you can't tell me the obsession with wanting to see children's gentiles to know if they're cis or not isn't pedophilia. Don't get me started on the transphobes that swear up and down that trans people are grooming kids but then their entire twitter will be posts saying "there's nothing wrong with wanting to fuck this clearly 8 year old anime girl! She's actually 5000 years old!!!"

Transphobia harbours pedophilia

[honeysunchild]

Libraries are just about the punkest places in existence and ppl wanna be transphobic in them? Not on my watch fuck you very much