#and hey! Utterson’s there!

[ethereal-bumble-bee]

ok so I downloaded mazm’s jekyll and hyde game and honestly it’s so good

[leafmint-does-a-meow]

Could you imagine how fucked Jekyll would have been if the potion hadn’t changed his appearance?

Yeah, you know Dr Jekyll, that esteemed doctor? Yeah. He went absolutely batshit insane last year and no one knows why. Yeah.

[spineless-lobster]

Jekyll and hyde starting with a description of a pathetic old man is the best way to entice me, I’m hooked already

[thegameartist03]

b plot characters time!!

Henry Clerval and Elizabeth Lavenza

i’m too tired to write out a coherent character thing, but they are both trans and they swap names and disguise themselves so Henry can go to college and become a doctor with Victor and Elizabeth can escape her family. Justine and maybe William could be in on it but i haven’t thought about their characters enough so idk yet

everything goes well until Victor straight up disappears and they decide to search for him.

and Mr. Gabriel John Utterson!

his design stumped me for a while so it might not stay the same. he ends up bumping into Henry and Elizabeth on their search for Victor, sort of figures out what’s up with them, realizes they aren’t great at this whole undercover thing, and decides to help them (he’s 100% an ally). they’re headed to the same place anyway, and even investigating the same person (a ‘Dr. Henry Jekyll’ aka Victor using the name of his fav mysteriously disappeared scientist)

Utterson is searching for someone as well, the REAL Henry Jekyll in fact. instead of the book ending, Hyde managed to give Utterson the slip, avoid the police, and all but disappear with a final message at the end of Jekyll’s confession challenging the lawyer to find him. Utterson has been searching for years, both for Hyde and for answers about his good friend Jekyll, but they keep dancing around each other.

[theotherrichardpapen]

sydney theatre company - strange case of dr. jekyll & mr. hyde (start here - caitlyn siehl // herakles - euripides // orestes - euripides // a place where someone loves you - neil hilborn)

[wolfythewitch]

Hey actually while I'm here . Opinion(s) on the Scarlet Pimpernel musical and the Count of Monte Cristo musical? Falcon in the Dive is So good both in context and out

Side - John Utterson's singing part in His Work And Nothing More makes me grin so hard. The song in general is a personal standout for how the layering of every party within it gives me goosebumps. And Jekyll wailing Lisa's name in the background? Big fan. "His work is a crime to be forgiven" is SUCH an good line too!!

The depths of a relationship implied and unsaid from the simple indication that they've talked about what to do if Jekyll does go off the rails. And especially the commitment to go through with it.

I love both those musicals! Though I've only listened to the full thing once, and mostly just loop specific songs. Madame Guillotine and I Will Be There my beloveds. The Riddle and Everyday a Little Death too

[xtarotdollx]

Hey do you ever think about how the entirety of The Strange Case is told in the past tense. So when the books says “I let my brother go to the devil in his own way, he [Utterson] used to say quaintly” to us this is the beginning of the book, but to Gabe he has already been through everything. Do you ever think that he stopped saying this little phrase of his because of Jekyll. That he USED to be kind and trusting of everyone, and non judgmental of peoples faults, but Jekylls crimes and betrayal changed him somehow? That’s after the events of the book the greif and trauma changed him and he actually is no longer the lovely perfect comfort man we know and love but someone much colder, jaded, and isolated??? Anyway I’m doing great thanks for asking

[incorrectclandestinelaboratories]

Hyde: "I'm not going to say if I did the stupid thing or not, that's my business and if you're going to make assumptions keep them to yourself."

Utterson, from the other room: "Hey, who used glitter tape to try and fix a window?"

[celestetcetera]

🙋 i am curious

IM SO GLAD YOU ASKED ‼️

So me and @happistar were chatting a bit ago and the topic somehow landed on Hey what if there was a Disney Channel Original adaptation of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Y'know, cuz they love loosely basing those off things you'd read in english class

We ended up with an entire plot summary. Below the cut bc I will not spare a single detail

Okay so this would be set in peak Disney Channel Original era, aka 2000-2010s, in highschool bc of course. Our protagonist is Henrietta Jekyll, a teen girl, bc that's your typical DCO protagonist.

She goes by Jekyll, because she hates her first name, and occasionally Dr. Jekyll, because her friends & chemistry teacher call her that as a quirky nickname for being very determined to get a PHD one day.

Jekyll's a certified Nerd™ who excels in chemistry, gets straight As, and participates in like 8 different clubs. Truly the academic pride of the school! She’s also overworked and definitely needs to take time for herself.

Her besties are Utterson and Lanyon, who tbh we never decided whether they get genderbent or not. They basically make up your bestie friend group of the DCO. The only bullet point I noted about Utterson is that they're like that one kid in good omens -- clearly born to do taxes. We know they're going to law school

So Jekyll wants to be popular, but her nerdiness keeps getting in the way. Like for instance, homecoming is on the horizon, and though her friends asked if she would go, she insists she can’t because she’s got too much homework (and is also kinda nervous).

So, with encouragement from her chemistry teacher, Mr. Stevenson (referencing RLS ofc), she creates a potion that will draw forth her Cool Side. This creates her alter ego, who names herself Emma Hyde. Emma because it's the name she's always liked, and Hyde because uhh… first thing that popped into her head?

Hyde has the cool goth/emo aesthetic, and with her laid back personality, easily slots into the Cool Kids. Oh, and among these cool kids is Dani Carew -- your typical bitchy popular girl.

(Do NOT question how signing up for class works at all. Hyde probably introduces herself as a transfer student (more like transformation student hahaha) and that’s all she needs because paperwork doesn’t exist in Disney Channel Original Movies.)

Cue your school based alter ego shenanigans. Jekyll likes the thrill of being Hyde but she's also worried because Hyde consistently ditches class, doesn't pay attention, and mouths off at the teachers. The only teacher that seems to even remotely like her is Stevenson, but he just likes everyone really. Jekyll is also frustrated because her grades are suffering.

Once homecoming comes around, Hyde's the one that ends up going. She has a great time! There’s a bit of a “oooh who’s this cool new kid” Cinderella moment. Jekyll wakes up feeling so alive after the experience!

There's probably a romantic love triangle thing going on as well, bc what's your DCO without romance. Not sure if both Jekyll and Hyde to have separate love interests or the same guy falls for both of them, but either way it is accidentally very polyamorous.

Anyway, at some point some drama between Jekyll & Carew escalates and Hyde decides to "murder" her. Since this is a DCO she will not be beating her to death with her cane, and instead just killing her popularity by spreading around an embarrassing photo or something.

This causes Lanyon to take issue with Jekyll's experiments, claiming she's gone too far. They have a fight that culminates in Lanyon exposing Jekyll/Hyde as the same person to the whole school.

Upset, Jekyll/Hyde have a Confrontation style fight before realizing that they have to accept each other to be their true self. They create a "cure" that merges them back together for a DCO happy ending. The moral is you have to embrace both sides of your personality, and Jekyll learns that while her school work is important, so is taking the time to have fun like Hyde. Post-merge, she retains Hyde's signature emo eyeshadow, and goes by Emma as often as Jekyll.

In like the last 5 minutes Mr. Stevenson reveals that he made the same potion back when he was a teen, which explains his affection for Hyde. We see a pic of his Hyde side, which is appropriately Cool for the 1970s. He also comments that he’s glad to see Jekyll has learned to take some time for herself. The end :)

[see-arcane]

On this week's Jekyll and Hyde Weekly:

Jekyll: Utterson, I am definitely 100% for sure done with Hyde. Look, he sent this letter telling me he was leaving forever.

Utterson: How convenient! One moment.

Utterson, digging around in the Pile o' Victorian Era Clerks: Hey can you take a look at this, Mr. Guest?

Guest: Sure!

-0.5 seconds of handwriting comparison later-

Guest: Golly, it sure is strange how Hyde and Jekyll's handwriting is almost exactly the same :)

Utterson, is developing an ulcer and planning to name it Jekyll: Ha ha yeah sure is :)

[strangestcase]

Y’know Utterson’s fate as a horror protagonist is as darkly funny as it is tragic . Your closest most beloved friend mysteriously vanishes leaving you all his fortune and a letter that says “hey man sorry I was weird. I am going insane.”

[arbitrarycategories]

Hey would you mind sharing what the real point of jekyll and hyde is that Hollywood missed? I have never read the book

You just made my night actually THANK YOU

Long so it’s under a cut :)

(you should totally read the book, it’s not super long and it’s actually really good)

okay tw murder and suicide and like. Violence I guess. It’s a psychological thriller from the Victorian era idk what y’all expect

Alright here’s the part where I admit I’ve never seen a Jekyll and Hyde movie but I HAVE seen various iterations of him in pop culture monster movies where he’s some quirky background character yknow?? The pop culture idea of this guy is kind of wild

First things first!!! Pop culture would have you believe that Dr. Jekyll has a wife or a girlfriend or some shit that Mr. Hyde wants to ravage or cheat on or whatever!! This is false because the only female characters in the entire book are a little girl who gets trampled to establish how Evil Hyde Is and a woman who calls the cops after witnessing a murder as she took a smoke break on a balcony. Neither one of them even has a name :) this is a book with NO BITCHES okay??? There’s barely even any men

Important Character round up!

Mr. Utterson the Lawyer (most of the book is from his viewpoint)

Dr. Lanyon (a friend to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Utterson)

Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde (respected Chemist/criminal)

Poole the butler <3

And that’s IT.

Okay there’s also some parliament guy who gets murdered but like whatever. He’s just there to get killed. Bye.

So a very basic plot synopsis is that Mr. Utterson is the guy in charge of Dr. Jekyll’s Will. Because of this he happens to be sort-of-friends with Jekyll because neither of them really have many friends. They’re also both friends with Dr. Lanyon.

Mr. Utterson first becomes aware of Mr. Hyde as a person who exists when a friend (unimportant) of his tells him about this guy who trampled a little girl. Obviously this is fucked up, but the friend has more to the story. Bystanders didn’t let this guy just trample a little girl, they demanded compensation so that she could pay a doctor to help her. Hyde went to a door (which the friend points out bc he and Utterson are on a walk) and makes out a check under the name of Jekyll. And so Utterson is like. Huh what

He goes home and looks at Jekyll’s Will, and Hyde is the guy set to get all his stuff if Jekyll disappears!! And so Utterson is like well that doesn’t make sense for MY friend the Extremely Respected Chemist. So naturally he’s curious and goes poking in that polite Victorian way.

It turns out Hyde lives in Soho but is a FREQUENT visitor to Jekyll’s house, has a key and all the servants know him etc. nobody knows how he and Jekyll met and they’re all a little afraid to ask.

And then there’s a year long timeskip actually. Utterson asked and Jekyll said “yeah don’t worry about it :)” and then we just skip a year.

We come back because Mr parliament gets MURDERED in what seems to be a crime of passion by a certain Mr. Hyde. Like the fact that the guy killed was in parliament was a complete coincidence. I keep meaning to look up the guys name to see if he was a real guy who was just really hated or something but I never get around to it. Anyway. Hyde beats him to death with his cane.

OH YEAH. Break hang on.

HERES THE OTHER THING HOLLYWOOD FUCKS UP THAT I ALMOST FORGOT!!! Hyde is not Hulk!!! He’s not big he has no muscles he’s literally an itty bitty guy!! He’s described as “particularly small”, “little man”, “of small stature”. He’s tiny!!! Truly exemplifying that short people are closer to the devil etc whatever he’s itty bitty and super fucking mean like the worlds worst chihuahua given human form.

Alright back to PLOT

The police recognize Hyde pretty much from the witness description of him, and Utterson is like “well that’s easy I Know Where He Lives” but they can’t find him even though his neighbors all sell him out and they literally go to his place in Soho.

So Utterson goes to ask his good friend Jekyll, who he knows is close with Hyde, where the fuck his buddy is!!! And Jekyll is having like a full on nervous breakdown at this point. Jekyll swears that he’s “done with” Hyde and “he will never more be heard of”. He’s sweating and shaking and generally looking like he’s on drugs or something.

Hyde conveniently left a letter to Jekyll (wow!!) that basically said he had fled the country and thanks for being his friend this whole time :) Utterson has a lil convo with Jekyll where he becomes convinced that since all of Jekyll’s stuff went to Hyde if he disappeared that Hyde was planning to murder Jekyll but the heat from killing a member of parliament had scared him off so Jekyll is safe now. If what Utterson thought was happening was what was ACTUALLY happening this would probably be where the story ends. But NO. First bc Utterson hired a guy to analyze the handwriting on the letter from Hyde to Jekyll and the guy (literally named Mr. Guest) was like “yeah this is Jekyll writing with a different slant idk who he’s fooling” and so Utterson is now convinced that Jekyll is covering for Hyde for some reason

And SECOND because jekyll starts acting like a crazy person. Poole the butler shows up at Utterson’s house one day like “hey my boss is freaking me out and also his voice changed?? I think Hyde is living in his room and pretending to be jekyll”

So naturally they bust into his locked room with an axe. Like you do. It’s not his bedroom it’s like his chemistry room idk they just call it his cabinet but it’s Clearly Some Kind of Lab. Anyway they find Hyde’s dead body on the floor <3 he has pretty explicitly killed himself with cyanide.

They also find a couple letters, which make up the rest of the book.

The first one is from Dr. Lanyon (remember Lanyon?). Lanyon writes all about how Jekyll started acting like a crazy person and had him deliver a drawer (like, pulled out of a dresser and full of chemicals) from Jekyll’s cabinet to Hyde, who Lanyon has never met. The description is this part is actually really good, you can tell it’s Hyde who shows up to meet Lanyon even though it never says his name. This is the part where he mixes the chemicals like the worlds worst smoothie and then fucking Shapeshifts back into Jekyll right in front of Lanyon :) why did he Do this. At this point in the story we are hearing this from Lanyon’s letter instead of Lanyon himself because Lanyon fucking Died when it was still Uttersons pov and didn’t tell anyone what he had learned?? He thought nobody would believe him ig but he tells Utterson he has had a shock and will die within a few weeks and then he literally Does. Like what the fuck man.

The next letter is from Jekyll!! It is a confession of how exactly Hyde came to be AND WHY.

Look me in the eyes. THIS IS THE PART POP CULTURE GETS COMPLETELY WRONG!!!!!!

Jekyll, being a well respected Member of Society, wanted to expunge himself of all evil desires by splitting himself into two people, one who is good and one who is evil. He manages to make a chemical potion of some kind that lets him shift between two bodies. Here’s where the text will get you: Jekyll is an unreliable narrator.

IT DOESNT WORK!!!!! He claims that Hyde immediately felt more evil but was shocked when he switched back to Jekyll and didn’t feel any different than before. Jekyll is still just as good and JUST AS EVIL as before he downed his magic shapeshifting potion!! Jekyll didn’t invent a second, more evil form, he invented a mask he could hide behind that let him escape all accountability for his actions.

And you know the most damning proof?? The switch has started happening without him drinking the potion. He will go to sleep as Jekyll and wake up as Hyde, and it’s taking more and more doses to turn back into Jekyll. At the time he writes the letter, he is permanently stuck as Hyde, but the letter is from JEKYLL and laments the guilt he feels for actions done as Hyde. He condemns Hyde as if that IS a separate person!! But Hyde has the same mind and should that Jekyll does, just a different face, and Jekyll is lying to himself.

Anyway that’s what happens in The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. It’s all about this lawyer dealing with the most Batshit series of events a client has ever made him deal with <3

[chaoskid-deer]

he really does commit to minding his own business

NEARLY A YEAR LATER? A YEAR??????

I'm absolutely flabbergasted this man hasn't had an arrest warrant put out for him sooner

[incorrectmusicaltheatre]

Utterson: Hey, it’s your turn to wash the dishes. Hyde: I’LL WASH THE WALLS RED WITH YOUR BLOOD. Utterson: Okay, but before that wash the dishes, also use soap this time?

[gabrielisdead]

hey gang it's me henry jekyll, i need $500 usd to get new chemical salts for an experiment please send it to iamnothyde69@yahoo.com and i will get back to u with the results xx

This seems legit! Of course I'll support one of our great pillars of the community, the good old Dr. Henry Jekyll! Here's my wallet and lawyer, Gabriel Utterson respectively, I hope he comes back with the results

[mazm-imagines]

Hey Jekyll !!

Have you ever thought about giving the transforming formula you created to one of your friends, like Utterson or Lanyon, to drink? If so, what are your assumptions about the result?

"Oh heaven's no! That would be most unsafe!" Jekyll was a mad scientist but at least he was an ethical mad scientist.

"Testing it on humans is far too risky... the only reason I did it to myself is because... it's my project! I simply refuse to let anyone be harmed by my creations..." He heaved a sigh in an attempt to calm himself down.

"I apologize for losing my temper. I am not upset at you, merely at the idea that I could possibly hurt my friends..."