#at this point my standards are literally just renfield

[scribe-of-monsters]

I really do need to watch those old Dracula movies but I also kinda hate watching movies so we'll see how it goes

[astrangergivingthestrangewelcome]

But I also want to take Seward's perspective bc I also think all the "Seward is an absolute monster" people are majorly missing the point of how all this happens. Like alright Renfield has never hurt anyone but the stuff with the flies and spiders and sparrows is relatively damning, and it is fairly natural to wonder if he's planning to take it all the way up the food chain. Renfield gets a lot of sympathy on here (as he should) however I personally believe that's bc he's fictional character. If there was a guy in your community who you watched eat flies and spider and talk about blood and if you heard that he had eaten some sparrows, I do not believe that most of you would befriend him. Speaking for myself I think I would remain polite and give him a wide berth. I probably would be a little afraid of him, even though he'd done nothing to me.

Dr Seward's behavior is human, but it shows how little desire there is within himself to hold himself to a higher standard. He is content to make medical diagnoses on vibes and he doesn't even realize he's doing it. In my hypothetical scenario where Renfield is a guy in my apartment building I know I would adopt the mindset of "wish him the best but this guy needs professional help which I am not equipped to give" and like. 😕 in this story anyway this is a fantasy. The professional help people have all the same tendencies to go with their gut reactions + gut fears.

+ there's the power dynamic here too of course, Seward's little "he's gonna be calling himself God soon" is definitely born of him actually being insulted that Renfield treats him the same as an orderly etc, etc, and the joke about the straight waistcoat is. Horrible, but I am literally begging you all to understand that John Seward has a relatively normal moral compass. He has just become very comfortable + uncritical of the norms of his field. Pair that with exceptional insecurity and you get this particular brand of awfulness but I don't think we're all so very far away from becoming this as we might like to think.

[anddreadful]

full thoughts on frank wildhorn’s dracula having re-watched it in its entirety for the first time in many years:

- I watched a recent upload of an (american) community theater production, specifically because a) its sound quality was surprisingly good and b) my recent interest is because a local theater is putting it on, so given the opportunity, I wanted to see whatever version of the show is currently available for north american licensing

- the production was charming but the community theater (technically dinner theater! I went on a google hunt to find the theater and it’s only two hours from me lmao) was community-ing so I can’t really write home about the acting. or the singing although mina had a nice voice

- the one place I will dunk on the production is how hilariously chaste mina and dracula were. the biting scene was notably stiff and un-suggestive of sex despite taking place on a bed. maybe one of the actors wasn’t comfortable with doing anything more, but they had only one kiss, and it was so late in the show and such a teeny little dry peck on the lips that I hollered. at that point just don’t do it and pretend theirs is an ~intellectual connection or something

- dracula did do a creepy hair-petting thing to both renfield and Mina that I was a big fan of

- “if loving you keeps me alive, then how can leaving me be right?” is such a funny lyric. dirtbag manipulative boyfriend dracula

- I knew not all the songs were on the studio cast recording, but I had forgotten HOW MANY songs aren’t on it. where is How Do You Choose? If I Could Fly? It’s Over????? I had fully forgotten there was a life after life reprise. I was obsessed with the studio cast recording in high school and I know all those songs by heart (except for a perfect life because I think it’s bad) and now i’m like. why was I gatekept from so many of the songs!! why is there no professional english recording of Its Over!! answer me frank!!!!!

- this is not a new thought per se but a) I so love that all the suitors are present and themselves b) this show squanders them. jack has no personality whatsoever (I would trade TWO mina ballads for a jack song please I beg), arthur gets needlessly dunked on, and quincey is delightful and incredible and also narratively extraneous given that he doesn’t kill dracula or die at the end

- on that note, though, I cannot believe they included quincey being the first person to promise mina to kill her if the time comes in a book-accurate version of that scene. even the 1992 version doesn’t do that!!!! and this is basically just an adaptation of that movie!!!!! is this the ONLY dracula adaptation to include that detail? it’s a top five book moment for me so I very literally love to see it

- I understand that we had to beef up van helsing as a character SOMEHOW but was a dead wife song really the best we could come up with

- there are too many sad slow songs in this show for what it’s trying to accomplish! some of them immediately on top of each other! and some of the songs distinctly go on for just one too many verses 😭

- does the mina/ dracula romance make any sense? no. does the show make any effort whatsoever to make it? no. am I into it anyway? yeah. fuck it. I have terrible taste and so i think dracula as a disembodied voice like HI? HELLO? DON’T IGNORE ME? and mina being like “unfortunately, i’m into it” rocks

- “She Devil, Nosferatu” and “the lady in white” from that other dracula concept album are both so superior to “undead one, surrender” I almost feel bad for Frank and co there, but “the master’s song”, “life after life”, and “deep in the darkest night” still fucking slap

- the train hypnotism scene was soooo good except for the part where mina did dracula’s accent. not sure if that’s standard but I wish we hadn’t done that

- i’m not THAT well versed in musical theater as an art form and also all art is derivative etc but i do know that wildhorn has been historically criticized for derivativeness and…… yeah! you can tell where he mimics sondheim, and it doesn’t work because you can’t casually mimic sondheim and get out alive. i can’t think of the moment but there was some bit of music I could have sworn was out of Phantom, and it’s obviously a big general inspiration. not to be Boss Baby Guy but I see a lot of Les Mis DNA in it too (what is It’s Over if not The Confrontation in a goth hat)

- the dialogue between songs is serviceable at absolute best, and it’s a shame that it’s so consistently sacrificed at the altar of moving the plot the fuck along. for the most part, only mina and dracula meaningfully connect via song, so it would be nice to use the dialogue to flesh out relationships more often. lucy and mina being besties is a highlight!!!

- ultimately i had a blast but it must needs be said: the show is not good. the best possible execution of “literally just the novel dracula but dracula and mina are having a secret tragic love affair” is probably what we get in the 1992 dracula movie, and if there’s a way to translate that to stage well, it’s not this shallow, silly speedrun. but again. this trash is my trash. the painted cardboard castle of bad dracula adaptations is where i live.

- I actually think it would be really interesting to be involved in a production only because to make these characters function in terms of acting, I think you’d have to invent and extrapolate a lot in terms of motivation and characterization to supplement the text. which would be fun for me, a person who thinks about versions of dracula characters all the time already

[eolewyn1010]

Off on a tangent: Double-standards in character-reading

This is just a vent post, nevermind me.

So, the overwhelming hatred of Dr. John "Jack" Seward. Based on his treatment of Renfield and overall working in a Victorian lunatic asylum.

And yeah, he's disproportionately hated. Saw someone write they're "kicking Seward out of the polycule". Sure, you do that. Why? Because he's not doing anything to make his patient better? Because of the ableism inherent in his job? Well, sure, then kick out Dracula, too, for holding a man captive, psychologically messing with him, and also undressing him while he was unconscious. And the brides too, also for the rape-y approach to someone who was asleep or vampire-hypnotically immobilized. And Jonathan, for being a huge-ass racist to literally anything that's not white-as-bread English. Lucy, too, because she's a misogynist if ever I saw one, and a racist to boot. Quincey - everyone loves Quincey. Kind and adventurous and noble and generous Quincey. Except he called Lucy a "little girl" and then demanded she kiss him, putting on an act of playfulness while still expecting the due show of affection, which is creepy as all fuck, and don't you come to me downplaying this because have you ever been in that situation, pressured to put on a smile because he's such a nice guy and it's not very believable that he pushed you to anything?

These are all pretty terrible people because Stoker gives them his attitudes and views. But Lucy is a "queen"? Jonathan is blorbo? Quincey is the great, lovely darling, everyone's crush? Eh. And Jack, he fits right in there. Can't say he's a good guy, but "the worst of them all", he's not. Surely no worse than Dracula, who's handled as a veritable shipping option.

At this point, the only one who hasn't spouted some actively horrible views is Mina, and with her "I wanna be useful to my husband" attitude, I can already see the day approaching when Stoker turns her into a mouthpiece for his crap in fashion of Lucy. ...oh, I guess Arthur is inoffensive so far, too, but that's because he literally has no personality beyond being aristocratic and thereby embodying JUST the bloodsucking predatory upper class that Stoker claims to advocate against with Count Dracula. Except it's apparently peachy to be an aristocrat so long as you're an Englishman, not a South-Eastern European. Oh well.

My point is, I will continue to piss on every single one of these characters with abandon when they piss me off, and I will continue to treat Jack just like the rest of the bunch, an absolute shithead and product of his time and milieu. Still a poly shithead in my book, but a shithead nonetheless. Don't even try to argue at me that his treatment of Renfield is despicable when you run around yelling that Lucy should have married Quincey, or that Dracula and Jonathan have some sort of romance going on. These people are fucked up, your preferential treatment is based on selective reading, and I will die on that hill.