#crew of the demeter

[vickyvicarious]

When morning watch came on deck could find no one except steersman.

Imagine being that guy. Was he just too tired to realize when he was alone out there, or did he try to call for help and no one heard him?

[drac-kool-aid]

Y'know what's striking about the Demeter section? The first mate.

Specifically, that his first and foremost reaction to the crew's fear is violence. He wants the crew to stop acting afraid, stop bringing up their fears, he assures the captain nothing is wrong and through out it all he threatens the crew with physical assault in effort to basically get them to shut up.

He threatens them with a handpike AFTER a crew member has disappeared, and the captain has shown he is willing to conduct a search for a stowaway.

Idk, it just gets me that we have someone who, when faced with mounting evidence that something is going very, very wrong, to the point of danger to the rest of the crew and himself, threatens disproportionate bodily harm for the mere mention that something is frightening people, and whose ultimate goal is to get everyone to ignore the problem and stop talking about it.

Anyway....bit of plague metaphor this ship...but of course, it's just a metaphor....

[another-chaotic-bisexual-vampire]

First Mate: i'm gonna open those boxes

Us:

[luthanraels-bignaturals]

[lucy-shining-star]

#the Demeter crew: 'Oh we fucking WISH'   @see-arcane​ tag

[remembersunflowers]

Dracula has gone ages living off of scraps, and finally in the culmination of his planning drank from Jonathan to celebrate

He can be patient, he can bide his time

But he chooses to terrify the crew of the Demeter, to sow panic, and drag them into horror one by one

[immediatebreakfast]

Woke up from few minutes' sleep by hearing a cry, seemingly outside my port. Could see nothing in fog.

This is different, extremely different. So far Dracula has been completely silent in the open ocean as he kills the sailors of the Demeter one by one; no body, no traces, nothing. Yet, today the captain, the first mate, and the last crew member woke up to a cry for help before everything went silent again.

This is a deliberate choice, to stir more terror within the few people left in the ship, for the sole amusement of the Count. There could be another explanation on deck, but following how the other attacks were only noticed by the absence of each crew member, and not their cries for help at midnight as the fog blocks everything in sight... I think it's very clear that Dracula is getting on "the main course" of this horrible he is playing with the last men of the Demeter.

If so we are now off in the North Sea, and only God can guide us in the fog, which seems to move with us; and God seems to have deserted us.

The poor captain has finally admited to himself that they are completely alone in the middle of the ocean, and no one (neither mortal nor holy) will come to save from what is hunting them down.

[onecontinuoussigh]

This year is my first time listening to @re-dracula and I honestly just cannot get over Alasdair Stuart's performance. SO perfect and terrifying and heartbreaking.

Oh, the Demeter section of Re: Dracula is so good. I am loving the entire thing, but the Demeter part of the book is one of my favourites, the way it shows the horror of Dracula without showing Dracula. Alasdair Stuart is so good as the Captain - the quiet competence growing into confusion and then horror…

[thestuffedalligator]

Margaritaville has the same number of syllables as Transylvania.

Do with this information what you will.

[froginamoodboard]

"But I am captain, and I must not leave my ship."

Requested by: me, in honour of Dracula Daily

x x x x x x x x x

[vickyvicarious]

It seems like the general first impression was "The Demeter crew is suffering and sleepless and dying, while Mina is having a nice sightseeing vacation", but... Doesn't it seem less of a contrast than that?

Lucy's now increasingly odder sleepwalking was there from day one of Mina's arrival, making Mina sleepless. While the crew sleeps with one eye open.

Even on the first day on Whitby, Mina was taking about death and lost ships. While the crew was beginning to lose men. Mina and Mr Swales talk about tombstones and suicide. While the First Mate jumps to his death.

*Mina voice*: the reports of my hot girl summer have been greatly exaggerated...

You're onto something here, definitely. Of course, in the original book, we don't see anything from the Demeter until a little ways into Mina's stay, so it (re)reads as more foreshadowing than it seems like a parallel, but that's one of the really fun things to notice in the daily format! I'm reminded of Lucy's three suitors and her letters about looking into her mirror coming so soon on the heels of Jonathan's encounter with the three vampire women and with his mirror getting broken.

I never noticed just how much a lot of Mina's storyline here lines up so well with the Demeter though. And now that I'm thinking about it... There's a bunch of those kinds of connections!

Of course, there are overall ones. Like you said, Lucy's sleepwalking begins right away, and it robs Mina of her sleep. Meanwhile, the crew of the Demeter are kept awake by storms, by double-watches, by having to pick up the work that no one else is left to do. But though that's pretty overarching, there are also some moments that line up really well. For example, July 27: "Lucy walks more than ever, and each night I am awakened by her moving about the room." and July 28: "Four days in hell, knocking about in a sort of maelstrom, and the wind a tempest. No sleep for any one. Men all worn out."

Then there are Mina's conversation with Mr. Swales, especially the latter one with its talk of suicide, of going to hell - only two days before the mate leaps to his death rather than allow Dracula to get his soul. Mr. Swales also parallels the first mate a bit in being, as Mina says, "a most dictatorial person in his day" and very insistent that there's nothing supernatural going on, though as yet he's not been proven so terribly wrong about that the way the first mate was.

On July 24, Mina says there is "a buoy with a bell, which swings in bad weather, and sends in a mournful sound on the wind. They have a legend here that when a ship is lost bells are heard out at sea." That same day the Demeter is approaching more bad weather, and later on they get lost in the fog. (Though we never get mention of any bell ringing.)

Mrs. Westenra is afraid of Lucy's sleepwalking because she "has got an idea that sleep-walkers always go out on roofs of houses and along the edges of cliffs and then get suddenly wakened and fall over with a despairing cry that echoes all over the place." On August 2, the captain is awoken by a cry that sounds close, but which he cannot see the source of in the fog. The next day, the mate runs up onto the deck crying out after being figuratively 'wakened' to the true horror of who he's up against just before he leaps over the side of the ship. Also on August 3, Lucy goes about searching for the key so she can get out, and the mate went searching through the boxes in the hold. He clearly found what he was looking for, and it had terrible consequences; if Lucy finds what she seeks in her sleepwalking, what might happen to her?

And, one that I can't believe never occurred to me before... Mina's not only worried about Lucy, of course. She's very afraid for Jonathan. Because he, much like the men on the Demeter, has vanished unseen. He went off to his work (on watch/work trip) and hasn't been seen since. Even when she hears from him, it's brief and she can sense the letter is uncharacteristic of him, short and lacking detail. The reason, though she doesn't know it, is of course that Dracula stopped him from saying anything else/more. Jonathan's real sentiments and words were 'lost in the fog' so to speak (the false trail laid by the letters being the metaphorical fog here). It reminds me of the one sailor's cry that awoke the captain. And even with that, she's still waiting for more word of him and should have had it by this point. But he's simply gone.

It's not endless horrors for Mina at the moment, but the ominous tone is certainly building over time despite more positive moments happening too. To use a weather metaphor, more and more stormclouds have been gathering over time, looming threateningly overhead. And it looks an awful lot like the weather Dracula brought to the Demeter.

[c-kiddo]

just saw someone misread kamen and fionas relationship so bad someone hold me back

[another-chaotic-bisexual-vampire]

Captain of Demeter: Doom! Wild weather - men disappearing - violence ahead - DOOM!!!

Mina: dear diary omg today lucy was looking so fuckin hot

[misaki-toko]

This is a report on CATS by Shiki Theater Company, which was performed in Nagoya on June 18, 2023.

On this day, for the first time in my life, I saw Mungojerrie played by Yuuma Tanabe. He played Skimbleshanks on another day, but it was very interesting to see how he performed it in a completely different way.

In Old Gumbie Cat, Mistoffelees, played by Akito Iwamura, lay on his back on the oven with his hands curled up, perhaps imitating Mitsuki Kasahara's Jennyanydots. He was so cute.

In Rum Tum Tugger, Demeter, played by Marina, gets depressed when Tugger ignores her, and Bombalurina, played by Erika Orita, sees this and consoles her by touching her shoulder, which was very cute.

During Growltiger's number, the large Skimbleshanks, played by Kaisaer Tatike, were leaning on Mungojerrie in the background, mesmerized by Griddlebone's voice. So Mungojerrie and Mistoffelees were panicking. they were cute.

↓ Difference without text

[per-the-jellicle-magician]

Saw you're comment on a different post about Warsaw Demeter being canon Griz's daughter in that production. Was that in the book you got, or somewhere else, because I very much love that.

Hi! Yes, it is mentioned twice in the Warsaw book, in both Griz's and Demeter's character descriptions, both mention that other cats stand in the way of them meeting and that Demeter "cannot come to terms with the fact that other cats do not want to accept her mother into the clan"

I do accept it as canon, partially cuz the book and partially cuz in the boot you can see that they do have some sort of a relationship (Deme and Griz reach out to each other in the beginning, Deme seems to be really invested in the whole Griz thing and is really anxious and worried around her, Deme is first one to greet Griz after Vic touches her)

The book has its issues, but as long as it doesn't contradict what can be seen on stage I guess it's as close to a written canon as you can get

And I believe these character descriptions were written based on interviews with the actors/crew and probably the author seeing the show, so there's that

As a bonus, this Deme is Griz's daughter seems to be a Polish prod thing, as someone told me that in the other Polish production, Cats Chorzów, they seem to have kept this idea, but there Deme is Griz's biggest hater and thus is the one to touch her at the end

[ladytemeraire]

Me: Last Voyage of the Demeter! Dracula movie! Classic horror! Can't wait!

Trailer: [has a dog and small child on the ship]

Me: