#helen pan

[weirdlookindog]

Helen Moller - Adaptation of the Classic Idea of Pan

from 'Dancing with Helen Moller', 1918

[see-arcane]

It's a special day in Dracula!

Jonathan experiences a flashback to the Horrors, Mina experiences bisexuality in the wild, and the poor nameless Pretty Girl in Piccadilly rides out of the story, parcel in hand and chic cartwheel hat on, oblivious to the Count stalking after her. In honor of the anonymous young lady who proves for a third time that Dracula and Mina have literally the exact same taste—Jonathan, Lucy, random beauties on the street—I wanted to take a crack at giving her an identity.

But I am also indecisive as hell, so she can be one of a number of pretty persons of note. For example…

Miss Piccadilly #1: Clarimonde

My original favorite choice, if only because I love the idea of Clarimonde still cruising around after the heartbreak she left behind in her own story, “La Morte Amoureuse” (The Dead Woman in Love), aka “Clarimonde.” She is now and always the undead Parisian party queen of my heart, but I could see her traveling around to dabble in hedonism in other corners of the world. Naturally she has to go and catch the attention of the local aristos. Human or otherwise.

But, of course, she is psychic and can read Dracula like a bloodstained book. Keep walking, bat bastard. Her vampiric voluptuousness is reserved for VIPs. (Maybe that fetching mourning couple she saw gawking in the park…)

Miss Piccadilly #2: Helen Vaughan

Oh, Helen Vaughan, elegant hostess and demigoddess horror supreme. I don’t care what Arthur Machen says, your story did not end with the conclusion of The Great God Pan. You were life and death and human and beast and all the hideous realities in-between and a mortal end could never keep you down. Especially not when you have so many paramours left to entertain! So many secrets profane and maddening to share! One of these days you’ll catch one who won’t dissolve into madness and self-destruction after a little innocent eldritch chit-chat.

Like this charming Count here! Count? Count, where are you going? Count, she just wants you to meet her dad—why are you running? Why are you running?

Miss Piccadilly #3: Luna Blue

What’s this? An OC?

Well, of course. No one’s actually naming their child Luna Blue in the late 1800s; that’s just her professional pseudonym. It’s amazing how well the spiritualist movement can work out for a girl with a knack for shuffling painted cards or chatting with the night sky and the occasional planchette. She can even boast something more than showmanship behind her skill. The sort of ‘something’ that worried Transylvanians might whisper about in fear on a certain haunted date while a likewise worried solicitor breaks out the polyglot dictionary.

She recognizes Dracula for what he is as surely as he recognizes her. No, she is not interested, voivode. Even if she was, she’d be out a benefactor within—a hard look at him here; cold and far—oh dear. Scarcely more than a month. At least by her guess. But oh, there is good news in his future too! He shall cross paths with an old friend soon! How lovely. She’s certain these things are not connected. Don’t even worry about it.

Miss Piccadilly #4: Cosette Marchand

The fourth and final young lady in the roster is one more original character and she deserves absolutely none of the horror coming her way. This is Miss Cosette Marchand, an artist by hobby and profession. The parcel received from the jeweler’s was a commissioned necklace and earrings she designed herself. A glittering birthday gift for her mother who will chide her for such an extravagance, Cosy, she has no place to wear such things! But they are lovely…

She’s so lost in her daydreaming that she doesn’t realize the hansom behind her has been following the victoria since leaving Piccadilly Square. All the way home. Home, where there are no bloodletting suitors, no wise professors, no divine or diabolic powers to forestall the natural progression of things between predator and prey. There is only a nightmare waiting for her, unobstructed.

…By anything other than my own bleeding heart. I’m too attached. She has to make it.

So.

How does Miss Marchand’s story go?

Turns out, her mother has some experience in these matters. Her mother being one Laura Marchand, who left a thirsty terror of her own behind twenty years ago. One she has mourned as much as feared in the time between the love of a husband eaten by war and the sharper kisses of a girl far more than a friend or living being. She recognizes the sour reflection of Carmilla’s eagerness in the Thing pretending to be a nobleman at the door. She still has General Spielsdorf’s axe. She has kept the steel sharp. Tonight she will whet it sharper still, from dusk until dawn.

You see all that yellow in her dress. It’s recently become one of her favorite colors, owing to a most diverting play she happened to read. Such lush storytelling! What decadent inspiration! She simply had to design something fine in honor of it. She does hope her mother will appreciate the artful way the gold was wrought, twisting in echo of the Sign. A mother who has gone so strangely still since she happened to glance at the second act of the play. Still and cold. Perhaps she will be cheered by her gift and their guests. There is a nobleman at the door, Mother! And there, see, leaking from the yellow damask wall is His Tattered Majesty—oh. Where has their visitor gone? He shall miss the masquerade! Ah, well. His loss.

Scheherazade…2! In which Miss Marchand pulls a Jonathan by stalling via playing to charm and utility. She wears many hats beside the cartwheel when it comes to the arts. Portraiture, fashion in fabric and ornaments. Surely the Count can savor the spider-and-fly game a little longer for that and some pretty panicked smiles. Look how much patience and frustration he burned on Lucy! Yes, yes, a little while longer to draw things out, play at flirtation between artist and patron, isn’t this nice? Ha ha. (Please don’t drink me please don’t drink me please don’t drink me.)

Well. She got drinked. And maybe succumbed to death before the Count could get slain. But the bat bastard does get put down eventually and she still gets to pop back up! Good news: She’s not under the Count’s thrall! She can think and act for herself! Nice! Bad news: Vampire. At least she can drink her problems* away. (*Problems with names like Atherton, Wotton, Gray…)

Her neighbors are the other three Piccadilly girls. Dracula makes his way downtown, walking fast, walking faster— 

Werewolf free space.

[ellieshyperfixations]

*Jean showing off her cooking*

Cyclops: Gordon Ramsey is quaking.

Gambit: …I think I am too.

[thebeautifulbook]

A BOOK OF MYTHS by Jeanie Lang (New York/London: Putnam, 1915) Illustrated by Helen Stratton.

source

[moncher-pierrot]

"Hear me, Hermes, messenger of Zeus, and son of Maia; You are victorious and preside over the games of men. Gracious minister, and cunning argicide, with your perfect wings, you prophesy of the gods to us. Who loves exercises, tricks and antics, interpreter of everything, source of profits and problems. You, who in your hands hold the weapon of peace and luck without traffic, fortunate Corício and provider of speech. Who helps mortals who venerate him in need, profound weapon of the tongue and guides our paths. Hear my prayer and grant a noble and good end to life in choice words, and memorable works.

Give me all grace/favor, all achievement/success, for the bringer of good, messenger standing next to Fortune (Tyche), is with you. Consequently, give profit/abundance and success to this house. Please, Eternal (Aion), ruler of hope, giver of wealth, oh sacred Good Spirit (Agathos Daimon), bring these favors and your divine oracles to fruition."

[ibrithir-was-here]

Random Rosemary doodles thrown together, with some cameos by Lu from “Blood of my Blood” and still very much alive Helen from ‘The Great God Pan’ (poor Rosemary Basil just can’t seem to avoid hot blondes and devil coded people )

Then a little doodle of teen Rosemary, and I had do sketch her with those little glasses Basil had in the 2009 movie cuz darn it they’re cute

[brokehorrorfan]

Pentagram Peter Pan has Bram Stoker's Dracula, Interview with the Vampire, and Twister apparel available until Monday, May 13. The line includes T-shirts ($27) and long sleeves ($34). They’ll ship in 4-8 weeks.

[monstergirlgang]

Monster girl October tarot day 30: Helen Vaughan from The Great God Pan as the 7 of cups!

Helen Vaughan is the antagonist and a mystery throughout the story. Born of a human woman and the god Pan via a scientific experiment that crossed worlds, Helen causes a long train of madness and death among those she comes into contact with. At the end of the story, she shows a wide breadth of transformations: "changing and melting before your eyes from woman to man, from man to beast, and from beast to worse than beast" (Machen). The 7 of cups is about possibilities as well as imagination and fantasy. Helen was the perfect fit for her potential and her fantastical associations!

[ava-of-shenanigans]

Since 1) we know The Great God Pan as a book exists in The Dunwich Horror as a book that some of the characters have read (Armitage references it by name and all), and 2) Wilbur Whateley only lived to 15, I think it is entirely reasonable to believe that somewhere in his bedroom, Wilbur had like. one of those very detailed black and white illustrations you find in old timey books (the ones with a little line of text under them to let you know exactly what part of the story they're depicting) specifically of the moment in The Great God Pan where Helen Vaughan shapeshifts like crazy right before she dies.

Or, if Dunwich is too isolated for it to be possible for Wilbur to get his hands on one of those, then he has a bunch of actually quite good charcoal sketches of her (non-euclidean charcoal sketches, of course), mostly themed around what her lovers could have seen that drove them insane (she does not look completely human in any of them).

Either way, I think it's reasonable to believe that he had these tucked away in his room somewhere, and would sometimes just stare at them for extended periods of time. The expression on his face while he did this would seem very surly and unreadable, but internally he'd be thinking “gawd, her imposs’ble an’ uncatugeriz’ble form is AOUT 😳.”* And if anyone else in his family walked in on him he would very quickly hide them.

Wizard Whateley would not understand this behaviour but Lavinia would know what's up.

*Phonetic speech written normally for accessibility reasons: “god, her impossible and uncategorizable form is OUT 😳.”

[strangestcase]

Helen Vaughan’s simultaneously male-and-female dying body being commented on after she’s coerced into suicide 🤝 Edward Hyde having his crying be called feminine and womanlike right before he’s pushed into suicide

[88y53]

A drawing of my D&D group

From left to right: Dorian Grey, Helen Vaughan, Victor Frankenstein, Quincey Morris, and Captain Hook.

[cosmichorrorlesbians]

forever thinking about Helen Vaughan fron The Great God Pan. it's not a good novella and it's weird and misogynist about her but goddamn she was so alone. she was always so alone. the father who created her in a twisted and violative experiment sent her away when she was twelve. she found herself to be 'of a different type' than the people around her wherever she went. she had friendships of a 'peculiarly intimate character' with village girls who always left screaming and in tears. she married and she travelled but she 'corrupted [people] body and soul' wherever she went.

do you think she knew? what sort of being she was? do you think she had an awareness of being alien wherever she went? we see her refracted a thousand times through the men who create her and discard her and marry her and kill her, but we never see her. we never hear her speak.

she must have been so lonely.

[greatest-greek-games]

Helen: Queen of Sparta, captive of Troy, Helen is renowned for her beauty. Less well-known but no less important is her cleverness, her willingness to trick others in order to stay sane and return home. Perhaps her most impressive skill is her vocal mimicry, which could fool every Achaean stuck inside a big horse wondering why Odysseus was allowed to build that thing.

Alciabades: Originally an Athenian statesman, Alciabades changed alleigances so many times I'm surprised he didn't get a punchcard for it. Also known for being exceedingly handsome, to the point where Antisthenes apparenly said 'if Achilles didn't look like this, he wasn't really handsome.' One of the men of all time, truly.

[volunteerfelinedetectives]

The next Blanc Girl needs to be explicitly sapphic because I say so.

[anteroom-of-death]

Friendship with what little mental stability I had left has ENDED! Now Escapism and wanting to Wendy Darling and Captain Hook to fucking nasty is my best friend

[moncher-pierrot]

Khaire, Hermes! 🧿