#sir francis varney

[mayhemchicken-varneyposting]

tonight's varney/charles is served to you with a side of henry having a gay awakening

[livefromcastledracula]

Dracula: "I want to suck your blood."

Ruthven: "I've already sucked your sister’s blood and there's nothing you can do about it, nerd."

Orlok: "I sucked your blood. Also, everyone now has the plague."

Carmilla: "I live inside your veins, like a caterpillar in the chrysalis of your beautiful death, and by living in you I love you, and your loving blood will come to me and in my veins we shall die like lovers, and live sweetly forever more..."

Bathory: "Sucking? Amateurs. Hold still on that meat hook whilst I fetch the spigot."

Varney: "I say, now I know I sucked your blood, but I really do feel bad about it, so there's no need to be uncivilised. Sell me your house?"

[grelleswife]

Still losing it over chicken!Ruthven and his resemblance to a vampiric Angry Bird in Noé’s imagination. 😆

Mochijun appears to have continued this visual gag in the omake, where Marquis Machina presents Lord Ruthven with some fluffy chicks of his own. 🐥

Behold, the face of an innocent man who has never committed crimes against queen and country.

[good7luck]

About VNC Marquis Machina & Veronica

* potential plot twist / spoilers...?

* NON-animated manga parts

.

I think Machina is probably female...? Not male, at least.

In the chapter 43, it’s highly implied that Veronica actively & happily “mingles” with Machina.

In the chapter 8, Veronica strongly implies that she dislikes male people in general.

(this line got slightly changed and combined in the original Japanese anime, less emphasizing male but rather more about human, kinda)

Of course, Machina could be male and still very close to Veronica from their shared history. But then, would she outright express how much she despises “male” people right in front of her intimate “male” Machina...? There was even no particular following, like “Machina, you’re obviously different / an exception uwu”.

Or, Veronica’s words in ch 43 could be her totally made-up joke. Even so, I doubt she would lightly make such an explicit & s3xual joke about herself and an actual “man”...?

“But, especially in the anime, Machina’s voice sounds plain male--”

Machina, a machine lover, might be using some voice changing device!

Like this, for example (it’s from Detective Conan) XD

PS.

Now I wonder if Veronica here didn’t just hate to be criticized by someone else in a higher position but much more hated to be “taught” by “male” Ruthven ^^;;

[sylphidine]

OP [and everyone else thirsting for this premise] should read the Greta Helsing series by @ceruleancynic.

I can't WAIT four book 4!!!!!!!

And I am always down for fancasting discussion for these books.

The urban fantasy show I actually want to see is a hospital drama with a dedicated wing for supernatural illnesses.

Vampirism. Lycanthropy. Cheap spells gone wrong. A woman brought in for her prenatal has to be told her baby is a lindworm. Someone is literally being followed by the anthropomorphic personification of the Black Death.

Someone somewhere out there is having their perception of the world irreparably shattered by the knowledge that magic is real, and at the other side is a team of doctors who have to roll their eyes and pull out Grimm’s Complete Fairy Tales because some high school kid tried to go Carrie with a cheap spellbook and turn all the kids at prom into frogs, and the doctors have to wrangle a couple dozen teenagers into admitting if they have a true love who can break the spell.

[dross-the-fish]

He's been talked about a little but here's a quick sketch I did of Theo's deadbeat sire, Sir Francis Varney

I had a lot of fun with this guy's design. I imagine that he tends to give Micheal Keaton as "Beetlejuice" energy and overall reads as something of a trashbag. Most people are very put off by him.

Despite this he's actually the most sympathetic to humans and the most likely to be compassionate. He tries to avoid killing if possible and sometimes just seeks out humans for company rather than food.

Most higher vampires have animal forms or motifs. Dracula has two, bats and wolves, Carmilla's is a cat and Varney can take the shape of a rat swarm.

[cleolinda]

Varney the Vampire: Chapter 16

Chapter 15: Our nephew can't marry some German vampyre!

PREVIOUSLY ON: We had a dance break to introduce two new comic-relief characters. But before that, Flora's sorta-fiancé that she met on the Continent and hadn't seen since showed up, and Flora's oldest brother started trying to warn him (Charles Holland) that since Flora has been bitten by a vampyre, he (Charles Holland) should not marry her. Flora said he should not marry her. The stalwart and faithful Charles Holland is not having any of that shit.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE MEETING OF THE LOVERS IN THE GARDEN. -- AN AFFECTING SCENE. -- THE SUDDEN APPEARANCE OF SIR FRANCIS VARNEY.

Or is he?

Our readers will recollect that Flora Bannerworth had made an appointment with Charles Holland in the garden of the hall. [...] The thought that he should be much urged by Flora to give up all thoughts of making her his, was a most bitter one to him, who loved her with so much truth and constancy, and that she would say all she could to induce such a resolution in his mind he felt certain. But to him the idea of now abandoning her presented itself in the worst of aspects.

Okay but. We just had like a chapter and a half of you swearing up and down that you'd never—

“Dare I be so base as actually or virtually to pad out out the word count say to her, 'Flora, when your beauty was undimmed by sorrow -- when all around you seemed life and joy, I loved you selfishly for the increased happiness which you might bestow upon me; but now the hand of misfortune presses heavily upon you -- you are not what you were, and I desert you?' Never -- never -- never!"

Atta boy.

James Malcolm Rymer decides to throw in that Charles Holland (if you are just joining us, I feel like you always have to say his full name. Rymer often does. It just feels right) "felt more acutely than he reasoned." I'm not sure if this is meant to be snarky or not; at least Rymer follows this up by lauding his "nobility of soul."

As for Flora, Heaven only knows if at that precise time her intellect had completely stood the test of the trying events which had nearly overwhelmed it.

On one hand, I get it: Flora's had a tough week. On the other hand, shut the fuck up, Rymer.

The two grand feelings that seemed to possess her mind were fear of the renewed visits of the vampyre, and an earnest desire to release Charles Holland from his repeated vows of constancy towards her.

She's still holding up better than her brother Henry, who was constantly wailing about how the horror of having a sister bitten by a vampyre ancestor is driving him maaaaad. Flora's intellect seems to be working perfectly fine, however, as she weighs her love for Charles Holland vs. the depth of his suffering: "To link him to her fate, would be to make him to a real extent a sharer in it."

In the sense that he might have to watch her be staked, and grieve her death?

In the sense that she might become a vampyre and come after her nearest and dearest (i.e., him) first, as vampires were folklorically said to do?

In the sense that she might bear… tainted children?!

[And] the more she [had] heard fall from his lips in the way of generous feelings of continued attachment to her, the more severely did she feel that he would suffer most acutely if united to her. And she was right.

But they were going to have a romantic rendezvous to talk this out, right? Charles is now waiting for her in Bannerworth Hall's [overdescribed] flower garden, secluded from the main building,

and in its centre was a summer-house, which at the usual season of the year was covered with all kinds of creeping plants of exquisite perfumes, and rare beauty. All around, too, bloomed the fairest and sweetest of flowers, which a rich soil and a sheltered situation could produce.

Honestly, I had a long discussion/comparison of Flora to Stoker's Lucy Westenra here, and I feel like it needs to go take a nap and come back some other time as a separate post. But suffice it to say, I think wealth is an important factor in how pleasantly "sheltered" these two characters are: not to take anything away from their sweetness and purity of heart (this is where I start going on about how misunderstood Lucy is), but they can afford to be sweet and lovely and naive, if you see what I'm saying (and this is more apparent in Dracula, in comparison to Mina, her level head, and her professional skills). As much as we need to point out that Rymer is romanticizing whiteness (figuratively and literally), I think we also have to consider that he's romanticizing wealth—class—by going on and on about a family estate with a large, "sheltered," professionally-tended garden.

Rymer continues this metaphor by saying that the "more estimable Flora floral culture" has declined,

for the decayed fortunes of the family had prevented them from keeping the necessary servants, to place the Hall and its grounds in a state of neatness, such as it had once been the pride of the inhabitants of the place to see them. It was then in this flower-garden that Charles and Flora used to meet.

I SAID, THAT SHE MET ON THE CONTINENT AND HASN'T SEEN SINCE

Nonetheless, Charles Holland has arrived early to this garden of lies. He is ready to romance. "Aníron" plays softly in the distance.

A light sound, as of some fairy footstep among the flowers, came upon his ears, and turning instantly to the direction from whence the sound proceeded, he saw what his heart had previously assured him of, namely that it was his Flora that was coming.

Alas, the flower that to his mind was fairer than them all, was blighted, and in the wan cheek of her whom he loved, he sighed to see the lily usurping the place of the radiant rose.

Yes, it was she; but, ah, how pale, how wan -- how languid and full of the evidences of much mental suffering was she. Where now was the elasticity of that youthful step? Where now was that lustrous beaming beauty of mirthfulness, which was wont to dawn in those eyes? Alas, all was changed. The exquisite beauty of form was there, but the light of joy which had lent its most transcendent charms to that heavenly face, was gone.

There's a reason Rymer goes to such lengths to (also; additionally; is there anything he doesn't) romanticize Flora's ill health:

While tuberculosis has been traced back thousands of years (and is still considered a pandemic), it wasn't named as such until 1834. And because it wasn't identified as a single disease until the 1820s, it was often thought to be vampirism: blood would appear on a patient's lips, people around them would also sicken and die, and so on. The colloquial name for tuberculosis (as you probably know) was consumption, even: being consumed by something unseen, unto death.

But as the Dead Maidens article up there points out, tuberculosis was glamorized among the upper class (not the only class who came down with it, mind you). Tuberculosis, as diseases go, had more dignity than dysentery and cholera, and happened to exaggerate what people already considered to be attractive:

[Early] symptoms seemed to heighten already established beauty standards of the time, and a wealthy young woman could waste away for years before the horrible end came. In the meantime, poor circulation turned fair complexions ghastly white. The blue veins and translucent fragile skin were treated as a crystalline delicacy. The constant low fever kept the cheeks and lips flushed with a rosy hue and the eyes wide and watery. Patients would waste away growing ethereally thin.

Chicken or egg: Did tuberculosis underline existing beauty ideals, or was it a matter of people glamorizing what they saw happening around them anyway? Yes, I think, is the answer to that.

Meanwhile, the contagion ramped up through the 1700s and 1800s, and when you combine this with the increase in both literacy and affordable publishing during the Industrial Revolution, you get the first era, the pre-Dracula era, of Western vampire literature, starting with Lenore (1773) and The Bride of Corinth (1797). (Which were published after the 1750s Austrian Vampire Problem we talked about last time.) Meanwhile, in 2023, I wrote a gigantic digression about heroes coddling heroines as validation for readers who feel unvalidated and beauty as virtue that I am straight-up going to have to cut out and maybe post separately, because this recap is already way too long.

ANYWAY, MY DEAR FLORA, said Charles Holland,

"remember that there are warm hearts that love you. Remember that neither time nor circumstance can change such endearing affection as mine. [...] Wherefore, Flora, would you still the voice of pure affection? I love you surely, as few have ever loved."

I love this shit. I absolutely love stories where Our Hero (Gender Neutral) tells me the Reader Proxy, for several paragraphs, that they love her/him/them heart and mind and body and soul for all time unto the heat death of the universe. LOVE. THAT. SHIT.

No, cries Flora! We mustn't! (But we MUST!) I will not quote all of this scene to you, but suffice it to say that they argue over how Charles Holland's entire face would shout his love if his tongue didn't happen to show up at the office that day. He is not just words! He is action! No, you mustn't! BUT I MUST! Love it.

Notice, though, how you must not is not I do not want you to. A lot of older romance writing either doesn't care about consent (I know a number of current romance writers who do, very much much so), or it stays sort of muddled and unclear as to how much a heroine is really into it. This may be either in the spirit of dubcon or honestly, because characters in an era when they weren't supposed to touch (Charles and Flora are actually pretty handsy. Waist action happens) are kind of pushing the envelope by talking too much about it at all. Flora may really be saying, "Charles Holland, we mustn't speak of love at such agonizing length in a wholesome publication!" ("I mean, is a pamphlet that wholesome, it's not a real newspaper or anything...") "Well, it has to be reasonably decent! I have to at least blush and avert my maidenly eyes every couple of sentences! We should probably talk about God watching us at some point!" ("Like... watching us...?") ("NO!!!")

"I must not now hear this. Great God of Heaven give me strength to carry out the purpose of my soul. […] Charles, I know I cannot reason with you. I know I have not power of language, aptitude of illustration, nor depth of thought to hold a mental contention with you."

POINTS:

Flora needing strength to carry out her purpose—refusing Charles Holland—underlines that this is something she does not, in fact, want to do. While Charles Holland's persistence might be functionally indistinguishable from Dude Who Won't Take No For An Answer, here in a fictional context, we're given cues that Charles understands correctly that Flora is only trying to break up with him For His Own Good.

Compared to these frequent comments on Flora's allegedly weak intellect, can you see how "She has man’s brain [and] a woman's heart" is actually a fairly decent compliment to Mina Harker on Stoker's part?

Shut the fuck up, Rymer

Why not speak of love, demands Charles Holland?? We spoke of love 24/7 on the Continent! Whyfore not thereunto??

"I am changed, Charles. Fearfully changed. The curse of God has fallen upon me, I know not why. I know not that in word or in thought I have done evil, except perchance unwittingly, and yet -- the vampyre."

Charles Holland insists that there's got to be a rational explanation, because he is not actually the one who shot a vampyre in the face, nor has he been anyone's repast. To which Flora basically says, "WELL FIND ONE THEN." Saying which, she flings herself onto a seat in the summer-house (I'm imagining a gazebo here), and "covering her beautiful face with her hands, [sobs] compulsively." To hundreds of words of Charles Holland's dismay, Flora goes on to say that he should go find someone else, and "justice, religion, mercy -- every human attribute which bears the name of virtue" calls upon her to dump him. Which, again: if Flora really wanted to break up with him, she wouldn't be talking about all the external factors making her do it. There are several great breakup scenes in English-language literature of the 1800s from Pride and Prejudice onward, and this, on many levels, is not one of them. Charles Holland (and a reader used to this kind of writing) would pick up on that subtext. (Truly, I cannot emphasize enough that fiction is not real life. Don't presume to know what other people "really" mean IRL.) Thus, Charles Holland counters with the wonderful marshmallow romance goo:

"Well I know that gentle maiden modesty [that we need to have in this Reasonably Decent Publication] would seal your lips to the soft confession that you love me. I could not hope the joy of hearing you utter these words. The tender devoted lover is content to see the truthful passion in the speaking eyes of beauty. Content is he to translate it from a thousand acts, which, to eyes that look not so acutely as a lover's, bear no signification; but when you tell me to seek happiness with another, well may the anxious question burst from my throbbing heart of, 'Did you ever love me, Flora?'" Her senses hung entranced upon his words. Oh, what a witchery is in the tongue of love. Some even of the former colour of her cheek returned as, forgetting all for the moment but that she was listening to the voice of him, the thoughts of whom had made up the day dream of her happiness, she gazed upon his face. His voice ceased. To her it seemed as if some music had suddenly left off in its most exquisite passage. She clung to his arm -- she looked imploringly up to him. Her head sunk upon his breast as she cried, "Charles, Charles, I did love you. I do love you now." "Then let sorrow and misfortune shake their grisly locks in vain," he cried. "Heart to heart -- hand to hand with me, defy them."

Their... gory hair? ANYWAY WE DEFY THE FATES, BELOVED! OUR LOVE CONQUERS ALL! WE CARE-BEAR STARE AT DESTINY, FLORA! Good hustle, that's what I wanna hear.

He lifted up his arms towards Heaven as he spoke, and at the moment came such a rattling peal of thunder, that the very earth seemed to shake upon its axis. [Flora screams and there is extensive discussion of how scary it is.] Another peal, of almost equal intensity to the other, shook the firmament. Flora trembled.

Gonna be honest, I thought for a moment that Varney was falling off a wall again. Flora declares that this is the Voice of Heaven insisting that they break up forever, but Charles Holland insists that

"The sunshine of joy will shine on you again." There was a small break in the clouds, like a window looking into Heaven. From it streamed one beam of sunlight, so bright, so dazzling, and so beautiful, that it was a sight of wonder to look upon. It fell upon the face of Flora; it warmed her cheek; it lent lustre to her pale lips and tearful eyes; it illuminated that little summer-house as if it had been the shrine of some saint.

Here we go again, let's note, with the insistence that Flora is intrinsically pure. How you like them omens? Now this, this is a promise of God, and yea, a dove with an olive branch probably flies through a rainbow somewhere over the house. Back in the day, I took a graduate class on (American, mid-1800s) sentimental literature, which my professor characterized as "weepin' and prayin'." A certain kind of Protestant piety runs deep through these texts—not just the American ones—and appears as a default mindset in a lot of 19th-century literature:

Most of the high profile female writers of this period were committed Christians. The Broad Church Brontës, the Unitarian Mrs Gaskell and the systematically unconventional Emily Dickinson made much use of their faith in their work. So did George Eliot, supersaturated with a religion in which she no longer believed, yet an accomplished theologian. The male writers were often committed believers too, despite the apparently worldly outlook of many, including apparently cynical Thackeray and robustly conventional Trollope. Throughout Victoria's reign, religious controversy simmers, not only among journalists but poets and novelists too. These Christian turf wars are sometimes edited out of readings of Victorian texts because they might not feel relevant to modern studies. Marianne Thormählen in The Brontës and Religion sees it differently: ‘The Christian life is a foreign country to most people today and I believe it serves some purpose to be reminded that to the Brontës it was home.’

The flip side of this is that vampire fiction tends to bring in a Catholic Christian vibe: no matter what denomination anyone was before the fangs came out, let's throw holy water and a wafer at the problem. But in the meantime!

She allowed him to clasp her to his heart. It was beating for her, and for her only.  [...] "Charles, we will live, love, and die together."

In "a wrapt stillness" and "a trance of joy," they stare at each other and smile and nearly cry for a good long while, which is very sweet. BUT THEN!

A shriek burst from Flora's lips -- as shriek so wild and shrill that it awakened echoes far and near. Charles staggered back a step, as if shot, and then in such agonised accents as he was long indeed in banishing the remembrance of, she cried, -- "The vampyre! the vampyre!"

Yeah, that's the chapter. You might recall that Sir Francis the Vampyre expressed hopes of courting Flora, so this is gonna get interesting.

Varney the Vampire masterpost

[hildred-rex]

@ibrithir-was-here: delightful tags!

I wish for something Dracula as sort of post-apocalypse. Maybe killing him did not stop the infestation, maybe it emboldened other vampires and you have now 100 Ruthvens in his wake having turf wars, maybe his visit awakened legendary dormant ancient evils, maybe it inspired ambitious lords of the dying british/european aristocracy wanting to copycat him and make devil pacts and training in the mountains. And the survivors who experienced it all first hand dealing with it.

Honestly, it stuns me how little has been done with the 'Dracula technically leaving an open spot at the top of the vampire food chain' possibilities. I think Castlevania kind of touches on it, but overall there's just a whole lot of nothing going on in Dracula-adjacent media about it.

Though I will hand the other public domain vampires a pass because, to be honest, I think Count Dracula was the only vampire in literature who was ever concerned about Taking Over the World. Everyone else in the undead scene is just sort of doing the smart thing and. You know. Chilling.

Lord Ruthven wasn't out to conscript others. Dude went out of his way to kill his victims with knives and drink the red runoff, as if to explicitly avoid making other vampires.

Carmilla was out there romancing and drinking girls like an undead Casanova. The vampire who turned her first when she was Countess Mircalla might have been different! But we never find out who that vampire was; we just know about Millie and the growing list of broken/siphoned hearts left in her wake.

Clarimonde, the dead woman in love~, was so bad at making another vampire. Comically, tragically bad at it. All she could bring herself to do was construct a fantasy dreamscape to live in with her human priest crush while taking literally only a single pinprick's worth of blood from him to keep herself going. This, when the priest in question openly declared SHE COULD HAVE HIS ENTIRE CIRCULATORY SYSTEM if she wanted it!

Varney the Vampire was and remains just...terrible at being a vampire. In general.

Countess Dolingen and her undead village, along with Gorcha and the Vourdalak village, both seem to have the whole 'conscript everyone around me/all those I love' angle handled. Except neither group ever ever expands past the borders of their territory. Maybe it's a rule? Maybe they just ran out of people they felt like drinking? Either way, they stopped caring about collecting others and just tucked themselves in their graves to doze once their respective villages were turned.

In short, for somebody to take over Dracula's ~King of the Vampires~ role, we'd actually need an OC to step in. All the actual classic literary vampires, many of whom were kicking well before Dracula appeared on the scene, just are not interested in the undead tyrant game.

(Probably why Dracula had to go around recruiting in the first place. None of the other vampires returned his letters or carrier pigeons for centuries. No, they don't want to join his pyramid scheme vampiric onslaught campaign, thanks. Too busy minding their business and/or dealing with personal drama. Please lose their address.)

[bluelightningcommander]

Sir Francis Varney in a broody mood and a cuddly sweater

[mayhemchicken-varneyposting]

and now. crossover

[lauralot89]

Just finished reading Strange Practice by Vivian Shaw.

It's a novel about Greta Helsing (descendant of Abraham Van Helsing, somewhere along the line the family dropped the Van), who runs a London clinic for supernatural creatures. Then a cult in the city starts killing off both human and inhuman Londoners, and Greta finds herself and her friends targeted.

Dracula does not appear in this novel, I assume because he's likely dead thanks to the efforts of Greta's ancestor, but Lord Ruthven and Sir Francis Varney are main characters.

All in all, I found it an entertaining read, but necessarily the serial killer business took up a lot of the book and what I found most fascinating was the medical aspect. At one point, Greta mentions that it's flu season for ghouls. I need to know more about this. What are the symptoms of ghoul flu? How is it treated? I need House but for vampires and mummies and werewolves and all of that.

Though this book is the first in a series, so maybe the next one will be a bit more Grey's Anatomy.

[good7luck]

VNC "machina"

Not sure if I should warn "potential spoilers" XD

.

Sir Francis Varney is the real name of Marquis Machina, who is implied to be very old and powerful.

Machina means machine. And...

"Deus ex machina" has machina, too.

So, I wonder if "Deus ex machina" would be brought up within VNC in some form at some point - maybe near the end, like in the final chapter of the last volume!

I don't necessarily mean VNC will certainly get an objectively happy ending somehow thanks to MJ-sensei pulling some merciful "Deus ex machina" in the last minute XD

For example, it could be that the characters discuss the concept but it never actually happens as they originally wished in canon - even horribly fails, like the Babel Incident, oops ^^;

Or, the characters accept / confirm their "bad / tragic" ending of their life by their own will (;_;), instead of the sweet "Deus ex machina" ending that kinda "denies" (and/or "rewrites") their history and/or could bring something worse... (And then MJ-sensei "betrays" them and gives them a hopeful enough ending in the final pages, as her surprise prize present = "Deus ex machina" lol cuz she can, as the "creator" = "God" uwu)

BTW apparently "Deus ex machina" = "god from the machine" in English, and...VNC has some (illegal) "enhanced humans" by Moreau, though of course they're not really the same. Still, mechanical prostheses seem to be quite normalized in canon (even aside from Marquis Machina), so there might be mechanical humans(TM) secretly somewhere as well...? Now or later :P

[too-tired-to-write]

Varney, the vampyre, who had been holding this conversation with no other than Marchdale

NO

Mr. Marchdale, who now stands out in his true colours to the reader as the confidant and abettor of Sir Francis Varney

ROBERT MARCHDALE HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO US

[dross-the-fish]

I JUST SAW YOUR OLD DOODLES OF THEO AND MMMM… SHE IS GORGEOUS I LOVE HER EYELASHES. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE TELL ME MOTE ABOUT HER IM BEGGING YOH.

Sure thing! :D

Theo is the abandoned fledgling of Sir Francis Varney (Varney the Vampire) and she works as an actress and male impersonator singing and performing in music halls. She was turned in her mid twenties and has been a vampire for about 15 years. Despite disliking her curse it has benefited her acting career that she doesn't age and she's well aware that she'd be dead if not for the curse.

She has very mixed feelings about it and her sire. Varney bit her because he realized she was dying of TB but then ended up running off one day leaving Theo to figure out how to live with her vampirism on her own. Eventually she kind of fell in with Dorian Gray and hung around the members of Dracula's brood staying at his manor. Gray never saw her as more than entertainment and that suited her fine as long as she got paid at the end of each week and had a safe place to sleep. By the time she meets the motley crew during the Dorian Gray arc she's pretty sick of Gray and is more than willing to switch sides. She gets the crew into Gray's parties and is immediately shocked by how generally nice the crew is to her. Especially Watson who is more kindly than any person she's ever met.

Theo is reserved at first, even a little aloof and tends to play off her insecurities with humor but she's starved for kindness and sick of feeling isolated from mankind so it doesn't take her long to warm up to the crew.

She and Erik clash a little because he's an egotist who has no respect for her work but even he manages to soften towards her in time.

[cleolinda]

Varney the Vampire - chapter 3

Chapter 2: Varney cannot get over a wall.

Chapter 3: Originally posted on Livejournal, December 7, 2010, in the same post as chapters 1-2. The recap was short, so I've expanded it. Content note: blood.

CHAPTER III.

THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE BODY. -- FLORA'S RECOVERY AND MADNESS. -- THE OFFER OF ASSISTANCE FROM SIR FRANCIS VARNEY.

Given that this serial is titled, you know, Varney the Vampire, I got to this header back in 2010 and blurted out, "O rly?," because that's how we talked back then. No, I did.

(There is no actual offer of assistance from Sir Francis Varney in this chapter. Ya rly.)

Previously on:

Henry had the weapon, and he pointed it full at the tall form with steady aim. He pulled the trigger -- the explosion followed, and that the bullet did its office there could be no manner of doubt, for the figure gave a howling shriek, and fell headlong from the wall on the outside.

Currently: GET HIS ASS

This was at once agreed to, and the whole three of them made what expedition they could towards a gate which let into a paddock, across which they hurried, and soon found themselves clear of the garden wall, so that they could make way towards where they fully expected to find the body of him who had worn so unearthly an aspect, but who it would be an excessive relief to find was human.

sloooow cab, meter runnin' 

Three hundred words later, the men go around the wall, examine the heathy (yes, heathy) vegetation and find... no vampyre. Three hundred and fifty words after that, it finally occurs to them to go back and see if Flora is, you know, dead or whatever.

"My senses," said Henry, "were all so much absorbed in gazing at that horrible form, that I never once looked towards her further than to see that she was, to appearance, dead. God help her! poor -- poor, beautiful Flora. This is, indeed, a sad, sad fate for you to come to. Flora -- Flora -- "

I am pretty sure that if the printer had let James Malcolm Rymer just have a ten-page lightswitch rave—doop doop doop. Flora. Flora. The Flora. Is down—he would have done it.

I summarized the family for you earlier, but I think this is actually the first time we hear that Marchdale is "Robert Marchdale, you whom I [Flora's mother] have known even from my childhood," and who will surely not deceive her. I don't think they've told us... why, exactly... he's living here, in 1840s terms of respectability. (I think I was more suspicious of this back in 2010 than I actually am now. Sometimes a family is a mother, her children, a man, and his crowbar.) Anyway, everyone is just letting Flora bleed out at their leisure (content note: here comes the blood):

The mother approached the bed-side of the insensible, perhaps murdered girl; she saw her, to all appearance, weltering in blood, and, overcome by her emotions, she fainted on the floor of the room. [...] She was quite insensible, and her face was fearfully pale; while that she breathed at all could be but very faintly seen. On some of her clothing, about the neck, were spots of blood, and she looked more like one who had suffered some long and grievous illness, than a young girl in the prime of life and in the most robust health, as she had been on the day previous to the strange scene we have recorded. [...] “A wound!" said the mother, and she brought a light close to the bed, where all saw on the side of Flora's neck a small punctured wound; or, rather two, for there was one a little distance from the other. "How came these wounds?" said Henry. "I do not know," [Flora] replied. "I feel very faint and weak, as if I had almost bled to death."

Please notice all the blood, and also the puncture wounds, from which the blood endeavors to pour, and which are consistent with those made by vampire fangs (a concept that this serial, after all, introduced). This is going to be important later, if you want to understand why I got halfway through Volume Two and suddenly melted down in unbelieving rage that this godforsaken book would try to fucking gaslight me as to whether any of this happened or not.

The Bannerworth family revives Flora with wine, because, when in doubt: booze. And then, while Flora is wailing and trembling and fainting, the family all looks over at the spooky portrait in her room (whose idea was that, anyway?) and realizes that... it looks just like the vampyre. Of course it does. But it's the ancestral portrait of Sir Runnagate (oh, why not) Bannerworth, "who first, by his vices, gave the great blow to the family prosperity."

(You know, I said "why not" when I wrote that years ago, but no, I want to know why! Why the fuck is a 1700s dude named RUNNAGATE? So I go google it, and I get this:

Corruption of renegade, influenced by run + agate (“on the way, agoing”).

1. A deserter, renegade or apostate. 2. A fugitive; a runaway.

I'm gonna hope this was a sobriquet their ancestor picked up from some salty descendants after he blew the family fortune, because otherwise, this is a real "dead dove: I don't know what I expected" situation.)

Henry then tells us that the spooky portrait is ninety years old, which I thought was Rymer trying to tell us that Sir Runnagate is actually Varney, and that's (at least) how long he's been around. Hell, maybe that's what he is trying to tell us right now; the storylines of serials tend to drift all over the place, and writers either forget what they started out saying, or they decide to contradict themselves and hope no one notices. But I get ahead of myself.

To finish the chapter: Henry, having promised Flora that he won't leave, camps out at her bedside with Marchdale's crowbar reloaded pistols—which I mention because it reminds me a lot of the men watching over Lucy in Dracula. Or reverse-reminds me, since Varney predates Dracula by fifty years. My point is, here's another Literary Vampire Tradition Moment: the maiden abed, and her protectors' vigil. Which is worth noting, because there are a number of moments that feel like something you've seen a hundred times, and then there are vast, oceanic swathes of wackery. As I said back in 2010, I had read half the entire serial by that point, and the opening chapter was the first and only episode of vampiring I had seen in some 300,000 words. BE STRONG, WE CAN DO THIS.

(Chapter 4, sparkle willing, will go up on Tuesday, March 21.)

[darklingichor]

Bitter Waters, by Vivian Shaw

Greta Helsing short story!!

I adore this series and was hoping for more after Grave Importance. This really should be read after the main trilogy.

Greta is enjoying an evening at Dark Heart House with her new husband, vampyre Sir Francis Varney, and their sort of ward, Emily, vampire and supernatural veterinarian student, when a creature arrives at their house with a little girl who had been turned into a vampire and dumped in the woods.

The creature is a barrow-wight. Far from Tolkien's interpretation of her species, she is simply trying to get the child somewhere safe.

Lucy is an orphan who has been in multiple foster homes. She was taken by a vampire during a school trip to Stonehenge, turned and abandoned. She is all of ten years old.

This is an abdominal thing to do and it pisses all of our favorite Sanguinvores off to no end. They are all taken with Lucy. She is sweet, smart and is resilient as all get out. Ruthven especially takes on a fatherly role. Varney wants to track down the vampire that turned her. Greta and Ruthven, while in agreement are more concerned about how best to help give Lucy the most stable version of life possible. Grisaille, of course just hangs out with her watching The Great British Bake Off and answering questions the others are too preoccupied to answer. All of this (well, except for the Bake Off) gets Count Dracula involved.

This is an interesting story, you think that its going to be a case of our heros tracking down this asshole vampire and taking him down. Instead what you get is a look into the structure of Sanguinvore culture and a really cool peek inside Ruthven's head. And when Lucy, a insatiable reader gets a library and iPad free pass... let's just say that all of our characters classic literature connections are discovered to various levels of embarrassment.

I enjoyed the hell out of this, and the fact that it leaves a door cracked open for more stories is a fantastic bonus!