Jinx: I Hate My Last Name.

reader: these books are the oldest thing in this store-

reader: *bumps into jane*

jane:

reader: i was wrong

jane: you little shit-

We’re so used to the sexual reading of the entire book of Dracula, which takes the sensuality of the early chapters and jams everything that follows it into the same metaphor no matter how poorly it fits, but I feel the segment we’re approaching works much better with a lens of chronic illness and disease.

Vampire legends are inextricably intertwined with disease. Many of them are said to have been birthed by burying victims of disease too soon, who later seem to rise from the dead. But what’s more is that Stoker and his family have deep-seated trauma over disease: his mother had to flee her hometown at the age of 14 because of a horrific cholera epidemic, and Stoker himself was bedridden as a child from an illness that no one could identify.

Found this quote from Irish Historian Mary McGarry:

Bram as an adult asked his mother to write down her memories of the epidemic for him, and he supplemented this using his own historic research of Sligo’s epidemic. Scratching beneath the surface (of this essay), I found parallels with Dracula. [For instance,] Charlotte says cholera enters port towns having traveled by ship, and can travel overland as a mist—just like Dracula, who infects people with his unknown contagion.

I bring this up because a lot of academic analysis insists that Lucy sleepwalking is proof of her being the Slutty Woman archetype that needs to be punished. This suggested symbolism is hilarious when put next to the text saying she inherited it from her father, but I’d like to suggest a different angle from the lens of disease suggested earlier:

Lucy’s sleepwalking is a condition that predates Dracula but makes her an easy target for him to prey on. Through the lens of disease symbolism, she now is someone with chronic illness or disability who is especially vulnerable to infectious disease. This becomes a cross-section of Stoker’s trauma regarding disease: his own mystery illness and his mother fleeing a plague.

To wind down my rambles with a bit of a soapbox, I feel this adds a very poignant layer to the struggle to keep Lucy alive. The COVID pandemic showed a horrifying level of casual ableism vs disabled and immunodeficient individuals, shrugging off their vulnerability and even their deaths with “well COVID only kills them.” There’s something deeply gratifying at seeing the way everyone around Lucy fights to the bitter end to protect her and refuses to just give her up to Dracula, whether it’s Mina physically chasing him away or the suitor squad pouring their blood into her veins or Van Helsing desperately searching for cures. The vulnerable deserve no less than this. They’re not acceptable casualties.

a piece of me dies every time im reading a fic and taylor swift lyrics pop up😭 then i realize the description of the oc or “reader” are very white coded like OH! that’s not…

Playing scrabble with the guards

reader: I will put an A down for A

felix: I will add a T to make AT

alec: I will add onto your AT to make RAT

jane *being a lil shit*: i will add onto your rat to make BIOSTRATIGRAPHIC

demitri: *flips board*

felix: god dammit.

Why must I go out there, meet people and build relationships in order to have a girlfriend? Why can't I just go kiss the new girl in the pantry at a party, and she stakes me bc I'm a vampire and we fall in love?

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

WHERE LOVE GROWS II

· · ─────── · 𖥸 · ─────── · ·

warnings!

blood

reincarnation (?)

twilight shenanigans

i use [reader]

Red means translation.

Fem! Presenting reader.

neither [reader] nor jane are the same personality wise as they were in the last oneshot

prostitution

[Reader/Emerald] is written to be any color, shape or size to fit your body type.

referenced sexual activities

slight smut

referenced past murder

both girls are of age! (17/18).

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

"PAIN."

The word leaves glossed red lips faster than one could beg for reprieve. Echoing off of the closed in cobblestone walls and leading the other present vampire into a uncontrollable frenzy. Darkened scarlet eyes watching with a small smirk painted across her lips as the new born vampire inaudibly screams for mercy. Clutching his no doubt pounding head as he falls to his knees, ending up in the fetal position while the volturi member rolls her wine coloured eyes above him.

"Please! Please! I would never-"

The blonde had heard enough. Turning on her darkly coloured pumps out into the street. Passing the soundless but deadly felix without giving him much of a second glance and away from the scene. Even in her silence, the message was clear; The volturi don't give second chances.

The man's final scream rings out piercingly into the other wise silent night gaining only a wince from the girl when they're cut off brutally with the grotesque sounds of porcelain breaking. Though to the mortal, untrained ear nothing would've been heard. That's what centuries of honed in accelerated hearing gives you.

Jane volturi takes an unessential deep breath, letting her shortened golden hair loose from its tied constraints and shaking it out. Placing the generic rubber band on her alabaster wrist. Walking almost angrily away from the crime scene that she helped create.

On the walk out the blondes crimson red eyes fall on a woman around her visible age. Dressed in a dark green oversized fluff coat of some sort, Jean shorts and dark green heels. Tucked into the streets corner, a small lighter being the only thing to illuminate her wearied looking face. [reader].

Jane's face softens the smallest bit, a stutter apparent in her step as her eyes connect with the mystery girl's. Dark red meeting [eye coloured]. The [reader] look alike quirks one eyebrow up, long skinny cigarette hanging limply from her sensually glossed ruby lips.

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

"Jane– alec's gonna–" [reader]'s voice breaks off into a moan, the flustered girl underneath her gripping onto the blondes bicep for reprieve. Finding none of course.

The fair skinned girl's hand slipping under her girlfriends long skirts, her palm dancing across the supple skin of her upper thigh. Her mouth trailing open mouthed kisses up and onto her ear. "What about him?" Smirking when she feels [reader] shiver under her.

"He'll be– he'll be here soon." The [haircoloured] teen stutters out, her bust straining against her stays with every breath. The thought of unlacing the offending fabric to allow her to see the act unfiltered does flash through Jane's mind and she grins.

"No he won't." Her tanish pink fingers reaching downwards to teasingly pull at the stays lacing, eventually tugging the other girls top off. "You think I didn't take care of him already?"

[Reader]'s eyes widen, her [skin coloured] hand raising to pull Jane's head down. The blonde only laughing when their lips connect. "Jane you tease." She whines.

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

The two-hundred and ninety three year old vampire swallows heavily. Once again stepping away from the seductive hallucination. Her head turning back to her path in astonishment walking quicker now after running into her 'old flame'. The sound of her hurried pace, clicking across the cobblestone.

Not stopping even when an almost inaudible scoff is heard. Eventually leaving the terribly lit street and finding her brother holding his trusty golden pocket watch to his face.

It's not real. She's just an illusion. [Reader] [last name] was killed in France, 1694. Don't fall for this again.

Jane closed her eyes and took in several shallow breaths. Alabaster hand coming up to massage her temples as she attempted to forcefully removed any thoughts of [reader] out of her mind. I'm just tired, that's all.

But you don't sleep-

"What happened to you?" Alec's voice is is heard faintly. Jane taking the distraction and snapping her eyes open to look at her concerned brother.

The blonde clears her throat and shakes her head. Ridding herself of lingering [reader] thoughts. "Nothing, I think I'm just thirsty." The guards woman touching her throat and swallowing for effect.

If Alec doubted her claims he didn't say it verbally at least. To which Jane is thankful for, instead just nodding along with her and taking his 'older' sister by the hand. Gratefully leading her farther and farther away from the [reader] illusion.

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

Jane sees her again the following month. Same clothes different color, same cigarette wrapped around those provocative ruby red lips. Only difference being the location.

Jane's never seen the same illusion twice before. And definitely not a full bodied one. She can't be an descendant, her bloodline ended back then.

The streetwalker eventually notices the blondes gaze, giving her a less flirtatious raise of the eyebrow and tilt of her head. And looking at her in more detail this time, her similarities with [reader] stopped after looks.

Where [reader]'s mannerisms were bubbly, playful and pure. This corner girl's is foxlike, teasing, and had a weird air of mature that rivaled Jane's own. She reminded Jane of of a sly kitten, laying lazily on a plush bed, knocking glasses over and flashing large doe eyes when caught.

Jane hmms at the thought, turning her head to her front no longer staring corner girl and walks slowly away from her. Wrestling with the miniscule part of her that wants to run towards her. It's not her. She's long dead.

"Ehi! Ragazza bionda!" Hey blonde girl.

The sound of her past lovers voice had Jane stopping mid-step. The two hundred year old vampire internally chastising herself for even giving the girl a moment of her time. How dare she call me like a dog I'll-

[Reader]'s look a like practically floats into her view. The [haircoloured] girl holding her cigarette between two fingers her other arm propping her up dominate hand.

"Got a light? I'm out." The girl questions, she holds her hand out in Jane's direction, mischief twinkling in her hypnotic [coloured] eyes. Jane looks down to the humans hand, her eyes landing specifically on her wrist- bruised and paler than one would expect. The delicate blue veins underneath very discernable.

A small tick of worry for the random stranger in front of her shoots through the blondes undead heart. The vampire shakes her head, hands dumbly patting down her figure. The pretty girl in front of her scoffs, placing the already lipstick indented ciggy into her mouth once again. "Lo so," She pulls a dark red lighter from the large expanse of her coat, flicking it on and holding it to the cig, to Jane's surprise. "You just seemed hellbent on not making the first move." I know.

The [haircoloured] girl winks, Jane really looking into her eyes for the first time, the visible haze that fogged over them a little worrying.

"Making the first move?" The volturi gaurd questions, tilting her head slightly with an eyebrow tilt.

"The staring blondie. You like me." The prostitute inhales and takes the cig away from her mouth. Exhaling out and blowing the foggy air away from them both.

"I don't know where you got that from. But you've got it wrong, I just must've mistaken you for somebody I know."

Jane manoeuvres around the girl faster than a light. The girl was too high to think about janes 'super speed' anyway. She speeds away from the prostitute without much other thought. Her head a little more foggy than she would've liked, the blonde thanking her vampirism, knowing she would've been blushing if she was human.

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

After that, Jane refused to go outside for an additional three weeks. (That's the longest she could avoid her duties as a volturi member before master aro would get curious.) In that time Jane holed herself up in her room, her lighter coloured curtains drawn shut at all times and door permanently locked.

During that time, all Jane did was paint. Sketched canvas after canvas out of her [reader], absentmindedly would mix and match the colours and brush them on the delicately mapped out painting. Whenever she had been frustrated with something in the past, that's what she did. She taught herself to draw a few weeks shy of readers death, worried that she'd forget her beloveds features as time ticked on.

It became a sort of hobby of her's. Her own method of grief. Whenever any of her own coven mates would piss her off, she'd find herself back in her room, furiously drawing away, only leaving after she'd have completed two portraits at the minimum. During these times she'd talk to herself. Acting as if [reader] was still alive and in the very room, moving the conversation along from talking about her day to on the verge of tears begging her for some divine guidance on what she should do.

It looked like today's discussion with her 'ghost' was the later.

The close proximity of the [reader] look alike must've really done a number on her. The blonde taking heavy false needed breaths, her chest straining against her cotton black dress from her sheer vampiric strength.

The street girl had features that even Jane had forgotten with time. She can't just be a hallucination sent to torment the vampire, could she? Her accelerated brain just finally snapping and giving up and going fully senile after centuries of headache inducing work.

Jane had been the only one to see her.Jane absentmindedly twirls her brush in the acrylics. They've never touched, (though Jane was sure she'd combust on the spot if she did.) And her attention was oddly fixated only on Jane despite them having never met.

But on the other hand, she interacted very realistically with her surroundings. And as Jane stated earlier shares even the features that jane had forgotten [reader] had. The paintbrush smidges the colors around further. More importantly, why would Jane imagine her beloved as a prostitute?

The blonde finds herself sinking deeper into the rabbit hole of her mind. Pressing the wooden paintbrush harder against the already beautiful portrait and —snap!

The noise startles her out of her thoughts. Crimson eyes falling to her clenched fist that held the splintered remains of her favorite paintbrush.

In her moment of clarity, Jane looks down to her painting, a small frown of confusion crossing her face when the seductive eyes of the prostitute stare almost teasingly back at her. Jane looks away and draws a breath, she's drawing her now?

The human is wearing scantily put together jade green lingerie set, the only colour the vampire has ever seen her in this far. Her usual ruby red lipstick is smudged messily around her lips. [Hair coloured] hair mussed around and a tired smile is on her lips. Red scratches and dark marks litter the expanse of her chest, the [reader] look alike lounged lazily onto a silk canopy. Jane's eyes widen when she recognizes the very setting the painting was in. Her bedroom.

The golden sunlight streams in just so, hitting and illuminating the [skin coloured] skin of the mystery woman's collar and chest beautifully. Jane swears she tears up a little when she notices the woman's hand. Stretched outward towards an invisible person. The blonde letting out a shaky sigh not even noticing her own hand reaching upwards and rubbing over the harsh parchment. Resting her weary head against the portrait as if she could almost feel the love radiating from it.

It's been too long. My love.

In that moment, right in her covens eyes or not, Jane promised herself that she'd see the human woman again. Caring no longer that she's not technically [reader].

Jane opens her eternally red eyes. Looking up directly into her loves beautiful [coloured] eyes.

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

Jane goes out again to see her that night. Activating 'pain' and her stony glares to her fellow guards when they questioned her behaviors. The only exception being her twin brother who she'd only given a half truth and excuse.

The blonde now wandering the streets quietly, listening out for her 'loves?' distinctive heartbeat. The 'teen' keeps her steps light, avoiding any extra noise that might attract unwanted watchers as she prowls around the walk ways.

Soon enough the distinct thump, thump, thump of her telltale heart has Jane walking softer in it's direction. Eventually catching the girl as she propped up against the cobblestone wall. Under the street lamp, wearing some large trench coat— it is getting colder. Though the coat was slightly opened, revealing the dark green Lacey bra underneath. She pauses mid puff.

"No use hiding doll I always know when you're there." The prostitute speaks aloud. Looking around the alleyway before her eyes connect with Jane's.

The vampires mind goes blank. She hadn't counted the woman seeing her! She was just supposed to get here, watch her for a bit, and vanish back into volturi castle yo paint her while she's fresh in her mind. She hadn't thought this far ahead.

"How?" Jane takes a step out of her comfortable dark shroud, into the streets filtered light crimson eyes trained on the girl in front of her.

"Your eyes, the air gets heavier when they're on me." The [haircolored] girl gives a tiny smirk. Flicking the cigarette butt onto the floor and grinding her green heels down into the asphalt.

Jane clears her throat drawing those —gorgeous [deep/light coloured] eyes back to her dangerous figure.

"I have a proposition for you."

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

STOP why are there so many shitty team green takes on my for you tl like go away EW

Unpopular Opinion: Mark's feelings about Sinclair and Darkwing make total sense for him to have. They aren't just pieces in a hypothetical thought experiment for him. Sinclair nearly killed someone who's now a friend to him and kidnapped Mark's BEST FRIEND.

Darkwing is way more redeemable but Mark was left out of the loop on that one, after Cecil TOLD him to bring him in. He was completely blindsided, felt like his trust was betrayed, and blew up. Maybe if Cecil had TRIED to ease Mark into the idea of rehabilitation in the first place, or just explain his points any time earlier, things might have gone better.

It's a completely understandable to want someone that harmed you or someone close to you to never see the light of day again. How many people do you know that would go "oh yeah you mutilated corpses and combined a human with robotics against their i will and kidnapped one of my friends, but they have you doing the same thing with DEAD SOLDIERS now, so I guess you must be a good person."

(Using corpses as weapons is so disgusting and I doubt Cecil asked Sinclair to look for a way to make it all robotic.)

As for the point about Mark being more willing to forgive his dad that people use as a gotcha... like ofc he is. that's his dad. People's parents hit them all the time and they still love them and stay in contact. People's kids will commit horrible crimes but they'll still love them and defend them. It's not necessarily right but it happens often because that's how we are. People make excuses for people they love. We forgive people we love more easily. Mark wants to have hope for his Dad, because that's his Dad.

People really don't account for how young Mark is. He's like 19 (and the general consensus in the fandom is that his aging likely slows after he got his powers) and has experienced so much mayhem and death in an incredibly personal way. He has so much responsibility to be Earth's greatest hero and it's gotta feel like all that work means nothing when things like that happen.

Of course he wants to be against murder, "heroes" don't do that. Of course he's not expecting Cecil to start working with the bad guys. He grew up in a world with Omni-Man and now he has to live up to the hero part of his Dad's legacy and not the villain part. And in that world, they didn't need Cecil's contingencies.

I'm not saying Mark's perfect and should never be criticized, but dear god. People are trying to hold him accountable like he's a real person. The weird takes I see on tiktok are the reason I should've never told that app I watched that show

reader: why do my hands get cold and not the rest of me?

jane: it's the human body's way of regulating temperature

demitri: ghosts are holding your hands

reader: how romantic.

Religious backwood country horror you will always be my genre 🙌

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