Dross The Fish

This blog is mainly art and fandom focused and I am always looking for inspiration so feel free to send art requests or suggestions and I might draw you something nice. My ask box is always open.

Fair warning, if you have a blank blog and I'm unable to confirm you are human you run the risk of being blocked.

18+ side blog for sending your more nsfw asks and requests

Feed the fish please!: Ko-fi

I really like Selma tbh. I like her color palette and her body type. After that I'd say Jekyll, Hafiz (the Daroga) and Theo.

I mean, if you're going to ship Jekyll with someone from the novel my own preference is definitely Utterson

Sure.

......

There he was again, stopped by Jekyll’s house at exactly nine in the evening. Rain or shine, like clockwork, he came, looking longingly at the abandoned building with his bony hands resting on his cane. Gabriel Utterson. He truly was a pitiful sight with his tall scarecrow frame, his lanky limbs, and his scantily skinned, worn-parchment face. The years had not been kind. 

Edward wondered if he’d been eating properly. It certainly didn’t look it. He took a pull from his cigar and wrapped his fox fur coat tighter around himself as he observed Utterson. It had become Utterson’s habit to visit Jekyll’s abandoned house. It had become Edward’s habit to watch him.

“Mister seek indeed,” he scoffed and dropped his smoke, stubbing it out against the damp cobblestone with his foot. 

Today it was cool and foggy, as it often was in early spring, after winter’s rains had saturated the air and mingled with London’s dirt and grime. The rusty-yellow sputter of the street lamps cast hazy patches of light against the gloom. From his secluded place in a nearby alley, the short, muscular man watched as Utterson checked his pocket watch and glanced around slowly.

Was he waiting for something?

Someone?

Him?

Anger flared in his chest. What right did he have? Why was he haunting Jekyll’s old house as if the good doctor would simply come back and invite him in for drinks by the fire?

“Gabriel doesnae even like drinks!” Edward muttered, “He just sits and watches ye fall intae yer cups and smiles all pleasant under his stupid mustache. I hate that thing! I always did!” he wanted to shout it but contented himself with hissing between his teeth.

“He gets crumbs in it and they stay there and ye cannae stare at him because t’will make him feel self consious and he’ll look at ye wi’ his big dumb brown eyes and gae ‘tis there somethin’ on my face?’ and ye’ll start tae feel like the devil himself for putting a worry in his head,” he paced a bit, unable to remain static.

Edward was caught up in his quiet ranting, which did much to soothe his agitation. He even allowed himself a gratifying stomp or two, certain he was still safely out of sight.

Then, the wind changed, and Utterson lifted his head and looked around, turning until he faced the alley where Edward was hiding. Edward went still and ceased his ranting. He held his breath and waited for Utterson to look away. He didn't. Utterson took a single step closer to him.

When Utterson stopped only a few paces away from the alley, Edward nearly bolted. It was the look in Utterson’s eyes that kept him there. Despite the age on his face, Utterson’s eyes were as dark and clear as they had been when he and Henry Jekyll were schoolboys. Even now there was a lingering, familiar, stubborn hope in them. There were some things time couldn’t touch. Edward's chest tightened. He sighed; it was the low, trembling escape of breath that a man gives when he is on the cusp of weeping.

“Oh, Gabriel…”

Utterson gripped his cane and took another halting step towards the alley.

“Henry?”

Henry…

Why had he used that name?!  A thin, chilled bead of sweat ran down Edward’s spine. The weight in his chest turned to a lump of suffocating fear. He lurched backward, and his heel caught on a loose sewer grate; the metal gave a dull clang as it jostled up and then back down when the pressure of Edward’s foot was removed from it. Utterson was running toward him as fast as he could with bad knees and a worse back.

There was one moment, one split moment, where Edward was caught between staying and running. If Utterson found him, maybe it would be a relief. Maybe his friend would recognize something of Jekyll in Hyde’s face, and he’d forgive him.

Utterson always forgave him.

“HENRY!”

Not at my current writing skill level. I do not have the polish or skill required to be an author. I'd also HAVE to find an editor. Because I am dyslexic I am not usually aware when I've made a spelling or grammar error. Auto correct helps but if I mix up two words with similar spelling auto correct won't flag it and it also won't flag if I skip an entire word. These are basic mistakes most writers wouldn't make in the first place but I'm also aware no amount of practice will work for me to fix the core problem.

YES! One of my headcanons is that Elizabeth is very subtly strategic about finding ways to get free time. She finds ways to make sure that every member of the household is occupied so that she can sneak off somewhere by herself for awhile. I like to tie this in with William's death. Elizabeth in my AU didn't just give him the locket, she had Justine take him outside to play when in reality Elizabeth was meant to be watching or tutoring him. In my AU that's why she has such a strong reaction and feels such personal guilt. Not just because she gave him the locket but because it was supposed to be her with him. She also believes that if she had been the one with him no one would even think entertain that Elizabeth was the killer. She's fully aware that the reason Justine ends up dead on flimsy circumstantial evidence is because her social status left her vulnerable. The Frankenstein's do not hire governesses so Elizabeth essentially had to play that role for both Ernest and William. I know in the book it says Victor takes over Ernest's studies but prior to that headcanon it was Elizabeth's job. My version of Elizabeth is always kind of worn thin but she tends to take on a lot of responsibility because she believes she HAS to be useful. As the outsider who has no wealth of her own she is completely dependent on the Frankensteins and she is determined to make herself indefensible. This leads to burnout and to her surreptitiously finding ways to shuffle some of her responsibilities around so she can rest.

Jekyll got into some occult shit and wanted to explore the mystical aspects of science and Lanyon was all "Jekyll that's nonsense, you're a doctor ffs!" and Jekyll didn't appreciate that and when Jekyll didn't continued to pursue his supernatural interests Lanyon cut ties with him..

“I suppose, Lanyon,” said he, “you and I must be the two oldest friends that Henry Jekyll has?”

“I wish the friends were younger,” chuckled Dr. Lanyon. “But I suppose we are. And what of that? I see little of him now.”

“Indeed?” said Utterson. “I thought you had a bond of common interest.”

“We had,” was the reply. “But it is more than ten years since Henry Jekyll became too fanciful for me. He began to go wrong, wrong in mind; and though of course I continue to take an interest in him for old sake’s sake, as they say, I see and I have seen devilish little of the man. Such unscientific balderdash,” added the doctor, flushing suddenly purple, “would have estranged Damon and Pythias.”

Lanyon has been at odds with Jekyll for nearly a full decade by the time the story takes place. Jekyll likewise feels that their scientific differences are irreconcilable.

Dr. Jekyll was no exception; and as he now sat on the opposite side of the fire—a large, well-made, smooth-faced man of fifty, with something of a slyish cast perhaps, but every mark of capacity and kindness—you could see by his looks that he cherished for Mr. Utterson a sincere and warm affection.

“I have been wanting to speak to you, Jekyll,” began the latter. “You know that will of yours?”

A close observer might have gathered that the topic was distasteful; but the doctor carried it off gaily. “My poor Utterson,” said he, “you are unfortunate in such a client. I never saw a man so distressed as you were by my will; unless it were that hide-bound pedant, Lanyon, at what he called my scientific heresies. O, I know he’s a good fellow—you needn’t frown—an excellent fellow, and I always mean to see more of him; but a hide-bound pedant for all that; an ignorant, blatant pedant. I was never more disappointed in any man than Lanyon.”

They had a close friendship once, when they were younger but they are so radically different in their beliefs that they're no longer compatible. Jekyll only reaches out to Lanyon in the book at all because he starts to feel desperate and thinks Lanyon can help him get the chemicals he needs. When Jekyll turns into Hyde the shock of what he's seeing kills Lanyon. Now there is some interesting subtext to Lanyon's reaction to Jekyll and his closed mindedness playing a part in his downfall. Lanyon has a consistent character trait and it is that he does not take well to being challenged in his beliefs. He is inflexible and not even inclined to any open-mindedness for the sake of his friend. Rather than try to respect or tolerate Jekyll's studies he dismisses him as being "Wrong in the mind," and "Too fanciful." and it's not because he thinks what Jekyll is doing is dangerous or even unethical, if that was the case he'd have said so. He just thinks its unscientific and for Hastie Lanyon, that is enough to kill a lifelong friendship for more than a decade. When he sees the irrefutable and terrible proof that Jekyll was right it kills him. It destroys him mentally and physically and his health deteriorates. He refuses to even speak of Jekyll to Utterson because he is so frightened and disgusted by Hyde. This is one of the incidents where a queer subtext absolutely COULD work if you handle it well but I feel like it's more in line with someone seeing an addict at their lowest point. Where the signs of addiction start to become physical. Jekyll is reaching out to Lanyon because he's desperate and it's one of those moments where I as the reader have to question Jekyll's sincerity. He appeals to their friendship and attests that he has never born Lanyon ill will, that he'd have cut off his left hand for Lanyon's sake. This doesn't really line up with his convo with Utterson from before and if we consider how desperate Jekyll is to recreate his potion and how far he's fallen it reads very much like an addict trying to squeeze some last drop of good will from one of the few life lines he has left. He pretty much admits as much when we read his confession at the end of the book. "If I sought to enter by the house, my own servants would consign me to the gallows. I saw I must employ another hand, and thought of Lanyon. How was he to be reached? how persuaded? Supposing that I escaped capture in the streets, how was I to make my way into his presence? and how should I, an unknown and displeasing visitor, prevail on the famous physician to rifle the study of his colleague, Dr. Jekyll? Then I remembered that of my original character, one part remained to me: I could write my own hand; and once I had conceived that kindling spark, the way that I must follow became lighted up from end to end."

That wouldn't even bother me tbh. 99% of the time I'm going to take a "not my circus, not my monkeys" approach to what people do in fandom spaces.

But then the monkeys breach containment and fling poo around in my inbox and the poo smells like misogyny.

Like "Oh, we can fix the problem of Hyde abusing Lucy by just making him gay with Lanyon. You know, a character he had a falling out with and who has a heart attack when he sees Hyde!" and like, that doesn't fix anything and I'm sorry. Lanyon and Jekyll really aren't that compelling because we don't get enough of Lanyon in the book for him to be interesting. He's in it for like...five minutes tops and Jekyll has beef with him.

Also, I hate to say it, but a lot of the M/M content I've seen has a problem with how they write queer relationships. There's usually a designated "top" and "bottom" and the bottom is almost always given beat for beat the same relationship dynamic with the top as if they were a woman in a romance novel. The language used to describe them is often highly feminizing, their role in the relationship mirrors a traditional role that would be held by a female character. They're generally passive or submissive or the victim of abuse. Even to the point of sometimes experiencing abuse or stigma that's more in line with traditional misogyny.

And it gives me pause because, how are you bringing traditional gender roles into a relationship where both characters are the same gender and have had the same gender socialization? Not saying that there aren't queer relationships like that IRL but it's not nearly as common as fic writers seem to think and seeing more queer relationships portrayed as having hetero-normative dynamics than not is annoying and why I don't generally read that much slash fic anymore.

(A faint knock on the door). (Poole answers and sees endfeild). “Good evening Poole”. “Good evening Endfeild, what brings you here.” “I was sent by Gabriel Utterson to speak with Dr Jekyll, since he couldn’t reach him at this time. Is he here?” “yes he is, I’ll tell him about your arrival, in the meantime, please don’t touch anything, the maids had just repainted”. (endfield looks startled, as he was just about to lean on the still wet painted ledge) “ah, my appologies.” (Poole dissapears inside the house, and returns shortly after) “He’s in his laboratory, I’m not sure if he’d want visitors” “I insist, this is a very important matter to discuss.” “..well then alright. Come in and I’ll lead you to him.”

(this is all I got rn