Hello and welcome! This is my sideblog for posting about the 19th century's most cringefail vampire, and also other obscure 19th century literary vampires as the mood strikes me.
My art can be found over at @mayhemchicken-artblog and @lxgentlefolkcomic.
Click here for my ao3, which as of this writing is 100% Varney the Vampire fics.
Part 1 of my chapter-by-chapter summary of Varney the Vampire, where I (re)read the entire book so you don't have to, starts here: [x]
Masterpost of my Captain Vampire/The Pale Lady crossover AU, When The Crows Arrive: [x]
General content warning: Due to the nature of the original text, many posts on this blog touch on or discuss the topics of suicide and/or disordered eating. Older posts on this blog may not be consistently tagged for these topics; reader discretion is advised.
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When the Crows Arrive: "Good luck killing me with those lost fledglings I shall ensure all of you at are broken for good before you even figure out how to find me in two different locations. I shall return from the war triumphant and you shattered"
Momento Dracula: "Brothers and sisters, a brand new world has begughgh—*
Liatoukine is simply much harder to kill. You will notice he survives the Chapter 3 bloodbath, while Dracula doesn't. When I finally release all the post-WTCA Dracula crossover art, it will become apparent that Dracula doesn't fare any better against Kostaki over there, either. That guy is always getting killed with some manner of giant knife.
I still like the idea of a devout religious vampire praying with a rosary and burning it's hands in some kind of masochistic penance for it's sins against nature...
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By request, a who's who guide to the eleven fucktillion vampires (and others) I've stuffed into this thing.
Characters arranged in order of first appearance, sorted by chapter; consequently, some spoilers ahead.
Chapter 1
Arthur Holmwood/Lord Godalming: From Dracula. Was killed and turned into a vampire by Dracula, and is now his unwilling thrall.
Count Dracula: You know, Dracula. Anno Dracula's is modeled after Vlad the Impaler; Momento Dracula's is not, and is in fact a Hungarian falsely claiming the title of Dracula.
Jonathan and Mina Harker: From Dracula. Also got turned into vampires along with Arthur. Currently imprisoned for rebellion. [Note: I haven't got a pic of them as vampires, so I'm just attaching a couple of images from LXGF.]
Mircalla/Carmilla Karnstein and Her Mother: From Carmilla. Styrian. Countess Karnstein is the real mastermind of this duo, and uses her daughter as a weapon in her schemes. The Countess has the ability to modify other peoples' memories.
Lord Ruthven: From "The Vampyre" (Polidori). English (ostensibly). A vampire explicitly modeled after Lord Byron. In this fic's continuity he's over a thousand years old, although nobody knows that for certain.
Heathcliff and Catherine: From Wuthering Heights. (The referenced "Edgar" is Edgar Linton, also from Wuthering Heights.) In Momento Dracula they both became vampires after their deaths, and have been fucking around on the moors for roughly a century.
Prince Liatoukine: From Captain Vampire. Russian. A walking metaphor for Russian imperialism. Ruthlessly cruel to those who cross him. Hobbies include: torture.
Segun/The Black Vampyre: From "The Black Vampyre". West African/Haitian. Unnamed in his source material; "Segun" is a name I picked out for him. Took part in the Haitian Revolution (or at least a vampire-themed parody of it; the work he's from is a satire), which should give a little idea of his motives.
The Horla: From "Le Horla". Possibly a space alien, possibly just native to Brazil. Not a vampire, but Something Else. [Note: As the Horla is canonically invisible, no reference image has been included. You'll have to use your imagination.]
The Arab woman/Ziska: From Le Vampire (Dumas). A ghoul, rather than a vampire. Has beef with Lord Ruthven.
Marquis d'Urfé, "Count and Countess Gorchovič": From "The Family of the Vourdalak". French (d'Urfé) and Serbian (the other two). d'Urfé is the story's protagonist; in the Momento Dracula-verse he does not survive, and becomes a Vourdalak. The other two are only pretending to be nobility, and are actually the son and daughter-in-law of Gorcha, the patriarch of a small Serbian village. [Note: Unfortunately, I don't have any drawings of these three.]
Sir Francis Varney: From Varney the Vampire. English. I mean, if you're on this blog, you probably know who Varney is.
That pair of boys Varney met in Germany: Har and Manor, from "Manor". I decided they were a little young to be attending a Vampire Political Summit, but couldn't resist cameoing them.
Clarimonde: From "Le Morte Amoureuse". French. I've long headcanoned that she and Varney are good friends. Clarimonde has near-absolute power over dreams, and spends most of her time partying in an elaborate dream-palace (Concini, mentioned in her dialogue). Is she even actually here in the flesh? Who knows.
Lorand/The Hungarian Nobleman: From Varney the Vampire. Unnamed in his source material; he's become something of an inside joke on this blog as "Floyd Dracula", who pretends to be related to Dracula for clout.
Princess Smerande Brankovan: From "The Pale Lady". Moldavian. Not technically a vampire in the source material, but her entire bloodline are cursed to become vampires after death, so It's Free Real Estate. As a vampire, I've turned her into something of a foil for Dracula: powerful, deeply tied to the land, but protective rather than disdainful of the people in it. Her having a human retainer at the gathering is an indication of this.
Herman and Sigismund: From "The Vampyre" (Stagg). German. Just two guys being dudes. They're mostly here as a cameo.
Geraldine: From "Christabel". English. "Christabel" sort of reads like a rough prototype of Carmilla. As far as vampire fiction goes, it's very old (and unfinished), so I made Geraldine an ancient "lost" vampire who hasn't been heard from for centuries.
Chapter 2
Clara Ringwood/Clara Crofton: From Varney the Vampire. English. Was turned by Varney and has complicated feelings about it.
The Butterfly: Sava Savanovič from After Ninety Years. Also from IRL folklore. Serbian. In-story he turns into a butterfly after the villagers find and stake his body. He's been stuck as a butterfly ever since, and is here at the gathering hoping to find somebody who can restore him to human shape.
Gregoriska Waivady/Brankovan: From "The Pale Lady". Moldavian. Arthur doesn't catch his name but he's the super angelic-looking blond guy, you know the one. In the original story, the Righteous Christian Warrior Of God to contrast his evil vampire brother. Here, is still trying to be a Righteous Christian Warrior Of God, but is also now a vampire which complicates things somewhat.
Count Vardalek: From "The True Story of a Vampire" (also sometimes called "The Sad Story of a Vampire"). Nationality technically not specified but for the purposes of Momento Dracula he's Styrian. Tragic, sad, gay, musically inclined, and his canonical description is a dead ringer for Oscar from Rose of Versailles which is why I draw him Like That.
Azzo von Klatka: From "Der Fremde" (translated into English as "The Mysterious Stranger"). Carniolan (Slovenian in modern geography terms), but the 1850s translation made him Carpathian for no reason. He's not Carpathian. A grumpy loner with the ability to read minds. [Note: Unfortunately, I don't have any drawings of him.]
Alinska and Ladislas: From The Virgin Vampire. Hungarian in the original, though for my purposes Alinska is Slovak and Ladislas is like, a demon or something, don't worry about it. Alinska is the unwilling puppet of a cruel and unforgiving God and is compelled to carry out His will even when it involves murdering children (all canon). Here I've imagined her as a sort of doomsday prophet.
The Weird Sisters: From Dracula. Also known in other places as the Brides of Dracula, Dracula's roommates, or Dracula's three weed-smoking girlfriends. In Momento Dracula I'm going with the interpretation that they're Dracula's wife and daughters.
Chapter 3
Kostaki Koproli/Brankovan: From "The Pale Lady". Moldavian. How do I even introduce him. He's a bandit he's a prince he's a Booktok love interest he's the coolest fucking vampire ever written. He's Death Incarnate. Do not believe a single word Kim Newman has written about him.
Epistimia Comanescu: From Captain Vampire. Romanian. Liatoukine's wife for about a week, after which he murdered her (presumably drinking her blood). In Momento Dracula, she's back for revenge.
That group of glowing green vampires the Harkers were fighting: From Vampire City.
Lord Bracknell: Lady Augusta Bracknell's husband from The Importance of Being Earnest. Whoops! Uh-oh!
Jack Seward: From Dracula. In Anno Dracula, he's Jack The Ripper. This is boring and tasteless, and not terribly well executed either. In Momento Dracula, I'm giving him a villain arc which better fits his character: unethical mad science! He's trying to find a cure for vampirism. It's going...not great.
Lucy Westenra: From Dracula. Jack Seward appears to have raised her from the dead...again.
[Chapter 4 will be added in a reblog due to image limits]
R. M. Renfield: From Dracula. He's also supposed to be dead. What's going on, Jack?
The Red-Haired Gentleman: Jabez Williams from the Sherlock Holmes story "The Adventure of the Red-Headed League". He's fine don't worry about it.
Agapia Privighetoareano/Comanescu and Her Husband (Decebale): From Captain Vampire. Romanian. Agapia is Epistimia's younger sister, who marries an abusive man in the epilogue of the book and has an awful time. As her and Epistimia fill a kind of evil-stepsisters-from-Cinderella role wrt their brother Relia, she's kind of abusive herself, but she's also sixteen throughout the novel, so maybe less reprehensible than her husband. He's not actually the ambassador to anywhere; I promoted him in Momento Dracula for the sake of being able to include the Comanescu sibling reunion.
Igor Moïleff, Relia Comanescu: From Captain Vampire. Igor is Russian, Relia Romanian. Igor is an underling of Liatoukine's who becomes acquainted with Agapia at a party; in the epilogue, he becomes her lover. He also sucks so bad, I really cannot overstate how much of an irredeemable fuckboi he is. Relia is Agapia's older brother (I think he's older than Epistimia too but it's not ever clarified in the book), who gets drafted into the army, is tortured by Liatoukine and his men, and then dies on the battlefield. He is the saddest soggiest little meow meow on the face of the earth. [Note: I don't have any drawings of Relia where he isn't a vampire. In Momento Dracula he is not one.]
Paul Lessingham: From The Beetle. Unfortunately, I couldn't resist adding Beetle characters to this thing. Yes, Paul is a vampire; Dracula got him.
Queen Victoria and King Carol: Real people! Queen Victoria gets turned into a vampire in Anno Dracula as well, but it's handled, uh, extremely tastelessly. Carol I is the first King of Romania, crowned in 1881, and in this fic is having the weirdest night of his entire life.
By request, a who's who guide to the eleven fucktillion vampires (and others) I've stuffed into this thing.
Characters arranged in order of first appearance, sorted by chapter; consequently, some spoilers ahead.
Chapter 1
Arthur Holmwood/Lord Godalming: From Dracula. Was killed and turned into a vampire by Dracula, and is now his unwilling thrall.
Count Dracula: You know, Dracula. Anno Dracula's is modeled after Vlad the Impaler; Momento Dracula's is not, and is in fact a Hungarian falsely claiming the title of Dracula.
Jonathan and Mina Harker: From Dracula. Also got turned into vampires along with Arthur. Currently imprisoned for rebellion. [Note: I haven't got a pic of them as vampires, so I'm just attaching a couple of images from LXGF.]
Mircalla/Carmilla Karnstein and Her Mother: From Carmilla. Styrian. Countess Karnstein is the real mastermind of this duo, and uses her daughter as a weapon in her schemes. The Countess has the ability to modify other peoples' memories.
Lord Ruthven: From "The Vampyre" (Polidori). English (ostensibly). A vampire explicitly modeled after Lord Byron. In this fic's continuity he's over a thousand years old, although nobody knows that for certain.
Heathcliff and Catherine: From Wuthering Heights. (The referenced "Edgar" is Edgar Linton, also from Wuthering Heights.) In Momento Dracula they both became vampires after their deaths, and have been fucking around on the moors for roughly a century.
Prince Liatoukine: From Captain Vampire. Russian. A walking metaphor for Russian imperialism. Ruthlessly cruel to those who cross him. Hobbies include: torture.
Segun/The Black Vampyre: From "The Black Vampyre". West African/Haitian. Unnamed in his source material; "Segun" is a name I picked out for him. Took part in the Haitian Revolution (or at least a vampire-themed parody of it; the work he's from is a satire), which should give a little idea of his motives.
The Horla: From "Le Horla". Possibly a space alien, possibly just native to Brazil. Not a vampire, but Something Else. [Note: As the Horla is canonically invisible, no reference image has been included. You'll have to use your imagination.]
The Arab woman/Ziska: From Le Vampire (Dumas). A ghoul, rather than a vampire. Has beef with Lord Ruthven.
Marquis d'Urfé, "Count and Countess Gorchovič": From "The Family of the Vourdalak". French (d'Urfé) and Serbian (the other two). d'Urfé is the story's protagonist; in the Momento Dracula-verse he does not survive, and becomes a Vourdalak. The other two are only pretending to be nobility, and are actually the son and daughter-in-law of Gorcha, the patriarch of a small Serbian village. [Note: Unfortunately, I don't have any drawings of these three.]
Sir Francis Varney: From Varney the Vampire. English. I mean, if you're on this blog, you probably know who Varney is.
That pair of boys Varney met in Germany: Har and Manor, from "Manor". I decided they were a little young to be attending a Vampire Political Summit, but couldn't resist cameoing them.
Clarimonde: From "Le Morte Amoureuse". French. I've long headcanoned that she and Varney are good friends. Clarimonde has near-absolute power over dreams, and spends most of her time partying in an elaborate dream-palace (Concini, mentioned in her dialogue). Is she even actually here in the flesh? Who knows.
Lorand/The Hungarian Nobleman: From Varney the Vampire. Unnamed in his source material; he's become something of an inside joke on this blog as "Floyd Dracula", who pretends to be related to Dracula for clout.
Princess Smerande Brankovan: From "The Pale Lady". Moldavian. Not technically a vampire in the source material, but her entire bloodline are cursed to become vampires after death, so It's Free Real Estate. As a vampire, I've turned her into something of a foil for Dracula: powerful, deeply tied to the land, but protective rather than disdainful of the people in it. Her having a human retainer at the gathering is an indication of this.
Herman and Sigismund: From "The Vampyre" (Stagg). German. Just two guys being dudes. They're mostly here as a cameo.
Geraldine: From "Christabel". English. "Christabel" sort of reads like a rough prototype of Carmilla. As far as vampire fiction goes, it's very old (and unfinished), so I made Geraldine an ancient "lost" vampire who hasn't been heard from for centuries.
Chapter 2
Clara Ringwood/Clara Crofton: From Varney the Vampire. English. Was turned by Varney and has complicated feelings about it.
The Butterfly: Sava Savanovič from After Ninety Years. Also from IRL folklore. Serbian. In-story he turns into a butterfly after the villagers find and stake his body. He's been stuck as a butterfly ever since, and is here at the gathering hoping to find somebody who can restore him to human shape.
Gregoriska Waivady/Brankovan: From "The Pale Lady". Moldavian. Arthur doesn't catch his name but he's the super angelic-looking blond guy, you know the one. In the original story, the Righteous Christian Warrior Of God to contrast his evil vampire brother. Here, is still trying to be a Righteous Christian Warrior Of God, but is also now a vampire which complicates things somewhat.
Count Vardalek: From "The True Story of a Vampire" (also sometimes called "The Sad Story of a Vampire"). Nationality technically not specified but for the purposes of Momento Dracula he's Styrian. Tragic, sad, gay, musically inclined, and his canonical description is a dead ringer for Oscar from Rose of Versailles which is why I draw him Like That.
Azzo von Klatka: From "Der Fremde" (translated into English as "The Mysterious Stranger"). Carniolan (Slovenian in modern geography terms), but the 1850s translation made him Carpathian for no reason. He's not Carpathian. A grumpy loner with the ability to read minds. [Note: Unfortunately, I don't have any drawings of him.]
Alinska and Ladislas: From The Virgin Vampire. Hungarian in the original, though for my purposes Alinska is Slovak and Ladislas is like, a demon or something, don't worry about it. Alinska is the unwilling puppet of a cruel and unforgiving God and is compelled to carry out His will even when it involves murdering children (all canon). Here I've imagined her as a sort of doomsday prophet.
The Weird Sisters: From Dracula. Also known in other places as the Brides of Dracula, Dracula's roommates, or Dracula's three weed-smoking girlfriends. In Momento Dracula I'm going with the interpretation that they're Dracula's wife and daughters.
Chapter 3
Kostaki Koproli/Brankovan: From "The Pale Lady". Moldavian. How do I even introduce him. He's a bandit he's a prince he's a Booktok love interest he's the coolest fucking vampire ever written. He's Death Incarnate. Do not believe a single word Kim Newman has written about him.
Epistimia Comanescu: From Captain Vampire. Romanian. Liatoukine's wife for about a week, after which he murdered her (presumably drinking her blood). In Momento Dracula, she's back for revenge.
That group of glowing green vampires the Harkers were fighting: From Vampire City.
Lord Bracknell: Lady Augusta Bracknell's husband from The Importance of Being Earnest. Whoops! Uh-oh!
Jack Seward: From Dracula. In Anno Dracula, he's Jack The Ripper. This is boring and tasteless, and not terribly well executed either. In Momento Dracula, I'm giving him a villain arc which better fits his character: unethical mad science! He's trying to find a cure for vampirism. It's going...not great.
Lucy Westenra: From Dracula. Jack Seward appears to have raised her from the dead...again.
[Chapter 4 will be added in a reblog due to image limits]
Do we know if Alinska was always sort of like this, or was she completely different at home before she became a vampire and looking dead (pun unintended) inside?
Sparkly guy was part of Dracula's vicious occupational force?
I think the intended implication in-book is that Alinska's depression and asocial habits are a result of becoming a vampire, but we don't really get to see what she was like while alive.
Vardalek, in Anno Dracula, was indeed part of the Carpathian guard, despite there being no indication that he's even from that region aside from his voice having "a slight Slavonic intonation". But Kim Newman also did not see his bishounen potential, only an excuse to be as disgustingly homophobic as possible, so Anno Dracula's Vardalek is an effeminate serial child predator. This is, to me, tantamount to making Varney into a serial rapist in terms of character portrayal, and significantly worse in terms of optics. You Did Not Have To Do That, Kim
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not asking for spoilers but curious about the butterfly, they are associated with souls and vampire metamorphosis in some cultures because they drink blood (learned from a post talking about carmilla's caterpillar speech)
That's Sava Savanovič from After Ninety Years by Milovan Glišić (also from IRL Serbian folklore, which is what Glišić's story is based on).
this is a blast. so i know not 90% of those characters and so gradually learning about them and their names is an experience. did anyone try to jump varney and co? the princess said that she would tell her son not to touch them, but the other vampires started fighting each other regardless. you continue writing/drawing vampire violence really well
As soon as the fighting broke out Varney definitely tried to run away. Evidently he didn't get very far since he got roped into the Harker/Brankovan coalition anyway.
If anyone did try to attack them it was probably Clara fending them off. She's got a crucifix with her which is effective against 90% of vampires at the gathering, and is more willing to hold her ground in a fight than Sir Francis "Just Leave" Varney.
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oh he goes into a spiral about it every single time it happens (because it has definitely happened more than once) and then immediately represses those emotions and refuses to think about them or acknowledge what happened. and then it happens again.
the first time it happens he has a huge panic crashout about being Tainted and Soul Corrupted by vampirism and second guesses his entire mission to be a vampire vampire hunter and maybe tries to trick a priest into destroying him (listen to me father it is imperative that you baptize me. and no matter WHAT happens you MUST follow through with the ENTIRE ceremony) (the priest does not follow through). he scrubs his hands for weeks trying to get clean. he has never hated more the fact that he can't touch holy water. he probably tries to touch it anyway out of desperation and burns himself really badly.
however ☝️my man is the world champion at compartmentalization. he will not think about the feeling of entering a feral blood rage. he diligently cleans himself after every incident while dissociating and then goes about his day. eventually he almost convinces himself that this is simply part of the job. it's divine wrath even. you know a holy war is still a war and a war involves killing and maiming and that kind of shit, and at the end of the day the methods matter less than that the job gets done. one fewer fiend on the face of the earth. it's fine. it's fine. anyway he prays and repents after every incident, so his sins are absolved. washed white as snow. WHITe as SNOW. there is NO REMAINING blood caked under his nails.
he doesn't sleep easy. but then, what vampire does?
