#draculae

James Savage:

James Savage is….so punching the ground sobbing crying. I feel like the way they treat Savage’s trauma to be so separated from Draculae’s and how they both process it. How there’s the acknowledgement from the start that things had started but it’s moreso brushed off, not looked into that much. Easier to ignore than to actually confront it. But the further he descends the less that becomes an option. The tether in the elevator. How it suddenly disrupts the only place he’s confined in when deep in thought, the place he could go to really ignore the rest of the void. Suddenly invaded and how immediately Savage wants out, away from the thing confining him. I always pictured it as a metaphor for how slowly accept of what Draculae did to him, and how he’s forced to confront what happened and how he believed he was meant to be the bad guy. That he was meant to be scared. How the elevator taunts him, asking him where he will go without it, how far can he walk before the land inevitably stops>? How far will he go to accept a lie?

But this way was not done with comfort and compassion. It was ruthless and sinister. Trapped in a box with the reminder of what you became finally when he breaks and tells us of the one good day he had. Turned into sitting on a couch, waiting for him, scared to get up, scared to see how she react. Pissing himself because of that fear and need to be seen as, a “good boy” Every hidden couch suddenly is understood to why that is. When he finally meets Djedefre, the elevator stops, door closed shut as they slammed their fits onto the door, ringing to be let in who says it is not the representation of how James Savage feels>? “Even the person who loved you most, you’re dead. Does that hurt>? Killing me doesn’t make you less of a puppet.”

“You don’t have a name. You don’t have authority. You don’t have her.”

“The only thing you can get right now, after a very, very long time, is a fight that matters.”

LIKEEEE. This need of control, to feel like there was a purpose, that everything he lead up to had finally meant something more. The pills was just to mock up the pain, to cover it for a temporary time to only discover no matter how long he went it would still blister along his skin with the reminder of why he had these scars. Slowly through this more and more does he find the courage to confront Draculae, how he finally puts his foot down, tell her what she did was wrong.

“Your last words to me were “Good boy”, Draculae.” “...Were you not>?”

And how those words makes him crumble all over again, the mention of his worst moment, those words he hung onto, the only thing that oddly soothed him despise the way he was scared of her, scared of what she do. How she knew. Those words make him question those things. Question if he’s wrong, wonder why he cannot suddenly tell her it has to end. Still to let go of, his monster. Of how he misses her because in some form, she made him feel like he could be…good. Made him feel as though he could be worth it. That need to return to something that in even the smallest forms comforted him. Craving it all over again despite breaking down at that one…good…day.

Even towards the end when the exhaustion had hit, and he could no longer give in, he accepts that there was more to him and his life than the pills and the trauma. How that one good day was more than that. How he could congratulate himself on being sober. After so long ago. He was given the chance to grow, and how if he could living knowing he could be good, even if he drank the soulsblood, he could’ve became cruel, hurt those around him but he did so anyway with the hope that after everything, he could come out being better than what was made out of him. His scars could fade, and he could be good. He was. 

Or, he could have struggled, wanting to be good, wanting to be better shattering in his hands because those scars ran too deep to stitch up long enough to heal, he would rip those stitches, letting the pain hurt him more, the idea he could not continue, knowing who he was. He hurt and he hurted others. That chance of redemption clashed before him and yet he accepts it. It was meant to end like this. And that was fine. That was okay. He at least changed it in some form. 

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Janet Drake/Draculae:

Oh my god. The hurted hurting others. I cannot express how much I love her and how they wrote her. How she is not made to be demonized beyond belief instead we are shown carefully how she became like this. Just wanting to be seen and heard and falling into the hands of the wrong people. Draculae is a perfect example of someone who has trauma, inflicting it onto others and even when confronted she denies that it had to be like that because the idea, the guilt, that in all her years she would break someone, she was not her own abuser. We see how her love started off so tame, so pure, but watching it slowly rot, coming home covered in blood she saw the way James would still lean down and cradle her blood soaked skin and comfort her. He accepted her as a vampire if it meant he could still love her. That love was there and it was meaningful but that need.

The need for power, the idea that no one else would ever get to hold power over her again. The person who made her like this, who ruined her from the saints. Their holy eyes would now only turn away in despair, and she saw it in everyones eyes but the one she didnt was James. But that would change. Any difference whether subtle or not was taken as him still loving her, still below her. He gave her that power and she held it because it meant she was in control. And to see how James still came, despite wanting to change, it’s uncomfortable. He’s in a place that would conform to her mind. 

“If one of them happened to see me, they knew exactly who I was, without me having to say a word. I miss that. Being known.” Being known, the acknowledgement she existed, the acknowledgment that her scars her trauma wasn’t everything she was. That despite these not being authentic as much as she would so deeply want, it was fine. It was good. She could hurt, and hurt, and hurt, and hurt and be validated. That she could kill, and feed and feel no remorse. To know she would come home to someone who still would love her.

“Am I a monster>?” “Do you see me a monster>?”

“While you’ve been pulling on the void, the voids been pulling back.” “Creating artifacts and places from your memories. Distorting them…”

This is a palace of her trauma and is ignoring it. Ignoring the reminders the memories, her past, her traumas, her mistakes. Her slip from humanity falling into the hands of another person and becoming deserpate for that escape. It’s ignored, masked with more monsters to disturb and distract James, ignoring how they all represent something. Ignore how they wall do not wish love but only pain. The only thing in the void created that does not harm him is only seen once. That smallest form of something genuine. Something that meant something more. Her softest apology that couldn’t make up years of hurt. 

“You deserve better than that, James.” “I didn’t believe that for a very long time.” “No. That isn’t my fault.” “Yes, it is.”

“I thought you hated me.” “Why>?” “For…What you feel I did to you.” 

“That couch incident was an outlier. I–It isn’t fair to judge me from that.”

The immediate deflection from what she did. Not even acknowledging what she really did instead viewing them as nothing. They were only something to James. And that isnt her fault.

No matter the end Draculae will always be Janet Drake. A girl who was hurt badly and unfortunately could not grow from those scars and let them fester into something out of control. Letting it control her and how she would treat others. That no matter what she will die, believing that she will never get to be a saint. She’ll never get a moment to redeem herself. She will always be this. She will always be like this. 

Each environment, each enemy they’re all combined from the two of them, the motel, the graveyard, the castle, they all are a moment of their lives stuck contorting in and out of distant memories and their truest nightmares. Unable to come out either good nor bad. Their actions splayed along their bodies but neither are made to be the bad guy. Both were just badly hurt people, who struggled to heal from their trauma.