Racing Turtles

thinking about ideas of ownership and dracula's castle. When does something become a threshold Dracula has to ask permission to cross? whose rules? i believe in squatter's rights i believe they should count... if dracula kidnapped me to his castle i would simply move into an abandonned wing and put up cardboard "this building has been SQUATTED" signs while he was out. maybe spraypaint a charming little anarchist A on the parapet while i'm at it. man comes home and has to ask permission to enter his own building part of which has lain empty for so long it started counting as abandonned property during a housing crisis (irresponsible). i say no.

it would literally be fine. During the day i'd go into other parts of the castle to steal antiques. at sunset i lock my doors and windows and put dracula furniture up for auction on catawiki while dracula and his brides pound on my door in anger. I'm not coming out. Im starting a small business.

like what is he going to do? call the police??? please. the locals hate you it's not happening. I live here now.

I just feel like if someone intends to steal my blood i should get to steal his everything else. it's only fair. oh you don't want me to sell your meemaw's medieval cabinet? whatever. cry about it. I'm the better parasite here survival of the fittest. shouldn't have invited me then. funny how bad that mistake feels isn't it. Do you think there might be anyone who regrets inviting you perhaps? hm. Is that statue roman, what do you think. sorry i can't really hear you through the door

I don’t usually suspect Jonathan Harker’s employer, Peter Hawkins, of deliberately sending the kid to Transylvania to die for a client, but something about the correspondence between him and Dracula read as creepy to me this time. I am sending you a young man full of energy…

Because I love pain, I have a lot of feelings about an AU where Mr. Hawkins intentionally serves Jonathan up to Dracula, like Herr Knock in Nosferatu. He doesn’t know that Dracula is a vampire, but he knows that he has terrible things planned, and Jonathan isn’t coming back from the trip to Transylvania. He’s in some kind of dire financial straits, and sacrificing Jonathan is the only way that the Count will agree to deal with him. When Jonathan shows back up again, Mr. Hawkins leaves him all of the proceeds of the deal out of guilt.

For maximum deep hurting, after everything is said and done Jonathan goes through Mr. Hawkins’ personal papers and learns that the man he thought of as a father left him to be murdered for money.

Okay okay hear me out.

Jonathan doesn’t go through all the papers. Jonathan is overwhelmed and overworked and still not sleeping and is desperately trying to re-find the groove of his life. Jonathan does not have time nor energy to go through all the papers.

But. When they move in, Mina, who always intended to “help him in his career” and understands all the legal jargon and has an organizational mind and whose own work is now bolstered by the addition of Mary the Maid - Mina goes through all the papers in an effort to help get the firm 19th century up to date with a vengeance, and she finds both the guilt will and the pre-transylvania documents spelling it all out. And she looks over at her extremely fragile husband who probably can’t take another shock (such as learning that the man he thought of as a father left him to be murdered for money) -

And that is why she kills him.

via @animate-mush

November 4th

AITA for trying to eat my landlord's fancy takeout?

So my [523 F] sisters [498 F/492 F]and I are fully stay-at-home, and our landlord [530 M] brings us most of our groceries. Now things have been tight recently and so we only have grocery runs about once a month, and last night was one of these. Our house has a pretty clearly delineated men's half and women's half, so when we saw the food [21M] in our rooms we assumed it had been left there for us. But then our landlord burst in with our groceries and started screaming and shouting and getting really violent about the idea that we would touch his special treat after he'd forbidden it and just carrying on and told us to get out (this was our room, keep in mind). And I guess I had known that he had ordered fancy takeout, but it wasn't like it was labeled or anything, and it's not like there wasn't plenty to go around. His reaction just seemed really uncalled for. AITA?

You are the assholes and you know it.

Hi, Landlord here [590 M] who thinks the story could use a little extra context. Like the fact that all three of the abovementioned tenants were fully aware that the food was not just a special treat, but THE Special Treat.

Which they knew. Because I told them about it repeatedly. I told them explicitly not to even look at this Special Treat until I was done with him.

If that seems hyperbolic, understand that he was an imported good I’d been waiting on for just the right occasion. We’re talking Wagyu beef levels of quality. I am currently following a time-honored preparation method of seasoning his psyche with assorted traumas for maximum flavor at the time of consumption.

And, shocker for the audience, I was always planning to share the Special Treat with these three bottomless pits who, I’ll note, do get fresh groceries from me--I bring in goddamn veal every couple weeks!--including the inciting date above. How would you react if you came home from the market with an armful of dinner only to find the people you told. Explicitly. Not to Touch the Special Treat Yet (emphasis on YET). About to jump and drink him dry before you even got a taste after all your hard work of priming and preparation?

It should also be mentioned that I have been fasting for ages while making sure my tenants are fed. I have to make the grocery trips because, as you can probably guess, they have the self control of mosquitoes at a blood drive and would inhale the whole countryside if I didn’t play caterer. 

Needless to say, yes, I blew up at them. 

And also yes, they still got their goddamn groceries while I went hungry again, because I was/am not finished with menacing the Special Treat to peak flavorful misery. 

All I wanted was to enjoy the art of perfecting the Special Treat’s torment for the rest of the prep time, get first taste, and then share it with my tenants. Though part of me is feeling almost petty enough to just box the Special Treat up with me and head out on holiday out of spite at this point. 

"Wagyu Beef" ugh you're SO pretentious. "All my food has to come from England now, boo hoo it all has to be properly ~~seasoned~~" meanwhile just tossing us the barest scraps

Don't let this guy fool you playing "oh poor me" just because he's on another of his stupid fad diets. He is the biggest teaboo I swear. AND he tries to make us help him practice his sentences for his big vacation WHICH I may add we are NOT invited on!

Oh yeah, he told us not to look at the Special Treat. That part's true. It's so true that we haven't been allowed out of our part of the house for two weeks! Well guess what genius - we didn't know what the Special Treat looked like! Wow, another one of your brilliant plans perfectly effected.

"I was always going to share" oh really? Were you? Because it sounded to me like backtracking once we caught you. "Oh don't worry babe you can have my leftovers after I leave the country." HOW EXTREMELY GENEROUS OF YOU.

But you know what? You're right, you're right. ITA for assuming you would do something nice for us for a change.

ETA: you know he hasn't even changed the draperies in here, like, ever? Everything's moth eaten and we don't even have curtains. But when he's got visitors suddenly it's the best of everything. He's been feeding that guy every day and we don't even get a nibble? And it's like this for everything. I hope he gets hit by one of those fancy English trains he's obsessed with

First, excuse the hell out of me for hitting on a hobby other than ‘ooh hoo hoo, I do nothing but eat and complain through the centuries!’ 

Second, you’re not idiots. Do you really expect me to believe that you couldn’t connect the dots between ‘Hey, stay away from the Special Treat’ and ‘Oh hey, look at this Special Treat-looking morsel! That was very clearly not hand-delivered to us like all our other groceries! Guess it’s completely unrelated and we shouldn’t wait to find out more before pouncing on it!’?

Third, WE HAVE BEEN SHARING THIS BUILDING FOR HALF A MILLENNIUM. I HAVE BEEN TAKING CARE OF THE PARTS USED BY MYSELF AND/OR MY GUESTS/FUTURE MEALS THE ENTIRE TIME. ME. BY MYSELF. ONE GUY. Oh no, your rooms are looking dowdy and moth-eaten? Oh dear. Whyever could that be? It’s almost like the people who use them, exclusively, haven’t been doing shit to join in on the upkeep. You would think four (4) supernaturally endowed people un-living in the same castle could keep the whole thing looking nice through basic effort. You’d think! But no, apparently! It’s all down to one guy because the rest can’t be bothered!

Fourth, oh, I haven’t done anything nice for you for a change? Nothing?? Let me get out my little glass harmonica so I can play a sad song as grating as you sound. What part of You Get to Share the Special Treat (who could have been all just for me whether you saw him or not!) did you not hear? All I want--after starving myself, after preparing him to be something Special for Us--is the courtesy of getting the first draught from the finished product. That’s it. That is literally it. 

You three are the type of people who’d complain about a winemaker getting the first glass from his barrel. ffs

Fifth, and I can’t believe this needs repeating: You are complaining about ‘getting scraps’ (read: fresh local goods, like clockwork) when I have had. Literally. Nothing. For so long I can’t even say if it’s been months or years. Maybe act your age and grow some patience when it comes to appreciating (someone else’s) cuisine for once. 

But hey, it’ll all be moot in a month, won’t it? The whole greedy gaggle of you will get him once I’m done--IF I’m feeling forgiving, which is very much up in the air now--and I’ll be heading out to England, and then you’ll be free to let the rest of the castle fall to shambles and glut yourself on the neighbors to your hearts’ content. 

Try not to pick the Carpathians dry. 

...

Hi. Um. Special Treat [21 M] speaking. 

Can someone please send the authorities and a locksmith to Castle Dra

CONNECTION LOST