#hyde replied | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

maxwell-grant · 8 months

Note

If you were making up a gang of super-villains from classic Horror Movie characters (Count Dracula is an obvious 'In' being pretty much a super villain even in his original novel!), may I please ask which characters you would include and what role they would play in the gang?

First thing to establish is that Dracula is not leading the team. And obviously Dracula’s not gonna be a team player in a supporting role, so what we’re gonna do is this: Dracula is the threat that the team was assembled to fight.

Pretty much anytime you see the classic monsters gathered in any fashion, Dracula’s always the leader, and if we wanted to do that, we already have Monster Mash and Castlevania and so forth. I think assembling a Legion of Doom out of the Classic Monsters makes you particularly subject to law of diminishing returns that affect both supervillains and monsters, in that having a bunch of characters who demand to operate solo in narrative wind up greatly diminished when they're all doing the same thing together. So instead of Legion of Doom, I'm making these something more low-key like Secret Six, Thunderbolts and Suicide Squad and etc.

Here, it's all a bunch of classic monsters, but they all have a grudge with him, because everyone’s got beef with Dracula, and Dracula wants them destroyed so he may rule monsters and humans alike unopposed. Dracula is The Flash, and they are the Rogues. They bond together because it's the only way to win. Dracula is several orders of magnitude more evil than them, has countless weird magical abilities to counteract them, and he’s skilled enough in manipulation that he could conceivably trick them into doing his bidding, but he’s got no need for them past whatever unique abilities they have for momentary use, when he’s already got so much else at his disposal, including the ability to call in the universal ending to most monster stories: Call in the cops to shoot them dead.

In itself, this already gives the team a motivation to stay together regardless of what else is in the setting to give them trouble: They need to survive and beat Dracula, and they can’t call on anyone else for help. In fact, if the urge to have Dracula lead the Monster Squad again gets too strong, we could even establish that Dracula is able to create his own monsters, imperfect copies of their archetypes to serve as his enforcers, and thus, our group could have to fight off Frankensteins and mummies and werewolves and clones of themselves on their way to take him down.

Formation for this hypothetical group goes as follows:

The Leader - The Bride of Frankenstein:

Couple of reasons for why she’s leader besides favoritism being, she’s a Frankenstein and thus has to play a major role, but she doesn’t need to be a shambling brute, and if we’re gonna do a ragtag group of people fighting Count Dracula, in any form, it would be quite wrong to not have them led by a headstrong, brilliant woman. Also Elsa Lanchester plays Mary Shelley in the same movie, and Mary Shelley rules so she's qualified to rule this team-up by default.

We could establish her as having had significantly more time to mature and develop into something resembling the book Creature’s intelligence and sense of self, having picked up alchemical expertise from Pretorius’ notes to combine with her survival skills, and as a Frankenstein she could have the kind of superhuman strength and endurance that follows, allowing her to be sort of a jack-of-trades suitable for the leader position. Imposing, stoic, capable, and being a Frankenstein, crushingly lonely in more ways than one and in dire need of guidance.

The Mentor & Magician - Imhotep (The Mummy):

Because there’s no way we can pass on having Boris Karloff on this team. If The Bride is the Mina of our anti-Dracula crew, then Imhotep is our Van Helsing. Functionally similar to Dracula in many ways, but playing on a different side (definitely not on humanity’s side though). He's a prideful, manipulative grumpus from a bygone era with his glory days long behind him, with access to a wide array of magical powers, but not quite as rotten or powerful as his ancient enemy Dracula.

Imhotep has lived a long, long, long life and an exceedingly longer afterlife, constantly raised from death to be bothered by mortals again and again, which has granted him a considerable know-how of navigating strange worlds of magic and terror and history, but remaining out of touch with modern times. The team's magic user, with his main weakness being that he’s fragile and old and rotting and dying. Imhotep’s not quite able to transverse the mortal realm as easily as his rival, and he’s held back by the countless forms of decay that have set within him, which is part of why he’s agreeable enough to work with The Bride and for the two to put this team together.

The Resources & Social Interface - Janet Smith Jekyll (Daughter of Dr Jekyll):

We can't have a classic Universal Gathering without at minimum a Talbot werewolf in the mix and Jekyll & Hyde is as Classic as classic monsters get, so we're going here with Gloria Talbott's character in Daughter of Dr Jekyll, a mysterious orphan who inherits a huge mansion and fortune that used to belong to the infamous Dr Jekyll, and who discovers that she may indeed share his two-faced affliction and proclivity for going out at night on uncontrollable murderous rampages (and yes I am very much ignoring the movie's climax to make this character, shut up)

The movie sort of treats Mr Hyde as a werewolf transformation with quite a lot of vampire in the mix, which suits our purposes just fine because now we get to have a vampire on top of a werewolf in the team. She's got a cool homebase for our team to operate from in Dr Jekyll's mansion, she's super rich which never hurts to have in a team setting, she's the only one that can fully pass for human and also the one who accumulates the biggest body count the longer she stays active, so there's always some tension with her.

She is the monster most suited for operating within modern society, high and low class alike, which makes her an invaluable operative in the battle against Dracula and his game of predatory psychological class warfare, and the one most suited for keeping the team out of trouble. However, it's up to question how much can the team trust her. Even she doesn't quite know how much she can trust herself. Her teammates may not have blood, but a girl's gotta eat and all.

The Reality-Warping Assassin - Cesare:

Cesare is, strange. He’s a sweet young man, but around him hangs the faint echo of dead, ancient eons. He’s unmatched at subterfuge, able to slip through the shadows not just unseen, but unheard in a way that shouldn’t be possible, as he makes absolutely no sound whatsoever, not even when he does things that should make noise, like trip or cry or stab people. On the rare occasions he vocalizes, it's like the words emerge in your head fully formed. Everything he interacts with turns colorless and frayed the way he is.

He’s able to tell the fortunes of most he meets, but only for their deaths, and if he's bothered by his own prophecy of Dracula ending the worlds of monster and man alike, he doesn't show it. The world around him seems to occasionally warp into strange angles and crooked architecture and thick, tangible shadows, and it’s difficult to tell if any of it is even his doing in the first place. He also has an unusually intense grudge of clowns and hamburguers

He seems to sleep most of the time off-duty, and he’s docile as a lamb even while commanded to kill, though he may resist more immoral commands. Though his eyes hang open, he only wakes up very rarely, and when he does, the monsters see the world around him blink out of existence to be replaced with a greyed out mental hospital, where they all look like doctors or regular people in straightjackets, and it only lasts for a few brief, maddening seconds before he falls asleep again.

This can be an advantage to the team as a potential safeguard from threats and space to regroup, provided they don’t lose their selves and can get Cesare to stop playing with the flowers and go back to sleep, and you can imagine it only gets harder every time, convincing him to abandon a peaceful existence to once again be a murderous slave for eternity, and maybe convincing themselves to not join him there.

Better he’s on our side than Dracula’s, The Bride and Imhotep figure.

The Warrior-Healer & Aquatic Specialist: The Gill Man

I already said much of my piece on The Gill Man in terms of their role and personality here and obviously, they gotta be in the team. In terms of their powers & skillset, Gill Man is actually much better suited for this kind of stuff than most of the other Universal monsters. They are strong enough to move boats on their own, stealthy enough to consistently evade his human pursuers (and human civilization for countless years) and tough enough to survive and come back for two sequels.

Another idea to me comes from using The Shape of Water and it’s take on Gill Man, who was believed to be an Amazonian river god, and throughout the movie displays magical healing powers and traits that call into question just what it is exactly. Dracula would certainly find no use for The Gill Man as anything other than muscle for his army of the undead, but for a team that does have at least a handful of living members and may even depend on human assistance, a medic is a invaluable thing to have, as is someone still living and in touch with nature.

The Scientist & Swarm Controller: Doctor Delambre (The Fly)

Picked here to represent the original version of The Fly but can also adapt traits from Seth Brundle and other takes on this idea. We need a resident mad scientist (who's really not a mad scientist, but when you look the part, y'know), a sci-fi guy to represent that other vein of classic horror, somebody who can contrast the resident magicians and alchemists, and also no self-respecting team is complete without a bug guy, so here we have Dr Delambre, who joins the team as an assistant to The Bride and has found a way to hold off the mental decay process and made substantial progress on his matter-transporter devices as well as find ways to live with his newfound biological quirks. He's even found a way to utilize insects with humanoid limbs and intelligence in daily chores and missions, although he resents the idea that he's "controlling" them, mind you.

But with his wife under trial for his botched suicide ruled a murder, and his inability to show up in society and testify in her favor, and all of his former military contacts having cut off all ties with him, he's desperately trying to find a way to reverse the process of his transformation for good to save her and is willing to do whatever it takes. Doctor Delambre even winds up being sort of the team's wild card, because his technology is very potent and just as capable of breaking reality under the wrong hands as Cesare's weirdness, but he is not a "monster" by birth or choice and is merely a guy in a rush to try and revert his condition, and if Dracula comes along with a better promise to save his wife and life, perhaps...

And last but certainly not least,

The Transportation & Muscle - The Rhedosaurus (The Beast from 20.000 Fathoms)

We might have to shrink them down a bit but we absolutely can’t NOT have a giant monster dinosaur on the team, but neither Godzilla nor Kong would have much business palling around with these monsters. The Rhedosaurus, on the other hand, is a perfect fit, seeing as he’s Godzilla’s inspiration and the movie he’s in is credited as being the revival of the giant monster genre as well as the first to introduce the atomic bomb to the mix. The Rhedosaurus here would be sort of composited from the movie version as well as the original story by Ray Bradbury and obviously composited from Godzilla variants and the Toho kaijus who owe their existence to it, a vicious and violent creature defending itself and one that's deeply lonely and desperate and strangely noble as the last of it’s kind, one that has nothing else to help protect it but these strange not-humans it’s formed an unlikely bond with. It has a particularly strong bond with The Gill Man, the only one who’s able to communicate with and steer it properly.

The Rhedosaurus is a global danger on a bigger and more direct scale than the other monsters, not just as a giant powerful dinosaur, but also a creature whose death could unleash a plague powerful enough to wipe out mankind, something the characters wouldn’t discover until late into the story (something Dracula, and maybe even Imhotep, would certainly want to exploit for personal gain). Maybe this radiation seeps over and forces the team to move their location around to stay undetected, maybe it's instrumental to powering whatever plans Dr Delambre and The Bride are cooking up in their lab, maybe it's affecting the environment or reality itself in strange unforeseen ways the way certain Godzilla works like KOTM and Singular Point have done.

It can be the key to saving the world or destroying it in equal measure, and so the fate of the Rhedosaurus is the fate of the future, and it falls up to the team to protect it as much as it will protect them.

So yeah, maybe I took this from a super-villain team and made it something a lot more League of Extraordinary Gentlemen in setup, but this team I imagine is grouped together less by a desire to save the world or serve a higher cause, than a simple matter of survival against a mutual enemy and the world that''s turned against them. They want drastically different things and employ drastically different methods and they each constitute powerful threats, and together, they are as likely to destroy themselves first if not the world with them. But survival is a matter they all have a stake on. Alone, they don’t stand a chance. Together, they may just have a chance and live, if only to finally rest in peace.

#replies tag #universal monsters #monster #horror #frankenstein #the bride of frankenstein #imhotep #the mummy #dr jekyll and mr hyde #cesare #the cabinet of dr. caligari #the gill man #the fly #dracula #hero forge

78 notes · View notes

heroofthreefaces · 1 year

Photo

[Image description: A two-panel cartoon in my MSPaint-based “triangle figure” style. Above there is a caption reading, “Dr. Lanyon”. Panel one is captioned, “How it started.” Panel two is captioned, “How it’s going.” Panel one shows Dr. Lanyon of The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde not, as my style usually renders a person, shaped like a triangle but as a sphere. Panel two shows Lanyon shaped like a deflated balloon. End description.]

#hastie lanyon #jekyll and hyde weekly #strange case of dr jekyll and mr hyde #cartoon reply #how it's going meme #memes

154 notes · View notes

ciaossu-imagines · 4 months

Note

Ikerev & Zombie Apocalypse?

Of course, anon dear! I'm so, so sorry this took forever to get back to you but if you're still reading, I hope you'll enjoy the headcanons I thought of for this AU!

Okay, so we're going into this with me forewarning everyone. By it's very nature, a zombie apocalypse AU is going to get dark, gritty, angsty, and probably a little fucked up and as I love getting the chance to get angsty and dark, you know things might get fucked up here and there with some of these headcanons. If that is not your cup of tea or something you think might bother you, it might be better for you to stop reading.

So now that we have that out of the way, if you're still reading, let's get this all started. So, in my head, this AU is less of an actual alternate universe. I still very much see this set in Cradle, with the same universe existing of Magic and the Magic Tower and the different armies. However, I don't see the armies as still really fighting each other - they are at peace and the Magic Tower, though definitely still shady as fuck and definitely still up to no real good, isn't thought of as an absolute threat. Everything seems good and peaceful and that's part of the real set-up of this AU.

So, to get to the real meat of this AU. So, everything is nice and peaceful. Life seems idyllic. But then things start to change. The Magic Tower, still headed by Amon Jabberwock, is doing what the Magic Tower always does - experimenting with the Magic Crystals, seeing what can be done with them. Their latest experiment is working with the crystals and humans to see if, by ingesting bits of the crystals and thus integrating them into the human body, they can enhance the boundaries of what a human body and mind can do. The experiments seem to be well-meaning, are sold as looking to find cures for aging, for disabilities, for anything bad that can possibly happen to a human body or mind. What they're really after, or at least what Amon wants them for, is to create his own army of superhuman soldiers to conquer Cradle, though not even his followers are really privy to that fact.

Too bad the experiments seem to be failing. Most of the humans experimented on are dying…and then things seem to change. Things start to appear to be going well and the Magic Tower rejoices and gets inspired to really test even further limits of the experiment. The long and short of it though - these new Crystal infused humans? They're super-strong, seemingly impervious to all harm except complete decapitation to sever the connection of brain and body, with superhuman senses…oh, and they all go insane. Like, their brain goes bad - all limiters are taken off and they start to act solely on impulses and basic desires instead of any rational thoughts or logic. They're extremely violent if threatened at all or if something stands in the way of one of their wants. They experience extreme hunger at points and if food isn't readily available….well, humans are a source of meat too. They crave sex, food, shelter, warmth, liquid. Some of them retain enough of their personalities to have cravings for things they especially loved before the experiments as well.

The worst thing? Though they start as mindless, they quickly seem to link up into some sort of hive-mind and they start enhancing their numbers. If they don't outright kill, they forcibly turn others into beings like themselves by forcibly feeding them crystals. If the person survives this, they join The Hive.

It starts in the Tower. Amon willingly joins The Hive, makes himself the Head of it. Dalim, being a Disciple of the Tower, is in this initial first attack by these creatures. Terrified and no longer trusting in Amon, Dum does do the right thing in the end and tries to ensure that the experiment dies in the Tower, that none of the infected escape the Tower. He helps get other Disciples out but unfortunately, he succumbs to an attack by several of the infected and gets forcibly recruited into The Hive.

The infected surge out of the Tower and it's not too long before the peace of Cradle is completely shattered and things become a full out 'zombie apocalypse'. The armies each do their best to fight The Hive and protect the citizens but still steadfastly refuse to join forces with each other until much later on in the story.

I see Jonah as being one of the first to die. It's not because he's not strong and more than a capable fighter. It's because he's just genuinely someone who doesn't have a lot of common sense. His death comes in the first wave of the infected out of the Tower. He chose bravery and doing his duty but, after seeing other soldiers downed and even seeing some be forcibly infected, his ego and lack of common sense really did him in and he gets slaughtered and eaten.

Though he'll last throughout most of the story, I do see Lancelot dying. It's his death that inspires the two armies to join forces and come together, actually. The thing is, as a magically strong person already, the Hive (and Amon, their leader) didn't want to kill Lancelot. No, they became almost obsessed with changing him, with making him a part of the Hive. Though Lancelot was strong and clever enough to hold them off for a long time, while saving someone else whilst in the midst of battle, he was left vulnerable for long enough to be force fed what was needed to ensure he would eventually turn. Though the only one who was aware of this was Kyle, who steadfastly maintained that they would find a way to save Lance, Lancelot knew what needed to be done. He told Sirius and Harr the truth of what had happened and begged his two best friends to do what needed to be done - to kill him.

Sirius was the one to actually end up doing the deed. He'd already lost most of his family and by that point, had seen enough other people die. He'd been so strong up until that point and he'd inspired so many people to keep going with his never give up attitude, his optimism that things would get better, and his hard work. But after that, after being forced to kill one of his oldest and dearest friends? He sure kept trying, so hard, but the fact of the matter was that after that, Sirius really started to give up. Another major story event really did him in and he almost recklessly charged into the next major battle with The Hive and was taken down. Those close by at the time said he seemed almost relieved as The Hive killed him.

That other major story event? It has to do with Harr. Harr was a Magic Tower Disciple who had abducted his position the second the Tower started experimenting on humans. It was just something Harr could not handle, could not get behind, so he left. He did his best to keep his eye on things with the Tower though, worried about what might happen. When the worst does happen, Harr feels immense guilt for not having done more to stop this from happening. He becomes obsessed with finding a cure for those infected, with stopping this with as little bloodshed as possible. Loki helps him, as does Kyle, who also becomes obsessive about finding a cure.

As the days and weeks go by though and they seem to be getting nowhere, Kyle starts drinking harder and harder and becoming more and more reckless in his efforts to learn more about the infected. He needs test subjects and by the time the armies manage to trap and transport an infected person to him, not only have they suffered major casualties, but the infected in question is normally dead as well. Kyle becomes tired of seeing people die and being helpless to stop it and he directly goes out into the field. Dead infected specimens aren't helping; he needs a live one and becomes bound and determined to get one. While trying to do so, Kyle gets captured and changed.

The newly infected Kyle is feral and attacks his former comrades, killing Loki. Between Loki's death and Kyle's change, combined with watching Sirius kill Lancelot just the day before, Harr cannot handle things anymore. It's too much and his brain just can't deal. Harr takes a dive, head first, from the place this all started - the Tower itself. He's dead upon impact with the ground, quick and painless, but dead nonetheless.

Because the idea, while horrible, was too delicious to resist…I really do see Dean being brutally savaged and beaten to death by his own infected brother. The sibling rivalry had carried over enough in the infected Dalim's mind for the need to kill his brother to be a major desire of his.

Now, I have always kind of headcanoned that Mousse has narcolepsy. Obviously he doesn't have a route so I don't know for sure if that is canonically true but I see that being his undoing in this AU. He gets infected in his sleep very early on in the story.

Oliver becomes very useful though. He devotes himself to making weapons and traps and fortifying buildings to become shelters. Though he doesn't go into battles himself and is very protected, he's such an important and integral part of everything.

I do see Edgar, Fenrir, and Seth becoming rather famous as front line warriors against the Hive. All or any of them alone become major targets of the Hive because of how many infected they take out and how integral a part of survival in this new world they become.

After Lancelot's death, Blanc and Ray become co-leaders, trying everything they can to gather and ensure the safety of all non-infected individuals. Blanc keeps an eye and really dedicates himself to ensuring the non-infected are safe and taken care of and that shelter, food, water, and basic needs can be met for everyone while Ray leads the more military side of ensuring continued life and safety for the survivors.

Zero ends up specializing in rescue missions, in getting groups of non-infected people to safety, and really ends up becoming Blanc's second in command. Luka, meanwhile, stays under Ray and does fight…Luka's biggest regret in everything though? That he couldn't save his brother. So he becomes foolhardy and reckless at times, taking risks he shouldn't, because to him, if he can save even just one more person…maybe that will take some of the guilt away, absolve him even a little. Even just a smidge.

12 notes · View notes

vickyvicarious · 1 year

Note

jonathan would find gabriel as the model lawyer, so cool and unphased yet lovable, i wanna be him, and gabe would be thinking protect your innocence boy, change professions. he believes the white hair is that law school has become more brital.

I'm imagining that Mr. Hawkins knew Utterson professionally. Younger Jonathan shows up with some documents or is tagging along somewhere and gets introduced to him/sees him in action, and he's so impressed. Goes home and talks to Mina about Utterson's quiet confidence and mild nature but that he obviously listens attentively and is so calm and unflappable and he seems so professional. Of course he looks up to Mr. Hawkins, he has this kind of affable way of getting along with people and an excellent cataloguing system and all that, but that Mr. Utterson really seemed like a lawyer, you know? And sure, he didn't have the same way with words or the ability to break the ice with a good joke like Mr. Hawkins, but there was just something really likeable about him somehow anyway...

Mina nods along super fond and points out that Jonathan has a certain quiet dignity himself, and she's always loved how he remembers everything she says to him, and Jonathan's temper is disposed to a rather calm natural state, and she's certainly always found him very likeable... So honestly, if those qualities are what make this Utterson so impressive then she's even more confident in the great career awaiting him. Essentially just a lot of (fluffy flirty Jonmina) support and Jonathan looks up to Mr. Utterson from then on.

On Gabriel's side of this he's met Harker once or twice, never alone or for long, but he seems like a nice enough young man. He's obviously got a great big heart and Gabriel's kind of thinking to himself, well, it's obvious Hawkins dotes on him (Mr. Hawkins in true dad form brags about Jonathan being just an excellent protege from time to time), but, oof. The day is definitely going to come when the often-cruel reality of human nature is revealed to him if he sticks around in this profession. A lot of the most idealistic and eager people get their spirits broken by such things, in his experience; certainly, many of his friends who succumb to a bad influence go slower if they weren't so innocent when it was first introduced to them. (In a word: Dorian Gray. That certainly happened quick enough.) They certainly seem to find more pleasure in the fall when it's gradual, and it's often more of a gentle slope to a more realistic outlook as opposed to a plunge off a cliff. (Not that he judges, either way.) He's a tad invested due purely to exposure; even if they haven't met in person very often, Mr. Hawkins talks about Jonathan enough that Gabe's gotten a bit fond by proxy.

The next time he has business with the Hawkins law firm, it's become Hawkins & Harker, except actually the only one left is Harker. He's very different in some ways - his hair shock-white now; the way he stands like he's poised to act, a certain set to his shoulders, his hand falling to his hip; a certain look in his eyes that is at times impressive, at times unsettling, and at times concerning - but it seems that whatever experience he's lived through (and it's definitely been an experience, that much is clear) has not broken his spirit. Far from it. He's just as soft-hearted as ever, but there's something steely-edged underneath it. A kind of fire evident in him, and a love for his wife that he feels and expresses so unabashedly that Gabriel feels a little envious of the vigor in it. Harker seems mild at first, but he has a kind of intensity to him, a willingness to ignore everything else, that Gabriel hasn't often seen in decent people. It's endearing.

Whenever their paths cross, they work well together, and so perhaps their paths cross more often than they otherwise would. Maybe one day Jonathan invites him to go to the theatre and see a play together after something comes up and Mina is unable to make it, and Utterson winds up breaking a long-kept self-restraint on that count. They see Hamlet and enjoy themselves a lot, though Jonathan gets that certain look in his eye extra hard during some scenes.

#dracula daily #jekyll and hyde weekly #dr. jekyll and mr. hyde #utterson #jonathan harker #gothic novel crossovers #crossovers #garnetsfists #replies

105 notes · View notes