"a century and a half of him being a cowardly weakling who sometimes cheats" - about Jonathan Harker in one of previous asks
I'm sorry, but that's not even true. Jonathan wasn't always some cowardly weakling in media. He wasn't a cowardly weakling in 1970 Count Dracula adaptation or in 1977 BBC adaptation or in that Czechoslovakian 1971 adaptation or in 1953 Turkish one - he was brave and badass in those. And even if you don't like 1992 version, Jonathan was not weakling there either - he was brave, he was badass chasing Dracula across snowy Transylvania with others and even cut his throat, mortally wounding him. It's an exaggeration to claim Jonathan has always been a cowardly weaking in media.
I don't know what specific ask you're referring to and I don't like my odds of sifting through the pile to find the exact quote, but it's a sentiment that's appeared in a few of my rambles before, so I'll take your word that it's floating around somewhere.
First, thank you for bringing up four whole Dracula adaptations where Jonathan Harker is done some justice that have never crossed my radar. The 1970 version has Christopher Lee himself as the Count, so it seems like a promising watch on principle, and I think I vaguely recall the 1977 BBC being mentioned as a hidden gem adaptation that actually brushed closer to the book's canon. The Czechoslovakian and Turkish versions I will trust you on, as my media saturation is drowning in 'murrican schlock. I will even give the 1992 Jonathan credit for letting Keanu have a fraction of Jonathan's character in Coppola's laughably named 1992 fanfiction.
But the thing is, those are five movies. Five whole movies you could point to in a very very very long list of Dracula media. Five where Jonathan is allowed to possess one sliver of his canonical self's character, courage, strength, and ability. I will say the line you picked is one to be rightfully upset about, if only because it isn't right to be angry over 'a century and a half of him being a cowardly weakling.' Fear is part of Jonathan's character.
Jonathan Harker was terrified for his entire stay with the Count. That is in canon. Then he escapes, goes through his magical girl transformation in reaction to Mina being attacked, and winds up beheading the Count. Him starting out afraid is key to his character arc and the catharsis of the climax.
An arc that is--and I will bet money on this--almost entirely gutted even in the four adaptations I wasn't aware of. I know it for a fact in the 1992 film. Keanu was given the same acting directions and script in the movie as you'd give a slice of dry toast or a broom.
Because, as has been the case in far more movies, shows and books with Dracula as a starring role, Jonathan Harker may not necessarily become a coward, but he is always, always gutted. Dracula becomes the dark seducer, now with Coppola's rendition becoming the norm ala 'blaspheming for love,' courtesy of stealing Jonathan's driving passion in the third act. Van Helsing becomes Dracula's badass personal nemesis, courtesy of robbing Jonathan and Mina of that co-owned role.
Yes, Jonathan is sometimes remembered, but it's a coin toss as to whether he gets to A) Participate in the narrative beyond filling screen space, B) Be interesting, C) Be faithful (and not a cookie cutter Victorian Man (c) cliche to poor Mina who needs a REAL VAMPIRE MAN, D) Have any of his importance as one half of the protagonist team with Mina acknowledged without handing everything to Van Helsing. You can only ever have one. If you're lucky.
When people think of the Dracula media of today, or last decade, or the decade before that, and before that, who besides people who have actually read the book would think Jonathan Harker matters as a character? As the guy who opens and closes the story? As the guy who spent two months in captivity with Dracula, as the only person to have actual dialogue with him beyond a single villain rant? As the guy who did not just scratch Dracula's throat, but actively sent him running for his unlife in Piccadilly and ultimately chopped his head off?
The most he's gotten in recent years are the scraps that Moffat tossed him in his latest self insert OCified take on Dracula in his 2020 series, if we ignore the massive middle finger of a send off he gets in the first episode. Or we could look at the 2013 series' lovely depiction of Jonathan (now a jealous prick) and Lucy (an unfulfilled lesbian) having angry-cheating sex about Mina not being into them. Or 2022's The Invitation, featuring Count Ken Doll and his helpers, the elderly Harkers who are also his minions who attack and offer up an innocent girl to his Bride-cult. Or the 1999-2007 comic series of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan 'lol Jonathan Harker is a milksop' Moore, who wrote Mina has his own personal SA fetish stand-in while Jonathan is mercifully off-screen, having ditched Mina because he thought her vampire bite scars were ugly. Or we could give Anno Dracula a read and see Kim Newman's special warm welcome and farewell to the Harkers within the first few pages.
Or we could go back to the beginning. All the way to Tod Browning and F.W. Murnau.
Browning's Dracula of 1931 is, like Coppola's 1992 flick, one of, if not the most immediately recognized version of Dracula there is in cinema. Its climax features Jonathan Harker prancing around a crypt looking for Mina while Van Helsing stakes the Count. (I am being literal. The man is practically skipping. I know, I know, film acting wasn't at its peak back then, but come on.)
Murnau and the very definitely for sure not Dracula with its serial numbers filed off 1922 film, Nosferatu, has Orlok being appropriately menacing and weird at the Jonathan Harker stand-in of 'Thomas Hutter,' who is theatrically terrified--but at least one half of an earnestly loving couple with Mina Ellen Hutter!--and then gets sent away by Ellen on a ruse so she can die tricking Orlok into his death by sunrise.
Jonathan Harker mincing uselessly around while Van Helsing gets the work done.
Jonathan Harker quailing and afraid, contributing nothing to the Count's (or doppelganger thereof) destruction.
Jonathan Harker, however effete or earnest or able, loses the girl to the dark dramatic seducer.
This was the foundation people were given for this character well before anyone bothered to pick up the book. And much of that audience didn't bother. Same for the generations to follow. There's a reason the Dracula Daily wave has surprised, enthralled, and enraged so many new readers who thought that 126+ years of multiple mediums had to be working from some bedrock of comparison in the book, only to find how much had been erased or warped out of recognition.
I would be here all day if I threw myself into all the comic book adaptations. All the spinoff novels. The entire filmography and its neighboring heap of TV series. Even I'm not dedicated enough to comb through every single page and scene just to be reminded of how routinely snubbed or bastardized this character--and, honestly, the whole cast--is as time marches on and the writers and directors behind new Dracula media become increasingly detached from the actual content of the novel, relying only on pop culture osmosis and Wiki pages for Coppola's movie.
Anyway. I suppose it isn't perfectly fair to say Jonathan Harker has been portrayed as a coward through the century and a quarter of Dracula film, TV, and print in every single depiction.
But there is enough saturation in the trends of contemporary media that any crumbs the 20th century offered to him are drowned out to the point that we need a microscope to find them. And even if we're not talking contemporary?
I think it's telling that the examples you gave, bar what I can't not read as a hell of a stretch with 90's Keanu, form a list of four examples out of 126 years' worth of media.
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Hello dear qwertyprophecy! Idk if you want to weigh in on this at this stage, but could I ask what your opinion is on all this Unity fee stuff? Is it really as dire as it seems?
Heya!
(Re: Unity's announcement of a per-dowload fee on games made using the engine.)
I don't think I'm a good person to answer this, as I'm not involved in game dev finances nor do I even use Unity anymore, as I've switched to Godot. Personally, I glanced at the earning threshold for the fees to apply, figured I'd theoretically remain unaffected unless I had a lot of extraordinary luck. However...
From what I've heard from other devs who actually have to consider finances more thoroughly, there are many cases where it can screw devs over badly. Free demos for paid games, updates, bundles, game passes or other different monetisation models, piracy, or even DDOS-esque attacks of people reinstalling the same game over and over, just off the top of their heads. For instance, Aggro Crab Games noted that their game coming out next year on Xbox Game Pass suddenly has the risk that if it's too popular, the free download fees will eat into what they negotiated to get paid for putting the game on the pass.
Unity apparently is not giving details on how they might account for these issues, or how exactly their proprietary data model is determining the number of non-fraudulent installs. Devs are simply supposed to trust Unity to charge them fairly, which might not be the easiest to do when the company's just shown it can suddenly pull new fees out of its arse and apply them even for already completed games.
I don't have the ability to estimate what the actual cost of this change ends up being. Yet, logically speaking, would Unity make such a controversial change if it didn't increase their own bottom line? Someone's going to have to pay for that difference, and Unity seems to gamble on the devs using the engine believing it won't be them.
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This is technically smut yet an experience that held its own desires and felt like a genuine connection. This is not fiction, it’s all about him. As much as I want to despise him. I can’t help but miss him and feel nostalgic for, what felt like, love we shared.
Each time he switched I could feel my body burn, I tried to keep my noises to quiet hums as I focused on the TV. Although on the inside I was screaming. This moment was a fantasy come true. I couldn’t count how many times I’ve touched myself to the thought of him or how many times I imagined his hands touching my body. I thought we’d never do something so intimate yet here we were, me sitting on the floor between his legs with his large calloused hands kneading my breasts.
I felt my body tremble as his finger tips accidentally brushed against my hardened nipple. His hips twitched behind me as I made a pleasant sound of approval. I could feel his hard on gently nudging against my back. I could hear his heavy breathing as I continued to quietly moan as his hands went in and out of sync with each squeeze. I felt his body shift behind me like he had leaned back. I could feel his gaze against the back of my head as I was lost in the pleasure I felt. This wasn’t my first time, but I had never had a man care more about my pleasure than his own. He gulped, removing one hand to slide into my tank top and doing so with the other. I leaned back even more into his chest, feeling my body lose all sense of control. I gripped my thighs together as he began kneading my breast harder and rougher.
“Is this okay,” I barely made out his words, trying my best to regain focus.
I couldn’t even think straight as I let out another pleasant moan, arching my back. He seemed to take that as a yes and continued, tugged and squeezed my nipples between his middle and index finger. I felt a familiar knot in my stomach as I clenched my thighs tighter to stop the burning desire between my legs. I could feel his hard on twitch, as he tried his best to keep his hands in sync with each other.
I know he was watching my every movement and tried his best to listen to my pleasant sounds over the show playing on his TV. I couldn’t even stop myself from moaning his name, and before I could realize what I had done he had completely lost his senses. I could feel him pulse against my back as his hips twitched forward as he toyed with my breasts even harder, adding more pressure to hopefully get that same reaction out of me. Everything there after was a blur. Drinking wasn’t something I should’ve done before I seen him but I know I don’t regret it.
I had come back down from my tipsy state when I had found myself sitting upon his lap. I could feel his bulge between my legs, and the heat that radiated from me must’ve been felt by him. I tried my best to stop myself from being awkward as I guided his hands up to grab my breasts again, he smiled slightly “this is way different.”
I giggled nodding my head, “I told you it would be.” Even in a moment like this we were still laughing, and talking like it was so common.
I couldn’t even keep the smile on my face as he went back into the same soft rhythm as before. It still felt so good even after him doing it for so long earlier, I thought maybe it was the angle but I knew that wasn’t it. His eyes watched me, I know he couldn’t see much due to his glasses being off but I could clearly see his expression and his eyes wandering down to my breast that were in his hands. After a moment of him kneading my breasts I felt his hips slightly tense I couldn’t even control myself as I ground gently into his bulge. He let out a small groan that I wouldn’t have heard if I wasn’t looking at his face through half lidded eyes. It felt like he was trying to make me do it again because he gripped my breasts and pulled my body forward, but I know it was all me. I could t help myself from grinding into him, it made my body burn and my heart clench in my chest each time he squeezed my breasts. I couldn’t even get the full pleasure from him touching me through my tank top. I stopped, giving a giggle trying my best to keep myself from saying something stupid.
“You can go under if you want.” He didn’t miss a beat as he slipped his hands under my shirt and began playing with my breasts again. That was probably the worst mistake due to how much harder I ground into him, and how I moaned his name softly into the quiet bedroom. He was so tender yet so rough, I don’t know a better way to describe him. I could see his eyes close as he lulled his head back, tensing his thighs and hips into me. He has such good self control, I would’ve thought he would’ve lost himself by now but he kept himself as still as he could. And each time I ground into him he gripped harder onto my breasts.
That is a night I will never forget. It would be the beginning of something amazing, and the end of a bonded friendship. I would do it all over again to witness such tender and soft touches, just to feel something that I can’t describe as nothing more than love and lust mixed into one horrible feeling of dread and despair. I will continue to lie and say I felt nothing more than lust and dread, but truly I felt love and a hint that it would lead to something more. But it was nothing more than fantasy and delirium, and I will soon forget it ever existed. My love for you will be endless but this pain will change everything forever.
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