#penny dreadful

is there much of a penny dreadful fanbase on tumblr? i’d love to see more fans for it!

rewatching the first episode of season 2 was just as thrilling as it was the first time. i’m very excited with the direction the show’s taking: ethan’s anger management problems were a predictable (but still exhilarating) plot twist, brona’s “rebirth” as the bride of the creature was also something i called, but, again, it was executed very, very well. the villains for the season–and i do hope they remain for the duration of the season–look great. we can always use more savvy witchcraft.

re: victor and brona’s rebirth, i’m especially interested in where this heads. brona was always meant for the creature, but i think it’s fairly evident when watching the scenes with victor and her submerged corpse that he’s attracted to her in a way that doesn’t quite stem from any real emotional connection they had while she was alive. when she’s reborn, i think both the creature and victor fall in love with her in equal magnitude. victor’s relationship with her is intimate only in the sense that he’s seen her more intimately than anyone ever has… and that’s because he’s performed an autopsy on her. still, i don’t think this is out of character for him; while victor could’ve performed autopsies or surgeries on any number of women before, brona could very well be the first woman he thinks of in anything resembling romance (if not in a traditional sense, then one born of fascination and admiration). she is still his creation, and with that alone, they share a bond unlike anything he could have with a normal person. there’s also the interesting addition of the creature’s new employer’s beautiful, blind daughter… i’m not a fan of love triangles, but i think this could be executed well–the show hasn’t disappointed me yet!

malglories:

which no one asked for, but i listed, because i’m too dedicated to the aesthetic and i like to waste my time. i most certainly could have missed some, so, you know. please note that the last entry is different from its earlier recitation.

season 1

• episode 2, vanessa and victor together: “if this belief from heaven be sent, / if such be nature’s holy plan, / have i not reason to lament / what man has made from man?” - wordsworth, “lines written in early spring”
  
• episode 3, victor: “there was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, / the earth, and every common sight, / to me did seem / apparell’d in celestial light, / the glory and the freshness of a dream. / it is not now as it hath been of yore; - / turn wheresoe’er i may, / by night or day, / the things which i have seen i now can see no more.” - wordsworth, “ode on intimations of immortality from recollections of early childhood”
• episode 5, sir malcolm as the devil: “darkling i listen; and, for many a time / i have been half in love with easeful death, / call’d him soft names in many a musèd rhyme, / to take into the air my quiet breath.” - keats, “ode to a nightingale”
• episode 6, victor: “no more let life divide what death can join together.” - shelley, “adonais”
• episode 7, vanessa repeats the shelley line to victor; ethan as the devil repeats the keats line
• episode 8, caliban: “o fleeting joys / of paradise, dear bought with lasting woes! / did i request thee, maker, from my clay / to mould me man?” - milton, paradise lost

season 2

• episode 2, john clare: “to see a world in a grain of sand / and a heaven in a wild flower / hold infinity in the palm of your hand / and eternity in an hour.” - william blake, “auguries of innocence”
  
• episode 3, the cutwitch: “by the pricking of my thumbs, / something wicked this way comes.” - shakespeare, macbeth(not really poetry, i know, but i still had to include it)
• episode 5, vanessa and john clare: “i am–yet what i am none cares or knows; / my friends forsake me like a memory lost; / i am the self-consumer of my woes– / they rise and vanish in oblivious host, / like shadows in love’s frenzied stifled throes / and yet i am, and live–like vapours tossed…i long for scenes where man hath never trod / a place where woman never smiled or wept / there to abide with my creator, god, / and sleep as i in childhood sweetly slept, / untroubling and untroubled where i lie / the grass below–above the vaulted sky.” - john clare, “i am!”

season 3

• episode 1, mr. lyle: “i hold it true…‘tis better to have loved and lost / than never to have loved at all.” - tennyson, “in memoriam a.h.h”
  
• episode 1, vanessa: “beat, happy stars, timing with things below, / beat with my heart more blest than heart can tell, / blest, but for some dark undercurrent woe / that seems to draw–but it shall not be so; / let all be well, be well.” - tennyson, “maud”
• episode 4, john clare: “i have a little shadow that goes in and out with me, / and what can be the use of him is more than i can see. / he is very, very like me from the heels up to the head; / and i see him jump before me, when i jump into my bed.” - robert louis stevenson, “my shadow”
• episode 4, john clare: “i can never get back by day, / nor can remember plain and clear / the curious music that i hear.” - robert louis stevenson, “the land of nod”
• episode 7, vanessa: “i have made my bed / in charnels and on coffins, where black death / keeps record of the trophies won…” - shelley, “alastor; or, the spirit of solitude”
• episode 9, john clare: “there was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, / the earth, and every common sight, / to me did seem / apparell’d in celestial light, / the glory and the freshness of a dream…but there’s a tree, of many, one, / a single field which i have looked upon, / both of them speak of something that is gone; / the pansy at my feet / doth the same tale repeat: / whither is fled the visionary gleam? / where is it now, the glory and the dream?” - wordsworth, “ode on intimations of immortality from recollections of early childhood”