bakerstreet | Gothic Romance

Gothic Romance

Lightning streaks across the inky blackness. Somewhere far off in the deep woods, a single wolf howls. Go ahead, bring your meager candle close, no matter the danger that the flame presents to your luxurious satin clothing - you won't find any warmth to relieve you in this mansion built just as much of regret as it is of stone. But you have no other choice since you've been imprisoned here.

Or perhaps you're the one who's keeping a less-than-willing soul here to ease your own pain. Either way, you've found yourself the subject of an atmospheric, suspenseful gothic romance!

a type of novel that flourished in the late 18th and early 19th cent. in England. Gothic romances were mysteries, often involving the supernatural and heavily tinged with horror, and they were usually set against dark backgrounds of medieval ruins and haunted castles. The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole was the forerunner of the type, which included the works of Ann Radcliffe, Matthew Gregory Lewis, and Charles R. Maturin, and the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. Jane Austen's novel Northanger Abbey satirizes Gothic romances. The influence of the genre can be found in some works of Coleridge, Le Fanu, Poe, and the Brontës. During the 1960s so-called Gothic novels became enormously popular in England and the United States. Seemingly modeled on Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre and Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca, these novels usually concern spirited young women, either governesses or new brides, who go to live in large gloomy mansions populated by peculiar servants and precocious children and presided over by darkly handsome men with mysterious pasts. Popular practitioners of this genre are Mary Stewart, Victoria Holt, Catherine Cookson, and Dorothy Eden.
( source )

HOW TO PLAY
1. Comment with your character, info, and preferred role/trope or even setting. Is your character a bright-eyed ingenue? A tortured soul with as many skeletons in their closet as their are rooms in the castle? Hired help who has fallen for the mansion's newest guest and wants to save them from a certain doomed fate? How about a vampire, werewolf, or ghost? The only limit is your imagination!
2. Reply to others. Hash things out or go with the flow. Just get your gothic, creepy shipping on.
3. RNG the prompts if you need to. Otherwise, have fun. Treat this as seriously or as irreverent as you'd like.

PROMPTS
( change the gender/pronouns out for appropriate ones! | source )

1. Powerful love. Heart-stirring, often sudden, emotions create a life or death commitment. Many times this love is the first the character has felt with this overwhelming power.

2. Uncertainty of reciprocation. What is the beloved thinking? Is the lover's love returned or not?

3. Unreturned love. Someone loves in vain (at least temporarily). Later, the love may be returned.

4. Tension between true love and father's control, disapproval, or choice. Most often, the father of the woman disapproves of the man she loves.

5. Lovers parted. Some obstacle arises and separates the lovers, geographically or in some other way. One of the lovers is banished, arrested, forced to flee, locked in a dungeon, or sometimes, disappears without explanation. Or, an explanation may be given (by the person opposing the lovers' being together) that later turns out to be false.

6. Illicit love or lust threatens the virtuous one. The young woman becomes a target of some evil man's desires and schemes.

7. Rival lovers or multiple suitors. One of the lovers (or even both) can have more than one person vying for affection.

8. Dark (and brooding?) At least one member of the pair has a tragic past or experiences that have left them closed off to the world.

9. Less than ideal beginnings. It's an age-old story: falling in love with the person who locked you in the dungeon. Or the attic, if they're a bit more hospitable.

10. Supernatural elements. Strange dreams about a shadowy place or a mysterious face. Blurry figures that linger just out of the line of sight. And the master of the house, always indisposed around the time of the full moon.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

He had been watching her for some time now. How could he not? Female doctors were so rare, and one who served the mad? Even rarer. Most knew of her brilliance, even if it was mainly credited to the men around her. It was one of his last retainers driven utterly mad that had been her previous patient. He died mysteriously in the cell after speaking of his 'master.'

One doesn't share the gifts they have been given. That is betrayal, and betrayal is death. The only problem was now he needed a new servant, and he had a new fixation. The smell of her had been all over the cell when he had let himself in. And that scent was now all he could think of. So close and yet so far away.

The sun had set some time ago, and he was following her silently through the busy streets. A fine suit and a cloak flowing, the appearance of a gentleman just as any other that might be out this time of year, and yet his reasons were more nefarious than not. Following the brilliant young doctor, his red eyes under smoked lenses so none would see the color.

Harleen's boots clacked on the damp stone as she walked home from the asylum, too late in the evening to be safe for a woman alone. She knew she should have hired a hansom cab, but her pay was not so generous that she could afford the trip every time the warden insisted on late hours.

At least she knew she was taking a risk, and kept alert of all her senses. The back of her neck prickled and she knew someone was watching her. There was the faint echo of footsteps in time with her own. She paused to adjust her hat and slipped a long sharp hatpin into her gloved hand.

What a curious thing it was to see the good doctor walking all alone in the night, without even a gentleman at her side to protect her. Surely the asylum didn't treasure their workers as they should. That was perfectly fine though. It made his quest that much easier.

Silently trailing after her just the silent clack of his fine shoes to give him away. That and the body's natural reactions to a predator nearby. He didn't give her the credit she was due as he moved quickly now, grabbing her arm to pull her into the alleyway, his cap falling off but it didn't matter as dark as it was with just gaslight on the street.

He swooped for her neck, assuming even if she was armed she wouldn't have silver, holy water, or a visible cross on her. He could easily be wrong though. He needed to drink from her to get her out of his head.

Harleen twisted in his grip and drove her silver-plated hairpin deep into flesh. She screamed not in fear, but in fierce primal rage.

"Do not touch me!"

The night creature certainly wasn't expecting that, the hat upon his head fell to the ground as a cry of pain ripped from him, the red eyes flashing under the smoked lenses. Suddenly bats were all around her flying off.

He wouldn't be detoured, but he would need more blood and time to heal. Silver hurt like little else.

Harleen squawked in surprise and threw up her arms to shield her face and head from the sudden flurry of little beasts. Her hat was knocked to the ground and she stayed in the alley for several long moments, wild eyed and panting, as she tried to process everything that had just happened.

She tidied herself up and hurried home, where she triple checked the locks before retiring for the night.

The next day she reread her previous patient's files in detail, taking notes of mad ramblings until she could map out a pattern. She didn't breathe a word of the last night's attack or the new direction of her research. After work she hired a hansom cab even though there was still daylight left, and made a stop on the way to buy a silver chain with a simple cross to wear around her neck. She didn't know if faith was a requirement for the religious symbology to work, but silver was proven effective.

Safe in her flat, she checked the locks on the door and windows again and determined to sit up all night, clutching her hatpin.

It had taken a few doners to redo the damage done from the silver pin. A wiser immortal might have been wary of a human who knew to stab with silver. However, Jonathan refused to think anyone was that smart; she didn't seem like a hunter; it had to have been dumb luck.

And that just made him desire to find her more how he's lived this long who even knew. This time he played it smart, following the cab with the eyes of animals along the way as he moved across rooftops. Even if the hansom cab moved quickly, the crows about would find where she went.

Once he knew what building she was in, he went to quench his thirst before returning close to midnight, a few solid knocks given to the door. Not his wisest move either but being direct seemed like his plan of action. Tonight he was in a different dark suit, the same smoked lenses on but his hat pulled off, his styled hair long going messy in the windy Gotham night. He should have waited until the morning and tried that way, but where was the fun in that.

The sudden rap at the door startled Harleen and reminded her that mundane danger still existed in the world. She pulled her pistol from the drawer where it usually resided when she was at home and quietly moved to the door.

"It is far too late to be visiting," she called, doing her best to keep her voice stern and even, "and I am not at home, besides."

He could smell her through the door, this feisty doctor, the one his servant was killed for speaking to. He was far too fascinated with her for his own good. Rapping upon the door once more, even after she had called out.

"Not at home, you say?" Finally, he speaks, bored amusement in his tone. "I merely want to speak. I promise you no harm." Though harm he may find once again it seems.

At least life was interesting trying to capture the lady doctor. He could have taken another servant, driven them mad. But no, he wanted this one.

Gothic Romance

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