#bram's notes

[aster-blogging-dracula]

If anyone is interested in knowing about where bram stoker got his information abrout transylvania seen on these past week from, pages 200 to 233 of this edition of bram stoker's notes show an annotated version of what we know he gathered (including the sources he checked) (there's also a few handwritten annotations on these pages about (mostly unused) ideas bram had for the plot (although the first section of the book ellaborates on this much further)

These 33 pages cointain a few spoilers on the editor's annotations below each each transcription (and the rest of the book is obvously full of spoilers for the entire plot), so new redears beware

(examples:)

[spankerella]

Happy Lizard Fashion Day to those who celebrate.

[aster-blogging-dracula]

yup! here are some of the notes bram stoker took from it (see page 140 from this pdf (which would be p129 of the book in it)):

There's something hilarious about how so much subsequent media has positioned Vampires and Werewolves as, like, binary opposite entities, and then you read Dracula (1897) and realize that wolves are that guy's preferred solution to every problem. You'd say something to Dracula about "ah yes, werewolves, vampires' great eternal enemies," and he'd just be like "you mean my subcontractors?"

[catvampire]

Dracula at the Finnish National Ballet: ⮡ Harker & Dracula's first meeting [1/2]

Jun Xia as Jonathan Harker Michal Krčmář as Young Dracula

[weirdpolis]

The further we get in the Dracula Daily, and the more I realize all of the discrepancies between the Original Text and every single one of its adaptations, the more I think there must be some weird vampire quirk at work here. Some spell, or a curse, that prevents the faithfull translation of the original story. Some combination of "Vampires don't have reflections in the mirrors, and their likeness cannot be captured on film or photograph" and "victims cannot speak directly about the Vampire because they are put under their spell or in a trance". I have not yet figured out all the details of how this peculiar vampire quirk works, and wheter the wild mistranslation of the "Dracula" onto Islandic language also occured under this spell, but you must agree with me, that it's weird it happened this many times.

[omgrandomwords]

WHY DID IT TAKE ME OVER FOUR YEARS TO REALIZE HOW MANY TMA CHARACTERS ARE NAMED AFTER HORROR AUTHORS

[gentleman-aster]

via @thegoatsongs

Reminder that in 1897 Transylvania was Austro-Hungarian. More specifically, it belonged to the Kingdom of Hungary, of Austria-Hungary at the time.

Transylvania will not be part of Romania until 1920.

Transylvania became part of the Kingdom of Hungary in 1002, and it belonged to "the Lands of the Hungarian Crown" until 1920.

[ifwebefriends]

I first started reading Dracula Daily about a week or two into May 2022 because everyone and their mom on tumblr were talking about it. Breaking the novel into smaller bite-sized pieces occurring in real time really helped me to digest it better and helped me to get a better idea of how the story was actually paced out. I got caught up on a few entries and kept up with it until around late September/early October when a lot was happening in my life and I couldn’t keep up.

I tried again this year and I also listened to the Re: Dracula podcast which helped me a lot since I’m a visual-auditory learner and I’m not the best at reading. I listened to every entry and usually read the corresponding email at the same time. The podcast was also helpful since I knew about how long it would take to get through each entry so I could plan my time around it. I had a much easier time this year reading the novel. I’m proud to say that this time around, I saw it all the way through to the end.

I’ve had a lot of fun reading and listening to Dracula, telling my loved ones about it, and talking about it with everyone here online! I’ve loved the art, memes, and discussions we all had around this old classic book. The book is so unique and compelling and it doesn’t get as much appreciation and respect as it should.

Thank you so much to Matt Kirkland and the @re-dracula team for providing such a wonderful, immersive, and well-made experience and bringing together a bunch of nerds online. I don’t think I would have ever read this book without you. And thank you to all the other readers and listeners who helped make the journey as much fun as it was. We laughed, cried, cheered, and talked together and I’m so glad that I was a part of it all. I’m sad that it’s over but I’m happy that it happened at all.

[justanotherliteraturestudent]

"These companions," and he laid his hand on some of the books, "have been good friends to me, and for some years past... have given me many, many hours of pleasure."

— Count Dracula, Dracula by Bram Stoker

[caffeinatedcatlover]

More Dracula quotes. It’s safe to say that Dracula has become one of my favorite books.

[akuarchives]

Chapter 117

[gvtz-xd]

[toaster-fire-art]

Happy Women's Day!! have some gals! (And izzy, they're just there i suppose)

@belovedknightdraws come get the kids

[pbear]

I think the existence of Lovecraft is overlooked a lot in the BSD universe. This is an eldritch horror that is just out there, no ability whatsoever.

If things like Lovecraft exist, what else is out there is the BSD world? I feel like other characters could have played into this supernatural aspect of the BSD universe, most notably two whose abilities aren't as defined: Bram and Fyodor.

Bram is said to have an infection-type ability but it's unnamed. He has all the makings of a literal vampire so what if he just was?

Fyodor has an ability called Crime and Punishment but a lot of it is still a mystery. We know he can kill people just by touching them and that's kind of it. His skill manifests in Dead Apple but it doesn't turn on him which is another weird aspect. What if this power wasn't part of an ability though?

And like a lot of things in BSD, this comes back to Dazai. No Longer Human is very powerful in a world of gifted people and I think coming up with bigger challenges to keep Dazai occupied might be getting harder. Things like Bram and Q aren't as intimidating when Dazai is out there to nullify them easily. Lovecraft posed a threat because he didn't have an ability and Dazai, while being trained, is still just a normal guy fighting, so Chuuya had to pull out Corruption. Fyodor was able to match Dazai on an intellectual level no ability needed and now he's dead. We could keep bringing in more crazy abilities but what if something posed a threat that didn't have an ability at all?

[goatsandgangsters]

It is worth noting here that despite the variety of documentary 'sources', the narrative is in fact dominated throughout by three respectable English middle-class voices: Mina Murray, Jonathan Harker, and Dr John Seward, whose idioms are virtually indistinguishable. The upper classes (Lucy, Arthur, and of course Dracula himself) and the foreigners (Van Helsing, Quincey Morris, and Dracula again) are for the most part elbowed out of the narrating position. Eccentric idioms, like the Cockney accent of the zoo-keeper, or the Whitby dialect of Mr Swales, disappear in the later pages of the novel, enabling the English middle-class characters to consolidate their victory over otherness in all its forms. In the end, the vampire born in oral culture (and orally fixated as a mark of this inheritance), is destroyed by standard English, by the print culture in which all wayward voices are homogenized.

Maud Ellmann, “Introduction,” Dracula by Bram Stoker

[see-arcane]

It’s been almost a year since Jonathan Harker made that fateful first trip to Transylvania. The monster that imprisoned him, that threatened his love, that died in a box of earth by two blades, has been gone for months. Yet Jonathan’s nightmares have never left. In fact, as the bleak anniversary nears, they have worsened. Van Helsing’s mesmerism has made no progress in freeing him from the nightly horror. But he has come from Amsterdam for a potentially fruitful visit to another professor. Prof. Wilson is playing host to a mesmerist of singular and uncanny power, Miss Helen Penclosa. On meeting the troubled young man and his wife, she is only too happy to help…

That’s the premise for Penclosa, another addition to the Jonathan Harker Horror Universe which I’m apparently adding to, brick by brick. Unlike the gothic monster mash of my other WIP, Barking Harker, this story is a far more direct sequel to the events of Dracula. Complete with a still-recovering traumatized Mr. Harker crossing paths with a different kind of monster. One who wants far more integral and intimate things than blood. She is the loving Miss Penclosa, the hypnotic living psychic vampire of Arthur Conan Doyle’s, “The Parasite.” The story is on Project Gutenberg here.

If you want to read the teaser for my story, go here.

If you’d like to drop some change in my virtual tip jar, my Ko-fi is here.