#lucy westenra and mina harker

[agathah]

Day 23: Roses

Lucy and Mina 🌹(I love them)

[vivienvalentino]

Bram Stoker’s Dracula — 1992, dir. Francis Ford Coppola

[tiffycat]

Felt like drawing a bunch of Dracula memes just to be silly :p

[rikiteekeetavee]

This is why no matter what, Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula and every tv show and musical out there will never be hated close to enough actually

[dinodoggie]

this is a little out of order but i saw an internet quote from the physical dracula daily book and had to draw it - that Lucy was playing out an Otome dating sim while Jonathan is having the worst time of his life XD

i hope you enjoy this silly drawing, and have an AWESOME day!!

[wiliecoyotegenius]

Modern Dracula retellings of any media tend to erase Lucy's mother, in favor of making Lucy more grown up (and thus her encounters with Dracula to be hot), more sexually forward (only to get punished for it), and an independent woman. Often claiming that this "fixes" her story.

However, Mrs Westenra is important to exist partly because it makes Lucy such a Persephone figure.

A daughter (kore/κόρη) on the cusp of adolescence and adulthood, taken forcibly away from the living to the land of the dead by the lord of Death, to marry him (white clothes in her tomb, when she was supposed to be in a bridal dress soon), to dwell in darkness for eternity under his ultimate power.

Lucy also dies/"goes to the underworld" on the Autumn Equinox, signaling winter coming and light (the meaning of Lucy's name) fading for darkness to reign.

Peresphone's abduction to the underworld, a girl taken away by death too early, mourned, was meant to be a tragedy. And so is Lucy's story.

[iwantajaneaustenlife]

every year this is the saddest day 😭

[r-2-peepoo]

The entirety of Dracula by Bram Stoker is really just:

Dr Seward: I wish we could figure out what’s wrong with Lucy.

Van Helsing: I figured it out immediately but I’m just going to let you solve it yourselves.

Dr Seward: Or you could just tell us.

Van Helsing: Friend John :( I have known you for one thousand years and you have been one of my very good friends and best students :( Do you not trust me? Why do you not trust me, friend John? Have I ever given you a reason to doubt me? Do you not think I have a good reason for withholding vital information? :(:(:(:( Have faith in me, your very old and good friend.

Dr Seward: You’re right :(

Lucy: I love everyone so much and I’m going to tell them every day 🥰💕 also legalise polyamory wtf

Renfield: look at all my pets that I’m definitely not eating 🪰🪰🪰🪰

Dr Seward: What happened to all the birds I gave you?

Renfield, with a mouth full of a feathers: I have no idea.

Arthur: I think… I miss my wife… also how the fuck didn’t we realise Dracula’s house was right next door?

Quincey: I keep saying I’m not that smart but I’m the only one to immediately point out that something was actively taking Lucy’s blood. Brb need to go shoot a giant bat with a gun.

Mina: I am the only person keeping this shit show together. We literally would not have made it without me and no one who adapts my character seems to get that. Women are the heart of this story. I am the glue that binds this group together. I just want ONE MOVIE that understands that and values my intelligence, which is at the forefront of my character.

Renfield: I have an entire character arc but don’t expect any adaptations to show it.

Quincey: ok but what if… we shot Dracula with a gun??? Also stop fucking cutting me from all the adaptations.

Jonathan: has seen indescribable horrors, is a shell of his former self, will literally never be what he was before going to Transylvania

Dracula: oh Jonathan! 🥰🥰🧛🏻🧛🏻🥰🩸🩸🥰🥰

BONUS: everyone is constantly holding hands, especially all of the men, and talking about how they’re going to be best friends forever. The male friendships in this book are shockingly pure and the women are incredible. The Crew of Light are actually the only found family ever, I think.

[didanagy]

BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA (1992)

dir. francis ford coppola

[the-crooked-library]

something something the symmetry of horror and seeing yourself in the abyss reflected

[kastalani123]

Not my usual content, but I just. I wanna ramble, ig.

Do you understand how baffled I was about how the vampire book, written by a man in 1897, is essentially a PSA about how important proper communication is?? Even after I scrolled through Tumblr, saw the memes, read people geeking out about the relationships (platonic and romantic) in Dracula, I was still caught off guard, because. Like. Everything in this book is about communication.

Sure, it's kind of a given, considering it's an epistolary novel partially made up of letters between the characters, but. I dunno. From Dracula controlling Johnathan's lettres, van Hellsing refusing to tell anyone shit, the men keeping Mina out of the loop, to Mina using her telepathic link with Dracula, it's. It's literally all about how important actually talking to each other and sharing information is. Fuck, throw in the fact that "Harker", Mina and Jonathan's, arguably the main characters, last name means "to listen"/"eavesdropper", and that the book is Mina's in-universe creation to help compile, organize, and share what they know about Dracula, and the book's very essence becomes centered around information-sharing!

And I just. The narrative punishes just about every secret hidden, every time the characters don't communicate. There's the obvious, Dracula keeping Johnathan from sending out letters for help and Mina getting bitten because the men leave her home alone, but also. Van Hellsing not telling Lucy's mom that the garlic flowers and closed windows and so on are the treatment and she is not to touch them is what kills Lucy and her mom! They maybe could have survived if he just told them what's happening/what he's doing! And even the godsdamned telegram he sends to Seward! If he had just addressed it properly (communicated to the telegram boy properly!) then Seward wouldn't have been late and maybe could have prevented the massacre!

There's also Jonathan's diary right after he finally reunites with Mina, and obviously Mina's whole ✨ thing ✨ with the diary during their wedding is like. Peak romance, but Johnathan doesn't fully get better until Mina reads and shares it with van Hellsing and van Hellsing assures Johnathan that he's not insane. Sure, it's an oversimplification of PTSD and healing and such, but it makes sense, especially if you consider communication and information sharing as a major theme! Only sharing his experiences, reading through them himself after blocking off the memories, is what heals him! He cannot get better without knowing what happened, and without others knowing what happened, because knowing and sharing is important.

Renfield's also an interesting case. I don't have the book with me right now to check, but as far as I remember, he tries to talk about Dracula, tries to get Seward to release him from the asylum so Dracula can't use him against Mina, but is dismissed entirely; as a consequence, Dracula gets in the building, kills Renfield, and bites Mina.

Even the language barriers! The villagers Johnathan meets on his way to Dracula's castle try so hard to warn him of the danger but they can't. They can't, because they don't speak enough of the same language, but they try so hard. But whatever does get through to Johnathan, such as that woman begging him to take the crucifix she gives him — that might've saved him. It keeps him unsettled and wary and he does keep the crucifix, which wards Dracula off. They can't communicate the full extent of the danger, but what they managed is probably responsible for him surviving.

And the whole idea is even mentioned in-text! Sure, Lucy saying that a wife ought to share everything she knows with her husband is definitely sexism-flavoured, but Johnathan says it too! He says that his idea of an ideal marriage is one without secrets! And Johnathan is effeminate, yes, he spends a good chunk of the book as the "damsel in distress", but he is still the hero! He is still the one who kills Dracula (with Quincey), and can therefore be assumed to be an intended role model. The (male) main character and hero of an 1897 novel says that a good relationship relies on communication. Sure, he doesn't always stick to it, mostly by agreeing to keep Mina out of the loop when van Hellsing pushes for it, but that doesn't discount that that is what Stoker set as the ideal.

I just. I love this book so much. It subverted just about all expectations I might've had about it and I'm so glad for it. It's undeniably a product of its time, with plenty of racism and sexism and ableism, but it's also so. Not, at the same time? It's so good.

[tytolito]

dracula girls 👯🏻‍♀️

[tiffycat]

been reading Dracula lately and have been thoroughly enjoying myself, so I decided to draw some of my takes on the characters

[rikiteekeetavee]

Cultural osmosis: Lucy is the socialite, the extroverted one, ditzy blonde who won't stop flirting with everyone and can't stay in one place or not strike up conversations without a care. An adventuress. Mina is the introverted bookworm whose eyes are lowered shyly and has one friend. Her quiet pure nature steals Dracula's heart.

Mina in the book: "If I won't immediately explore the entirety of this town, climb 199 steps to document every ominous and morbid nook and cranny of the necropolis, and talk to the locals there to befriend them so they'll tell me everything I want to know, from barghests to whaling, I will EXPLODE."

[agentem]

My sister found the best thing at a second hand shop. Dracula! And this artist did the homework! Dracula, lizard style on the side is my fave. But there is also the Captain, the brides, three men proposing to Lucy, our friend Jonathan cutting himself shaving, and more!

[evydraws]

Seven years ago we all went through the flames; and the happiness of some of us since then is, we think, well worth the pain we endured. Jonathan Harker

art zine & prints | digital version