#lucy westenra / longing to be with you

[rivilu]

Lucy ''can't women do ANYTHING'' Westenra

[vickyvicarious]

Hi! So I'm working on a Dracula story of my own and I need help finding the character descriptions for the Crew. I know Jonathan gets white hair from shock at one point, but everything else is fuzzy. I think Lucy's a blonde and I seem to remember Van Helsing being described with red hair too, but I'm not sure if those things are actually in the book or a product of the adaptations.

Yeah, I can try to help you out. Honestly, most characters don't get very detailed descriptions, but I'll see what I can find... I'm going to be summing up what physical descriptions we know of, followed by an example quote for each characteristic in bullet points beneath.

I only looked in detail up to where we are now/a few specific scenes I remember from later on. I can add more if I notice it, but I think this covers the physical descriptors pretty well, since as far as I recall we don't get much new stuff later on.

Jonathan Harker: Has a young-looking face. His hair is brown until 3 October, when it turns white. Likely clean-shaven most of the time, since he's upset by his shaving mirror getting broken. At least used to have a 'quiet dignity'. Looks clever and full of energy (when not ill), but also quiet and business-like, so probably not a very tall or super muscular manly man.

5 May - "He is a young man, full of energy and talent in his own way, and of a very faithful disposition. He is discreet and silent, and has grown into manhood in my service."

8 May - "It is very annoying, for I do not see how I am to shave, unless in my watch-case or the bottom of the shaving-pot, which is fortunately of metal."

24 August - "I found my dear one, oh, so thin and pale and weak-looking. All the resolution has gone out of his dear eyes, and that quiet dignity which I told you was in his face has vanished."

30 September - "He is uncommonly clever, if one can judge from his face, and full of energy. [...] After reading his account of it I was prepared to meet a good specimen of manhood, but hardly the quiet, business-like gentleman who came here to-day."

3 October - "Harker was still and quiet; but over his face, as the awful narrative went on, came a grey look which deepened and deepened in the morning light, till when the first red streak of the coming dawn shot up, the flesh stood darkly out against the whitening hair. [...] Last night he was a frank, happy-looking man, with strong, youthful face, full of energy, and with dark brown hair. To-day he is a drawn, haggard old man, whose white hair matches well with the hollow burning eyes and grief-written lines of his face. His energy is still intact; in fact, he is like a living flame."

Mina Harker nee Murray: Very little physical description here. According to Jack she looks dainty and sweet and pretty. Her hair is beautiful. Temporarily has a scar on her forehead. Her teeth maybe start getting sharper when she's turning into a vampire.

29 September - "a sweet-faced, dainty-looking girl stepped up to me, and, after a quick glance, said: "Dr. Seward, is it not?" [...] She looked sweetly pretty, but very sad, and her eyes were flushed with crying."

3 October - "As he had placed the Wafer on Mina's forehead, it had seared it—had burned into the flesh as though it had been a piece of white-hot metal. [...] Pulling her beautiful hair over her face, as the leper of old his mantle,"

5 October - "Her teeth are some sharper, and at times her eyes are more hard."

Lucy Westenra: Definitely pretty, probably in an 'innocent/sweet' looking way based on other peoples' comments. Based on Mina's tracking of her health/color even early on, it seems like she might look pale/anemic on a semi-regular basis even before being bitten. Either pudgy when healthy, or too thin when ill, since her getting fat is mentioned as a positive sign of improving health. Wrinkles her face adorably at times. Super voluptuous as a vampire, and her presumably-blond (sunny) hair is now described as dark. Possibly red eyes as a vampire? Though Jack doesn't mention her eyes looking different when she was sleeping and van Helsing lifted her eyelids to look at them, so maybe not. 19 years old (maybe twenty when she died).

24 May - "Here am I, who shall be twenty in September,"

24 July - "Lucy met me at the station, looking sweeter and lovelier than ever,"

27 July - "Lucy frets at the postponement of seeing him, but it does not touch her looks; she is a trifle stouter, and her cheeks are a lovely rose-pink. She has lost that anæmic look which she had."

30 August - "I have an appetite like a cormorant, am full of life, and sleep well. You will be glad to know that I have quite given up walking in my sleep. I think I have not stirred out of my bed for a week, that is when I once got into it at night. Arthur says I am getting fat."

20 September - "He had even brushed Lucy's hair, so that it lay on the pillow in its usual sunny ripples."

29 September - "a ray of moonlight fell upon the masses of driving clouds and showed in startling prominence a dark-haired woman, dressed in the cerements of the grave. [...] Lucy's eyes in form and colour; but Lucy's eyes unclean and full of hell-fire, instead of the pure, gentle orbs we knew."

Arthur Holmwood: Tall, handsome, curly hair. ...That's it, that's all we've got. Jack thinks he's very manly. He does have a resemblance to Van Helsing's dead son, so he might look at least a little similar to the professor as well.

9 May - "I hear rumours, and especially of a tall, handsome, curly-haired man???"

7 September - "When first the Professor's eye had lit upon him he had been angry at his interruption at such a time; but now, as he took in his stalwart proportions and recognised the strong young manhood which seemed to emanate from him, his eyes gleamed."

22 September - "My heart bleed for that poor boy—that dear boy, so of the age of mine own boy had I been so blessed that he live, and with his hair and eyes the same."

Jack Seward: Handsome, good forehead, strong jaw. Common consensus usually gives him glasses and dark hair although neither is mentioned in the book. We have a canon age for him (29), unlike almost everyone else. Lucy says he's resolute and calm and imperturbable, but the way others react to him tends to disprove that since several other characters seem to be able to read him pretty well.

11 May - "He is an excellent parti, being handsome, well off, and of good birth. He is a doctor and really clever. Just fancy! He is only nine-and-twenty, and he has an immense lunatic asylum all under his own care. Mr. Holmwood introduced him to me, and he called here to see us, and often comes now. I think he is one of the most resolute men I ever saw, and yet the most calm. He seems absolutely imperturbable. I can fancy what a wonderful power he must have over his patients. He has a curious habit of looking one straight in the face, as if trying to read one's thoughts."

24 May - "I told you of him, Dr. John Seward, the lunatic-asylum man, with the strong jaw and the good forehead."

Quincey Morris: Looks young apparently. Sadly never once described as wearing a cowboy hat. Presumably handsome since Lucy talks up how charming he is, and Jack talks up how manly he is, but it's possible that's mostly force of personality.

24 May - "He is such a nice fellow, an American from Texas, and he looks so young and so fresh that it seems almost impossible that he has been to so many places and has had such adventures.

Abraham van Helsing: Tan/brown skin. Red hair, stocky frame. Clean shaven, high forehead. Blue eyes. Square chin, large mouth and nose, bushy eyebrows. Old, but it's unclear exactly how old.

20 August - "Very shortly after she opened her eyes in all their softness, and putting out her poor, pale, thin hand, took Van Helsing's great brown one; drawing it to her, she kissed it."

25 September - "a man of medium weight, strongly built, with his shoulders set back over a broad, deep chest and a neck well balanced on the trunk as the head is on the neck. The poise of the head strikes one at once as indicative of thought and power; the head is noble, well-sized, broad, and large behind the ears. The face, clean-shaven, shows a hard, square chin, a large, resolute, mobile mouth, a good-sized nose, rather straight, but with quick, sensitive nostrils, that seem to broaden as the big, bushy brows come down and the mouth tightens. The forehead is broad and fine, rising at first almost straight and then sloping back above two bumps or ridges wide apart; such a forehead that the reddish hair cannot possibly tumble over it, but falls naturally back and to the sides. Big, dark blue eyes are set widely apart, and are quick and tender or stern with the man's moods."

26 September - "It was so funny to hear my wife called "Madam Mina" by this kindly, strong-faced old man."

...and I know you didn't ask for him specifically, but just for completeness...

Count Dracula: Tall, thin, long mustache, bushy eyebrows, very pale, red lips, sharp teeth, hairy palms, dressed in black. He has a high forehead, a hooked nose, pointy ears, and red eyes. White hair at the start, which goes to grey and eventually black as he gets younger in appearance. No beard in Transylvania but he's sporting one in London. Bad breath, sleeps with his eyes open. His charming or suave smile is mentioned multiple times during Jonathan's stay. Shovel scar on his forehead after 30 June.

5 May - "Within, stood a tall old man, clean shaven save for a long white moustache, and clad in black from head to foot, without a single speck of colour about him anywhere. [...] His face was a strong—a very strong—aquiline, with high bridge of the thin nose and peculiarly arched nostrils; with lofty domed forehead, and hair growing scantily round the temples but profusely elsewhere. His eyebrows were very massive, almost meeting over the nose, and with bushy hair that seemed to curl in its own profusion. The mouth, so far as I could see it under the heavy moustache, was fixed and rather cruel-looking, with peculiarly sharp white teeth; these protruded over the lips, whose remarkable ruddiness showed astonishing vitality in a man of his years. For the rest, his ears were pale, and at the tops extremely pointed; the chin was broad and strong, and the cheeks firm though thin. The general effect was one of extraordinary pallor. Hitherto I had noticed the backs of his hands as they lay on his knees in the firelight, and they had seemed rather white and fine; but seeing them now close to me, I could not but notice that they were rather coarse—broad, with squat fingers. Strange to say, there were hairs in the centre of the palm. The nails were long and fine, and cut to a sharp point. As the Count leaned over me and his hands touched me, I could not repress a shudder. It may have been that his breath was rank, but a horrible feeling of nausea came over me, which, do what I would, I could not conceal."

30 June - "There lay the Count, but looking as if his youth had been half renewed, for the white hair and moustache were changed to dark iron-grey; the cheeks were fuller, and the white skin seemed ruby-red underneath; the mouth was redder than ever, for on the lips were gouts of fresh blood, which trickled from the corners of the mouth and ran over the chin and neck. Even the deep, burning eyes seemed set amongst swollen flesh, for the lids and pouches underneath were bloated."

18 September - "a tall, thin chap, with a 'ook nose and a pointed beard, with a few white hairs runnin' through it. He had a 'ard, cold look and red eyes,"

22 September - "a tall, thin man, with a beaky nose and black moustache and pointed beard, who was also observing the pretty girl. [...] His face was not a good face; it was hard, and cruel, and sensual, and his big white teeth, that looked all the whiter because his lips were so red, were pointed like an animal's."

3 October - "a tall, thin man, all in black. I knew him at once from the description of the others. The waxen face; the high aquiline nose, on which the light fell in a thin white line; the parted red lips, with the sharp white teeth showing between; and the red eyes that I had seemed to see in the sunset on the windows of St. Mary's Church at Whitby. I knew, too, the red scar on his forehead where Jonathan had struck him."

[yallemagne]

I feel the thing with Mrs Westenra is that she's that specific brand of entitled old lady that keeps harming those around her with her own beliefs while having her own fragility used as an excuse. Its like someone punching a friend "for their own good" and then going "pwease dwont hurt me im so delicate n frwagile :("

She works well as a character as in she's basically another way societal expectations and lack of communication are a cog in Dracula's machinations, but on my personal opinion she's really frustrating. (Hehe my rambling got a lil long sorry abt that)

Yes, what pains me so much this that Mrs. Westenra is such a real person. I have suffered such real people in my life, some I love dearly, some I love out of obligation, and it is painful to see what Lucy is going through, to see her be punished again and again by her mother's willful neglect, and she cannot even muster the will to be angry with her. Lucy has been stripped of any ability to speak out against her mother, even in her most private of musings, because her mother is so highly prioritized over herself. Lucy's suffering must always be kept out of view, and she never has the self-preservation to just snap and say "no, I am a human being".

Mrs. Westenra's a cog in the machine of the plot. She was written this way purposefully. No matter how much damage she causes, you're meant to feel bad for her, because if you don't, you might demand to know why Bram hasn't just killed her already. The reason is that he never even intended for his readers to feel this resentment. Her behaviour is not meant to be taken seriously because she's a poor old woman who just doesn't know any better. She's allowed and expected to be ignorant, and if not her, there would be some other person, a maid unknowingly throwing out the blooms.

But it hurts so much more for it to be your own mother who hurts you. Your feelings don't matter to her except as an extension of her own. She finds the flowers that you love, and ignoring the clear signs of your contentment with the flowers, she projects her negative feelings onto you and throws them out. Then, self-gratulatory as ever, she brags to your doctors that she knows better than them when she can't even recognize how close you are to death. She has willfully abandoned you because your sickness stresses her, and she would rather leave you without a goodbye than face you like an adult and admit she is dying. And worse than that, she doesn't pull away enough to make room for the people who are actively trying to save you, no, she still intercedes, making their jobs harder and your life worse, and no one dares to correct her in any meaningful way because if she knew she wasn't perfect, it would kill her.

I'm not so naïve as to say that because I have such deep-rooted trauma surrounding personalities like this that I am sooo smart and right to take such issue with this fictional character. It is a bit of an overreaction. But you could say my feelings towards this entire novel are an overreaction. I know other people have probably experienced this behaviour, and their reactions to it aren't mine. There are most definitely people who have suffered this kind of neglect but their impulse is instead to forgive and defend Mrs. Westenra, and I cannot deny someone that.

But I hurt so deeply for Lucy. I recognize Mrs. Westenra's hurting but I cannot place it above Lucy's. I value Lucy so much more, and I don't feel a lick of guilt about it.

[minas-diary]

August 11

Read here, full story - thus far here.

Content Warnings: horror elements, allegorical sexual assault spoken about in vague terms (we the audience know Mina and Lucy do not - if you know - you know), blood, Jack the Ripper is mentioned briefly (if that upsets you), and period typical attitudes towards gender roles.

August 11th 

Mina Murray’s Journal 

Diary again. No rest so I might as well write. I was agitated to sleep. We had such an adventure that day that I fear I fell asleep as soon as I set my diary aside. Suddenly, I was well awake and alarmingly alert. I felt an emptiness in Lucy and mine’s shared bed. The room was dark so I struck a small match to better see in the dark. I had a lingering sense of forbidding, for Lucy, of course. In any case, the bed was empty and Lucy wasn’t present so I naturally went looking for her. The door was not locked nor even shut but left ajar and wide open. I found Lucy’s day dresses and dressing gowns in their usual place, “Thank God,” I said to myself for Lucy could not have gone far if only in her night dress. I ran downstairs in haste, though such haste was warranted. I checked the city room – nothing. I checked the other rooms in the house – also nothing. Finally, I checked the hall and found the door not wide open. The lock was caught in the key and the door was left ajar. I feared for Lucy that she might catch a cold. There was little time to think rationally about anything. The clock was striking and thankfully no one was out, so I went out to search for Lucy. I ran along the house’s North Terrace and found a pale figure (Lucy) sitting in the moonlight in our favourite seat, and… whether man or beast, I couldn’t tell what manner of man it was a dark figure seemed to loom over her – behind the seat. The town was ghostly quiet and well… asleep. Finally, when I could distinguish the young pale figure in the seat I realized it was Lucy. So, I called for her, “Lucy! Lucy!” 

I ran down hastily to the seat as quickly as I could manage, I could hear my own heart beating in my chest with anxiety and hear my breath grow laboured. When I bent over her I found Lucy still asleep in the churchyard seat. As I came close she put up a hand defensively as though she feared some kind of attack, she also pulled the collar of her night dress closer to her pale neck. When I finally got her wrapped up and placed my shoes on her feet she placed another hand to her throat and moaned softly. 

At first, Lucy did not respond, for which I do not blame her. Gradually she awakened and became more uneasy. So I wrapped her tighter and clipped her night dress as warm as possible, but in my anxiousness, I must’ve pricked her on accident for she shuddered inwardly and gasped for breath. She did not seem surprised by my presence but it took some time for Lucy to get her bearings on just where she was, all in all, she seemed exhausted and disoriented. Despite all this she kept her beauty, she always wakes very pretty, like that painting by John William Waterhouse of The Lady of Shalott. Lucy trembled from the cold and clung to me. Still pretty despite her understandable fears and being caught in such a seemingly ghastly mishap. Later, I dabbed my feet with mud to not be seen lacking shoes, for I lent Lucy mine. Fortune was kind to us and we met no one along the way save for one drunk whom we hid from in a crevice in town or “Wynds” as they call them in Scotland. In any case, no Jack the Ripper or other such scoundrels. 

My heart beat so loud I irrationally thought I’d wake the town of Whitby. I pray sincerely I did the ring thing. I have locked the door and we shall not again be disturbed. Lucy is blissfully… sound asleep and dawn is a ways off over the sea. 

Noon: August 11th  

All is well, Lucy slept soundly and didn’t change the side she slept on. Lucy slept til I woke her up. She is unharmed thankfully and rather than damage her it seems to have improved her condition, she looks as well as she has ever been. I was sorry for my clumsiness however… for I noticed two marks like pinpricks on her neck and a small drop of blood on her nightdress. So I apologized, she lovingly laughed at me and petted me gently. She said she did not even feel or notice it, thankfully the marks are so small no one else will notice them either. 

Night: August 11th  

Our day was most happy. The fresh seaside air was clean, the sun shone brightly over Whitby. We made a picnic and took our lunch to Mulgrave Woods, Lucy’s mother, Mrs. Westenra, drove us and she drove by to check up on us at least twice. Lucy and I walked by the cliff paths and the ocean, I also joined her at the Gate a little outside Whitby. I was a bit sad myself… if only Jonathan were with us… but I must be patient. In the evening, we strolled by the pier and Casino Terrace and heard some excellent music from Spohr and Mackenzie, and then we went to bed early. Lucy seemed better than ever and she went to bed as soon as the sunset over the sea. I merely worry for Lucy and her reputation, it is only due to her mother’s poor health I do not inform the woman immediately. If word were to get out, that is all. I know Arthur Holmwood would understand, he is a gentleman of the highest calibre and though a well-to-do dandy he is no black, he would understand. I shall do my due diligence, lock the door and keep the key on my wrist. I do not expect any trouble tonight.

[draculasstrawhat]

Ah! It’s time for my Dracula Daily Whitby reference photo post! I tried to take some unusual angles, or ones that would specifically be useful for Dracula related reference.

Obvs, the town has changed since 1897, and it’s been about 6 months, so hopefully I’m remembering correctly where I took all of these.

1) View from across the Harbour from West Cliff by moonlight. This is, I believe, taken from near where the Westenra’s house was supposed to be. You can just see the Abbey and St Mary’s Church.

2) Similar view by daylight, from further inland and nearer the cliff edge. The bridge that connects East and West Cliff can be seen.

3) East Cliff and St Mary’s Church from the pier. Bonus seagull.

4) The red roofed houses going up the cliff side, like in pictures you see of Dresden, or whatever it is Mina describes…

5) View of West Cliff from St Mary’s Churchyard. The white/cream houses on the right are roughly where the first photos was taken from.

6) View from the very edge of East Cliff above the town. I’ve spent a long time trying to work out where Lucy’s favourite seat might be, and I’ve always wondered if it was supposed to be around here? But there are some other possible locations? (I had to lean over a barrier to take this.)

7) View of St Mary’s Church from inside the Abbey:

8) The Stately Home on the Abbey grounds. No one ever shows this, no one ever mentions it! Lucy and Mina would likely have walked past it on the way to Robin Hood’s Bay:

9) Obligatory Spooky Alley View - taken at night down one of the cut throughs on West Cliff. I think it’s called The Cragg. View across the harbour to East Cliff and St Mary’s Church.

10) Another possible angle for Lucy’s seat - outside St Mary’s Porch, where there are some flat tombstones. View across the churchyard to the top of the 199 steps and town.

And that’s my 10 image limit. I’ll try to post some more soon - including some slightly different angles on the Harbour and steps.

Enjoy Drawing Dracula!

[see-arcane]

Our good friend Jonathan Harker is getting ready to leave for his business trip, Mina Murray is picking out a new journal, Lucy Westenra is charming a gaggle of smitten suitors, Abraham van Helsing is wrapping up his lectures, and Castle Dracula is prepping the guest room for a very long stay.

Which must mean that Dracula Season is here again!

 ‘Dracula Season’ being a catchall term for the voracious reading, memeing, writing, illustrating, analyzing, and general fun-having that’s ensued since Matt Kirkland’s project, Dracula Daily, caught on with us back in 2022. The Substack had already been running before then, but it sparked a conflagration as time went on and readers old and new to Bram Stoker’s Dracula—the actual novel, not Coppola’s fanfiction—devoured it in a way that scratched an itch none of us knew we had. Stoker wrote the book in epistolary fashion, clumping sections together as needed for the pacing without perfect adherence to chronological order. Matt went ahead and put all the events in order and proceeded to set up a lovely chain of emails that delivered entries on those correlating dates.

This style of organization and pacing turned out to not only make the virtual book club that much easier to engage with, but left space in-between to stew on the story and relate with the characters themselves. Every day of waiting in the book feels weightier when you have to pace and sweat and worry in tandem with poor Jonathan trapped in the castle or Lucy wasting away or Mina running out the clock before she loses the fight for her own humanity. And while we sat with the story or the lulls between Dracula Seasons, some of us found ourselves craving more of that ghastly gothic horror goodness to the point that we figured:

“Well. Why don’t I make something?”

And then we did! Tons of creative works have been churned out in the wake of Dracula Daily’s high. I figured that while we’ve still got a bit of time to wait for May 3rd, we should check out all this new stuff in the meantime. (Plus a handful of neat stuff that just clicks with the Dracula itch overall.)

So, in the interest of Dracula Season pregaming, let’s take a look at…

FICTION

Blood of My Blood – A recent addition to the Dracula Bad Ending AU pile, and definitely one of the most harrowing and addictive group-produced narratives I’ve ever come across, Blood of My Blood is the dramatically gothic currently-WIP work of @ibrithir-was-here and @animate-mush’s devious design. Give or take a heap of other fascinated folks (hello!) adding ideas to put more Horror into the Horrors that our cast has to face. The premise:

The Transylvanian climax went fatally sour and the Harkers were forced to shelter with Dracula himself, including their half-vampire son, Quincey. Cut to two decades later, and Quincey finds himself out in modern London, smitten with Lu, adopted daughter of Arthur and Jack, and diving into certain bloodstained old documents that detail the real history of how his parents came to live in the castle. Said revelations coming not a moment too soon, as a storm is coming for him straight from the Carpathians…

Dracula Daily Sketch Collection – An array of illustrations that captures every entry beat by beat, the Dracula Daily Sketch Collection by Georgia Cook, alias @georgiacooked was dished out over the course of the last Dracula Season. Some of the most fun character designs out there.

Fanfiction Spotlight: BlueCatWriter – With a whopping 99 works devoted to the novel Dracula (so far, the number may have gone up since I blinked), @bluecatwriter is one of the most prolific and talented fanfiction scribblers out there. Romances, nightmares, and overlaps between the two seem to crop up the most, give or take a crossover. Seems fitting that those blue paw prints have contributed to BoMB too.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlefolk – An ongoing comic in which all your favorite characters from the Classics section get together and tackle some perils ranging from the mundane to the monstrous. Started by the amazing @mayhemchicken and posted on @lxgentlefolkcomic, this series is a love letter to beloved Victorian era lit, with a spotlight on the two couples leading the League. Namely, the Harkers, ala Dracula, and the Nortons, ala Sherlock Holmes,’ “A Scandal in Bohemia.” Mina and Irene are the driving investigative and steering forces here, and still deeply in love with their likewise-infatuated husbands, just like in their canons! What a concept! Alan.

Without spoiling the full character list, just know there are going to be a ton of familiar faces roaming around before you finish reading the first arc. Said arc having conveniently wrapped up just a few days ago! Give the comic and its bonus silliness a look if you’re in the mood for a new comfort-adventure epic.

Re: Dracula – Probably the most well-known and incredible thing to come out of the initial Dracula Daily wave. This podcast is a full audio drama that follows the same format as the Substack, with episodes coming out in time with the entries themselves. And it has an unfairly cool soundtrack. They have a Tumblr with @re-dracula, a site and a Patreon to check out before the series kicks up again on May 3rd. (Also, keep an eye out for their next work, an audio drama in the same style with Carmilla.)

The Soldier and the Solicitor – Another treat from @ibrithir-was-here, this one involves a bit of time travel trouble. Quincey Harker has stumbled out of World War I and into the same dark forest where his father once fled for his life…then runs into the man himself, on that same night. Jonathan Harker, young and starved and lost, who has no choice but to trust this stranger while the Weird Sisters are at his heels…despite said stranger having no shadow. It’s a tasty emotional trek, already complete on Tumblr, but now it’s turning into a Webtoon. While Ibrithir is juggling a number of other stories, she’ll be redrawing spruced up versions of the comic and adding a few new scenes as things unfold.

Substack Stack – You know what’s better than one emailed-out public domain book club? A mountain of them. Just. So, so many of them. You’ll see that a lot of these are finished, but some are still ticking along. Either way, they’re all great picks if you’re craving some more old school lit to fill the void between undead emails.

Frankenstein Weekly – Frankenstein

Jekyll and Hyde Weekly – The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Voyage of the Nautilus – Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

Letters from Watson – Sherlock Holmes

The Invisible Mail – The Invisible Man

Letters from Bunny – E.W. Hornung’s short stories of the eponymous Bunny and Raffles

Letters Regarding Jeeves - P. G. Wodehouse’s Bertie Wooster short stories, including the novel, Right Ho, Jeeves

…

……

………

…The Beetle Weekly – The Beetle (NOTE: Do Not Read This.)

The Vampyres – A novella I finally wrenched through the gears of self-publication as of March this year. Starring a petite but powerful paranormal cast, The Vampyres, centers on an unscrupulous undead fellow who finds that the revenants of the world are being mowed down by an entity known only as ‘Quinn Morse.’ Between trying to save his neck and figure out where the shadowy bastard came from, the Vampyre in question crosses paths with a new paramour and handy human shield in the form of a grieving Good Samaritan. He’s even polite enough to invite the Vampyre into his home while he’s in dire straits! Surely this will end well. All the info is available here and a little author site is over here.

What Manner of Man – This is the one made for everyone who started out hoping there’d be a real love story with our good friend Jonathan Harker and the Count when he was at his most charismatic. Where that sea of wonders dried up into a mire of horror, What Manner of Man by @stjohnstarling keeps things firmly on the romantic tracks. This Substack stars the letter-writing priest Father Victor E. Ardelian as he finds himself meeting with one enigmatic Lord Alistair Vane. It isn’t long before interest turns into intrigue and intrigue into undead intimacies.

The entire novel has been completed—along with multiple epilogues in the author’s Patreon, allowing readers to choose for themselves just how the uncanny romance plays out in the end—and the Substack now has a number of other gothic goodies piling up in the meantime.  

NONFICTION

Dracula Daily: A Unique Reading Experience: This one comes courtesy of @realwomenofgaming. It’s a short and sweet piece that amounts to a fun snapshot of the entire Dracula Daily ride. A cozy couple-minute read.

‘Dracula Daily’ is the One Substack You Need a Subscription To: Features my favorite Matt Kirkland interview. @mattkirkland, if you’re still floating around on here, thank you for dispatching our vampire newsletter again this year.

Dracula Daily is Tumblr’s hottest new book club: Alright, the ‘new’ part is worn out by now, but this one is still a delightful article to swing back around to. Two years on, this Polygon piece is a time capsule of those early months when people outside our bookworm bubble realized we were all happily receiving letters from our favorite classic gothic horror blorbos.  

“How Mina Murray Became Dracula’s Girlfriend” – Princess Weekes, if you ever read this, thank you, thank you, thank you. I am sending oceans of love and millions of rewatches to your video essay. If you haven’t seen it yet, “How Mina Murray Became Dracula’s Girlfriend” is one of the most refreshing and well-made breakdowns of both the title subject and numerous other issues that have proliferated in the public view of Dracula’s cast and plot as adaptations endlessly warp or outright bastardize the actual novel. An incredibly cathartic watch.  

Literary play gone viral: delight, intertextuality, and challenges to normative interpretations through the digital serialization of Dracula: A mouthful of a title for an even more elaborate article about the Dracula Daily phenomenon. This one is a full-on study that analyzes just what happened within the big bloodsucker book club surge and how its ‘wandering reading practices’ enriched the experience for participants.

 “The Undying Undead: An analysis of the Dracula Daily community for a theory of online community formation and interaction” – We have a thesis on here! Look at that! @sirangelothebestest’s MA thesis used our vampiric book club as the bones for a massive brick of an academic piece that definitely deserves a look.

…And I think I’ll go ahead and cap things here.

This isn’t everything I got recommended, but if I had squashed all of it in here, I think folks’ eyes would start to fall out of their head. I hope you can find something cool to comb through here. Or, if there’s something great I overlooked, tack it onto the list! We’ve got just two weeks to go until we’re off with Mr. Harker. Let’s enjoy our respite before those castle doors close behind us.

[specialagentartemis]

top 5 fanfics (if you read them) or pieces of fanart?

Boy do I!

There are a lot of really great fanfics out there, and narrowing it down to 5 was hard. I’m gonna spread them out to showcase some absolute favorites from different fandoms

“Plastic Plague” (The Murderbot Diaries) by @blessphemy, illustrations by @every-eye-evermore. An awe-inspiring apocalyptic epic that I sat and read within a single day, unable to put it down. A synthetic-material-eating microbe proliferates, causing infrastructure collapse and fundamentally reorganization how everyone in the high-tech, spacefaring Murderbot Diaries world has to live now.

“Under Moonlight” (Danny Phantom) by @phantomrose96. Tied with “Prometheus,” my other favorite for the same fandom and by the same author. SO good, SO disturbing. The horror is brutal, brilliantly written, chilling, and so emotionally vivid. Part of the very long tradition of taking a worldbuilding element Danny Phantom threw out there and didn’t think about again, and digging into what can be done with it.

“Arden Presents: Dracula” by @clonerightsagenda. Arden is a fictional true crime murder mystery podcast, and Dracula is. Dracula. The fic takes the format of a podcast script as if the Arden characters were investigating the real-life historical cold case of the death of Lucy Westenra… and whether vampires could have been involved?? Really cleverly constructed, really interesting perspective on what people would interpret from the “known facts of the case” if it really happened, and really in-character and funny.

“Legal Partners” (Ace Attorney) by Miggy. Really good classic Phoenix/Edgeworth novel-length fic that does a great job with their personalities and does interesting things with the Japanifornia legal situation. I also like how Apollo and Klavier do not end up together at the end hah.

“Totalised” (Metal Gear) by Thene. NAOMI HUNTER/DR. “PARA-MEDIC” CLARK TOXIC YURI and it is SO GOOD. Naomi trying to find and save her brother from Dr. Clark rebuilding him into a cyborg ninja. So well written. Such good stuff

There are many other fics I love (“Patient: GrayCris Assassin”, “My Friends Have Always Been The Best of Me,” “The Doug Eiffel Reunion Tour”… too many to easily list!) but each of those are EXEMPLARY fics in their fandoms that I periodically return to.

As for top 5 fanarts… hmm I will think on that!

[a-story-teller]

Was thinking about how delightful media with anthropomorphic animals in victorian clothing is (wind in the willows, beatrix potter, brambly hedge, etc.) and my brain fed me "animal cast dracula".

So, here are my initial thoughts:

Mina Murray - intelligent, fiercely loyal, ready to get her hands dirty, stubborn when she knows she's right

Jonathan Harker, plaything of terror, pathetic meow meow, wife guy, and underneath all that actually kinda hardcore

Lucy Westenra, beloved by all, not terribly intellectual or strong, but deeply caring and connected to others (and just imAGine with a little pastel frock and hair bow)

Mrs. Westenra, of course. Built for those horribly bedecked, enormous Victorian hats

Jack Seward, inwardly screaming at all times and constantly mopping a sweaty brow. Performed a mating dance for Lucy and will never live it down

Arthur Holmwood, a distinguished and kind gentleman who is, in fact, capable of killing

Quincey Morris. Extremely and attractively American, polite, and protective. Which do you prefer for him?

Professor Van Helsing: weird, slightly off-putting, greying, but fond and steadfast.

Renfield, before and after Dracula's influence

Dracula. The presence, the intimidation, the sheer power, and yet capable of straight-up goofiness and near-pitiful decrepitude

Dracula's brides - two look similar and the other stands out, but all are graceful, and dangerous to small, soft morsels such as Jonathan

Bloofer Lady Lucy - a perversion of all she once was!! Crazy eyes, upright ears, sharper, longer teeth, long and skinny where she was compact and round. Beware!

Thoughts? Suggestions? I'm torn with Renfield, I'm not sure I want to go as classic as a rat... and I like buffalo for Quincey, but my sister pointed out that a bear seemed more likely to try to shoot a bat every time he saw one, and she's right about that.

[lauralot89]

Dracula in Context

I made two posts of out of context Dracula novel shenanigans, and people keep asking for context for specific things, so I have provided ALL the context.

Spoilers for the novel below the cut:

A character has ominous nightmares and attributes them to eating too much paprika:

Jonathan Harker, 3 May: I did not sleep well, though my bed was comfortable enough, for I had all sorts of queer dreams. There was a dog howling all night under my window, which may have had something to do with it; or it may have been the paprika, for I had to drink up all the water in my carafe, and was still thirsty.

Dracula first appears wearing a fake beard:

Jonathan Harker, 5 May: ...a tall man, with a long brown beard and a great black hat, which seemed to hide his face...

The person he was trying to fool with the fake beard immediately realizes Dracula and Beard Guy are the same man, due to both having really firm handshakes:

Jonathan Harker, 5 May: The strength of the handshake was so much akin to that which I had noticed in the driver, whose face I had not seen, that for a moment I doubted if it were not the same person to whom I was speaking...

We are told parrots are immortal unless fatally wounded:

Van Helsing, 26 September: Can you tell me why the tortoise lives more long than generations of men; why the elephant goes on and on till he have seen dynasties; and why the parrot never die only of bite of cat or dog or other complaint?

A Texan cowboy opens fire on a bat flitting around a window, and lodges a bullet in the wall of an occupied room:

Mina Harker, 30 September: Here we were interrupted in a very startling way. Outside the house came the sound of a pistol-shot; the glass of the window was shattered with a bullet, which, ricochetting from the top of the embrasure, struck the far wall of the room...we heard Mr. Morris’s voice without:—

“Sorry! I fear I have alarmed you. I shall come in and tell you about it.” A minute later he came in and said:—

“It was an idiotic thing of me to do, and I ask your pardon, Mrs. Harker, most sincerely; I fear I must have frightened you terribly. But the fact is that whilst the Professor was talking there came a big bat and sat on the window-sill. I have got such a horror of the damned brutes from recent events that I cannot stand them, and I went out to have a shot, as I have been doing of late of evenings, whenever I have seen one...

A woman is called a polyandrist for receiving blood transfusions from multiple men:

Van Helsing, 22 September: Said he not that the transfusion of his blood to her veins had made her truly his bride?...If so that, then what about the others? Ho, ho! Then this so sweet maid is a polyandrist...

An incorrectly addressed telegram leads to two deaths, multiple druggings, and several children being assaulted:

Van Helsing, 17 September: This telegram arrives a day late, leading to the deaths of Mrs. Westenra and Lucy, the drugging of the maids, and the Hampstead Heath children being bitten

Dracula, while trying to maintain a low profile, takes a lovely trip to the zoo and freaks out the animals so badly that he gets mentioned in a newspaper article:

The Pall Mall Gazette, 18 September: Well, sir, it was about two hours after feedin’ yesterday when I first hear my disturbance...close at hand was only one man, a tall, thin chap, with a ’ook nose and a pointed beard, with a few white hairs runnin’ through it. He had a ’ard, cold look and red eyes, and I took a sort of mislike to him, for it seemed as if it was ’im as they was hirritated at.

The one character who knows anything about vampires spends a good two-thirds of the book refusing to talk about vampires:

Van Helsing, from his introduction until 26 September

Dracula went to Satan’s Witchcraft Academy and somehow this is only brought up in two throwaway lines:

Van Helsing, 30 September: The Draculas...had dealings with the Evil One. They learned his secrets in the Scholomance, amongst the mountains over Lake Hermanstadt, where the devil claims the tenth scholar as his due.

Van Helsing, 3 October: He dared even to attend the Scholomance, and there was no branch of knowledge of his time that he did not essay.

A character gets stuck inside a circle of communion wafer crumbs:

Van Helsing, 5 November: I drew a ring...and over the ring I passed some of the wafer, and I broke it fine so that all was well guarded...I said to her presently, when she had grown more quiet:—“Will you not come over to the fire?” for I wished to make a test of what she could. She rose obedient, but when she have made a step she stopped, and stood as one stricken.

A major plot point of the book is Dracula (who was said to be a brilliant scholar and has the strength of twenty mortal men) realizing he can move boxes without human help:

Van Helsing, 3 October: He had a mighty brain, a learning beyond compare...

Van Helsing, 1 October: Remember that he has the strength of twenty men...

Van Helsing, 3 October: Do we not see how at the first all these so great boxes were moved by others. He knew not then but that must be so. But all the time that so great child-brain of his was growing, and he began to consider whether he might not himself move the box. So he began to help; and then, when he found that this be all-right, he try to move them all alone.

Someone is referred to as “manifestly a prig of the first water”:

Jonathan Harker, 2 October: When I asked who had purchased it, he opened his eyes a thought wider, and paused a few seconds before replying:—

“It is sold, sir.”

“Pardon me,” I said, with equal politeness, “but I have a special reason for wishing to know who purchased it.”

Again he paused longer, and raised his eyebrows still more. “It is sold, sir,” was again his laconic reply.

“Surely,” I said, “you do not mind letting me know so much.”

“But I do mind,” he answered. “The affairs of their clients are absolutely safe in the hands of Mitchell, Sons, & Candy.” This was manifestly a prig of the first water, and there was no use arguing with him.

Two characters have a hobby of reading train schedules:

Jonathan Harker, 7 May: I found the Count lying on the sofa, reading, of all things in the world, an English Bradshaw’s Guide.

Mina Harker, 28 October: “You forget—or perhaps you do not know, though Jonathan does and so does Dr. Van Helsing—that I am the train fiend. At home in Exeter I always used to make up the time-tables, so as to be helpful to my husband. I found it so useful sometimes, that I always make a study of the time-tables now. I knew that if anything were to take us to Castle Dracula we should go by Galatz, or at any rate through Bucharest, so I learned the times very carefully. Unhappily there are not many to learn, as the only train to-morrow leaves as I say.”

A hospital lets a mental patient escape to see what will happen:

Jack Seward, 20 August: We shall to-night play sane wits against mad ones. He escaped before without our help; to-night he shall escape with it. We shall give him a chance, and have the men ready to follow in case they are required…

A character starts vomiting up feathers from eating whole birds:

Jack Seward, 20 July: The attendant has just been to me to say that Renfield has been very sick and has disgorged a whole lot of feathers.

A doctor refuses to give a medical diagnosis and instead makes a speech about growing corn:

Van Helsing and Jack Seward, 7 September:

“I have for myself thoughts at the present. Later I shall unfold to you.”

“Why not now?” I asked. “It may do some good; we may arrive at some decision.” He stopped and looked at me, and said:—

“My friend John, when the corn is grown, even before it has ripened—while the milk of its mother-earth is in him, and the sunshine has not yet begun to paint him with his gold, the husbandman he pull the ear and rub him between his rough hands, and blow away the green chaff, and say to you: ‘Look! he’s good corn; he will make good crop when the time comes.’” I did not see the application, and told him so. For reply he reached over and took my ear in his hand and pulled it playfully, as he used long ago to do at lectures, and said: “The good husbandman tell you so then because he knows, but not till then. But you do not find the good husbandman dig up his planted corn to see if he grow; that is for the children who play at husbandry, and not for those who take it as of the work of their life. See you now, friend John? I have sown my corn, and Nature has her work to do in making it sprout; if he sprout at all, there’s some promise; and I wait till the ear begins to swell.”

Dracula impersonates another character just by wearing the same clothes, despite being taller and visibly much older. This deception is successful:

Jonathan Harker, 24 June: It was a new shock to me to find that he had on the suit of clothes which I had worn whilst travelling here, and slung over his shoulder the terrible bag which I had seen the women take away. There could be no doubt as to his quest, and in my garb, too! This, then, is his new scheme of evil: that he will allow others to see me, as they think, so that he may both leave evidence that I have been seen in the towns or villages posting my own letters, and that any wickedness which he may do shall by the local people be attributed to me.

Jonathan Harker, 24 June: When she saw my face at the window she threw herself forward, and shouted in a voice laden with menace:—

“Monster, give me my child!”

A character “cleans” a room by eating all the insects in it:

Jack Seward, 30 September: Oh, very well,” he said; “let her come in, by all means; but just wait a minute till I tidy up the place.” His method of tidying was peculiar: he simply swallowed all the flies and spiders in the boxes before I could stop him.

Suddenly: rats. Thousands of them:

Jonathan Harker, 1 October: We all instinctively drew back. The whole place was becoming alive with rats...But even in the minute that had elapsed the number of the rats had vastly increased. They seemed to swarm over the place all at once, till the lamplight, shining on their moving dark bodies and glittering, baleful eyes, made the place look like a bank of earth set with fireflies...The rats were multiplying in thousands, and we moved out.

The heroes progress in their efforts through “the wonderful power of money,” i.e., bribery:

Mina Harker, 30 October: And, too, it made me think of the wonderful power of money! What can it not do when it is properly applied; and what might it do when basely used. I felt so thankful that Lord Godalming is rich, and that both he and Mr. Morris, who also has plenty of money, are willing to spend it so freely. For if they did not, our little expedition could not start, either so promptly or so well equipped, as it will within another hour.

Dracula has three other vampires in his castle. Their relation to him is never explained, nor are any of them named:

Jonathan Harker, 16 May: I was not alone. The room was the same, unchanged in any way since I came into it; I could see along the floor, in the brilliant moonlight, my own footsteps marked where I had disturbed the long accumulation of dust. In the moonlight opposite me were three young women, ladies by their dress and manner.

A character insists his salvation depends on having a pet cat:

Jack Seward, 19 July: When I came in he threw himself on his knees before me and implored me to let him have a cat; that his salvation depended upon it.

Dracula is thwarted by flowers on more than one occasion:

The night of 13 September to the night of 16 September

A group of vampires stand in the hall outside a man’s bedroom, talking loudly about their plans to eat him. When he comes to the door to confront them, they run away laughing:

Jonathan Harker, 29 June: When I was in my room and about to lie down, I thought I heard a whispering at my door. I went to it softly and listened. Unless my ears deceived me, I heard the voice of the Count:—

“Back, back, to your own place! Your time is not yet come. Wait! Have patience! To-night is mine. To-morrow night is yours!” There was a low, sweet ripple of laughter, and in a rage I threw open the door, and saw without the three terrible women licking their lips. As I appeared they all joined in a horrible laugh, and ran away.

Dracula wears an unfashionable hat and gets roasted for it:

Van Helsing, 5 October: A tall man, thin and pale, with high nose and teeth so white, and eyes that seem to be burning. That he be all in black, except that he have a hat of straw which suit not him or the time.

A group of Romanians encounter a disheveled, shouting man and, “seeing from his violent demeanour that he was English, they [give] him a ticket for the furthest station on the way thither that the train reached.”

Sister Agatha, 12 August: We should have written long ago, but we knew nothing of his friends, and there was on him nothing that any one could understand. He came in the train from Klausenburg, and the guard was told by the station-master there that he rushed into the station shouting for a ticket for home. Seeing from his violent demeanour that he was English, they gave him a ticket for the furthest station on the way thither that the train reached.

A boat crashes due to Dracula having the munchies:

The Dailygraph, 8 August: The schooner paused not, but rushing across the harbour, pitched herself on that accumulation of sand and gravel washed by many tides and many storms into the south-east corner of the pier jutting under the East Cliff, known locally as Tate Hill Pier.

A wolf is thrown through a window and immediately runs off, confused and covered in glass:

Lucy Westenra, 17 September: After a while there was the low howl again out in the shrubbery, and shortly after there was a crash at the window, and a lot of broken glass was hurled on the floor. The window blind blew back with the wind that rushed in, and in the aperture of the broken panes there was the head of a great, gaunt grey wolf

The Pall Mall Gazette, 18 September: “God bless me!” he said. “If there ain’t old Bersicker come back by ’isself!”...The wicked wolf that for half a day had paralysed London and set all the children in the town shivering in their shoes, was there in a sort of penitent mood, and was received and petted like a sort of vulpine prodigal son. Old Bilder examined him all over with most tender solicitude, and when he had finished with his penitent said:—

“There, I knew the poor old chap would get into some kind of trouble; didn’t I say it all along? Here’s his head all cut and full of broken glass. ’E’s been a-gettin’ over some bloomin’ wall or other. It’s a shyme that people are allowed to top their walls with broken bottles. This ’ere’s what comes of it. Come along, Bersicker.”

Dracula makes a bed:

Jonathan Harker, 8 May: I had hardly come to this conclusion when I heard the great door below shut, and knew that the Count had returned. He did not come at once into the library, so I went cautiously to my own room and found him making the bed.

The entire plot happens because Dracula is a teaboo:

Dracula, 7 May: These companions”—and he laid his hand on some of the books—“have been good friends to me, and for some years past, ever since I had the idea of going to London, have given me many, many hours of pleasure. Through them I have come to know your great England; and to know her is to love her. I long to go through the crowded streets of your mighty London, to be in the midst of the whirl and rush of humanity, to share its life, its change, its death, and all that makes it what it is.

A character proposes marriage with a scalpel in hand and keeps playing with it throughout the conversation:

Lucy Westenra, 24 May: I told you of him, Dr. John Seward, the lunatic-asylum man, with the strong jaw and the good forehead. He was very cool outwardly, but was nervous all the same. He had evidently been schooling himself as to all sorts of little things, and remembered them; but he almost managed to sit down on his silk hat, which men don’t generally do when they are cool, and then when he wanted to appear at ease he kept playing with a lancet in a way that made me nearly scream.

Dracula roasts a chicken:

Jonathan Harker, 5 May: The Count himself came forward and took off the cover of a dish, and I fell to at once on an excellent roast chicken.

A vampire bat (not a vampire) somehow drinks enough of a horse’s blood to cause the horse to collapse:

Quincey Morris, 18 September: I have not seen anything pulled down so quick since I was on the Pampas and had a mare that I was fond of go to grass all in a night. One of those big bats that they call vampires had got at her in the night, and what with his gorge and the vein left open, there wasn’t enough blood in her to let her stand up, and I had to put a bullet through her as she lay.

Dracula gets smacked in the face with a shovel:

Jonathan Harker, June 30: There was no lethal weapon at hand, but I seized a shovel which the workmen had been using to fill the cases, and lifting it high, struck, with the edge downward, at the hateful face.

After attributing nightmares to paprika consumption, a character eats more paprika for breakfast:

Jonathan Harker, 3 May: Towards morning I slept and was wakened by the continuous knocking at my door, so I guess I must have been sleeping soundly then. I had for breakfast more paprika, and a sort of porridge of maize flour which they said was “mamaliga,” and egg-plant stuffed with forcemeat, a very excellent dish, which they call “impletata.”

The heroes hire a locksmith to make their home invasion look more respectable:

Van Helsing and Jonathan Harker, 3 October: “Now suppose that you were, in truth, the owner of that house, and could not still get in; and think there was to you no conscience of the housebreaker, what would you do?”

“I should get a respectable locksmith, and set him to work to pick the lock for me.”

“And your police, they would interfere, would they not?”

“Oh, no! not if they knew the man was properly employed.”

Jonathan Harker, 3 October: Just before we reached Fenchurch Street Lord Godalming said to me:—

“Quincey and I will find a locksmith...My title will make it all right with the locksmith, and with any policeman that may come along. You had better go with Jack and the Professor and stay in the Green Park, somewhere in sight of the house; and when you see the door opened and the smith has gone away, do you all come across. We shall be on the lookout for you, and shall let you in.”

To prepare for raiding a vampire’s lair, one character brings three small dogs:

Jonathan Harker, 1 October: Lord Godalming had slipped away for a few minutes, but now he returned. He held up a little silver whistle...Then, taking his little silver whistle from his pocket, he blew a low, shrill call. It was answered from behind Dr. Seward’s house by the yelping of dogs, and after about a minute three terriers came dashing round the corner of the house.

A character laments being unable to wed multiple people at once:

Lucy Westenra, 24 May: Why can’t they let a girl marry three men, or as many as want her, and save all this trouble?

A therapist starts speculating about elephants’ souls mid-session:

Jack Seward, 1 October: “I wonder,” I said reflectively, “what an elephant’s soul is like!”

An official cause of death is written as “misadventure in falling from bed”:

Jonathan Harker, 3 October: Dr. Seward asked the attendant who was on duty in the passage if he had heard anything. He said...he heard loud voices in the room...after that there was a sound of falling, and when he entered the room he found him lying on the floor, face down, just as the doctors had seen him. Van Helsing asked if he had heard “voices” or “a voice,” and he said he could not say...He could swear to it, if required, that the word “God” was spoken by the patient. Dr. Seward said to us, when we were alone, that he did not wish to go into the matter; the question of an inquest had to be considered, and it would never do to put forward the truth, as no one would believe it. As it was, he thought that on the attendant’s evidence he could give a certificate of death by misadventure in falling from bed. In case the coroner should demand it, there would be a formal inquest, necessarily to the same result.

Dracula has a Krampus-esque sack that he shoves children into:

Jonathan Harker, 16 May: “Are we to have nothing to-night?” said one of them, with a low laugh, as she pointed to the bag which he had thrown upon the floor, and which moved as though there were some living thing within it. For answer he nodded his head. One of the women jumped forward and opened it. If my ears did not deceive me there was a gasp and a low wail, as of a half-smothered child. The women closed round, whilst I was aghast with horror; but as I looked they disappeared, and with them the dreadful bag.

A character realizes that his host has no reflection but is more concerned with shaving than investigating that:

Jonathan Harker, 8 May: Suddenly I felt a hand on my shoulder, and heard the Count’s voice saying to me, “Good-morning.” I started, for it amazed me that I had not seen him, since the reflection of the glass covered the whole room behind me. In starting I had cut myself slightly, but did not notice it at the moment. Having answered the Count’s salutation, I turned to the glass again to see how I had been mistaken. This time there could be no error, for the man was close to me, and I could see him over my shoulder. But there was no reflection of him in the mirror!

[...]

“Take care,” he said, “take care how you cut yourself. It is more dangerous than you think in this country.” Then seizing the shaving glass, he went on: “And this is the wretched thing that has done the mischief. It is a foul bauble of man’s vanity. Away with it!” and opening the heavy window with one wrench of his terrible hand, he flung out the glass, which was shattered into a thousand pieces on the stones of the courtyard far below. Then he withdrew without a word. It is very annoying, for I do not see how I am to shave, unless in my watch-case or the bottom of the shaving-pot, which is fortunately of metal.

Jonathan only begins investigating later upon discovering that he's locked in the castle.

A reporter brags about his running speed mid-article:

The Dailygraph, 8 August: This seemed to pique general curiosity, and quite a number of people began to run. It is a good way round from the West Cliff by the Drawbridge to Tate Hill Pier, but your correspondent is a fairly good runner, and came well ahead of the crowd.

Dracula, while trying to maintain a low profile, goes by the incredibly subtle alias “de Ville”:

Mitchell, Sons & Candy, 1 October: The purchaser is a foreign nobleman, Count de Ville, who effected the purchase himself paying the purchase money in notes ‘over the counter,’ if your Lordship will pardon us using so vulgar an expression.

Jonathan Harker, 30 October: He had received a letter from Mr. de Ville of London, telling him to receive, if possible before sunrise so as to avoid customs, a box which would arrive at Galatz in the Czarina Catherine.

A character is misled by phonetic spelling:

Jonathan Harker, 2 October: I saw at once that I was on the right track; phonetic spelling had again misled me.

A character receives three marriage proposals in one day:

Lucy Westenra, 24 May: Here am I, who shall be twenty in September, and yet I never had a proposal till to-day, not a real proposal, and to-day I have had three. Just fancy! THREE proposals in one day!

The SPCA tries to adopt Dracula:

The Dailygraph, 9 August: A good deal of interest was abroad concerning the dog which landed when the ship struck, and more than a few of the members of the S. P. C. A., which is very strong in Whitby, have tried to befriend the animal. To the general disappointment, however, it was not to be found; it seems to have disappeared entirely from the town.

A doctor refers to a patient as his “pet lunatic”:

Jack Seward, 30 September: Here was my own pet lunatic—the most pronounced of his type that I had ever met with—talking elemental philosophy, and with the manner of a polished gentleman.

We are told vampires can be defeated by putting branches on their coffins:

Van Helsing, 30 September: The branch of wild rose on his coffin keep him that he move not from it...

A character gets slashed at with a knife and loot splatters on the floor, like a video game NPC:

Jack Seward, 3 October: Harker evidently meant to try the matter, for he had ready his great Kukri knife and made a fierce and sudden cut at him. The blow was a powerful one; only the diabolical quickness of the Count’s leap back saved him. A second less and the trenchant blade had shorne through his heart. As it was, the point just cut the cloth of his coat, making a wide gap whence a bundle of bank-notes and a stream of gold fell out.

Dracula is a horsegirl:

Jonathan Harker, 5 May: At the first howl the horses began to strain and rear, but the driver spoke to them soothingly, and they quieted down, but shivered and sweated as though after a runaway from sudden fright. Then, far off in the distance, from the mountains on each side of us began a louder and a sharper howling—that of wolves—which affected both the horses and myself in the same way—for I was minded to jump from the calèche and run, whilst they reared again and plunged madly, so that the driver had to use all his great strength to keep them from bolting. In a few minutes, however, my own ears got accustomed to the sound, and the horses so far became quiet that the driver was able to descend and to stand before them. He petted and soothed them, and whispered something in their ears, as I have heard of horse-tamers doing, and with extraordinary effect, for under his caresses they became quite manageable again, though they still trembled.

A character brings anti-vampire flowers but doesn’t tell anyone the purpose of said anti-vampire flowers, which leads to another character moving them and enabling a vampire attack:

Jack Seward, 11 September: Shortly after I had arrived, a big parcel from abroad came for the Professor. He opened it with much impressment—assumed, of course—and showed a great bundle of white flowers...

First he fastened up the windows and latched them securely; next, taking a handful of the flowers, he rubbed them all over the sashes, as though to ensure that every whiff of air that might get in would be laden with the garlic smell. Then with the wisp he rubbed all over the jamb of the door, above, below, and at each side, and round the fireplace in the same way. It all seemed grotesque to me, and presently I said:—

“Well, Professor, I know you always have a reason for what you do, but this certainly puzzles me. It is well we have no sceptic here, or he would say that you were working some spell to keep out an evil spirit.”

“Perhaps I am!” he answered quietly as he began to make the wreath which Lucy was to wear round her neck.

We then waited whilst Lucy made her toilet for the night, and when she was in bed he came and himself fixed the wreath of garlic round her neck. The last words he said to her were:—

“Take care you do not disturb it; and even if the room feel close, do not to-night open the window or the door.”

Jack Seward, 13 September: “You will be glad to know that Lucy is better. The dear child is still asleep. I looked into her room and saw her, but did not go in, lest I should disturb her.” The Professor smiled, and looked quite jubilant. He rubbed his hands together, and said:—

“Aha! I thought I had diagnosed the case. My treatment is working,” to which she answered:—

“You must not take all the credit to yourself, doctor. Lucy’s state this morning is due in part to me.”

“How you do mean, ma’am?” asked the Professor.

“Well, I was anxious about the dear child in the night, and went into her room. She was sleeping soundly—so soundly that even my coming did not wake her. But the room was awfully stuffy. There were a lot of those horrible, strong-smelling flowers about everywhere, and she had actually a bunch of them round her neck. I feared that the heavy odour would be too much for the dear child in her weak state, so I took them all away and opened a bit of the window to let in a little fresh air. You will be pleased with her, I am sure.”

A character’s hair turns from dark to white literally overnight:

Jack Seward, 3 October: The poor fellow is overwhelmed in a misery that is appalling to see. Last night he was a frank, happy-looking man, with strong, youthful face, full of energy, and with dark brown hair. To-day he is a drawn, haggard old man, whose white hair matches well with the hollow burning eyes and grief-written lines of his face.

Twice in the novel, Dracula says “Bah!” The second time is his final line of dialogue:

Dracula, 8 May: They said that he thought only of himself. Bah! what good are peasants without a leader? Where ends the war without a brain and heart to conduct it?

Dracula, 3 October: “You think to baffle me, you—with your pale faces all in a row, like sheep in a butcher’s. You shall be sorry yet, each one of you! You think you have left me without a place to rest; but I have more. My revenge is just begun! I spread it over centuries, and time is on my side. Your girls that you all love are mine already; and through them you and others shall yet be mine—my creatures, to do my bidding and to be my jackals when I want to feed. Bah!”

There’s a deleted scene of Dracula lying on top of the protagonist and licking him for hours:

Dracula's Guest: I felt a warm rasping at my throat, then came a consciousness of the awful truth, which chilled me to the heart and sent the blood surging up through my brain. Some great animal was lying on me and now licking my throat. I feared to stir, for some instinct of prudence bade me lie still; but the brute seemed to realise that there was now some change in me, for it raised its head. Through my eyelashes I saw above me the two great flaming eyes of a gigantic wolf. Its sharp white teeth gleamed in the gaping red mouth, and I could feel its hot breath fierce and acrid upon me.

[mariacallous]

"I'm so much happier now that I'm dead." If the details of the Scott Peterson case sound familiar to you, and if you (somehow) missed them the first time around, you're probably thinking of the 2012 book-slash-movie-slash-quote-on-everyone's-Tumblr-dashboard, Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl.

In Flynn's novel, the dead wife in question, Amy Dunne, is a survivor gifted with charismatic sociopathy, a knack for elaborate event planning - Laci's Martha Stewart fandom is seemingly the one personality trait to have survived her fictionalization - and a sadistic rage-on for her bumbling, cheating husband, Nick. (Played in the David Fincher adaptation, obviously, by Ben Affleck; some coincidences are too good to waste.) After discovering his infidelity, Amy manages to fake her own death, frame Nick for murder, and skip town.

"I'm going to hide out long enough to watch Lance Nicholas Dunne become a worldwide pariah, to watch Nick be arrested, tried, marched off to prison, bewildered in an orange jumpsuit and handcuffs," she tells us. Then, she'll drown herself: "My body may never be discovered, or it may resurface weeks, months later, eroded to the point that my death can't be time-stamped - and I will provide a last bit of evidence to make sure Nick is marched to the padded cross, the prison table where he'll be pumped with poison and die."

Well, ah, yeah. You can quibble with the taste level here. (Do we really need to see the dead woman in a domestic violence case as the villain?) But, like Lucy Westenra avenging poor, meek Mercy Brown, there's a kind of justice in seeing these "good" victimized girls come back to us in fiction as inconvenient, frightening, monstrous women.

And Amy's sociopathy does have a clear precedent - not in life, but in fiction: "She was clever, of course....Damnably clever," Maxim de Winter says of his dead wife. "No one would guess meeting her that she was not the kindest, most generous, most gifted person in the world. She knew exactly what to say to different people, how to match her mood to theirs." He could be describing Amazing Amy.

There is something eerie in reading Amy's description of her own battered, drowned body - "I've actually felt sad for myself, picturing my slim, naked, pale body, floating just beneath the current...my waterlogged flesh peeling off in soft streaks, me slowly disappearing into the current like a watercolor until just the bones are left" - as if all those thrown-away girls in the water were speaking to us, delivering their own eulogies. But Amy's monologue is also a literary wish-fulfillment fantasy; a way to retell Rebecca with its most interesting character still onstage.

"Nick must be taught a lesson," Amy tells us. "He's never been taught a lesson! He glides through life with that charming-Nicky grin, his beloved-child entitlement, his fibs and shirkings, his shortcomings and selfishness, and no one calls him on anything. I think this experience will make him a better person. Or at least a sorrier one. Fucker."

Gone Girl sold by the truckload, in part because Flynn did not try to sanitize the brutality of Amy's resentment. If you've been through enough, the difference between making a man better and making him sorrier can be tough to figure out. In fact, it may not matter. If the book's success is any indication, that kind of rage bubbles underneath the surface of many "normal" marriages, and behind the smiles of many seemingly "happy" women. Gone Girl gave women a way to vent their daily indignities and unspeakable anger safely and without consequence; let us have our wedding cake and poison it, too; it was an opportunity to save the wife and punish her husband for killing her at the same time.

Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Feminine Power by Jude Doyle

[astrylx]

You all said you wanted it so here we go. Things I like about Nosferatu as a Dracula adaptation vs things I don’t.

LIKE: Anna Harding

Anna Harding is the Nosferatu equivalent of Lucy Westenra, one of my absolute favorite characters in all of Dracula. So many adaptations of Dracula tend to make Lucy out to be a “slut,” and appear as if she is deserving of her fate as a victim of Dracula. This is all taken out of context by the “Why can’t a woman marry three men” line that she says. Nosferatu does not fall into this. That may be in part because instead of having three suitors, Anna has one married husband, but either way, the do not make Anna to be promiscuous and they instead utilize and showcase her true character traits.

Lucy Westenra is an innocent, loving woman, who is loyal and virtuous. She sticks by the people she loves. The line that makes her sexualized is a line showing in part her innocence and deep love. She cares for all the men in her life, and she does not want to have to choose, risking in part hurting them. Anna, in Nosferatu, is incredibly loyal to Ellen. She stands up for her and cares for her. There are even slight touches of queer undertones between Lucy and Mina in the book, if you’re looking for them. Anna has done nothing but care for the people in her life.

And then she is transformed. And the transformation, in some ways, does resemble the wantoness that takes over in the book, through her odd behaviors, and almost orgasmic expressions.

While it’s not a perfect representation of Lucy in the novel, it’s so much closer and done so much better than some others. Anna is a much more minor character than Lucy as well, but just as Lucy does, she drives the plot. And just as Lucy’s death does ultimately lead to the death of Quincey Morris, one of her courtiers, so too does Anna’s death lead to that of Friedrich, her husband.

And that brings us to the next point.

DISLIKE: Lack of Quincey Morris

I honestly don’t even think I need to go into depth in this. Quincey Morris is such a good character in the novel. The cowboy vampire slayer. He’s fantastic. A+ character. And Jonathan and Mina even name their child after him.

He and Jonathan are the ones to finally destroy Dracula, even if it ends in his own demise. Yet… in Nosferatu… he’s not there. I hate this. Justice for Quincey.

LIKE: Von Franz

Dracula adaptations have two tendencies with Van Helsing, neither of which Nosferatu falls into: Either he is the decades long enemy of Dracula, a vampire hunter, or he is the all knowledgeable man everyone relies on. The truth, Van Helsing is quite an odd character. And he’s not a vampire slayer or all knowledgeable of vampires. He simply studies many different things. It’s not that vampire knowledge is what he seeks.

Nosferatu understands this. We get to see the quirks of Van Helsing. His relation with Seward (though minimal), and his true knowledge. Plus, Willem Dafoe is exceptional in the role. It’s refreshing to see a Van Helsing that, despite any flaws in the film, actually resembles Van Helsing to me. He’s not perfect, but he feels right. Much closer than many other adaptations.

DISLIKE: Herr Knock

Look, I will admit, I am quite biased when it comes to this. To me, no one will ever come close to Dwight Frye’s Renfield. He’s just absolutely exceptional in that role, and I couldn’t ask for more. Meanwhile Herr Knock, while having his moments, is quite flat and boring to me. He lacks many of the complexities of Renfield that make him stand out. And so much of his character just feels like they jumped around, didn’t clearly plan how they wanted to use him. I could barely follow it half the time. Which isn’t always a bad thing in horror, but to me was disappointing.

Especially because I tend to view Renfield and Jonathan as interesting parallels. Jonathan could, in my opinion, have very easily ended up like Renfield. And they are even more so connected by their relations with Mina. Mina is the character that reveals Renfield’s true nature underneath the vampirism. He wants to prevent her from being like him, and to keep her safe. Meanwhile, in Nosferatu, Ellen and Herr Knock never meet.

LIKE: Thomas’ Approach to the Castle

I do have to ignore the racism to the Romani people in this, because it is… prevalent. It isn’t shocking at all because unlike some people on Reddit seem to think, I do in fact have critical thinking skills and recognize the source material, time and place of the film, and cultural ideas and views still existing. It doesn’t mean that I don’t recognize it.

But. Aside from that, the approach to the castle is done so incredibly well. It’s frightening and eerie. You can really place yourself in Thomas’ shoes and understand his fear. It works so well to establish mood and foreshadowing for the actual castle. Plus, one of my favorite scenes from the novel is utilized.

When the woman gives Jonathan a crucifix “for his mother’s sake.” That scene always just stands out to me and has such an impact, so seeing a representation of it on screen was great. I turned to the friend I was sitting beside in the theatre with a big smile, pointing and mouthing “they did the thing!!”

DISLIKE: Ellen Hutter

To me, Ellen feels almost offensive in the face of Mina. Not saying Ellen is a bad character, but when she’s the Mina of the film, it just… rubs me the wrong way. Mina is smart, loyal, clever, loving. She’s faithful and dependable. She’s incredibly, impenitently strong. So incredibly strong.

Throughout the story, Mina keeps her wits about her. Despite what is happening to her, she remains collected and calculating, showing deep strength and love. She never falters from Jonathan’s side, and she fights for her friends. She plots and she plans. The entire downfall of Dracula is orchestrated by Mina. She tracks him, and allows Jonathan and Quincey to finally destroy him.

Ellen, yes she is the one to ultimately defeat Orlok, but it’s not the same. For one, she is the summoner of Orlok, attracted to his darkness. And she destroys him by getting with him. When she isn’t doing this, she’s having fits, completely out of lucidity, and acting manic and out of control. A far cry from the strong will and composure Mina manages to hold on to. Not to mention her relationship with Thomas which will be touched on later, let me assure you of that.

And then there’s the whole aspect of her relationship with Orlok. In the book, the interactions between Lucy and Dracula, and Mina and Dracula very much come across as allegorical to SA (same with the interactions between Jonathan and the three vampire brides, but that is a conversation for another time). Therefore, writing any sort of romance between Mina and Dracula in any adaptation tends to come off to me at least as distasteful. Dracula is not Mina’s dark lover who allows her to let free the darkness inside her, the chains from the stifling world of the roles of Victorian women. Dracula is her abuser.

While yes, it is made clear that Ellen wants Thomas, not Orlok, at the end she still saves the day by being the virginal sacrifice to him, and she still summoned him with her “darkness.” It may be a reach, which I will wholeheartedly admit upon and take on my chest, but it can almost feel like it’s saying Ellen was calling to be abused…

LIKE: Wolves

In the novel, Dracula does in fact surround himself and utilizes. Not many Dracula adaptations use these wolves and the fact that Dracula can bend their wills with his own. Which is sad in an era where werewolves and vampires are often seen as enemies in popular culture (thank books like Twilight). Seeing the wolves be used, and used well, was really great. I could totally understand the terror Thomas would have felt.

DISLIKE: The Lack of Teamwork

In Dracula, all the characters, moved by Lucy’s passing, Jonathan’s torment, and Mina’s turning into a vampire, work together in order to defeat Dracula. There is a sense of camaraderie between the characters, each using their own knowledge, skills, and experience in the fight. At the end of the novel, Mina and Jonathan have named their son after the party members, a testament to the camaraderie of the group. They’re a regular old likable band of unlikely heroes.

This… is not present in Nosferatu. The characters barely work together. There isn’t a sense of connection or partnership. Friedrich fights with the group the whole time until his death. Von Franz keeps things from everyone. Thomas and Sievers feel absolutely useless for the most part. I mean, as if the lack of Quincey wasn’t enough, you go and erase any semblance of teamwork too…

LIKE: I honestly… don’t have much else to say for any likes… at least, as a Dracula adaptation. There was more I liked about the movie standalone, but this isn’t the post for that. Maybe the rats scene, not in the sense of it being a Dracula adaptation, but in the sense that it reminded me of the rats scene with Renfield from the 1931 film.

DISLIKE: The Hutters Marriage

On of my favorite lines in all of Dracula is said by Jonathan. He says, “To one thing I have made up my mind; if we find out that Mina must be a vampire in the end, then she shall not go into that unknown and terrible land alone. I suppose it is thus that in old times one vampire meant many; just as their hideous bodies could only rest in sacred earth, so the holiest love was the recruiting sergeant for their ghastly ranks.” The holiest love. Their love and commitment to each other is so strong. Jonathan is willing to live an eternity with his tormentor, with the woman he loves basically lost to him forever, just to stay by her side. Even if she cannot recognize him or love him, and is simply as Dracula’s three brides. The holiest love.

Sure, Thomas and Ellen love each other. It’s present and clear. But it’s so lacking in comparison to Jonathan and Mina. They don’t communicate, there are few scenes of them together, and the ones with them feel rushed. Meanwhile Mina crosses the country for Jonathan to marry him on his sick bed. I just wish Thomas and Ellen offered us more.

FINAL DISLIKE: Orlok’s Death

Orlok’s death feels so rushed. Just… Ellen has intercourse with him until the sun rises and he dies. Let us not forget sunlight does not kill Dracula, merely weaken him. Which is the most minor complaint over this. The scene is horrifying and beautiful. It’s scary and gothic and thrilling and chilling. None of that I will deny. But it also happens so quickly it feels quite odd. Considering the rest of the pacing of the film, you’d think the final scene, the scene of victory, would feel more complete. It doesn’t. And it is nothing like it is in the book.

Overall, as a movie I rate Nosferatu 4/5 stars. As a Dracula adaptation? 2/5 if that. It’s not Dracula and it is loosely based, but I’m rating it here strictly as a Dracula adaptation. The movie has flaws outside of the sphere of Dracula as well, which I could get into another time. But I hope you enjoyed my ramble.

If this interested you, I would love to cover other Dracula adaptations, whether Coppola’s Brad Stoked’s Dracula, the 2020 TV series, or the original Nosferatu. Please let me know!

If you have any issues with my post or anything you’d like to add or comment on, please do so and please let me know. I love criticism and conversation. Now, I wrote this with no proofreading in my free time today, so it’s likely flawed. I accept that. For now, I’m going to go nap.

Wake me up when you have a good real estate deal for me.

[murfpersonalblog]

IWTV Musings - LDPDL & Nosferatu 2024

We all know & love AMC!IWTV's canon that the Unholy Family saw Nosferatu in 1922, and busted a gut rotflol over Hollywood's vampire.

But if Louis saw Nosferatu 2024, in the wake of Lestat in NOLA, and esp. Armand in Paris/SanFran/Dubai & Claudia's death, I reckon he'd be triggered on several levels. Ofc, one doesn't need to see Nos24 thru Louis' eyes/POV to recognize all the themes about the predatory nature of vampiric seduction, let alone the devastating ways vampires affect/abuse/take advantage/wreak havoc on human vulnerabilities like religious mania depression, mental illness, and suicidal ideation. But let's go for it!

The Closeted (Isolation, Repression, & Mental Illness)

In IWTV, Louis was a closeted gay man who had to grow up always hiding who he really was, for fear of punishment by his uber-Catholic family as well as society at large. Homosexuality was not only considered a mental illness, subject to extreme forms "treatment" including solitary confinement in a sanatorium (mental asylum--the same place his mentally ill brother Paul had already been sent that made him "worse than before"); but also a crime punishable by incarceration or even death.

I've long said that "Rashid"/Armand's treatment of Louis esp. in Dubai was more like a nurse than a servant--the kind of nurse that hates their job (being "stuck on suicide watch") & whose bedside manner effing SUCKS, having no patience for the mentally ill & no capacity to properly take care of them; just making things worse.

In Nosferatu, Ellen was always "touched" as a child, having the 2nd sight that allowed her to always know ahead of time what her Xmas gifts were, and know the date her mom would die. Her mean father thought she was a freak and had her closeted away & isolated from society, the family embarrassment. Even after she got married, Thomas' BFF Friedrich barely tolerated Ellen, and when her seizures started he had her tied & doped & corseted up--all the worst ways of caring for her that likely did more harm than good. Ellen even called him out on it, knowing Friedrich tied her up cuz he hated having to deal with her in the first place "I tire of discussing her; can we please talk about something else; the entire household centers around her fairy whims!," and got sick of her being in his house anymore.

Book & Hearth's video analysis of Ellen's mental illness in Nosferatu says this:

So, Louis/Ellen are both people stigmatized by Victorian society for things that were never their fault (homosexuality, mental illness, etc), either socially closeted/isolated (Louis) or spatially closeted/isolated (Ellen).

(Lestat kept whining in 1x3 & 2x7 about how the worst thing a vampire can feel is loneliness--as if that's not awful for humans to feel, too. 🙄 Esp. since vamps are immortal, they've got all the time in the world for someone to eventually show up & fall in love with them; unlike humans, who grow old & decrepit & die in no time flat.)

We see the extreme lengths Louis & Ellen would go to, to alleviate their loneliness & desperation for companionship, and their desire to feel seen & close to someone--even if that someone was the Devil himself: a vampire.

"Come to me" - Loustat & Orllen

Both IWTV & Nosferatu use Come to Me. It's a motif as old as Dracula itself, so it's par for the course, really.

"Come to me, Arthur. Leave these others and come to me. My arms are hungry for you. Come, and we can rest together. Come, my husband, come!" --Lucy Westenra, Dracula

But both shows play around with it in interesting ways.

In IWTV, Lestat repeatedly chants C2M/Viens a moi to lure Louis to him. In 1x1 Louis actually runs away, fleeing to the church & prayed to God to help/kill him; only for the Devil/Lestat to show up & "give you death" by making him a vampire. But in 1x6, Lestat uses the song "Come to Me" to "get a rise out of" Louis, who swims the Mississippi to take his estranged husband back. But during the Trial, Lestat lied on Lou and accused him of saying C2M to "accost" Les instead--the human seducing the vampire. Meanwhile, Lou still has Les's master recording of C2M in 2022, which he plays for Daniel in Dubai--again proving that Les was lying on Lou & weaponized C2M against him.

Nosferatu24 plays the human-calling/seducing-the-vampire straight, where Ellen literally summoned Orlock. Lonely, she'd prayed to God for a companion, "a spirit of comfort," but accidentally roused the Nosferatu from his sleep as she kept repeating "Come to me."

Ellen accidentally called Orlock, and Lestat hunted Louis down--but both characters are still guilt-ridden by their open-armed acceptance of their vampire lovers, once they eventually realize that the person they thought would be their comfort/safety had only taken advantage of their loneliness, desperation & ignorance about their situation and the type of creature these vamps really were.

Louis' relationship with Armand doesn't 1:1 fit, since they never use C2M per se, but Armand DOES approach Louis similarly to Les, as the charismatic vampire who stalked Lou before finally confronting him, luring him & Claudia into the Theatre to recruit/convert them to his crazy AF coven/cult; and then using a series of lies, manipulations & brainwashes to take advantage of Louis' trauma post-Banishment to keep Lou as his (un)willing companion for 77yrs after killing his daughters.

The Death of 2 Daughters

Orlock's murder of Friedrich's 2 daughters is a chilling scene. The Nosferatu puts a spell on Friedrich while he's sleeping, his hand casting a spectral shadow over Friedrich's face to keep him pinned in his bed and trapped in his nightmares. Meanwhile, his 2 daughters & wife are screaming for him to help them, but Friedrich can't move or wake up, impotently clutching the gun in his hand as his wife & kids are slaughtered bu Orlock, just down the hall from him.

Orlock has both the little girls in his clutches, and throws them down like sacks of potatoes once he's done draining them, as their mother Anna helplessly watches, screaming, before he kills her, too.

This is painfully similar to how Armand instructed the coven to fog the minds of Claudia, Madz & Louis whenever they tried defending themselves, on top of their ankles being slashed so they couldn't move, escape, or fight back--esp. not once Lou was dragged away kicking & screaming to be buried alive, ensuring that he'd be helpless to do anything to save his 2 daughters from being murdered. The last thing he ever heard Claudia say was her screaming his name.

(Since this is 2024, Louis wouldn't yet be privy to the details Lestat reveals in S3 (2026). But if Lestat's also watching Nos24, he knows even more about Claudia's final moments than Lou does--that feeling of helplessness is only amplified by the fact that she's HIS literal Blood Child--he'd've felt her die the same way Louis felt Madz die. Drained after using his Mind Gift to save Louis with Banishment, Lestat's too weak to save Claudia as she burns. The last thing Claudia ever saw was her father just standing there, uselessly watching Armand & the coven burn her to death.)

Sexual Inhibitions, Awakenings, Stigmas, Salvation

Louis is often mocked/derided in the fandom as a d**kmatized Pick Me who only thinks with his loins to stay with toxic AF Lestat's "considerable considerables;" after years of closeted sexual repression.

"Do you remember the best you ever had? So imagine that flowing inside your veins again. Now multiply it by miles, to the rings of Saturn and back...." "He had a way about him, those first years, Lestat. Preternaturally charming, occasionally thoughtful. He was my murderer, my mentor, my lover, and my maker--all of those things at once. He had taken what he called un petit coup, the Little Drink. Not enough to kill me, but just enough to keep him fit. It takes an enormous amount of restraint for us, the Little Drink. For a human, experiencing it for the first time, it was…unsettling. And not for the physical toll on my body, which was significant, but for the feelings of intimacy it awoke within me."

Lestat's seduction of Louis was a sexual revelation/awakening, but it also spooked TF outta Louis. He fled Lestat's house in a gay panic, "vowing never to return." I also discussed how Lestat's C2M in 1x1 was dubcon/noncon, and mirrored Lestat in Paul's head, making both him AND Louis feel unclean.

She sank on her knees on the floor in an agony of abasement. Pulling her beautiful hair over her face, as the leper of old his mantle, she wailed out. “Unclean! Unclean! Even the Almighty shuns my polluted flesh! I must bear this mark of shame upon my forehead until the Judgement Day.” -- Mina Harker, Dracula

(Lou was bored to dangit death with Armand in SanFran (the gay mecca where he'd been enjoying his 2nd wind/try at a gay sexual awakening), mocking Armand for having been forced into ascetic celibacy by the Children of Satan, who made him forget he had a working peen (Lou was obvs mad that Armand wasn't using said peen with Lou--the Bed Death Truthers were right all along, LOL).)

Meanwhile, Ellen was outright called a "sinner" by her father when he found her lying naked after a (Orlock-induced) fit/orgasm.

Orlock stayed with Ellen for years, an incubus visiting her in her dreams & having sex with her (the best she'd ever had, as she later throws in Thomas' face, "you could never please me like he could"); but also throwing her into fits/seizures--"at first it was sweet...and then it turned to torture!"

In the end, LDPDL & Ellen use their sexual prowess to distract their vampire husbands long enough for their Murder Plots to be accomplished--a la Mina Harker in Dracula.

Louis is literally instructed by Claudia to seduce Lestat, keeping him distracted with sex while Claudia plans how to poison & kill him. Louis is afraid to fall back into the "well with no bottom" and "lose myself in him," and Claudia promises to be his salvation--pulling him out in time to strike the killing blow to Lestat.

Ellen is another femme fatale who welcomes Orlock into their marriage bed, where she forcefully holds him close as he notices the sun rising; keeping him distracted with sex long enough for the sunlight to cook him to death as she hemorrhages under him. Her suicide is her salvation/martyrdom, as she frees herself (and the whole town) from Orlock's clutches.

(Again, Armand doesn't have as neat of a 1:1 fit, since Louis doesn't distract him with sex to defeat him. But Louis still plays up his seemingly helpless submission to get Armand to allow the interview to continue, as if Daniel isn't threat, and as if Louis doesn't suspect Armand of foul play--at least not until the end of 2x5 ofc. But Armand constantly wrests control back, and by the end of the interview in 2x8 he ALMOST wins. Louis doesn't defeat Armand or save himself at all here--DANIEL defeats Armand & saves Louis instead, showing the leagues of difference between the threat Armand posed vs Lestat. )

[witchofthemidlands]

finally seen the new edition of nosferatu. sublime 9/10, add emma corrin to the list of actors i'd get on my knees for & sell my soul to for their performance of a version of lucy westenra. ellen hutter how dare you bring back the memories of the pain i experienced from the love i have for vanessa ives? bill skarsġard once again got possessed by an acting deity & played a ✨creature✨ & yet was still more magnetic as a version of dracula than others have been. nicholas hoult is the most incredible iteration i have seen of jonathan harker in so long that i need a separate post for the unfortunate turn of events this has caused. i would like to tenderly kiss the sfx & set designers consensually on the forehead. this would have taken me out during my literature degree.

[minas-diary]

September 11

Read here, full story - thus far here.

Mina Harker’s Journal 

September 11th 

There is no news, at least no bad news to record here. Jonathan and I have been on honeymoon and exceedingly busy with the expected responsibilities of a wife and husband, only they aren’t the sort you discuss as good and upstanding and morally forthright company. But, it is our right and responsibility as husband and wife and I do so love him although, I miss Lucy. I hope she is well, as she should be with Arthur, I still pray no harm comes to her and she ceases sleepwalking, but… in the end, while I love my husband, Jonathan and my friend Lucy, there is only so much I can control. In any case, I am well and so is Jonathan, in my 9 to 10 months I expect a baby, I will be happy regardless of its sex, though, Jonathan wants a boy. Only the Gods or God above can dictate that and I shall be happy… regardless. Mina Harker is a lovely name, isn’t it? Madam Harker rather suits me I think. Yes, Mrs. Mina (or Madam) Murray-Harker, I shall insist on that from now on.

[godzilla-reads]

“I am longing to be with you, and by the sea, where we can talk together freely and build our castles in the air.”

—Mina Murray, to Lucy Westenra; from Dracula

[see-arcane]

Lucy Undying came out a few days ago and

"It's a feminist retelling, giving Lucy the agency she so lacked in Dracula."

I am putting feminist retellings on the top shelf unit we all consider if sometimes lack of agency of a character in a story was the point

In fairness, I get the 'why' behind stuff like this.

Lucy's story is painful. It is scary and tragic and ends cruelly for her, just like so many tales of female victims before and after her. Though her death(s) have a real narrative and an emotional point, whereas your average damsel is nothing but an extra pound of meat for the grinder to help add more woe to Hero Man's story. It hurts more with her.

She stands apart from the common fridged woman by being someone we know, someone loved, someone killed and remade into a bloodstained caricature of herself to be her attacker's eternal slave. Ending her existence in that second iteration is mercy, practicality, and the setting of the stakes for Mina when Dracula targets her. If the monster doesn't kill you, the heroes will put you down for becoming a monster too. Which itself ripples out into new moral conundrums when we see how staunchly Jonathan refuses to risk destroying Mina in any form; making us question in turn whether there really was hope for Lucy the Bloofer Lady--who had killed no one yet!--if only Van Helsing and the Suitor Squad had tried another angle. It makes you chew on the implications.

So, I get it. We all want to save the character we love and who got crushed underfoot by the plot.

The problem comes in when to do that literary rescue, you completely obliterate everything about that character which makes them themselves and not Generic Strong Spunky Female #1897. And the book's summary doesn't give me much hope for this not being the case.

Her name was written in the pages of someone else’s story: Lucy Westenra was one of Dracula’s first victims. But her death was only the beginning. Lucy rose from the grave a vampire and has spent her immortal life trying to escape from Dracula’s clutches—and trying to discover who she really is and what she truly wants. Her undead life takes an unexpected turn in twenty-first-century London, when she meets another woman, Iris, who is also yearning to break free from her past. Iris’s family has built a health empire based on a sinister secret, and they’ll do anything to stay in power. Lucy has long believed she would never love again. Yet she finds herself compelled by the charming Iris while Iris is equally mesmerized by the confident and glamorous Lucy. But their intense connection and blossoming love is threatened by outside forces. Iris’s mother won’t let go of her without a fight, and Lucy’s past still has fangs: Dracula is on the prowl once more. Lucy Westenra has been a tragically murdered teen, a lonesome adventurer, and a fearsome hunter, but happiness has always eluded her. Can she find the strength to destroy Dracula once and for all, or will her heart once again be her undoing?

Now, if the name here was different? If this was, I don't know, 'Lorelei Wilder' thwarting her monstrous master 'Count Lord Duke Dracattackula,' that'd be fine. But the fact that it's trying to convince me that the central character is Lucy Westenra, the girl we know through others' words and her own as a human, and through the lens of others' witness accounts as an apparently merrily content monster as the distorted Bloofer Lady, makes me fear the worst: That our girl's been girlbossed out of recognition.

I won't pass immediate judgment. Maybe it's a hidden gem. Maybe a century's worth of character development has altered Bloofer Lucy into this form believably and the author hasn't just retroactively taken an eraser to everything she was pre and post-vampirism in order to make Standard Rebellious Hero Girl (now with public domain name!). I'll cross my fingers for it.

But I won't hold my breath.