I think what I love most about the idea of Jonathan clearly becoming Something Else is that it's so much scarier than a vampire. We know the rules and limitations of a vampire. Van Helsing can even provide a list. But Something Else? Let's be real, not even Jonathan knows.

Quincey: Hey, I couldn't help but notice Harker is kind of, uh. Metamorphosing in the corner over there.

Van Helsing: He is going through a grief-filled and harrowing time, Friend Quincey.

Quincey: True. But I don't tend to recall 'spontaneous hair color change, wall-crawling, inhuman speed, blazing eyes, and having an omnipresent heightening scare chord present in the soundtrack whenever you do things' as part of the grieving process.

Van Helsing: Are you not supposed to be laconic?

Quincey: Are you not supposed to be up every available textbook's ass about supernatural happenings in our vicinity?

Van Helsing: Friend Quincey, in fullest honesty, I feel it is best that he copes as he likes. If that means he has to transmute into an entity unknown to the written word or human recognition, that is his choice.

Quincey: ...

Van Helsing: ...

Quincey: So you're putting caring on hold because the Cross and Wafer combo hasn't given him hives.

Van Helsing, pouring himself his third stress-brandy: Perhaps.

Quincey: Jack, back me up here? We should be a little concerned, right?

Jack, has been melting into a manhood-admiration puddle as he watches Jonathan 'White-Haired Romantic Horror Anime Man' Harker handling his kukri in plain view for the past 3 hours: yeag

just as a retrospective, i love that this year we decided that jonathan maybe isn’t fully human, like yeah something’s off with our friend, we still love him tho

One advantage in the horror framing of Dracula that we have by reading it chronologically is how silence is a far worse response than words in such situations. Reading the novel day by day not only help us immerse into the slow steps towards madness that Jonathan is enduring, but also it lets us ponder on what is happening when there is no letter inside our email.

What manner of man is this, or what manner of creature is it in the semblance of man? I feel the dread of this horrible place overpowering me; I am in fear—in awful fear—and there is no escape for me; I am encompassed about with terrors that I dare not think of...

These are the last horrified words that Jonathan wrote yesterday, just after he saw the Count scale down the walls of his own castle, defying any kind of natural laws that Jonathan knows. Yet, what we have met today is pure silence regarding our dear friend.

Something that would only cause dread... Except that when you read the scene again, and notice that Jonathan would have been so terrified after seeing it (even as he writes) that he wouldn't notice if the Count was near him...

And today we got no letter.

Would you like to see all of Jonathan's speaking lines from the moment he joins the rest of the crew (September 30) till he witnesses the aftermath of Dracula's attack on Mina (October 3)? Well, here they are:

"I answer for Mina and myself," he said.

+

"May I come?" said Harker.

Both on his first day there, after spending most of his time working on documents with Mina. The former, when agreeing to the let's-hunt-Dracula pact, and the latter when asking to go along to visit Renfield. Your mileage may vary on whether he even did that, since Seward and Renfield and Stoker both forgot him entirely during said visit.

That's it. Oh, of course he talks more than that, but it's all described dialogue typically involved a larger group and even then is pretty brief. He suggests the importance of Renfield before the meeting. He leads the way through Carfax on Van Helsing's request, freezes up and has a minor panic attack when he thinks he sees Dracula, but is pretty silent throughout. The next day he has a brief chat with Van Helsing and hunts boxes. The next day, says hi and bye to Seward, then heads out to spend the whole day chasing leads again. When he gets back, the boys all have a music night and Jonathan reads his journal to them to keep them up on his efforts.

I'm not suggesting that Jonathan is totally silent or anything. But there's perhaps a reason Seward initially describes him as a "quiet, business-like gentleman." He's reserved for the most part and focused on the task at hand. Determined but not overzealous in any way that stands out; spends a lot of time off on his own or hanging back quietly.

All this to say... It must have been quite a shock to see quiet, paper-trail hunting Jonathan Harker abruptly start spitting out lines like:

"It cannot have gone too far yet. Guard her while I look for him!"

"May God judge me by my deserts, and punish me with more bitter suffering than even this hour, if by any act or will of mine anything ever come between us!"

"Then let us come at once, we are wasting the precious, precious time!" + "We shall break in if need be."

"I care for nothing now, except to wipe out this brute from the face of creation. I would sell my soul to do it!"

"May God give him into my hand just for long enough to destroy that earthly life of him which we are aiming at. If beyond it I could send his soul for ever and ever to burning hell I would do it!"

All of a sudden Jonathan is a big damn romantic hero. He is making huge declarations left and right, he is ready to hunt Dracula down and kill him in his pajamas, he is rushing and raging and swearing to God and cursing Dracula's soul to hell and offering to trade away his own. All this not to even mention attacking him with a knife and climbing out a window rather than waste any time with stairs.

Jonathan, who has always been pretty mild-mannered around this group to the point they almost find it hard to believe he could have been the same one to write about his experiences in the castle, is now in full on Addams family mode, public displays of affection and murder attempts included. And it's not like this situation isn't understandably dire as hell, an easy recipe for pushing someone past the limits of their composure. They all know that too.

But I just find it really fun to imagine the recalibration going on in their heads. Knowing intellectually the kind of stuff he did to stay alive all that time ago is a little different from watching him rampage around like he did today, and Seward definitely seemed to be experiencing a shift in his perception of Jonathan's manly fervor to say the least.

I'm doing Dracula Daily this year for the first time, the last time I read the book was over 8 years ago (I was maybe 12 years old) and good god, I did not remember it being this homoerotic.

"How dare you touch him, any of you? How dare you cast eyes on him when I had forbidden it? Back, I tell you all! This man belongs to me! Beware how you meddle with him, or you'll have to deal with me." The fair girl, with a laugh of ribald coquetry, turned to answer him:— "You yourself never loved; you never love!" [...] Then the Count turned, after looking at my face attentively, and said in a soft whisper:— "Yes, I too can love; you yourselves can tell it from the past. Is it not so? [...]"

Like. Like.

Once again, I am so grateful to Dracula Daily and all the love for I see for Jonathan & Mina! Years I had spent confused about where everyone got the Dracula/Mina thing from, and the injustice Jonathan (and not just him) receives in adaptations and general pop culture. I thought something was wrong with me or that I misunderstood something. It wasn't until 2022 when I first took part in Dracula Daily that I finally found likeminded people.

I get that people want to have their own interpretations if they don't like canon. But in the case of Jonmina, we actually have a good relationship, exceptionally good considering the time it was written. They have better communication than many contemporary romcom couples.

And, you know, when it comes to book adaptations, it's funny how people can get worked up over a single line delivered not strictly as it was in the book, or few words being changed but the line meaning the exact same thing, but everything turned on its head becomes suddenly okay when it suits their ship.

Jonathan Harker 🤝 Jean Valjean

Hair turning white after a dramatic moment

oh no the character who really is named Jack has shown up

i can't make up nicknames for Jonathan anymore

The Harkers' marriage has much in common with what New Woman authors and their male allies were positing as an ideal union, one founded on "love and trust and friendship." (29) Friendship is a recurring theme in New Woman discussions of marriage. In an 1884 letter to Olive Schreiner, Havelock Ellis muses, "the best kind of union between a man and a woman is a sort of camaraderie ... between two people who care about the same things, who are going the same way, & can walk arm and arm, & kiss & encourage each other on the way." (30) Though most New Woman authors shared Caird's view that such a companionate union was "well-nigh impossible" in the present day, Stoker is more optimistic. Possessing the "love, respect, intellectual likeness, and command of the necessities of life" required for an "ideal" marriage, the Harkers could "look clear through one another's eyes into one another's hearts." (31)

In treating Mina as his peer, Jonathan Harker is most unlike John Seward, whose dealings with Lucy demonstrate an inclination to perceive a woman's beauty rather than her brains. Yet Seward, though not a New Man, has the potential to become one.

When Mina telegraphs to announce her arrival, John is far from pleased: she is a distraction from the important work of reading the papers Van Helsing has given him. "I must get her interested in something else," he determines, and "I must be careful not to frighten her" (195). Mina's appearance--"a sweet-faced, dainty-looking girl" (194)--fits his stereotype of a woman needing protection. When Mrs. Harker asks to see his account of Lucy's final days, Dr. Seward declares, "Not for the wide world!" (195). "Why not?" she asks, and, realizing (with the same acuity Lucy possessed) that he is "trying to invent an excuse" for demurring, is charmed to see him, "with the naivete of a child" and "unconscious simplicity," blurt out an excuse whose truth he realizes only as he speaks it: he cannot let her listen to his account of Lucy's death because he has dictated it into his phonograph and does not know how to locate it in the cylinders (196). His grimaces and exclamations of "That's quite true, upon my honor" and "Honest Indian!" underscore his boyishness. Bemused, Mina replies that, in that case, he must let her type out all his notes. The doctor cannot argue. Begging her pardon and admitting that she is "quite right," he makes "the only atonement in [his] power" by entrusting her with the cylinders (196). We need have no secrets amongst us," she tells him; "working together and with absolute trust, we can surely be stronger than if some of us were in the dark" (197). Impressed by her "courage and trust," he embraces her modus operandi. By the end of the evening, he has accepted on equal footing the woman he at first dismissed as an annoying distraction whom he must "be careful not to frighten," telling her, "We must keep one another strong for what is before us; we have a cruel and dreadful task" (198). [...] In this scene, we glimpse the future Caird envisions, "when men and women shall be comrades and fellow-workers as well as lovers and husbands and wives." (32)

Winstead, K., Mrs. Harker and Dr. Van Helsing: Dracula, Fin-de-Siecle Feminisms, and the New Wo/Man

seriously what is up with the white hair? Like the first time I read the scene in the Harker's room I took whitening hair to be a sign of the stress that's been on Jono gradually turning his hair, but then Jack confirms right away that it was all the hair turning color overnight. Stoker makes sure to mention the hair transformation twice and clarifies via Jack that it was all at once. what is up with Jonathan?

Lucy lost all her blonde when her narrative got Dracula'd, Jonathan lost all his brunet. Equivalent exchange.

I keep thinking about the Jonathan Harker Time Loop and how most posts are about the poor guy having flashbacks or trying to somehow sidestep The Horrors. You know, all reflection about how we see him.

But listen.

How about how HE sees US?

Imagine you are Jonathan Harker, and you are leaving for a work trip. You haven't really travelled much, and you are very excited, so you do research about that fascinating country called Transylvania, you write down your train schedules, the names of the cities you pass by, the recipes you find interesting or unfamiliar. You really want to remember everything, after all, you know you are going to spend some time away and you are sure Mina would love all the details of this little adventure! You are going to miss her so much, so making sure that everything is accurate so you can later faithfully recreate your journey makes you feel closer to her.

You could do without those weird dreams, though.

Moreover, since the beginning of your travels you have kept meeting more and more people.

They strike you as strange.

Most of them greet you as if you were old friends, clapping you in the back and talking about how happy it made them to receive the letter about your upcoming job trip, which you find mildly confusing, and the familiarity that they spark on the depths of your mind somewhat soothing.

Others smile at you and wish you fast and happy travels, something mournful gleaming in the depths of their eyes, and you feel like they are not really looking at you, but at some other man standing right behind you.

"Maybe this time it will go well, right?"

And you have nothing to say about that.

Some people you can tell recognize you, but don't really come near. They seem hesitant, and not as overtly familiar as the previous groups of people, acting instead in a manner more fitting to strangers. They follow you at a distance, looking torn between curiosity and dread, and you can tell that this is their fist time making this journey as well.

Then you get to Transylvania, and the entire crowd seems to go mad.

While you had only been meeting people in groups before, now they seem to cover almost every free inch of the country, coming together in thick clusters that somehow never actually seem to encumber your travel. They read what you write over your shoulder, they nod at the scenery and watch all the people getting in and out of your carriage.

They seem to be specially fond of the villagers, in spite of the country people's apparent lack of interest in them, since as far as you have seen the two groups never actually cross words.

In one particularly noteworthy morning you have paprika for breakfast, which is met with great approval by all.

You get closer to Castle Dracula, and the amount of people still increases, although a low number of them appear and disappear just as quickly, checking on you and then departing. They explain that they will come back later, or that they are waiting for someone else, and sometimes you swear you can hear the sound of waves in their steps.

Of the ones that stay, some get close enough to stand with you, while others prefer to stay by themselves, either taking notes on their own journals or -something that baffles you every single time you see it- sitting behind some kind of canvas and mixing colors while they wave away your worries at the bumping of the carriage ruining their work.

And at last, after weeks of travel that somehow only feel like three days, you arrive at Castle Dracula.

You stand before a great door, waiting for great man, while a great multitude surrounds you, all their eyes on you.

You hear steps approaching through the wood, and the very universe around you seems to hold their breath, waiting for the beginning of a path that seems new but well tread, a path that just for that endless second you feel extending behind and in front of you, strengthening and waning, with its first knot waiting at that door.

So the strong wood opens, a Count makes his greeting, and you, together with all the people next and behind you, friends new an old, step through the door.

Keanu characters + couples Halloween costumes:

John Wick:

John wants to say he doesn't do costumes. He complains, gently, saying he's too old to dress up anyways, but he can't say no to you in the end. He thinks you're funny when you suggest being a nurse since you're always patching him up all the time, but he also can't deny the image of you being a sexy nurse either. You also joke about him being a literal baba yaga and he finds that less funny. In the end, you two go as something that's actually as far from his work as possible, something simple and cute that ends up leaving John feeling happy he can have a moment of fun. Even if that is just staying in, watching cheesy horror movies, and giving out candy with you.

Kevin Lomax:

Unlike John, Kevin would totally go for the obvious with an angel/demon couples costume. He might even ask to be the angel just to throw people off, not to mention seeing you in a sexy devil's costume (especially if you're typically an innocent!reader) would really turn him on. He also likes to keep the costumes a bit higher class, so what you're wearing is not coming from the corner store or the mall. No, Kevin is buying you louboutin red bottoms to match a skin tight Alexander McQueen red dress. And, well, maybe the devil horns and tail do actually come from the mall...

Neo:

Neo doesn't want to admit how badly he loves dressing up. He likes being able to be someone else from time to time, just to get away from his typically boring on the surface life. He likely is asking you to be in 90s nerdy pop culture cosplay for Halloween, maybe even leaning onto the more goth side of media. He would take inspo from movies like: The Crow, Blade, Underworld, and maybe even end up asking you to be the Sally to his Jack.

Ted Logan:

Ted would love any outfit that he could easily pull off being stoned in. Think Shaggy and Velma (bill might even tag in as Scooby). Another great one you two cook up is Garfield and Hello Kitty, but Ted also adds that, Garfield is also, of course, stoned. There's also a possibility for you two to get into a lot of silly innuendos costumes as well, but with Ted's mind they would likely not make much sense. Possibility for you to convince Ted on a historic costume and getting him to take you back in time for period accurate clothing. Also, don't be surprised if it turns into a thrupple costume with Bill.

Evil!Ted Logan:

He would think couples costumes are stupid at first, and maybe even berate you about it (crybaby!reader watch out!). His mind would change when he sees there's slasher Halloween costumes at the mall, and he decides he and evil!bill can probably get away with more mischief if they're masked. He would probably try to talk you into being either the final girl from a slasher to reenact some fantasies, or ask you to be a sexy ver. of Ghostface or Freddy.

Constantine:

Constantine doesn't do costumes. He will likely not even end up breaking like Wick, and instead is a meanie about the whole thing. He shows up in that damned suit he always wears while you're out here in your cutest sexy girl outfit (think angel, playboy bunny, cat woman) and only ends up feeling bad about the whole thing after you storm off and cry. He apologizes the best he can, and ends up trying to make it up to you by being more social at the party, and telling your friends that he's dressed as "Vincent from Pulp Fiction" or some other character that comes to mind that wears a suit. Next year, you make him promise to actually dress up, and when you two do it's totally cheesy ones he hates but allows for you, such as Joker and Harley Quinn-esque.

Jonathan Harker:

This ones fun because you two are going to a masquerade! You get the most gorgeous gown with all the frills you please, with a gothic touch of course. Jonathan isn't usually one who dresses overboard, but tonight he has dressed to the nines for you! He looks sleek and dark, stunning in an illusive mask that for some reason has you feeling more of his dom side. Jonathan actually ends up really getting into it, and he charms you all night long as if he's almost another man entirely. The beauty of the masqurade conceals and invites freedom to be someone you're typically not, and by the end of it, you can't wait to take him home. He can keep the mask on tonight.

♰ Please send any costumes you think would work for keanuverse characters, I'd love to hear them! Especially anyone I missed ʚ♥︎ɞ

Forgive me if this was explained already and I missed it, but why is Dracula obsessed with nomming Lucy in particular? Aren't there at least a hundred other young ladies who can be eaten without throwing a wolf through the window? Are we supposed to understand this as "By chance, Dracula started feeding on a woman who is connected to Jo Harker, and is obsessed with / determined to get his way" or is there something more going on?

It isn't explained in the text, so you aren't missing anything.

So, as with most things in the book, there is a Doylist and Watsonian reading. The Doylist one is rather boring, so I'll start with that. If the Count moved on and preyed on someone else, we would have to shift to some other set of characters somewhere else in London. Which would understandably make the narrative bigger. So Stoker chooses to keep it limited.

But I really do think the Watsonian explanation is way better in this case. He won't give up because he has laid claim to someone and he refuses to be defeated or told no. She isn't particularly special to him- she's just the person who sleepwalked into the graveyard. But like with his claim on Jonathan ("this man is mine"), once he has decided to sink his teeth into someone, they become his. He'll come back to Lucy over and over because he's claimed her.

The fact that someone is clearly giving her blood and guarding her room against him means that there is a battle being fought for her soul. He knows he has adversaries. So no matter how much easier it would be to find someone else, he will not let anyone keep him from what he thinks is his. He will do whatever he has to in order to get past those guards, because that's how he proves that no one can stop his claim.

And he'll also leave her with just enough life that the people trying to thwart him have to watch her fade away, because that's how he shows that he's more powerful than them. It isn't about Lucy, it's about winning.

Do Quincey's parents know that he's not quite human? Have they talked to him about it at all? (The Talk only instead of birds and bees it's bats)

@animate-mush

Oh my gosh "The Birds, the Bees and the Bats" talk xD That stupendous

Ok, so what I've basically thought is that they more or less try to give him a normal childhood as much as possible, with his and their own Peculiarities taken into account of course.

He picks up some things of course by himself along the way, from observing (hmm, not everyone else's mother's seem to be literally able to read their thoughts more or less, and other people's fathers aren't quite as strong or fast, nor do most people's eyes seem to glow at night) and from just little bits he overhears from the wider Crew of Light family

So he puts together that Something happened and made his parents That Way (both in supernaturalness and tone of Character) and that it had something to do with Aunt Lucy and Uncle Quincey's deaths.

And of course the book has been published in universe by the time he's a child. But pretty much anyone who hasn't had some sort of supernatural experience themselves is just going to look at "Quincey Harker" and think his parents were just fans of the book and shake off any strangeness as soem sort of trick of the light. Afterall, he's a perfectly nice, very polite young man. Nothing untoward about him or his family except maybe how openly affectionate his parents are towards eachother.

But since the book does exist, he ends up reading it by about the time he's 12-13, at a friends home, and after that, he stews for a good week turning things over in his mind before he comes to his parents with A Lot of Questions but also some answers to questions he'd had.

Jonathan and Mina had wanted to wait till he's reached his majority, but now yeah they have to sit him down and give him the Birds,Bees and Bats talk.

He overall takes it pretty well, after all he has the evidence of his own eyes to back things up. He does worry a little bit about his own Peculiarities as he seems to have more then his parents (no shadow, greater eyesight then either of them at night, ect) but they assure him he's perfectly fine and so so loved. And for a long while that's all he needs.

He volunteers for the War when it comes, thinking his abilites might even be an asset to help end what surely won't be anything more than a short adventure, he's protecting England just like his parents did!

Of course things turn out very differently, both for the world and for Quincey

He didn't know that battles could be like this, that people could do things like that to eachother, that he could do Things Like That to other people, and do it again and again whenever he feels backed into a corner, sure that this time Death is surely coming for him.

But he keeps surviving. The raging thing inside him keeps him sharper, faster , living.

And he starts to wonder, if maybe it would be better if he wasn't.

Maybe it would be better if one of those bullets hit, one of those shells made its mark, and he didnt just shake it off.

Because he knows now the thing that haunted his parents, and how much they hated it. And he loves his parents so much, and he knows they love him, they're the reason he keeps trying to survive to make it home.

But he doesn't know just what he'll be at this point if he makes it home, and he doesnt want to bring That back to the doorstep of the people he loves most...

Do you every think about how Jonathan “Shakespeare lover” Harker could have proposed to Mina using a sonnet he wrote with Lucy “Shakespeare Lover” Westenra? Do you Ever think about how he could have taken her to the cemetery or graveyard where their parents could have been buried if their parents were buried in the same place and done the proposal after taking her on a date chaperoned by Mr. Hawkins who knows that Jonathan is going to propose so he leaves them alone so Jonathan can have some privacy to do it. Do you ever think about how it could have been sunset (or cloudy, about to rain when no one else but them would propose) and Jonathan starts out saying this sonnet to Mina who knows that this is going to end in the proposal and her excitement feeds Jonathan’s so he gets stronger with every verse, more assured with every quartet only to get to the couplet at the end and he falters on the last line. The line that goes like “Dear Wilhelmina, will you marry me?” But he gets stuck on the “will”. Her heart is pounding; his heart is aching. He knows that he has to say “you marry me” but he wants to say the “will” which makes it eleven syllables instead of ten thus, ruining the sonnet. But then, Mina who knows him, knows where this is going, has been waiting for this moment for so long. She sees him on his knee holding a ring given to Jonathan by Lucy for the purpose of proposing to Mina. She says “you marry me” in a feeble voice and Jonathan whispers “yes” in confirmation that that is the rest of the line, and yes he wants to marry her. Mina jumps up and practically shouts yes herself. Thus Mina is the one who technically proposes to Jonathan because she finished the question. They hug. Falling into the grass laughing like the young twenty something’s they are not knowing how this proposal is going to be tested. Does this cross anyone else’s minds?

7th of May:

The curtains and upholstery of the chairs and sofas and the hangings of my bed are of the costliest and most beautiful fabrics, and must have been of fabulous value when they were made, for they are centuries old, though in excellent order. I saw something like them in Hampton Court, but there they were worn and frayed and moth-eaten.

15th of May:

One or two small rooms near the hall were open, but there was nothing to see in them except old furniture, dusty with age and moth-eaten.

Why does one part of Dracula's castle have remarkably preserved ancient fabrics, and in another part they're damaged and moth-eaten? Some theories:

Bram Stoker wasn't really paying attention to the inconsistency. (The boring answer).

Jonathan Harker doesn't know much about fabric, as a middle-class Victorian man, so his descriptions aren't always accurate.

Dracula has carefully prepared the guest rooms but not the parts of the castle that he didn't plan on Jonathan visiting.

Dracula turns into a bat and eats all the moths in his wing of the castle, but [redacted] are either unable to turn into bats or dislike the taste of moths.

In the Great Mouse Detective version of Dracula that happens simultaneously, Dracula is a bat and eats moths. However, he is also very small, so he doesn't get as far as the other wing of the castle.

Dracula controls all the moths in his castle and steers them away from the guest suite, but he actually kind of likes the spooky moth-eaten look sometimes.

The moths are xenophobic and don't like to be in the parts of the castle where there's an Englishman.

Dracula is a keen chemical engineer and the bed hangings in Jonathan's room are undamaged because they are in fact very early synthetic fabrics that Dracula developed while bored some time in the 16th century.

The guest rooms are under some kind of Sleeping Beauty enchantment; the rest of the castle is not. Given everything else going on, Jonathan doesn't notice the enchantment, though it does affect his sleep patterns from the moment he arrives.

Fabric in Dracula's castle operates under storytelling rules, like the toons in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, where it becomes more or less damaged depending on what's spookier in any given moment.

[Update! Courtesy of @animate-mush you can now vote on your preferred interpretation here]