Hi all! Just a general info on where this blog is at right now:

I've gone through WAY more art blogs from the previous years than I ever thought I would before I started all this. As a result, the queue consists of several hundred posts right now - many scheduled for their release dates further on in this season, and many others that have already "happened" and are just queued bc I don't want to subject you to dozens of posts at once whenever I do an art sweep. (By the sheer numbers of art posted, May is always Dracula Daily's busiest month by far!)

I expect the queued content to accompany us well into June, or even into early July. This works out pretty well, I think, because June is very sparse with entries anyway. Once things properly get going again in the novel, we'll probably be looking at pretty much only day-specific art going forwards.

The next sheet in my Doctor Who character series! Round #2 of Aliens and Monsters.

Featuring The Rani, Mechanoids, The Kandyman, The Mara, Sea Devils and Alpha Centuri.

OK. June 30th’s entry is utterly bone-chilling and I am on the edge of my fucking seat waiting to see what goes down. There’s good analyses on here already, but here’s what I’m honing in on:

First, the last paragraph breaks my whole entire heart. Jonathan has made peace (or as close as he can get to peace in his adrenaline-fueled, crazed, broken state) with death, but not just a passive death. He’s not rolling over and letting Dracula or the Brides eat him, as he’s been anticipating for the last few entries. He’s actively taking a risk, scaling the castle wall in a mad quest for freedom—he’s on an effective suicide mission. And he’s down with it. He’s down to die, as long as it’s by his own hand and not by the supernatural inhabitants of Castle Dracula. As the trolley problem illustrates, the mental shift from letting someone die to making someone die is significant—and Jonathan makes that shift today, climbing down those walls, potentially making himself die versus letting himself die. He is broken beyond repair. He is thinking about life and death in a completely novel way. The crux of his current mental state seems to be on preserving his humanity…

…and isn’t that so interesting, because Jonathan is the most monstrous we’ve seen him yet. He’s scuttling over the damn castle walls like nobody’s business. (Like Dracula.) He tried to bludgeon Dracula to death, and ended up drawing lots of blood. (Like Dracula.) He’a going through Drac’s shit and taking his gold (like Drac did to Jonathan’s own belongings, especially his papers.) The parallels. The utter corruption of our kindhearted friend in the face of this terrible situation, the detail in which we’re shown how even the kindest of heart can succumb to terrible things by way of circumstance…

Jonathan certainly has some humanity left (particularly evident in how he bids Mina farewell again and again like it’s a prayer; she’s his one source of comfort in this harrowing circumstance)… but even that, to me, seems to somewhat parallel Dracula’s relationship with his brides. Dracula obviously cares for his brides, jokes with them, wants to satisfy their hunger for English lawyer meat, etc; the way he interacts with his brides is different from the much more candidly loving relationship between Jonathan and Mina, of course, but I think it’s intentional that the monster’s one humanizing trait (his apparent care for his brides) is mirrored in our protagonist as well.

Oh, the humanity (or monstrosity?) of it all.

June 24

…What to say? What can I say?

I am so sorry, Jonathan. I know it’s hard, and the things happening to you are horrible, but I also know how capable and strong of a person you are.

Your friend,

Bram

Some people have been making the joke about the characters of Dracula being stuck in a time loop but honestly it got me thinking about how epistolary novels feel like a potent manifestation of the concept of being doomed by the narrative

Because when I read a non-epistolary book, I’m not left with this sense that it’s all going to reset because the events of the book aren’t happening according to a very specific timeline. Like, sure, maybe specific dates get mentioned in the book, but it’s not as rigid as having a diary or letters with exact dates laid out over the course of six months.

Because Dracula has a definitive start date and end date, the characters are fixed in time and being (sometimes literally) railroaded. Your sense of the passage time is very concrete and there’s not a ton of wiggle room. Like, a book such as…idk, The Great Gatsby that doesn’t have any dates in it (IIRC) feels timeless. Sure, maybe it takes place in spring and summer, but you can kind of lose track of that because there isn’t a calendar keeping you aware of the date. Gatsby has to die within a certain window of time in the year but you’re free to imagine that as being whenever you want.

Not so in Dracula. Jonathan HAS to be on his way to Castle Dracula on May 3 and 4, he HAS to be there until at least late June. He cannot be already at the castle on May 2, and he can’t leave until after a particular date has come and gone. Every event in the book has to happen on or about the date it’s written about, there’s no room for deviation. We are free to imagine what might happen between specific dates (especially in the long stretches with no updates) but ultimately it all has to conclude in a specific event happening on a specific date.

That really lends the book the sense of being a time loop because we can pin down a pretty much exact timeline of the book. We know that these characters are locked in, and on the dates of the novel they cannot meaningfully deviate from the text. And because of that, they’re doomed to live those events out on the same exact date every single year for all time.

It adds the same layer of dread/grief/futility that you might feel when playing a game and reading in-universe diaries/news stories/etc from the early days of the game’s apocalypse. You can’t change the events of the past no matter how much hindsight you have, and none of us can change the canon events of Dracula no matter how much foresight we have. Jonathan is always going to be on his way to Dracula on May 3, and he’s always going to be completely unaware of what’s waiting for him.

LGBT+ Victorians

Since it's Pride Month and Dracula Daily is going to be pretty quiet for most of June, I thought it might be good timing for a little 1890s queer history. Plus I wanted to give a bit more fuel to everyone's queer headcanons for Dracula characters!

Popping this under a cut because it's long.

The start of queer identity This is a massive generalisation, but for most of British history, being queer was about action and not about identity. The idea that people who wanted to have gay sex belonged to a specific group that was different to other people didn't exist for the most part, at least not at a societal level. (This was also true - more generalisation - for much of the western world. It was very much not true for large swathes of the rest of the world who thought about this in entirely different and varied ways).

By the second half of the 19th century, that was starting to change. People like Karl Heinrich Ulrichs in Germany (on the left), and John Addington Symonds (middle) and Edward Carpenter (right) in the UK started to think of themselves as homosexuals - Ulrichs coined the term "Urning" which became "Uranian" in English. This period marked the beginning of organised campaigning for LGBT rights in the UK, though specific campaigning for lesbian and trans rights came later.

This means that in the 1890s setting of Dracula, any characters might think of themselves as "Uranian" or "Sapphic", or they might not yet have picked up that way of thinking. At a guess I'd expect Seward or van Helsing to be particularly aware of the new theory around homosexuality.

LGBT rights in law It was a mixed time for the legal position of LGBT people. The death penalty for sodomy was abolished in 1861 in England, Wales and Ireland (1889 in Scotland), and replaced with minimum 10 years hard labour. In 1871, two amab people, Boulton and Park, were tried for dressing as women, but the judge ruled that this was not an offence under English law (though he also said that he thought it should be).

On the left: Fanny Park and Stella Boulton; on the right, the Illustrated Police News' depiction of their arrest.

And in 1885, the Criminal Law Amendment Act reduced the minimum sentence for gross indecency from 10 years' hard labour to two.

That said, before that act was introduced, there had to be a witness to any sodomy or gross indecency for it to be prosecuted. The Criminal Law Amendment Act changed that, so all private acts, arguably even love letters, could be prosecuted. So despite the reduction in sentences, this change to the law made life harder for queer men in the 1880s and 1890s. From a Dracula perspective, this means that people would be much more careful about what they wrote down - significant for a novel made up of documents.

Lesbian sex has never been illegal in the UK. (The idea that this was because Queen Victoria didn't believe in lesbianism is a myth). But in the 18th century there were a series of prosecutions of afab people who lived as men and married women. They were prosecuted for fraud when their birth sex was discovered, because they were perceived as having defrauded their wives. There were far fewer such prosecutions in the 19th century, possibly because of the belief that it was better not to create the publicity of a trial.

Victorian WLW There are HEAPS of notable Victorian lesbians and bisexual women, including a lot in the suffragette movement. So I've chosen a few examples based on there being good images on Wikipedia.

From left to right:

Margaret Benson and Janet (Nettie) Gourlay were Egyptologists who met at the excavation of the Precinct of Mut. Almost all of Benson's family preferred same-sex relationships.

Louisa Baring, Lady Ashburton, was briefly married to a man, but when she was widowed, began a 25-year relationship with American sculptor Harriet Hosmer. Harriet described herself as Louisa's "hubby".

Matilda Hays was a mixed-race writer and actress who had a relationship with American actress Charlotte Cushman, with whom she's pictured. Hays aimed to use her writing to improve the condition of women.

Victorian MLM Again, I've chosen people to highlight through the very representative method of good photos.

From left to right:

Edward Carpenter was a socialist, poet, philosopher and early gay rights activist who met his partner George Merrill on a train. The two men came from very different backgrounds: Carpenter from privilege, and Merrill from the Sheffield slums. Their 40-year relationship inspired the ending of EM Forster's novel Maurice.

Charles Ricketts and Charles Haslewood Shannon were artists who met as teenagers and lived together for more than 50 years. In the Times' obituary for Ricketts in 1931, their relationship was described as being "as remarkable as any of the great historic friendships, or the finest Darby and Joan examples of wedded felicity".

Ned Warren and John Marshall were art collectors who together were largely responsible for the Roman and Greek Art Collection of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Marshall married Warren's cousin, Mary Bliss, but only on the condition that the marriage would not be consummated. All three lived together until they died and were buried in the same tomb.

Trans Victorians I wrote last year about Dr James Barry, a Victorian trans man, in the context of whether Jack Seward could be trans. (The post is from October, but spoiler free).

Eliza Edwards was an actress who died in 1833 at the age of 24. Her body was autopsied, and discovered to be - in the words of the autopsy - "a perfect man", which had apparently not been known to any of her friends or colleagues.

Harry Stokes was a bricklayer in Manchester, who was outed as trans in newspaper articles during his divorce 1838 and again after his death in 1859. He became something of a figure of fun after being first outed, but met another woman who lived with him as his life, and was broadly accepted by the local community as a trans man.

It was only through chance that James, Eliza and Harry were outed (and in James Barry's case, despite considerable efforts on his part). There might well have been hundreds or thousands more people like them.

And Boulton and Park, who I mentioned above, have usually been treated as transvestite men by historians, but could equally - had they had the terms themselves - be identified as trans women. Some contemporary newspaper articles even used she/her pronouns for them.

Asexual Victorians Asexuality is tricky to spot in history, though even in 1896, German sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld was identifying it as a distinct phenomenon. What we do know is that more than 10% of women and a little under 10% of men in the 1890s never married, and in some cases that may well have been because they were asexual or aromantic.

From a Dracula perspective, family rumour held that Florence Stoker declined sex with her husband after the birth of their child. That may or may not have been true (and there's a ring of aphobia to some of the family's claims) but it shows how asexual people might also be found in apparently conventional marriages.

Sources British Library: A Short History of LGBT Rights in the UK British Library: A timeline of LGBT communities in the UK Girlfriends of Dorothy: A Timeline of Lesbian Rights UK 1601 - 2020s (note: the site intends to be trans-inclusive, but genders John Barry as female.) Open University: Lesbianism and the criminal law of England and Wales “Constant Companions” and “Intimate Friends”: The Lives and Careers of Maggie Benson and Nettie Gourlay Sapphic sexuality: lesbian myth and reality in art and sculpture British Library: Transgender identities in the past Warp and Weft: The extraordinary life of Harry Stokes British Academy: Happy Families? Coitus Interruptus: Sex, Bram Stoker, and Dracula 'Missing person' Florence Stoker added to DIB

Today’s entry is one of many that really drives home why I can never quite bring myself to get into softer ‘uwu he’s just misunderstood and sexy-liberating’ versions of Dracula. Just. I can’t. I really really can’t.

Up to this point, he’s already had a monstrous moment in bringing the ladies their first on-screen kids meal crying and squirming in its sack. He’s had outright predatory back-to-back moments in imprisoning, coercing, robbing, and getting increasingly threatening and handsy with Jonathan. This, capped with the fact that he plans to kill/drink/gift him to the Undead Girl Gang by the end of June.

‘But what about his, “I too can love,” huh? He’s just loving as best a monster can! He could be tearing everyone around him to ribbons for annoying him, Brides and Jonathan included! Instead he goes out of his way to feed the ladies, albeit gruesomely, and has no retort when they laugh at and insult the lonely old bat. And he isn’t planning to kill Jonathan. He wants to keep him! Sure, it’s a sick version of it, but to him conscripting and collecting Jonathan rather than executing him outright is the height of affection! Surely that’s grounds for some of the more ~romantic~ takes in warped gothic flavor?’

To an extent, yeah. 

But he also just dressed up in Jonathan’s stolen clothes to cover up for the man’s own abduction, imprisonment, and undeadifying, while also increasing the odds of Jonathan already getting mistaken for a vampire, bringing home another child for the ladies to devour, and then ordered a pack of wolves to eat a grieving mother alive for making noise at his gate.

And this? This is just the tip of the iceberg for how downright hellish he gets as the novel progresses. 

Dracula can absolutely be a nuanced character within canon, offshoots, retellings, re-imaginings, and so on. And he should be! He’s a very interesting bastard who’s got so much more going on than a few one-liners and a taste for good cloaks and yummy company. But his actual actions in the book--even the smallest ones--just automatically torpedo 90% of my audience enjoyment when I run into yet another ‘Oh, but he did it all because he was in love!/misunderstood!/depressed!/unfairly maligned by the eeevil human Victorian characters in their journals and newsprint and body count records!’ version of the Count. 

Even sillier takes that try to heroify him for kids like Hotel Transylvania just kind of make my brain trip and fall into a pit of ??? 

‘Look kids, Dracula is really a nice guy and a sweet dad who runs a fun little hotel for his misunderstood Universal Horror monster buddies! Isn’t he neat?’

It leaves me biting my tongue and holding this mental grimace as I think about the sacks full of weeping children, the slaughtered mother, a young man imprisoned for making the mistake of endearing himself so much to a sadistic monster that the latter has decided to keep him as a tortured toy and undead pseudo-slave for eternity, with an entire blood buffet of human cattle still waiting to fill out the rest of the novel with trauma, horror, and death. 

‘Ohhh, but look at Francis’ tragique sweetheart version who stole all his redeeming qualities from Jonathan Harker! Ohhh, but look at the funny silly Adam Sandler cartoon and his new everyman-settling daughter! Ohhh, but look at how #cool and modern-sexyedgy an antihero/villain he is when penned by every projecting director and their grandmother! Lighten up, it’s just a different interpretation!*’

*Of the character whose whole deal is psychological torture, being a predatory creep, casual murder, and worse-than-murder of innocents.

I know it skews me towards being a whiny purist. I know. Let folks have fun. I know. But still, it feels so wrong every time I see someone try to ‘awww, he’s not so bad!’-ify him in new media when. No. He is exactly that bad and probably worse. If he’s not, then that’s not fucking Dracula.

tl;dr: Can people just make some new fun/sexy/antihero vampires instead of stapling Dracula’s name on all of them? Can Dracula just be an interesting villainous monster again?? Please??? (Please save me Renfield 2023 and The Last Voyage of the Demeter, you’re my only ho--)

About all the touching between Dracula and Jonathan... it all culimates on June 30, doesn't it. In case you want to talk about the climax of that saga

It seems there's now two instances.

The heavily implied feeding in Jonathan's room/bed. In his Old Man form, Dracula doesn't turn into mist or bat, so one way or another, he had to touch Jonathan to feed on him.

Jonathan again touching Dracula in his room/"bed". Pretty much immediately after. But this time he emphasizes how very repulsed he's feeling at the contact. "I shuddered as I bent over to touch him, and every sense in me revolted at the contact". Last time he had searched his body he didn't feel this way, but now he sees him as fully monstrous.

But also there's a potential different mirroring contact... Dracula's teeth on Jonathan's skin, Jonathan's shovel on Dracula's skin.

I've actually been meaning to make a post about this for ages. (Obviously. It's been months now.) And I think the final consideration has to include 25 June as well. Because that is when the reversals start to majorly kick in, and those reversals are a huge aspect of any touches going forward.

First, Jonathan's act of climbing the walls like Dracula proceeds right on the heels of Dracula first acting like Jonathan by wearing his clothes. And similarly to how Jonathan was unable to act while Dracula killed a child, Dracula becomes unable to act while Jonathan searches him for the key. I mentioned all of this in more detail in the post I linked above, so I won't rehash it all. But there's another comparison too: Jonathan bending over Dracula in his 'bed' while he is unconscious is a mirror at that time of when Dracula returned him to his own bed (16 May). Jonathan tried to search Dracula's clothes for the key, while Dracula undressed Jonathan. The first time Jonathan is touching Dracula instead, it's a reversal/echo in a lot of ways.

And that's relevant too for this final instance, culminating the castle's progression of invasive touch. While it's possible Dracula put a hand on Jonathan's shoulder or something while walking him back to his room on 29 June, if so it's another unmentioned touch. But, while I could absolutely see that happening, that particular scene might almost be worse if it doesn't have any touch at all, because then we bring back a horrible anticipation (fearful, on Jonathan's part; eager, on Dracula's) which is reflected in Jonathan hearing that he is 'Dracula's' tonight and praying while he waits to see what will happen.

Then we get to 30 June. We hear nothing at all about Dracula biting Jonathan, though I am convinced it did happen. And yes, he would be doing so in his human/old man form. Jonathan moves from the floor to his bed, so there's a strong chance that particular scene repeated itself once more... either before or after Dracula bit him. For reversal/mirroring purposes, I suspect that Dracula hypnotized Jonathan and helped/ordered him to bed first before biting him in his bed. And we don't know exactly what went down. We don't know how Jonathan felt about it. But I think it is likely a fairly direct contrast to the shovel scene... meaning, I think just as Jonathan emphasizes disgust in the morning, while being bitten I suspect there was at least some degree of pleasure. Similar to the "languorous ecstasy" with which he waited for the vampire ladies to bite him on 16 May. Of course, it would be mingled with disgust and fear, but if Dracula had control of his mind enough to ensure he didn't remember anything in the morning, then it's possible those emotions would have been somewhat suppressed or muted.

In the morning, while free of the direct hypnotic influence of a vampire feeding, Jonathan still is unable to remember what happened to him. And yet, as you said, he is absolutely repulsed by having to touch Dracula. Maybe this reflects a sense-memory even if he can't consciously recall what's been done to him. And he hates having to touch him... yet at the same time, he feels a "wild desire" to search for the key at any cost, and when he can't find it, a "terrible desire" to destroy Dracula. The only other time Jonathan uses that word in the castle is when he's describing his "burning desire" to be 'kissed' by the vampire ladies. Dracula says it several times though. Jonathan's desire to touch Dracula, first to take the key (which previously I've compared to Dracula wanting to bite Jonathan) and then to harm him when he can't find it, I think is indicative of another sort of reversal going on with Dracula's own desire/touching him to bite him that night. At the very least, even if you ascribe no relevance to that wording, Jonathan's shovel attack absolutely still echoes Dracula biting him. They both loom over the other one and pierce their skin/draw blood. The anticipation/building invasiveness is over with a final act of violence.

And while Dracula succeeds in biting Jonathan, he fails to turn him (technically the vampire ladies are the ones who don't do that, but I tend to assume it's something he wanted/ordered based on his line about hoping to see Jonathan in the castle again). Jonathan fails to find the key or kill Dracula, but does succeed in harming Dracula and escaping. Both strike a blow here but it's not quite the final one they wanted to happen.

So in the end, the touching culminates there with Jonathan echoing Dracula's touches, just as he did the other times he touched Dracula. But, and I think this is also really significant... while Dracula does far more touching overall, the whole saga concludes with Jonathan making the final touch. The reversal is completed. The dynamic at the beginning, where Dracula invaded Jonathan's space more and more while Jonathan was unable to stop him, is switched around. Jonathan is the one hunting Dracula, and he's the one who has to escape. If Dracula wanted to have Jonathan become a vampire, become a predator, then in a way it has come true here... except Jonathan is only interested in hunting Dracula himself. And since they both got out of the castle alive, that may become relevant later.

Weekend links, May 26, 2024

My posts

My neck is fucked up in some inexplicable way (silent migraine?) and I have been trying everything I can think of. It’s a little better, but the strain persists. 

I am hoping everything in this post is coherent and spelled correctly, but it’s a gamble at this point. I only just caught "Spiders George."

Reblogs of interest

U.S. Justice Department seeks breakup of Live Nation-Ticketmaster through major antitrust suit

Google’s AI Overview results, “the new Lies Your Older Cousin Tells You machine” that uses headlines from The Onion to answer your most pressing questions, are a menace and they’re going to get someone killed. Here’s the magic code to get rid of it.

The Hot Vintage Lady Semifinals are Hedy Lamarr vs Diahann Carroll and Rita Moreno vs Eartha Kitt. “But what about--?” They were already knocked out several polls ago. “But--” Them too. Check out the (very lighthearted) Dracula fantasy cast polls while you’re there.

Tolkien imitators never actually understood Lord of the Rings

If your Willy Wonka isn’t at least partly horror villain, you may not have understood Willy Wonka

A handy guide for finding (tagged) posts on Tumblr

Terms of Service, Didn’t Read, a helpful website/browser add-on

News you can use: Paranormal experts say there may be a portal in an English forest letting in werewolves. 

The last time I saw the Dark Grocery Store on my dash, someone had it tagged “chilla’s art coded,” iirc, and I watch so many game playthroughs that I laughed a little too hard at that.

Something else I laughed at harder than I should have: “Soulsborne bitches will be like omg they brought back Lactus the Intolerant” in the middle of a post about Glup Shitto, Bumbo Wexler and friends.

This cat pole is awful. Let me love it.

If Godzilla fits, Godzilla sits.

Video

PBS Great Performances’ Shakespeare in the Park streaming schedule for May and June (with Danai Gurira as Richard III, even), free to watch.

Considering how much you’re able to see of Frog and their paintbrush, I’m still not entirely sure how India Rose Crawford makes these videos. Also, that amigurumi frog is a better artist than I am. 

The sacred texts

Will any of you motherfuckers ever help Blade fight the vampires

Spiders Georg broke containment and ended up in... Business Insider.

Heart eyes, motherfucker

Personal tag of the week

Some really interesting posts on my jewelry tag, including an emerald ring.

How I would try to Adapt “Dracula”

Hello, resident Film student that is about to graduate here and I have been through the deep-dive of the Dracula by Bram Stoker waters. Suffice to say, I feel in love and was very disappointed that the cultural osmosis of adaptations that I grew up around to understand Dracula does not even come close to the masterpiece that I found within the original story. It’s Jonathan and Mina, by the way. Their relationship is the masterpiece of this story. Go away very problematic themes, stereotypes, and ideas, I will not let you take this relationship away from me.

Seriously, how was it possible for me to ship a Victorian couple so hard? Why do we not have this in more adaptations?! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU HOLLYWOOD?!

…AHEM! Once again, I am sorry to my followers for another fixation has caught my attention. At least this is something I could probably put in a portfolio…

Moving back to my idea, I should make a point that I am a storyboard artist so my idea generally falls to making it into an Adult Cartoon Series. Something along the lines of the Legend of Vox Machina — because I really like that art style and it feels like it fits best with my plot.

Speaking of which, let me get into the plot! Strap in newcomers because I am a bit of a storyteller when it comes to explaining my whacky ideas, if you didn’t already figured that.

DARKY’S DRACULA ADAPTATION, GO!

The setting of my adaptation takes place relatively the same time period. In fact, things are largely the same as the beginning of the novel; Jonathan travels to the Count’s castle, he notices the strong ongoing, he has that horrible encounter with the Vampire Ladies, Dracula does who know what to him, he even has his refined taste for paprika!

You might ask yourself: “Well, how is your adaptation any different from the book?” Well, that’s easy, my good friends. Because Jonathan manages to kill Dracula that day on June 30th, where he successfully decapitates the monster that’s been tormenting him.

It all sounds well and good, right? That means no one to torment Lucy and she can have her big day with Arthur. Mina will be safe, no children get bitten. It sounds wonderful…

…But Jonathan can’t get out of the castle. He remains there, trapped, with the Vampire Ladies and a presence that won’t go away.

Months go by and Mina receives a letter, one from her missing fiancé. He is still in Romania working with the Count, but he would like for Mina to come by and look at the land. Thinking how it would be a wonderful place for a honeymoon.

Mina is confused by the contents of the letter, but it is her proof that her fiancé is alive. And now she has a location of his whereabouts.

With a sadden goodbye to Lucy due to the fact that she will miss her wedding, Mina heads to Transylvania in order to find Jonathan.

But when she arrives at the Castle, welcomed by the Three Women, Mina realizes what horrors had plagued Jonathan and now it will soon come to her.

And that’s the outline of the Pilot I had in my head. Do I think it’s possible for Jonathan to decapitate Dracula with the shovel? Probably not, but it needs to in order for this adaptation to work. And before anyone says, yes, this Adaptation is pretty much Mina Murray going all Resident Evil 7 on Dracula’s castle.

She deserves to have her rage moments. Also, she really wants to get married. If it means she has to storm a castle, then she will do that!

Some other facts that I wanted to include:

Lucy gets more of an active role in the story. She’s been poorly adapted for so long, I wanted to give her something more. She’s the Galinda to Mina’s Elphaba. You bet she’s going to lead a search party that involves her husband, their two best friends, and the silly Professor that was interested in the location in order to find her two childhood friends.

Also, yeah. Lucy and Arthur got married. I’m going to give these two a chance to be happy before things go wrong when they arrive at the castle.

The Vampire Sisters get a chance to be main villains for the first half of the show. Yes, I called them Sisters instead of Brides cause I read that two of the three look like Dracula and I’m just going to leave it at that. Also, I think the Blonde one is their mom? I’m not a hundred percent sure. It’s an adaptation. They’re getting more screen time and depth, is what I’m trying to say!

Mina has a gun, watch out.

Dracula still has a role in this story. That I can include.

I know I likened the plot to Resident Evil 7 so I ‘m just gonna go ahead and say this; Mina will not loose any of her hands.

Expect a lot of Jonmina moments, flashbacks and when they reunite included.

So, one of my Many hobbies is letterboxing (geocaching but with homemade rubber stamps). I love going out to the nearby parks and finding people's art hidden away in stumps and under bridges - it's also a great way to get some much needed fresh air an exercise. (If you're interested I recommend going to atlasquest.com, they have all the info you could ever want there.)

However. I am an overachiever. And chronically online.

So I carved twelve stamps to make a walking loop. Why twelve? One for each month, of course!

Now, I've seen a holiday stamp series before. August: Clown Week! November: Thanksgiving! December: Christmas! But I thought hey. What if I made. Tumblr holidays instead?

THE HOLIDAY LIST:

January 8th: Spiders Georg Day February: (okay we don't have one of those yet, so I chose a weekly one instead) It Is Wednesday, My Dudes March 15th: The Ides of March April 13th: Neil Banging Out the Tunes Day May 3rd: Dracula Daily June 22nd: Summerween July 11th-13th: Dashcon August 21st: Goncharov (original post day) September 8th: The Queen is Dead October 3rd: It's October 3rd November 5th: Guy Fawkes-Putin-Destiel-Election Day December: (all month) Gavlebocken Arson

I've made the stamps and put them in their boxes, but I was wondering if anyone would want to see them before I hide them? Since 99.9% of the people here won't be able to in person? I can also link their Atlas Quest page when I'm done so y'all can see my Beautiful holiday descriptions lol.

Photos 3 & 4 by Henry Diltz.

A look at Peter in 1967, through the lens of Flip, Tiger Beat’s Monkee Spectacular, and Teen Screen:

“He has this magnificently low voice and sounds about ten years older than any of the others. But sometimes, he acts about ten years younger than any of the others. He is not ‘zany’ however. Just kind of childish at times. He forgets that he is an ‘adult.’ I think that all adults do occasionally, because of the tension, and he certainly is under stress as much or more than other people. [...] He lives for other people, [to] talk with them and to be with them. He knows everyone in the world. Like when he goes to clubs and things, he spends most of his time talking to friends, instead of watching what’s going on. ‘Well, I just can’t ignore my friends,’ he says, but what he doesn’t say is that anyone he’s ever been introduced to his friend! You know how some people can always find something to say, like I never can. Well, Pete’s one of those. It’s not just ‘How’s the weather?’ or ‘Is it hot enough for you?’ And he remembers things. Once I was with him when this guy he knew very casually in the Village came up to him, and Pete not only came up with his name, but where he lived and who was at his house when Pete went to his party. (I expect him to say which songs they sang, too, but he could only remember a couple!) He has the proverbial shoulder to cry on. I don’t know why, but you just feel like pouring your heart out to him. Maybe it’s that warm smile. I mean, no offense intended, but he’s never come up with a fantastic solution to anything. He just pats you on the back and smiles and tells you that ’sometimes a disaster clears things up.’ And he’s right. He loves to tell jokes. And he’s very unhappy when you don’t get the point. His mouth does this great reverse smile, like a clown’s frown. He’s very serious about music, however. He won’t be content until they do something really special — ‘I want us to make a contribution to the music world, like all the big groups have.’
He reminds me of a cocker spaniel puppy, ya know what I mean? He’s so eager to please and excited when people are around. Then suddenly he’ll fall into a sulk or just a quiet mood and lay down his hands clenched under his chin. He’s the type of person that you worry about a lot and yet you don’t. That’s as clear as mud. I mean, you know he’ll be all right in the end, but you’re not too sure about the middle. Now it’s just dusty, huh? He tends to be gullible — a sob story will get him every time, but he manages to wise up. He’s the ‘flower child’ of the quartet — hip to love, peace, beauty and all that (not that the others are in favor of hate, war and ugliness, but you see what I mean). This ties in with his complete trust of his fellow man. He says, ‘If everyone trusted everyone else, then 99% of the people would live up to that trust. All kinds of crime and cruelty would be eliminated. No one would be saying, Well, I always knew he was a bad sort. Everyone would just expect you to do the right thing and you would.’” - Tracy Thomas, Flip, September 1967

“When he talks, Peter likes to sit cross-legged. This doesn’t have anything to do with meditating or yoga, it’s just that he likes to sit cross-legged. His piercing brown eyes focus intently on the person he’s speaking to. This is a quality Peter radiates… one of making others feel totally involved. He’s there all the time and you can feel him.” - Ann Moses (presumably), Monkee Spectacular, June 1968

“My first meeting on the set was with Peter, who is a nice, easy-going and friendly guy. I noticed that whenever Peter had a little time to himself between takes he would pick up his guitar and play for his own enjoyment and relaxation. In the show [‘Monstrous Monkee Mash’], Dracula decides that Peter had the perfect brain for the Frankenstein Monster. One that would be easy to control — but I found Peter in complete control of his brain. My own impression was that Peter is a self-made young man who is enjoying his success. And I felt he dressed not to please others but to please his own individual tastes.” - Ron Masak, Teen Screen, November 1967

Audiodrama Sunday 6/2/2024

Happy Pride Month! Audiodramas are overwhelmingly queer anyways, almost everything I listened to this week, by total coincidence, had queer characters in it. Unrelated, I've decided to start doing new show alerts, and putting them at the top of these posts, to try to spread the word about new shows I check out.

NEW SHOW ALERT Hamuel Burger and the American Dream was created by @asbestos4president for the @podcast-bookclub Podcast Jam. The show, which currently only has 1 episode, has the insane premise of an alien twitch streamer who has come to earth to kill the president. This show was so funny. I laughed out loud multiple times. I really want a full season of this show.

NEW SHOW ALERT The pilot episode of Bitcherton, an improvised Jane Austin parody podcast, came out this week. I love the cast for this show, it already looks like its going to be really fun. The occasional modern day references ("I think he was just a misogynist") had me rolling. Their Kickstarter for a full season starts June 13th, check out the pilot episode before then!

I listened to parts 1 and 2 of the Last Breath miniseries of Skyjacks Couriers Call. The description of the whole town, and the Leviathan refinery in particular, was insane. Excited to listen to the last part when I have time.

I caught partially up with @breakerwhiskey. Holy shit, an actual other person who is alive and doesn't want to kill Whiskey. I sure hope nothing bad happens to them! Things do seem to be looking up for Whiskey, I expect something to go wrong soon.

@midnightburgr released part 2 of Welcome to the Horizon! I love Verge so much, they're such a great character. I desperately wanted to hear that conversation between Verge, Frank and June that was implied to happen right after the episode ended. Hopefully its in the next one. I bet this miniseries will lead to Verge going off to find the diner to reunite with Leif, and I can't wait for that.

@midstpodcast had a hell of an action scene in the first half of this week's episode. I loved the nature corner. This show keeps doing this thing where I'm already blown away by the episode then look at the runtime and there's still 20 minutes left.

Mission Rejected this week has me wondering how many episodes until Chet Philips is the president of the United States of America. The Speaker of the House is 3rd in line for the presidency, he's not far off. As far as the actual plot of the episode, I have fond memories of watching Murder She Wrote with my grandparents so I loved this episode. Of course she figured out they were spies. Also I love how this show changes the bumper music for themed episode to match the theme.

@re-dracula Jonathan had a good idea to try to send letters through intermediaries, but it wasn't clever enough. Dracula is actually starting to be intimidating to me, rather than charmingly weird as he was in the earlier episodes. Dracula also knows that Jonathan uses shorthand code now, which can't be good.

Dear Liisphyra this week had a really funny intro bit. Also, the idea of a Genie who is just really annoyed with the people who find his lamp is great. He's not going to curse them or anything, he just wants them to go away so he can go back inside. I keep thinking I should write a letter in to this show, they have an email address in the description, but I need an idea first.

In Spout Lore this week Vyng's dice really told a story. I feel like Vyng is usually so competent in combat, and consistently rolling badly vs the pigs was so different. Speaking of the pigs, I love the aesthetic of "post-apocalyptic farmingpunk". I've never seen anything like this before, and I don't know how else to describe it. It's a post-apocalyptic wasteland, but its of halfling farmers, so they have scarecrow disguises and beets carved into skulls.

I started a new job this week, which theoretically means I have less podcast time, but I still listened to so much this week. I'm ready for getting through more of my backlog next week!

I just went back and reread Mina’s very first entry, her letter to Lucy on May 9, and in it she writes,

I have just had a few hurried lines from Jonathan from Transylvania. He is well, and will be returning in about a week.

Which REALLY sheds a new light on two things: 1) the fact that even while he was rushing, Jonathan sent a full paragraph of text to her, and 2) the fact that Mina was expecting Jonathan to be home by mid- to late May, and hasn’t seen or even heard from him in damn near 3 months at this point.

(Note on that last point: there seems to be some discrepancies in the text here? Jonathan writes two letters on May 12, one to Mr Hawkins and one to Mina, but it doesn’t seem like Mina, at least, ever gets this one, and it isn’t the one that gets burned later because Jonathan specifically discusses writing that one. The single line Mina gets seems to be one of the three written on May 19, specifically the one dated June 19, and from what I’m seeing in her journal thus far there’s no mention of her receiving a letter explaining he’d be staying another month; in fact, on July 26 she actively says she hadn’t heard from him in some time. It doesn’t seem likely that Mr Hawkins would receive correspondence and then not tell her, so either those letters were never sent or Stoker forgot to account for them, lol.)

But I digress. Her mention of him sending “a few hurried lines” in May is a stark contrast to the single line she received yesterday, and we can see exactly why she immediately sensed something was wrong—again, even when Jonathan was in transit and had a pressing need to be on time, he still found time to write more than a single sentence to her mentioning that he was doing well and giving an update on his ETA. One would assume that, if he’s sending this newer letter while still at Castle Dracula and not yet actively traveling, he’d have plenty of time to write something longer and more descriptive, even if he’s not waxing poetic.

And on top of that, she hasn’t heard from him at all in 3 months!!! Oh my god! Imagine if you were making plans to see your friend or partner next week, and then they totally dropped off the face of the earth without warning, and then three months later they texted you sounding completely different from how they normally do and offering absolutely no explanation for their absence. You’d be freaked out too! You’d have probably been freaked out much sooner than that! You’d probably assume they were missing or fucking dead!

I understand that travel and communication took more time back then (especially if we agree with Stoker’s portrayal of Eastern Europe as less technologically advanced) and one couldn’t always promptly inform about delays, but we have telegrams and trains at this point, and it’s not like Jonathan’s in the middle of the ocean (haha!). It’s entirely reasonable that he might be delayed a week or two or even three, but one might expect that if he was going to be delayed THREE MONTHS long, he’d have sent word much sooner. If Jonathan could send a letter from within Transylvania that got to Mina within a week or so of his arrival, and if she could reasonably expect him to be home in a week from her May 9 letter, AND if she could consider it noteworthy not to have news of him within a day of his single line…then it doesn’t make sense to me that it’d be reasonable to anyone for him not to communicate this long of a delay.

Which makes it SO interesting that Mina’s downplaying her own uneasiness about him, because it mirrors Jonathan trying to rationalize everything he’s experiencing in the castle. She has a plethora of reasons to be completely panicked by now, and it seems she’s suppressing that panic by pretending like she doesn’t know why she’s feeling uneasy. The line from Jonathan should’ve been comforting, it’s finally news of him after all this time…but it’s jarringly out of character. I think on some level Mina knows that something isn’t adding up, she knows that there’s red flags everywhere, but she has no proof and no way of finding out, there’s no real reason for her to think that anything is wrong. It’s the kind of suppression you might do when you’re desperately trying not to have a panic attack about a situation you have no control over.

Once again, reading Dracula this way really makes for a richer experience because in the book, her May 9 letter and her journal entry on July 26 are much closer together and you could easily read both of them in one sitting. But when it’s spread out the way it is, you can go back and be slapped with realizations like this.

"it is maddening to think that of all the foul things that lurk in this hateful place the Count is the least dreadful to me; that to him alone I can look for safety, even though this be only whilst I can serve his purpose."

The above passage is from May 16 after the vampire women tried to drink his blood, as he realized. Today on May 19 Jonathan writes three letters to be sent home (to Mr Hawkins) on various days of June, the final one being for June 29, the end of his life.

The thing I expected was for Jonathan to wonder why he's being kept alive after today/May 19th. Dracula is, as Jonathan said, his safety "whilst I can serve his purpose". But what is his purpose? Dracula had all his real estate papers signed on the 12th (when he ordered Jonathan to stay extra and that he'll take no refusal). He is actually fluent in English. Now, a steady stream of letters will be sent to Exeter throughout June, pretending that Jonathan's returning home.

Dracula can just kill him now, or just give him to the vampire women. No one would know. I'm sure he wants Jonathan first, claiming him and claiming the lion's share, but not now when he has months yet to leave. Then once, as Dracula said, he's "done with him" maybe he'll leave the rest to the other vampires.

But I wonder why Jonathan isn't wondering why he's being kept alive until the end of June. I suppose a Doylist reason is to not give the possible answer away yet, Watsonian being him fearing to speculate without answers?

Yeah, I've wondered this myself in the past. I think for me it comes down to a combination of several factors, since there really is no single quote that points to a specific reason Jonathan seems so convinced.

Before I get into those, I do want to mention that it is possible there is still some business to be done. It's a popular interpretation that they finish the last of that all on May 12, and it does make sense with the timeline. I personally believe it. But technically, I don't think Jonathan ever mentions them signing the final papers. He says he answers all of Dracula's questions, but that could be just referring to the ones in that conversation: "When he had satisfied himself on these points of which he had spoken, and I had verified all as well as I could by the books available, he suddenly stood up and said:—" ...and then Dracula brings up him staying. Again, the interpretation that they finish all their work in that conversation is totally valid/likely. But if someone really wanted to argue that there is still some amount of actual legal work to be done, I don't believe canon says anything outright to the contrary.

That's not really my take though. Here are the reasons I think Jonathan believes he will survive until the end of June, in no particular order:

What Dracula said on May 16. He heard the Count drive the other vampires back with the words:

"Well, now I promise you that when I am done with him you shall kiss him at your will. Now go! go! I must awaken him, for there is work to be done."

Now, in the moment, Dracula's line about having work to do seems most likely to be a fib just to get them to go. 'I'm busy, scram,' essentially. But he is very clear that he isn't done with Jonathan yet. (Though the fib about being busy itself could suggest that he might keep Jonathan alive and away from them longer than he himself needed/wanted to, just as a taunt/power play against these vampire ladies. But that's less relevant since he clearly does seem to want him still.) As you point out, Jonathan notes it himself, that he will be able to look to Dracula for safety so long as he serves his purpose. The fact that Dracula comes back within a couple of days to get him to write these specifically dated letters I think suggests to him that he is likely to stand at least a chance of serving that purpose until those dates. At least, it seems that way given...

Jonathan knows Dracula by now. He can probably tell just how much Dracula really enjoys him, and that said enjoyment is in many ways what's keeping him alive. Probably at least to some degree in a sense of enjoying his company, and that is somewhat relevant since he can play on that to stay interesting even when he's not outright useful/needed. But also, importantly, Dracula's particular brand of sadism comes into play here. He loves his mind games and multilayered conversations. He's been making jokes about his own undead/supernatural status basically as long as Jonathan has known him. He enjoys manipulating Jonathan. He enjoys giving him orders and warnings and then watching to see if he will obey or not. Jonathan has disobeyed significantly twice already, by trying to get into all the locked rooms and by sleeping outside of his room. And while he was discovering locked doors early on just while going about his business, he made no move nor seemed to have any particular designs/likelihood to sleep outside his room until Dracula brought it up first. Maybe you could argue that he's been looking more tired/likely to nap about as this nocturnal existence becomes more telling on him, but still there was no real build-up at all to the warning. Which is just one of the many reasons I read it as intentional bait.

So, knowing how Dracula likes to throw out these sorts of hints, I think it reasonable for Jonathan to think he will live that long. It would be just like him to use these letters to subtly tell Jonathan: no one will know where to look for you when you go missing, I could kill you long before with no consequences, but why would I if you play along and please me? ...so play. along.

There's also the fact that Jonathan may know when Dracula plans to leave. Now I certainly don't think he knows his exact itinerary or anything. Probably not even the date he expects to go, and just how closely it lines up with Jonathan's final false letter. But it seems entirely reasonable to me for the topic to have come up during all their work talk. There's a very good chance Jonathan knows that Dracula is planning on leaving for England in a month or two, or even just "around midsummer", etc. And if he does, I think he could add that in with the previous two points I mentioned to reach the conclusion that Dracula intends to keep him around until about when he himself is going to leave. (With the caveat, always, that Jonathan must make himself interesting/nonthreatening enough that he doesn't get bored before then.)

But finally, all those things aside... Jonathan has a tendency to fixate on things. In doing so he can miss other possibilities. And I think the encounter with the vampire ladies served to, somewhat despite himself, dismiss a lot of his fear of immediate danger from Dracula himself. He's aware that he is playing a long game under threat of being thrown the vampire ladies early, and kind of gets blinders to the fact that Dracula himself might physically harm him before then. This really reaches its height near the end of his stay with his seeming obliviousness to the possibility of Dracula biting him even when the guy outright says the "tonight is mine" line. And while I think he does get bitten and just doesn't remember it because that's often what can happen when a vampire entrances/bites you, his not recognizing the possibility beforehand is something that has made several people cry censorship (on a Watsonian level from Jonathan or Mina, and on a Doylist level from Stoker because he knew it wouldn't be accepted). But I think it can be attributed to a combination of Jonathan getting fixated on the ultimate threat (the women) and also on some level recognizing that if Dracula was going to give him to them after he was through, then he'd likely survive whatever Dracula planned for him anyway, so it wasn't as necessary to focus on. (Some of his single-mindedness definitely reads as more calculated at times.)

All this to say, Jonathan may just be overlooking the possibility that Dracula isn't planning to keep him around that long. That or he may be aware of the idea but is dismissing it without mention because it's totally unhelpful to dwell on. He has to approach the situation the same way regardless, fawning to please Dracula while looking for a chance at some other way out. He's stalling for time no matter what, so why not assume he has the most time it seems reasonable to hope for, at least in order to keep himself from completely breaking down and giving up before then. For some semblance of morale if nothing else. He's definitely not going to live past then, but maybe, maybe, until then.

I miss Jonathan Harker and who knows when he'll come back from the war so I've compiled a list of his funniest, most iconic lines

May 3rd- "I had for dinner, or rather supper, a chicken done up some way with red pepper, which was very good but thirsty. (Mem., get recipe for Mina.) I asked the waiter, and he said it was called "paprika hendl,""

"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."

May 5th- "so I quietly got my polyglot dictionary from my bag and looked them out. I must say they were not cheering to me, for amongst them were "Ordog"—Satan, "pokol"—hell, "stregoica"—witch, "vrolok" and "vlkoslak"—both of which mean the same thing, one being Slovak and the other Servian for something that is either were-wolf or vampire. (Mem., I must ask the Count about these superstitions)" Okay look I think the overlooked thing in this passage is that he had a polyglot dictionary to begin with and was just quietly flipping through it in the background.

Was this a customary incident in the life of a solicitor's clerk sent out to explain the purchase of a London estate to a foreigner? Solicitor's clerk! Mina would not like that. Solicitor—for just before leaving London I got word that my examination was successful; and I am now a full-blown solicitor! This is in my opinion the best and funniest thing Jonathan has ever said not only the first sentence which is in itself perfection but the fact that when recounting this freaky fucking wolf infested carriage ride to Dracula's haunted castle he does a full stop to ponder his new promotion and Mina's opinions on it.

May 8th- 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.

It was by this time close on morning, and we went to bed. (Mem., this diary seems horribly like the beginning of the "Arabian Nights," for everything has to break off at cockcrow—or like the ghost of Hamlet's father. So true bestie, you really do forget how poetical and rambling he used to be before the trauma set in

May 12th- I saw the fingers and toes grasp the corners of the stones, worn clear of the mortar by the stress of years, and by thus using every projection and inequality move downwards with considerable speed, just as a lizard moves along a wall. 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... ->May 15th- Once more have I seen the Count go out in his lizard fashion. -> June 29th- As he went down the wall, lizard fashion, I wished I had a gun or some lethal weapon, that I might destroy him

May 15th- Here I am, sitting at a little oak table where in old times possibly some fair lady sat to pen, with much thought and many blushes, her ill-spelt love-letter, and writing in my diary in shorthand all that has happened since I closed it last. It is nineteenth century up-to-date with a vengeance. And yet, unless my senses deceive me, the old centuries had, and have, powers of their own which mere "modernity" cannot kill. Bestie you are literally a prisoner in Dracula's castle and you think you're gonna die here

May 16th- "Up to now I never quite knew what Shakespeare meant when he made Hamlet say:—"My tablets! quick, my tablets 'Tis meet that I put it down," etc.," This is why he's my boy I too would immediately quote Hamlet in a major crisis

May 19- "I am surely in the toils."

June 24th- What shall I do? what can I do? How can I escape from this dreadful thing of night and gloom and fear? We would all like to know

June 25th- No man knows till he has suffered from the night how sweet and how dear to his heart and eye the morning can be." Not funny but I feel strongly about highlighting the resilience of Jonathan Harker at all times