I am currently absolutely losing it listen.

I took out from the library the Spanish translation of Dracula, because what better thing to do after reading Dracula than reread it in my language. I flipped to today's note, because curious. And then I got to the Holmward line, and I died.

The OG: "[...] which we could all look back on without despair, for Godalming and Seward are both happily married."

The more natural (in Stoker's heterosexual meaning) translation: "...que ahora podemos rememorar sin desesperación, porque tanto Godalming como Seward están felizmente casados." (Empathizes each one, separately, are happily married.)

The absolute Gigachad of a translation I read: "...que ahora podemos rememorar sin desesperación, porque Godalming y Seward se han casado, y son felices." (Literally just. Art and Seward got married and are happy. There is literally no way to read this heterosexually unless you have the world's thickest Straight glasses.)

Anyway I hope translator Francisco Torres Oliver has all the bitches he wants of any gender he likes them.

Congrats to Art and Jack on their wedding

(definitely real and canon and what Bram meant)

Post-novel Holmward is helping me cope.

Tragic: BOTH Mina and Jonathan are done with having their sleep schedule interrupted by vampires (like Dracula forcing him up every night for company, Lucy's forced sleepwalk) but now they have another waking horror: a child

I actually think with Mina’s latent psychic powers that she might have a far easier time getting Quincey to bed then some other parents out there…

And they were both happily married.

(Featuring Arthur with a receding hairline and Jack with graying at the temples, because they're both in their 30s now and also because it's adorable.)

(Image description in Alt.)

Quincey Harker:

When we got home we were talking of the old time—which we could all look back on without despair, for Godalming and Seward are both happily married.

This line is really fun for obvious reasons: happily married (to each other). But also it's kinda hilarious because the sentence structure seems to suggest that if Jack and Arthur didn't get married then no one would have been able to look back on those days without despair. Everything's riding on them and their happy gay marriage.

How it started

How it’s going

dracula doodles

And they both were happily married

I'm never going to be able to work on Orice in this state. Let's talk about Jack Seward. I have so much. Soooo so much to say about him.

Warning: I am going to be looking at Jack and his motives and attitudes, and I am going to be treating him like any ol' guy that you could find in the world. I'm not gonna take "it's just a fictional story, it's not that deep". I am a writer. It is that deep. This post is critical of Jack for reasons other than the obvious fact that he abuses his patients. Don't proceed if you don't want that.

And additional warning: if you ship Lucy and Jack and are going to get mad at me that it isn't book canon, you can take it up with Bram Stoker instead. This warning will seem petty, and it is. I have been yelled at simply for engaging with canon in a way that goes against other people's headcanon, and I will not tolerate that here.

I'm thinking about men and their entitlement. I don't like the idea of the story ending with Jack and Arthur being gifted two nameless, faceless trophy wives. One can explore for themselves in writing how those two got hitched and construct developed OCs to be the wives... but the truth is that the reason why those two got married is that Bram looked at two bachelors who had no women of their own and said: "that isn't a happy ending". The idea that these two men went through this entire story fighting for women, and neither "got the girl"? That's preposterous! Hence why Bram hastily adds that the two are married seven years later. I take full advantage of the vague wording -- of the fact that it is not technically confirmed that they are married separately to two women -- because the idea that these men were just given wives because that is what is expected of men gives me a weird feeling in my stomach. Or maybe I just need to eat, but oh well--

There is also the problem of Jack's entitlement in particular.

Just look at his marriage proposal. I analyzed it back then. He comes to Lucy, telling her how much this prospective marriage will do for him, how happy he will be, how she will be fixing his life, his problems. Nothing about what he has to offer. All he has to offer is himself and, it goes without saying, his wealth... but that's a given since she doesn't have her own income nor control over her assets-- he NEEDS to be able to provide fiscally for her. That is the least he can offer. But that's all that he really brings to the table. What he talks about during his proposal is all the things Lucy has to bring to the table, all the things he expects of her, and she hasn't even said yes!! Of course, she cried, hot damn.

Lucy herself lamented how good and noble men are and that women don't deserve them! And it is because of that general attitude that Jack listed all the blessings he would reap from the marriage but never focused on how Lucy would benefit-- because it's thought that all a woman needs is a man! That women are lucky to have a man regardless of circumstances! This is why I'm so damn happy that Lucy listened to her heart and chose the man that she loved regardless of all the pressure being put on her by two others. She knows herself in a way Jack doesn't know either of them.

Do I think Jack is an awful person for this? No. But I also don't think he was proposing to Lucy for the right reasons. I'm not entirely sure he was really in love with her. I know he thought he was, but with how shortly they knew each other, I believe he saw Lucy as a pretty face with good marriage prospects. And that's exactly how Lucy sees him! Just a pretty face and a good prospective marriage candidate-- but she's not in love with him. Lucy knows that love isn't the only thing that makes a marriage, but it's still very important to her. If she can find a man she loves who loves her back AND can support her? Woo! And she did with Arthur! Meanwhile, I think Jack doesn't feel love so much as fascination. That's not a bad thing, it doesn't make him bad.

Rolling this back around to the idea of just giving him a wife in the epilogue. That's part of why there's a sour taste on my tongue thinking about it. Men feel entitled to marriage because it is one of the expectations put on them -- they need to find a woman and keep her, and she needs to be a good one. She needs to make his meals to his standards, clean up after him, provide him with children, clean up after them. She also needs to love him and express that love through the previously mentioned chores and sex. If a man doesn't have this, is he really a man? Can his life ever be happy?

Jack wasn't happy with his work. He was in a very unhealthy place, and instead of addressing the issue, he thought bringing in a woman to dote upon him would brighten the place up. Like buying a new piece of furniture to make a dilapidated house feel more homey.

I think Jack is worthy of love, but the problem is that, like most men in this patriarchal society, he believes he is entitled as a man to receive it from any woman he chooses, and I don't think he ever has that worldview shaken over the course of the story. Hell, I think he kind of had his worldview validated! The happiest he ever was in his own home was when Mina made him tea, and he could pretend for a moment that she was his wife. That's cute for a fictional character. But imagine if you were a married woman and your male friend fantasized the reason you were nice to him was because you wanted him. Not so cute.

In a post-Dracula story where Jack gets a nameless, faceless bride, I don't see him ever leaving the asylum. No, instead, he stays, and he wonders why being married hasn't cured his depression. He wonders why his wife seems unsatisfied with him constantly working and neglecting her when one of the things that attracted her was his high position. God forbid she tries to drag him away from his work-- he needs this job to feel like a man!

In a post-Dracula story where Jack has instead married Arthur (yeah, not a legal marriage, but gay couples have always had ways of being together), I see him in a better place. I see him with a man who knows and loves him, who recognizes that the esteem that the insane asylum brings Jack is not worth his unhappiness, and who can actually get through to Jack because Jack respects Arthur's opinion as a man! I see Jack finally self-reflecting and eventually rejecting his faulty belief that a woman would "fix" him.

This is a lot, Jesus.

as Dracula Daily and @re-dracula come to a close this year, I’m getting flashbacks to senior year of HS as I anticipate the phrase “Seward and Goodalming are both happily married” once more

When your husband forces you to come outside even though it’s freezing.

Okay now draw the version where Arthur regrets the life choices that led him to be sharing a bed with two people who don't understand the concept of sleep

Like no Lulu it's four in the morning we don't - Jack no, don't play with her it's - oh God now you're both amped up why is this happening to me???

Oh my goodness that’s too good xD Jack would 100% be the parent who keeps Lu up as they’re both just having too much fun!

Here’s the first pic mentioned

A couple days ago I was gripped with the sudden need to make myself sad, and I wrote this. A Blood of My Blood AU fic, set during the initial conflict between Jonathan and the others in the group, told from Arthur's point of view. CW for blood, death, limb loss, guns, and all-around bad times.

Thanks as always to @ibrithir-was-here and @animate-mush for the inspiration!

~~~

Arthur stood ten paces away from Jonathan, clutching a Winchester rifle that Quincey had given him just a few days ago. White flakes tumbled lazily down around him, like a wintry landscape from a Christmas card, a surreal backdrop to the scene that laid before him.

Quincey, Jack, and Van Helsing lay dead in the snow. Jonathan stood near them, panting, holding his bloodied Kukri knife in one hand and a pistol in the other (Quincey had given him that pistol), trained on Arthur.

Mina was dead, too, her body lying on her back dripping blood from the cut on her neck where Jack had tried to give her peace. But death meant something very different for her.

Jonathan and Arthur stared at each other, guns pointed toward each other's heads. Arthur was trembling, and desperately trying not to show that he was. It had all happened so quickly, with hardly a sound from anyone— he had had his back turned, thanking God his was not the hand to do the grisly deed, and then… 

He didn't even know if his gun was properly loaded. He didn't know if he could pull a trigger and shoot someone, even if that someone had just brutally murdered three people in front of him.

Think. Think!

Arthur had never been good at thinking. It was Quincey who took charge in tough situations (Quincey facedown in the bloody slush), Jack who stepped up in emergencies (Jack's severed hand and body falling at the same time), Van Helsing who had orchestrated plans (Van Helsing sprawled with his limbs at odd angles). Arthur did what he was told, gave money to help things along, followed and helped. He'd never had a gun to his head. He'd never had to make a call like this.

If things go sideways, we're gonna need to watch Harker, Quincey had said. Arthur had never let the thought sink into him, never considered what Quincey meant by those words. But now he had fallen into an awful nightmare, and could not wake up.

Think. Think!

Perhaps if he acted quickly, he could get in a shot, kill Jonathan and stake Mina. But more than likely, if he pulled the trigger so would Jonathan, and they would both be dead and Mina would rise a vampire, alone. And again, he didn't know what would happen if he squeezed the trigger; he might easily hear a deafening click right before his own head was blown off.

He had to try, didn't he? He had vowed to— hadn't he?

(He remembered how Jonathan had looked the day before, groggily emerging from his bedroll, his hair all mussed, saying that he was brutally selfish for sleeping in and letting Arthur stay up all night steering the steamboat.)

He didn't know what to do. He felt a sob rising in his throat and fought it back— dear God, he didn't know what to do.

He heard a soft, strangled sound from Jack's body.

Both his eyes and Jonathan's flicked toward Jack. He was unmoving, but Arthur knew the sound had come from him. He was alive. Or might be, however briefly. That knowledge shot through Arthur like a beam of light.

"Harker," he said. His voice was tight with fear, but he spoke slowly and deliberately, as if trying to soothe a frightened animal.

The murderer of his friends looked at him steadily.

In that instant, Arthur gave up everything. 

He gave up his vow to Mina, his hope for saving her from undead damnation, his last chance of revenge on Jonathan, his regard for his own life.

If there was a chance, even the tiniest chance, that he could save Jack, he would give up everything.

He hated how, even in the moment, he suddenly understood Jonathan just a tiny bit.

Slowly, shakily, Arthur lowered his gun. Jonathan's pistol remained trained on his head, but each moment passed as if in slow motion, and Jonathan did not fire. Arthur placed his gun on the ground and put his hands in the air, backing up a few paces and then lowering himself to his knees, icy in the snow. 

He never broke eye contact, staring at Jonathan in supplication. "Please let me live," Arthur said. It sounded pathetic to his own ears, cowardly. He should be rushing to his death with honor, rather than begging a murderer for mercy.

But if there was any chance, any chance at all…

Jonathan kept his pistol trained on him, unmoved.

"Please," Arthur said in a choked voice. "I— I rescind my vow." I'm sorry, Mina. I'm so, so sorry… "I won't follow you. I promise you, Harker, I will turn around and leave." His eyes instinctively moved to Jack's motionless body for a moment, willing him to be alive. "Please."

Slowly, Jonathan lowered his pistol. For an instant, his expression cracked, and Arthur saw a glimpse of the person he thought he knew underneath, a shiver of grief or horror. But when he spoke, his voice was like stone. "Lay down on your face and count to a hundred."

Arthur prostrated himself, his face pressed into the snow. He heard the sound of Jonathan sheathing his Kukri, a shuffling as he picked up Mina, and then the stamp of his boots as he walked away. Arthur counted in his head as quickly as he dared, his body aching with the need to leap up and rush to Jack and see if he really was alive or if the sound was merely a death throe.

He didn't make it to fifty before he dared to raise his head, and found that Jonathan had vanished into the swirling snow. 

He could wait no longer. He scrabbled to his hands and knees and crawled over to Jack, every nerve burning, his stomach writhing with fear.

When he touched him, Jack moaned softly.

Arthur burst into tears. He sobbed uncontrollably for only a few seconds before scrambling to action— locating Jack's doctor's bag, trying to wind a bandage around Jack's neck and the stump of his hand. He left Jack only for a moment to check the other bodies, but with them, there was no mistake. Of the three people who had attacked the Harkers, Jack was the only survivor.

Arthur found one of the horses still standing nearby, and carried Jack to it, determined to somehow tie them together and ride as hard as he could for the nearest town. 

He might've broken his promise to Mina, but he would keep his to Jonathan: he cared nothing for revenge or vampires, stopping the undead or saving the world. He had only one purpose in life now: keeping Jack alive.

If he could do that, he told himself, it would be enough.

Finally finished up my little post-canon Holmward ficlet.

I still have a couple of ideas I want to get down if I can keep up steam now that Dracula Daily and Re: Dracula are done for the year.

Heard you wanted Dracula prompts? how about: Seward suitor squad sandwich. That's it, that's what I've got. Feel free to run with it if you're so inspired.

bet.

Arthur Holmwood's Diary, Written in by Quincey P. Morris, October 14th

The sun isn't up yet, so I'll take this time to write. Journalling ain't usually my thing, but some good's gotta come outta this whole vampire mess, and I'm certainly not gonna lose this memory to time or whatever meets us in Varna. Art — if you're reading this, I hope you don't mind I nicked that journal of yours. I don't have one of my own, and I know you well enough that I'm sure you'd want a record of last night too.

The three of us have been through a lot. Probably more adventures than those folks who call themselves blood brothers. We know everything about each other. Art, I know you like to gussy up your animals when you're too worried to think straight, and I've heard that I cling to people when I'm dead asleep. So I don't know why Jack thought we didn't notice him shivering up a storm in that bunk of his. He's always the first one to feel the chill, but Lord forbid the man actually open his mouth to say something about it. Art told me it was something about medical school and blood pressure that got Jack to seal his lips? Some theory about womenfolk being more susceptible to the chill, I think. Now the man would rather let his skin go blue than admit that he needs some warm bodies by his side. But it's not like anyone in this group of ours is inclined to judge anything, and at the very least, Art and I already knew about what the doctor didn't want people to suspect. Mina was even snuggled up, happy as a clam with that husband of hers. The two of them made for such a pretty picture, and I can't think why Jack was so against being like them, all warm and comfortable-like. It's not like he would ever get mad at me though, so I went and cozied up with our darling doctor. That wasn't entirely altruistic on my part. A warm body can help stave off the cold, but the presence of a true, dear friend is more than needed to fight off that darkness that we see ahead. I told Jack as much. The man won't take handouts, but he'd do anything to help his own. He's got a heart as pure as gold beneath all that gloom; besides the professor of his, I can think of no better shepherd of the sick. He held himself stiffly for the first few moments, but soon enough he was melted to my chest like a frozen cold kitten scooped up off of the ground. Art, of course, was not one to be left out, and he was bright enough to see our doctor begin to flush and think of propriety. With the smarts of the hunter he is, he strolled over and laid himself down across our laps, all cat that got the canary like. Jack certainly wasn't going to stand up and cause our lordling to topple to the floor, so the poor lad was trapped between our affections. The darling thinks himself subtle, but both Art and I are sharp enough to notice the relieved smile that curled at the edges of his pretty lips. Even without the threat of someone standing up, Art's position was far too precarious for my liking. So I tugged the two of them back with me, arranging us all on the bed more comfortably than how we had been perching on the edge. It's sweet how Jack flushes whenever I haul him around, but I wasn't inclined to embarrass him further, so I didn't say much to that effect. The three of us have bunked in worse places than a traincar that's just a tad too cold, so we settled quickly enough into a position that's comfortable for all of us. Just as I like to cling with my dear ones in my arms, Jack likes to feel the weight of something solid on both sides of him; spending too long in the realm of the mind probably leaves him needing a reminder of what is solid and real. Art, of course, managed to take up more space than we thought possible, stretching across the two of us like he was making his claim. There was a moment of silent peace, all of us understanding each other without a word shared. But our doctor couldn't stop his buzzing brain, and soon enough he opened his mouth to speak.

"What if-"

It doesn't take the brightest mind to figure out that he was going to let himself discuss only the worst possibilities, so with all the grace that I could never muster, Art rumbled out the sweetest, laziest whine into Jack's chest. That was enough to stop that train of thought in its tracks. The claim that Art holds over our Jack's heartstrings is nothing short of impressive, but they've had decades to grow fond of each other, I suppose. Still, such an efficient shutdown of Jack's overthinking ways did tickle me, so I suppose a chuckle escaped my mouth. Again, our doctor goes red, though I suppose the rumble of my chest against his face sparked some other, better thoughts in his head. I wish he knew that he need only ask, and both Art and I would be happy to do whatever he wished to him. But this isn't time to push; perhaps after we come back from this latest adventure of ours, we'll sit our boy down to run another gauntlet of proposals.

But I'm not keen thinking too far into an uncertain future. There's no point until the evil we're hunting is cold and scattered on the wind. At some point, the warmth and comfort lulled us to sleep; I couldn't tell who went first into that land of rest, but as with all things, those of us left behind wasted no time to follow. That's where Art and Jack still are now, finally getting the rest and comfort we've all been neglecting of late. The train is still rolling along to our destination, and no matter what we face in Varna, I am happy to know that this moment will not slip into the oft-forgotten past. The two of them don't look like they will be stirring anytime soon, so I suppose I will return and join them for as long as they will have me.