sykes

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now that I know Seward would refer to Renfield as "the fly-man" in the original manuscript I can't stop thinking about it

did he do that in conversation with other people

like, everyone can hear Seward doing the phonograph, right? That's how Renfield knows personal details of his life? So Renfield is just fully aware that his doctor calls him "the fly-man"?

[sykes]

Note that since Dracula's lawyers sent the receipt that they have begun moving the 50 boxes of earth (and one of which is heading to Carfax by the lunatic asylum), that means that Dracula has left Whitby since August 17 in one of those boxes.

This is why Lucy did not wake up the night before, and Mina is happy that Lucy is now feeling so much better and her cheeks are rosy again. She has no idea that the cause of Lucy's paleness and weakness has removed himself.

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Stop constantly writing post-Dracula novels about how the Harkers cheat on each other and divorce and Seward turns into Jack the Ripper and everyone but Dracula was the Real Monster Actually and start writing ones where Jonathan reunites with the crucifix lady and the coachman and they dine together with Mina and their little boy.

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i just finished dracula.

mina harker is the best goddamn character who was absolutely nerfed by future theater and film adaptations

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Unbothered

(via)

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德化白瓷 Déhuà báicí/dehua white porcelain

Dehua County, located in Quanzhou, Fujian, China, is renowned for its white porcelain.

Its kilns flourished during the Tang (618-907 CE) and Song dynasties(960–1279 CE), peaked in the Yuan and Ming periods, and remain famous today, particularly for their white porcelain. Fired at high temperatures, the unglazed porcelain exhibits a smooth, jade-like texture, appearing crystal-clear and pure white.

Dehua white porcelain is renowned for its "high-toughness thin-bodied高韧薄胎瓷衣" technique, a breakthrough in ceramic craftsmanship that achieves exceptional strength in ultra-thin structures. This technology enables the creation of porcelain pieces with egg-shell thinness (0.2–0.5 mm) while maintaining remarkable durability, making it a hallmark of Dehua's artistry. However, not every piece of Dehua white porcelain employs this technique, as it involves significantly higher production costs.

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Renfield, after devoting himself to the guy that drains people indiscriminately: What the fuck do you mean he's draining Mina

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Mina, August 14

"I saw her asleep, and went out for a little stroll myself; I walked along the cliffs to the westward, and was full of sweet sadness, for I was thinking of Jonathan."

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Khaled Marwan | The Muse

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twitter people are normal about fiction as usual while defending the caitvi kinktober mods with tooth and nail

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This fantastic poster for Dracula: 2004 was designed by Victor Jackson ( @vict-torn )

Love vampires? Love 90s and 2000s classics like The Mummy and Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Then you're going to love Dracula: 2004, a Y2K audio drama that takes Bram Stoker's famous gothic novel Dracula and works in some emo magic. Whether you like the sound of killing vampires to the tune of Toxic, hot nonbinary cowboys or train nerds with MySpace accounts, we've got you covered.

Dracula: 2004 will premiere in October 2025. Don't miss it - subscribe to our feed today wherever you get your podcasts, or find us here on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3msxjvfz8953auKyn9BEmi?si=BwsqC1KhRJCzwU4THh36nQ

Care to take a bite? 🦇

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Do you have any insights on your design and pallette for Mina? I didn't know (before reading the comment and tag) that it was her when I first saw your art of her and my first thought was 'this one has intelligent eyes'. Which suits her (esp since her eyes are called "bright" a lot and Jonathan once calls them "like polar stars") and her character ofc

Thank you! I am quite happy with my Mina design; as always, character's vague designs often just flash into my head naturally, and I tweak out the details when I get to it. My synesthesia also helps with that, as color palettes are the first thing that come to mind. Despite that, I think my methods of character design can be applied by everyone.

For Mina, I imagined light brown hair and blue eyes; it's a pretty combination of cool colors, which is a palette I think suits Mina's more intellectual personality, with blue often being associated with wisdom, calm, imagination and such. Her dress being blue and purple also works into this, and it also gives her a "noble" touch while being realistically available for her to wear, as a cool blue has always been available to the lower classes.

For her facial features, I worked off shape language: sharp and rectangular, for a face that shows stability, smoothness and dedication. Her face is a bit square, shorter than Jonathan's, with prominent yet smooth cheekbones. Her Greek longer nose also plays into that shape language. Her eyes look shrewd as they're both square and a bit slanted inwards, which gives a sharper look. (It's important to note that this is not the only way to make a character look intellectual; it is all about balance and what surrounds the design. Downturned eyes can also look very intelligent, while giving a more reposed and composed look). Her eyes are bright and blue, which makes them pop out a lot and show how she's not afraid to be seen either despite the other more modest attributes of her design.

I would like to add, it's important to do your best and not incorporate biases that perpetuate racist or xenophobic stereotypes, as it's ingrained within our culture (ie, how witches are often depicted as having a long, hooked nose, or darker skin and hair being used for brash characters).

As for her hair, I styled it into a modest bun, to show how she prioritizes practicality and keeps her hair out of her face, while also keeping it feminine, clean and socially acceptable. However, it would also not really be within the current trend of that year, and that's intentional, as it would show she doesn't really care for trends and values her own tastes more, even if they make her look a bit "dated". The parted bangs show a face that's uncovered and revealed, offering lines without interruption, which goes back into the shape language of elegance and smoothness. The volume of it also works into the blocky shape language, while the rounded edges of it (and her face) also make her appear soft and kind.

All in all, the vibes I was aiming for with her are intelligence, personality, elegance, and sturdiness, while maintaining the kindness inherent to her character.

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Favorite scene of today's entry is Mina screaming Lucy's names with such fright that she not only alerted Dracula of her presence, but also made him bolt out of the churchyard.

We don't know why the Count decided to escape like that since, as we have seen in the Demeter, he has no qualms in murdering the people who discover him. Yet, somehow Mina screaming to get Lucy had him escape. The most likely explanation is that Dracula doesn't want any human witnesses now that he already escaped the eyes of Whitby, and Mina seeing him feed on Lucy the very first time he is not transformed into an animal will put another target on his back.

However, I do like to think that the old asshole saw another thing before coming with the most logical explanation, maybe his studied in the dark arts have made him aware of all of the spectres that lurk in the shadows besides himself. So, Mina in her nightgown, hair loose but wild, and with a scream of pure desesperation for Lucy could probably scare Dracula at first into believing for even a single second that he is not the only supernatural being on hallowed ground.

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Amazing rebuttal, I wish it could copypasted online to every bad Frankenstein take on tumblr and on goodreads and on jstor and on twitter and on every adaptor and-

Also it made me crave a similar peer-reviewed rebuttal to every bad Mina Harker take from 70s papers to Nosferatu (2024) online reviews. Because wdym she does nothing since she gets assaulted and it's the narrative "punishing her for being proactive" did you all collectively straight up not read a word and skipped to the end or are you just simply copying each other hello

People love to complain. It’s Enlightenment mentality imo, “we need to seem so much smarter than these Ignorant romantic and Victorian writers so we’re just gonna grab any vague stereotype about people from that era and stick it on top of the text”. Victorians are sexist and repressed, so NO female character from ANY novel could POSSIBLY be presented in a positive way even if literally everything in the text points towards her being presented in a positive way. Romantics are whiny yappers, so NO romantic protagonist could EVER have a valid reason to be upset in ANY situation.

The Mina thing irritates me specifically. The whole ‘angel in the house’ analysis and things like that, like you said, acknowledging her proactivity ONLY to make some completely ridiculous claim that the narrative punishes her for it and then portraying her as some kind of tradwife when she… literally crafts the narrative itself together and it’s BLATANTLY obvious to anyone who actually read the book that the men who patronise her are punished via Mina’s assault and Mina herself is treated as completely justified in everything she does? But nah, she’s a horrible representation of a woman because she, uhm, lemme check my notes… likes her husband and is Christian. Yep. Okay. Except for when these genius analytical masterminds decide she actually DOESN’T like her husband, she totally wants to fuck Dracula because. Uhm. She totally wanted it when she got metaphorically raped, because hashtag Victorian sexual repression. Yeah. But we’re so much more feminist than Bram Stoker, guys!!!

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jsyk I almost didn't see the chapter update because it was buried under a whole bunch of (long) posts. Perhaps it's best to post/reblog it after a series of reblogs, not before? idk if you have a separate writing blog or such but something to keep in mind

Yeah, I'm trying to be better about that :( Most folks who read Harker should already have the alert popping up in their emails per the freebie subscription, but I can't really throw stones considering I also let my emails pile up to a worrying degree

Only thing I can do otherwise is spam the update a bunch, which also feels like I'm clogging everyone's dash <:/

But while I'm here waving my tiny Look At My Wares flag:

The link to the latest Harker chapter is here

Full Harker collection is here

And extra extra reminder that becoming a free Patreon subscriber to my stuff still gets you all the Harker content! For f r e e !

Monthly paying subscribers just get a bonus short story. (This month's is extra insidious >:} )

And my Ko-Fi is still here if you want some art to drop me a little donation!

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I've been struggling to draw lately, tried to wrench out of it with a Jonathan