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Dracula Daily sketch for September 2nd.

In which Seward checks in on Lucy, and Van Helsing arrives (at last!)

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“Some birds sing

when the sun shines bright,

our praise is not for them.

But the ones who sing

in the dead of night,

we raise our cups to them”

Dracula aesthetics:

Madam Mina Murray-Harker

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One of the most surprising things in this chapter is Lucy, not her illness specifically, but her "slip up" today with Jack.

As soon as the door was closed, however, the mask fell from her face, and she sank down into a chair with a great sigh, and hid her eyes with her hand. When I saw that her high spirits had failed, I at once took advantage of her reaction to make a diagnosis. She said to me very sweetly:— 'I cannot tell you how I loathe talking about myself.'

So far in the novel, this the most curt Lucy has acted in front of... anyone really. Even with her sweet tone, Lucy immediately shuts down any attempts that Jack makes to psychoanalyze her on the spot after she finally drops "the mask" for a moment. I would dare to say that Lucy is laying an underlined warning to Jack about what she will not do if it doesn't involve Arthur's request to treat her.

Yes, Lucy really liked when Jack did the same thing while proposing by calling herself a tough nut to crack, but this time she layed both her internal and external thoughts in a dry manner she has never done before, and stood firm in her word until Jack convinced her on behalf of Arthur. Lucy's suffering is taking such toll on her that she is starting to lose, and care less about the cultivated mask she shields herself with.

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Based on/inspired by this post, here is the legendary professor himself! (And lookie, I even made him canon-compliant and clean-shaven!)

[Image and text description in Alt.]

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vote for me and ill make a five hour long book accurate dracula film. yes i will include jonathan hitting dracula in the face with a shovel

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August 1: Mr. Swales!!

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HAPPYYYYYY VAN HELSING DAY TO ALL WHO CELEBRATE :D

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Notable annotations for September 2:

First of all, I just turned the page and found this, so here y'all go:

Mid-Victorian physicians customarily avoided visual examinations of their female patients, instead examining them by touch while the patient remained fully clothed. Arthur Conan Doyle wrote a letter in 1881, discussing a patient who would not let him touch her while on the ship Mayumba: "She won't let me examine her chest. 'Young doctors take such liberties, you know, my dear'—so I have washed my hands of her."

If, however, a patient was a suspected prostitute, they had to submit to an internal examination by law. To refuse was a crime under the Contagious Diseases Act.

According to Dracula scholar Leonard Wolf, Lucy's blood should not confirm vigorous health. Wolf points out that when blood is lost, the body first regenerates plasma and other components, while red blood cells are replenished at a slower rate. As such, Lucy's blood should have been paler than healthy blood. However, the human body contains about 5 quarts of blood and can regenerate about 2 quarts per week, if necessary. So if a vampire were only to take small quantities of blood, around one to two pints, the body's regenerative abilities could eliminate symptoms of blood loss fairly quickly and thoroughly.

Seward mentions meeting Lucy at Stores tomorrow. This could be referring to Harrods Stores, Ltd., on Brompton Road, which was a social rendezvous point. However, it could also be in reference to the stores of the Army & Navy Co-operative Society Ltd., which were collectively referred to as "the Stores."

In Stoker's notes, there were three men involved in the hunt for Dracula: Cotford, a detective; Alfred Singleton, a psychic investigator; and Max Windeshoeffel, a German professor described as a philosophic historian. The amalgamation of these characters is Abraham Van Helsing.

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Gangrene Memes

in the hospital. straight up "slurpin it". and by "it", haha, well. let's justr say. My professor's blood

more beneath the cut!

BONUS ‼️‼️

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You've mentioned how rarely Van Helsing is included in the polycula, so please tell me how you think he ends up part of it.

I hope you feel better soon.

Thank you :)

One of the many great things about Dracula is that Van Helsing could end up in the polycula via literally any route.

Seward/Van Helsing is the obvious one, and this would be my headcanon (and what I did in Strange Perfections). I like the idea that Arthur and Quincey have been waiting for ages for Jack to realise that his feelings for Van Helsing are not just the typical fondness of a student for his teacher, and when he finally does, they welcome Van Helsing as an extension of their polycule with open arms. Possibly Arthur and Quincey (kindly) bully Jack into making the first move.

Jonathan/Van Helsing interests me. I would see it as a kind of safe exploration of Jonathan's trauma from his unwilling attraction to Dracula. Especially in combination with Mina/Van Helsing, driven by her desire to learn from him. I could imagine Van Helsing and the Harkers ultimately having some very hot sex. Maybe his open mind would help to reignite some of Jonathan's wide-eyed interest in the world that Dracula stole from him.

Arthur/Van Helsing is the trickiest one given their relationship is more in a father/son mould. But equally, Arthur is the most emotionally open character in the book. If he started to feel their relationship was taking a different shape, I think he would be the most proactive in doing something about it. He'd invite him over to Ring and just come out with it.

And if we're doing this during the events of the novel, then Quincey would seduce Van Helsing in laconic style. He would be like, "how about it?" and raise an eyebrow and that would be that. They'd be quietly fucking through all of October but no one would know because they wouldn't think to ask.

(impromptu ask game - send me a rarepair (and some sympathy) and I'll tell you how they got together)

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I like how Van Helsing is on standby until September but I am also wondering how he has been all while everyone else has been getting imprisoned, drained, collapsing mentally and physically and emotionally, eating birds whole, worried sick, encountering ghost ships of murder, graveyard horror... Probably a having a quiet, but oh so lonely summertime and getting ready for schools to open

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Oh I had somehow missed that Lucy had told Jack that Mina saved her at the Whitby cemetery! So he knows about Mina before he meets her.

I now checked to see if he mentions that to Mina later, and apparently he does.

"You are quite right. I did not trust you because I did not know you. But I know you now; and let me say that I should have known you long ago. I know that Lucy told you of me; she told me of you too."

I'm going to be honest, I had been planning a whole post about honesty and concealment in this entry, but I'd also misremembered the detail. Lucy keeps secrets from her mum (understandably) and everyone keeps secrets from Lucy about her mum's health (less understandably) but Lucy herself is admirably open and honest with Jack and Arthur.

It makes me wonder if it would have made much difference if everyone had just been completely open and honest at this point. Possibly not! Possibly it would have just have shocked Lucy's mother into an early grave and not helped to protect Lucy.

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I truly believe Van Helsing was going through Sad Dutch Summer prior to canon which is why he literally abandons everything to go see Jack Lucy.

I also believe Jack could have texted him LITERALLY ANYTHING, absolutely anything, even "I got a paper cut, can you look at it?" And Van Helsing would have STILL texted back while boarding the next train to London.

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I don't know if logically vampires would or would not have human mouth bacteria still, it would be a fun rabbithole to fling myself down while deciding which vampire variants go together best. But there is a solid chance that they do!

In which case it is wild to declare that a vampire biting a human deeply enough to drink a couple pints of their blood, with their fucking teeth that live in their mouth, in the middle of the fucking...street, apparently, is no more harmful than getting blood from a blood bank, because "people need" that blood.

People need all the blood! Equally! If you are an obligate sanguivore, and if the blood you need to consume to exist has to be human, then you have no choice but to take blood out of human circulation (ha) at some point in the process. Harm reduction lies in the not giving people fucking sepsis.

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this is what happened right

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told my roommate dracula was an epistolary novel because it’s made up of letters and she was like. of course it’s made of letters it’s a book