Our Irish princess Katie today in Ireland 🇮🇪

Vía twitter/X -@lilith157

society if vampire lucy survived as the mirror to dracula with her 3 weed smoking vampiric boyfriends

✨commissions open ✨

"For a moment or two I could see nothing, as the shadow of a cloud obscured St. Mary’s Church and all around it. Then as the cloud passed I could see the ruins of the abbey coming into view; and as the edge of a narrow band of light as sharp as a sword-cut moved along, the church and the churchyard became gradually visible. Whatever my expectation was, it was not disappointed, for there, on our favourite seat, the silver light of the moon struck a half-reclining figure, snowy white."

Mina and Lucy in the kirkyard at Whitby, August 11th.

Mina: Jonathan should be back in a week!

all of us:

something something the symmetry of horror and seeing yourself in the abyss reflected

We’re so used to the sexual reading of the entire book of Dracula, which takes the sensuality of the early chapters and jams everything that follows it into the same metaphor no matter how poorly it fits, but I feel the segment we’re approaching works much better with a lens of chronic illness and disease.

Vampire legends are inextricably intertwined with disease. Many of them are said to have been birthed by burying victims of disease too soon, who later seem to rise from the dead. But what’s more is that Stoker and his family have deep-seated trauma over disease: his mother had to flee her hometown at the age of 14 because of a horrific cholera epidemic, and Stoker himself was bedridden as a child from an illness that no one could identify.

Found this quote from Irish Historian Mary McGarry:

Bram as an adult asked his mother to write down her memories of the epidemic for him, and he supplemented this using his own historic research of Sligo’s epidemic. Scratching beneath the surface (of this essay), I found parallels with Dracula. [For instance,] Charlotte says cholera enters port towns having traveled by ship, and can travel overland as a mist—just like Dracula, who infects people with his unknown contagion.

I bring this up because a lot of academic analysis insists that Lucy sleepwalking is proof of her being the Slutty Woman archetype that needs to be punished. This suggested symbolism is hilarious when put next to the text saying she inherited it from her father, but I’d like to suggest a different angle from the lens of disease suggested earlier:

Lucy’s sleepwalking is a condition that predates Dracula but makes her an easy target for him to prey on. Through the lens of disease symbolism, she now is someone with chronic illness or disability who is especially vulnerable to infectious disease. This becomes a cross-section of Stoker’s trauma regarding disease: his own mystery illness and his mother fleeing a plague.

To wind down my rambles with a bit of a soapbox, I feel this adds a very poignant layer to the struggle to keep Lucy alive. The COVID pandemic showed a horrifying level of casual ableism vs disabled and immunodeficient individuals, shrugging off their vulnerability and even their deaths with “well COVID only kills them.” There’s something deeply gratifying at seeing the way everyone around Lucy fights to the bitter end to protect her and refuses to just give her up to Dracula, whether it’s Mina physically chasing him away or the suitor squad pouring their blood into her veins or Van Helsing desperately searching for cures. The vulnerable deserve no less than this. They’re not acceptable casualties.

Dracula outside the Westenra estate

BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA costumes appreciation: ― Lucy Westenra’s lace dress (costume design by Eiko Ishioka)

reading Dracula has permanently altered my brain. i can never see count dracula as a generic character anymore. he isn't an ooky spooky horror monster he's the old bitch that imprisoned my boy johnny in his shitass castle and killed my beloved lucy and quincey. abraham van helsing isn't synonymous with badass monster hunters he's a 50-year-old dutch doctor who talks funny. i see things and think oh wow this is just like my favorite characters from my book that was written 126 years ago.

look from selkie's "lucy" collection .

Bloofer lady!!! >:D

I would absolutely kill for a Dracula adaptation that really delves into the tragedy of manners aspect of it, the way that everyone is so worried about maintaining exactly the right face to the right people and how that makes so much of their situation worse. Everything from Jonathan trapped in the bonds of hospitality to the situation with Lucy's mother to a hundred instances of just not wanting to worry anyone. Like, give me a Dracula miniseries shot like it's Jane Austen.

You could do a whole college essay about how one of Van Helsing's strengths is in the way he disrupts social norms, even though he isn't immune to them.

Credit to everyone who talked about this last year, I definitely didn't come up with it, but it's been living in my head rent-free since last fall and we're watching it amp up again and oh how it hurts.

the scene with the 3 wives is very funny when you remember jonathan was faking it the entire time

May 11

While our friend Jonathan is doscovering horror tropes, our dear Lucy is living her best rom-com life, for now...

Why do you write like you're running out of time?

Had this idea all the way back at the end of last year's Dracula season, and since it's upon us again, decided to draw it! (tagged for spoilers for first time readers)

(slightly altered) lyrics from: "Non-Stop", Hamilton

commission info

Boy I sure am excited for my good friend Jonathan to begin his trip! What a fantastic business opportunity for him :) I'm sure nothing terrible will happen. Also I'm sure his lovely fiancée Mina will miss him terribly, but she will be having a lovely time with her good friend Lucy, and nothing untoward or scary will happen to them either :))))