spookys-diary

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all right so here's the schedule of when dracula daily will be updated, as gleaned from the archives

please share this, it was a pain in the ass

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looks for climbing vertically down the walls of your house

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One thing that's missing from a lot of the current Dracula discourse is an understanding of how vampires actually work in the book's universe.

In most of the modern portrayals we're used to seeimg, vampires are painted as tragic or conflicted figures, that are mostly the same as how they were before being bitten: the same person, just immortal and nocturnal and periodically possessed by bloodlust. Not so in the original book, and not so for our good friend Johnathan Harker.

In the original story that we're currently hearing, vampirism is much more of a transformation, and much more closely tied to undeath and demonic sin. Not only is it brought on by death, but the reanimated corpse retains none of it's soul and it's conscience and any trace of goodness it had in life.

Most of us were delighted and amused at the Count's bizarre antics in the story's first chapters, then suddenly surprised when it took a sudden turn toward horror and apparent homoeroticism when the Count saves Johnny from his 3 blood-slorpimg girlfriends and gives them a baby to eat instead. And yes, that is the point where the nature of the threat becomes clear, but the missed purpose of the first few chapters is to set up not only how absolutely disconnected the Count is from how a normal person lives and acts, but to show how this entire demeanor as a noble gentleman or a friend or a human being is nothing but a poorly-maintained facade, and a means to an end; that end, of course, being to move away from the superstitious and well-guarded countryside, and into a quiet home in the center of London, one of the most densely populous cities in the world at that time.

And somewhere in the Count's conversation with his three fine ladies lies another hint: that love means something completely and entirely different to vampirekind than it does to us. A human does, and should, love through care, concern, goodwill and service. The count wears these things like a mask around Johnathan, but between he and his ladies the mask falls, and we see that when they say love, they mean something else: something on the spectrum between lust and dominance and hunger, and probably closer to the latter. The Count being affectionate is not necessarily a sexy or appealing or desirable occurrence in any way whatsoever at all ever.

The story hasn't suddenly turned toward horror, it has been a slow revealing, to both us and Johnathan, that he is trapped in a castle not with a man but with a THING. It wears the skin and memories of a nobleman who died long ago, likely in one of those wars it's so fond of recounting, but it is even less his friend than we are. We, and Johnathan, can be certain now that the moment he has served his civilized purpose the pretenses will drop, and the beast and its beastettes will devour him,

And England is next.

I love this story. Familiarity and memes can turn horror into comedy so easily, as we have been proving, but beneath it all, this is some damn good horror.

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I made a short post about this yesterday, but I want to discuss how the brevity of the recent entries convey the horror of the situation.

The first entries establish one thing about Jonathan Harker: He writes down every detail of his experience from the spicy chicken to the weird dreams to all the things that people say to him (even when he dismisses these things as unimportant superstition.) He is long-winded and detail oriented when he’s comfortable. Arguably because part of this exercise is to have a shorthand journal that Mina can read later, so he wants her to have the details of his trip.

Then it becomes a kind of coping strategy. As the May 12th entry establishes, he is writing down facts to ensure that he isn’t imagining his experiences. He has no one to talk to, so he confides in his journal. He takes writing down facts as a way to confirm to himself that strange things really are happening. Like winding his pocket watch, it is something to ground himself.

The brevity of the recent entries really shows that his coping has failed. He cannot reassure himself with facts, since the reality has become too supernatural and dangerous for that. 

For example, earlier he wrote down the Count’s long description of the history of the region practically word for word. In today’s (May 19th) entry he writes a quick summary of the conversation with the Count with no exact dialogue.

It is a very clever way to show that Jonathan is becoming increasingly terrified and everything he has to comfort himself is failing. Modernity cannot save him now.

In a first person way, it shows the collapse of the rational in the face of monsters - which is a central theme in Gothic literature.

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EMAIL BOOK CLUBS MASTERLIST !!!

alright, there are a lot of email book clubs now, so here's ALL of them, in one convenient list

NOTE: IF YOU FIND MORE PLEASE SEND !!! put them in the notes, my ask box, dm them to me, just notify me in SOME way and i will edit this base post so they all remain in one place

without further ado:

Dracula Daily - dracula

Whale Weekly - moby dick

Frankenstein Weekly - frankenstein

Letters from Watson - sherlock holmes

What Manner of Man - just click the link its gay vampires

Edgar Allen Poe Daily - the works of edgar allen poe

The Penny Dreadful - penny dreadful

Ovid Daily - the works of p. ovidius naso (note: these are in latin)

Werther Rewritten - the sorrows of young werther, modern-ish

The Sorrows Of Young Werther - the original of the above

Carmilla Quarterly - carmilla, just click the link its lesbian vampires

Literary Letters - lesser known public domain works

Pride and Prejudice Weekly - working title, im doing pride and prejudice now

The Woman In White Weekly - the woman in white

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dracula, absolutely fuming, slamming the door so hard that it splinters: bad roommates lose their jonathan privileges

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“I know now the span of my life” hits so much harder when it’s being read, collectively, with a group of people who will have to wait around until June 29 to see what happens and who also cannot go one single day without fretting that their friend Jonathan Harker hasn’t messaged them.

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oh jonathan we’re really in it now

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Chelsea Hodson // Saeed Jones

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Rare photos from trans history: Olympic runner and Zdeněk Koubek styles Cinda Glenn’s hair, 1936. Koubek was one of the first trans men to gain international fame after he transitioned in 1935.

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academic validation feels so hot until i actually have to study for it

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now dance fucker dance man he never had a chance

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flat fuck friday

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Cuteness overload 🌸 x

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Thinking about doing a thing on here where each month i focus on an artist, just someone who interests me, and every day of that month i analyze a painting of theirs.

Right now i have Francisco Goya and Käthe Kollwitz as artists that i would do this with. Would anyone like to see something like that?

Also im not a professional or anything, like i dont study this stuff in college or anything, i just want to know more about artists and their work.

#art #art history #art analysis #painting #sculpture #artists

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hey so uh I did the math and. what year is it

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I am fragile and need some fluff. Time to read some fixit fics