#dracula september 17

[another-chaotic-bisexual-vampire]

if a filmmaker ever makes a book-accurate adaptation of Dracula, the only right way to dramatize the night of September 17 is to cross-cut between Lucy's experience and Mina's experience - like so:

Mr. Hawkins, raising a glass in toast to Jonathan & Mina: My dears, I want to drink your health and prosperity; and may every blessing attend you both. Lucy: *waking with a start, dazed, in pain, bloodied, finding her room smashed-in and her maids come in screaming* Mr. Hawkins: I know you both from children, and have, with love and pride, seen you grow up. Lucy: *her maids lift her dead mother off of her, lay her on the bed, cover her with a sheet, and Lucy lays flowers on her mother's chest* Mr. Hawkins: Now I want you to make your home here with me. Lucy: *hearing THUD THUD THUD outside her room, going out, finding all her maids on the floor unconscious beside a decanter of sherry, calling out but hearing only her echo down the halls* Mr. Hawkins: I have left to me neither chick nor child; all are gone, and in my will I have left you everything. Lucy: *wandering her empty manor in tears, calling for help, hearing only low growls, returning to her dead mother's side, shaking with fear and weakness as she looks for pen and paper* Mina: *bursting into tears of joy, kissing Jonathan, shaking hands with Mr. Hawkins, and excusing herself* Both Mina and Lucy: *in their rooms writing, looking out their windows at the same night sky, thinking about each other, and hoping they're both okay*

#thinking about this made me cry so now you need to cry too #sorry not sorry #dracula daily #re: dracula #dracula #dracula september 17 #september 17 #dd september 17 #dracula text post #dracula fic #dracula thoughts

[lukeskqwalker]

"He is beginning to put some flesh on his bones again, but he was terribly weakened by the long illness; even now he sometimes starts out of his sleep in a sudden way and awakes all trembling until I can coax him back to his usual placidity."

-Letter from Mina Harker to Lucy Westenra, unopened.

#Jonathan harker #Mina harker #dracula #dracula daily #September 17 #hi. I just am emo ok. #my art #never thought I'd be making dracula fanart. but. well. #Jonathan having legit ptsd got to me

[thegoatsongs]

I believe that Jonathan actually sensed Dracula among the large, busy Picaddily crowd. And it may be because Jonathan got marked and drunk on by Dracula.

Jonathan sensed him stalking a new victim, but not the other way around. Dracula was too focused on his new target (something that Jonathan also does when he has a set goal) to notice him staring, or Mina (whom Dracula saw often at Whitby).

I also think that this isn't the first time Jonathan has sensed Dracula.

On August 11 night, Dracula attacks Lucy (and he sees Mina, and Mina him) for the first time.

On August 12, Jonathan has now broken his six-week delirium-induced silence, has remembered where "home" is (he couldn't remember where it was since he had arrived in Kalusenberg weeks ago), and sends word to Mina from the Budapest hospital.

And now Jonathan, who only saw Dracula as an old man, and right at the end as a middle-aged man, recognizes the young-looking Count instantly.

He looks several decades younger, dressed differently in a London outfit, but Jonathan still has no doubt. It's him. The man himself.

And he's targeting a new person because of Jonathan's visit. Like when he had stolen Jonathan's clothes. "If only I knew..."

#Also on September 17 #Lucy is attacked for a final night. Mina reports that day that Jonathan even now at times wakes up at night violently trembling #full of vague fear until she can calm him down. We don't know for how many nights this has happened #but we know that Lucy got bitten at least ten times. Those night terrors of Jonathan's could be from his trauma #but why not both #like how his “brain fever” could be both from his trauma and Dracula's bite. #dracula daily #jonathan harker #dracula #theory #mina harker

[thethirdromana]

I love you with all the moods and tenses of the verb -

I love you I loved you I will love you

I had loved you I have loved you I will have loved you

I would love you I would have loved you

I should love you

I do love you I did love you

#dracula daily #september 17

[bacchanal333]

Saddest nine words in the English language

#dracula daily #september 17 #lucy westenra #mina harker #how could this happen to our lucy #lucy my darling I'm so sorry

[ashleybenlove]

“Jonathan asks me to send his 'respectful duty,' but I do not think that is good enough from the junior partner of the important firm Hawkins & Harker; and so, as you love me, and he loves me, and I love you with all the moods and tenses of the verb, I send you simply his 'love' instead.”

Jonathan is all prim and proper about Lucy and Mina is like, fuck that, I say he sends his love.

#ashleybenlove posts #Dracula #Dracula Daily #September 17

[yousaytomato]

The parallels today in Dracula are absolute delicious, and painful.

In today's entries there's Seward and Lucy's unwilling loss of blood. Lucy's lone singing nightingale, Mina's chattering rooks. Van Helsing's late telegram, Mina's unopened letter... Jonathan's unsent letter's -

The Lucy and Jonathan parallels are what I find most heartbreaking, and they really serve to illustrate how easily and quickly things could have gotten so much worse for our boy Jonathan.

In her second diary entry, Lucy is feeling so alone, so hopeless, crying out in fear for Arthur in her letter, which she hides on her body - so sure it will be her last. She's "alone with the dead," knowing that someone (or something) is in the house with her, but unable to leave because of the howling wolves. Using what she believes to be her last ounce of energy to write and explain.

We also learn that Jonathan is recovering, but he too awakes suddenly "all trembling." The difference is, Mina is there to help and protect him, as she was with Lucy in Whitby. And Mina loves them both "with all the moods and tenses of the verb" but she simply cannot be in two places at once, and the toppling dominoes of terrible coincidence have put Lucy in unknowable danger...

#dracula daily #im missing a conclusion here but i just wanted to get some thoughts down #Dracula daily September 17 #very sleepy and ill hope this makes sense #woes of emily

[arbitrarity]

me, opening my Dracula daily email and seeing that the first line says it's from Lucy:

oh thank goodness she's still okay

me, reading the subsequent entries:

#September 17 #Dracula #Dracula daily #arbitrarity talks

[lifelinebooks]

17 september

Letter unopened by Lucy Westenra

The way my heart DROPPED 😭

#dracula #dracula daily #re: dracula #dd 17 september

[fake-name-fake-tits]

I cannot begin to describe the depths of my despair at things somehow becoming even worse for my dear Lucy

Brb crying

#bram you bettter lie in your grave with one eye open #dracula daily spoilers #re: dracula #dracula daily #lucy westenra #mina murray #september 17 #jack seward #van helsing

[another-chaotic-bisexual-vampire]

Mina: Letter unopened by Lucy Westenra

#like you didn’t have punch us right in the feels like that re: dracula but you did and how dare you Good Job #dracula daily #dracula #re: dracula #lucy westenra #mina harker #dd september 17 #september 17 #dracula september 17 #dracula memes

[nightmaere-eyes]

Me: Ugh this is taking so LONG when is Dracula Daily coming BACK

September 17

Me: NOT LIKE THAT

#dracula daily #september 17 #fuck #dammit

[diavorchid]

'Memorandum'

Is.. is Lucy really dead. For real. I'm. I'm... I'm so numb I can't even--

Van Helsing reassuring Lucy that Jack would be there, but both the fact that he was attacked earlier today and VH's telegram arriving late almost a day later...

Lucy experiencing the worst night before her demise, watching his mother dying in front of her after just the short relief of her mother's wont soft words and comfort in her mother's arms... for everything to be destroyed in an instant...

The dreadful feeling we're reading Mina's letter, having one of the best time in her and Jonathan's life, being busy, yet excited for Lucy's wedding et al... unknowingly writing it down on the day her best friend and loved one died... for us to know that the letter will never be read by the intended party, and the next Mina will hear about Lucy is from someone else's words....

We're gonna see everyone's breakdown soon huh....

I am breaking someone pls end me

#dracula daily #dd sept 17 #september 17 #lucy westenra #mina harker #jack seward #abraham van helsing #my post

[ifwebefriends]

“(Unopened by her.)”

#I am bereaved #i am not prepared #Dracula daily #re Dracula #re: dracula #September 17 #lucy westenra #Mina harker

[ourgoodfriendjonathan]

I don't even know what to post about today. I'm just going to process my thoughts and feelings here

The head of a giant wolf burst through Lucy's bedroom window

It killed her mother. She made a gurgling sound and took Lucy's garlic flowers, her only protection (!), as a last power move to doom her daughter

Jack was attacked with a knife

All the dogs in the whole neighborhood were howling

What was that ringing bell?

The maids were all asleep because somebody spiked the wine with laudanum? Why??

They screamed as they flocked out of the room and mere minutes (seconds?) later, they were knocked out. I picture them on the floor and comically sprawled out over the chairs and the table. I wonder if lucy heard flops and booms of them toppling over.

Renfield was licking up the blood

Jack was still weakened from the blood transfusion, and now even more. The poor lad can't catch a break

Oh god how will he react to Lucy's memorandum 😳

“I did wish that Dr. Seward was in the next room— as Dr. Van Helsing said he would be — so that I might have called him.” 😭 i wish that too lucy, and jack too

The telegram arrived too late whyyyy that is so

That is so

The vibe change omygod, to mina. I sooo wanted to hear from mina but not like this!! I wanted to be happy about her and now i almost feel resentful that she didn't "run op to town" even though she's completely innocent here.

Mina asking Lucy what she'll wear on the wedding 😭 Lucy hasn't spared a thought on the wedding in weeks, mina, and neither have we

Jfc the way lucy described the past days/weeks, it sounds so bloody terrifying. "Darkness in which there was not even the pain of hope to make present distress more poignant."

She was alone in a house full of sleeping maids, with her dead mother in her bed, with a broken window where a giant wolf just jumped through. That is... That is...

Severely traumatising.

I fear for Jack. How can he be attacked like that in his own office? They need better security

Jonathan "sometimes starts out of his sleep in a sudden way and awakes all trembling" 😭 i feel so bad for him

I really fear the doctors will be too late this time. Lucy never opened Mina's letter

She never read Mina's letter

It felt like Dracula was everywhere. He was the bat, the wolf, the howling dogs, he was in the very air

Mina's letter (unopened by lucy) 😭 why didn't you open it lucy

Lucy wake uuup, i don't like thiiis

Jack punched renfield!! Sprawling him on the floor! Get him boii!!

"Happily Van Helsing has not summoned me" :) – Telegram Van Helsing: "do not fail to be there" omg, the immediate juxtaposition

Mina's letter was such

It was such

We wanted that letter so badly

But not like this

"I am getting so strong again that I hardly know myself. It is as if I had passed through some long nightmare, and had just awakened to see the beautiful sunshine and feel the fresh air of the morning around me." <- such a mood. I felt like that after going home from the hospital once, all fixed up after months of sickness. One of the weirdest feelings ever

Aby baby, why, why didn't you put the county on the telegram? British mail why didn't you deliver it anyway? :(

Why couldn't Dracula pick another victim?? Someone with a death wish or something. Why can't he just stop eating all together, he won't die anyway will he.

Fuck Dracula, for real!! he has lost all of his charm to me!! So what that he cooks and cleans and likes trains and is so polite when he welcomes you in, i do not like him anymore, he's pathetic! Intrusive and pushy and insatiable. Napping angrily and flapping against poor dear Lucy's window like that. Fuck off

The fact that Lucy's mother was instantly scared of the flapping. Lucy suffered weeks of that fright.

Lucy knew. She been known. Something in her knew the flapping was related to her condition. I think that's very interesting. How does her mind work?

Van Helsing is going to come back to this

Jack will be devestated

Arthur

Arthur :(

#dracula daily #September 17 #long post #didn't know if i had to use a read more

[mxcottonsocks]

So... who drugged the sherry?

There are lots of Theories today, and I thought I'd share my own.

Long post, so I'll pop it under a cut, but in short my answer is: Dracula himself.

We'll need to step through the events in Lucy's memorandum step-by-step, but first, a couple of quick reminders about vampire powers:

This is from Jonathan's journal entry of 24 June:

I thought I would watch for the Count’s return, and for a long time sat doggedly at the window. Then I began to notice that there were some quaint little specks floating in the rays of the moonlight. They were like the tiniest grains of dust, and they whirled round and gathered in clusters in a nebulous sort of way.

[...] Louder [the howling of dogs] seemed to ring in my ears, and the floating motes of dust to take new shapes to the sound as they danced in the moonlight. I felt myself struggling to awake to some call of my instincts; [...] I was becoming hypnotised! Quicker and quicker danced the dust; the moonbeams seemed to quiver as they went by me into the mass of gloom beyond. More and more they gathered till they seemed to take dim phantom shapes. And then I started, broad awake and in full possession of my senses, and ran screaming from the place. The phantom shapes, which were becoming gradually materialised from the moonbeams, were those of the three ghostly women to whom I was doomed.

So, we know that vampires can change their form into 'specks' like dust which can float and whirl around (and hypnotise people). In order to materialise themselves again, the vampire dust has to gather together until it becomes their form.

Also, we know that from the Demeter segment and the storm in Whitby that Dracula can control the weather. This is from the Dailygraph Correspondent's article of 8 August:

The rays of the searchlight were kept fixed on the harbour mouth across the East Pier, where the shock was expected, and men waited breathless. The wind suddenly shifted to the north-east, and the remnant of the sea-fog melted in the blast; and then, mirabile dictu, between the piers, leaping from wave to wave as it rushed at headlong speed, swept the strange schooner before the blast, with all sail set, and gained the safety of the harbour.

'Mirable dictu' apparently means 'wonderful to relate'. The harbour mouth is elsewhere described as 'narrow' (and it also looks very narrow on a map and photos). So this wind suddenly coming from the exact right direction to get the boat into the harbour is, in my opinion, certainly Dracula's doing. Not only can he control the general weather, he can control individual gusts of wind.

With those two points (vampire dust swirls and wind-control powers) in mind, let's take a look at Lucy's memorandum of 17 September. I'll start from the wolf crashing through the window:

The wolf's head crashes through the window

Mrs Westenra dies of shock, pulling off Lucy's garlic is the process, and falls on top of Lucy.

Then:

I kept my eyes fixed on the window, but the wolf drew his head back, and a whole myriad of little specks seemed to come blowing in through the broken window, and wheeling and circling round like the pillar of dust that travellers describe when there is a simoon in the desert. I tried to stir, but there was some spell upon me, and dear mother’s poor body, which seemed to grow cold already—for her dear heart had ceased to beat—weighed me down; and I remembered no more for a while.

Lucy is unconscious for a while

She awakes to various sounds, including the sound of the maids outside her bedroom door, so she calls them in, and they freak out about Mrs Westenra's corpse

Then:

The wind rushed in through the broken window, and the door slammed to.

The maids move Mrs Westenra's body from on top of Lucy

Lucy directs them "to go to the dining-room and have each a glass of wine."

Then:

The door flew open for an instant and closed again. The maids shrieked, and then went in a body to the dining-room;

Lucy, who is hoping the maids will sit up with her, waits for them to come back.

When they do not, she goes in search of them. She finds that the sherry (a type of wine) has been drugged with her mother's medicine (laudanum, which is apparently very effective at inducing sleep), and the maids are unconscious.

Lucy goes back to her room with her mother's body, and makes her memorandum. The last paragraph of this begins:

The air seems full of specks, floating and circling in the draught from the window, and the lights burn blue and dim.

So from all this my conclusions are:

Dracula is the dust, which is noted in Lucy's room twice: directly after the wolf removes the window, and also right at the end of her memorandum

Dracula's using the wind to open and close the doors when he's in dust form

Dracula can therefore move around the house once he's in it

It's Dracula that drugs the wine

I'm a little unsure if a) the first slam of the door is essentially Dracula having a tantrum about being interrupted by the maids, then he hears Lucy tell them to go to the dining room, so he uses the wind to slam the door open and closed and goes down to the dining room very very quickly in order to get there, resume human form, poison the wine, and turn back to dust before the maids get there (then he gets back into Lucy's room when she's going in or out), or b) the first slam is Dracula leaving the room, he guesses that the maids will want to drink wine and goes to drug it while they are sorting out Mrs Westenra's body, and the door opening and closing by itself is him re-entering the room...

But either way, yeah, my theory is that it's Dracula himself who poisoned the wine.

#i just don't see why the door would open and close on its own otherwise #count dracula #lucy westenra #mrs westenra #dracula #dracula daily #17 september #24 june #08 august #corpse mention #drugging mention #death mention #liveblogging dracula daily #liveblog