Where Wild Flowers Grow of Their Own Accord

she/hers • they/them As of May 2022, this is functionally just a Dracula blog. You can check out my on-line annotated Dracula here (still in the process of being recovered).

[atundratoadstool]

Welcome to this very old blog: bringing you yearly Dracula reads with commentary for ten whole years. A few things you might want to know:

I still tag like it’s 2013 and my blog probably looks weirdly overtagged now. It should be very easy to find every post I have ever made/reblogged about given characters, adaptations, or concepts though. You can check my blog’s header if you want a bunch of links to major posts I’ve made about Dracula and vampires over the years or tags for former re-reads.  If you need me to tag any harder so you can avoid some sort of topic, please let me know.

I liked Dracula so hard I went to grad school for it. I am now a doctor (as of the end of the month) and used to be a professor who occasionally taught Dracula. If you think for any reason I was your Dracula professor at some point, please don’t let me know.

I try to keep this blog very SFW and chill. I don’t really do the DNI thing, but I block whenever I see it as necessary and curate my feeds carefully.

I love asks, and while I presently have an impending non-academic job hunt and an infant to juggle that may cut into my time, I’m happy to answer Dracula questions when I’m able.

Hate mail goes straight into the void, as do signal boost requests I cannot authenticate.

My views on Dracula, Bram Stoker, vampires, literary scholarship, and life in general have changed a little over the past decade. Please feel free to engage with older content on this blog (I try to keep it archived and accessible for a reason), but please also understand if atundratoadstool of 2013 isn’t marching lockstep with the atundratoadstool of today.

Yes. I know the website is broken. I am very sorry, and I keep being bad at wrangling my fellow dev into fixing it.

[atundratoadstool]

Leah, why is today Dracula Day? :D

It is World Dracula Day because 120 years ago Dracula was published on May 26, 1897. It is also Dracula Day because every day is Dracula Day.

[atundratoadstool]

365 Dracula Days later…

[atundratoadstool]

The unrelenting cycle of the Dracula ages continues.

[atundratoadstool]

Aw dang! Here it comes again! :)=

[atundratoadstool]

This post has now been in circulation for 1,461 whole Dracula Days. 

[atundratoadstool]

Awwwwww yeahhhhhhh! Happy 125th Anniversary to Dracula and Happy 5th Anniversary to this post.

[atundratoadstool]

Happy 126th Anniversary to Dracula and Happy 6th Anniversary to this post and Happy Dracula Day to everyone!

[atundratoadstool]

Seven years of Dracula Days later, and yet another Dracula Day is upon us.

[atundratoadstool]

I made a cake this year even. :)=

[atundratoadstool]

I’m still alive, eight beautiful years of Dracula Days later. Make every Dracula Day of your life shine, friends.

[atundratoadstool]

Made a cake and cards for my friends this year. :]=

[atundratoadstool]

I've deleted all other social media, obtained a largely Dracula-related doctorate, acquired two children, and lost a kidney since I first made the initial post. It's been a wild nine years of Dracula Days, and I love each and every one of them.

Another happy Dracula Day to all. <3

[atundratoadstool]

Leah, why is today Dracula Day? :D

It is World Dracula Day because 120 years ago Dracula was published on May 26, 1897. It is also Dracula Day because every day is Dracula Day.

[atundratoadstool]

365 Dracula Days later…

[atundratoadstool]

The unrelenting cycle of the Dracula ages continues.

[atundratoadstool]

Aw dang! Here it comes again! :)=

[atundratoadstool]

This post has now been in circulation for 1,461 whole Dracula Days. 

[atundratoadstool]

Awwwwww yeahhhhhhh! Happy 125th Anniversary to Dracula and Happy 5th Anniversary to this post.

[atundratoadstool]

Happy 126th Anniversary to Dracula and Happy 6th Anniversary to this post and Happy Dracula Day to everyone!

[atundratoadstool]

Seven years of Dracula Days later, and yet another Dracula Day is upon us.

[atundratoadstool]

I made a cake this year even. :)=

[atundratoadstool]

I’m still alive, eight beautiful years of Dracula Days later. Make every Dracula Day of your life shine, friends.

[atundratoadstool]

Made a cake and cards for my friends this year. :]=

[atundratoadstool]

Leah, why is today Dracula Day? :D

It is World Dracula Day because 120 years ago Dracula was published on May 26, 1897. It is also Dracula Day because every day is Dracula Day.

[atundratoadstool]

365 Dracula Days later…

[atundratoadstool]

The unrelenting cycle of the Dracula ages continues.

[atundratoadstool]

Aw dang! Here it comes again! :)=

[atundratoadstool]

This post has now been in circulation for 1,461 whole Dracula Days. 

[atundratoadstool]

Awwwwww yeahhhhhhh! Happy 125th Anniversary to Dracula and Happy 5th Anniversary to this post.

[atundratoadstool]

Happy 126th Anniversary to Dracula and Happy 6th Anniversary to this post and Happy Dracula Day to everyone!

[atundratoadstool]

Seven years of Dracula Days later, and yet another Dracula Day is upon us.

[atundratoadstool]

I made a cake this year even. :)=

[atundratoadstool]

I'm still alive, eight beautiful years of Dracula Days later. Make every Dracula Day of your life shine, friends.

[atundratoadstool]

Thank you so much for rehosting it! Just anted to give a heads up, just in case, that all links on the drop-down menus work (haven't checked in-text ones), except from the ones on the Timeline drop-down menu. At least for me.

Yeah. The timeline didn't get transferred when we re-hosted. My apologies. I'll try to put it on the to do list for some weekend when I can take a nice delve into my old files looking for the original.

[atundratoadstool]

Will the Dracula project website ever be back?

It's been a long long time since I was active here, but the project page has a new home here! https://www.draculaproject.org

[atundratoadstool]

Leah, why is today Dracula Day? :D

It is World Dracula Day because 120 years ago Dracula was published on May 26, 1897. It is also Dracula Day because every day is Dracula Day.

[atundratoadstool]

365 Dracula Days later…

[atundratoadstool]

The unrelenting cycle of the Dracula ages continues.

[atundratoadstool]

Aw dang! Here it comes again! :)=

[atundratoadstool]

This post has now been in circulation for 1,461 whole Dracula Days. 

[atundratoadstool]

Awwwwww yeahhhhhhh! Happy 125th Anniversary to Dracula and Happy 5th Anniversary to this post.

[atundratoadstool]

Happy 126th Anniversary to Dracula and Happy 6th Anniversary to this post and Happy Dracula Day to everyone!

[atundratoadstool]

Seven years of Dracula Days later, and yet another Dracula Day is upon us.

[atundratoadstool]

I made a cake this year even. :)=

[atundratoadstool]

Leah, why is today Dracula Day? :D

It is World Dracula Day because 120 years ago Dracula was published on May 26, 1897. It is also Dracula Day because every day is Dracula Day.

[atundratoadstool]

365 Dracula Days later…

[atundratoadstool]

The unrelenting cycle of the Dracula ages continues.

[atundratoadstool]

Aw dang! Here it comes again! :)=

[atundratoadstool]

This post has now been in circulation for 1,461 whole Dracula Days. 

[atundratoadstool]

Awwwwww yeahhhhhhh! Happy 125th Anniversary to Dracula and Happy 5th Anniversary to this post.

[atundratoadstool]

Happy 126th Anniversary to Dracula and Happy 6th Anniversary to this post and Happy Dracula Day to everyone!

[atundratoadstool]

Seven years of Dracula Days later, and yet another Dracula Day is upon us.

[atundratoadstool]

are you still going to do an Invisible Man substack? it seems someone else has already started one

I'm so glad to hear somebody is taking it up--especially given the fortuitous Leap Year. I've been--both fortunately and unfortunately--busy to the point where I haven't had much time for socmed and related undertakings, and while I hadn't forgotten, I'd been uncertain as to my ability to get things running.

[atundratoadstool]

Do you know if your annotated Dracula website (the old one) is still accessable through the wayback machine? If so, would you mind sharing a link?

Sorry to have been absent from this blog for so very long that some time has probably elapsed since this was asked, but the good news is that while the old site probably has some accessibility via Wayback, I finally finally finally got it up and running at a new domain. You can check it out here. :)

[atundratoadstool]

Update: My spouse spent the day fixing several of the chapters that were broken--thanks to everyone who reported issues.

[atundratoadstool]

Do you know if your annotated Dracula website (the old one) is still accessable through the wayback machine? If so, would you mind sharing a link?

Sorry to have been absent from this blog for so very long that some time has probably elapsed since this was asked, but the good news is that while the old site probably has some accessibility via Wayback, I finally finally finally got it up and running at a new domain. You can check it out here. :)

[atundratoadstool]

Is your annotated Dracula up somewhere? I was hoping to link my dad to it. The link in your bio doesn't seem to have anything at it.

I has been down for a while--alas--although I still have the original files and I keep trying to coordinate with my spouse (who was responsible for most of the code) to relaunch. It's been much slower going than I initially anticipated though, given the confluence of major life events this year. I'll try to look into it again shortly.

[mygoodfriendjohnathanharker]

Boat trips feel a lot longer when your aren't actively hunting down the crew

[atundratoadstool]

Very important question, my friend visited Hungary and brought me some paprika (both sweet and hot). Obviously now I have to make the paprika chicken, but what would be the recipe closest to the one Stoker describes?

This has been sitting around in my inbox forever, and I hope you've managed to find a recipe to your liking in the meantime--particularly as my advice on the topic probably isn't all that stellar.

Stoker's knowledge of paprika chicken came from his sources on the topic (all of which should be noted tend to be inaccurate and condescending as regards the regions they describe), and we can get a rough idea of what he was envisioning pretty readily. Of the sources he listed that mention the dish, he took his notes for the novel from Andrew Crosse's Round About the Carpathians (cw: slur on linked page), but Crosse doesn't give us much more information than "chicken with red pepper." Nina Mazuchelli's Maygarland elaborates a little more by telling us how "a fowl that, in blissful unconsciousness of the immediate future, has been picking up the crumbs that fell from the traveller's table as he partook his first course, may, at his last, appear in the form of a hasty stew, thickened with red pepper." E. C. Johnson's On the Track of the Crescent probably gives us the most description of any of the books we know Stoker accessed, stating that paprikas csirke "is prepared by giving some ancient chanticleer the 'happy despatch,' cutting his remains to small pieces, and putting them into water, in company with flour, cream, butter, and a great deal of paprika or red pepper." Consistently, we can see that writers with whom Stoker was familiar are describing a chicken dish featuring some manner of thick paprika-based sauce, which is in keeping with most paprikash recipes I've encountered.

I, however, have always used variants on Leonard Wolf's recipe, which he included amidst his various other incredibly zany footnotes in the 1975 Essential Dracula (I tend to omit the tomato and add a touch more sour cream though).

PAPRIKA CHICKEN (Paprika Hendl) 1 young fowl (about 4 pounds); 2 tablespoons fat; 2 large onions, chopped; 2 tablespoons Hungarian sweet paprika; 1/2 cup tomato juice; 2 tablespoons flour; 1/2 cup sour cream. Cut chicken into service pieces, and salt. Lightly brown onions in fat. Blend in half the paprika. Add tomato juice and chicken. Simmer, covered, 1 hour or until tender. Remove chicken. Add remaining paprika to sauce, then add the flour beaten into sour cream. Simmer, stirring, 5 minutes or until well blended. Put sauce through sieve, food mill, or blender. Heat chicken and pureed sauce together over a low flame. Arrange chicken on warm platter. Pour half the sauce over; pass the rest separately in a sauceboat.

I will in no way vouch for its authenticity, but I feel that even were it not terribly Stoker-accurate it meshes pretty well with Dracula fandom in spirit, having been connected to the novel by the annotator who also tried to recreate the vampiresses blood sucking noises with his own mouth and had an undergraduate student pretend to be Seward and demo cutting through an iron bar with a medical saw.

[starlitartworks]

I was working on some drawing dracula entries, but this idea was too silly to ignore

[charonnyxtides]

Mina is Dracula's archnemesis in so many ways, but the most obvious ones are

Mina was Dracula's very first adversary in England

Mina is personally hurt by him over the same man and the same woman

Dracula claims Jonathan. Mina promptly marries Jonathan

Mina is the only one that Dracula openly attacks with personal malice, in the most intimate ways

A single, glaring scar on the same place for both Mina and Dracula

Only these two share the same blood

Psychic link exists only between them

KIN OF MY KIN

Van Helsing hasn't even personally confronted the guy yet come on now

[grocerystorephobic]

Invisible Man from my sketchbook!! Love this crazy gal <3