AnasAbdin
he wasn't even looking at me and he found me
Monterey Bay Aquarium
NASA
dirt enthusiast
Andulka
almost home
Peter Solarz
izzy's playlists!
Kiana Khansmith
Keni
Aqua Utopia｜海の底で記憶を紡ぐ
Xuebing Du
trying on a metaphor
will byers stan first human second
Sweet Seals For You, Always
Product Placement
sheepfilms
Mike Driver
let's talk about Bridgerton tea, my ask is open
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@singingbookwormwithrainbowheart
IT IS TIME!
On the third day of the fifth month, my dear friend Jonathan Harker travels around the world toward transylvania, collects some food recipes - hi, paprika hendl!, discovers odd traditions and kind but curiously odd people, laments about not having a proper map of the country he is visiting and gets the nickname The Herr Englishman (bless the inkeeper couple!).
We find a letter from our friendly host Dracula, telling Jonathan to enjoy his stay.
Mina summons all the men to talk before the journey to Transylvania is to begin.
She ask that they kill her of they find her too changed beyond humanity, and no salation is possible.
They promise. Bless everyone's strong loving hearts!
To make things mote sad but still loving, Mina asks Jonathan to read the Burial Service so that she, if she is to die during their quest, can remember it with his voice.
When everything is done, Mina sinks in her half vampiric silent life once more, and Seward observes that it is not a despairing as before, because they have all taken comfort in each other!
October 6 recap of my favourite vampire book!
Mina has decided thst she shall join the men, and her reasoning is sound; she can be used as a tool to spy on Dracula all along even if she herself doesn't truly know things.
Everyone settles their business before the trip is to happen.
Van Helsing plots on how they best are to kill Dracula.
Jonathan worries about Mina.
Quincey is steadfast and ready to do whatever is needed.
The day ends with a distressed Mina calling out for Jonathan.
My dear friendly gang gathers once more!
They make plans how to track and follow Dracula.
The sneaky bat has taken refuge on the ship Czarina Catherine and seems to be headed for Varna.
Van Helsing talks about how Dracula has grown as a vampire; how he has learned to do new things; how he evolves and can become greater and more dangerous.
Mina is, understandably, still upset by the holy burnmark on her forehead and the fact that she is infected by Dracula to become like him shall he not be stopped.
Van Helsing and Seward are en guarde and watchful of Mina, whome they see is changing; her teeth are sharper, she has hard cold eyes, and is more silent. They decide that, for her own and everyone elses safety, she can no longer know the plans about Dracula.
Mina, clever as always, has already figured this out and, by own words through Jobathan, lets them know she will no longer be oart of the meeting and plannings.
The men decide how to travel, what to bring and what do to.
My dear friend Jonathan is hurting because his darling Mina is hurting.
Mina has has an idea! Van Helsing must hypnotize her and then she can do a sort of trance spying on Dracula, and also speek as herself!
Clever woman!
Dracula is, apparently, on a ship of some sort.
VH&C make plans to follow Dracula and kill him so that Mina can be freed, and the world saved.
Seward finds Renfield beaten bloody, close to death.
Van Helsing arrives along to help while the rest of the gang watches.
Renfield tells about Dracula.
Dracula is in the house.
He attacks the Harkers' in general and Mina in particular.
VH&C manages to stop D, but Mina is too hurt and will, possibly become a vampire.
Jonathan is aflame with rigtheous anger for his wife's sake.
VH&C strive to hauny and kill Dracula even more now, because they have to help Mina.
Dracula destroys paper and phonographs in an attempt to hinder VH&C.
But Mina and Jonathan have made hidden copies - TAKE THAT, COUNT D!
They make new plans, as they are all steadfast good people!
The men are to break up and destroy all the boxes.
Mina is to sort new and temainijh papers and audios.
Before they all do their things, Van Helsing blesses Mina by pressing a Sacred Wafer to her forhead
And because of Count D horrifying crime when he bit her and made her drink his blood, it burns into her skin, and she is now marked
It's a sad sad day.
Mina is on her own once more
She hasn't slept well, and is feeling a little off, naturally!
She tries to be gay and joyful and supportive when the men return, and it helps a little in the moment.
She asks Sewars for something the help her sleep, and he mixes her a little sleeping draught.
Jonathan has more travelling to do today, but before he head out he pokder about Mina who seems unwell, and hw thinks it might be good for her to return home.
He jesd out to find a Sam Bloxam, who has information that Van Helsing & Company needs.
Via Sam Bloxam, Jonathan learns a lot of what Count D has been up to, and it's ever so useful!
Steadfast to learn more, Jonathan head to the Piccadilly house and looks around for clues and more info!
Upon returning to the other, after dinner, Jonathan simply read his notes from the day for them.
They make plans to access the Piccadilly house in a legal and discreet way, to try to avoidd both the Count and the human police and other people.
Jonathan crashes to bed.
Seward has placed a man to extra guard Renfield, and keeps checking on him throughout the day.
By evening, Seward is disrupted by a yell!
Renfield has been in some sort of accident...
The men are making ready to go to Carfax!
Renfield interupts and requests and audience with Seward - and the other men tag along for the fun of it - during which he behaves very bizzarely indeed.
Van Helsing & Company heads to Carfax, armed with silver crucifixes, wreaths of garlic blossoms, revolvers, knifes, and super small electric lamps.
They find hilarious ammounts of dust, huge spiders, a set of keys, an odour that surely would be able to kill so foul is it, and twenty-nine boxes of earth and soil.
And suddenly, an army of evil Dracula-controlled rats appear!
But, luckily, Lord Godalming has prepped for this and calls upon his three terriers who make quick work of hunting the rats off.
Satisifed and unharmed, Van Helsing & Company return their temporary home to rest up a little.
Jonathan laments that he has to keep Mina out of it, since this will affect their thusly so open relationship.
The gang continues their work, both together a nd on their own, to accomplish as much as possible as quickly as possible.
Mina, kept out from most happensings, naturally feels a little off, and spends her days writing and having somr ceying episodes because she has been through a lot and needs an outlet, as would anyone in her shoes!
Her sleep is strange, she remembers seeing mist moving about in the room, and a white face getting closer.
Jonathan does more work, finds people who knows about the boxes, collects all that knowledge and brings it back to the others.
Seward had another checkup on Renfeild, who is just getting stranger and stranger.
A letter arrives for Godalming regarding information on the house in Piccadilly; it has been bought by a Count de Ville.
I am truly thankful that she is to be left out of our future work, and even of our deliberations. It is too great a strain for a woman to bear. I did not think so at first, but I know better now. [...] I daresay it will be difficult to begin to keep silence after such confidence as ours; but I must be resolute, and to-morrow I shall keep dark over to-night's doings, and shall refuse to speak of anything that has happened.
Jonathan, no, don't give into the guys' peer pressure noooo
It is strange to me to be kept in the dark as I am to-day; after Jonathan's full confidence for so many years, to see him manifestly avoid certain matters, and those the most vital of all. This morning I slept late after the fatigues of yesterday, and though Jonathan was late too, he was the earlier. He spoke to me before he went out, never more sweetly or tenderly, but he never mentioned a word of what had happened in the visit to the Count's house. And yet he must have known how terribly anxious I was. Poor dear fellow! I suppose it must have distressed him even more than it did me. They all agreed that it was best that I should not be drawn further into this awful work, and I acquiesced. But to think that he keeps anything from me! And now I am crying like a silly fool, when I know it comes from my husband's great love and from the good, good wishes of those other strong men.
[...] Well, some day Jonathan will tell me all; and lest it should ever be that he should think for a moment that I kept anything from him, I still keep my journal as usual. Then if he has feared of my trust I shall show it to him, with every thought of my heart put down for his dear eyes to read.
Mina, no, you have to communicate now, in the present, you're you, you can un-acquiesce, you can break the curse, just talk to Jonathan now, noooooo
GOD this is masterfully infuriating work, Bramward Stokerbroker. Here we have on paper just how much this new status quo--the 'proper' status quo--grates against both of them. You can almost hear them grinding their teeth with the effort to keep smiling and nodding through this unanimous* decision. They know it is For Mina's Sake that they are doing this. Sure, they both hate every second of it and it breaks a loving rhythm they've shared for years together, BUT THEY KNOW BETTER NOW :)))
(Lucy is screaming in the afterlife. Renfield has his head in his hands.)
But all that aside, a thing I'm hooked on this read-around is the fact that, hey. We are reading this. Spoiler, but the entirety of Dracula is actually compiled together by Mina after the story closes. These are all written documents we're reading that the entire group has laid eyes on already. With everyone (bar Art and Quincey for some reason, thanks Mr. 3 Lines Allowed and Mr. Laconic :/, Jack is just talking and waiting for Mina to transcribe now, augh) on duty in some way to record the progress of things so that they can be read later as reference...I have to wonder now.
How honest are these pages the Harkers are putting down now versus what they wrote before joining Van Helsing's Scooby gang? Neither one is writing in shorthand. It's all plain English.
I had a class once where one of the assignments was to keep a daily journal. One page filled out every single day, about anything. Anyone want to guess how many personal secrets or honest feelings I put in those pages for the guy grading my class to read? If you said anything higher than 0 you're wrong.
The Harkers have an audience to worry about right now. An audience of Prof. Et Cetera, Dr. Asylum Director (whose asylum they're currently living in! the kind of place where Jonathan could've ended up and innumerable women have been imprisoned for being women the Wrong Way! whee!), Incredibly Wealthy and Empowered Lord, and Mr. Likewise Rich 'We Should Do Guns About It' American. Who all seem to like them, fresh-from-the-lower class, industrious and Dracula-confronting sorts that they are. Fast friends, all of them.
(Jonathan is still only Harker to them. Simultaneously the Man Who Survived Castle Dracula and the gofer guy doing the footwork and the paperwork/property hunt while Van Helsing hits the library and the others...well, I'm sure they're doing something. Other than re-reading the first half of Dracula.)
(...Which was compiled and transcribed by Mina. Who faced down Dracula in her jammies. Unarmed. At night. For Lucy. But she can't handle your scary stories about the houses full of dirt boxes, let alone join you on the hunt she was explicitly prepared and eager to help with. Can't risk it, little lady, off to bed now.)
This is where they are now that they've ~joined forces~ with Van Helsing and the Suitor Squad. After all they've done, all they're still relied on to do, the Harkers are with allies who have had their acquaintance for less than three days. And now, to appease those allies and their opinions and to keep everything placid with these nice, outnumbering, socially and monetarily endowed parties, they do what they've always done when faced with the fact of their being perpetually on the low rung of the ladder.
The Harkers accommodate. Including in their own diaries, as these too are now deemed forfeit important to the Cause, should the gang need to comb back through it all for clues.
That's why the Harkers are the only ones writing it down--because they already were. They're the kids in the group project who can be trusted to do the work. So just let them keep doing it. Keep an accurate record now, kids! You do such a good job of it, we'd only be getting in the way, ha ha. Remember that we can and will read everything you put down in the future.
Hence: All of what we read today. And will read in the dates to come.
The Harkers are writing under a (friendly) gun right now. They can purge some feelings, but not all of them. And not completely. And not in any way that certain doctors and upper class people of power they barely know might misconstrue as ungrateful or mad in any sense. The Harkers are good people. The Harkers are helpful. The Harkers are team players even if that means no longer being a team themselves. They chafe a little at this, but it's all so new to them! It's alright. God's will and Van Helsing's be done. They know better now.
With all this in mind, it makes much more sense why Jonathan chooses to use shorthand for a Very Particular Entry we see coming up. An entry that Mina alone could read and decide to enter in the distant future, after the storm had passed.
And why, in light of all that happens, he cannot trust himself to put more than a vignette's worth of lines down as time goes on. Not if he wants to keep himself from laying out some actual honesty for everyone to read. Mina's entries will be weightier things, while she still has the capacity to write--carefully. Always carefully.
Omg
Oh
My
God
I have somehow completely missed this aspect, but now I can't unsee it
Everyone is super busy!
The Harker's are typing together every event in chronologial for everyone to read, because knowledge is power!
Seward keep tabs on Renfield, because they know now that his behaviour has some connection to Count D.
Jonathan has travelling all over the city looking for some clues.
Mina greets Arthur and Quincey when they arrive, and lends Arthur a pair of arms to cry in.
Quincey is steadfast in his sorrows, and goes about the buisness with surity!
Mina visits Renfield.
Seward meets Van Helsing by the train.
The gang is coming together, and during a meal Van Helsing tells more about the beings known as vampires, and more precisely, Dracula.
The men decide upon a course of action - to go see Carfax - and beg Mina to stay out of it so she won't get harmed.
Seward, Arthur, Quincey and Van Helsing head to the churchyard in the night, after the professor has explained that Lucy isn't dead but nor alive (Arthur is shook poor darling!)
The coffin is, once more, empty!
The stand guard by the tomb, and soon enough a figure that *looks* like Lucy arrives.
Chaos happens as everyone is shaken up.
Van Helsing secures Lucy isnide the tomb once more, they take the new child she had wntrapped and help it to get to safety, and the they leave.
Next day, they return to the churchyard, Van Helsing armed and ready, to finish up, so to speak.
Arthur, darling dear man, choses to be hand that sends Lucy to the stars, and drives a stake through her heart while the others read a prayer for the dead.
Horror turns to peace, at last!
Arthur is thankful words, and everyone is relieved!
They leave in peace and make plans to meet up in two days time, and Van Helsing shall bring two others with him for more help!
At the hotel, there is a note for Van Helsing: Mina and Jonathan Harler are coming early with news, but separately!
Seward meets up Mina, and she goes to work typing up what has happened from his audionotes, even though it pains her to learn how Lucy undead died, brave lass!
Jonathan has also been busy trying to track Dracula's cargo of boxes! Good lad!
It is all coming together!
Dr Seward has slept, eaten and is generally a lot more well rested.
So well rested, in fact, that he starts to question his earlier beliefs that Van Helsinh is right about Lucy.
Now, Seward wonders if Van Helsing might be going a bit mad.
Team Helsward return to the churchyard in daylight.
Licy is back in her coffin! And she looks no different from when she died, rather she looks more beautiful!
Seward is confused and baffled.
Van Helsing is steadfast.
This is the Day! The Day on which Van Helsing claims Lucy to be a vampire.
After much reasoning back and forth, they reach a decision: they shall collect Arthur and Quincey and do some tiresome bloody work.
But first, a watchful night of guarding Lucy at the churchyard for Van Helsing!
Mina and Jonathan have dinner, she talks about Van Helsing, Jonathan feels lighter knowing that yes, what he experiences was real (the brain fever and the surrealness made him doubt).
They meet Van Helsing, Jonathan likes him at once!
Mr and Mrs Harker promise to come when Van Helsing calls for them!
Back with Helsward, Van Helsing has Seward listen to a long, long rant, which ends with VH claiming that it is Lucy who is hurting all the little kids, which of course makes no sense to Seward because Lucy is DEAD.
Team Helsward go on a quest to the churchyard where Lucy lies.
Van Helsing is steadfast. Seward is disbelieving but trusting.
After some gravedigging, they discover that Lucy's body is not in the coffin!
They keep watch over the place, and after a while something clad in white appears with a small child.
Seward is confused.
They take the child (what did happen to the figure holding it?) and make sure a policeman find it.
It has been a very taxing night, indeed, and Team Helsward shall go on more adventures the following day!
Hampstead is shook!
Many small children have gone missing at night time and upon return have been found to have wounds on their throats!
One of these kids actually got hurt so bad that they got sent to hospital!
Meanwhile, Mina meets with Van Helsinh and it is a most curious and hood meeting as they both help each other!
Mina helps with giving a copy pf the journal and her own diary t9 Van Helsing.
Van Helsinh helps Mina by assuring her that Jonathan is not mad at all, and that he shall get better.
They make plans to eat together, Mina, Jonathan and Van Helsing, and my lil' gang of friends are slowly but surely coming together!
Mina is doing work! She has read all of Jonathan's account of his journey and his stay in Castle Dracula, and she is rightly very shaken up!
Despite feeling so down, she makes good use of her typewriting skills and transscribes the journal.
Van Helsing sends a letter asking Mina for a meeting to help him with some question about dear dead Lucy.
Mina worries about Jonathan, so much that she will read his journal to find out exactly what happend to him.
I sire hope she has lota of tea and chocolate to feel better during and after learning everything!
