#friend jonathan

[creepsmcgavin]

Enjoying supper. A chicken done up some way with red pepper. I did get the recipe for Mina.

Happy May 3rd!

[cake-apostate]

The Layout of Dracula's Castle

(The castle in the book, not Castlevania).

I'm writing a fic that starts in Dracula's castle, and I figured I'd share my notes for whoever needed it.

Disclaimer: The castle is a maze of locked doors, stairs, and corridors, and Jonathan doesn't always specify how long or far he walks, so it's impossible to give an exact layout.

The castle was built on a cliff with three cardinal directions sloping down a precipice. Two of those directions are south and west.

Dracula and Jonathan are described as carrying lanterns, and Jonathan is delighted to see a window large enough to see color in the moonlight, so presumably there aren't any sconces and the windows are too thin to see by at night.

The main entrance is inside of a courtyard, and leads to an entrance hall. 'One or two' rooms near the hall are unlocked, but contain nothing but dusty, moth-eaten furniture.

Most of the action takes place on a floor with a dining room, a library, and a bedroom for Jonathan. To get to the dining room from the entrance, Jonathan goes along a corridor, up a winding stair (number of storeys unspecified), and then down another corridor. From the dining room are three other doors; one door is locked, one door leads to a library/study with English books and a sofa, and the last door leads to a small windowless octagonal room that in turn leads to Jonathan's bedroom. Unlike the rest of the castle, the rooms on this floor are described as grand, the logs in the hearth fires are new, and the furniture is ancient but in excellent condition. Jonathan's room has one window with a view of the courtyard.

From there, Jonathan goes up the stairs to a room with a window with a south view; judging by how he doesn't mention a door (or more pertinently, if it was locked), I'm guessing that this 'room' is actually a landing. This is where he sees Dracula emerging from his room 'lizard-fashion.' Again, it's not specified how many levels he went up to reach this room.

Dracula's room is one storey below that room, and the window faces south. Whenever he crawls out the window, he goes down and east. Jonathan only enters or exits through the window, but I presume there's a locked door to the rest of the castle that he doesn't mention. The room is surprisingly bare and dusty, with unused furniture and a pile of treasure just lying there. An open door leads to a steep spiral staircase and a tunnel smelling of grave dirt; this leads to the chapel.

The chapel floor was dug up and used as a graveyard. This is where the boxes of soil come from, so it seems like Dracula was buried here for some reason. There are two vaults, one of which is empty, and the other is where the boxes are stored (and where Dracula sleeps). Again, Jonathan doesn't mention a door leading outside, but those mortal workers have to get those boxes in and out somehow.

The women's quarters are a storey below the floor with the dining room. A set of suites line the southern edge of the castle, and the room where Jonathan encounters the three vampire ladies is in the southwest corner (with windows along both the south and west walls). Jonathan describes the location as 'further to the right' than the rooms he knows, whatever that means; if you interpret this as Jonathan looking at the front door from the outside, south and west on the right would insinuate that the front door faces north. The furniture in the room is described as more comfortable, the room is full of dust, and there are no curtains on the large, diamond-paned windows.

[phoenixcatch7]

I do not know, but I am not feeling nearly as easy in my mind as usual. If this book should ever reach Mina before I do, let it bring my good-bye.

Here comes the coach!

[britts-books]

Anyone have that Gangrene Gang meme? Bc the Mood is definitely "Hey Jonathan, we thought you were dead!"

[creepsmcgavin]

Absolutely bawling my eyes out as i do every year when i hear Giancarlo Herrera sing, "Take My Heart Back to Texas."

[creepsmcgavin]

Improvised paprika chicken dish in honour of May 3rd. Happy queer pepper dreams everyone! Oceans of love to our friend Jon

[creepsmcgavin]

I just received a message from my good friend Jonathan! He's arrived in Bistritz safely and he's on his way to meet a client. I hope I hear from him again soon!

[cake-apostate]

I was thinking about how Lucy doesn't tell us anything about Arthur, and this was the moment where the format of this book really struck me. This letter isn't meant for us, it's meant for Mina. Of course she's going to skip over things that both of them already know! Just look at the gaps in your texts/discord chat/whatever you silly kids are using these days.

Jonathan's been writing every detail because he's in a completely new place, and because he's not sure if he can trust his senses or memory. Lucy just wants to tell Mina the latest interesting thing that happened to her.

And now I think that if there was a modernized Dracula story cobbled from group chats, texts, and phone calls, there's going to be so many inside jokes and references to things that never come up. Not just in the sense of, "Remember those times at the campfire," but stuff that makes no sense (but isn't relevant enough for an outsider to bother asking about).

Spoilers below for Jonathan's story.

I was also thinking of how there's a huge gap between Jonathan leaving the castle and him appearing in a convent somewhere. We don't know exactly how his escape attempt went or if anything else happened in between, because he refused to write about it after he left.

Late in the story, it turns out that Jonathan didn't write everything; there's a point where he cries out that Dracula drank his blood while he was in his castle.