I'm Confused. A Lot Of People Seem To Be Taking The Lucy Letter In Stride. I See A Lot Who Are Confident

I'm confused. A lot of people seem to be taking the Lucy letter in stride. I see a lot who are confident she's lying. But if so, is she really in London and making almost all of it up? Others think she went back to Whitby from London and aren't fussed that she says it's been a week while five days ago she was wasting away in London. They take most of what she says as truth.

My first assumption when I read today's email is that Stoker made another timeline mistake, and this letter should have gone out before the diary entry. I've never read the book. From what one person mentioned, in the book her health seesaws, so my theory is probably wrong. But it makes more sense to me than anything else. Why would she go back to London for just a little while and then return to Whitby? She was on holiday in Whitby, right? It makes sense that the letter should come...

WAIT.

Okay no.

For a second I thought I'd figured it out. I thought maybe the letter was sent awhile before the London diary entry and we were reading it when Mina received it. But the emails are based on when a letter is dated, as we saw with Sister Agatha's. So that's not it.

Anyway, as I was saying. It makes sense that there would be a period of time after Dracula left for London, when Lucy would remain in Whitby to finish out her holiday. And of course during that time she'd feel so much better. Dracula's hold on her mind would be gone, so no sleepwalking. No bad dreams. And physically she'd recover, too.

/Then/ when she left Whitby and got to London, triggering Dracula's vampy sense and bringing him to the yard and all, things would go bad fast. /Then/ the London diary entry makes sense.

I’m just thinking about the fortunate lack of tumblr’s desire to monsterfuck Dracula. I mean there’s some “ahah Jonathan why are you describing this old man’s lips in such loving detail” and some stuff about the brides (but c’mon we’d all happily divorce the brides from their association with this man). 

It’s funny bc seemingly no director ever thought “maybe romanticizing this horror monster serial killer isn’t really it chief”. But ya know, movies directed by men? Having to deal with themes of sexual assault (of both women AND men) and explore the horror of THAT? Pfft pls, those directors all picture themselves the mean ol’ sexy man who can gaslight women into thinking they’re their reincarnated wife. 

As it stands really, the only sexy version of Dracula is from the Castlevania games (not the show), and that’s all thanks to Ayami Kojima’s art and just how divorced that character is from the original novel Dracula. 

Sorry, I’m meandering. 

Dracula’s a kind of done to death character without people really having to know about the book. In every depiction his wife is dead (never mentioned in the book and also?? he’s got three, grow up Vlad), and a lot of the time he’s even a shitty dad, how funny. But like even when the actors depicting him are the most meh or even creepy (as in like,, parking lot scary) looking men, people just agreed that this was sexy, right??

And now that people are reading the book, they’re looking back at the movies and they are ENRAGED. People could justify the slutshaming for the *slightest* bit of lesbian subtext, but NO MORE!! Now, we will not settle for Dracula as a love interest. Not when we have so many healthier options and even just BETTER unhealthy options. 

I was worried when all this started that tumblr would ship the unforgivable ship, and while there *still are* some pretty shit takes on the book and its characters, I’m proud that *so far* I haven’t seen that. 

I dunno this was a rant.

Ok so Lucy being back in Whitby was confusing, so I checked my physical copy. Here's what the annotations say:

[Image description: Annotation of 30 August that says "the correct date is probably August 20, here, and one in Chapter 13, the apparent discrepancy could be due to a printer's error or Stoker's mistake, or it could be part of the book's realistic detail, either Lucy's misdating of her letter or Mina's later mistranscribing of the document"]

This at least makes some sense out of the fact that her diary entries are from London.

And tomorrow's letter, which is from Arthur, is also from a hotel in London.

It also does fit better with the timeline of Lucy feeling much better in Whitby when the Count moves to London.

Lucy silently weeping... I'm 😭😭😭

I wonder if we did? Is it a plant for something later?

Jack is sooo pretentious. My brother in christ, we did not need the whole chemical formula of your sleeping pill