Its Mentioned Off Hand By Mina When Shes Looking For Lucy In The House And Notices The Front Door Is

It’s mentioned off hand by Mina when she’s looking for Lucy in the house and notices the front door is open. ‘The people of the house are good about locking up when they leave’ or something to that effect. ‘People of the house’ is a term that pops up in this era to describe servants a lot. So there are servants in witby, but they’re at home asleep when Lucy sleepwalks.

I don’t even think there’s any out of sight out of mind thing with mina feeling isolated and lonely but the servants are right there. I don’t think she knows these people AT ALL. They don’t stay at the house so the probably live in Witby and aren’t directly employed by Mrs. Westenra.

Can you imagine how awkward it would be if some random lady renting out the house you work at just started venting about how her fiancé was supposed to be back from a business trip almost a month ago but instead has gone completely radio silent and that both the people she’s staying at the house with have different health problems that they’re keeping secret from eachother and she’s caught in the middle of the two of them trying to pretend that everything’s fine while you’re just trying to dust a fireplace mantle or something like the Victorian equivalent of that guy in the drive through just trying to give someone their food

Genuine question - does anyone have any theories about where the servants are in Whitby?

I mean, is this just an "I'm so alone" (servant in the room tending the fire goes unmentioned) type ignoring the lower class and treating them as if they're invisible? That doesn't seem to fully jive with the events of today's entry, where Mina searched the house and would surely have asked a maid or someone if they were there (then again, it was 3am). They also are mentioned in other places in the novel so it's not like they are always invisible. I also feel like they might have gotten caught sneaking home at dawn if there were servants getting ready for the day, but it isn't mentioned. And maybe there's something with Mina being put in sole charge of keeping Lucy in at night as well...

But I can't believe Mrs. Westenra and Lucy are staying here for so long with no servants at all. So maybe only a few who don't live in the main apartment (?) or something and thus missed tonight's events?

I love that THIS particular moment in Akechi's confidant is almost universally the moment people loose their minds over this guy if they haven't already.

because it's such a 'you have to be there' moment and it makes no fucking sense out of context WHY this is such an insane moment.

It's just.. so fucking funny to me.

Holy shit I fucking love this character so much I’ve almost never seen another fictional Japanese boy this unhinged except for Nishiki

Thinking about Van Zieks and his Racism-Via-Backstory because at first I thought it was a cop out like just make him racist as a product of society you don't need a specific reason but then I remembered that a fairly liberal person I know backtracked HARD into transphobia and self- righteousness due to a traumatic experience with a transperson trying to get her fired from work for mostly just being an imperfect cis white woman. Just.. GOD. It makes Van Zieks so messy and human. It just says.. "see? I went against society, I gave you a chance, and look where it got me. look how i was repaid."

just....

UGGGGGGHHHHHHH

MINA HARKER IN P3R (NOT CLICKBAIT)

Very specific writing tip for weirdly similar circumstances: when worldbuilding for your story, whatever the genre, image Bill Wutz narrating it like his history of ___ I guess

Very specific yet weirdly helpful writing tip: When plotting out your story beats, whether big or small, try to imagine OSP Red narrating them as if she's doing a Trope Talk