Its Worth Noting That While Stoker Definitely Drew Upon Sources Purporting To Describe Vampire Folklore

It’s worth noting that while Stoker definitely drew upon sources purporting to describe vampire folklore in establishing rules for his own vampires, some of the vampire “lore” you see in play in Dracula is original to him. The mirror thing doesn’t seem to have been around before Stoker. While there are regional superstitions one can track down about needing to cover mirrors in the home of the recently dead to prevent their corpse from turning vampiric, the idea that vampires cast no reflection appears to really have had its start with this novel. What’s more, it was only part of what was planned in Stoker’s notes on vampiric irreproducibility. While it never made it into the final text, Stoker wrote down vampires also wouldn’t show up in photographs (which is might be related to Jonathan conveniently mentioning his kodak camera) and that even attempting to paint a vampire would fail. Apparently painting a vampire was just supposed to end up looking like somebody else. Photographs would either come out black or show a skeleton or corpse.

@inception30daychallenge

funny story right

so i watched this movie like 7 times in 1 week (thanks adhd), devoured a ton of fanfic, then came onto tumblr and realised that, hey, the 30 day challenge is still going! so here i am.

Day 25: What pet(s) does Robert have?

Being the sole heir to a huge corporation - and a very competent businessman in and of himself - doesn't really leave a lot of time to care for animals. He probably has a few fish tanks that he can pay one of his employees to care for while he's out. Nothing too big or gaudy or expensive, but he has some very pretty schools of angelfish, and a few betta tanks as well. It's nice to have something to focus on aside from his work, so when he's got free time he often spends it scraping off algae or polishing the glass to keep away water streaks.

After he dissolves Fischer-Morrow, he does have a little more time to himself. He gets more into the less common animals, like starfish and horseshoe crabs, and sets up some marine tanks. (Nothing metal is ever safe in his office again - staplers last a week at most before they're covered in rust. At least the starfish look cool.)

Broke: Mina shares so many of Jonathan's intense academic interests (law, journaling, timetables, etc.) because she's the dutiful love interest who sets her own passions aside to accommodate him.

Woke: Jonathan and Mina are both huge nerds and that's how they fell madly in love in the first place.

STOP calling Mina a lesbian she is BISEXUAL and SO EPIC FOR IT!!! Jonathan is ALSO bisexual!!! They’re not each other’s beards !!!!!!!! They’re bisexual in love with each other and also in love with other men and women because they’re polyam ICONS !!!!!!! You FOOLS !!!!!

I feel like everyone new to reading Dracula this year would probably benefit from knowing that in the original outline, Jonathan at the beginning of the novel was already supposed to have undergone the events in “Dracula’s Guest” where he spent Walpurgisnacht wandering around in a storm and watching a hot vampire lady get struck by lightning before a wolf-that-was-probably-Dracula came and sat on him to keep him warm all night.

I feel like this missing bit of information goes a long way to explaining why he’s sort of like: “Storm. Wolves. Mysterious blue flames my preternaturally strong driver gets out to inspect. Is this a normal part of being a solicitor? (Mem. Remember not to call yourself a clerk. Mina will be proud of you. <3)”

Dracula’s Lineage Speech

If anyone for any reason would appreciate a blow by blow breakdown of everything that is going on in the Count’s lineage speech, matching all of Dracula’s dialogue to Stoker’s research sources and describing the historical events being alluded to, I made one of those many many years ago and I’ve copy/pasted it under the cut:

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