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#my writing – @astrangergivingthestrangewelcome on Tumblr
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Misc. Bullshit

@astrangergivingthestrangewelcome / astrangergivingthestrangewelcome.tumblr.com

Hamlet apologist. Also a Claudius apologist as well tbh. I have a lot of intense interests and it's a toss up as to which one I'm blogging about today. Do understand that I was a TJLC-er back in the day and that will never leave my psyche.
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I've been meaning to make a pinned post with a link to Strange Wonders for ages, and now that Dracula Daily is over (again) I figured I finally would.

Strange Wonders explores the chain of events that happen when Jonathan is the one to stay home on September 30th. It's a story about survival, love, gothic horror and grasping for freedom. It's me taking the melodrama of Bram Stoker's Dracula waaaay too seriously but also being super indulgent about my love of 19th century literature and my love of Jonmina, of course. I care way more about it than is sane.

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I'm so angry about this by the way. I already posted this chapter of Strange Wonders but were it not for the constraints of Victorian etiquette I could have used the sun rising behind Quincey and forming a ring around the brim of his cowboy hat as halo imagery. Rude to women. Unbelievable. Why would Victorian society do this to me.

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My friend made me binge the Twilight movies for the first time this weekend and I am Crying Sobbing Throwing Up at the thought anyone read the climax of Strange Wonders and thought "oh she ripped this from Eclipse."

The thing is the scene (I mean, spoilers I guess, but I can't imagine you'd be actively reading this unless you knew my work) where Jonathan slits his throat to distract Dracula is like. The scene of the whole entire series that I'm most proud of writing. I think I portrayed the altered mental state Jonathan was in exactly like how I pictured it in my mind and the Fact That Stephanie Meyer got there first. To the scene I consider my very best writing. Humbled. Deeply humbled.

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Anyway, to shamelessly self-promote, if anyone wants to read a version of Dracula where Mina does actually get to stand up to Van Helsing and assert her right to stay involved, my fic The New Woman does this. (https://archiveofourown.org/works/45598579/chapters/114739516)

It's part of a larger series where broadly speaking Mina and Jonathan swap narrative roles from September 30th onwards, but this fic is dedicated specifically to Mina figuring out her own gender shit. The entire thing is a pastiche of Dracula and I have tried very hard to keep the story grounded in Victorian attitudes and to explore what that would mean as Mina continually transgresses them. Bigtime spoilers though.

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New chapter of The New Woman is out baby! In which Mina mentions a new woman and a new update requires an old framing device :)

Strange Wonders explores the chain of events that happen when Jonathan is the one to stay home on September 30th. It's a story about survival, love, gothic horror and grasping for freedom.

The New Woman:

Mina Murray Harker has only ever wanted to be a good English woman, and up until now, she thought she knew what that meant. But with Lucy gone, and Jonathan facing a fate worth than death, Mina finds herself in situations both physical and emotional that she has no idea how to handle. However, people need her, so she rolls up her sleeves and does her best to figure it out.

A multi-chapter fic within the Strange Wonders canon which will span from the group's meeting on September 30th to right before the beginning of Bitter Waters on October 31st, with Mina as the narrator.

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Me, including one (1) reference/joke about vampirism vs consumption in the next update of my fic: I am literally the most genre savvy bitch of all time. Doyle could not write mystery the way I can write pastiches of Gothic Horror

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The next update for New Woman is out! I've got to say it dips into So Many different places, including a little teaser of things to come for all you Seward enjoyers out there :)

The New Woman (23502 words) by astrangergivingthestrangewelcome Chapters: 10/? Fandom: Dracula & Related Fandoms, Dracula - Bram Stoker (Novel 1897) Series: Part 5 of Strange Wonders Summary: Mina Murray Harker has only ever wanted to be a good English woman, and up until now, she thought she knew what that meant. But with Lucy gone, and Jonathan facing a fate worth than death, Mina finds herself in situations both physical and emotional that she has no idea how to handle. However, people need her, so she rolls up her sleeves and does her best to figure it out. A multi-chapter fic within the Strange Wonders canon which will span from the group's meeting on September 30th to right before the beginning of Bitter Waters on October 31st, with Mina as the narrator.

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Things I have researched/googled for my Dracula fanfiction series Strange Wonders in the past year, an ongoing list in no particular order

  • typewriters, how they work and how they run out of ink
  • Clothing (I feel like this goes without saying)
  • how Victorian washstands looked (I wanted to see if it would be accurate to say there was a mirror attached or no)
  • Aerated Bread Company (I found a menu from 1902 so Mina and Quincey ordered food items that were on that menu)
  • Etymology of approximately 1 billion bajillion words and I'm sure I still didn't really get it right (did you know the term suffragette was not coined until 1906)
  • Texas Reconstruction (Currently I just don't see how I will fit Quincey's backstory in organically but oh he has one)
  • Wilhelmina of the Netherlands (this was kinda an accident bc I was doublechecking the etymology of Wilhelmina and found out that Wilhelmina was actually a really badass and memorable Dutch monarch who was only a few years younger than Mina and was 17 in 1897. Van Helsing WILL be bringing her up in passing later)
  • whether or not portable gas camping stoves were a thing then (the answer: yes just and Arthur is a rich boy so sure he probably has one)
  • whether or not pocket soup was still a thing then (the answer ehhhh not really it was pretty out-dated but I still used it anyway because I like the word "pocket soup" I can be historically inaccurate when I want to be fuck you)
  • how bleeding out works for different arteries and veins (I may have flagrantly disregarded the information I learned in pursuit of a climax that was both intense and not horribly sad)
  • how old timey guns work (mixed success. Did find out how many bullets a Winchester could hold but I still didn't really get enough information on pistols but oh well)
  • New Woman writers, criticism and backlash
  • Kukris (not sure if this counts bc I managed to research them for a masters presentation but I got to use like 5% of the information I now know about them in my fic so)
  • penny dreadfuls (and thank god I did bc Varney the Vampire is too good not to name drop- all other Brit Lit references I simply knew because I am a massive nerd)
  • The location of the porcelain industry in the United Kingdom (yes it was for a throwaway line but in my defense it took like 30 seconds to google)
  • did people sell phonograph records of music back then (yeah but it was still not really a thing thing yet)
  • Boating terms and types of boats and what steamers look like
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The next chapter of The New Woman is out!

"Mina Murray Harker has only ever wanted to be a good English woman, and up until now, she thought she knew what that meant. But with Lucy gone, and Jonathan facing a fate worth than death, Mina finds herself in situations both physical and emotional that she has no idea how to handle. However, people need her, so she rolls up her sleeves and does her best to figure it out.

A multi-chapter fic within the Strange Wonders canon which will span from the group's meeting on September 30th to right before the beginning of Bitter Waters on October 31st, with Mina as the narrator."

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If anyone is interested, I did some edits of my earlier works in the Strange Wonders series, and there's new stuff in Uncommon Horrors and Unnatural Hurts, Resilience of the Dawn, and Blood Wisdom (Blood Wisdom is mostly the same with an added Jonmina scene at the end because I don't hate happiness). If you liked my work might be worth giving it a reread.

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