Pardon, but your tie is not symmetrical.

I do think that the funniest way to imagine the three friends proposing is having them all come together talking about how they are going to propose to Lucy but it's in that farcical way where each of them thinks they're getting advice from the other two through wordplay fueled misunderstandings, until finally Arthur's like all right "raise your hand if you're in this room and you're planning on proposing to Lucy, and then they all raised their hands and gasp at each other comically and then Quincey's like "all right there's only one thing to do. On the count of three we're all gonna hightail it out of here and shoot our shots, may the best cowboy win," and then they all spring up like this to go propose

The innkeeper and his wife, the coachman, they were expecting a middle-aged businessman, too arrogant to listen, too cynical to even believe the warnings are well-meant, too confident in his own science and religion to listen to anyone else. Someone with enough worldly experience that he might recognize Dracula as a threat even if he doesn't understand the nature of the threat. Someone important and well-connected enough that he's too risky to kill, old and dull enough not to be interesting enough to toy with.

It was a comfort, to know there was no way to save him. Another comfort, that he would be useful and boring enough to be spared, and canny enough to spot the danger.

Then Jonathon Harker shows up, young and earnest and innocent. He praises the food and asks for recipes for his young bride-to-be back home, and they can see in his face how in love he is. They see too his enthusiasm, his fascination. He blushes when he looks at the women and averts his eyes, he consults his phrase book so he can better give compliments.

He's young enough to be their son. Maybe the innkeeper has a child close to Jonathon's age--a son just starting his own life, a daughter a little younger peeking through the door and sighing at the handsome traveler. Or maybe their child would have been Jonathon's age, if only--but no, they must not think that.

But they do think it, and so the innkeeper's wife begs him to take the rosary "for your mother's sake" and it's not really Jonathon she's talking to. The innkeeper whispers to his friends and customers and old gossips, and they pass it to the passengers on the coach. The coachman is taken back too, the money the Count sent weighing heavily in his pocket. To refuse to drive him means death, to warn him is pointless.

Everyone on the couch is older than Jonathon, old enough to know what the devil in the castle does to the young and earnest and innocent. They all carry their own protections, and one by one they offer them to this poor fool who doesn't understand and wouldn't believe, but he's too polite to refuse and kind enough to see their concern and be touched by it.

The coachman drives his horses like he is fleeing from the devil instead of to him, and they all hope, pray, it will be enough.

Finally got the time to finish my little sketch of our good friend! May he see happier days

Dracula at the Finnish National Ballet: ⮡ Harker & Dracula's first meeting [1/2]

“That he be all in black, except that he have a hat of straw which suit not him or the time.”

"It seemed as if the whole, awful creature were simply gorged with blood; he lay like a filthy leech, exhausted with his repletion."

Bram Stoker's Dracula | portfolio | prints

"I am in fear - in awful fear - and there is no escape for me"

I have just seen some posts about Jeeves and Wooster vs Dracula. And let me just add:

-When arriving at the castle, Jeeves would say something in the lines of: "it has come to my attention sir, that our host must have a shortage of monetary goods, as he was the one who rode us here" or with sarcastic intend but actually right "you see, sir, that the state of the affair and these chambers would not allow a proper gentleman to live between its walls"

-When the dogs/wolves start howling: I say Jeeves, those poor chappies/little devils sound hungry!"

-Bertie somehow gets enganged to Dracula

@hollowchaoscrescent and I accidentally wrote a Harkula fic :D Where the two I caught in a time-loop and Drac decides to go the seduction rout.

My Dear Lady,

I write on the behalf of Mr. Jonathan Harker.

He has fallen ill and though his health improves, I cannot permit him to leave my care. However, he begs for your presence at his side. He is with me at Carfax Abbey in Essex. Come past 10 to-night if you wish to see him. You may remain as my guest to be with him for as long as you wish.

Your obedient servant,

Count Vlad Dracula

(Read More on AO3)

May 15.- Once more I have seen the count go out in his lizard fashion

Commission!

Today is my favorite Dracula Daily day only because of this part right here: Here I am, sitting at a little oak table where in old times possibly some fair lady sat to pen, with much thought and many blushes, her ill-spelt love-letter, and writing in my diary in shorthand all that has happened since I closed it last. Jonathan Harker knows he is in danger. He has sussed out that he may in fact be in a gothic horror (he is, bad news) and still! still when he imagines himself sitting down to write, the comparison that comes to mind (even if he is contrasting himself with it, which he isn't very strongly) is that of a lady writing love letters! Jonathan then acknowledges that he's using the space to write in his diary - not his travel log, not his journal - his diary. Jonathan is realizing he's in a gothic horror, but cannot imagine himself as the action hero come to save the day. He can only imagine himself as the damsel. I'm foaming at the mouth.