Tomato Time

Okay so. Someone correct me if I'm remembering this wrong. But the Thing about the Scholomance, the reason it's the Wizard School that gets the capital W and S, the reason it has all this incredible magical power and forbidden knowledge to impart to its students in the first place, is that it has a deal where 'the devil take the hindmost' - the last student in each year's class is made a sacrifice to the devil.

The first time I encountered this, I was led to believe it literally meant, like, on the last day of your last semester, you had to beat feet out of the building, because last one out was a rotten egg dragged alive into Hell to be tormented for eternity.

But! There is no reason to believe, as far as I know, that the 'last' student couldn't mean the one who came in the bottom of the class.

The word 'dracul', from which Dracula takes his name, iirc, can mean either 'dragon' or 'devil'. And the novel Dracula tells us that his is a damned soul, doomed to wander the earth in a cursed, bloodthirsty existence until somebody lops his head off with a shovel or pushes him into an exploding volcano or makes extensive, nonsensical corn metaphors at him until he's bored to death. He exists to spread evil throughout the world, but he himself is also, as per Mina, suffering an eternity of torment in damnation. Which is to say, he's already property of the devil.

All of which is to say. Dracula was absolutely at the bottom of his Scholomance class, and 'wolves' is absolutely the one spell that he did manage to perfect and is so proud of that he has to show it off at every opportunity.

A second memorandum to Seward from Van Helsing in case he dies… the same day that Jonathan writes another goodbye to Mina in case he doesn’t live through this… 🥺🥺🥺😭😭😭

Mina Is Going To Eat Him

Are we SURE she didn't already take a lil snack overnight by the fire tho

She ate that old man.

SLORP

-- Mina

October 30: Best Character

October 15 November 5

Mina to Jonathan:

1Sam.18 KJV:

In the midst of all that tragedy I love that while the eggheads are pondering the metaphysics of where Lucy's blood has gone it's the Texan cowboy who comes to the conclusion that someone has obviously stolen it and he needs to patrol the house for potential blood rustlers.

Small detail but Quincey doesn't magically appear on the 18th because of magical Quincey powers - he appears because of magical Arthur powers.

That's why I say Arthur's paranormal superpower is premonitions. He's done this twice now.

Remember kids, every Dracula protagist is a little bit paranormal!

don't forget the ADHD!

"I did not see the application, and told him so. For reply he reached over and took my ear in his hand and pulled it playfully, as he used long ago to do at lectures"

ummmmmmmmmmmm excuse me? what kind of student-professor relationship is this?

Seward's bone deep desire to run away from the asylum is not exactly surprising. There have been a lot of really good meta posts about how the return of Van Helsing into his life is the turning point where we see the caring and good side of him and how we can interpret his life as a student in Amersterdam as one of freedom and happiness. How he is part of the tragedy of manners, how strict social expectations allow Dracula to persist, and how they only exacerbate the unhappiness of the characters.

And I think the tragedy of Seward is that, really, he should not be the head of an asylum. It's a job that brings him no joy, and he's BAD at it. We can all recognize that if your first reaction to going back to work is "What if I just leave it all." That isn't a healthy work environment.

Now, in the modern day, the ability to pick and choose a work environment, even to leave one that is damaging your mental health, is a privilege. (IT SHOULDNT BE, but it is). And, although it is definitely reaching crisis levels in modern times, major changes in your career have almost always been difficult (unless you are really rich, or a particular brand of academic in the 17th-18th century, or both).

Seward can't just leave and become a surgeon. To give up the lofty position of "Head of an Asylum" would be unthinkable in the 1890s, especially for a reason like "Being here is basically turning me into the Joker." Like, how would Seward explain that in polite society? Would they accept that reasoning? Would they create salacious gossip if they didn't? Can Seward leave his position without losing a great amount of social capital?

Probably not.

His rise to head of an asylum, as many have pointed out, was meteoric, to say the least. It has afforded him status and respect and also left him deeply, deeply fucked up. And he can't leave!

I think his desperate attempts to quantify Renfield's behaviors into a new mental illness are telling in this regard. Maybe he is too used to having to meet some sort of expectation, and now he thinks this is the logical next step (It's NOT, but I digress). The feeling of having to keep performing above expectations, grasping at straws to do so, and subsequently burning oneself out (as well as others around you) and engaging in unethical practices? Idk. It sounds like something that would happen today. (tbh there are probably a ton of Sewards out there today, as there are still systemic problems within the mental health system that allow for the dehumanizing and abuse of patients).

It doesn't excuse his behavior. Nothing he does to Renfield is excusable, but I think it does explain some of the *why*. He isn't just cruel for cruelty's sake.

So, tldr I guess: I think reading Seward as someone who got stuck on a career path that he realized was unfufilling and that he ends up hating. Social conventions restrict him from just quitting without and a (socially acceptable) good reason to do so, and a lifetime of being regarded as one of the smartest people in the room means he can not allow himself to fail. Unfortunately, this also means he can not admit when his actions or his ideas are wrong when it comes to his job.

(But he can show that uncertainty FOR Lucy, and TO Arthur and Van Helsing, which speaks his trust and love for them)

bram at work

Jonathan Harker, 17, dressed in black to commemorate the life and death of beloved detective Sherlock Holmes: The world is a cruel uncaring place. This is true suffering. Things could not get any worse for me.

Because Vampires can only sleep in sacred earth that has later been rendered unhallowed in some way - that is, specifically desecrated earth - the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII Tudor and the concomitant iconoclasm and destruction of the Abbeys left England uniquely vulnerable to vampiric expansion due to a glut of ruined holy sites. In this essay I will

We saw Jonathan contract the brain fever:

He got it from accidentally reading Dracula's mind on June 30th

Thinking about…

How Jonathan is clearly very careful and very guarded in what he dictates to sister Agatha, and how she reopens his letter while he's sleeping. She alters his words while he's not watching her. Just as how he has to alter his own words while Dracula is watching him, or how Seward reads Redfield's diary again, while he's sleeping.

How Lucy goes about the room at night searching for the key, just as Jonathan goes around the castle during the day searching for the key.

How Mina and Lucy in their early letters talk about at last being able to speak freely with each other when they get to Whitby, and then they don't until it's already too late.

How both Mina and Jonathan suppress their own emotional reactions and own intuitive leaps even in the privacy of their own diaries

How Lucy's own mother refuses to parent her child, but rather enlists her best friend as a surrogate mother and live in caretaker. How even Mina lives fully into that role treating Lucy as a child to be managed, not appear to be consulted

How closely actions taken in love resemble actions taken in cruelty And just how many differen type Of captivity narrative are showcased in this novel for better and for worse

here's another instance of the daily dracula format displaying things differently from the original ordering of the novel. by moving sister agatha's letter up to when it was written rather than when it was received, it really emphasizes the fact that the night dracula first attacks lucy is the same night that jonathan regains coherence.

is it just coincidence and jonathan's brain fever ended naturally? was it an unnatural illness caused by his defiance of dracula and simple time and distance allowed it to break? did dracula's obsession with a new long-term victim (as opposed to the splurge on the demeter) take his attention away enough for jonathan to free his mind? or was it something about mina locking eyes with dracula across the graveyard for the first time that broke the compulsion?

i dunno, but i like the way that putting those two entries in conversation with each other side by side invites the question of connection more readily.

Dear Diary, I'm worried about my sweet gorgeous best friend, so today I took her out on a date hike and for some tea. Now she's sleeping and she looks so beautiful with her rosy cheeks, if I were a man I would surely fall in love with her on the spot. I'm not a man though!! 😊😊 I hope at least in the future women will also be allowed to do marriage proposals. I bet I would they would do a great job. Yours heterosexually, Mina Murray