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Dracula - Blog Posts
I just met Jonathan Harker for the first time! He seems so nice, I certainly hope nothing heinously awful happens to him. Wishing him well on his little train trip.
I've loved this book for years, but I'm not sure if I'm gonna be liveblogging like I did the last two times, or at least all throughout this year's run. Still, I'll definitely be reading along all the same! And for any first readers, enjoy!
Today we say goodbye to ramen hair Justin, but very soon we'll say hello again to our good friend Jonathan Harker
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night ad (1997) platform: PlayStation
What Dracula adaptations are about: Victorian beauty, romance, gore, gentle kisses in the night, other gothic poetry stuff
What the book was about: A group of friends and their weird kooky grandpa kill Dracula to avenge their collective dead girlfriend
Our good friend Jonathan Harker is getting ready to leave for his business trip, Mina Murray is picking out a new journal, Lucy Westenra is charming a gaggle of smitten suitors, Abraham van Helsing is wrapping up his lectures, and Castle Dracula is prepping the guest room for a very long stay.
Which must mean that Dracula Season is here again!
‘Dracula Season’ being a catchall term for the voracious reading, memeing, writing, illustrating, analyzing, and general fun-having that’s ensued since Matt Kirkland’s project, Dracula Daily, caught on with us back in 2022. The Substack had already been running before then, but it sparked a conflagration as time went on and readers old and new to Bram Stoker’s Dracula—the actual novel, not Coppola’s fanfiction—devoured it in a way that scratched an itch none of us knew we had. Stoker wrote the book in epistolary fashion, clumping sections together as needed for the pacing without perfect adherence to chronological order. Matt went ahead and put all the events in order and proceeded to set up a lovely chain of emails that delivered entries on those correlating dates.
This style of organization and pacing turned out to not only make the virtual book club that much easier to engage with, but left space in-between to stew on the story and relate with the characters themselves. Every day of waiting in the book feels weightier when you have to pace and sweat and worry in tandem with poor Jonathan trapped in the castle or Lucy wasting away or Mina running out the clock before she loses the fight for her own humanity. And while we sat with the story or the lulls between Dracula Seasons, some of us found ourselves craving more of that ghastly gothic horror goodness to the point that we figured:
“Well. Why don’t I make something?”
And then we did! Tons of creative works have been churned out in the wake of Dracula Daily’s high. I figured that while we’ve still got a bit of time to wait for May 3rd, we should check out all this new stuff in the meantime. (Plus a handful of neat stuff that just clicks with the Dracula itch overall.)
So, in the interest of Dracula Season pregaming, let’s take a look at…
FICTION
Blood of My Blood – A recent addition to the Dracula Bad Ending AU pile, and definitely one of the most harrowing and addictive group-produced narratives I’ve ever come across, Blood of My Blood is the dramatically gothic currently-WIP work of @ibrithir-was-here and @animate-mush’s devious design. Give or take a heap of other fascinated folks (hello!) adding ideas to put more Horror into the Horrors that our cast has to face. The premise:
The Transylvanian climax went fatally sour and the Harkers were forced to shelter with Dracula himself, including their half-vampire son, Quincey. Cut to two decades later, and Quincey finds himself out in modern London, smitten with Lu, adopted daughter of Arthur and Jack, and diving into certain bloodstained old documents that detail the real history of how his parents came to live in the castle. Said revelations coming not a moment too soon, as a storm is coming for him straight from the Carpathians…
Dracula Daily Sketch Collection – An array of illustrations that captures every entry beat by beat, the Dracula Daily Sketch Collection by Georgia Cook, alias @georgiacooked was dished out over the course of the last Dracula Season. Some of the most fun character designs out there.
Fanfiction Spotlight: BlueCatWriter – With a whopping 99 works devoted to the novel Dracula (so far, the number may have gone up since I blinked), @bluecatwriter is one of the most prolific and talented fanfiction scribblers out there. Romances, nightmares, and overlaps between the two seem to crop up the most, give or take a crossover. Seems fitting that those blue paw prints have contributed to BoMB too.
The League of Extraordinary Gentlefolk – An ongoing comic in which all your favorite characters from the Classics section get together and tackle some perils ranging from the mundane to the monstrous. Started by the amazing @mayhemchicken and posted on @lxgentlefolkcomic, this series is a love letter to beloved Victorian era lit, with a spotlight on the two couples leading the League. Namely, the Harkers, ala Dracula, and the Nortons, ala Sherlock Holmes,’ “A Scandal in Bohemia.” Mina and Irene are the driving investigative and steering forces here, and still deeply in love with their likewise-infatuated husbands, just like in their canons! What a concept! Alan.
Without spoiling the full character list, just know there are going to be a ton of familiar faces roaming around before you finish reading the first arc. Said arc having conveniently wrapped up just a few days ago! Give the comic and its bonus silliness a look if you’re in the mood for a new comfort-adventure epic.
Re: Dracula – Probably the most well-known and incredible thing to come out of the initial Dracula Daily wave. This podcast is a full audio drama that follows the same format as the Substack, with episodes coming out in time with the entries themselves. And it has an unfairly cool soundtrack. They have a Tumblr with @re-dracula, a site and a Patreon to check out before the series kicks up again on May 3rd. (Also, keep an eye out for their next work, an audio drama in the same style with Carmilla.)
The Soldier and the Solicitor – Another treat from @ibrithir-was-here, this one involves a bit of time travel trouble. Quincey Harker has stumbled out of World War I and into the same dark forest where his father once fled for his life…then runs into the man himself, on that same night. Jonathan Harker, young and starved and lost, who has no choice but to trust this stranger while the Weird Sisters are at his heels…despite said stranger having no shadow. It’s a tasty emotional trek, already complete on Tumblr, but now it’s turning into a Webtoon. While Ibrithir is juggling a number of other stories, she’ll be redrawing spruced up versions of the comic and adding a few new scenes as things unfold.
Substack Stack – You know what’s better than one emailed-out public domain book club? A mountain of them. Just. So, so many of them. You’ll see that a lot of these are finished, but some are still ticking along. Either way, they’re all great picks if you’re craving some more old school lit to fill the void between undead emails.
Frankenstein Weekly – Frankenstein
Jekyll and Hyde Weekly – The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Voyage of the Nautilus – Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
Letters from Watson – Sherlock Holmes
The Invisible Mail – The Invisible Man
Letters from Bunny – E.W. Hornung’s short stories of the eponymous Bunny and Raffles
Letters Regarding Jeeves - P. G. Wodehouse’s Bertie Wooster short stories, including the novel, Right Ho, Jeeves
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…The Beetle Weekly – The Beetle (NOTE: Do Not Read This.)
The Vampyres – A novella I finally wrenched through the gears of self-publication as of March this year. Starring a petite but powerful paranormal cast, The Vampyres, centers on an unscrupulous undead fellow who finds that the revenants of the world are being mowed down by an entity known only as ‘Quinn Morse.’ Between trying to save his neck and figure out where the shadowy bastard came from, the Vampyre in question crosses paths with a new paramour and handy human shield in the form of a grieving Good Samaritan. He’s even polite enough to invite the Vampyre into his home while he’s in dire straits! Surely this will end well. All the info is available here and a little author site is over here.
What Manner of Man – This is the one made for everyone who started out hoping there’d be a real love story with our good friend Jonathan Harker and the Count when he was at his most charismatic. Where that sea of wonders dried up into a mire of horror, What Manner of Man by @stjohnstarling keeps things firmly on the romantic tracks. This Substack stars the letter-writing priest Father Victor E. Ardelian as he finds himself meeting with one enigmatic Lord Alistair Vane. It isn’t long before interest turns into intrigue and intrigue into undead intimacies.
The entire novel has been completed—along with multiple epilogues in the author’s Patreon, allowing readers to choose for themselves just how the uncanny romance plays out in the end—and the Substack now has a number of other gothic goodies piling up in the meantime.
NONFICTION
Dracula Daily: A Unique Reading Experience: This one comes courtesy of @realwomenofgaming. It’s a short and sweet piece that amounts to a fun snapshot of the entire Dracula Daily ride. A cozy couple-minute read.
‘Dracula Daily’ is the One Substack You Need a Subscription To: Features my favorite Matt Kirkland interview. @mattkirkland, if you’re still floating around on here, thank you for dispatching our vampire newsletter again this year.
Dracula Daily is Tumblr’s hottest new book club: Alright, the ‘new’ part is worn out by now, but this one is still a delightful article to swing back around to. Two years on, this Polygon piece is a time capsule of those early months when people outside our bookworm bubble realized we were all happily receiving letters from our favorite classic gothic horror blorbos.
“How Mina Murray Became Dracula’s Girlfriend” – Princess Weekes, if you ever read this, thank you, thank you, thank you. I am sending oceans of love and millions of rewatches to your video essay. If you haven’t seen it yet, “How Mina Murray Became Dracula’s Girlfriend” is one of the most refreshing and well-made breakdowns of both the title subject and numerous other issues that have proliferated in the public view of Dracula’s cast and plot as adaptations endlessly warp or outright bastardize the actual novel. An incredibly cathartic watch.
Literary play gone viral: delight, intertextuality, and challenges to normative interpretations through the digital serialization of Dracula: A mouthful of a title for an even more elaborate article about the Dracula Daily phenomenon. This one is a full-on study that analyzes just what happened within the big bloodsucker book club surge and how its ‘wandering reading practices’ enriched the experience for participants.
“The Undying Undead: An analysis of the Dracula Daily community for a theory of online community formation and interaction” – We have a thesis on here! Look at that! @sirangelothebestest’s MA thesis used our vampiric book club as the bones for a massive brick of an academic piece that definitely deserves a look.
…And I think I’ll go ahead and cap things here.
This isn’t everything I got recommended, but if I had squashed all of it in here, I think folks’ eyes would start to fall out of their head. I hope you can find something cool to comb through here. Or, if there’s something great I overlooked, tack it onto the list! We’ve got just two weeks to go until we’re off with Mr. Harker. Let’s enjoy our respite before those castle doors close behind us.
Bram<3
Tumblr is a mainly digital art run place (in terms of the art community) so I do feel semi out of place because I'm a traditional artist but I randomly dabble in digital art (y'all I'm struggling 🙏) aaaand I drew Bram :D idk lol this was fun to make though
account isnt dead, just been enjoying the discord side of fandom. anyways hi
i finished castlevania.
this was the perfect ending for these three. i could not stop crying while watching this episode. after all the struggle, fighting, pain, and death, they can finally be together again.
s4 ep9 was PERFECT. the trio reunited again, having to face their biggest battle yet. i had been waiting for them to reunite, and their reunion was done so well. i loved seeing them fighting together again. their chemistry while fighting is incredible, protecting each other like they've been fighting for years.
trevor telling sypha he loved her right before he fought death was so moving. i could not stop crying after that scene. these two have become one of my favorite ships, and seeing their relationship grow throughout the season has been such a beautiful watch. although the episode leaves on a cliffhanger, the buildup to the season finale was incredible.
trevor finally has someone he truly loves, and because of that love, he can become the hunter his family would be proud of. while sypha is trevor's strength, trevor is also sypha's. she was able to go on the adventures she always dreamed of and discover her strength thanks to her meeting with trevor. they saved villages, helped people, and fell in love along the way. not only did they find each other, trevor and sypha also found alucard. their connection and friendship give them all a start to a new life. these characters meeting in gresit was a fateful encounter that changed their lives forever.
in the series finale, we finally have sypha tell trevor she loves him, too. at this point, i could not stop crying. the love between them is so genuine and perfectly written. their development was done so well that you fall not only for their relationship but also for them as characters. they have so much respect for one another, they see each other for who they are. the bad, the good, and the ugly. they've seen it all on their journey, yet their love is stronger than ever.
alucard's ending made me so happy. after being consumed by grief and guilt, he's now FINALLY content with his life. even though he's dracula's son, he decided to defend humanity to honor his mom. he lost his parents, his new friends left him, and then he was alone in that big house. later on, he was betrayed by people he thought he could trust. alucard's humanity and vampirism will always be apart of his life, a constant battle that will go on for the rest of his life. however, he still loves people. he still values connection, and it has much to do with trevor and sypha. alucard learned the value of friendship from them, giving him hope despite the dark time he went through after they left.
now, at the end of the series, he has people and a community who depend on him, and he finally sees how much he has to offer the world. alucard now has his two favorite people by his side, a village that depends on him and humans he can trust. although there will be moments where he will grieve and be in pain, at least now he has a place to belong with people he cares for. i'm so happy he's finally able to smile <3
the ending with dracula and lisa was also very beautiful. finally reunited, given a second chance at life, and happy to be together again. it's so beautiful to see the series start and end with them.
i'm so happy I finally watched Castlevania, and i can easily say that the trio will be a favorite of mine for a long time!
castlevania s2 thoughts!! *spoilers*
I have been looking forward to watching this series FOR SO LONG. I have always loved dark fantasy in medieval settings, so I knew this show would be fun to watch!
s1 was a short but perfect way to begin the rest of the show. You meet the main characters, get introduced to Dracula and his rampage on mankind, and towards the end of s1, we finally get our trio together.
S2 began the journey of fighting Dracula. What I loved the most was watching Sypha, Trevor, and Alucard warm up to one another as the season went by. The annoyance between Trevor and Alucard while Sypha was the mediator was so sweet to see! They were able to rely on each other despite barely meeting.
Once the trio found their way to the Belmont house, I knew I would love these characters for a long time! Watching Trevor remember his family's relics was so bittersweet. Knowing that he was forced to flee his ancestral home because of the church was heartbreaking, but as he walked through the halls, you could see the inner child in him heal little by little. Sypha running around excited about the books was so cute; she's such an intelligent woman who's not afraid to put herself in danger for what's right. While she's studying and Trevor is looking, Alucard is roaming around looking at all the deceased vampire remains. Although Alucard is on the side of humans, he is part vampire at the end of the day. It added more to Alucard's character. You could see the individual character's personalities shine brighter as they take in the belmont library and i love that!
The Dracula plotline is very interesting because he always seems indifferent to his scheme to end the human race. While the vampires who worked under him are desperate to wreak havoc, Dracula sits in his room quietly. Obviously, he wasn't as involved in his plan as he once was. He was a shell of the man he once was, which became more evident in the season finale. Watching him tear up at the thought of killing his son DESTROYED ME!! As stated many times in the series, Dracula is a brilliant man, yet it is clear to Alucard and himself that he is no longer the person he used to be.
Carmilla was an interesting character who constantly worked to make her plan succeed. She manipulates Hector, uses the vampire's anger to hatch her plan, and persuades Dracula to move the castle, all steps toward her potential success.
However, all it took was a hunter, a witch, and a half-vampire to take down the most feared creature in the land. As the trio storms the castle, they quickly take control and fight off all their enemies. The teamwork was insane to watch. It was like these three had known each other their whole lives. The chemistry between them is what I love the most about this series. It's obvious they were all destined to meet and save the world together.
The season finale was so bittersweet. For starters, Sypha and Trevor's decision to travel together and continue their mission was so beautiful!!! They have so much respect for each other; you can see how much stronger they are together. Trevor was able to find a meaning for himself, while Sypha was able to realize how much she had to offer the world. These two together will be unstoppable!! I'm so excited to see their continued character growth and how their romance grows!!
On the other hand, the ending scene with the Alucard broke my heart. To save the world, he had to kill his father in his childhood home. Alucard understood his father was grieving; he was too, yet he knew he had to protect the human race in honor of his mother. Watching him cry alone brought tears to my eyes. He's such a lonely soul. Although Trevor and Sypha gave him a new purpose, his grief and sadness are still too much for him. I'm hoping we'll be able to see him heal in the next season.
overall, castlevania s2 is easily 10/10!!! It is such an amazing season, and I can't wait for more!!