Mrs. Westenra: I threw away all that silly, smelly garlic 😊

Van Helsing:

*opens tumblr*

*70 posts on garlic*

Ah Dracula daily must have updated

Van Helsing, Bram Flakes Stoker, the audience: This vampire is a terrible and persistent predator! He strikes whenever he can, the moment we let down our guard! What a dastardly and enigmatic fiend to make a victim of this poor girl without end..!

Dracula, who thinks he’s stumbled upon the Greatest Blood Donor in the World (a girl who comes in multiple blood flavors, seasoned with various liquors and hard Victorian drugs) doing a happy little bat dance outside the window as he wonders what tonight’s mystery meal will be: 🦇🩸🖤!!!

With today's Dracula Daily, a reminder that Victorians were mad about fresh air and Lucy had probably slept with the window at least cracked every day of her life

Van Helsing entering Dracula

Originally posted by cammitchell

Jonathan, looking out the window and once more watching Dracula scale the walls like a lizard:

[ID: The meme image of Ben Affleck smoking on a balcony, looking disheveled, exhausted, and exasperated.

Below is an edit of the same image so that he is dressed in a Victorian suit, wearing a rosary, looking out a castle window. END ID]

writing "experts": "Don't make your character overpowered and super smart and super likable that's a self insert Mary Sue!!"

Bram Stoker: "This is Van Helsing he has my own name he is a doctor and also a lawyer and also a professor and also a vampire hunter and he has so many friends and"

Seward: Art, I'd like you to meet a most extraordinary man. This is Professor Van Helsing, M. D., D. Ph., D. Lit., etc., etc.

Van Helsing: Oh, no need for that, friend John.

Seward: You're so funny, Professor Van Helsing M. D., D. Ph., D. Lit., etc., etc..

Arthur: It's nice to meet you, Dr. Van Helsing.

Seward (under his breath): ᴹ. ᴰ. ᴰ. ᴾʰ. ᴰ. ᴸᶦᵗ. ᵉᵗᶜ. ᵉᵗᶜ.

Okay, so like most people here i snickered at the line about “the smuts” in today’s Dracula Daily. Then I looked up what “the smuts” actually were. In this context, “smuts” are flakes of coal ash falling from the sky. Apparently this was a major problem in 19th century London! The Industrial Revolution was nuts.

You can get smuts from a badly-behaved kerosene stove, too. And from what comes out of the smokestacks of steam trains.

The word is still in use in Ireland (and I suspect the UK, too) to describe the little floating bits of soot in the air from any incomplete fuel combustion.

I read a book called something like What Austen Ate And Dickens Knew which was all about the small details of everyday life that are mentioned in 19th century novels but hard to figure out for modern readers; they were so commonplace that they didn’t need to be explained in the text and remain unclear from context. I remember there was a whole bit about smuts and what a hassle they were in terms of sticking to your face, hair and clothes. One ladies’ advice book recommended having at least three hairbrushes because when you brushed your hair at the end of the day, there would be so many smuts in the hairbrush you’d need to wash it. So on any given day you’d have one brush dry and ready to use, one brush in the process of drying out from being washed, and one kept in readiness to lend to a friend.