Every morning when I find out someone's fucked up my anti-vampire measures:

September 21

A) God poor Lucy she is having the most harrowing time, the detail of her just-dead mother’s forehead hitting hers as she falls and briefly stunning her particularly got to me

B) I would adore to know who (i) put laudanum in the sherry and (ii) accurately predicted that at some point in the night all the servants would drink some

C) THEIR REACTION TO MRS WESTENRA BEING DEAD AND LUCY BEING TERRIFIED AND POSSIBLY A BIT CONCUSSED WAS TO RUN OFF AND DRINK SHERRY FOR THEIR NERVES, IN UNISON

There's something really fascinating and haunting in Dracula's persistence in pursuing Lucy Westerna. There are so many people that he could drink from or turn now that he is in England and yet he chooses this one girl and stays with her even after the repeated and hard fought efforts of her many friends. Van Helsing and Seward and even Mina before she left were over and over putting their all into bringing Lucy back to health but she would cycle back to sickness every single time and then the moment they slip up even slightly by one missed telegram Dracula shows just how fruitless their efforts were. Because he could wait forever, and they could try forever, but he has no need to give up. There's no time limit on his life. And he knows he's stronger than them. He's kind of like death in that way, and his relentless persistence is fascinating.

Dracula Daily leading folks to read up on the historical background of its epistolary framing and discovering that same-day mail delivery used to be completely routine and not just a special perk available only to the largest corporations, and that its decline is a direct consequence of abolishing passenger rail in favour of ubiquitous car ownership isn’t the learning opportunity I expected this week, but you know what, I’ll take it.

Dracula: Hm, that human mother is being super annoying about her dead kid at the gate. How do I fix that? Wolves? I’ll say wolves.

Dracula: What’s that? My good friend Jonathan Harker wants to leave ahead of schedule? Think I’ll do some wolves about that.

Dracula: Damn, seems that old Dutchman has blocked off one (1) single window with garlic blossoms and now this one (1) specific girl in all of England is barred from me. Maybe I should use my title and/or some invented pretense to cajole the girl’s mother into letting me in. Or maybe I could just move on to a different victim out of the nigh endless blood buffet I specifically moved here to enjoy, none of whom have a small legion of blood donors and vampire-proofing scholars on their side.

Dracula:

Dracula, about to slam dunk a wolf through the window: Or,

I like the “Lucy is a universal recipient” headcanon but I raise you “Lucy had already started turning to the extent that her body just wanted more blood, of any kind, from any person”