Hello! For your headcanons challenge: Lucy, No.2, 6, 7, 8, 13, 21, 31, 45. Have fun! ;)
Okay. I am still dedicated to finishing this still yet unfinished meme from like two months ago because I absolutely love coming up with very very detailed headcanons about the cast of Dracula and I absolutely love all you guys for bothering to ask me about them.
2. Do they have any daily rituals?: We all know she’s totally got endless, gorgeous, pre-Raphaelite hair going on (even if we don’t know what color it is), and that she does that whole 100 strokes business every night. While it’s less of a daily ritual, her hypersensitive temperament is such that her environment tends to affect her emotions, and she probably nervously tidies something or fetches some fresh flowers for a room on a daily basis (She knows that there are maids to do this, but she really doesn’t like bothering them.) She also will sometimes have a stint where she regularly reads, or diaries, or tries to brush up on her French or the smattering of German Mina taught her, but she’s bad at making these things a rote habit.
6. Eating habits and sample daily menu: Lucy really likes to eat when she’s happy and in good health, and the novel seems to indicate that she was somewhat anemic and sickly prior to Dracula’s assaults and that Arthur and Mina seem to be glad when she appears to put on a little weight. It’s probably some sort of stereotype in which I correlate a sweet personality with a love of sweets, but I definitely see her being a big fan of desserts and I envision her being very enamored of fancy, cute things with stuff like candied flowers on them. Outside of that, I see her as preferring her meat in pies and soups rather than as part of a roast, given that the later resembles a living animal just a bit more and makes her a bit sad. She also possibly enjoys some manner of Irish and/or Dutch cuisine, as the surname Westenra (which appears elsewhere in Stoker’s work) is associated with the Irish baronetcy of Rosshire, the Barons of which had Dutch ancestry (a trait that the Stokers allegedly shared).
7. Favorite way to waste time and feelings surrounding wasting time: Lucy’s not completely self-conscious about wasting time, although she worries about anything that might be seen as some manner of imposition on others and she’s a little sensitive about undertaking activities that might be construed as frivolous and/or vain. As mentioned here, she likes fashion more than she admits and reads terrible novels; she also enjoys going to pops (obviously), fiddles about with sketching and watercolors, and tries –without complete success— to imitate Mina’s sundry hobbies.
8. Favorite indulgence and feelings surrounding indulging: She really enjoys things that are super elaborate but either ephemeral or hard to notice: cakes with extremely work-intensive piping, really expensive/detailed jewelry that looks very unflashy, rare flowers or fruit – that sort of thing. As with time-wasting, she’s can be a little guilty about the trouble people might go to for her, but she so fully appreciates that little details of things like this that she never thinks of herself as being less than grateful.
13. Sexual Orientation? And, regardless of own orientation, thoughts on sexual orientation in general?: She’s bi and possibly even a little more attracted to women than she is to men. While I don’t think she’s exclusively attracted to women as she is in Elka Cloke’s “Bloofer Ladies” and I do think she utterly adores Arthur, I am sort of on board with the idea floated by Cloke that she got engaged to Arthur shortly after Mina got engaged to Jonathan and she had to confront the fact that the two of them probably weren’t going to get to be spinsters together. Given Mrs. Westenra’s willingness to engage in what seems to be really unhealthy secrecy regarding things like her own impending death and her decision to make Arthur her heir, I sort of imagine that Lucy’s somewhat sheltered with regards to her knowledge of sex and sexuality in general and, but that she sees absolutely nothing wrong with being deeply in love with anyone.
21. Turn-ons? Turn-offs?: I’m going to borrow from Stoker’s other work like I always do because, let’s face it, Stoker only knew how to write like three women. Within that context, I definitely envision Lucy as an “Oh gosh! I love chivalry and like to imagine strong handsome men saving me and me saving strong handsome men!” sort of Stokerian heroine and decidedly not an “Oh gosh! My innately subservient feminine nature calls me to find someone to dominate me!” Stokerian heroine. This is the 1890s; fedoras are still a ladies hat associated with a hardcore princess/assassin and “m’lady” has yet to be thoroughly ruined, so people acting all faux knightly at you like you’re in a Tennyson poem is probably less cringe-worthy.
31. Most prized possession?: She’s very attached to the ring Arthur gave her, which does the Victorian DEAREST thing, only he wanted it to be unique, couldn’t find gemstones for half the letters in her name, and ended up spelling out her name’s meaning (LIGHT: Labradorite, Idocrase, Garnet, Heliotrope, Tourmaline) instead. This gives it the possibility of being an awesome symbolic artifact for the rest of the crew given how often that word seems to come up in relation to them.
I’m also fond of John Heimbuch’s decision to have Arthur give Lucy a music box (possibly channeling some Barnabas/Josette there?), and I sort of want to give him a nod given how well he managed to eerily reproduce so many of my other headcanons in his work.
45. Superstitions or views on the occult?: Lucy isn’t deep into the occult in a table-knocking, Psychical Research, “let’s see some ectoplasm!” way, but she’s the sort to buy into basic superstitions about luck and fate. As a schoolgirl, she was totally into doing those charms that are designed to predict your husband’s name, and she’ll definitely take stock in whatever somebody telling her fortune says unless it’s really unpleasant. I suppose that she’d be pretty open-minded about the supernatural if somebody around her was a believer, but sadly, she dies before anybody in her portion of the book is really talking about stuff.
