Happy first night of Passover!

Thank you so much!!! <3333

You're actually only the second person to wish this to me (technically you were first but I didn't see it until second haha!) so I really appreciate it.

Hi! Your helward fanart is so beautiful! What's your favorite thing about them?

uwaa thank you!! 🥺🥺 im so glad ppl enjoy my helward art

i think my favorite thing about helward is how much they trust each other. yeah theres the whole gangrene bit but outside of that, seward deeply trusts van helsing when he doesnt know what to do and in return van helsing regards seward as a true equal and believes in him. its and im just. flops down. im so weak for them i can barely articulate why lmao

Maybe Jack's real character arc was accepting hetero marriage wasn't for him and becoming Van Helsing's malewife all along /lh

you jest, but honestly…. who’s to say that’s not what happened?

jack seems to be very concerned with appearances. two examples that come to mind are

1. when van helsing is having a breakdown after lucy’s funeral, jack is concerned that someone will see and takes the time to draw the blinds of their carriage – like no offence to jack but if my friend did that when i was losing it rather than, idk, comforting me? i’d be a bit pissed ngl

2. when renfield is begging to be released, jack tells him to “try to behave more discreetly”

the second one is interesting, because when renfield was previously begging him for a cat in a similar manner (jack makes this connection as well), we are not told that jack has any concerns about renfield’s lacking discretion. but the thing is, at that time, they are alone. it is only in front of the others that jack is concerned with it.

so jack is not concerned with propriety in itself, but rather the appearance of it. and i have made the point before that his proposal to lucy (or any heterosexual marriage) could be another attempt at keeping up appearances, rather than an actual wish for a wife.

but this makes me wonder when and what made him realise that happiness comes from bottoming submitting to his true desire to be van helsing’s malewife 😏 there are quite a few instances in the book where conventions are challenged, so perhaps it’s all of them combined. or perhaps after their little adventure and the intense final battle, he was like “you know what? fuck appearances” because honestly, how do you come back from that and still worry about what the neighbours will think?

Love your Barbie Van Helsing design! I wanted to ask, how does he look in your futuristic AU?

Omg thank you! And thanks for your excellent post that inspired my Barbie Van Helsing!

As for the cyberpunk au I haven’t fully hammered out his design (I need to do character turnarounds for all the characters) but he’s chilling in the corner of the one of the pieces:

Ok so I only have the first volume of LXG, but does the league pick up more female characters besides Mina in later volumes?

From what I remember, and double-checking the last comics from the end of the run that I didn't end up reading, there are definitely more female characters after Vol. 2, though the concept of the League itself breaks down completely after the Edwardian era in the first issue of Vol. 3, so at the same time, the one additional on-page team after the Victorian era is still mostly men.

In terms of additional women, Emma Peel of The Avengers is a major character in Black Dossier, albeit initially as an antagonist, and she eventually becomes one of the later M figures heading MI-6, and I think she has a bigger active role in Vol. 4; Nemo's daughter Janni becomes the new Captain Nemo and takes over the Nautilus after her father dies, and the Nemo series has her as the protagonist, but unfortunately, Moore falls back on his obsession with sexual assault in his stories bc what finally pushes her to accept her destiny is, well, rape, despite the fact that misogyny, racism, and imperialism are right there for motivation; Gloriana appears in Vol. 4 as the faerie queen who established the League centuries ago, though I'm not sure how significant her role is, and Vol. 4 also seems to have more female characters involved with the plot, but they're not pop culture characters I recognize, and I gave up long before then.

There's also Orlando, who is an immortal composite of various literary Orlandos, genderfluid, and takes on male and female roles/genders/identities at different times throughout history, if that sort of counts; in Vol. 3, they become one of the three major characters alongside Mina and Quatermain, though Mina remains the protagonist right to the end.

Tadaai, sk8 for the ship meme!

..ahaha *laughs nervously...

i don't ship it (anymore), but i used to, pretty heavily, so i'll answer from both POVs

What made you ship it? tadashi was so devoted to ainosuke, yet so cunning. and forbidden love had that romeo and juliet thing going on, and while the show was airing i was having fun theorizing about whether tadashi was plotting to take ainosuke down or what (since we really didn't know what side he was on)

What are your favorite things about the ship? the amount of history they have together, good and bad. tadashi introduced ainosuke to skating and then hurt ainosuke terribly. delicious angst.

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship? most of my issues with the ship itself comes from fanon/fandom treatment

Why don’t you ship it? i felt alienated by the fandom, got tired watching my friends get harassed (and then being harassed), and i don't like the way CERTAIN shippers disregard other adam ships that i've grown to prefer

What would have made you like it? i mean i did like it, a lot. i was in the secret invite-only tadaai discord! i might still like it if i didn't turn out preferring another adam ship that certain tadaai fans don't... see as "valid"

Despite not shipping it, do you have anything positive to say about it? i've noticed that, out of the big 3 sk8 ships, tadaai has the most mature fanbase (age-wise and emotional maturity wise). as a result, a lot of the fic, art, and meta analysis for tadaai is incredibly high-quality

thanks for asking!! i don't dislike this ship nor the shippers, my tastes just changed ^^

ship ask game

They should make a Van Helsing Barbie since she can be a professor, a meta physician, a philosopher, AND a lawyer

Extremely pleased to know I've infected you with my dracula posting LOL

It's seriously reviving my love for the book!!

I mean now that you're posting helward I HAVE to check it out from that angle, ykwim? Plus all the little things you and everyone noticed on Dracula Daily makes me excited to catch them myself.

I can't wait till I've finished it and can join in on the fun!

Seward is displaying some Dracula traits here. He owns an immense house in which the residents are locked up and he has control over. He has a new favorite "guest", Renfield. He's fascinated by him, spends more time than others with him, he admits taking his darker feelings out on him (after his rejection). Both of them are higher class, stoic and give the impression of being undominable, but we know they hide strong feelings.

As @thebibi pointed out: Both Jack and Dracula are itching for something or someone new, and are shown to be lonely and seeing new prospects, when they both have 3 people who know precisely who they are.

A few differences so far are that he's only 29 while Dracula is old, and confesses feeling guilt for his actions.

Renfield is, like Jonathan, trapped and at the mercy of someone with power over him. They're both passionate/sanguine, fascinating, intelligent, and struggle with Sanity. They both are incapable of moving forward as of now.

A few differences so far is that while Jonathan is lower-middle class and stepping into adulthood, Renfield is upper class and stepping into elderly age.

What type of cat would Van Helsing be?

ok so. delightful news for you tumblr user thebibi, because

this is a turkish van (helsing) it's also a pattern that shows up in regular cats, and is known as a "van" pattern (so i don't thing he actually has a pedigree, i think he's just a longhair moggie with that specific pattern) i did have to give him eyebrow patches though that was very necessary

also he is. so noisy. meow meow meow meow meow

When I saw your tag for "carrot pie" I was so bewildered for 2 seconds before remembering us Pakistanis also make halwa out of seasonal red carrots so yeah that totally slaps actually!!! This isn't a question but now I'm wondering what carrot pie is like!

I'm not personally familiar with carrot halwa, though I looooove regular halva!!

It's a custard pie, so the filling is about half egg yolks and half steamed, mashed carrot. Plus cardamom, butter and sugar. It's similar to a cross between a pumpkin pie and flan, especially since I like to put a honey glaze on top, similar to flan's caramel.

I'm trying to find a decent recipe online but google is failing me, so I'll probably have to write it out next time I make one!

Thanks to @thebibi pointing out that Van Heling went to pray before the meeting, not wanting to repeat his mistake again, and his response to Jack (hushing him from trying to tell Jonathan not to speak to Mina) was because he felt that God answered his prayers with the result (the Harkers to communicate about the needed silence)... yeah I'm convinced that Van Helsing took Mina's reaction to his joke and the Harkers' slip to Despair to heart. He treads more carefully and turns inwards and spiritually when he's unsure.

And that is also why he agreed to Mina and Jonathan coming with no more than a "why?" at first, after listening to Mina's arguments.

Jack's other favorite romance novel should be Jane Eyre, I don't know if you've read it but the more I think about it, it feels helward adjacent. I dont think Jack would be aware of that's why he likes it though.

no, but yeah, i think that’s a good assessment. i haven’t read the book myself (although it’s been in my tbr for years), but i’ve watched a film adaptation and read many quotes from it, so i feel like i’m somewhat familiar. there’s this one quote i’ve always liked, and it gives off extreme helward vibes: “He is not of their kind. I believe he is of mine;— I am sure he is—I feel akin to him—I understand the language of his countenance and movements.” 😌❤️

@thebibi is correct about this. We here at Where's Jonno make a point of not knowing anything about the novel Dracula. We don't know where Jonathan Harker is or who Abraham van Helsing is or why these crabs keep turning up. This studied ignorance is so important to the project that we find we don't know a lot of other things as well, like where Lublin is found on a map or who Tom Baker played on Doctor Who or why we're so sure that Attorney is Ace. Or how to get out of Lost Carcosa for that matter. (Speaking of which, time to head back to the Lovecraft wiki I guess...)

Head Empty Only Polls

I am curious, what is the background for tadaai in your Ringo verse? You mention she was kept a secret for her early years so what happened? I think she's their biological choice, right?

Her birth honestly was a thing that made think really hard, bc I was between two posibilities: her being their biological child or Tadashi asking a woman to help him. I finally ended with the first option (how she could have been born bc of this? Well, the answer is easy, it was the power of fiction lmao)

As for her being kept a secret, Tadashi wanted to mantain Ainosuke's image as good as possible (yes, they were married by that time but that also was a secret) so because Ringo looked more like him, he decided to pass her as HIS daughter

That's why Ringo said she was only known as 'the child of a servant' since that's what other kids called her

Obviously, Ainosuke didn't want to have any more of this, having to keep their happiness as a family a secret, and decided to announce that she was indeed the daughter of the two

Thanks! I got a drawing tablet today so I'll start drawing soon!