Jonathan Harker 🤝 Jean Valjean

Hair turning white after a dramatic moment

When I saw this old photograph, I knew that I had to draw the Crew of Light this way, all balancing on top of totally-not-imbued-with-supernatural-power Jonathan. He's normal. It's fine.

[ID in Alt]

My favorite gothic horror trio celebrating Pride before a certain undead ba(t)stard happens to them <3

If you're interested in some art of your own, I have a Ko-Fi here!

I believe that Jonathan actually sensed Dracula among the large, busy Picaddily crowd. And it may be because Jonathan got marked and drunk on by Dracula.

Jonathan sensed him stalking a new victim, but not the other way around. Dracula was too focused on his new target (something that Jonathan also does when he has a set goal) to notice him staring, or Mina (whom Dracula saw often at Whitby).

I also think that this isn't the first time Jonathan has sensed Dracula.

On August 11 night, Dracula attacks Lucy (and he sees Mina, and Mina him) for the first time.

On August 12, Jonathan has now broken his six-week delirium-induced silence, has remembered where "home" is (he couldn't remember where it was since he had arrived in Kalusenberg weeks ago), and sends word to Mina from the Budapest hospital.

And now Jonathan, who only saw Dracula as an old man, and right at the end as a middle-aged man, recognizes the young-looking Count instantly.

He looks several decades younger, dressed differently in a London outfit, but Jonathan still has no doubt. It's him. The man himself.

And he's targeting a new person because of Jonathan's visit. Like when he had stolen Jonathan's clothes. "If only I knew..."

all the men: we are doing so great that we are keeping mina out of this! 🥰🥰🥰 see this is so much better for her!

mina: gets bitten

just found a snippet of a dracula AU i was writing last year and maybe i should pick it up because i was really going somewhere with it lol

not may 16th anymore but im thinking again abt jon repeating 'i didnt mean to, mina, i promise, i didnt mean to'

Jonathan was THERE???

starting to think that this book's plot is basically an elaborate chess game between dracula and mina

Happy Jonmina PDA day to those who celebrate

Some time in the middle of the night

*Mina's phone rings*

Mina: what do you want?

Jonathan: Hey Mina, it's Jonny. So our little night adventure landed us all in jail...

Mina: *hangs up*

Inspired by @yallemagne's amazing post about the cast of Dracula having a Beach Episode... I give you this! (It was fun to just doodle these without looking at picture references— drawing like this uses a very different part of my brain.) Set in a modern AU because 1) I didn't want to do research and 2) I really wanted to draw Van Helsing wearing corn-themed swimming trunks.

-

Mina and Jack chillin'.

Lucy and Arthur not noticing they're getting sunburned.

Quincey trying to teach Jonathan how to swim.

And Van Helsing water-skiing!

[Image descriptions in Alt.]

Mina's incredible (and underrated) detective prowess would be very useful I bet. Put her on the helm Integra, Van Helsing praised her brains as being above everyone's including himself for a reason.

I honestly can't guess what the chemistry between Integra and Mina would be. Integra doesn't really click with me as a classically heroic character, for all that she does focus on saving humanity from the undead via Alucard and her forces, being the Boss Lady etc etc. She's miles away from being as insidious as an Amanda Waller, but...

The hotel. The fucking hotel will never leave me.

Yes, the order went directly against 'soldiers of the enemy,' but those soldiers had been lied to about who and what they were charging into. Which was obvious even without being a fly on the wall to know their higher-ups had fed them some BS to march them into death and win their own power grab from Millennium. She didn't tell Alucard to 'make it quick' or even just to 'neutralize.' She told him to search and destroy. Folding to Alucard's egging and negging to seem like a Worthy War Commander in the grand scheme~ of the plot

She's not heartless, exactly, but she is arctic and surprisingly quick to breeze past the loss of lives that aren't under her direct care/command. While she might respect Mina's abilities and investigative skills--I wouldn't be surprised if Mina could intuit Millennium's endgame well before the climax could happen--Integra inherited none of her ancestor's warm regard, supposing Abraham van Hel(l)sing had any of the original's tenderness in him (50/50 considering this takes place in aggro horror territory). We can't even say if this universe's Mina played any big role in cornering Dracula; she might just have been a targeted damsel.

All that said, I think Integra would see Mina as another time-displaced bleeding heart with a few useful skills, same as Jonathan. Someone to be an ally at best, a liability at worst. So I don't see her handing over any reins or offering to be co-girlbosses any time soon :c

Mina is Dracula's archnemesis in so many ways, but the most obvious ones are

Mina was Dracula's very first adversary in England

Mina is personally hurt by him over the same man and the same woman

Dracula claims Jonathan. Mina promptly marries Jonathan

Mina is the only one that Dracula openly attacks with personal malice, in the most intimate ways

A single, glaring scar on the same place for both Mina and Dracula

Only these two share the same blood

Psychic link exists only between them

KIN OF MY KIN

Van Helsing hasn't even personally confronted the guy yet come on now

Y'know, something that gets me, is that in the book, Dracula's intentional predation of Lucy starts off with an accidental meeting. Sure, Lucy slept walked, and an argument could be made her path might have been supernaturally influenced, but I say she'd already been a known sleep-walker, and she went directly to a place she was familiar with.

Her stumbling onto Dracula's hiding spot in a very vulnerable state was just an accident, and from there, he intentionally set out to harm her, and through that, everyone around her he could get.

This is sort of related to Jonathan, too. Had Mr. Hawkins not come down with a bad case of gout, Jonathan wouldn't have been sent to Castle Dracula in his stead. Sure, Dracula probably would have had his fun with Hawkins before inevitably killing him, but I doubt he would have drawn it out so long or taken so much delight.

Dracula never sets out with a master-plan to attack Lucy or Jonathan. They just end up in his path and spark his interest. We know that if he isn't interested in you, he'll kill you. He'll, he breaks Mr. Swales neck doesn't even bite him. But the two victims he decides he's going to make suffer the longest he possibly can, he just stumbles upon and goes "oh this will be fun". Later, we see him start choosing victims as a way to retaliate, but for the two inciting incident victims upon which the rest of the story hangs...its just wrong place wrong time.

The reason this struck me is that I was misremembering. For some reason, which I now believe due to thinking about the *through gritted teeth* Coppola film, is that Lucy is sort of hand-picked by Dracula to be his victim. And yeah, the fucking film ain't subtle in its blaming of Lucy's victimization on the fact that she was Too Pretty and Too Flirtatious and Dracula psychically drew her into the garden in a flowing diaphanous dress, but it's really her fault....I hate this movie.

Like, i just read the films Wikipedia plot synopsis, Dracula "psychically seduces" Lucy before biting her. He chooses her out of everyone in England deliberately.

And just...no. That's not what happens. Lucy got so stressed from her wedding that her latent sleep walking started again. Mina gets so tired from the constant stress she falls asleep without meaning to. Lucy went to their favorite spot...Dracula just happened to be there and took advantage and both Lucy and Mina weren't floating along softly into a garden with a fan letting their hair blow, but cold, scared, and covered in mud and blood, and forced to sneak back to the house that way, facing not only the supernatural but the very ordinary horrors of being caught outside at night by a strange man.

Idk. The tragedy is that Dracula didn't set out to fuck with these people. It's just that they were the ones who crossed his path that he took an interest in, and he decided to draw it out as long as possible.

(Oh fuck, this is the crew of the Demeter too. It isn't like Draculas got some big plan. He just decides he's going to play with his food. Had he boarded any other ship it would have ended up the same way.)

I guess in conclusion, I find it odd that adaptions seem to need to find a reason for him doing what he does. Like, Coppola has to conjure up a whole reincarnation backstory at one point, but I don't understand why!! Let Dracula just be an opportunist, his casual cruelty knowing no reason. That makes him scarier.