Dracula/Van Helsing
| Pairing | |
|---|---|
| Pairing: | Count Dracula/Abraham Van Helsing |
| Alternative name(s): | Vancula, Dragatha (for the 2020 series) |
| Gender category: | Slash |
| Fandom: | Dracula |
| Canonical?: | no |
| Prevalence: | rare |
| Archives: | |
| Other: | |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
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Count Dracula/Abraham Van Helsing is a slash pairing from the novel Dracula (1897) and its derivative works, particularly Hammer Horror films.
Canon
While in the novel Dracula and Van Helsing barely interact and never talk to each other, the connection between them has been deepened in public consciousness due to the influence of works based on or inspired by the novel, which often frame Van Helsing as Dracula's nemesis. Van Helsing is generally the one to kill Dracula in the adaptations of the novel and is frequently the only character from the book besides Dracula to appear in various Dracula-related works. Examples of Dracula media with developed dynamic between these characters include the 2004 Van Helsing movie, 2020 BBC series (where the pairing with a genderbent Van Helsing was made canon), 2013 series and Hammer Horror films.
Fandom
Novel
The pairing was relatively popular in the Dracula fandom on Tumblr in 2020-2021. While it didn't have many shippers, the few of them were active enough and enthusiastic enough to give it significant presence in then small fandom for the novel, with a lot of fans who weren't active shippers supporting it in a half-joking manner. It was a common opinion in the fandom than Vancula was the only pairing with Dracula that wasn't too "problematic" to function, and one fandom Discord server of that time even banned any pairings with Dracula except this one.
The popular headcanon was to interpret Dracula and Van Helsing as "bitter exes" who used to know each other before the events of the book.[1] Crepuscol, one of the most active and influential Vancula shippers, created a lot of art and headcanons for the pairing, while vanhelsingenthusiast, who coined the "Vancula" portmanteau, contributed the largest amount of fics and also (often humorous) meta.
Hammer Horror
2020 Series
Fanfiction
Novel
- Full Moon by vanhelsingenthusiast
- Parlay by orphant_account
- A Roaring Fire by BlueCatWriter
Fanart
- changing tactics by Crepuscol
- poor van helsing by dracupa
- art by postmortemmischief, with Van Helsing based on the one from the 1977 adaptation
Archives & Links
- Count Dracula/Abraham Van Helsing works on Ao3
- Dracula/Van Helsing (Hammer) works on Ao3