The original Carmilla codified the Lesbian Vampire trope, a short hand technique to make a woman threatening enough to be a villain by making her both dead(ly) and… gay. The trope doesn’t always have fantastic implications (“gay women are as trustworthy as blood sucking vampires”) but some of the worst of it can be mitigated in vampire fiction where they try to depict all vampires similarly. Some of the more modern interpretations of the trope could simply be described as Hedonistic Pansexual Vampire. Like Tru Blood, which I shamelessly admit I watched because the fucking in that series was hot.
The modern Carmilla has been reimagined in a YouTube series featured here. Told from the perspective of a naive but stubbornly idealistic college freshman through a series of in-universe vlogs hosted by protagonist Laura, we see Carmilla depicted as a smouldering and aloof roommate caught in the midst of a campus conspiracy. As Laura latches on to uncover the conspiracy, she finds herself in increasingly dangerous situations, where Carmilla reluctantly intervenes due to complex guilt from her past.
The series likes to turn classic romance tropes on their head, so many of the expectations you’d have aren’t safe. The director & writers are experts in ship teasing so when a romantic kiss seen on screen it is a thousand times more satisfying.
It’s very much genre-blending fiction for Queers.
That embrace makes me melt like butter.
Stay hot and bothered lovelies.
-Shiv
