#little victorian lesbians

[thelonecalzone]

The Unaired Two-Page Conversation

I think we're past the point of possible spoilers, so as promised: the 2pg book conversation that was cut for time (and realism). Originally, I was experimenting with "unsent" books as part of the conversations, but I thought it would ultimately be too confusing and opted not to use that, so anything you see with a strikethrough is an "unsent" book.

(If this text formatting is ultra zany and hard to read, someone please tell me and I'll make it more regular. Allison is Blue, Patty is Red... for reasons... 🫠)

Allison: It’s Lonely at the Center of the Earth, by Zoe Thorogood

Patty: Not Here, by Hieu Minh Nguyen

Allison: Tell Me Everything, by Minka Kelly

Patty: Daily Rituals, by Phoebe Garnsworthy

Patty: Drinking Coffee Elsewhere, ZZ Packer

Patty: Crime, by Irvine Welsh

Allison: Without Me? by Chelle Bliss

Allison: Exciting Times, by Naoise Dolan

Patty: Not Without You, by Harriet Evans

Patty: The Page Turner, by David Leavitt

Allison: I Got a Job and It Wasn’t That Bad, by Scott Dikkers

Patty: Really Moving On, by Pierre Jeanty

Patty: What Kind of Job Can a Monkey Do? by Sato Akira

Allison: Hey Rick! Don’t Be So Rude! by Alyssa Thompson

Patty: I Like Monkeys, by Peter Hansard

Allison: So You Like Me Too, by OPR

Patty: The Miseducation of Cameron Post, by Emily M. Danforth

Allison: Just Say Yes, by Niobia Bryant

Patty: Yes, Chef, by Marcus Samuelsson

Patty: Get to the Point, by Joel Schwartzberg

Allison: I Miss You, by Pat Thomas

Allison: Without You, by Saskia Sarginson

Allison: You’re, by Keisha Ervin

Allison: I Got My Dream Job and So Can You, by Pete Leibman 

Patty: Super Spy, by Matt Kindt

Allison: The Librarian Spy, by Madeline Martin

Patty: For the Love of Books, by Graham Tarrant

Allison: Reminds Me of You, by Retno Handini

Allison: For the Thrill of It, by Simon Baatz

Patty: Run Towards the Danger, by Sarah Polley

Allison: Risking it All, by Tessa Bailey

Patty: Risk (With Me), by Sue Wilder

Patty: Ambitious Girl, by Meena Harris

Allison: Yeah, Right, by Jim and Helen Fox

Patty: The Follow-Through Factor: Getting from Doubt to Done, by Gene C. Hayden

Allison: A Stroke of Dumb Luck, by Shiloh Walker

Patty: Credit Where Credit is Due, by Frank Casey

Allison: Optimists Die First, by Susin Neilsen

Patty: The Price of Immortality, by Peter Ward

Allison: Death Visits the Hair Salon, by Amy Anderson

Patty: Murder in the Library, by Katie Gayle

Allison: Sounds Like Fun, by Bryan Moriarty

Patty: I Have More Fun With You Than Anybody, by Lige Clark

Patty: Certifiably Insane, by Arthur W. Bahr

Allison: Charming as a Verb, by Ben Philippe

Patty: How Do You Manage? by John Nicholson

Allison: Liquor, by Poppy Z. Brite

Patty: Hardly Know Her, by Laura Lippman

Allison: Don’t Be Gross, by Barbara Bakos

Patty: It’s Just Anatomy! by Ellen

Allison: Rough Transition, by Patrick Kelley

Patty: Some Girls Like it Rough, by Marlo Peterson

Allison: What Sort of Girls Were They? by Petrea Leslie

Patty: Girls with Bright Futures, by Tracy Dobmeier

Allison: I’m a Little Ghost and I Like the Dark, by Lynda Kimmel

Patty: Dark As the Grave Wherein My Friend Is Laid, by Malcolm Lowrey

Allison: Murder in the Dark, by Simon R. Green

Patty: My Job Was To Bring The Shovel, by Randall M. Rueff

Allison: The Complete Accomplice, by Steve Aylett

Patty: The Magician’s Assistant, by Ann Patchett

Allison: The Witch’s Familiar, by Raven Grimassi

Patty: Witch Minion, by Lissa Kasey

Allison: These Witches Don’t Burn, by Isabel Sterling

Patty: The Drowning Kind, by Jennifer McMahon

Allison: A Touch Morbid, by Leah Clifford

Patty: Lucy Clark Will Not Apologize, by Margo Rabb

Allison: I Wonder What She’s Doing Tonight, by James Hold

Patty: Whiskey, Words, and a Shovel, by R. H. Sin

Allison: Sounds Perfect, by Ashley Boren

Patty: How I Made a Friend, Daniel Georges

Allison: Good For You (Between the Lines), by Tammara Webber

Patty: We’re Very Good Friends, by P.K. Hallinan

Allison: Sounds Fake, But Okay, by Sarah Costello

Patty: What If It’s True? by Charles Martin

Allison: What If It Wasn’t? by Ivan Itch

Patty: Why Do You Care? by Saju Skaria

Allison: I’m Fine and Neither Are You, by Camille Pagán

Allison: The Replacement Part, by Nora Wylde

Patty: Just a Friend, by Ashley Nicole

Allison: How to Kill Your Best Friend, by Lexie Elliott

Patty: You’re All Just Jealous of My Jetpack, by Tom Gauld

Allison: Dead Jealous, by Sharon Jones

Patty: You’ve Got to Have Friends, by Delbert George Fitzpenfield Anthony

Allison: Everything I Need I Get From You, by Kaitlyn Tiffany

Allison: Among Other Things, by Robert Long Foreman

Allison: Truths I Learned from Sam, ​​by Kristin Butcher

Patty: The Idiot King, by Patty Jansen

Allison: He Helped Me Climb the Mountain, by Betty E. Wright

Patty: The Man Who Pushed His Wife off a Cliff, by Will D. Burn

Patty: Men are Trash, by Salman Faris 

Patty: And That’s Why I Think I Prefer A Rainbow Horse, by Tiarra Nazario

Patty: Sam Houston’s Wife, by William Seale

Allison: What About Her, by Emma Tharpe

Patty: Amelia Bedelia Sleeps Over, by Herman Parish

Patty: The Undead in my Bed, by Katie McAlister

Allison: Sleeping with the Enemy, by Nancy Price

Allison: How Could You Do That?! by Laura Schlessinger

Allison: How Could You Murder Us? by Charae Lewis

Allison: Why Her? by Nicki Koziarz

Allison: I Hate You, Don’t Leave Me, by Jerold J. Kreisman

Patty: I Was Joking, Of Course, by Paul Jennings

Allison: Liar, by Tate James

Patty: What if I Say the Wrong Thing? by Verna A Myers

Allison: Don’t Look Back, by Josh Lanyon

Patty: Come Back, by Sally Crosiar

Patty: SHIT, by Shahnon Ahmad

Patty: Barbie: It Takes Two, by Grace Baranowski

Allison: I Changed My Mind, by Jimmy Evans

Allison: Allison Hewitt Is Trapped, by Madeleine Roux

Patty: Are You Still There, by Sara Lynn Schreeger

Patty: Wait for Me, by Caroline Leech

Allison: Look Back, by Tatsuki Fujimoto

[ba1laur]

last saturday that will be spent staring 20 minutes at a screen watching this guy go thru incomprehensible horrors. cant wait to have normal weekends from now on

[carrotcakecrumble]

[wip]

lesbians but make them (kind of) Victorian cats going for a stroll through their little cobbled village highstreet <3

[thisheademptyyeet]

You heard them, respect them or perish.

This is a redraw of this absolute banger of flag by @queen0fm0nsterz

[ruthlesslistener]

Oh my god i got so involved in my own guardian ocs that it never occured to me that i could fuckin. Bug game them. And ofc as soon as i thought of that i realized that Aeris and Marcie have an *extremely* similar dynamic to Hollow and Hornet HSHFHSJ

[fawwahuwumrow]

[lopsidedtreetrunks]

It’s a bit messy, but I’m finally adding some more to the Ghostalia au with some doodles of Lady Kirkland!

There’s really not much I needed to change between the characters, being from the same countries etc. I gave her 1910′s style glasses and changed her hair to be more remeniscent of nyo!England’s original design while also being in keeping of the era. Also made her gay for the character who her mother references was getting married in He Came! because I can (and I gave her non-existant role to Elizaveta) :)

[yun-jin-noona]

Video titled 'Castlevania Nocturne is awful.'

I mean yeah, it was pretty lacking in a lot of ways, didn't really get good until we got to the end and-

*R slur used*

WHAT HOLD ON-

[concubusbunni]

The perfect ending doesn't exist, this comic right is it

About the finale: Every part of it

On Twitter, I posted these comics in four parts. People liked it there so may be some would like to it here too.

They all just love each other so much.

[ghostlyblog]

Mary Dietrich‘s character concepts

She‘s evil

She doesn’t care about her kid

And she has no redeemable qualities

(Worst character I’ve ever made)

[rallamajoop]

So why are there so many gay vampires?

From the time of Carmilla all the way up to the works of Anne Rice (a universe that seems to get only less subtle as the years go on), gay vampires have been a thing basically as long as anyone was writing about vampires. Lesbian vampires have been a genre all their own for decades. Bram Stoker, author of the most famous vampire novel ever written, was gay himself. So why vampires specifically?

I’ve seen people attempt to answer this one before, and there are all sorts of contributing factors I could point to here, from the genres’ beginnings with Lord Byron (infamous bisexual disaster fuckboy), to modern discourse about why queer folks so often find themselves identifying with the monsters and outcasts of fiction. Few other monsters besides vampires can so easily pass for ‘normal’, or are nearly so well known for their snappy dress sense and ‘unnatural cravings’ for human flesh. And that’s without even getting into all those skeezy outdated stereotypes casting queer people as predators, or the idea that even one ‘gay experience’ could somehow ‘convert’ you into being one yourself.

But to my mind, there’s just one really important thing that makes vampires so gay, and it’s the same thing that makes them sexy in the first place: plausible deniability.

You see, a vampire’s bite is simultaneously a) ridiculously sexual, and b) not even a little bit sexual at all.

You don’t have to look far for vampire canons where there’s nothing sexy about being bitten by a vampire. Bloody, violent, painful, sure ‒or just clinically miserable, human bodies torn open or hung up to drain like a human blood bag. What’s sexy about getting bitten by a mosquito, or a fecking leech? The diet of the actual vampire bat requires it to process so much water that it apparently spends mealtimes busily pissing out the difference, and the anti-coagulants in its saliva leave the wound bleeding messily long after it’s gone. The basic act of feeding is no more inherently sexual for a vampire than it is for a zombie.

Vampires are even a surprisingly acceptable monster to market to children. There’s a vampire muppet, a cartoon about a vampire duck, and a whole series of books about a vampire rabbit. You can put a vampire on the side of a cereal box without undue outrage. Vampires do not have to be R-rated for sex or violence.

So of course vampires will go after victims of the same sex. Do you stop to inquire whether the cow you’re eating was male or female? It’s all just predator and prey!

Until it’s everything but.

Do not let the ‘vampires aren’t supposed to be sexy!’-purists fool you. The tradition of sexy vampires goes all the way back to the oldest folklore, where the first victim of a newly-risen vampire was often their still-living spouse. Vampires were even occasionally known to get women pregnant (a convenient excuse for any widow who might turn up pregnant slightly too many months after their husband's death). The ‘original’ Nosferatu sounds more like an incubus than the naked mole-rat creature they made that movie about. The demon lover aspect of the vampire has been there all along.

And it’s not hard to imagine why. If someone is biting and sucking on your neck, then either they’re a vampire, or they’re well on the way to second base (other folklore has its vampires feed directly from their victim’s heart, which is scarcely less suggestive). The implications of an exchange of bodily fluids were never subtle, even in Stoker’s day (I'm looking at you, Lucy-with-the-three-husbands), and the vampire as a sexual predator was a popular literary device well before Stoker's time. Beautiful vampire women would seduce men to their demise, and the males of the species might visit the bedroom of some innocent maiden time and again. The Victorian obsession with mesmerism, meanwhile, provided the perfect explanation for how victims might be hypnotised into eager compliance, and perhaps not even remember being fed upon at all. Vampires have been the ultimate guilt-free sexual fantasy since way back in the day, compatible with all your awkward Victorian mores! (Not quite ready to admit they're sexual fantasies? No problem: he's just here to, y'know, suck on your neck a bit. No subtext here!)

The whole act of biting is so suggestive that in the early years of vampire cinema, it wasn’t shown at all, not even between opposite-sex participants. The camera of 1922’s Nosferatu maintains a demure distance during the climactic scene where the heroine is finally bitten and slowly drained of blood, and Universal’s Dracula conveniently fades to black or cuts away whenever it’s about to take place. But even if the biting has to take place off screen, who’s to say a vampire isn’t going to pick victims of both sexes?

The stately tradition of the lesbian vampire has cinematic examples going all the way back to 1936, with Universal’s Dracula’s Daughter. Though the titular vampire has a nominal male love interest – a psychologist who naively advises her to confront her temptations without fear – the result of his advice is a famous sequence where she picks up a young woman under the premise of wanting an artist's model, and convinces her to remove her top. No actual biting or nudity is shown (it was only 1936), but her fate is left in little doubt.

By the era of 70’s sexploitation, all such subtlety had been abandoned. If we’re all good with naked boobs, who’s going to be offended by a little biting?

In fact, when it comes to men rather than women, a vampire bite was, for many years, far too sexy to be shown, or even alluded to. Nosferatu clearly feeds on that film’s Jonathan-expy, but our only evidence is the bitemarks on his neck in the morning, and the final sacrifice to defeat the evil monster must naturally be female. Universal’s Dracula had to ignore explicit studio mandate that only the brides should be allowed to feed on their own Jonathan-equivalent, as to even imply that Dracula himself had fed upon a man was obviously far too homoerotic to contemplate (never mind that it’s Dracula who must be established as the threat in this opening sequence, or that it’s Dracula his victim will spend the rest of the film obsessed with).

But in that unspeakable land of male-on-male homoeroticism, you might be surprised how much homo we can squeeze in even without resorting to fangs-in-necks. The Lost Boys is surely one of the most homoerotic vampire films ever made, but there, the one big blood-drinking scene is rendered in a bloody massacre of slasher-movie violence. And though Anne Rice certainly describes the scene where Lestat drains Louis of blood in lurid detail (and even has them spend their first sunrise together sharing a coffin), Louis is already thoroughly seduced before he ever reaches this point.

You see, the lore of the pop-cultural vampire conveniently comes with a second and equally-compelling target for plausible deniability: the act of making a new vampire.

Obviously, to work, this has to be deliberate. A world where anyone bitten by a vampire becomes one hasn’t much to offer us, and the relationship between maker and fledgling can just as easily be framed as parental, as recruitment into a cult, or purely transactional. But whichever way you twist it, the implications of choosing another to share in your own eternal youth and immortality… like, I don’t have to spell this one out for you, do I? Did I mention how that thing where a vampire’s traditional first victim tended to be their own mortal widow goes all the way back?

But if we’re not ready to be completely obvious with our mainstream audience, some alternative explanation can always be provided for cover. Lestat doesn’t really want Louis, he just wants Louis’ money! (He also really wants Louis.) The Lost Boys just want Michael to join their gang! (Their very, very pretty gang, who swan around in mesh shirts, tank tops and assless chaps.)

The two sides of the vampire-deniability coin aren’t mutually exclusive, either. Carmilla drinks her new paramour’s blood, but also gazes into her eyes while promising her you will be mine. Drinking blood is a key part of making a new vampire in so many vampire stories, after all.

Carmilla isn’t even the only gay vampire story of the Victorian era. I recently posted about two other fascinating examples, both featuring male/male pairings: one being pretty much just a gender-flipped version of Carmilla, and the other a tragic love story filled with significant "vampire = gay lover" metaphors (why oh why must the townsfolk keep us apart, when we’ll only ever be happy once we’re united once more?) This stuff goes surprisingly far back.

In fact, you can find queer subtext in vampire fiction that predates even Byron and Polidori. 1819's The Vampyre was the first published vampire story, yes, but the first known work of vampire-fiction in the English language is a poem published by John Stagg in 1810, also called The Vampyre (look, the genre didn’t exist yet, you didn’t have to be creative with your titles).

In brief, Stagg’s poem recounts a conversation between a wife (Gertrude) and her dying husband (Herman), whose dear friend Sigismund, lately deceased and deeply mourned, has returned as a vampire. Night after night, he crawls into Herman’s room to drain his blood. Herman’s fate is already sealed, but unless Gertrude takes action, it will surely be she that Herman will take as his own first victim when he rises from the grave.

There may be nothing intentional about the queer subtext of this tale. A vampire’s victims often include friends he knew in life, as Stagg himself cites in his introduction. But if Herman’s first victim will be his wife, what are we to read about the fact Sigismund’s first victim is Herman? Especially given how long he’s kept secret from poor Gertrude that his dear ‘friend’ has been climbing into his bedroom each night, lying beside him in bed and sucking and draining "the fountain of my heart!" while Herman moans and tosses (in pain, obviously!), always leaving him "exhausted, spent." Ultimately, Gertrude is saved only when both Herman and Sigismund are staked through the heart, and we close on the image of them slumbering together in the tomb.

It is, however you turn it, pretty gay.

I reiterate: this is the very first known work of vampire fiction written in the English language. The second was the one that was kind-of-written-by, kind-of-stolen-from, and unambiguously based on bisexual-disaster-fuckboy Lord Byron. And the two most influential works of vampire fiction of the next hundred years would be Carmilla, the very lesbian vampire story written by a… presumably straight man? And Dracula, the not-completely-convincingly-hetero story written by #1 Walt Whitman fanboy Bram Stoker. Vampires have always been very equal-opportunity kind of monsters.

There are, of course, plenty of influential heterosexual vampire tales to fill out the roster too. Varney the Vampire, a penny dreadful from the 1840s, was so successful it ran for over 200 chapters. The 1960s had their own wildly successful Varney-equivalent in the soap opera Dark Shadows. Love it or hate it, we really can't ignore Twilight either. My own introduction to the genre was Christopher Pike’s The Last Vampire series, which came out alongside the original Vampire Diaries novels. So there's plenty of material around to keep the straights entertained – and honestly, that’s only as it should be, because the very thing that makes vampires so queer-friendly is that the sex of their victims doesn’t matter. And it’s so easy to make vampires sexy (let alone a full vampire-proposal!) that even the Victorians could do it.

Now, if your reaction to all this theorising is to tell me "but the LGBTQ’s shouldn’t have to hide behind plausible deniability!" I can only counter, "well sure, but why should the straights have all the fun?" Because playing with all the ambiguity of "is this monster really just after my blood or is this going somewhere?" can be all sorts of fun, regardless of the genders involved. And as long as they’re up for exchanging bodily fluids with persons-and-or-victims of either gender equally, why not have some fun with it?

So, okay, maybe the real title of this post should have been "why are there so many pansexual vampires?" But the answer doesn’t change. Vampires have been the bisexual disaster fuckmonsters for as long as anyone’s been writing about vampires, and have been a metaphor allowing people publish barely-coded gay attraction since 1872. And much like the queer community, they’ve only become more complex, more sympathetic, and all the more popular as romantic paramours as the years have gone by.

[queen0fm0nsterz]

Our profile pictures make the last image really funny in hindsight

Saw that your requests are open... give me your victoriana raincoats THIS INSTANT

"What if we fall for our death...and we're both girls? haha just kidding...unless?" - probably RCG

Never heard of Very Little Nightmares, the name of the game is Very Lesbian Nightmares LMFAO

unfortunately I don't have anything else besides from this but do not worry, I shall make more, this is a victorian/faded raincoat stan account.

btw, Carols you sick bastard(/affectionate), how dare you make me obssessed with them, make me realize the kin I have on Pretender and then have the guts to ask for something/j/lh

[cobragardens]

Aziraphale's Ring Is a Queer Symbol

In a previous post I hold forth about the symbolism of the lion rampant on the escutcheon of Aziraphale's signet ring. The upshot is that the golden lion is used by Heaven as a symbol of its threat and its merciless, murderous corporate culture, and I argue that in S3 Aziraphale must subvert this stamp of Heavenly ownership and symbolically redefine the golden lion by summoning the courage to be soft.

Now I've learned some new stuff about how signet rings are worn. Come, sistren, and get nerdy with me.

Aziraphale's ring is one of several we see angels wearing in Good Omens. Here in an indispensably useful post, @indigovigilance lists the known rings of Show Omens angels and those rings' qualities and placement. Note how of the angels who have rings, everyone except Saraqael and Aziraphale wear their rings on their LEFT pinky fingers. There's a reason for this.

Since the medieval period in Britain and Germany, and from there in the U.S., signet rings have been bestowed by professional associations as a sign of membership, particularly at the upper end of society: trade guilds, colleges, hospitals, the Church(es), noble families, and societies like the Freemasons all issue(d) signet rings to some of their members. The traditional placement for signet rings of show professional affiliation is the left pinky finger.

In fact, as it was not socially acceptable in or past the Victorian era for men to wear rings on more than one finger, men who wore signet rings and wedding rings both would have their wedding rings sized to fit the pinky finger below the signet. If a ring had to be moved to preserve masculinity, it wasn't the pinky ring that was going anywhere. Family signets can be worn on any of a number of fingers, but since the Victorian period the men of the British Royal Family (who are from Germany) have been especial sticklers about wearing their signets on their left pinky fingers as well.

So. If you're British and you have a signet ring that's meant to indicate professional affiliation, you wear it on your left pinky.

But Aziraphale wears his signet ring on his RIGHT hand.

Before I offer my opinion on what that means, here's some more fun background on the history and significance of pinky rings in Anglo-American culture:

The Victorian period was when pinky rings started to become associated with queerness.

As fellow members of the Hundred Guineas Club, Oscar Wilde and Aziraphale would likely have been acquaintances.

According to Wikipedia (ibid.):

"During the Victorian era, both single men and women uninterested in pursuing marriage could wear a ring on the little finger of their left hand."

This quickly expanded to a pinky ring on either hand. Here's Wikipedia's picture of farmer and philanthropist Caroline Rose Foster in 1917, the Edwardian era, wearing a pinky ring on her right hand:

Do you smell a euphemism in "uninterested in pursuing marriage"? I do!

By midcentury--so only 30 years after Ms Foster up there--American and British queers, both men and women, were using signet pinky rings specifically to signal queerness to each other.

"For gay men in the 1950’s and 60’s, a way of signaling to others was through the wearing of a signet ring on the pinkie finger."

"During the 1950’s and 60’s signet rings were worn to signify membership of the gay community; both lesbians and homosexual men wore such rings."

The pinky rings @indigovigilance points out Maggie wears may mean she's an angel; they also match her midcentury lesbian style. Devious of the costumers to give her pinky rings on both hands rather than commit to one or the other.

Screenshot by @indigovigilance

To review, there are three reasons a person in Anglo-American culture might wear a pinky ring:

They just feel like it--This can be any kind of ring and can be worn on either hand or both

Professional affiliation--This is a signet ring worn on the left pinky finger

To signal queerness--This is a signet ring and can be worn on either pinky finger

Aziraphale has worn a signet ring on his RIGHT pinky finger at least since he repaired the Eastern "Gate" in the Wall of Eden, so I'm not suggesting that he adopted the 20th-century pinky signet trend to signal his queerness (although as a clockably 'gay' 'man,' Soho fixture, and member of the Hundred Guineas Club, he may well have started it). What I am suggesting is that Aziraphale has been given a ring by Heaven that Heaven intends him to use to show his professional affiliation, but as with the flaming sword he gives away, Aziraphale doesn't use the ring for its intended purpose. By wearing the ring on his right hand, Aziraphale removes the option of interpreting it as a symbol of his professional affiliation with Heaven and renders it strictly a personal ornament. He subverts a symbol of Heavenly menace into an object of beauty and queerness.

I mean queerness in both senses. If a human takes any symbolic notice of his ring, they'll note the signet is on his right hand and conclude Aziraphale is gay. If another angel takes any notice of it, they'll conclude Aziraphale is a bit odd--that he doesn't pay attention to the finer points of how to fit in with the archangels, doesn't do things like other angels do.

In conclusion, pinky signet rings as a queer signal are just the fucking coolest and I vote we bring them back immediately.

[muffinsin]

hi hello hola bonjour aloha 😵😵😵😵

OKOKOK SOOOOOOO ........ i know this request is weird BUUUUTTTT could u maybe possibly do the dimitrescus being with someone (as in, having an s/o) thats a humanoid arachnid??? If im spelling that correctly? rahhh idk

like, imagine those spider-people with like, agile spider legs on their back, sharp fangs, multiple, red/purple/gray eyes, dark fluffy hair, red/purple/other markings, etc etc. I think it would be funny since theyre literally flies dating a spider .. which eats flies

u can use doctor octavius as reference for the spider leg placement if u didnt understand, or like, angel dust??? Its up to ur interpertation, really, but id prefer if they did have normal human legs .. and features .. since a giant spider with a human head feels unnatural .. giggle, giggle

AS ALWAYS!!! take care!!!!!! Make sure to take breaks inbetween requests!!!!!

WITH MUCH LOVE AND LESBIANISM 😈😈😈😈 (the gayness directed at the dimitrescus .. not u, becauze .. i dunno u .. and thats weird)

-- 🐾🧃, AKA JUNGLE JUICE 👽👽👽

Piece out! (Not peace, i require violence)

Hell yeah!!🙌 Funnily enough, I think there was once talk of an arachnoid reader on this blog, but the idea got lost somewhere. I’m happy to dive back into it now!👀 Let’s get into it!

Masterlists

Bela

What started out as a sudden introduction in the forest, soon became more

Back then already, Bela was- unsurprisingly- intrigued by you

After all, your appearance alone is enough to make most double check whether they saw right

And she was certainly no better

Though, at the very least you did the same then, not quite believing you ran into one of the infamous Dimitrescu daughters

During your first interaction, time almost stood still as the two of you inspected one another-

you, standing in place when you ran just moments ago,

Bela, stilled with her sickle held in her hand, as though frozen like a deer in the headlights upon running across you

- it was a cute moment, even, in itself. Both of you, stunned by each other

Where you saw a pair of strong, piercing golden eyes, she saw multiple pairs of eyes

You watched then as she studied them almost, her own flickering across your face

The two eyes at the center of your face, human-looking in every aspect but their colour

A dark grey, she originally thought

In time, she would find and adore the specks of red and purple in them, only found upon closer inspection. But more of that later

Then, more eyes, stretching across the side of your forehead almost

5 of them, some more slit than others, some smaller, some larger

She shivered at the sight, but even you saw the curiosity shimmer within her back then already

It was clear to both of you that neither was mortal. Not entirely so, at least

Where you saw her regal, almost gothic and Victorian dress and the sickle, she spotted torn clothing

A villager, or at the very least that’s what you used to be

Only was your clothing torn and almost webbed shut again, the strings keeping your cloths together so fine they couldn’t possibly be any fabric or wool

While her fingers held the sickle tight, your long ones moved slightly, as if restless

More things were apparent immediately, such as,

Your long, strong legs allowing you to stand tall, nearly the same as Bela

Something unusual, certainly

And then, of course, the other pair

The strong, somewhat thin pair of arms or legs- Bela could never quite tell- sprouting from your back

The fuzzy, dark hair falling down your shoulders and back, a little too untrimmed, a little too wild for even the villagers’ standards

And the strange marks stretching across your bare arms

Neither of you attacked one another, then

In fact, neither of you moved, until the sounds of the angry mob of villagers faded away

You don’t entirely remember most of what happened after, only remember begging her to take you with her

Despite its reputation, you knew working and living at the castle must be better than starving out at the forest

And, holding the same curiosity in her tone, she agreed and took you in

Only were you no mere staff member, dusting this and that

You were Bela’s favorite

And everyone knew

You worked for her only, didn’t take orders from even the head maiden

The two of you spent more and more time together, chatting and sharing bits and pieces of yourselves

Your- nature- certainly made your work more challenging and fun

As such, at times, you would hold onto the walls with the limbs stemming from your back and climb high to the ceiling to dust even the top of the shelves

Often- surprisingly often given how busy she was- Bela opted to join you

Not in cleaning, of course. You’re sure she thinks it’s below her

Instead, she’d often- and still does- swarm halfway, as if sleeping on an invisible mattress in the air

She’d watch you work, talk occasionally

At other times, she’d trace your limbs gently when no words were exchanged

And, unsurprisingly, the ever growing bond and fondness between the two of you leads to something more

While Bela was the first to initiate things, you proudly claimed the first kiss from her

Upon being in a relationship, she found out more about you still

Like the sharp fangs in your mouth, which she loves to trace and feel dig into her skin

She loves the webs you spin, her fingertips occasionally dragging against the light silk

Sometimes, a fly of hers gets stuck

That, she loves less

And still, you always take care of the little insects, ensuring they won’t be trapped in some of the smaller webs you leave

At times, you quite intentionally web her, your spidery silk-like web trapping her arms above her head, her body fondled by the many limbs you possess….

Alas, we’re trailing off, but of course, your nature, body, and abilities are appreciated in all aspects

The bedroom being one of them, too

Though, Bela loves nothing more than cuddling up together, too

Especially when held in your arms, all of them wrapped tightly around her

It’s perfect to her, and often a blanket or two will be thrown in the mix in winter

Once, you suggested wrapping her up in your webs to keep her warm, which she quickly shut down

You learn, she doesn’t like feeling like prey, dislikes the feeling of being stuck like…well, a fly in a web

Speaking of, insects are strictly off the menu for you

That doesn’t mean she doesn’t encourage you to hunt, though

Often, you spin your webs at the forest surrounding the castle, hoping to bring back a catch that might earn you the favor of her younger sisters and mother

At other times, Bela all but swoons when you trap a particularly delicious maid and deliver her to her as a snack

Still, there is one thing that amuses you to no end…

She loved you, wholeheartedly. And she loved your arachnoid nature, too. She loves every bit of you

So you can’t explain to yourself why your partner is so terribly scared of spiders

The small critters truly do a number on her, prompting screams and shrill squeals, shivers and so on

Always, you ensure there are no spiders in the castle. No webs but your own

…Your lovely girlfriend and her sisters, suffering from arachnophobia

The thought always makes you giggle

Cassandra

Looking back, you can hardly believe your luck

Not only did you survive Mother Miranda’s experimenting, the depths of the village, the infamous basement of castle Dimitrescu and its residents, but also wooed one of them

Having Cassandra sleeping soundly on top of you, your limbs wrapped around her, you allow yourself to think of how you first met

Her eyes, a dark golden light in the dark, piercing you the very same day you were sent to the castle basements

And it seems, you awakened curiosity within the sadist

Of course, a being like you would

Something so rare, someone so unique

While you were originally made to be her newest plaything, a failed experiment handed over, Cassandra had no interest in killing you

Not that this stopped her light torture

Though, looking back, you can’t help but giggle. Even then she showed you affection in her twisted ways

Like when she’d stroke a dagger along your limbs, the touch strong and grounding, her breath fast

She has always been so very curious about you

Your eyes are her favorite part of you

She loves how unsettling they look

Sometimes, she whines; she wants to pluck them from you so very badly, to hold and kiss, to preserve and carry with her always

You have learned to understand and love her twisted affection, her rough words and the gentle, almost romantic meaning behind them

While you could easily get lost in her dark golden eyes, the same goes for her and your eyes

Sometimes, she likes to just stare at them when you cuddle, her eyes desperately trying to meet all of yours

It’s an admittedly adorable sight

And even during your first introduction, when she had grabbed your face harshly, she easily got lost in your eyes

While originally chained to the moldy wall of the basement, you’re upgraded fast

You become her obsession, her pet, her favorite horror in the castle

An honor, really

You know when she calls you her horror, it’s the most romantic thing she can express with words

She loves every part of you, too

Early on already she experiments with you, your cooperative nature catching her slightly by surprise

As such, when she lifted and prodded, cut and sniffed and what not, you always took it as an opportunity to talk to her

Early on, you find out more and more of Cassandra

Later, you learn she often rambles mindlessly when utterly absorbed in her experiments, games, and torture

As such, early on already, you listened as she rambled about her sisters and her hunts

Your presence was always a refreshing one, really

Cassandra is bold

As such, when she noticed just that, and how much she had grown to care for “her experiment”, you were moved from the basement

Quickly, your relationship turned from one of a captive and their tormentor to desire

She clearly desired you, her breaths ragged around you, her heart beating fast, her lip bit, her hands touching up on your limbs eagerly

And you had no reason to hide your attraction, in turn

To this day, you like experimenting with her

In a way, it’s allowing her to get to know you more

Often, her experiments mean working out new techniques to spin webs

At other times, she wants to see how precisely you can control the limbs stemming from your back

With a nice routine of spending nearly every day together, it’s no surprise when you eventually made a move on her

One Cassandra eagerly accepted and returned

She isn’t one for terms, and has never been. You’ve never been her prisoner. Never her friend. Never her partner

Always, you are what she feels

You’re her love, her passion, her horror, her excitement, her desire, her sadism

Due to this, there has hardly been a change after you’ve asked her to be your girlfriend. To her, you’ve always been what you are to her

You’re her partner, despite how she doesn’t like naming what you have

Her favorite couple activity is spending quality time together

She loves to hunt together

Her favorite game?

To chase prey into your web

She laughs loudly when it happens, her pupils wide, her hands twitching

If you ate humans and raw meat as she does, she would grant you the first bite, sometimes

As such, she likes to watch you wrap her prey up and carry it home for her

Her second favorite activity is to experiment with you, and do art together

She likes it particularly much when you spin a web and allow her to direct you, the silky threads assuming a shape to her liking

As it comes to experimenting, she finds it particularly fun when the two of you get to chat, one of your limbs holding onto her or handing her tools

The others are usually made to hold down whatever poor soul has caught her eye and is now to die

But really, her bright smile and manic crackle of laughter seems to make all your remaining morals drip away

Other things she loves is to use your webs to create obstacles when she trains

She knows she can’t achieve Daniela’s speed and precision as it comes to flying and the swarm, but likes to practice either way

And you like to help her by putting webs in her way

Only sometimes does she get stuck, growling and grumbling to you and herself when she’s…well…a fly in the spider’s web

Oddly enough, this doesn’t bother her, yet when even the smallest little spider is near her, she freaks out

Usually, that means you get to flick it away, hunting it down and only granted a rest when you present your love with the creature’s body as proof of its passing

You shake your head, smiling fondly at this, before returning to stroking your long fingers through dark hair. Less thick, more combed and cleaner looking, yet nearly matching yours in color

She hums in her sleep. You know, she will awaken soon, ready to hunt or plead with you to please play with the maids with her

It’s so very fun to see them stumble and cry in the webs, she insists

Daniela

To say Daniela was intrigued by you at first sight would be a vast understatement

Obsessed, more like it

Having been dragged to a lord’s meeting after countless experiments done by Mother Miranda, it’s the first and ideal opportunity to meet everyone

Including the stunning woman by the tall lady’s side

Lady Dimitrescu and her daughters, you learn

Daniela’s eyes are on you the instant you’re revealed to the lords

Gold with specks of green, piercing and curious, obsessed and eager

They flicker across you, your face and body, until they move back and flicker across your face, seemingly searching for eye contact

Eye contact, which proves difficult with the many sets of eyes you have

Oh, but she immediately gets lost in them

You flinch in surprise when she moves, fast, uncaring of the audience the two of you have

She’s pushed against you in an instant, her hands cupping your cheeks

Her skin is nearly as cold as yours, her palms cool as ice

She studies your eyes intensely

While she finds specks of red and purple, you find light shades of green hidden within the pools of gold of her eyes

Both of you immediately seem to fall in love with the sights presented to you

While you’re introduced as nothing but a failed experiment, Daniela immediately sees more in you

She begs, out loud as though she has no shame-

and maybe she doesn’t

- and she pleads:

“Mother, I must have them, please!”

And, you learn early on, Alcina Dimitrescu seems incapable of denying her youngest any wish she has

And in turn, it seems Mother Miranda has difficulty denying Alcina

As such, you’re handed over promptly, officially made Daniela’s property

She’d scoff at the title. You’re hers, though

You’ll be her best friend! Her love! Her soulmate!

She’s not wrong, at the end

For the first time in your life maybe, you feel free, even as you officially “belong to her”

You receive your own wing, even, though it’s near her own

You’re a little surprised at this, though now know that you’re given the entire wing by Alcina Dimitrescu to ensure no intruders would past the deadly webs and manage to find the precious youngest daughter

You’re quite proud of that, too

You like knowing you’re what stands between Daniela and any potentially dangerous intruders

You like knowing your webs will catch them should they sneak where they shouldn’t be

The only things she asks for are honesty, affection, genuine interest and respect

Things you’re eager to give her

In return, you receive time and space, love and affection, honesty and eagerness, care and happiness

While the two of you seem to start out as friends, more builds up between you fast

Daniela, bold as she is, is the first to initiate things, to steal looks and kisses, lingering touches and more

You eagerly give in, and the two of you become impossibly close

As such, you often sleep with her curled in your arms, your arms and legs wrapped around her, your limbs keeping her pressed close to you

She loves cuddling, loves holding your hands while your other limbs are wrapped around her

At other times, she likes to fight for fun with you

It’s a game to her, to evade your webs and limbs, to tackle them only to be smacked away by one of the long, strong limbs stemming from your back

Sometimes- usually- she wins

At other times, she ends up webbed by you, giggling when you make use of the opportunity to place small kisses all over her face

When she hunts on her own, she often takes you with her

She likes to race you, seemingly ignoring that your strength is not your speed, but the tactics and strategic placement of your webs

In the end, she likes to compare who captured the most prey

Often, it’s you, due to the many small animals getting lost in the webs

Though, she usually claims the larger and faster victims

Afterwards, she likes to indulge in snacks with you, often stroking along one of your limbs absently

When you’re spinning your webs, she likes to stay close and watch, occasionally freaking out when bits of her get stuck

She’s whining and snarling then, unable to free herself until you cut the webs loose and tug them from her

Despite liking your webs and being in your arms, Daniela doesn’t enjoy the feeling of being stuck in your webs

Too often has she lost herself as a fly in some spider’s web…

[ominous-feychild]

✦ MY WRITEBLR INTRODUCTION ✦

Hey! I've been here for a while and I've somehow amassed a shocking amount of followers and mutuals, so I figured it's finally time for me to force one of these out for you guys!

(And you know... a masterpost... when I get around to it. 😅😭)

About me:

✦ Barlowe (she/her)

✦ In my early 20s

✦ A writer of 10 years ✦ working on novels for 6 of 10!

✦ Less dedicated to—but still interested in!—drawing, animation, photography, and cinematography

✦ AuDHD and a grey lesbian (aka I'm leaning asexual) ✦ (my writing may or may not be a special interest)

✦ I have a whole bunch of other neurodivergencies besides AuDHD but I don't think y'all want me to get into all of them, haha. ✦ oh, and I say "haha" a lot. I apologize in advance.

✦ I think I'm hilarious and make jokes constantly

✦ I use a lot of emojis and tone tags to help convey tone. Please forgive me if it's annoying, it's to cope with my inability to communicate. /lh /hj

Masterlists:

✦ General ✦ Worldbuilding ✦ Sun and Shadow ✦ The Arcane Rifts ✦ Rising From the Ashes

(will be added eventually)

My Obsessions:

✦ Fantasy, horror, mystery, action, and exploration of realistic characters' reactions to the things they go through.

✦ Fairy tales, mythology, and folklore

✦ "Ye Olde History" and language

✦ DIVERSITY!!!

✦ Explorations of "evil-coded" characters and abilities--aka, not just showing them as evil. Show them as people (for characters) and tools (for abilities)!

✦ Traumatizing my characters just like I've been

✦ Traumatizing my characters in ways I haven't been!

✦ Learning!!!

✦ Talking way too much about the things I like to the point that I need to make a whole separate post to share it so it doesn't clutter my intro post... oh, hey, why is this linked?

✦ THE AESTHETIC!!!!

My Aesthetics:

Those who've been following me for a bit probably know that I adore "the aesthetic" and try to make my posts look nice... even if there's no real reason to besides that it gives me a little serotonin. Here's my favorite aesthetics!

✦ Starry; night sky ✦ Dawn / dusk ✦ Sunrise / sunset

✦ Nature! ✦ Forestry ✦ Cottagecore ✦ Rustic ✦ Ocean

✦ Literally all of them, please and thank you

My Writing:

✎ Sun and Shadow

Everything goes wrong for Freya Ula when she leaves her simple life as a fisherwoman to get engaged overseas. Her ship gets wrecked, she finds out her dad's been hiding secrets from her for her whole life, and, oh, she gets framed for a terrorist attack. Wait, WHAT!? After the city's greatest detective is attacked and disappears before she could consult with him, Frey has to enlist the help of his kid and her would-be fiancée to find out who framed her and clear her name. If only Crow was half as good a detective their dad was supposed to be.

Main characters: Freya, Crow, Daleira

✦ Urban-esque high fantasy ✦ purposely very tropey in places ✦ however, as always, I love throwing in curveballs. Wonder what's played straight and what I'm going to emotionally destroy you with. Definitely won't be Crow.

✦ Slow-burn romance between Frey and Crow ✦ immediate interest between Frey / Daleira ✦ oh, look, it's a love triangle? ✦ JOKE'S ON YOU, IT'LL ACTUALLY BE POLY ✦ it's just... going to take a while.

✦ Lesbians, lesbians everywhere ✦ though Crow is actually genderfluid and uses they/them for the first book ✦ despite barely having anything written I've already plotted a bit of book 2 ✦ I desperately need help.

✦ Unsurprisingly is a detective mystery with action mixed in ✦ I'm not typically a romance writer, I excel in action fantasy ✦ please have mercy on my soul

✦ Lots of magic, it's high fantasy + victorian aesthetic ✦ (aka "gaslamp fantasy" if you've heard of it) ✦ Frey's got sun-themed magic ✦ gasp, I know ✦ Crow's got shadow magic ✦ wonder why this sounds familiar ✦ Daleira's got, hm, well it's also shadowy! ✦ spoilers 😘

✦ About to be updated en-masse for a writing contest!!!

✎ The Arcane Rifts

Ghosts of past tragedies haunt the town of Kavo after decades of neglect. Fantastical creatures desiring nothing but fear and destruction hide in invisible tears in reality. Gangs and the police are at constant war with one another, there's a shapeshifting monster running amok, and the mayor's assistant suddenly wants a disabled orphan kicked to the streets. A year ago, Gene was discovered in the forest on the outskirts of town, half dead, amnesiac, and unable to even speak the local language. As he had nowhere to go, he was brought to the orphanage of Kavo for a place to stay. Now Caspar, the assistant of the mayor and the man who funds the orphanage, wants him kicked out. When Gene's left to the cold, cruel streets of Kavo on his own, he has to navigate through a town ravaged by decades of neglect and intrigue. Has the corruption truly been purged from the government? Why are godly forces active in Kavo, a small town in a backwater country? And most importantly--will Gene survive?

Main Characters: Gene, Tazin, Mislav, Ludmila, Rada ❧ Gene and Tazin for book 1 ❧ the other 3 start being MCs books 2 and 3 ❧ I guess Nikolai is also a MC tho

❧ Industrial-era rustic high fantasy ❧ mixes fantasy, action, horror, and mystery! ❧ oh helloooooo "ominous feychild" origin? ❧ very strong folkloric and traditional fantasy inspo ❧ except I mean "traditional fantasy" as in ❧ "we don't understand this magic stuff but we're used to it" ❧ not "travel the world adventures!"

❧ VERY involved story with strong themes of discrimination, poverty, exploitation, trauma, and the recovery from trauma ❧ each main and secondary character is one flavor of discriminated against or another in-universe ❧ obviously I try to write it respectfully, but you can't really write bigots being bigots "respectfully"

❧ Has two "main plots" going on simultaneously; technically three ❧ I periodically give the reader updated "character guides" ❧ like they get more recent plot info added kinda like a red-string board to keep you, the audience, up-to-date with info you might've otherwise missed ❧ I think it's really cool and people seem to enjoy it ❧ I know it seems like a lot but please give it a chance

❧ I've literally plotted out pretty much the entirety of the first and second books, and know most of how book 3 will go, yet there's very little out for the current version of the story ❧ part of that is because I'm paused on the 3rd draft

❧ There's lots of timeskips throughout the first two books, but they're mostly to age up the protagonists! Gene, the MC, starts the series at 7. I promise it's not a kid's story though.

❧ The "secondary MC", Nikolai, is the police chief investigating magical stuff going on at the same time. They tie in with the main story involving Gene, though won't appear to for a long while.

❧ The "golden child" series I love more than SaS; however it's on hiatus because I promised people to work on SaS first and SaS is more popular as a romance-focused story. :/ ❧ I would never be salty about that.

Taglist:

For everything: @honeybewrites @the-golden-comet @illarian-rambling @ashirisu @urnumber1star

@the-letterbox-archives @48lexr @aalinaaaaaa @thecomfywriter @an-indecisive-nerd

@seastarblue

For Worldbuilding: @paeliae-occasionally @pluppsauthor @thelovelymachinery

For the Existentials: N/A

For the Avatars: @thelovelymachinery

For Sun and Shadow: @mysticstarlightduck @paeliae-occasionally

For the Arcane Rifts: @paeliae-occasionally

For Rising From the Ashes: N/A

For the Storm Avatars: N/A

For the Order Avatars: @thelovelymachinery

For the Magic Avatars: N/A

For the Fire Avatars: N/A

For the Water Avatars: N/A

To be tagged in tag games: @honeybewrites @aalinaaaaaa

Ask and ye shall be added

Divider by @cafekitsune

[canmom]

finished Carmilla. what a wonderfully silly novel that was. I need to download an ebook to count how many times Le Fanu uses the word 'languid'.

that said, reading with modern eyes, I think it's a bit of a victim of many subsequent novels elaborating on vampires, and some of the conventions of Victorian literature - in particular, the rule that the narrator has to survive in order to recount the tale, and the evil must be overthrown and tied up neatly. worse, Laura ends up an entirely passive character, with the final resolution seeing Carmilla killed by a couple of side characters, one of whom hasn't even been mentioned up to that point.

the novel is at its best when Carmilla and Laura are interacting. I would have liked to see Laura return Carmilla's affections a bit more, rather than just being like 'well that was weird' every time Carmilla lezzes it up or says something hilariously morbid. but there is definitely humour in her being very literally the straight girl.

I've seen subsequent adaptations of Carmilla, notably my friend Maki @mxmy's Dr Carmilla character, who's - at least in what is released so far - a space vampire with a habit of picking up waifs and strays and turning them into immortal pirates, something which tends to end badly for everyone. the other is (if anyone still remembers) the 2014 Carmilla web series on youtube, which is set in a college dormitory in the States, and presents Carmilla in a more positive light. in the end, I was a little surprised to find both these works take little other than the premise of 'lesbian vampire called Carmilla' and her relationship with a girl called Laura or Lorelei. the web series pulls in a few other names from the novel but completely reframes the situation, adding a new male vampire who is exploiting Carmilla to act as a villain (it was 2010s pop-feminism, you know how it goes). Dr Carmilla currently only vaguely hints at the relationship between Carmilla and Lorelei in the released songs, but involves a new apocalyptic scenario (I think that's about all I can say) - but it does at least keep Carmilla as an itinerant traveller, and keeps the tragic air of the story.

it is not entirely made clear in the novel if the waking Carmilla is aware of her vampiric excursions. it's easy to suppose while reading it that she's just a good liar who's taking them all for a ride, and I think that's still the best supported interpretation, but I think there's equally a reading where she's unaware of the whole vampire thing, and genuinely likes this daft straight girl Laura and before her, the general's daughter. if she is aware, she's really bad at covering her tracks, particularly with her disappearing act. the whole anagram schtick is explicitly named as a rule she has to operate under, but there's plenty she does to tip off her victims and their families. perhaps the point is that she's just charismatic enough to get away with it.

the character of carmilla's mother is a thread that never quite seems to get resolved. the natural assumption is that she's another vampire, dropping her daughter off in a new feeding ground - but since the ending acts like Carmilla was the only surviving vampire, I wonder if perhaps she should be taken as an illusion conjured by Carmilla, perhaps the reason she has to be sent away on a mysterious carriage ride as soon as possible in each instance?

the vampire is traditionally taken to be in part a symbol of the feudal past of cruel aristos persisting and corrupting the rational present, something that makes plenty of sense for Dracula, but in Carmilla's case, nearly every character is a castle-dwelling aristocrat of some sort, and the peasants and servants are treated as mostly beneath notice by the narrative and characters (one scene that stands out has Carmilla, feeling insulted by a trinket seller, idly talk about how in her day she'd have called for his bloody execution - a comment that seems to bother Laura very little). the main characters are even related to Carmilla's family. perhaps just a case of early iterations of an idea, not yet fully formed.

one thing I do like about Carmilla is the amount of physical affection - Carmilla is constantly touching and kissing Laura, and while Le Fanu probably didn't mean this the way we would today, it provides for strong images of sickly Carmilla draping herself all over her new object of affections, like she's acquired a new favourite doll. I can see why this is widely understood as a lesbian novel even though it's very Victorian; it's kinda dark yuri, like Carmilla is coming into the lives of these lonely girls and kind of lovebombing them with expressions of affection and devotion, and whomst among us... it would take many more decades of horny writers to really get into the eroticism of vampiric blood drinking itself though, which here largely takes place in a deniable way, while Laura is sleeping.

despite the reputation for Victorian novels to be long and rambling, this was a rather brisk book. I honestly wish it was a bit longer - a very obvious addition would be a chance for Laura to talk to Carmilla once she's finally figured out the vampire thing, instead of rushing to the ending. it seemed Le Fanu was more interested in explaining vampires (fucked up amirite), which makes sense for the time, but nowadays we all know what the deal is with vampires and instead the core relationship is the interesting part. ah well! it's worth the time to read.