#looking forward to the Re: Dracula crew's rendition at least

[see-arcane]

Giving your annoyance with sad fuckboy versions of Dracula, If you were to do a Carmilla adaptation, would your take of the titular character lean more towards the "sympathetic/tragic" or "monstrous" direction?

It could lean either way with Carmilla, I think. It's like that trick of changing a person's face in a photo depending on what angle the light is coming from.

Is Carmilla genuinely infatuated with Laura beyond the clockwork craving that has led her to court and kill other girls in the past, finally craving love along with blood for the first time in her long undead existence? If only she won Laura, she might take a turn for the better! It is not her fault, really, she was preyed upon too! Her maker did not stay for her, did not give her aid; she had to scramble to carve out this damned existence all on her own...

Or is this a case similar to "The Vampyre," where, like Lord Ruthven, Carmilla (Millarca, Mircalla, et cetera) is only out to feign romance, use up the latest victim, discard the corpse, and move on to the next target with no care as to whether Laura rises as fellow undead or not?

Or could it be a mingling of the two? A reveling monster who craves better company than the human cohorts who help her slip into the houses of her victims. Perhaps Laura touches on something in Carmilla that makes her think, Yes. Yes. This one is mine. This one I keep. Come kill with me, Laura. We shall have so much blood to swim in... (All those foreshadowing dreams have to mean something, after all.)

It could spin all kinds of ways. I love a tragic vampire who has an actual foundation of tragedy to work from, just as I love mean hot vampire ladies who like to go out and bite and murder and marinate in blood bath coffins because yes.

What I think would be really interesting is filling out some of the empty places in the narrative and taking a look at this missing vampire who came along and chomped Carmilla back when she was Mircalla, as well as examining the possible Fae rules about always having (?) to use her own name for aliases. And also, who the hell are the human cohorts? Why are they such good actors? What's the deal with your whole situation Carmilla??

And are you really gone or is Laura's epilogue a hint at something meatier?

Sure would be nice to have a cool gothic horroromance adaptation to find out with! [Glares a hole through Hollywood 👁️👁️]