F/F Friday: Carmilla
Sep. 20th, 2019 08:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerA few weeks ago there was a thread on FFA about “what’s gay on Guternberg?” so of course I went on a shopping spree, insofar as downloading free ebooks can be described as “shopping,” and began reading with Carmilla.
Carmilla - and I suspect this will be true of the other books acquired in this spree - isn’t technically f/f, but it does feature an atmosphere saturated with pent-up longing and also a pairing where one half tries to kill the other, which is really what you want in all the best pairings, isn’t it? Catradora. Stucky. Buckynat. Really the only thing that keeps Steve/Bucky/Natasha from being the best OT3 is the fact that Steve and Natasha have never tried to kill each other, worse luck.
I really liked the ingredients of the story, but the story is so short that there were places where the execution is rather thin. In particular, I would have liked more details about the friendship between Laura and Carmilla. It starts off with a great scene where the two of them meet each other, and Laura realized that she’s seen Carmilla once before… long ago… in a dream!!!! Where Carmilla attacked her!!!!!!
And Carmilla, canny lass that she is, is all “I saw you years ago! In a dream! That must mean we’re meant to be friends,” and then they exchange compliments about how they are both completely gorgeous.
But after this promising beginning, we get very little actual interaction between the two girls, just a broad overview of their friendship: while Carmilla stayed at the schloss, she and Laura were always together and became intimate friends, but Carmilla had a few odd habits, like never appearing till one o’clock in the afternoon, and always seeming extremely languid, and occasionally gazing ravenously at Laura and murmuring things like “I live in you; and you would die for me, I love you so.”
In short, Carmilla seems so obviously sinister that it’s not really a surprise when she turns out to be a vampire, and I think it would have more impact if we saw more of their friendship and could therefore feel the cold sting of betrayal when it turned out she was literally eating Laura alive.
So: A++ idea, execution could have been stronger.
Carmilla - and I suspect this will be true of the other books acquired in this spree - isn’t technically f/f, but it does feature an atmosphere saturated with pent-up longing and also a pairing where one half tries to kill the other, which is really what you want in all the best pairings, isn’t it? Catradora. Stucky. Buckynat. Really the only thing that keeps Steve/Bucky/Natasha from being the best OT3 is the fact that Steve and Natasha have never tried to kill each other, worse luck.
I really liked the ingredients of the story, but the story is so short that there were places where the execution is rather thin. In particular, I would have liked more details about the friendship between Laura and Carmilla. It starts off with a great scene where the two of them meet each other, and Laura realized that she’s seen Carmilla once before… long ago… in a dream!!!! Where Carmilla attacked her!!!!!!
And Carmilla, canny lass that she is, is all “I saw you years ago! In a dream! That must mean we’re meant to be friends,” and then they exchange compliments about how they are both completely gorgeous.
But after this promising beginning, we get very little actual interaction between the two girls, just a broad overview of their friendship: while Carmilla stayed at the schloss, she and Laura were always together and became intimate friends, but Carmilla had a few odd habits, like never appearing till one o’clock in the afternoon, and always seeming extremely languid, and occasionally gazing ravenously at Laura and murmuring things like “I live in you; and you would die for me, I love you so.”
In short, Carmilla seems so obviously sinister that it’s not really a surprise when she turns out to be a vampire, and I think it would have more impact if we saw more of their friendship and could therefore feel the cold sting of betrayal when it turned out she was literally eating Laura alive.
So: A++ idea, execution could have been stronger.
no subject
Date: 2019-09-20 01:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-09-20 10:12 pm (UTC)I saw a few episodes of the webseries, but I am SUPER bad at watching webseries (I think the only one I ever watched all the way through was The LIzzie Bennet Diaries? Oh, and there was a Jane Eyre one) so I never completed it. Maybe I should give it another go... or maybe I just need to accept that we all have our limitations and "terrible at watching webseries" is one of mine.
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Date: 2019-09-20 11:33 pm (UTC)Aw, I watched The Lizzie Bennet Diaries! I didn't know there was a Jane Eyre one, though. That sounds wild. The only other one I remember getting really into was Edgar Allan Poe's Murder Mystery Dinner Party, about a... well, a murder mystery dinner party, obviously, with a bunch of famous authors from Hemingway (played by Ron from A Very Potter Musical) to Charlotte Bronte (played by Lizzie Bennet Diaries Lizzie Bennet, actually!) and then ACTUAL MURDER HAPPENS, dun dun dunnn.
no subject
Date: 2019-09-21 01:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-09-20 08:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-09-20 10:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-09-20 11:30 pm (UTC)And presumably if he noted how the Good Women fawned on men or were quiet when they were all present, and couldn't conceive that women, like men, have lots of other interests, he would be at a loss.
Beyond that, of course the story is all mood, little plot.
no subject
Date: 2019-09-21 01:36 am (UTC)