misleading marketing deserves a punch

Since reading carmilla i was faced with such frustration for the expectations thrown upon me of how this would be the pinnacle of lesbian vampire romance living their lovey dovey before things get gruesome. Specially since the marketing and even the book itself came with this sensual woman bathing in blood at it's cover and inside the book we have multiple artworks of Laura and Carmilla in such a mysterious yet fond way that you are sure to be reading a gothic romance. But we have to remember the time in which this was written and how subversive it would be to advocate for any sort of lesbianism at the time.

So there is no turning point where Laura actually enjoys Carmilla's presence, in fact these are two teenagers, not even the sensual woman in the covers. The whole book is Laura telling her experience as a terrified victim of a monster. It barely has any sexy engagement other from Carmilla's ideas of love and death being the same.

For this i strongly believe this book was wrongly marketed, misleading, it was a glimpse of homoerotic or homo affection at the time since noble woman interacting in any way with each other was considered something pure. That's why this story was horrifying for it's time, no one would think of a noble woman which was pure to corrupt and kill the other as a demon, specially that a woman would have other intentions with the other woman, that a gentleman helping this poor fragile thing would actually be feeding his family to a beast.

It's supposed to be a horror story, not a love story. SO WHY THE FUCK ALL THE ROMANTIC EDITS-? i would understand fanfiction wanting to give them a different ending, but even the editors and bookstores? not what i expected, not kind, not demure. It was bittersweet to continue reading expecting any other treatment for carmilla other than a weird outsider who was quickly turning into the devil and to get that ending. My god. And the most enraging thing is that this story was put in a newspaper at the time so it was supposed to be short, but not only did the editors put images in it and bigger fonts to try making it larger but they included other vampire tales from vampires that were men, at the end of a book solely for Carmilla that had nothing to do with it?? After the story ended?? there was no premise for that, it's just to fill pages so the reader pays for this as a book and not a small tale, this was acted in such bad faith it's unbelievable. So fine, i have a pretty book with a hard cover and a protagonist illustration that doesn't reflect the character at all, just to show it to the online audience and increase the sales. Oh fuck that.

It has been a while since i read this book cause it took all in me not to donate or resell. I mean, yeah it's still queer history, i just hate the marketing, in any way, this is my review of the bad parts of Carmilla. But if it counts, despite the awful edits and representation it was still a good horror book with nice depictions of scenery similar to the gothic natural settings in the book of Frankenstein. So in this sense, it has that good old immersive atmosphere to feel like you are there and something isn't quite right. It's also nice to see people's behaviour and etiquette back then. Some things are not as scary as they should because its been hundreds of years since this was released so it requires some empathy and history lessons to fully grasp the intensity, or you could dismiss the character's fear and have a good laugh whenever they speak of the devil. Carmilla does this too since she's an atheist hehe. It's also noticeable how sisterhood and friendship blessed in the name of God turned into rivalry and sin at some point in European history.

And that was it. The figure of Carmilla in itself remains a mystery to the reader, since her first appearance to her last. The author hasn't disclosed anything at the time, so you can only make assumptions on the way she acts and talks. Who she is? Where did she come from? Where did she learn all that? Who transformed her? What is she exactly? who knows. - Well, enough of it, i'm gonna grab some coffee.