#my step sister/ sophias other sister is an out lesbian and shes treated so differently by her christian family and got kicked out while she

[ariabauer]

Carmilla Movie Theory

You’ve asked me to tell you a story, to weave you a theory. My inbox sings with your requests to try and jumble everything together. You ask. I’ll deliver. 

I’ll give it my best shot because there’s nothing I like more than a challenge. We’re sticking to the usual plan of trying to make the most ridiculous but still kinda plausible theory possible. To start us off, here’s what canon information I have to work with.

The Existing Carmilla Mythos - So we naturally have everything from the 3 seasons to work with. You’ve seen the web series. You know.

The Original Trailer - This is the one on the beach that announced the movie. Frankly, I’m curious as to how much of this will actually apply because from my understanding it was put together before they had a script. As a scene, it’s probably cut.  I’m treating the information as canon because I don’t have enough material to be cutting ANY of it.

The New Cast Information - Literally yesterday, we received the names of three new cast members. Seeing as I’m going to make the case that these are all literary references (stay tuned) just their names alone give me info. They are:

Emily Bronte

Charlotte Bronte

The Woman In Black

Now we do our magical conjecture and fun fact building to try and whip it all together into a coherent story. Basically, I’m going to write you a movie because I’m a novelist at heart and a story structure buff. We’re going to try and figure out what we can expect when the movie releases in the fall (?). Buckle up, creampuffs.

 This is going to get 7k words worth of messy from parents to exes to fish gods to old school novellas. 

 We Need Some Vampires

So Carmilla’s not a vampire any more. Let’s just get that one out of the way. This leaves us with a question: how on this green earth can you make a Carmilla Movie, a Carmilla the iconic lesbian vampire movie, with NO VAMPIRES.

Answer: You can’t. It’s a betrayal of the premise.

So Carmilla may not be the vampire but I’m going to propose that they have to add in a vampire or two somewhere, just to stick to theme. I mean, if I didn’t know the webseries and just picked this thing up, I’d be expecting vampires.

Since I’ve heard nothing about retconning Carmilla to keep her a vampire, I’m going to assume she’s human.

So where to find some vampires?

Well the biggest baddest vampire of the series is the infamous Matska Belmonde. Problem is, she’s dead. Like deader than vampire-dead dead. Literally a ghost. That said, if the picture of Sophia and Jordan means anything we may be seeing Mattie lurking around but we’ll talk about that later. Regardless, Mattie is dead and a ghost and not a vampire.

There’s Danny. Our tallest redhead was turned into a vampire at the very end of s2 and maintained her vampirism as she strode out the library door in s3. Theoretically, she’s still very much undead. However, Sharon is the one person that didn’t show up in the day 1 behind the scenes shots plus Swerve is shooting at the exact same time and we KNOW she’s part of that.

So while Danny may pop up, I’m not counting on it. If she does, it’s most likely going to be a smaller role.

There’s JP but he also seems very dead if the sacrifice at the gate during s3 is any indication.

All the webseries vampires seem to be dead, ghost-dead, vanished, or human. 

We need new ones. Lucky we have 3 new cast members who could take on the role! Let’s see if any of them could be our new vampire extraordinaire. We’ve got 2 options the Bronte sisters or the Woman in Black.

If you all thought we were going to start with The Woman In Black then you’ve got another think coming because I have a hunch that her identity is going to be the question of the movie. So naturally, I’m saving her for the end.

Plus, we know like nothing about her so we’ve got to build everything else up first then see where she fits in. You know the drill. Facts first. Conjecture second.

So we start with the Bronte sisters.

What’s Up with The Bronte’s?

I’m sure all my literary nerds got very excited when they saw the name Bronte pop up on the cast sheet. Just as Carmilla started as a novella by Sheridan Le Fanu, the name Bronte pops up in the same way. It’s a direct reference to authors from the 1800s. Specifically, Bronte is the last name of several famous writers.

The Carmilla Movie has cast two of these authors: Charlotte Bronte and Emily Bronte. Sisters. You may recognize their work.  Charlotte Bronte wrote Jane Erye (plus lots of other things actually) and Emily Bronte wrote Wuthering Heights. I’m happy to see them show up.

Except. It’s kind of weird no?

Carmilla Karnstein is a fictional character. Jane Erye is a fictional character; I’d expect Jane to show up. Instead, we’re getting real live actual people. That’s like Sheridan Le Fanu walking into the middle of season 3. We’re getting writers; not characters. How are they even suppose to integrate into this 2017 story?

Ask a question and the internet already has two theories for you:

FlashBacks or Time Travel?

When your canon is a supernatural webseries full of literal gods and alternate universes, it does nothing to close doors on literally anything happening. Which is fun for fanfic and a nightmare for predictive theories. Still, the internet has used its collective power to offer two options:

Flashbacks: Carmilla is 300+ years old. She’s got a lot of history and the idea is that we’re going to get literal flashbacks of her past. In these flashbacks, she’s going to have met the Bronte sisters and interacted with their lives. Honestly, I find this perfectly plausible as it’s like a high production value s1 puppet show. The only downside is it means we get scenes with no Laura who definitely wasn’t alive in 1848. Also I just personally don’t like flashbacks but that’s a whole other story.

Time Travel: Considering the library literally popped Laura into an alternate universe, it’s not too much of a stretch that it could pop Carmilla and Laura round in time. Basically, our 21st century girls end up in 19th century England. From the BTS pictures this is looking like more and more of a possibility. Frankly, I’d love to see Laura hurled back in time to see some of Carmilla’s past. That said, I can come up with half a dozen reasons why we’ve seen her in somewhat old timey clothes that don’t include time travel either.

Now flashbacks or Laura timetraveling to the past would allow us to see some of Carmilla vampire in this movie which is something that you’d expect to see from a Carmilla movie.

If forced to choose, I’d probably go with flashback even if I’d prefer time travel just because I don’t have any proof that there is time travel involved. That said, plain old flashbacks are MUCH too boring for our pledge to ridiculous theories and we’re going to spice it up. Personally, I think we’re going to be getting some flashbacks regardless but I don’t think flashbacks are going to be the only place we see the Bronte sisters.

May I Offer You A Different Bronte Theory?

I’d make them our vampires. Or ghosts. But vampires seem more on theme and I’ve already got an idea about the ghosts. Stay tuned.

For now, vampires. If we make the Bronte’s supernatural creatures then they can easily still be kicking around in the 21st century to interact with our cast - no time travel or flashbacks needed (although you could totally still do both).

Plus, if they’re supernatural, long-lived beings it fixes our whole writer vs character problem.

Think about it, it’s already kind of weird that we’ve got authors and real life people stepping in beside our fictional characters. The only way it’s not weird… is if they’re fictional too. So here’s what I’m proposing, Emily and Charlotte Bronte are a mix of themselves and their characters. Their books, like Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, are semi-autobiographical. Emily actually went to Rochester mansion and then wrote a book about it. Rationale?

Every single one of the Bronte books are written under a pseudonym. You know who likes pseudonyms? The vampire Carmilla Mircalla Macrilla Arcmilla Von Karnstein.

All the Brontes were actually governesses like their characters

It would explain why all of their protagonists are so similar. It’s just them over and over.

Moms are always dead in real life and the books

All their stories take place in creepy old mansions. You know who likes creepy old mansions? Supernatural beings

Sidebar - the creepy house in the BTS photos is probably either the Bronte House or Eel Marsh House which Hollstein + Crew are investigating

You don’t think after 300 years, Carmilla couldn’t write a kickbutt novel about her life? I do. I could probably write it for her if you gave me enough time. Imagine it. The Bronte Sisters are these immortal vampires who kill time being governess for kids and happen to run into supernatural stuff. Jane Eyre is probably a tamed down version of the time Charlotte was teaching some kids and discovered some weird lovecraftian demon in the attic.

Carmilla is known for mixing up it’s ‘canon’ material. They’re the ones who put gods into a gothic novella, not me!

Plus this lets me kill two birds with one stone. I get vampires and I get to explain why a 19th century author is suddenly in my fictional story. Occam’s Razor. This is the one we’re going with. Also, it’s waaaay more fun to think of this awesome literary ladies as undead fiends.

Now this means that we don’t technically need flashbacks OR time travel to have the 19th century Brontes interact with our modern day characters. They’ve just kept right on living through history and now Hollstein can waltz over and chat with them. Honestly, looking at Day 1 set photos and Grace in that lacey dress while everyone is wearing leather jackets, it seems plausible.

Again, the Brontes could definitely be ghosts instead of vampires as ghost stories are a HUGE thing in our source material but, quite frankly, I like the vampire idea better. Regardless, it doesn’t change the idea that the Brontes are still around as some kind of supernatural being in the 21st century.

Simply because Carmilla is a vampire story, I’m going with the vampires over ghosts.

Now, of course, this just creates more questions. If they’re vampires, how are they vampires?

How To Make A Vampire

The easiest answer is that the Bronte’s are just Mattie 2.0 and more girls that Inanna turned into vampires for her evil plotting needs. Basically, they’re Carmilla’s vampiric sisters that she’s just never mentioned ever. They were just made the normal way.

Well… Carmilla’s normal way.

So as a reminder, Carmilla likes to play with what canon is in big ways. In this instance, it’s that vampires aren’t made in even slightly the conventional way. Rather than the usual biting/poison bit that we see in pop culture, Carmilla vampires are the results of the Goddess Inanna using her magical powers to bring a dead person back to life. Vampires can’t make other vampires. Only Inanna can do it cause she’s the god.

(this is your reminder that carmilla turning laura into a vamp in s3 was always literally impossible. Inanna would have had to do it.)

So for the Bronte sisters, Inanna could have turned them back in the day and they’re estranged from the family or something which is why we never see them kidnapping girls. Fine. It’s not like Carmilla is particularly forthcoming with the family info and we don’t have any other options so.... Oh wait.

We totally do.

Remember s3 when they first find out about Inanna being a god and Laura’s all “That’s like your nemesis is Zeus or Odin. And Zeus and Odin aren’t real. Wait- are Zeus and Odin real? Shouldn’t we have known if gods are real?” The implication then goes on that if Inanna is real then yes Zeus and Odin are probably real in the Carmilla universe.

Which on one hand I have questions but on the other hand OH LOOK MORE BEINGS WITH THE POWER LEVEL NEEDED TO MAKE VAMPIRES.

To which I hear your cries of “that’s pure conjecture, Aria.” First all, this is all pure conjecture. But second of all NOPE. Because Zeus and Bronte are a thing and I’m such a mythology nerd for knowing this.

Now most of you probably know what cyclops are and some of you may know that one of the eldest cyclops is named Brontes. So technically I supposed Charlotte and Emily could be cyclops. That would definitely be a twist.

However, I’m going to go with ANOTHER mythological Bronte. Charlotte and Emily are sisters. Zeus has two shieldmaidens who are sisters (twins but semantics) who are named Asprate and BRONTE. Yes, That’s right. Bronte. 

Coincidence? I think possibly.

But another part of me thinks that Zeus decided to make his own immortal peons when he saw Inanna do it and this included the two women we know as Charlotte and Emily Bronte. Their job is basically translates to thunder and lightning so these are not sisters you want to mess with.

Plus, I think it’s very on brand for Carmilla to throw some more mythology in here.

So we have the boring (Inanna) and the ridiculous (Zeus) ways that the Bronte sisters could have feasibly become vampires. Since I’ve got nothing that can prove this wrong, we’re rolling with it!

Now I’ve been ignoring the slight screams from some of the literary fans in the background reminding me that “THERE WERE MORE THAN 2 BRONTE SISTERS ARIA. EXPLAIN THAT.” (i promised @kaitlynsgonnakait​ that i’d address this somehow)

Fine. I will.

The Third Bronte Sister

So technically there were 6 Bronte siblings. The two oldest girls died of disease when they were still kids. Then Charlotte Bronte who is in the movie. Then their brother Patrick Branwell who tried to be a writer, mostly failed, and became an alcoholic instead. Then Emily Bronte of Jane Eyre fame who is also in the movie.

And finally Anne Bronte whose works Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall are considered classics just like her sisters. You can often buy the works of all three Bronte sisters together. It’s like a package deal.

So where is she? Carmilla only cast two sisters.

Easy answer is that they DID cast her and she’s ‘The Woman in Black’ who has been lurking around this document all mysteriously. Boom Bam. Problem solved.

Except, sorry. I don’t think so. My first reason was simply I had a more ridiculous/better theory for The Woman in Black (who we will now refer to as TWIB because I’m lazy).

So where’s Anne Bronte?

My problem is that when you’re taking characters from the 1800s and putting them into a story where you have a canon character who was ALIVE in the 1800s, it seems silly to not have their paths have overlapped before. Certainly, Carmilla could go to these ‘people she’s heard about from Mattie yet never met’ but that’s a missed excuse for conflict. Stories live and die on conflict. How much more interesting would it be if Carmilla had history with the Bronte sisters?

And considering the thing our cast is missing is villains, I’m guessing it’s not a good one.

I’m proposing that it’s Carmilla’s fault that Anne Bronte is dead.

Linkage to Carmilla’s backstory

So let’s be realistic here. Carmilla was not a nice vampire. Even in canon, she spends the second half of season 2 literally killing people off camera and appears drenched in blood more than once. So it’s totally feasible that there’s a hundred different ways she could have killed Anne Bronte.

Probably with Mattie only because I want a flashback with Mattie and Carmilla together.

Actually, with some slight creativity with dates (and let’s face it, Carmilla has always been bad on matching their dates (jp/ell date debacle)), you could 100% make Anne Bronte part of the sacrificing ritual to Lophiiformes. In real life, she dies at 29 in 1849 which isn’t far off from the canon ritual year of 1852/1854.

After all, the Bronte story does sound like one that Carmilla’s mother would want to throw her glittering girl into. Picture it, a carriage wreck outside a lonely Thornton estate. A home with 3 girls whose mother passed away only years before in 1842 to leave their father to try and best manage their education. The historically kindly man takes in the young Mircalla after her carriage wreck and entrusts her to his slightly older daughters. Anne, the youngest and closest in age to Carmilla, becomes fast friends with her but becomes ill. The doctors diagnose her with tuberculosis (which is what real life brontes died of) but she’s then trundled off to the ritual and dies.

ALternative options: Carmilla gets in a carriage wreck outside some place where Anne is being a governess. The same thing happens except Carmilla seduces a governess because of course she does. Who’s really going to notice if the governess goes missing on the moors?

Here’s the kicker guys. The real life Brontes LITERALLY TOOK IN A GIRL WHO WAS IN A CARRIAGE CRASH. In ‘The Letters (1829-1847)’ which is a collection of letters by Charlotte Bronte she notes in a footnote that “a carriage accident occurred on EN’s return from Haworth”.

Okay. Look. That’s neat okay and even if I’m wrong about all of this (which i probably am) IT’S STILL VERY NEAT.

This scenario is literally exactly what happens in the Carmilla novella… except Carmilla gets her head chopped off too. Semantics.

After all, this is our pre-Ell Carmilla who is still pretty big on the killing thing. Let’s say that Emily and Charlotte Bronte get their Laura Hollis on and try to save their sister Anne but fail.

Either this is where the Dean changes them in vampires OR this is where they make a deal with Zeus to give them immortality OR where they die like normal people but the vengeance/sadness/feelings in their souls allows them to hang around as ghosts.

(Somewhere in there has to be a Bronte Sisters: Vampire Hunters story. Consider that option D, very Vordenberg. Hey. We have like no information on this movie. You can’t prove it wrong!)

Regardless, I’m proposing that Carmilla’s got history with the Bronte’s and it’s not a good one. That also fits with why she looks terrified enough to climb up a pole in that BTS picture. Whatever’s lurking in that house is probably got some kind of beef with Carmilla. Our now very human and somewhat defenceless Carmilla.

I just think that if you have a character with 300 years of backstory then you USE IT.

Now of course, there’s so much of Carmilla’s backstory that I have no way of knowing and who knows what the writers decided to use. However, there is one more piece of our little puzzle here that I can pop into place in Carmilla’s backstory.

Let’s talk about the Woman in Black.

It All Comes Back to Carriages

Not who she is! No no. Still too early for that but we can talk about what this is a reference too. The Woman In Black is a 1983 horror novella written as an imitation of the traditional Gothic novella that Carmilla is. Basically one precludes the other. So they already have a link right off the top. You may seen the Daniel Radcliffe movie. It’s also one of the longest running plays which makes sense when you consider that Carmilla writer Jordan is a playwright.

So we’ve got a play/novella to tackle.

While Carmilla was concerned with vampires, The Woman in Black is a story about ghosts. A basic plot summary is that this lawyer goes to this creepy old house (Eel Marsh House) belonging to an old lady who just died so that he can handle her estate. No-one in the village will go near this place but no-one will tell him why. He attends the old lady’s funeral and there’s basically no-one else there except this woman who slips in about halfway through. She’s wearing all black but it’s sort of old fashioned and when he gets a look at her face he describes it as pale and horrid. Even creepier, like 20 children follow her around and just stare at her.

At first, he thinks nothing of it but she keeps appearing and disappearing. When he stays in the old lady’s house there’s all kinds of creepy noises and a one point he hears a child screaming and the sound of a carriage crash.

A CARRIAGE. WHAT OTHER STORY DO WE KNOW THAT USES CARRIAGE CRASHES?

Eventually he figures it out. So the ghost is the sister of the old lady who owned the house. Her name was Jennet. Back in the day, she had a son but it was super scandalous to have a kid when you were unmarried so Jennet had to give the boy to her married sister to raise on her behalf. However, they couldn’t bear to be separated so Jennet lived in this shack on the edge of the marsh and her sister would send her son to her so that they could see each other sometimes.

Pro tip: do not build houses in marshes.

One day, when the boy is travelling to see her, the carriage sink into the marsh and boy dies while Jennet is forced to watch. Unable to help him. Jennet herself dies and returns as a ghost.

The Woman In Black.

She appears to people right before a child dies. The screams that the lawyer heard while he in the house are those of her son, trapped and eternally dying. The lawyer peaces out of there but years later he sees TWIB and then his son dies.

The end.

What fun!

Now we talked about how TWIB is imitating gothic style stories like Carmilla however, it’s strongest predecessor according to the author is a 1898 novella called Turn of The Screw which is a contemporary to the Carmilla novella (1872) but is a ghost story. Turn of The Screw is a ghost story about this governess whose charges are haunted by the ghost of their old governess and her lover. At the end of the story, the boy dies.

Governesses. That sounds familiar… because Turn of The Screw is basically the ghost story version of the Bronte novels published 50 years earlier. For example, Jane Eyre makes it seem like something supernatural is going on but it’s just a lady in the attic. Turn of The Screw makes something really supernatural actually happen inside the same premise.

Basically if you mashed the Bronte works, the Carmilla novella, and Turn of the Screw together and waited 100 years, you get The Woman In Black. Neat.

Could Turn of The Screw just be another novel written by the immortal Bronte sisters as they travel through immortality? You tell me.

Most of them involve governesses, most involve children, most involve bad things happening to children, and most of them have carriage crashes. These stories have a lot of links and we’re developing some pieces that our Carmilla movie writers might have pulled on to bring these characters all together.

With the inclusion of TWIB in the movie, we can assume that she’s going to be lurking around creepily and foreboding death. She could be a vampire but I like her as a ghost.

Why? We’ll get there. You wouldn’t buy it yet. Still, with her carriage crash history it’s likely that this is another lady with some kind of grudge against Carmilla Karnstein because that’s a place the writers could link both stoires.

Now this is all well and good but we still have absolutely no reason for Hollstein to up and go investigate anything. All we’ve got is that Carmilla probably has some tragic backstory with some vampires/ghosts and there’s a specter that appears sometimes before kids die. The Bronte’s and TWIB have been holding status quo for hundreds of years while Carmilla killed people and got buried and met Laura.

What changed?

Enter the Carmilla web series with it’s god killing, apocalypse preventing shenanigans.

Let’s Crack Some Eggs

We haven’t talked about the teaser trailer yet and as this is the part where we start getting out of backstory and into modernity again.

So the motorcycle bit is completely useless to me but we do get a tiny bit of dialogue that I can use. Laura pulls a multiple choice card out of the box of creampuffs and says, “Dear Professor Hollis, you’re going to come and help us because a) you’re a nice helpful lady and it’s what you do b) you’re probably pretty curious about this whole mysterious message thing c) oh god oh god it laid eggs d) if you don’t a lot of people are going to die, starting with your friends. Talk soon.”

Pushing aside the question of how in the world Laura went from a first year undergrad to a professor in like 6 years… it’s c I’m most interested in because it sounds like plot.

It laid eggs.

Okay… so we need something to lay eggs. What animals are available in Carmilla? I mean, no-one had a parrot or lizard or ohhhhhh.... Well then. I can only think of one thing with a prominent role in Carmilla that can lay eggs.

Lophiiformes. The giant god anglerfish that Vordie apparently killed in s2.

Except you can’t really kill a god, can you? That’s the whole reason they had to lock Inanna up (fyi hastur/dumuzi is a whole separate thing). So even if they killed Lophii, she’s going to find a way to come back and preserve her godly power.

It’s actually fairly in line with mythology to think that she lays eggs which stay dormant until her death when her godly powers transfer to them and start activating. It’s very Phoenix (dies and comes back as a baby). So let’s say that when Vordie killed Lophii in s2, he started her eggs going. Anglerfish lay their eggs in this gelatinous material in deep holes in the ground (a pit perhaps?). Then the eggs hatch into larvae and start wiggling around, growing on the surface until they return to the deep as mature anglerfish. The circle of life.

This isn’t the first time we’ve heard about little anglerfish worms either. Remember, in s1 it wasn’t the vampires who retook the girls. The little Lophii worms in their brains brought them back to Lophii automatically. So what happens when you have tiny Lophii babies swimming around?

Bad things.

Please recall, that Lophii keeps her power by feeding on the girls every 20 years. If she didn’t get the girls, then she’d leave the pit and go find them herself which is why the Dean kept feeding her. If she gets food then she doesn’t have to look for it and just eat people herself.

But no-one is feeding the baby Lophii’s girls on a platter. They’ve got to go find lunch. Which brings us to the first half of option D on Laura’s card - a lot of people are going to die when the little Lophii’s creep out of their eggs.

If Laura doesn’t get a move on and stop it, someone’s going to start killing her friends first.

So that seems like a pretty good reason for Carmilla and Laura to return to Silas  or wherever Laf/Perry and other “the friends” seem to be. Now, it’s hard to say who would have written this note to Laura. It’s probably not any of Laura’s friends because I find it hard to swallow that one of them would have turned villain and someone being possessed is too Dean Perry.

Could be the Bronte sisters. Could be someone we don’t know.

Could be The Woman In Black.

Hard to say though when we don’t know who TWIB is?

Who Is The Woman In Black?

This will likely be one of the big questions of the movie just as it’s the big question in the original novel. Who is she and what is she doing? I like this because it earmarks back to s1 of Carmilla and it gives me something concrete to try and figure out.

Let’s look at our options:

Mattie - If you just gave me the name “the woman in black”, Mattie would be my answer every time. Just look at her in s3. She’d literally dressed in all black. Problem is that we already know that Dominique was cast in the role and she’s definitely not Sophia so we know it’s not Sophia under the veil.

Literally anyone else we’ve already met - It simply can’t be Danny or Laf or Perry or Mel or Kirsch or anyone whose face we’ve seen because, and i repeat, WE KNOW IT’S DOMINIQUE’S ROLE. That means it has to be a character whose face we’ve never seen before.

Ereshkigal - Look, if you can’t have Mattie then the goddess of the underworld who Mattie spoke also seems like a good candidate. She’s literally the original TWIB. That said, it feels like the web series did a good job of neatly packaging away the god stuff and to pull her in would require new viewers to catch up real quick. Plus, I can’t see why she’d bother. Possible but doesn’t seem plausible.

Anne Bronte - as previously discussed, the missing Bronte sister is the easiest candidate for our TWIB. I’ve heard a few comments that the three new cast members don’t look like sisters, which is valid, but also Mattie and Carmilla looked nothing alike either. My biggest problem with this idea is that I just don’t think it’s interesting

If you’re going to create the question of “who is the woman in black” and likely build it up for 25-50% of the movie then the reveal has to mean something. We don’t know the Bronte’s. Maybe the movie could build them up enough so that we have the emotional punch at the reveal but it seems unlikely with such a large cast. Better if it’s some we (and the characters) already know under there and can react to. The more connected to Hollstein specifically, the more we’re going to get those feels.

Laura’s Mother - I know. Weren’t expecting that one now were you! (Except @ukulelekatie literally 1hr before i posted this!) However, if we’re looking for mysterious characters then Laura’s mother/other parent and her complete lack of mention seems like one of the biggest holes.

Laura, even in the novella canon, has some weird traits that haven’t really been explained. In the novella, she has a dream about Carmilla 12 years before Carmilla even shows up which is literally a predictive/foreboding dream and TWIB is a predictive/foreboding figure. In the social media at the very beginning of s1, Laura mentions that the student roommate assignment services (aka the library aka Enki the literal god) found her aura ‘weird’. Which… I mean if you had one supernatural parent that might make your aura a little odd. Laura’s also the only one to have anglerfish dreams after she’s no longer been chosen. Finally, even though I’ve explained the whole living without a heart thing before via the Death Power Drain Theory, it could explain her resiliency there. Again, possible. But unlikely.

I’m not going to say that Elise and Dominique kind of look the same but THEY KIND OF LOOK THE SAME especially with Elise’s dark hair.

So hypothetically Laura’s Mom died and came back as a ghost or was turned into a vampire. While I think it would be fascinating my problems are that it doesn’t really link into Carmilla’s backstory OR into the whole Lophii eggs thing…

UNLESS you figure that Laura’s mom was ALREADY a vampire when she had Laura (ive given up trying to figure out undead biology) and she had to leave because people would have noticed she wasn’t aging. If Papa Hollis knew that may explain his raging paranoia. This is Laura reconnecting with her mother. Which frankly… so cool. But again… I don’t know why she’d be involved with anything to do with Lophii or why she’d be dressed in all black instead of just being like “hey. What’s up. Need some help with the fish?”

Also you could TOTALLY COMBINE THEM. If you make Laura’s mom a vampire before she has Laura then she can be as old as you want. You could totally make Laura’s mother the missing Anne Bronte who is parading as the TWIB. Sure, that creates the above challenges again but it’s a neat idea.

So this didn’t help narrow it at all. Maybe if we do a little more digging

What other loose ends do we have lying around? The anglerfish babies are rising and out to kill. The Brontes are probably mad at Carmilla for some reason. We’ve got a creepy old house.

What do we know about TWIB? She’s a warning figure of death She doesn’t actually kill anyone. She’s related to a bunch of children and her whole journey is started by a carriage crash. She’s a ghost and her clothing is a key trait about her. Her reveal has to matter because it’s a plot question but she can’t be anyone whose face we’ve seen before. At the same time, she has to be connected to our main cast so that we get the emotional punch.

So I need a ghostly girl related to Lophi who has angsty history with a carriage and our cast while acting as a warning of death and is someone we viewers have emotional connects to even though we’ve never seen her face and-

Oh.

Oh no. Creampuffs. We just mentioned this and I blew past it because I was looking at the wrong end.

Carmilla - “The charm should have chased the dreams away.”

Laura - “I don’t think it’s the vampires. It’s the girl. The girl in the nightdress…. She said maybe not to go into the light ‘cause the light is hungry.”

Creampuffs, I think The Woman in Black is going to be Ell.

Carmilla’s long lost love whose face we’ve never seen but we’ve heard her tragic tale of woe straight from Carmilla’s mouth so we have emotional investment. It would take about 5 seconds of movie time to remind us of that and educate new viewers. Ell was swallowed up by the anglerfish but she’s always been different from all the other girls. She’s always been the one who has been reaching out and trying to warn new targets to flee away.

What if she never stopped?

We never learn what happens to the souls after Lophii dies. We know Carmilla sees Ell at the pit but we never heard anything more of her. Carmilla spent years trying to drive girls away.

So did Ell.

What if, upon the anglerfish’s death, Ell stays either to save others or for typical “unfinished business ghost reasons” or because she’s tied to the gods power and has to. She gets enough of the power lying around to take on a ghostly form and when the anglerfish babies start growing and getting free, she tries to warn people by appearing before them. TWIB in black has never killed people, she’s always been a warning.

A warning for children. So that what happened to Ell will not happen to them.

Her white nightdress transformed into black robes after everything she’s seen.

Can you imagine that story? A story where Carmilla and Laura are living happily together until they’re summoned back to Silas to save the day once again by a mysterious letter threatening to start killing their friends. Where they arrive to find news of a stranger woman in black appearing right before people start dying and Laura wants to stay to try and reason with the specter. Get to the bottom of it.

After all, “we’ve already been through the apocalypse, Carm? What more could happen?”

A story where Carmilla just shakes her head with a sigh and a smile while she fiddles with the engagement ring in her pocket where only the camera can see. Their search brings them to a creepy old mansion and they rent it out because “creepy mansions are like obviously supernatural, carm!” and assemble the team to help them. Laf and Perry and Kirsch and Mel and even though Laura has tried to find Danny, the vampire does not want to be found.

Something about this house rings familiar in Carmilla’s mind and raises the hair on the back of her neck but she chalks it up to being human and carries on. More interested in the way, after 5 years, Laura still listens to her heartbeat when they sleep.

Until, as they sleep, the supernatural begins to take hold. Smoke and fog. Shrieks and silence. A bronte sister is the first to appear, bringing words of history and telling them to leave. For although they have tried to be peaceful, she will kill Carmilla for past grievances if they stay too long. Perhaps the vampire Bronte’s are still playing the game. Bringing back the fish and letting it feed it’s fill. After all, that’s what the Dean made them for.

The Woman In Black will come and go but never to Carmilla. It is only Laura who gets to see her face. It pings familiar, like something from a dream, but she doesn’t know where. She tries to speak but the woman says nothing back but warnings.

People keep dying. TWIB always appearing as a warning before. They will assume TWIB is the one killing them. Hollstein has made these assumptions before. This time Laura knows better. 

Laura resolves to capture her. She’s got the truth that way before and she can do it again. Yet the plan goes awry and when Laura reaches out to grab, TWIB whisks her away. She whisks her away to 1872 where Laura ends up in a period dress and sees a familiar face who she knows but does not know her. The vampire Karnstein is too enamored with Ell to see anyone else and Laura realizes who TWIB actually is.

Ell is as lost to time as Laura is. 

Somewhere, Laura will realize Carmilla has a type when it comes to the girls she loves and even though she knows it’s irrational. Her heart will throb a little as she watches Carmilla dance with Ell even as Laura is there in flesh and blood.

Carmilla meanwhile has known Laura’s disappearances before and while she may be a vampire no longer, she is still a moth to a flame. She barges into the Bronte’s home and demands their help. Demands explanations.

Laura returns and the reunion is tinged with a hundred different feelings. Laura who has seen her Carmilla and alt Carmilla but has never known a Carmilla who didn’t love her. She knows now. Carmilla will consider proposing but ultimately will hold off because Laura deserves only the best moment.

The Bronte sisters will show them the anglerfish eggs but the revelation will pale in the light of Laura’s admission that TWIB is Ell. The scenes between Laura, Carmilla, and Ell will break all our hearts. Together they’ll save the day and fight back the Bronte sisters looking to finish the Dean’s work, unaware of her change of heart.

Ell will finally see all the girls sent to freedom and, as she fades away for what is truly the final time, she will pick up the ring where it fell out of Carmilla’s pocket and press it into Laura’s hand with a sad smile.

And Laura will propose to Carmilla in the dust and ash of their victory.

And we will all break in the best way.

You asked me to write you a theory. You asked me to tell you a story. There are a hundred different versions and a hundred different possibilities because we have so little information. So this is the one I choose to tell today. Tomorrow I may rewrite this tale where the woman is Laura’s mother, where Ell is a descendant of the Bronte’s, where Elle is a Bronte and laura’s mother, where Laura turns evil, where twib is evil, where gods come back, where the world burns again, where brontes are ghosts, and TWIB is a vampire.

But today I choose to weave a theory that makes a love story. Where Carmilla gets the closure with Ell that she’s been waiting for and where Laura gets to understand a carmilla she never thought she’d see and love her all the more. This was always a love story. Our story written in Hollstein’s veins and the larger story around it written in Inanna and Hastur.

Love will have it’s sacrifices but love still always wins.

I’m @ariabauer and that’s The End.

[jacnaylor]

Holby city and casualty & biphobia

Holby city and casualty have recently been trying to step up when it comes to diversity, especially when it comes to sexuality, and in most cases this has been done well. The Dom and Isaac storyline in particular was written well. They have a history of trying to tackle sensitive topics with a lot of grace, and are well above average on the diversity scale compared to similar shows.

But, there is a clear pattern of biphobia across both sister shows that I want to draw attention to. Not because I don’t appreciate the efforts from the shows, but because I have a feeling the writers and some audience members might not even understand how harmful some of the biphobia on the show could be. So this is just to show you where some areas can be improved.

Let’s start with casualty, as there’s less to talk about in that show compared to holby city.

1. Jez

I really like Jez as a character, but right from the get go he has been the stereotypical oversexualized bisexual. Yes, people can enjoy having a lot of sex, but when it’s done in reference to a bisexual character it just seems iffy to me. It’s like he’s having more sex because he’s with both men and women on different days of the week. Then, when we finally see him starting a relationship with Louise (we’ll get to her in a minute, wow) he breaks it off - for reasons other than his sexuality, admittedly - and is very soon in a relationship with his current boyfriend. To me this seems like he’s being pushed around partners quicker than any other character because there’s “more choice”. You don’t really see this with anyone else. Casualty love pairing people up but they usually drag out one couple and one love interest for months, but bisexual characters move from partner to partner. Sidenote: as a bisexual person, the more choice thing is a myth. You might be in a club with 200 people and not fancy any of them, no matter their gender.

And, of course he’s attracted to multiple genders and can end up with anyone. But the fact they pair him with men more frequently seems slightly dismissive to me. The writers have not stated a preference, and there may well be a preference, but they are not using the opportunity to address biphobia toward bisexual people who end up with someone of another gender to their own. Obviously let’s add yes give me all those same sex couples, i love it, but they aren’t exploring this enough at all. I want more same sex couples on mainstream tv but I just wish they would take the chance to explore different aspects of the bisexual dating experience.

I’ve been thinking about this post for months and before that they had never referenced Jez as bi. Now in the last week they have, and that’s amazing and I’m really happy about it. But it took the writers A YEAR. I KNOW THIS, BECAUSE I WAS WAITING. When Jez first talked about his sexuality it was ‘fluid’ or ‘unlabeled’ or some other such nonsense that basically meant they didn’t have to say the b word. They have since rectified this as stated, but when even contemplating writing a bi character, do some fucking research beforehand guys, it isn’t hard. And yes I know some people don’t like labels, but when it’s done in tv it seems like a lazy excuse and we all know it.

2. Louise

When Louise started her brief romance with Jez she was hesitant because of his sexuality. Jez said that it's ok and that it doesn’t affect their relationship, but no one really said that her opinion was uninformed, let alone wrong. It was basically something she wasn’t comfortable with and no one called her out on it and it’s never been mentioned again.

This scene was sort of infamous for me because this is the scene where Louise said “It’s your choice.”

Choice? Choice? C H O I C E???/

And the worst thing is Jez didn’t even call her out on it. He just let her call his sexuality a life choice and then got into a relationship with this woman who didn’t respect this part of him. Are you kidding me? I might be forgiving of ignorance when we learn from it, but mate. No way would this happen. And, not to mention that Louise is a trained health professional and should know about different sexualities by now.

3. Toby

For those who are slightly newer to casualty, Toby was a very sweet natured f1 a couple of years ago. Very timid for a long time.

So, after a traumatic experience, he had an ill advised relationship with the pregnant daughter of a senior staff member (all above board, it just probably wasn’t the best idea given their issues at the time). After some mistakes, he sought out the help of a counsellor, Ben, who he ended up dating. So, we have a canon bisexual character.

Then, when the affair was exposed - It shouldn’t have been happening anyway because I’m pretty sure you shouldn’t date your therapist, so that seems predatory in itself - Toby was ashamed of his sexuality and accused Ben of taking advantage of him. Ok, so they end up together when Toby decided to leave the hospital but….man.

The whole ‘ashamed of his sexuality, accuses colleague of taking advantage’ was something the show did again with gay character Seb in recent months. This isn’t solely biphobia in that sense, but general shitty writing for lgbtq characters. It’s a storyline that paints them as malicious, ashamed, sneaky. This happened in Holby with Dom and Malik as well, and it’s just a horrible storyline that seems to only happen with lgbtq characters and I do not know why at all.

4. Alicia

In recent times Alicia found out her father was cheating on her mother with another man. She had a massive problem with this, mostly because of the cheating, but she couldn’t seem to accept her dad’s sexuality. Yes, cheating is always wrong. I can’t remember exactly how her father identifies but if he is bisexual then....well, he didn’t just marry her mum out of convinience, he loved her. And he could have cheated on her with anyone. And to me it seemed Alicia was more angry that it was a man than anything else (please correct me if her father does identify as gay, though the point still stands about Alicia’s reluctance)

It just seemed like it was thrown in there to make it “worse” or something and Alicia was sort of awful about it all really and used it as an excuse to ruin her own life (though my issues with that character are for another time)

So now, the holby city section

1. Serena (/Bernie)

Ok, so. Before the avid fanbase for this ship, like, comes at me, let me just disclaim: yes, anyone can identify however they want! But! When it speaks to a pattern of biphobia! I have an issue with it!

So, we had the really wonderfully acted love story between two older women on Holby, Bernie and Serena. Bernie has had a relationship with a woman after the breakdown of her marriage but Serena never has. They had a really lovely story that I enjoyed.

But the word bisexual was rarely, if ever, used. When Serena was first coming to terms with her kiss with Bernie, she tried out calling herself a lesbian. Even though she had many relationships with men and one even after she first kissed Bernie. So, because she did have a romantic connection with Robbie after Bernie, I think it’s pretty clear she’s bisexual, and this would have been a lovely discussion if they didn’t just start calling her a lesbian straight away (same with Bernie, even though she was also married to a man. I’m more familiar with Serena’s story so it might well be that Bernie was always a lesbian but I’m pretty sure she reads as bi too but maybe that’s my opinion.)

There’s also that fucking awful scene in which her and Raf test out whether they want to kiss each other. She does not want to kiss Raf, and so they declare she must be a lesbian.

WHAT?

I’m sorry, I didn’t realize not wanting to kiss your mate, a skinny scottish man who cries too much, was how we measure our sexualties now. Just because I don’t want to kiss every man I know doesn’t make me a lesbian. You can be a bisexual woman and not want to kiss some guy you know at work, guys. In case you didn’t know.

I’m just like...just say bisexual. It isn’t hard.

2. Lee

Ok, so, Dom, whom I love dearly, started a relationship with a man named Lee. Lee stole all of his stuff. Lee was not a nice man. Lee also had a pregnant girlfriend. Lee is bisexual.

Lee comes back after having been in prison and proceeds to physically attack people on the ward.

It’s like they equated the lies and the cheating with his sexuality. Instead of showing us a positive relationship between a gay person and a bisexual person (which is another issue within the community itself that they could have done something positive with but nope) they showed us a gay man being lied to, cheated on and attacked by a bisexual man who seemed to have mental health issues. Also his sexuality seemed to be directly related to his mental health issues, like he was being self destructive and cheating because of his repressed sexuality. Then he attacks Dom’s new partner and says Dom still loves him and all of that, so his mental health is always tied up with his feelings for Dom which I don’t this is helpful in anyway. 

Like, do I even need to explain how harmful that is? I don’t think so.

3. Fleur Fanshawe

Biphobia from gay characters on holby is not something new. Instead of being progressive in their writing, the holby writers just choose to give into stereotypes again and again. Fleur Fanshawe was an older gay woman = great. What wasn’t great was how she treated her ex girlfriend, Sophia.

So my memory isn’t a plus because I hated the storyline but what I remember is that, after they broke up, Sophia went back to her boyfriend. Fleur was very angry about this, about her “going back to men”. It was all just written very weirdly and just wasn’t good representation for bi/gay relationships. The behaviour, again, was never called out, and because their exit dates are the same I assume they got together again, even though Fleur always seemed to look down on Sophia’s bisexuality.

This is just another example of bisexual characters experiencing shame reinforced by their partners and others around them. It’s just tiring to me. It’s exhausting that the bi characters are always having to explain themselves or feel guilty.

4. Try be bi

That’s what I’m calling this section. This is the section where we talk about the odd, random, bisexual kisses that don’t seem to have a bearing on the plot.

Zosia, who is bipolar, is usually a character written very sensitively. She kissed Sophia whilst experiencing a bad mental health episode. I cannot speak to whether this behaviour is accurate and I won’t pretend to be an expert on bipolar disorder. However I think this kiss was thrown in there just to be shocking and to be a symptom of mental illness. Zosia is never confirmed bisexual and has never done anything like that afterwards, so I think it was a cheap shock ploy and it did a disservice not just to bisexuality but to mental illness as well. This was represented as a symptom of her mania but I think there were probably better ways of doing that.

Then quite a few years ago we have Donna, a nurse, having a one night stand with lesbian friend Micki. She was drunk at the time I think, and she never had any other relationships with women. Again, cheap shocks. Bisexuality is not something you just try out for the night. This is like those girls who kiss each other at parties without understanding that it’s for someone else's benefit and that they, as heterosexuals, are privileged above lgbtq people doing the same thing. Just a weird, unnecessary interlude in general.

5. Lofty

Now last night nurse Lofty was confirmed as having feelings for a man and a woman. He said “He loved them both.” Not in a poly way, since he left the woman because of his feelings for her brother. Now I along with many others welcomed this development! I want more lgbtq rep!

What I didn’t like is everyone suddenly calling him gay because he kissed a man, when he literally said in the same episode that he did love the woman he was with at the time. The media was also to blame since they basically described it as a gay bombshell. It was, in my opinion, a bisexual bombshell.

And, ok again this is my view this isn’t fact or how you have to see it, but for me this came out of nowhere, since his sexuality wasn’t ever brought up before. It almost seems as if, possibly, they are introducing it as a way to let Dom be with someone? And ok this is not confirmed but the two lgbtq characters on the same ward usually get together.

Look I like Lofty and this could be great. However, it might have been nice to introduce a new bisexual character without shoving it onto a preexisting character for the sake of convenience.

6. Jas and Morven

Now, given what I just said about Lofty and the writers randomly pushing bisexuality onto existing characters just because, you might think - Hold on a sec...but hear me out.

I love these two, my beautiful daughters. I adore them and their friendship.

But the friendship took a turn when, after weeks of Morven connecting online with a man called Nathan, she found out Nathan was actually her best friend Jasmine, cat fishing her because of her own loneliness.

Before this, Morven had said she’d really connected to “Nathan” and that she had very strong romantic feelings for him.

But they disappear as soon as she finds out it was Jasmine. It’s like, the words, the talking, the feelings were all genuine. And yes, Nathan was a fiction, but I think they could have Roxanne’d this and had her realise her feelings for this person were real, and that in actual fact that person was Jasmine. But no. They just had them fall out instead of falling in love. No bisexual roommates for me.

Oh and whilst we’re here, let’s talk about how apparently you can only have one lgbtq couple a ward (Berena as opposed to both Berena and Jasmine/Morven) Raf and Fletch, also best friends who lived together and helped raise Fletch’s children together. Jokingly described their relationship as a ‘sexless platonic marriage’. Couldn’t make it a relationship? For whatever reason. I guess what I’m trying to say is that the writers consistently deny friends to lovers relationships that have basis and positivity in favour of dramatic coming out stories, shock kisses and various other biphobic shitty things.

7. Dan Hamilton

In the words of my good friend, this was a real shit show.

Briefly romantically involved with the likes of Chrissie, Dan was originally portrayed back in 2011 as a ladies man. He shared a kiss with canon gay character Malik. This attracted criticism because apparently this was a ‘repetition of gay storylines seen on other dramas’. And ok this was a few years ago but...really

The storyline starts with him having tension with Malik - especially after he finds out Malik is gay. When Malik threatens to report Dan for something he did on the ward, they fight and then share a kiss. After this Dan rushes to his then girlfriend Chrissie and confesses his love for her. He proceeds to just try and avoid Malik and forget about the kiss. This is what they said about the storyline at the time (they being producers)

"It really isn't a 'coming out' storyline. The focus really is on Dan's character. Dan is Mr Conventional – he wants Chrissie, he wants the wife, the house, the career and 2.4 children. It won't be about him coming out and coming to terms with his sexuality. If anything, the kiss with Malick has made him even more determined to try to have a conventional life – because that's what he wants the most."

I mean, yes I like the fact not every story is a coming out story but...it seems weird for them to put it that way, especially since it was a coming out storyline if we’re being honest. Because they never discuss the bisexuality in the same way they discuss being gay on the show. Seems suspicious that they try not to delve into bisexuality. Instead of really showing how he felt for Chrissie and Malik the story was more about him being ashamed. Because that’s all the writers seem to know how to write. And I understand that it’s important to show these kind of struggles but...we never see Dom or Fleur or Malik being ‘ashamed’, only ever the men and women discovering their bisexuality. Malik tries to blackmail Dan, saying he would reveal their kiss to Chrissie. It’s almost implied - intentionally or not - that the sexuality is the issue above the cheating.

Astill also said he hoped Dan would “transform into a bisexual predator - no man or woman is safe from him.” I think the actor means he wanted Dan to be openly bisexual and as we know he’s a player, that that would still remain a part of his character. But the phrase bisexual predator is just fucking awful and harmful. When he left the show he did praise the fact Dan was the happiest we’d seen him after coming to terms with his sexuality (and I think leaving with another man?) and like, yes that’s good, but it was such an overdone story and it had its flaws for definite, not the least of which was once again painting bisexuals as confused, repressed or sexual predators or cheaters. And it seems again, a cliche, to make one of the most sexual characters bisexual, because it seems to go hand in hand on this show.

Very quick end point to explain something I said earlier: I want more same sex couples on my screen, but by showing a bisexual person in a relationship with someone of the same gender you could: explain some of the problems within the community as regards to biphobia - but that isn’t happening. By showing a bisexual person with someone of another gender you could delve into the myth of bisexual privelage - but that isn’t happening either. Instead what we have is bisexual characters very often only dating the opposite gender after their bisexuality is revealed. We see this with Dan, with Jez to an extent (he seems to have more positive relationships with men) Toby and most likely with Lofty. Again, not saying this is wrong or that these characters can’t have a preference. But the preference is never stated, it’s just implied. What this suggests to me is that the writers are having these characters ‘choose’. Which is another myth that needs to be dismantled. Bisexual people do not stop being bisexual because they are with someone of a certain gender, but for the purposes of writing these shows that’s what it feels like. Bisexuality is revealed as a shock, through a bombshell featuring a same sex relationship, and then forgotten. It feels as if these writers are using bisexuality as a stepping stone for the characters actually being gay. Now people might not agree with this and everyone’s experiences are different, but to me as a bisexual viewer that is how it feels.

I guess what I’m saying is they’ve had enough bisexual characters by now that they should be writing them as well as they do other lgbtq characters. For shows that usually handle things very well and sensitively they are still failing in this department. I love these shows but it’s 2017 guys it isn’t hard to talk to bisexual people, or you're bisexual viewers, fix your mistakes, talk to your target audience and the audience you’re trying to represent and see where you can do better. Why the fuck are we still having this conversation.