19 Works by starkadder
Listing Works
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Silas Hill, in picturesque Shropshire, where a trio of stories are unfolding.
In the present day, Carmilla and Laura take up residence in Carmilla's long-empty family home only to discover that though the past might be buried it may not be entirely dead. In 1872, Mircalla and Elle find themselves trying to hold together amid forces both tangible and ghostly. And in the chaos of the fifth century, Holly is trapped in a desperate struggle to survive in which her only ally is a dangerous and unstable woman named Karn.
Three interlocking AUs with three different versions of Hollstein and in three different time periods - but all in the same place.
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40,000 years ago nameless artists painted the cave walls in black and red. Aurochs, bison, deer, wolves, bears, leopards, hyenas - and above all, lions.
Today, two friends on the brink of a new relationship take a holiday to southern France. For both Laura and Carmilla it is the chance to be alone and see who they might become together. For Carmilla it is also a trip back to the half-forgotten country she spent her childhood in. But as the setting grows more and more familiar and as some of the locals seem slightly too welcoming, she begins wonder what kind of things she has forgotten and what she might need to remember before it's too late.
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And then the war came. The last great war of the modern world that rent the earth with tanks and mines and bombs. So my punishment came to an end and I walked off the battlefields in Austria to greet the twentieth century.
Human again, Carmilla goes back with Laura to the site of her imprisonment for the first time and tries to understand the person who came out of the coffin and how she picked up the threads of life again. Flashbacks to Carmilla's experiences in the first days after escaping her tomb.
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Dishonourably discharged cavalry officer Danny and fast-talking scoundrel Laura live an enjoyably debauched life in provincial Italy, surviving on their wits. But one day their world of dodging creditors, crashing card tables and seducing the local girls is interrupted by the discovery of a beautiful but inaccessible countess who drives both women into a frenzy of scheming.
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It is a year later and Laura and Carmilla are pulled from their new life in Paris by a combination of disturbing dreams and a tarot card that keeps turning up in Perry's hands. But Perry and LaFontaine have been dreaming too - of footsteps on the stairs and figures on the beach, all getting closer, all asking the question: Who is this who is coming?
And there is somebody familiar reflected in the mirror where Perry's face should be - somebody who should be very much dead.
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Lost in the Library and halted by a locked door, Laura is about to give up when a very unexpected visitor appears behind her. She has the same hair, the same eyes, the same clothes and the same smudge on her forehead from walking into a charred beam earlier.
“You’re-”
"That’s right, cupcake,” says the Other Laura. “This is where it gets complicated.”
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Walking in the windy uplands of Wales and finding themselves lost, Laura and Danny have the surprising fortune to be found by a strange, beautiful woman named Carmilla and invited to stay in her remote house on the heights. It may be a little unexpected, but there’s nothing untoward to be concerned about - well, except maybe for the half-heard voices crying warnings on the wind, the fluttering shadows in stray corners of the house, and the way Carmilla’s kisses really do take Laura’s breath away.
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Here was burned Carmilla Karnstein, convicted of witchcraft in 1698.
For burned-out investigative reporter Laura Hollis, a tiny village in the moors of the south-west of England is as far away from her normal life as possible. Nothing newsworthy has happened here since the seventeenth century.
But as her dreams are insistently invaded by an alluring but predatory presence and the villagers seem slightly too invested in a semi-legendary witch trial from three centuries ago, Laura finds herself drawn into a mystery of an entirely new sort. If only the locals could agree on what is actually meant to have happened in 1698...
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Laura Hollis is nineteen years old and really doesn't need a governess any more. She particularly does not need the kind of governesses her father keeps hiring - fusty, tired old women who think that taking her to tea with that grouchy Carmilla Karnstein next door is some kind of treat.
But then Miss Perry arrives, flying down with the East Wind in her umbrella and sliding up the bannister of No. 307 Cherry Tree Lane. With the girls being whisked off to shops that sell stars, dances with their own shadows and all manner of strange personages, Laura begins to think that governesses might not be that awful after all - and maybe Carmilla isn't so bad either.
Based on the Mary Poppins books by P.L. Travers.
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This day was inevitable. They had always known that when a vampire and a human devote their lives to each other there is only one possible ending. And now after sixty years together, Carmilla is having to face Laura's impending death and the endless immortality without her that will follow.
But suppose one night...
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A long summer holiday for Carmilla and Laura means a lot of photographs and a full sketchbook. But going through her drawings and pictures, Carmilla begins to notice something uncanny. Appearing again and again in the background is a small figure, always lurking just out of clear sight, a figure who looks just like her girlfriend. As the evidence starts to mount that something is wrong with Laura herself, Carmilla has to face the impossible:
There is another Laura.
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With the Dean's possession creeping over her and her world fading around her, Perry struggles to keep hold of her memories of Danny and the relationship they shared in between the big events at Silas.
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I dreamed of Carmilla again last night.
Laura cannot imagine being with anyone but Danny. Since they first met at Silas University, they've been inseparable and there's nobody else for her. Except - who is this Carmilla she keeps dreaming about? And why does she feel that she knows her so well?
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Exorcised of the Dean's influence, Perry is to spend the summer quarantined in a remote house with Mattie watching over her in case of a recurrence. Still in shock over her possession, she must deal with her missing memories, a dislocated sense of identity and the inescapably disturbing presence of Mattie herself.
In her head – or over her shoulder – she feels like something is stalking her, and does not know whether it is the Dean returning or her own psyche catching up with her. Or maybe it’s just the approach of Matska Belmonde, who is beginning to exert a fascination over her.
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Dear Ms. Belmonde,
I confess to a certain confusion regarding your letter. I do try to deal with as wide a remit of problems as possible, but your query as to whether you can eat your sister's cupcake seems a trifle basic. Have you asked your sister?A rather baffled advice columnist tries to answer the Dimwit Squad's problems.
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"This is just bizarre... is Will still in there?"
My name is J.P. Armitage. I am one hundred and sixty-one years old, and I have lived twenty-one of them. From this point on, the reckoning will become ambiguous. I dislike ball games, and dissonant music, and René Descartes. I like cupcakes, and my friend LaFontaine, and blood. Cupcakes I liked in my previous life; my enjoyment of blood is a condition of my new body.
Brief one-shot about J.P. and his relationship to his new body.
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Perry is having a disturbing night, and her subconscious won't leave her alone. Through dreams of big bad wolves, wicked stepmothers and castles covered in briars, Matska Belmonde is stalking her. And it's getting increasingly difficult to not enjoy it.
A collection of Permonde fairy tales.
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Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!
Lola Perry can remember being too young to realise that nonsense words weren't meant to have particular meanings. She remembers getting very cross at the way her father would laugh when she stamped her foot and insisted that they weren't real words and a poem with words that didn't make sense was a silly poem. But now, lying in Mattie's arms, Lola thinks she is beginning to understand at last what 'frumious' means. -
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Victorian adventurer Baron Vordenberg narrates to his spellbound audience the terrifying mysteries he uncovered while staying at Castle Hollstein in darkest Styria. Who is the pale figure seen around the castle grounds? Why are LaFontaine and JP never in the same room at the same time? What is Laura doing in Carmilla's bedroom?
And has he maybe jumped to a few premature conclusions?