I'm in the Knight Dess camp because of the Mother 3 influence

Obligatory mention that the 1992 movie pretty much character assassinated Mina

I have to ask, why does everyone use "Carmilla" as a name for an OCs when that's the name of a pre-existing character all the way back from the 1870s? It would be kind of like using Dracula as the name despite having literally no connection to the Stoker character.

Just Girly Things

Ever read Carmilla?

Ah... no. The first literary vampire story was The Vampyre and very importantly after that was Varney the Vampire, which introduced things like fangs and vampires being deathly Pale.