La petite mort (Barbie/Dracula story)

"la petite mort" is a Dracula/Barbie Roberts romance short story written by howlingmoonrise (TheDarkStoryteller).
==Overview==
===Blurb===
===Development, narrative choices and inspiration===
According to statements from the author: 
*Barbie Roberts is an amalgamation of various Barbie incarnations across the multimedia Barbie franchise,https://archiveofourown.org/comments/362046400 notably Barbie: Life in the Dreamhouse.https://archiveofourown.org/comments/289382005 Barbies characterization was additionally influenced by Buffy Summers and Elle Woods.https://archiveofourown.org/comments/435099673 The author's envisions Barbie as some sort of immortal cyptid, a hypercompetent "plastic doll turned living".https://archiveofourown.org/comments/288956947https://archiveofourown.org/comments/315357994https://archiveofourown.org/comments/545170497 i like to think she's her own creature, some sort of eldritch tulpa living doll being powered by the love and trust of little kids all over the multiverses!https://archiveofourown.org/comments/537349863 Barbie is just Barbie, she's just her own eldritch fourth-wall-breaking entity that's somewhere between a living doll and the warmest, wildest human being you'll ever meet!
*Dracula's characterization was heavily influenced by the 2017 Castlevania animated series.https://archiveofourown.org/comments/362041318https://archiveofourown.org/comments/537349455
*The author intentionally used pink/red colours as motifs symbolizing innocence/passion, light/dark, etc.https://archiveofourown.org/comments/370562241https://archiveofourown.org/comments/524329372
*"Dracula coming back is mostly an allusion to all the movies and sequels where he returns to life rather than an in-universe fact about vampires."https://archiveofourown.org/comments/435095002
*As of 2022, the author does not remember the initial inspiration for a Dracula/Barbie fic,https://archiveofourown.org/comments/537337143 though suspects it may have been a shower idea.https://archiveofourown.org/comments/543382419
*The author later listed this story as the first installment of Howl's BCCU (Barbie Crackships Cinematic Universe), a tentatively plannedhttps://archiveofourown.org/comments/497357623 series of works about Barbie's unlikely crossover romances with villains including Dracula, Frankenstein's monster, Sauron, Jason Todd, and Darth Maul.
===Recursive and transformative fan works===
The author has granted permission for this fic to be physically printed for personal use.https://archiveofourown.org/comments/448231930
JustAJuicyVoice produced a podfic adaptation in 2022, posted here.
Image:2022-03-25 self-indulgentfan friend Barbie Dracula.jpg|fan art by self-indulgentfan's friend (2022)
Image:2022-10-26 absolutely-and-always13 Barbie Dracula.jpg|fan art by absolutely-and-always13 (2022)
===Trivia=== 
*The author has referred to the Dracula/Barbie crack crossover pairing as Drarbie.https://archiveofourown.org/comments/524335213https://archiveofourown.org/comments/534281181%5D
==Popularity==
*This story was apparently recommended by someone named Lemongrass13.https://archiveofourown.org/comments/576450204
*The story was also featured on a coleydoesthings' video.https://archiveofourown.org/comments/452357995https://archiveofourown.org/comments/452814589https://archiveofourown.org/comments/510736882https://archiveofourown.org/comments/538841970https://archiveofourown.org/comments/554556072
*One commenter reported being directed to this story after making a Reddit thread to request fan fiction recommendations for reading while getting a tattoo.
*One commenter reported that a teacher used this fan fiction in a lesson on literary analysis in a high school English class.https://archiveofourown.org/comments/620564818
*The author and some commenters have mused that this story reaches a wider audience due to the basic lore of Barbie and Dracula being accessible as icons through pop cultural osmosis, requiring no prior dedicated reading to understand the context of the characters. Thus also making it easy to recommend to those without prior knowledge of the lore.
==Comments==
==References==
Category:2020 FanfictionCategory:BarbieCategory:Crossover FanfictionCategory:Dracula