Candy Hearts Exchange 2023
Jan. 1st, 2023 12:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
murderershairHi, and thank you for checking out my letter :D I've thrown out a bunch of prompts for each relationship (and uh, wrote half a ship manifesto before coming to my senses) but if none of them speak to you, provided you're not specifically using something I mentioned as a squick/DNW for that fandom, basically make what you want. What I've written is intended more as guidelines for the sort of things I enjoy about these characters than as a roadmap you can't stray from. If you've got a wild, weird idea of your own, I'd love to read it! If you're hoping to write some good old fashioned tropey fun, I'm absolutely on board for like, bodyswapping, trapped in a cozy location overnight, handwavey undead sex pollen (for Armand/Lestat), magic brought their dicks back to life (for Armand/Lestat) etc.
Blanket DNWs that are a bit more relevant to some fandoms than others: terminal illness, non-canonical major character death, non-canonical addiction, pregnancy, kidfic, total paralysis/I have no mouth but I must scream kind of scenarios, amputation/permanent disfigurement, ageplay, extreme underage, daddy/mommy kink, non-canon age regression (out of fear or for any other reason really), vomit, scat, come in hair, bestiality, characters being forcibly institutionalized, shock treatment, medical stuff (including medfet and doctor visits/diagnoses), eye and fingernail harm, needles, gendered violence against women (women attacked/hurt in their reproductive organs/breasts, a focus on killing women specifically, women punished for being sexually active), vore, sex with food, and asexual and/or sex-repulsed characters in sexual situations.
Fandom-specific DNWs are listed in the appropriate section when applicable.
Also my AO3 name is HannaM just in case you're a lovely person browsing for treats.
Crossover Fandom
Claudia (IwtV TV 2022) & Gabrielle de Lioncourt (VC Novels)
So I'd been vaguely thinking about rereading at least Interview for years now, but what finally made me actually commit was seeing the first two episodes of the new AMC TV series. Which I happen to think is brilliant, it engages with my favorite parts of the original (the metatextual layering, the unreliable narrators, all the different metaphors for vampires as predators, as outsiders while also being soaked in blood and theatricality and intense relationships) while making thoughtful changes and fully integrating new commentary about race and racism in America. But to pull back from my gushing, I finally cracked open my copy of the book after the first two episodes and I realized I really hadn't reread Interview with a Vampire since approximately 2006. There was a LOT of stuff I did not remember or had a different perspective on, as I'd expected, but to my surprise that held true through The Vampire Lestat (which I read a lot more often when I was in the height of my Anne Rice fan years). So I promise, I'm prompting with fresh eyes and thoughts.
In the show, Claudia looks old enough that she can strike out on her own and attempt an independent life, which is a pretty major difference! Although it doesn't stick, and she continues to seek knowledge and intellectual pursuits among humans (as opposed to Gabrielle wanting to abandon humanity altogether) it made me think of Gabrielle and her independence, and wonder what that meeting could look like.
No Gabrielle has ever met a Claudia, and although I don't know for certain what the TV series is planning, I doubt they'll bend the narrative timeline into a pretzel to make it possible. So, since Gabrielle isn't in the TV series yet, I decided to nominate this as a crossover to make it clear I'm curious about book!Gabrielle encountering show!Claudia, specifically. I feel like Gabrielle's way of being a vampire would be attractive to the show's Claudia-- the raw power and freedom of it. Away from all human eyes, age and race cease to matter (at least in theory). If nothing else, I think Gabrielle would be drawn to Claudia's rage and resentment at being stifled, though I can't decide if it would be more fun if Claudia immediately worked out she was related to Lestat or if it just came up later, like Gabrielle didn't even think it was worth mentioning. Then again, if Gabrielle found out what Claudia did to Lestat (whether or not it counts as "her" Lestat) ... a lot of really interesting places this could go, basically!
Vampire Chronicles Series - Anne Rice
Lestat, not a bad friend to have and one for whom I would lay down my immortal life, one for whose love and companionship I have ofttimes begged, one whom I find maddening and fascinating and intolerably annoying, one without whom I cannot exist.
I don't remember having a be-all end-all ship when I first read the books, but this time around Lestat/Armand hit me like a train and now it's my OTP that I want to scream about all the time, haha. The mutually obsessive descriptions of each other's beauty and charm and horrible brattiness! The fighting and screaming and Lestat almost murdering Armand in the rain but then cradling him in his arms and bringing him home and Armand wanting to stay!! The GRUDGES! The PASSION! It is going to be hard to even narrow down my top favorite scenes for them, honestly, but here are a few, summarized in shitpost style.
Armand: I am a poor little meow meow who has never done anything wrong in my life~
Lestat: You literally just kidnapped myboyfriend first best human friend and tried to BURN HIM ALIVE in front of me!
Armand: As I said, I did nothing wrong. :angel:
Lestat: >:(
Armand: Look at this face, how can you hold such petty trifles against me?
Lestat: ...he makes a good point, actually, he is very pretty. I mean, no! Absolutely not!
Armand: >:( Why are you so determined not to LOVE ME, you monster, you've RUINED MY LIFE!
(The very minute Armand leaves)
Lestat: Damn it, I think I really do love him though.
A century or so later
Lestat: Armand! I need your help ;_;
Armand: Of course, let me escort you to the top of the tower you suggested I move into after you LEFT ME, you bastard I've been waiting to get my revenge all these years!!
(Armand shoves Lestat off the tower)
Lestat: ...I don't know what I expected...
But then!! Lestat retconning Louis's story, saying no, Louis never came to visit me when I was sad and decrepit back in the Garden District... BUT ARMAND SURE DID.
Armand: What the FUCK Lestat, and you made fun of me for living under a graveyard? This place is a rathole! You're literally eating rats, like the pathetic parasitic aristocrat you were born to be! Ahahaha! Look at you! Who's a grubby little animal of the night now?! It's not me, haha!
Lestat: Then why is this the fifth time you've been back in five nights? You could just leave me here to die... Again.
Armand: Shut up! It's not like I like you or anything, baka...
And then a freaking outright romantic scene with Armand offering to give him his blood and heal him and love him all over again with Lestat rejecting him that Lestat ends by saying "Yet memory play its tricks. Maybe I imagined it, his last invitation, and the anguish after. The weeping. I do know that as the months passed he was out there again. I heard him from time to time just walking those old Garden District streets. And I wanted to call to him, to tell him that it was a lie I'd spoken to him, that I did love him. I did." ;___;
Then I realized that the reason Daniel meets Armand when he goes looking for Lestat in Queen of the Damned is because ARMAND NEVER LEFT LESTAT'S SIDE the entire time Lestat was underground/comatose and Armand basically guarded Lestat's resting place until Daniel showed up and anyway yes I love them, I should probably actually give prompts and stuff now, sorry.
What does Armand think when he first comes across Lestat's music videos? How does he, is he watching MTV with Daniel or in a bar with a TV or what? What's Armand's reaction to Lestat waking up at long last, and how does he feel reading Lestat's descriptions of him in TVL or hearing Lestat sing about and portray him in his music?
Armand and Lestat have both sought each other out for comfort and assistance in key moments and have rejected each other but I'd love to see a scenario where the stars finally align and they actually need each other at the same time. It would still be a mess, obviously, but it's clear that they're magnetically drawn to each other and understand each other in a way no one else quite does. They're both intensely codependent but need to exercise some level of independence/pushback to feel alive, and I think they could make it work, at least for a little while.
Smut (and/or blood drinking as smut) very much welcome, by the way, though not in any way required!
Additional note that I love to hate Marius, he is so spectacularly the worst that sometimes I had to just put down TVL or TVA and scream, but you know, he's a deeply important facet to understanding Armand and why he is the way he is and their relationship is as fascinating and compelling as it is upsetting (to me). But I also really viscerally hated the moments when it felt like the narrative was reinforcing the idea that Marius was a benevolent god (rather than every bit as flawed and biased by the things he had been raised to believe in his own lifetime as any other vampire) and ideal teacher of wisdom, even as he flew off the handle every time Armand asked a solid question or dared to have a different opinion. So I guess what I'm trying to say is... I'm not against Armand/Marius coming up, or Marius himself appearing or being referenced, but I'd appreciate it if Lestat was less starry-eyed about him and Armand was allowed to feel bitter and/or conflicted about aspects of his upbringing and early vampire years without doubling back to go 'but of course Marius's wisdom was unassailable!' if that makes sense.
Blanket DNWs that are a bit more relevant to some fandoms than others: terminal illness, non-canonical major character death, non-canonical addiction, pregnancy, kidfic, total paralysis/I have no mouth but I must scream kind of scenarios, amputation/permanent disfigurement, ageplay, extreme underage, daddy/mommy kink, non-canon age regression (out of fear or for any other reason really), vomit, scat, come in hair, bestiality, characters being forcibly institutionalized, shock treatment, medical stuff (including medfet and doctor visits/diagnoses), eye and fingernail harm, needles, gendered violence against women (women attacked/hurt in their reproductive organs/breasts, a focus on killing women specifically, women punished for being sexually active), vore, sex with food, and asexual and/or sex-repulsed characters in sexual situations.
Fandom-specific DNWs are listed in the appropriate section when applicable.
Also my AO3 name is HannaM just in case you're a lovely person browsing for treats.
Crossover Fandom
Claudia (IwtV TV 2022) & Gabrielle de Lioncourt (VC Novels)
So I'd been vaguely thinking about rereading at least Interview for years now, but what finally made me actually commit was seeing the first two episodes of the new AMC TV series. Which I happen to think is brilliant, it engages with my favorite parts of the original (the metatextual layering, the unreliable narrators, all the different metaphors for vampires as predators, as outsiders while also being soaked in blood and theatricality and intense relationships) while making thoughtful changes and fully integrating new commentary about race and racism in America. But to pull back from my gushing, I finally cracked open my copy of the book after the first two episodes and I realized I really hadn't reread Interview with a Vampire since approximately 2006. There was a LOT of stuff I did not remember or had a different perspective on, as I'd expected, but to my surprise that held true through The Vampire Lestat (which I read a lot more often when I was in the height of my Anne Rice fan years). So I promise, I'm prompting with fresh eyes and thoughts.
In the show, Claudia looks old enough that she can strike out on her own and attempt an independent life, which is a pretty major difference! Although it doesn't stick, and she continues to seek knowledge and intellectual pursuits among humans (as opposed to Gabrielle wanting to abandon humanity altogether) it made me think of Gabrielle and her independence, and wonder what that meeting could look like.
No Gabrielle has ever met a Claudia, and although I don't know for certain what the TV series is planning, I doubt they'll bend the narrative timeline into a pretzel to make it possible. So, since Gabrielle isn't in the TV series yet, I decided to nominate this as a crossover to make it clear I'm curious about book!Gabrielle encountering show!Claudia, specifically. I feel like Gabrielle's way of being a vampire would be attractive to the show's Claudia-- the raw power and freedom of it. Away from all human eyes, age and race cease to matter (at least in theory). If nothing else, I think Gabrielle would be drawn to Claudia's rage and resentment at being stifled, though I can't decide if it would be more fun if Claudia immediately worked out she was related to Lestat or if it just came up later, like Gabrielle didn't even think it was worth mentioning. Then again, if Gabrielle found out what Claudia did to Lestat (whether or not it counts as "her" Lestat) ... a lot of really interesting places this could go, basically!
Vampire Chronicles Series - Anne Rice
Armand/Lestat de Lioncourt
I've recently reread Interview with the Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, and am rereading Queen of the Damned now plus almost finished with The Vampire Armand for the first time. Back in the day I also read Tale of the Body Thief, Memnoch the Devil and Pandora, but didn't finish any other books beyond that so my prompting is based on the books I've mentioned. I'd rather not receive anything heavily based on Prince Lestat/Realm of Atlantis.
I've recently reread Interview with the Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, and am rereading Queen of the Damned now plus almost finished with The Vampire Armand for the first time. Back in the day I also read Tale of the Body Thief, Memnoch the Devil and Pandora, but didn't finish any other books beyond that so my prompting is based on the books I've mentioned. I'd rather not receive anything heavily based on Prince Lestat/Realm of Atlantis.
Lestat, not a bad friend to have and one for whom I would lay down my immortal life, one for whose love and companionship I have ofttimes begged, one whom I find maddening and fascinating and intolerably annoying, one without whom I cannot exist.
-The Vampire Armand
And then I was moving up in the darkness, and Armand and I stood together on the high roof. Radiant he was, in the same old fashioned evening clothes, and we were looking over the jungle of dark singing treetops at the distant silver curve of the river and the low heavens where the stars burned through the pearl gray clouds.
I was weeping at the sheer sight of it, at the feel of the damp wind against my face. And Armand stood beside me, with his arm around me. And he was talking of forgiveness and sadness, of wisdom and things learned through pain. "I love you, my dark brother," he whispered.
And the words moved through me like blood itself.
"It wasn't that I wanted vengeance," he whispered. His face was stricken, his heart broken. He said, "But you came to be healed and you did not want me! A century I had waited, and you did not want me!"
I was weeping at the sheer sight of it, at the feel of the damp wind against my face. And Armand stood beside me, with his arm around me. And he was talking of forgiveness and sadness, of wisdom and things learned through pain. "I love you, my dark brother," he whispered.
And the words moved through me like blood itself.
"It wasn't that I wanted vengeance," he whispered. His face was stricken, his heart broken. He said, "But you came to be healed and you did not want me! A century I had waited, and you did not want me!"
-The Vampire Lestat
I don't remember having a be-all end-all ship when I first read the books, but this time around Lestat/Armand hit me like a train and now it's my OTP that I want to scream about all the time, haha. The mutually obsessive descriptions of each other's beauty and charm and horrible brattiness! The fighting and screaming and Lestat almost murdering Armand in the rain but then cradling him in his arms and bringing him home and Armand wanting to stay!! The GRUDGES! The PASSION! It is going to be hard to even narrow down my top favorite scenes for them, honestly, but here are a few, summarized in shitpost style.
Armand: I am a poor little meow meow who has never done anything wrong in my life~
Lestat: You literally just kidnapped my
Armand: As I said, I did nothing wrong. :angel:
Lestat: >:(
Armand: Look at this face, how can you hold such petty trifles against me?
Lestat: ...he makes a good point, actually, he is very pretty. I mean, no! Absolutely not!
Armand: >:( Why are you so determined not to LOVE ME, you monster, you've RUINED MY LIFE!
(The very minute Armand leaves)
Lestat: Damn it, I think I really do love him though.
A century or so later
Lestat: Armand! I need your help ;_;
Armand: Of course, let me escort you to the top of the tower you suggested I move into after you LEFT ME, you bastard I've been waiting to get my revenge all these years!!
(Armand shoves Lestat off the tower)
Lestat: ...I don't know what I expected...
But then!! Lestat retconning Louis's story, saying no, Louis never came to visit me when I was sad and decrepit back in the Garden District... BUT ARMAND SURE DID.
Armand: What the FUCK Lestat, and you made fun of me for living under a graveyard? This place is a rathole! You're literally eating rats, like the pathetic parasitic aristocrat you were born to be! Ahahaha! Look at you! Who's a grubby little animal of the night now?! It's not me, haha!
Lestat: Then why is this the fifth time you've been back in five nights? You could just leave me here to die... Again.
Armand: Shut up! It's not like I like you or anything, baka...
And then a freaking outright romantic scene with Armand offering to give him his blood and heal him and love him all over again with Lestat rejecting him that Lestat ends by saying "Yet memory play its tricks. Maybe I imagined it, his last invitation, and the anguish after. The weeping. I do know that as the months passed he was out there again. I heard him from time to time just walking those old Garden District streets. And I wanted to call to him, to tell him that it was a lie I'd spoken to him, that I did love him. I did." ;___;
Then I realized that the reason Daniel meets Armand when he goes looking for Lestat in Queen of the Damned is because ARMAND NEVER LEFT LESTAT'S SIDE the entire time Lestat was underground/comatose and Armand basically guarded Lestat's resting place until Daniel showed up and anyway yes I love them, I should probably actually give prompts and stuff now, sorry.
What does Armand think when he first comes across Lestat's music videos? How does he, is he watching MTV with Daniel or in a bar with a TV or what? What's Armand's reaction to Lestat waking up at long last, and how does he feel reading Lestat's descriptions of him in TVL or hearing Lestat sing about and portray him in his music?
Armand and Lestat have both sought each other out for comfort and assistance in key moments and have rejected each other but I'd love to see a scenario where the stars finally align and they actually need each other at the same time. It would still be a mess, obviously, but it's clear that they're magnetically drawn to each other and understand each other in a way no one else quite does. They're both intensely codependent but need to exercise some level of independence/pushback to feel alive, and I think they could make it work, at least for a little while.
Smut (and/or blood drinking as smut) very much welcome, by the way, though not in any way required!
Additional note that I love to hate Marius, he is so spectacularly the worst that sometimes I had to just put down TVL or TVA and scream, but you know, he's a deeply important facet to understanding Armand and why he is the way he is and their relationship is as fascinating and compelling as it is upsetting (to me). But I also really viscerally hated the moments when it felt like the narrative was reinforcing the idea that Marius was a benevolent god (rather than every bit as flawed and biased by the things he had been raised to believe in his own lifetime as any other vampire) and ideal teacher of wisdom, even as he flew off the handle every time Armand asked a solid question or dared to have a different opinion. So I guess what I'm trying to say is... I'm not against Armand/Marius coming up, or Marius himself appearing or being referenced, but I'd appreciate it if Lestat was less starry-eyed about him and Armand was allowed to feel bitter and/or conflicted about aspects of his upbringing and early vampire years without doubling back to go 'but of course Marius's wisdom was unassailable!' if that makes sense.
