#and the sad thing is. seems like louis IS the best relationship armand has ever had

[platoapproved]

and I may find in time that you were always right

[hekateinhell]

Welcome, Armand lovers! I’m so excited it's finally time to share my little project with you! 🖤

From November 1 - December 5, I'll be hosting Good to Embrace, Good to Love, a fandom event celebrating Armand's relationships with his four greatest loves—Marius, Lestat, Louis, and Daniel—from the book series The Vampire Chronicles.

Each week will be dedicated to one of these ships, with a bonus week of prompts that can be used for some of the many others Armand has loved in his long immortal life i.e., Bianca, Nicolas, etc.

There will be two prompts per day: a quote from the books that represents an aesthetic of the ship + a word/sentence prompt. Do one, do both, combine them—it doesn't matter as long as you have fun!

AUs and genderswaps are more than welcome!

𝕲𝖚𝖎𝖉𝖊𝖑𝖎𝖓𝖊𝖘

Submissions can include fic, art, meta, headcanons, graphics, playlists, crafts, whatever!

Submissions must focus on a romantic and/or sensual element of the ship. It is ship fest, after all!

Ship combinations (threesomes or more) are also welcome—you decide which week you want to post! For example: an Armand/Lestat/Louis fic can be posted either during Week 2 (Lestat) or Week 3 (Louis).

Bonus week prompts can be used for whatever Armand ship your heart desires! And if you want to use them for Marius, Lestat, Louis, or Daniel, go for it!

Tag your submissions #ArmandShipFest and I’ll do my best to reblog! 🖤

AO3 collection here!

𝕻𝖗𝖔𝖒𝖕𝖙𝖘 𝖇𝖊𝖑𝖔𝖜 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖈𝖚𝖙!

Day 1: “A blending of sadness and simple grace” / Love Affair with Damnation

Day 2: “You took my blood and it made you my slave” / Greedy Creature

Day 3: “I would have given all the world to see him white again, my marble god, my graven Father in our private bed.” / Paternal

Day 4: “My frankly carnal embraces” / Fateful Moment

Day 5: “I want to be a fool for you.” / Bruise

Day 6: “Be my challenger, be my questioner, be my bold and ungrateful pupil.” / Rebirth

Day 7: FREE DAY

Day 1: “Cinderella revealed at the ball” / Succubus

Day 2: “You break my heart, you little fool. You always did.” / Heartbreaker

Day 3: “Stinging insults and worshipful analyses” / Yearning

Day 4: “You look good to me, you damnable little devil” / Fatal Attraction

Day 5: “I wanted to polish him with kisses, clean him up, make him even more radiant than he was.” / Dress Up

Day 6: “I hate you as much as I have ever loved you.” / Enemies to Lovers or Lovers to Enemies

Day 7: FREE DAY

Day 1: “The only promise of good in evil of which I could conceive.” / Enchanted

Day 2: “You would yield to me now” / The Alluring Embodiment of Misery

Day 3: “I want you more than anything in the world.” / Evanescent Flush

Day 4: “A stranger to himself and to me.” / Withering Rose

Day 5: “To seek for grace once more” / Pillars of the Household

Day 6: “Elegant phantoms in our lace and velvet” / Flame

Day 7: FREE DAY

Day 1: “I like kissing. And snuggling with dead things” / Cold To The Touch

Day 2: “Let me be a lover in the Savage Garden with you” / Exquisite Monsters

Day 3: “The freedom, the power, and the luxury” / Million Dollar Man

Day 4: Dark-Eyed Cupid / Erotic Anguish

Day 5: “Say the word my love, I'll do it. We'll be in hell together after all.” / Unholy Consequences

Day 6: “There was never any innocence for us, there was never any springtime.” / Hunting In The Rain

Day 7: FREE DAY

Day 1: “These violent delights have violent ends”* / Cage

Day 2: “You look like an angel and hold forth like a tavern knave” / The Devil's Road

Day 3: “Not made by human hands” / Lotus

Day 4: “Yet he seems the naughty boy who mocks all things” / Careless Words

Day 5: “In the very depths of Hell, do demons not love one another?” / Home

Day 6: “Vile precocious child” / Drunk

Day 7: FREE DAY

*This is the only quote not directly lifted from the books, it’s taken from Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet.

**a huge thank you to the lovely @apoptoses for the graphics, and to the Morzoi Girlies (gn) for assisting me with the prompts and always hyping me up! Love you lots. 🖤

[madshelley]

gimmie a quick rundown of which scenes break your heart the most, i'm not sad enough and need the pain.

I love you and this is both the best and worstthing anyone has never asked me, because apparently, I have no clue what a “quick”rundown means.  I also tried very hard tonot make this entirely about Armand and… I failed about midway through. Butin my defense, can you ever be sad enough? No, you can’t.

SO HERE’S THE TOP JUST-A-BIT-TOO-MANY LIST OFHEARTBREAKING VAMPIRE MOMENTS™:

- Louiskilling the Marquis, and both his and Lestat’s reactions to it. Louis draggingLestat to his abusive father’s bed and forcing him to speak forgiveness,despite the fact that Lestat is having an obvious meltdown (“He threw up hishands and let out a terrible roar of desperation.  ‘Damn him! Kill him!’ he said.”/“Lestatdanced like the maddened Rumpelstilskin about to put his foot through thefloor”/ “Never had I seen him so weak and at the same time enraged”), thatLouis, in his lack of information, mistakes for impatience and indifference.Damn dysfunctional vampires with a thing for miscommunication.  If only there was a scene with the two of themdiscussing this in a later book, it would probably make the list too. But,alas.

Rest of the list under cut because of excessively long post that no one’s going to read:

 - Louisdumping Lestat’s ‘body’ in the bog.

“This is Lestat. This is all oftransformation and mystery, dead, gone into eternal darkness. I  felt a pull suddenly, as if some force wereurging me to go down with him, to descend into the dark water and never comeback”.

          For no other reason, but that I feelthis is the prime example of Louis’ tendency to be unable to take control ofhis life and stand up for himself and what he wants, ending up being a passive observerof the most tragic events of his life, lamenting them only when it’s too late.Oh, Louis.

-Armandlying to himself about his relationship with Marius.

“A love so strong hecouldn’t allow me to grow old and die. A love that waited patiently until I wasstrong enough to be born to darkness.”

-I don’t normally care about Madeleine, but thisquote shatters my heart on a daily basis, considering the context in which IwtVwas written.

“And cruelly, surely, I said to her, ‘Did you love this child?’

I will never forget her face then, the violence in her, the absolute hatred.‘Yes.’ She all but hissed the words at me. ‘How dare you!’ She reached for thelocket even as I clutched it. It was guilt that was consuming her, not love. Itwas guilt- that shop of dolls Claudia had described to me, shelves and shelvesof the effigy of that dead child”.

-Armandleaving Louis, unable to bear the loveless, cold partnership anymore, indespair and suicidal. Especially this part of the farewell speech:

“AndI believed I would gather you to me and hold you. And time would open to us,and we would be the teachers of one another. All the things that gave youhappiness would give me happiness; and I would be the protector of your pain.My power would be your power. My strength the same. But you’re dead inside tome, you’re cold and beyond my reach! It is as if I’m not here, beside you. And,not being here with you, I have the dreadful feeling that I don’t exist atall”.

Armand,the break-up line master. Jesus Christ.

-“Hebent down, pressing his head against my chest and holding my hand so tight thathe caused me pain. The room was filled with the flashing red light of thesiren, and then it was going away.

‘Louis,I can’t bear it, I can’t bear it,’ he growled through his tears. ‘Help me,Louis, stay with me’.”

- Theway IwtV ends in general, with no silver lining or sliver of hope. Lestat andArmand are dying, of old age and despair, Louis is continuing his existencelike a bloodless empty shell, seeing no possibility of recovery or light at theend of the tunnel, and there is no comforting cosmic reason anything is everhappening at all.  Life is pain and youdon’t even die. No wonder IwtV is such a downer to the non-initiated.

- LittleLestat being beaten bloody by his father and brothers.

-“Andwhen we decided to go to Paris, I thought we would starve in Paris, that wewould go down and down and down. It was what I wanted rather that what theywanted, that I, the favored son, should rise for them. I thought we would godown! We were supposed to go down”.

- Armandbegging Lestat and Gabrielle to take him with them and them refusing. I’m notgoing to go into details, I feel this is an obvious one.

Exceptfor these gems:

“Maybeas the years pass, desire will come again to me. I will know appetite again,even passion. Maybe when we meet in another age, these things will not beabstract and fleeting. I’ll speak with a vigour that matches yours, instead ofmerely reflecting it”.

and

“Armandwas a small boy in the doorway, holding the backs of his own arms”.

Theconsistent implication throughout the series that Armand gets cold when he’supset does things to my heart.

- Armand’sadmonition to Lestat that fledglings are bound to despise their makers, simplybecause it’s not true, or at least it doesn’t seem to be in most cases. IsArmand projecting because he’s practically almost incapable of verbalcommunication at this point in his life which makes a hindered mind gift seemlike an unsurpassable obstacle in his mind? Or is he projecting because, onsome level, he knows his relationship with Marius was abusive and probablydoomed? (Spoiler alert: probably both.)

- Mariuscalling Armand his mistake.

-Lestat hearing Armand crying after he pushedhim off the roof:

“Maybe I imagined it, his lastinvitation, and the anguish after. The weeping. I do know that as the monthspassed he was out there again. I heard him from time to time just walking thoseold Garden District streets. And I wanted to call to him, to tell him that itwas a lie I’d spoken to him, that I did love him. I did.”.

- “Uglyfights, terrible fights, finally, Armand broken down, glassy-eyed with silentrage, then crying softly but uncontrollably as if some lost emotion had beenrediscovered which threatened to tear him apart”.

-“Evenin moments of the greatest jeopardy, I knew we would meet before I would befree to die.”

Tell me again how Armand’s suicideattempt in Memnoch was out of character.

-Lestatbelieving that Daniel would have left Night Island with him if he had askedhim. So much theoretical pain.

- It’sa pity that Daniel leaving Armand isn’t technically  ~a scene, because that would make the top ofthe list.

- Everyscene in which Lestat is “haunted” by Claudia in TotBT. It’s not hard to seehow he made the connection between her and the Raglan episode, even with himnever straight-up admitting it to himself. Remember when Lestat still feltcrippling guilt for his worst actions, even subconsciously? Good times.

- David’sturning. But this is not the time to complain about this, it’s canon heartbreakappreciation time!

- Armand’ssuicide attempt in Memnoch the Devil. I’ve already elaborated on this way toomuch, but let’s take a moment to appreciate Lestat screaming Armand’s nameafter him. Take a moment. Thank you.

- Louisobjecting to Lestat being chained to the floor, but being completely dismissed.

- Theentire The Vampire Armand. I can’t let myself elaborate too much on this, as I’lljust be reciting the entire book. I can just open it to a random page and itwill probably be a Top Heartbreaking Vampire Moment:

 Armand’sobvious exhaustion at the beginning of the book, that no one seems to respect. Himscolding himself and admitting to David he feels he’s going mad. A child silentlywishing for death so hard, that Marius heard it amongst the mental voices ofthe entire city. Armand’s entire “relationship” with Marius. Armand having a breakdownat seeing religious imagery, not yet being sure why he has that reaction. Meetinghis parents, especially the broken Ivan. The “Bridge of Sighs” metaphor, Jesus.The ashes of the Palazzo boys. The whole Riccardo horror. Armand trying toconceal his scarred face from Benji and Sybelle, putting all his energy intothe illusion. The shattering feeling of betrayal about the turning of Armand’s “children”by Marius, and Armand’s conviction that it was meant as punishment. Louis beingunable to conceal his relief and joy to see Armand alive. Armand’s bitter, hurtdismissal of his relationship with Daniel as doomed from the start. Armandadmitting that Sybelle and Benji had to coax him out of depressive episodes attimes. Man, did Anne go ham on the pain in this one. Why, mom?

- Specialmention to that one time Marius beat Armand out of “frustration” at him fortaking too long to emotionally get over his visit to Kiev, probably his mostblatantly abusive moment in the book.

“‘You’ve had enough time to grieve and to weep,’ hesaid, ‘and to reevaluate all you’ve been given. Now it’s back to work. Go tothe desk and prepare to write. Or I’ll whip you some more.’”

“He smacked me across the face. I was dizzy.”

Nice going, Marius.

- Secondspecial mention to this little passage, because no one ever talks about it andit makes my heart bleed:

“ I looked off, wanting the quiet, dreamingof bowers suddenly, not in words but in images, the way my old mind would doit, wanting to lie down in garden beds among growing flowers, wanting to pressmy face to earth and sing softly to myself”.

- Thirdspecial mention to this, but only out of context:

“For all the wrongs done you, andthe loneliness you’ve suffered, and the horrors that the world put upon youwhen you were too young and too untried to know how to fight them and then toovanquished to wage a battle with a full heart”.  

- SeeingDaniel in Blood and Gold after all those years. The shock of the degree inwhich his mental stability deteriorated, not objecting to being kept by Mariuslike a child. The terrifying possibilities of how he might have ended up therein the first place. The even more terrifying possibility that it might havebeen the news of Armand’s “death” that pushed him over the edge. How Armandmust have felt about this ‘relationship’.

- I am definitely not done, and yet I’m going to stop ‘cause even I had enough.

Tl;dr: Sad Vampires.