I’ve been trying to find a way to put these thoughts into words (words that will not bring my favourite hate anon back with a vengeance) since i-want-my-iwtv mentioned this earlier today. However, I suppose I will take the chance because fuck it, I’m going on hiatus tomorrow anyway.
tl;dr – I think if Armand was convinced that this was something Claudia truly wanted (and let’s be honest, with his Mind Gift, it wouldn’t be hard for him to determine) then he would have no problems going forward with this relationship. He sees Claudia mostly as the woman she is inside her mind and less as the child she is in body only. While the relationship presents some challenges, I think it is possible and have no problems roleplaying it as such.
It is true that my Armand is pursuing a romantic, and hence possible sexual relationship, with a Claudia. She has been aged up in that thread to avoid the usual legal and moral implications that would be involved with a five year old appearing body involved with a seventeen year old appearing one. However, with the way the characters are, I would not have shied away from a relationship with a canon Claudia for them either (only used fade to black because while Armand may not have issues with it, I sort of squick at writing that).
However, the big issue for me is that while Claudia may LOOK like a child, she isn’t. Armand, a character who is the most cerebral of the coven. He knows what is going on in everyone’s mind and will occasionally alter it to his own liking. Because of this, my headcanon is that outward appearance means little to him. He sees people the way they see themselves. So when he looks at Claudia, he sees the adult woman she truly is and not the body she is trapped in.
That does not mean to say that he is completely oblivious to the implications of a relationship with her. It would not be possible for the two of them to be romantic in public, risking mortals making a scene. Even the coven (particularly Louis I would think) would raise a fuss at the two of them together. These would be of concern but in the end would not sway them necessarily.
Most of all, for Armand, who was kidnapped to be used for sexual pleasure at a young age, he would be most concerned with making sure this was what SHE wanted. Armand is portrayed over and over as selfish but I believe that he has a soft spot for victims of human trafficking and sex crimes. It is one of the reasons I disregard anything past him meeting the sun in his canon because the whole story line with Benji and Sybelle is so far from my understanding of the character that I can’t believe it to be the same Armand.
while I don’t think an aged up Claudia would give a second thought to ravishing Louis,
YEP NO HESITATION THERE bc let’s be honest we all want to ravish Louis ok.
she’s a symbol for everything that horrifies him about himself, and I don’t think that that would exactly be grounds for amorous thoughts.
Indeed.
Sure, he loves her and cares for her,
Exhibit A:
but I think if she was an adult, it’d be a lot easier for him to see just how far mentally out there she is, how evil, how unable to understand human goodness she had grown to be.
She’s worse than Lestat about playing w/ her food, that’s for sure, and choosing to kill innocents specifically is NOT a turn-on for Louis.
ooc; Well, Louis and Claudia are very complicated, in my opinion, and one of Louis’ weaknesses IS Claudia. He loved/loves her, but that doesn’t mean he’s been unaware of how “evil” she honestly is. I feel like he’s known that very keenly since the night she “killed” Lestat. He’s well aware that in many ways, she’s used him (see: Claudia’s diary entry that Louis reads in Merrick for a full view of exactly how much Claudia used him). He just lets it happen.
But the thing with Louis is, he doesn’t care that she’s used him. He feels as though he ruined her life, and he owes her an eternal debt for all of that. Even when he wanted to be with Armand, he couldn’t detach himself from her (which, Armand thought having her out of the picture would help Louis, but as we all know, that plan didn’t go so great).
Even years later, he reads Claudia’s thoughts in her own words about how she intended to make him into her slave, but it did nothing for his loyalty to her. He still asked Merrick to raise her ghost, and he still wanted to know what he could do to alleviate Claudia’s suffering, going clear to a disregard for his own life.
While he might not have particularly amorous feelings for an adult Claudia, I think that Louis ever saying “no” to her and sticking to it is a very, very difficult thing for him.
I actually really agree with you, very well-put.
For those who missed it, I couldn’t resist doing this…
Yes we were just talking about that, I have a new tag for that kinda topic: To ship or not to ship. This is a huge topic but I will try to be concise.
Apparently in a alternate draft version of IWTV, Claudia finds a few young boy vampires in Paris and ends up leaving Louis for them. Would that have been better? Would she have had a sexual relationship with them, bc they alone shared her problem and could overcome it? I like to think so ❤
So in the actual book, with that scene… She gets Louis to share that sex “‘…was something hurried…And… it was seldom savored… something acute that was quickly lost. I think that it was the pale shadow of killing.’” It’s not clear whether he tells her that bc:
it’s physically accurate (bc Ricean vampires cannot has penetrative sex with their equipment, therefore they’re all asexual)(that’s canon),
he’s saying it so as not to hurt her feelings and make her feel like she’s really missing out, or
he actually feels that way? Is killing so much better? Or did he really not enjoy mortal sex that much? THESE ARE THE QUESTIONS.
…of course in fanon, they do all have sexytimes, constant degenerate frackin, and Claudia knows damn well What They Do in the Shadows, and why they sign her up for all this tutoring, and she’s jealous as HELL but I digress…
Then, she says: (I’m paraphrasing) “Hurting you like I’m doing now, that is also a pale shadow of killing?”Louis admits that YES it is, and he pretty much bolts out the door at that point…which I think is especially powerful bc it implies he has admitted to her that she is fucking him with her words alone. And he does not like it. As much as he wants to please her, it is a clear rejection of her in that regard, yet again unu
Hit the jump for unpopular opinions about Claudia, but basically, I think she could have experienced all the intimacy that the adult Ricean vampires experience, because they are asexual in canon, and instead share blood as their *~HIGHER~* form of intimacy. Unfortunately for her, Claudia never really had a relationship with anyone that wanted to do that with her ;A;
It’s worth mentioning that they auditioned about 100 little girls for the role in IWTV, and no 5-7 yr old could handle the part. With Kirsten Dunst (auditioned first), who I think was 11 at the time, it made Claudia’s frustration that of a tween, someone who is just about to hit puberty, very different physical and emotional stage than that of a 5 yr old. At 11, she is clearly too old to be treated like a doll, and it makes it that much harder for her to accept that she was just a few years away from having a passable adult body ;A;
Claudia really is an adult in a small body, just like any Little Person is. In Queen of the Damned, she has a diary entry, 9/21/1836, she’s at least 30 yrs old:
“This is my birthday present from Louis… I do not understand entirely what is meant by birthday. Was I born into this world on the list of September or was it on that day that I departed all things human to become this?”
Anyway, Little People do have active sex lives, otherwise why would we still have them around? Some even have relationships with non-Little People.
Specifically with Claudia, the issue remains that she looks like a child, so only another mortal child or an adult pedophile would even attempt to be sexual with her, both of which EW GROSS. I headcanon that Claudia enjoyed luring and killing pedophiles. She’s also capable of experiencing all the sensuality that comes with *~blood sharing~*, and her voracious appetite was partly because it was her only means of sexual gratification.
I think Claudia IS curious about sexuality, I think she’s passionate in many ways and wants a deeper connection (actual LOVE) w/ another soul, and alot of her frustration about her body is that she is denied that sexual intimacy. Sexual intimacy alone does not guarantee love and/or a deeper connection with another person, but don’t we all search for someone to understand us, someone we can share our innermost feels with? Or more than just one? In that sense the coven structure was really good for the Children of Darkness.
Claudia really had noone that she trusted that much. She only showed Louis her pain in glimpses and that was nearly too much for him. I think that Claudia felt that her body was the only obstacle in the pursuit of finding a kindred spirit, someone to truly love her more than as a daughter, but it was also her mind.
But, we can’t cut Louis’ evil out of the conversation. His own cocktail of potent feelings for his…daughter, sister, friend, almost-lover? Whatever she was. Whatever she continues to be.
Louis’s evil is that he kills indiscriminately, which Akasha points out makes him “the most predatory of all the immortals here. You kill without regard for age or sex or will to live.”
But yeah, back to the NOTP of Louis/Claudia, I thought it was very well-handled in the movie. Which I consider almost canon bc AR did write the screenplay and was consulted on it alot. My notes in ().
Louis: “Listen to me. Claudia is very dear to me. (pause, feeling like he needs to actually specify the relationship?) She’s my daughter.”
Armand: “Your lover.” (and he mouths this word again silently bc he’s TEH JEALOUS)
Louis: “Well my beloved. My CHILD.” (He’s being very clear here, NOT LOVER)
Armand: “You say so, you are innocent.” (Armand knows that she didn’t come out of Louis’s wrist)
Louis: “She’s in danger, isn’t she?” (Tactically changing the subject so as not to bring up Lestat).
Truthfully she was his sister. But so is Gabrielle. Gabrielle is sort of his sister, Grandmother, and Mother-in-Law all rolled into one. WHAT A MESS.
while I don’t think an aged up Claudia would give a second thought to ravishing Louis,
YEP NO HESITATION THERE bc let’s be honest we all want to ravish Louis ok.
she’s a symbol for everything that horrifies him about himself, and I don’t think that that would exactly be grounds for amorous thoughts.
Indeed.
Sure, he loves her and cares for her,
Exhibit A:
but I think if she was an adult, it’d be a lot easier for him to see just how far mentally out there she is, how evil, how unable to understand human goodness she had grown to be.
She’s worse than Lestat about playing w/ her food, that’s for sure, and choosing to kill innocents specifically is NOT a turn-on for Louis.
(I assume you mean more than just unconscious sleep, which yes, he did sleep with her, that’s canon)
Y’know that’s smtg I’ve thought about, too. Was it only her body/age that was the obstacle there? She seemed to think so… or so it seems from what Louis shares with us re: just a few times when she even opened the subject with him.
Particularly that time in Europe when they had just killed the Icky Gross Mindless Vampire, and they’re totally exhausted and hungry, and she offers him her wrist:
“ `Drink,’ she whispered, drawing nearer. `Drink.’ And she held the
soft, tender flesh of the wrist towards me. ‘No, I know what to do;
haven’t I done it in the past?’ I said to her.” <—- REJECTED. I don’t think Claudia shared blood w/ either Lestat or Louis, at least not in any intimate way, ever, which had to have been part of her not-growing-up frustration.
SO BACK TO THE QUESTION AT HAND:
No, I don’t think Louis would have slept with Claudia if she had been turned at 18+ bc there were more obstacles than just her physical form.
For one thing, Louis was in a relationship already with Lestat, even though it was a problematic one.
The chemistry between people (even IRL) has to work in that way for there to be any sexual attraction.
He always cared for her like a daughter. She was very much his own security blanket, a buffer and a glue between him and Lestat.
She was less human than either of them, which did not seem to be something that made her more attractive, but less comprehensible to him: ” `I love you now with my human nature, if ever had it,’ I said to her.
“ `Ah yes …’ she answered, still musing. `Yes, and that’s your flaw,
and why your face was miserable when I said as humans say, ” I hate
you, “ and why you look at me as you do now. Human nature. I have
no human nature.’ ”
Also, in terms of canon vampire physiology, the Ricean vampires seem to be asexual, blood gives them all the satisfaction they need/want in that regard. It’s in fanon and RP that they’re sexual.
As a side note, claudiaindarkness might have some good opinions on this, bc she often RPs Claudia aged up. thevampire-claudia also had a thread in which Claudia was aged up and *ahem* had some private time with a Louis (merciful-death) if u need some tasteful au smut ;]
Louis still has the coat that he wore when he was with Claudia in Paris.
Can you imagine how painful it would have been, returning to the hotel room he shared with Claudia, all her clothes and accessories exactly as they were when she left it last? ;A;
I-want-my-IWTV 