#really need to get back to tgn and edit ds but gah

[0nelittlebirdtoldme]

Random question: does it happen to you that you gradually start to see a ship you love with a completely different dynamic?

When I first entertained the thought of Hecula, it was clear in my mind that it was 100% onesided: Dracula is obsessed with Hector, Hector hated those forced attentions and felt like a prisoner. This is how I imagined the Bride AU, as Hector being forced in the role of a "bride" and hating the scorn that came from the rest of the castle. This is also because back then, I believed that Hector canonically didn't think much of his Lord - a superficial reading that missed the small details and the peculiar choice of words in Japanese :P

But then brain started to think "but what if 🥺 what if hector 🥺 loved his lord too 🥺 and he was happy with him 🥺 and he kissed him sometimes 🥺", and then I uhhhhhh never stopped lol. It's still not a cutesy dynamic because it's so unbalanced it's not even funny (jk it is lol), but it comes easier to me now to imagine Hector being satisfied in his role as Dracula's favorite, basking in the love and accepting that they're both special to each other... although canon dictates that it doesn't last forever, which is fine by me :) that's also part of the fun :)

Now, if I ever decide to bring back the old Bride AU, I don't think I'd have it in me to repeat the same angsty dynamic. I think I'd imagine it as I said, as Hector growing accustomed and even fond of his "husband", although always with an undercurrent of bitterness and desire for equality. Which was utterly unthinkable to me a year ago!

Anyway. Question is, has it happened to you? lmao. For example, your Harkula fics seem to explore how their dynamic would shift in a century, from master/angry "child" to proper husbands. Was this always your vision, or did your interpretations of the characters shift with time?

So sorry i came back to this ask so late @beevean - but thank you for sharing your thoughts and asking! I do love every version of hecula that you're writing, these two are just so ughhhh. Love when a master/sire turns more affectionate with time towards the object of their desire (with hecula, harkula, dracfield, you name it)😩❤️‍🔥

To be honest, harkula has been my longest and biggest ship I have ever written for and god how i do love these bastards to death. I did start off writing them with the big bang of my questionable long fic though, and feel like that did hugely influence the way i have written them ever since, with drac being misguided but still deeply loving jonathan in his very own way, and johnny loving him back just as much, if not more. Their drive comes from the elemental feeling of sheer love - no matter how monstrous, self destructing or twisted that love might be. That's just how they always have been. I love to write them as murder husbands or sire/fledgling or sire/human pet, but the very first version of the characters, in which they both care and kill for the other, still remains being one of my favs.

So, if anything, with me it is the other way around than with you - over the course of the last few months/years i have actually started to explore even darker but probably more realistic AUs in which they start openly unhealthy and miserable and remain that way the entire way through (cough, TGN, cough). Codependent. Bound. So. I guess that counts as writing and character development?