Luce

I do find it harder to come up with canon-adjacent things while a season is airing and the show's actual canon is changing every week. If there's a new episode coming out in a week that might 'disprove' the assumptions I'm basing my fic on, that'll feel like a deadline to me and that can stress me out like you wouldn't believe. I'll be happy when this season is over and we'll know what new canon we'll have to work with and which blanks are left for us to fill in to our heart's content.

If you're looking for a new idea, I think it starts with asking yourself questions about what type of fic you'd like to write. You can approach this in many ways. You can start with a genre or vibe you want to go for. A topic you want to explore. Whose POV you want the fic to be from. Or, for example, when you want the fic to set. 1973, 1990, 2026? Or, in other words: during the 6-night torture session, during the following chase/stalking, during a past DM after that, after Armand potentially wiped past DM from Daniel’s memory, during the Dubai interview, Daniel’s turning, the period between his turning and them reconnecting, etc. This will all inform where these characters are in terms of their own motivations but also their relationship.

Where we are now in the show canon, there are a lot of blanks that haven't been filled in yet by the show, the big ones being:

Just how involved was Armand in Daniel’s life? Did they have a fully-fledged affair (book-style 1970s and 1980s DM) that Armand then erased from Daniel’s memory, or was it just stalking and 'interceding from a distance'? Was Armand ever 'forced' to reveal himself to Daniel during these interceptions? How did that play out?

What has Armand been up to off-screen?

Including: what happened between them in the present-day that made Daniel team up with Armand and (it looks like) get (back) together with him romantically?

The few DM conversations we have had this season have also given us loads of things to expand upon in fic. Daniel went to rehab 5 times. What led to him deciding to go there? Did Armand guide him? What's with the year Daniel listened to Phish? What other situations can we put Daniel in that Armand then had to get him out of? What were the fascinating things Daniel did that made Armand fall for him/decide not to kill him but to protect him?

If you've read the DM chapter, you can draw from that for inspiration. Armand and Daniel get up to all kinds of random shit during their relationship in the book. Armand does intercede on Daniel’s behalf a few times, but they do things that are less angsty as well. Travelling, parties, night classes, going to plays and movies, hobbies, some light piracy. Most of these are only briefly mentioned but you could turn those into entire fics. And you can literally take any activity or film or play and ask yourself "Would Armand like this? How would he approach this? How would Daniel respond to any of it?"

What can really help me is asking fandom friends for prompts. Sometimes none of my 'active' WIPs want to cooperate and I just need something to shake me out of that funk. You can even specify what type of prompts you'd like to receive: silly, smutty, horror, angsty, domestic, young Daniel, old human Daniel, vampire Daniel. Some of my best fics were based on prompts from friends. (Always be sure to credit them for that initial spark!)

I also really love what I call baking a second cake. Putting your own twist on a *type* of fic that's already been done by other people. And I’m not talking copying or plagiarising. This is more like writing a coffee shop AU or a 5 + 1. You can still be incredibly creative and original when writing within a preset framework. There are types of fics specific to DM that have been done so often they've sort of become subgenres.

Examples of this off the top of my head are:

Daniel/Fake Rashid. Dubai. Past DM happened, Daniel doesn’t remember, Armand does and still loves and wants his boy. Often includes Daniel feeling like a dirty old man because he has no idea 'Rashid' is actually a 514yo vampire and the perceived power imbalance/age gap is not the actual power imbalance/age gap.

Outsider POV: Daniel’s daughters find out their dad is dating a guy (who looks) younger than them. (I had a lot of fun with this one.)

Middle-aged Daniel hooks up with a mysterious stranger he doesn't know but the audience does know is Armand. (We can either know this because the fic is Armand POV or because Daniel notices that the stranger is oddly familiar and/or the stranger is more into it/him than you'd expect from a random one-night stand.) Often includes but doesn't have to include Daniel remembering/recognising Armand halfway through and/or Armand doing another mindwipe at the end.

Related to that one: Armand poses as a student in one of Daniel’s classes.

This season has actually given us Daniel canonically hooking up with students. I already had this 'trope' on my to-be-written list, but ep5 definitely bumped it closer to the top of that list.

My main tip would be: immerse yourself in the ship. What do you like about them and what would you like to see more of? And definitely don't let objections like "That’s too self-indulgent" or "This character would never do this" stop you. You can do whatever the fuck you want in fic, and, if you have a strong understanding of the characters and their motivations, you can make anything work for them.

I hope this helps! It's hard to be concise about this topic because there's so many ways in which you can approach it.

The dumb example of a fic idea that literally jumped me on the street: