#anamysis

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how do you think tvd/to vampires would've reacted to artificial blood being invented

LOVELY QUESTION

Stefan - hallelujah the struggle is over no more squirrels. Except - will synth blood be so perfect that it gives him the same high as real blood? Lmao that would be so sad and so Stefan.

Damon - Elena puts his blood in a Stanley cup every morning. He promises her he’s not getting dessert from the necks of idiots who see him lying prone in a dark country road.

FINN - 2 dead 2 care

MARCEL - he would immediately try to monopolize the industry in the south. If you want that good red lab juice you gotta pay the House of the Rising Son.

REBEKAH - she prefers the human stuff but the fake stuff is so convenient when there’s a mob after you! Dusty aftertaste, though.

KOL - Ew, seriously? Are we going to start wearing pleather now too? Don’t tell Davina I said that tell her uhhhhh tell her I had a whole glass and said “aahhhhhhh” all satisfied when I was done.

ELIJAH - Elijah would feel very similar to Rebekah. He would monitor Marcel’s power grab, though, with equal parts pride and paranoia.

Klaus - obviously, this blood is a plot point. So Klaus can’t digest it/it weakens him. Hybrid intolerance of synthetic blood would cause a huge anti-hybrid surge in the populace, especially if humans were clued in to the supernatural world at this point. It turns out that this blood was designed to poison him specifically in a decades long plot to incapacitate the original hybrid.

Hayley - She almost dies because she tries it!! This is episode 1 of the season!!!!!!! Hope screams so loud the entire city can hear!

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sorry this is random but if klaus and gang hadnt died what wouldve happened to them when the sun exploded or whatever do they just start over on some other planey? do they just decompose till new life forms on earth with blood hopefully? will they evolve?

on a slightly more serious note, do you think any of them wouldve staked themselves? or tried to use the energy from the end of the world for some witchery that would save them? i can picture klaus being like grrr finally the end of all my enemies 🔥

I have to teach kids math early tomorrow morning but I can’t sleep so…

*puts on my Lore Nerd Glasses*

According to canon, Esther’s Original Vampire spell was powered by Tatia’s blood, the White Oak, and… the sun! Specifically, the sun is the element that resurrected them after Mikael killed them all to get the party started. So from my perspective, if the sun “dies”, then our Originals die too.

I think they wouldn’t have gotten to that point if they had a choice. Once all of humanity was gone, and probably other vampires, I think they would have tried to figure out a way to die or gone mad trying. Unless tech had developed to the point where people could leave the solar system? An interesting idea, Originals in Space.

And while Klaus would definitely SAY that, he would be so pouty about not having any more enemies to play with.

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Yeah so none of this was necessary in order to come to the conclusion that it was VERY STRANGE for Bekah to be in PJs, Klaus not, both killed in what was supposedly the front room of their home, waking up without the rest of their fallen siblings beside them.

A girl knows there was no real rhyme or reason to it but I want there to be INTRIGUE and it seems like there is intrigue here.

Anyways. This is the second time I’ve researched Viking longhouses for this quandary, so I know a fair bit now. Like how the TVD set should have had bedding accessible/laid out in the same room as the tiny hearth. Why would they sleep in the back room that *didnt* have heating? Maybe it was in the corner we didn’t see, but that’s not enough room for 8.

That one did attempt pseudo-plank platforms tho which the fancier set didn’t bother with. TO s1 did this too: it’s almost a perfect mini makeshift longhouse except for the fireplace being on the back wall and not a pit in the center.

The bedding arrangement from s1 could also fit in the fancier s2 set! My guesses from top to bottom? Eldest to youngest, with one or both parents at the bottom oval. Mikael was shown sleeping alone when Bekah tried to kill him, just sayin. Dividers to make enclosed spaces weren’t unheard of but basically the idea was to be cozy in front of the fire when you slept alongside your family, and I doubt Ester particularly wanted alone time with Mikael after she met her side piece.

The s2 set is the grandest. They probably have a storage loft up there in the roof! Again the fireplace is not in the middle but hey I get why a fire pit in the smack dab center of your tv set is not gonna be fun to work with.

So for the Mikaelsons chronologically, the s1 and s2 sets are prob’ly just the same room filtered through budgets. We could HC that Mikael built it up to the s2 appearance then there was a fire, and he basically had to remake what they’d had when the kids were li’l. We could also HC that somehow these rooms fit together (TVD and TOS2 might, but there wouldn’t be two hearths like that?) or that the TVD set is actually Ayana’s house, since it has the necklace that Ayana gave/gives to Esther and we don’t know when that exchange happened. It’d be super rude of Esther to drag her five semi-undead kids to Ayana’s house to finish the ritual, but hey it’s not like Esther wouldn’t pull something like that and maybe she forgot some frogs’ eyes.

(I have no idea why the newborn!Klaus scene and the TVD scenes look like they could be the same set, esp when they had such a beautiful shiny new set in s2. I guess Mikael hadn’t chopped down enough trees yet)

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Talk to me about Andy/Freya parallels I have.. thoughts

Gladly! SPOILERS FOR THE ORIGINALS AND THE OLD GUARD BELOW.

I don’t know about you, but my own thoughts are that for two immortals with such wildly different experiences, Freya and Andromache have an exquisite similarity in their tone and attitude. 

Neither is what could be called ‘warm’, but both are extremely loving. Their views on human life and goodness strike a chord, not necessarily because they do similar things but because there is a circle for each of them, that they had lived without for so long, and there is outside the circle. Lives are precious, and should be saved, but not at the expense of their family -- family is to be defended with all of the brutal efficiency both women have on offer. 

Both women are ludicrously powerful and incapable of death. This point becomes muddled for both of them when Andy’s healing slows and Freya’s link to Dahlia is broken (it is never fully established -- I think? Y’all know I avoided the ending season and a half -- whether Freya’s immortality was conditional on Dahlia’s life, but it is heavily implied). This point is negligible to both of them, as both have longed for death for centuries and have pretty much unlearned how to see themselves as humans. Losing their power is only important in that they feel as though they are not as sturdy a tool as they once were, which is aggravating and inconvenient, but it has nothing really to do with pride. 

Freya tries more than Andy, and I’d posit that this is first because Freya’s circumstances were ones she could understand and ones that had faces and places and pasts, and second because Andy probably has at least a thousand years on Freya. Freya Mikaelson longs for blood family, and parenthood, and people to love for the sake of love. Her goal for a thousand years was breaking free of her imprisonment and finding her family, even knowing of their evilness and knowing she would likely be rejected. 

I have only watched through TOG once, but I got a much bleaker feel from Andromache. Her power doesn’t come from a source she can name and hate and plot against, her ties to her human family and human world are long turned dust, and she is haunted not with the solid guilt over deaths of the people she most loved (as Freya is with Mathias and her baby) but with the twisting, confusing helplessness of watching Lykon die, or the despairing helplessness of knowing Quynh is there, suffering, endlessly. 

Andy has had to find her way to feeling as though life is worth it, with whatever it is that she has left -- I think Freya always had that seed of worth tied to her family, and, allowed to grow, she could open herself to Keelin’s love. But all the same, I feel like the lines and stares and gameface and methods concocted by each to protect those they love are so similar. Just, tonally, I feel like these two are in harmony, despite all of the differences there are that I have and have not mentioned. 

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just got distracted by a recommended gifset featuring Klaus in one of his deep-V shirts with a necklace and remembered how we all went BUCKwild when it was revealed in flashback that his mother made him a charmed necklace to repress his lycan traits telling him it was to ‘protect him’ and that he could ‘never take it off’ because we’ve known for a long long time that Klaus goes on to wear either one or multiple rosaries/tokens/symbols of strength and protection and guidance around his neck like they’re part of his BODY for the next THOUSAND YEARS and BOY WHAT A DEVASTATING WAY TO WEAVE THAT LONGSTANDING COSTUME CHOICE INTO THE BACKSTORY WITHOUT EVER DIRECTLY CONNECTING IT

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hey so if you wanna hit me with that sweet sweet elijah’s characterization meta anytime please feel free. or direct me to any previous posts because my dumb ass is using this time to re-obsess over vampire melodrama.....

It appears that most of my non-tag and non-petty-casual commentary is still in drafts... so instead of finishing the ‘What the hell is wrong with season 4: an itemized list’ meta and finishing answering the ‘What would you change if you could rewrite any of the show?’ ask from a while ago, I’ll just pick out the Elijah bits and add on to them for garnish. (Those posts might exist at some point. But honestly not soon enough for me to worry about people getting annoyed with copy/paste so PREVIEW TIME: ELIJAH FLAVOR)

This is way sloppier and un-cited than I usually meta, by the way, but what the hell, The Fandom is Dead and I Only Have Friends to Entertain Now, so if anyone gets angry and tries to step into my asks then it’ll just be nostalgic rather than annoying.  Here’s the starter, which is from the F*CK YOU SEASON 4 meta and quite a few of these points will be repeated later because you asked for it technically so.

The cracks in the narrative began to show as early as season two, and believe me when I say I’m not saying this because I love him - it began with Elijah. I can make a lot of arguments to this effect, but the only one that I am certain is not propelled by my very strong bias concerns the presentation of the Red Door.

Initially, I was ecstatic at the opportunity to explore Elijah’s past, his perspective, his darkest moments. I was a bit wary in that it seemed as though the narrative wanted to Explain Everything about Elijah through this device, but he was finally getting some attention so I tried to hold back judgement.The result was pretty promising. One of the most gorgeous moments on the show occurs when Klaus enters Elijah’s mind and tells him how much he needs him. It showcases the main pillar of the show - the structural trifecta of Hope, Klaus, and Elijah. And afterwards, as usual, Elijah pushes the experience away.Until it’s convenient. 

Elijah begins to be erratically vicious. At first, I felt as though it wasn’t handled poorly, I could explain away my worries easily, and that was all I needed. But it happens over, and over, and over again, with the same excuse - protecting the family, protecting Hope. Elijah’s triggers, once so crucial, begin to break down, but we don’t see why or how that process occurs. He begins to be the character that is level-headed when it is convenient, and a violent one-track-mind when it’s convenient. Eventually, in order to maintain balanced tension with a softening Klaus, Elijah became violent without nuance in every situation. His continued development is no longer possible, since his character no longer displays depth.

Which is annoying, as a fan. But as a person who loves to analyze narrative, it’s a huge red flag. Elijah is necessary for this story. His love for Klaus, and Klaus’ relationship with him, is one of the things that holds the narrative together as it goes forward. The two of them need each other in order to experience growth, but cannot grow from each other any longer - and that friction is what provides energy and substance that can help drive a multi-year melodrama. This is why I mentioned above that Elijah’s violence was likely intended to balance with Klaus’ changing heart - but there is no balance in the level of development the two brothers experience. It has been shoddy in many places, but attention has been given to Klaus’ journey towards peace and kindness, while Elijah has been given a single metaphor, a single psychosis, and is expected to carry half of the narrative weight. The story has no choice but to make a plot device out of him - he simply does not have the required depth to be anything else, which is made obvious by the attempt to do so in the ritual to bring Inadu to the material plane, which I will discuss later.

When his development is ignored, when he is used as a tool to get from point A to point B time and time again - that’s when the pillar starts to crumble.

Zooming back in on s1, this was actually my only major structural gripe with season 1, so it comprises the entirety of the ‘what would you change’ for that season:

The poison that rotted the whole dang show started very small — casting Elijah too strongly as a white hat, to offset the darkness of the rest of the main family. This was the right move, of course, but it was pushed a twinge too far and it was the tiny weight that set everything wobbling. As an offshoot of that, this was also done with Hayley to a degree. I would have had them bond very similarly to the way they do in the show, but I would have had them connect at least once over the skeletons in their closets. (Only once or twice, again, since their ship relied in this season on the fallacy of each other being saviors). In fact, this was one I felt so strongly about that I actually did rewrite their scene in 1x07 ‘Bloodletting’.

Then season two when it gets more pronounced: 

The rift in the show widened with the swing-and-miss that was The Red Door arc. Elijah became a Problem when it was convenient for the plot and A Fixer/Sounding Board when it was not. They used probably the most INTERESTING and INTEGRAL part of his characterization -- which had been a mystery for YEARS counting The Vampire Diaries appearances -- and Elijah discovering that either from trauma or his mother’s magic, he has repressed the moments which forged him. This lack of knowledge, this lack of control, should have been something much more cataclysmic and its effects should be clear when comparing ‘Elijah Before’ to ‘Elijah After’. Instead, it kind of served to take off Elijah’s ‘White Hat’ that he’d been illy-fitted with in S1, and allow him to accessorize with it or whatever version of Elijah fits the episode at hand.

This tension, and this chaos should have been much stronger and much more messy than simply putting the Suit back on and being Pretty Much Okay (barring one plot-insignificant diner massacre) only a few episodes later. It would make the therapy scene later with Camille even more gorgeous than it already is and it would then place Elijah’s moment of catharsis, and the beginning of his attempts to move on, with Klaus’ monumental forgiveness in 2x11. I think this is what was intended, but it was not at all achieved, because Elijah is such a tricky character to write, and it is so very easy to use him for whatever the scene requires. Because of this, Elijah’s struggles got dropped just long enough for Klaus’ forgiveness to hit powerfully in viewers for Klaus, but not for Elijah. The writing began to lean on Elijah as a Drama Everyman more and more throughout the show, and it’s just tragic to me that The Red Door wasn’t utilized to its potential. (And that we didn’t have a Klaus/Tatia conversation, but hey, I have an unfinished fixit for that whole saga on Ao3, you’re welcome and I’m sorry).

In season three, we got a few good glimpses of the kind of complexity that Elijah should live in -- the way he kills Arianne, for example, I’ve linked what I called a ‘headcanon’ but in retrospect it was pretty explicitly canon -- and we see the youth and terror and involuntary power in him in the flashback where he discovers that Klaus killed their mother. But the relationship between Tristan and Elijah? The man that he made, and that made him? That was far too pedestrian to have produced either of them. If Elijah learned ‘nobility’ from Tristan, learned what ‘superiority’ looked like, and this was the time that he began to change... we should have had words between them, or a scene highlighting just them, at least once in the flashbacks. 

If this season was supposed to be about the creation of the Trinity, the First Children (because Finn didn’t tell no one that Sage is actually the oldest ‘cuz he’s an ashamed little bitch) why did we see only TWO of the THREE transformations? Klaus turned Lucien accidentally, trying to heal him. Rebekah’s sympathy and love were used as Aurora’s tool to turn herself. When and how did Elijah turn Tristan? It is explained that Elijah turned him in order to create a third vampire for his plot to trick Mikael into chasing them instead -- it is explained that Tristan, Aurora, and Lucien were compelled to believe that they were in fact Elijah, Rebekah, and Klaus in order to make their decoy impeccable. But when this compulsion was shattered -- when Lucien learned that he had been used and made monstrous as a tool for a monster who wasn’t even noble -- did he confront Elijah? Did they ever speak, or was their next meeting the day Elijah learned that Tristan had taken over Elijah’s coven? I would argue that Elijah needed equal weight in the France flashbacks even though he didn’t have a flashy romance (though if early press release rumors were true, he and Tristan could have had one and that would have been perfect) 

Season four is really where you can pick an episode and Elijah will put on the stage makeup and play any part. It’s also -- BIG COINCIDENCE -- where the plot deteriorates completely. Here’s just one example from my Excuse You What the Hell? Season Four meta: 

On to the next moment that showed major neglect (I know this has been Elijah-heavy so far, but again, this is where the problem started so I want to carry this thread through for a while before addressing other issues) - the ritual to bring Inadu to the mortal realm. The purpose of this ritual was to scare viewers with the risk of Hope’s safety and hype the Hollow’s “bad”ness, but also to make the first move in the ‘Letting Go’ thread between Hayley and Elijah. Elijah was supposed to be forced to choose between children's lives and letting the Hollow loose upon the world, and decide to kill the children. That was the dramatic point of placing this ritual in the narrative, but it isn’t mechanically sound.

It is stated outright that the ritual has to end with the death of the children linked to the spell. The children were linked via their totems found in 4x03 - placing Hope definitively in this group.

But we only ever see four of the five in one place. Maybe it was worth it to the Hollow to reach as far out as Hope was to bind her via her hairbrush, maybe it was worth it to the Hollow to drain her from afar, I’d buy that easily. But they made no attempt to kidnap her and place her with the other four children during the ritual. The ritual that required the deaths of five children. Unless it required Hope to be there only on standby, which is absolutely ridiculous. They had the kids on an alter, even if it was just for show. But why not all of them? If the real goal of the ritual was to lure Klaus and/or Marcel, wouldn’t kidnapping Klaus’ child be a more surefire way to accomplish that rather than just hoping the Mikaelsons would come to the right mystical diagnosis in time?

The reason why Hope wasn’t there was because the ritual was never thought through. The reason she wasn’t there is because it didn’t make sense for Elijah to want to kill Hope to stop the Hollow, which is what this ritual actually demanded if it actually worked the way Vincent claimed. In actuality, all that was desired was for Elijah to display a willingness to kill innocents in front of Hayley, and in doing so it demanded that Hope’s life both be at stake and not at stake at all. This failure to coherently execute a single-episode arc is plainly poor storytelling. It displays not only disrespect to the narrative structure, but a blatant flippancy towards one of their main characters and arguably the most complex one on the series. The sloppily contrived tension here between Hayley and Elijah does eventually contribute to the supposed theme, yes, but at what cost?

Elijah was neglected because he was hard to write, and even harder to write well as a ‘light’ foil to Klaus. Marcel should have fully owned that role, and not been similarly jerked around as a plot-serving every-man once the mystery of season 1 and the reasons behind Marcel’s ‘senseless’ cruelty were revealed. 

Elijah was always the cornerstone of the family’s narrative, because he was complex enough to carry it. Camille provided an additional column of support to Klaus’ individual journey as a person/father, but she was bulldozed for Allmighty Plot as well. By the end of season three, both she and Elijah had effectively been thrown in the garbage one way or another, and the show tried to go on without them. It couldn’t. 

I will say that Elijah’s conversation with Hope in that ludicrous backdoor pilot did make me feel things. I did also see the clip where Elijah and Klaus have a heart-to-heart in some sort of european flashback, which was touching, but felt incongruous for their relationship/dev at the time. Hope asking Elijah how old he was when he made his promises to Klaus, though? Elijah offering carte blanche to Hope for how to punish her friend’s bullies? TWO OF THE THREE SCENES INVOLVING ICE CREAM? 

SOME of season 5 is valid but ONLY because it stole scripts from my headcanons.

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y’all thought I forgot about this one

a good (3) of you really wanted this meta and well. It’s been like. Four years? Anyways. 

‘Stolen Dance’ was on the radio today and it makes me think of Klaus and Care, because I get it mixed up with ‘Dangerous’ and that’s my song for them. Also, Stolen Dance has a line that I THOUGHT was ‘Stolen Paradise’ and it’s ACTUALLY ‘stoned in paradise’ so I USED to get K/C vibes from that. Anyways. Whenever I think of that ship I think of @hairzier, and I remembered that I had given her a teaser of this meta a while back. Before I got home, I had FINALLY constructed a thesis (wow amy what a nerd) for this analysis that I’d tried to write FOREVER ago, but it didn’t have a central focus and it was way too bogged down with me trying to find one as I went along. 

Don’t know what the hell I’m talking about?

The meta is this: Klaus as an artist + Klaus’ relationships with three featured women in his life circa 2010′s. If you came to the fandom late or haven’t ever seen my username, hi, I used to write a ton of TO meta, I Don’t Do Ships Really At All For It. At least, not the ‘big’ ones. I digress. Just -- don’t expect me to bash or gush over any ship, I’m gonna compliment and critique them all. Please avoid or read on accordingly <3

Caroline: The Art

I tried to find my write-up for Sahar from ages ago, because it was clear and concise and exactly what I intended. Oh well. Once more. 

Shippers and Antis pretty much love it and hate it for the same reason: Klaus is so different around her. Well, that and it’s either empowering for Caroline or abusive. Depends on perspective. I am firmly in the camp that every relationship in Klaus’ life during this time period is abusive in some way. What he does to Caroline is particularly messed up, but also particularly kind, in turns. The lightness and puppy-love-ness of Klaus around her was so jarring, is so jarring, because he doesn’t display that behavior for anyone else. He allows himself to be foolishly partial to her, but he also seems to only have selective guilt for the horrors he subjects her to. As a viewer who will bend over backwards to create complexity rather than label something ‘bad writing’, I found that Klaus’ relationships, especially with women, especially with Caroline, are steeped in his relationship with art. 

To Klaus, Caroline is an exquisite work of living art. Pleasing to the eye, challenging to his thoughts, but benign -- safe, and static. More than wanting to ‘own’ her, though, I believe he wants to join her. Make himself into something that compliments her colors and her lines, because the experience of interacting with art is one of the purest joys Klaus knows. In this way, he intimately analyzes her life and feelings, he inserts himself into her narrative, he plays a part that he enjoys -- maybe one, at times, he truly wishes was not a performance. In this way, he adores her, he respects her, but not really as a person, and certainly not as an equal. He values every moment with her, treasures it; lets himself get drunk on it. She’s the Mona Lisa, living, breathing, and bold enough to insult him to his face. When she breaks the frame he makes for her -- when she really challenges him in ways only a person can -- he can only retreat, and lash out. 

And ask for forgiveness with acts of kindness, or material value (he even, incredibly, uses his art to soften her to him, on more than one occasion) -- trying to shift her attention as if she can forget his abuses.  In all: he wants her to enrich his life, not change it. 

Hayley: The Clay

(Or the canvas, or materials, or what have you.)

One of Hayley’s first scenes with Klaus sets her up as a direct foil to Caroline: 

Klaus: Painting is a metaphor for control. Every choice is mine-- the canvas, the color. As a child, I had neither a sense of the world nor my place in it, but art taught me that one's vision can be achieved with sheer force of will. The same is true of life, provided one refuses to let anything stand in one's way.

Hayley: So this is your thing-- show a girl a few mediocre paintings, whine about your childhood, and I swoon and spill all my dirty secrets?

Hayley doesn’t want to see him as a person. Klaus doesn’t really want to see her as a person, either. Eventually, he learns that he has to respect her as a mother, at least, or he will not deserve his daughter. Eventually, he learns to see her as family. But at the core, and I don’t think he ever loses this -- he sees Hayley as his work-in-progress. Potential. Not only to be a strong ally, but to be -- just maybe -- an equal.

Which is annoying for him, because she also happens to be the only person he cannot reliably control, or predict. His only choice is to try to shape her into someone that he can work with. That someone is himself, mostly, but with some key improvements. His tone with her is so often instructive, mentor-ly, a thin veneer above his need for her to be someone he doesn’t have to worry about, damn it! He can understand her so why can’t he control her! 

This kicks into gear, mostly, after Hayley’s transformation. She estranges herself from Elijah, somewhat, and Klaus does not interfere with her spiral into blood and rage because it’s part of the process. He sees himself in her, but not like he saw himself in Marcel. His perspective on Marcel was so tied to fatherhood that he was trying to raise a young Klaus, while in Hayley’s case, he is trying to sculpt her in his image. 

His advice on how to deal with rage, vengeance, and wildness is sincere and from personal experience. His advice on what to do about love? Well, certainly stay with Elijah while it’s convenient for me, but don’t let love blind you to what you need. What we need. What I need. Don’t tell Jackson you slept with my brother -- honesty won’t keep this vital political alliance strong. Don’t forget you’re one of us now. It’s what I would do. 

I guess you could even say that Hayley, while pregnant, was a very different kind of work-in-progress for Klaus that made it near-impossible for him to see her as anything but a thing meant to be changed or cause change. Art, unfinished, and his. 

Camille: The Critic

All of these relationships are unique and powerful in their own ways. I admit I’m partial to the poetry of this one, the radicalness of this one, but again, I don’t really ship it as a romance? Maybe I do, now that I’ve had time away from it, but I don’t ‘stan’ it as ‘otp’. 

This one is obvious. Their ‘art’ scene is straightforward, and kind of cliche. A woman watches a street artist fill a huge canvas. Another passerby notices, and stops to ask her what she thinks. She floors him with her response -- so insightful, so bold, and so compassionate. The clever bartender that Marcel has a crush on just so happens to be a psychologist -- and, he learns later, with a particular, personal empathy for violent and cruel offenders. 

He feels a unique desire to be seen by her, and to be considered by her, in his entirety. Not that he does not want to control what she knows -- obviously -- but that he does not want to put on a single, convenient mask with her to accomplish his ends. He wants to be known, and he wants to know what she thinks of him. 

Again, he does not want any of this to touch him, or change him, really. He begins his Gallery Of Self not by making a therapy appointment but by ‘hiring’ (forcing) her to transcribe his biography (and making her forget everything she knows the moment she leaves his sight). This is safe, and it lets him bring out the masks and the goals and the good and the ugly of him and air them for her reaction. Will he, too, be worthy of empathy? 

Yes. But he’s also worthy of critique. Eventually, he takes baby steps to allowing her to impact his life (to varying degrees throughout all seasons that, in my opinion, make for a shamefully circular set of arcs on the writers’ parts. The point is I saw where they were trying to go with it, and letting Drama of the Week get in the way). Eventually, he makes real appointments. Tells himself he needs to change, somewhat, for Hope’s sake. 

And Camille is the kind of strong, confident woman he can imagine Hope to someday resemble. He wants his daughter to be free from the cycles of Mikaelson abuse, and he wants her to know goodness and have no reason to be evil. And if he is to do that, and if he is to know that Hope, then someone like Camille should be able to look at him and deem him capable. Worthy. Warts and all. He’ll spend time with her because he likes her, because he’s attracted to the beauty in her heart (like Caroline!) -- but he opens himself to her scrutiny because for once in his life he knows he has to change for the better. He knows he has to get help, and, well, the clever bartender seemed to fall into his life at exactly the right time to take in all of his decades and all of his deeds -- piece by piece, movement by movement, style by style, and understand them. Critique them. Maybe with that in mind he can make himself into a work that he can one day show to Hope. 

With that in mind, I can’t help but have a soft spot for those cheesy lines from the very first episode.

Klaus: Do you paint?

Cami: No, but I admire. Every artist has a story, you know.

Klaus: And what do you suppose his story is?

Cami: He's...angry. Dark. Doesn't feel safe and doesn't know what to do about it. He wishes he could control his demons instead of having his demons control him. He's lost. Alone.

Cami: Or maybe he just drank too much tonight. Sorry. Overzealous Psych major.

Klaus: No. I think you were probably right the first time.

@florafaunaandeldritchhorrors @ptonkin @furrydolphin @jungshoook (DID YOU ABANDON THE KLEBEKAH URL REDIRECT????? MOM??????!?!!?!??!?!??!?!!?!!?!??! I JUST CHECKED AND IT’S NOT THERE ANYMORE???? I NEED TO *MOURN* AND YOU JUST DIDN’T *TELL* US??!)

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How much time does Elijah spend practicing the piano a day? Like...how does he schedule it in between sibling emergencies?

Hi, Jen. Thanks for this

Elijah does not practice daily, at least, not anymore. He has always gravitated towards creators in arts, philosophy, and the sciences, and so as Klaus followed the great art movements of Europe (and beyond?) Elijah followed the music and thought. Rebekah, when not in time-out with a dagger in her heart, followed her brothers, because if she followed art with them, she would always find humanity and love. 

I would say that Elijah was intrigued by the harpsichord, and fond of it, but found it inferior to the established instruments of the time. Harpsichords, while innovative, could not modulate volume, and this gave their sound a flatness that Elijah could not get used to. (An organ? Now, that, that was an immaculate thing. But not easy to take with you when you have to flee the country. again.)

And then the pianoforte. 

It was the 18th and 19th centuries – Klaus was off his ass on liquor and opium, salons and art shows. Rebekah was in and out of lover’s beds and her coffin confinement. The hunt for Katerina had become less of a passion and more of an annoyance, and so Klaus would paint for days. Party with his friends. Torment Rebekah. And paint, and paint, for weeks. 

Elijah spent that time at some of the same salons, and some of the same shows, and was occasionally convinced to offer his opinion in Klaus’ studio. As always, he composed. He also read, and studied, spoiled Rebekah when she was awake, and spent ludicrous amounts of money on high fashion. 

Mostly, though, he became so closely acquainted with the piano that it soon felt like a part of his own flesh. The range and convenience of a harpsichord, the diluted-but-still-ringing thunder of an organ, and the beautiful blend of hammer and string that made a timbre so new and exciting and full of possibility. Personality. Muse.

After the first fall of New Orleans, Elijah lost much of the time he spent with instruments. The twentieth century was full of confusion, and pain, and terror over family matters. But in his isolation, there were occasionally moments of pause. Whenever he found a piano, it spoke to him like another facet of the same true, true love, one that Klaus could never kill.