Tyler gasps and wheezes on the ground like a beached fish—relief surges through Elena that he is even still alive.
She ducks down next to him to inspect the damage. She can't see very well in the dark, and she worries that touching him might disrupt the delicate balance of chance and luck keeping him alive.
"I've punctured his lungs," Klaus calls out helpfully. "They're collapsing as we speak. He'll smother to death soon."
-ATFBBTF Chapter 10
So, on reread, I think this is the line where I actually figured out Klaus’s characterization. Or at least, the version of it I have been doom spiraling over for the past eon. He would HELPFULLY explain his atrocities.
Hey so this is something I meant to ask a while ago, but I totally forgot about it until like five minutes ago. A few chapters ago, Klaus told Elena he hadn’t slept with anyone in years. Is this a head canon you have about Klaus? Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought I remembered you saying you thought he would have been sexually reckless in his very early vampire years. If you do think he’s been celibate more recently, is this because he was kind of a paranoid reclusive for a while there? I feel like what I’m asking has different responses based on which universe we are speaking about—whether that be canon, FE canon, or SWBS canon. Cuz like I could see you needing to add that in there so there’s no possibility Klaus has gotten other women pregnant recently in the SWBS narrative. Long story short, I guess I just want to know if there was a reason for this specific line and how you head canon Klaus’s sex life has been over the course of a thousand years.
oh my God YESSSS I love this ask haha
I think that Klaus lost his virginity to Tatia Petrova, and she was the only woman he ever slept with as a human. (She was also sleeping with Elijah, but I do think she was in love with both of them but Elijah was the one who offered that shot at getting married/having a better life, and Tatia was enough of a realist to try-- unsuccessfully-- to break it off with Klaus, but that’s a whole other headcanon.)
Her death fucked him up pretty much permanently. I think his whole “love is a vampire’s greatest weakness” thing is a result of this tragedy-- this was him turning his heart to stone after having it utterly broken. And of course... also turning his heart to stone in the wake of not even knowing how Tatia felt about him in the end-- was she using him? Stringing him along? Did she really love him back? He’ll never know, because his parents murdered her in the most gruesome and terrifying way possible.
This doesn’t mean he doesn’t indulge his appetites though. He and his siblings quickly descend into lusts of every sort-- their bloodlust and their sexual appetites intermingle, get confused-- Klaus dabbles with women, playing games with consent and seduction using compulsion, egged on by Kol, and even Elijah, and egging them on in turn. His lovers are often his victims, especially in those early days, when he had less control over his appetites and left a lot more bodies in his wake. It wouldn’t be very long before the list included men as well as women, and those early years would have been almost like a kind of frenzy-- a savagery fueled by the madness of the curse, the fact that their lives had been ripped apart by their parents whom they should have been able to trust, by the dark maw of his grief.
I think he and Rebekah would have become lovers sometime around 10, 20 years into being vampires-- the subtext of the show supports their incest-- they’re just too weird together!-- and I headcanon that he would have been the one to take her virginity. It would have to be far enough into their curse that by then all of the social mores prohibiting various cruelties and abominations like sibling incest would have been stripped from them-- they were already delighting in murder, torture, rape, etc by then for some time, slaves to their own damnations-- but soon enough after the turn that Rebekah wouldn’t have fallen in love with someone/had the opportunity to have a lover. I could see this being something that would spur Klaus’s possessiveness-- and he’s very possessive of Rebekah. I don’t even see it as romantic in any way-- I think sex for Klaus is largely a mechanism of control and dominance, and he exerts it over Rebekah, his favorite sibling, his pet, the very most. Any hint that she’s going to stray from him, or give her heart, loyalties, and affection elsewhere, and he uses his sexual hold on her to keep her there, and kills the lover for good measure. (Why just Rebekah? Because I don’t actually think the incest extends elsewhere... except maaaybbeee Kol/Rebekah... well, because 1) she’s the only girl and Klaus is definitely misogynistic enough to view this as a weakness or something he can control 2) she’s younger, and her personality is easier to control than Kol, who is a wild child and bucks authority on top of being as suspicious and paranoid as Klaus, or Elijah, who is Klaus’s equal and whose wrath Klaus is always always wary of.)
So, for a very long time, I think that Klaus sleeps around in a casually vicious way, with Rebekah as his only long-term, on again-off again lover (although, there are probably some mistresses here and there, and probably some witches too, who might last a bit longer, or who might make it out alive), until we get to Katerina.
Katerina. The woman with Tatia’s face. A duplicate, body and soul. She’s the greatest danger Klaus has faced since his turning, because she’s the one girl his heart might be vulnerable to. So he shores himself up even more. Strengthens that wall of stone around his heart, and keeps himself cold to her. He can’t resist taking her as his lover, of course, or keeping her as his mistress while he gathers the resources necessary to sacrifice her. But all the while, even while he has her in his bed every night, even as he’s plotting her murder, he’s seething with fury and jealousy. He’s envious of Elijah, who falls in love with her, plain and simple; envious of Trevor, even, for the same reason... because she is the one woman he wants, but he’s also too selfish to ever contemplate doing anything other than murdering her for the sake of obtaining his power, so she is also the one woman he cannot have. And he cannot ever allow himself to love her, because he will definitely kill her. And he’s furious when Elijah comes up with a plan to save her, because Klaus is also afraid of Katerina. Afraid of that possibility that if he falls in love, it will be a weakness, just like his love for Tatia was a grave weakness. The thing that was his undoing oh so long ago.
Of course, Katerina runs, and Klaus feels this proves him absolutely right about her.
A few more centuries pass. I think with time we see his bloodlust slaked, and more and more of his bedmates survive the encounters. He grows bored, and restless. There’s no more hope for ever breaking the curse, and so his life feels very static. He has nothing to look forward to specifically. He takes lovers here and there, and he falls in and out of Rebekah’s bed, but nothing touches that stone heart of his.
This changes pretty significantly in the 20s. By then he’s suffered a harrowing blow. The family is broken apart, and it’s just him and Rebekah-- really just him and Rebekah, indefinitely-- for the first time he can ever recall.
This is when Stefan joins the picture... Stefan, whom Rebekah adores, but who can be something different than every other lover Rebekah has had-- he can be that missing brother for Klaus-- who is looking for someone to fill the void now that Elijah (and Kol, and Marcel, but honestly not Finn because he’s been daggered for eight centuries) is gone. And because Klaus’s ideas about sex and power and sibling love are all screwed up, and because Stefan is charming and handsome and fun, Rebekah and Stefan’s affair quickly becomes Rebekah and Stefan and Klaus’s affair-- the three of them all tangled up together. And it’s precarious but Rebekah will take whatever she can have and Klaus is greedy for emotional fulfillment and Stefan is high all the time and having a great time having great sex so he doesn’t take any of it as seriously as he definitely should.
Then of course there is the separation.
I think during this long time period Klaus probably continues his pattern of casual sexual flings, but I doubt he really gets close to anyone. In fact, other than Rebekah or Katerina, I have the feeling that Stefan is the only other person he was sexually involved with that he really cared about. That’s why he wanted him back in 2010 when he ran into him again and the timing seemed right.
I guess this now gets into the present-- my feeling isn’t so much that Klaus has been celibate as a matter of choice or paranoia or anything (although, he is paranoid, which is why he hasn’t fallen in love again in a thousand years), just that he is simply so old that years might pass between flings and he doesn’t really notice. It doesn’t seem like that long for him necessarily-- years can feel like weeks at this point-- and he’s grown pickier as he’s gotten older-- someone has to interest him for him to pursue, and it takes more and more to interest him now than it did before.
Like, the show does suggest to me that Klaus may have been sleeping with Greta Martin, and that would fall directly in line with his MO-- we’ve seen him sleep with witches before, and we know that power does interest him. He’s not exactly upset by her death though, even though he seemed to like her-- also in line with how he refuses to become emotionally invested in his lovers.
I do think though that he was sleeping with Stefan in that summer they spent together-- again, Stefan is an exception to the rule, although he’s not in love with Stefan-- Stefan slides into that weird Klaus category of “brother,” which is a gray area muddled in with lover for him-- essentially the same place that Rebekah occupies, but without the same levels of (faint) protection that actually being Klaus’s blood sibling provides. It’s fascinating to me that Klaus would reinitiate the affair with Stefan without returning Stefan’s memories-- it implies that he wanted Stefan’s devotion pure and simple, like making him fall into his orbit again to see if it will happen again, but it also implies a selfishness and greed for Stefan’s devotion, because he wants it focused on himself and not at all to share with Rebekah.
I’m sure there was a wild week or two where they all resumed their relationship when Rebekah was reawakened before Klaus discovered Stefan had been lying all summer about Elena.
My last thought on all of this is to do with Klaus and Elena. I’ve pondered and pondered and pondered why Klaus would choose to kill Jenna when Elena had already promised to go along with him willingly, obviously for the sake of her loved ones, and I had to think he was angry with her and taking it out on her that he had to kill her at all-- because there was a part of Klaus that wanted her for himself, and he couldn’t have her because, once again, he’s way too selfish to ever consider doing anything other than securing his own power.
I suppose this takes us up to the present.
I put that line in SWBS but left it intentionally easy to misconstrue-- Klaus says he hasn’t had a woman in years, which makes it clear that there’s been no one he could have gotten pregnant, but there’s been some subtext with Stefan’s responses to Elena sleeping with Klaus that imply that he has that history with Klaus himself-- I think the only fic I have where I wrote it without assuming that Stefan and Klaus were sleeping together that summer was After the Fire, But Before the Flood, but that was only because I wrote most of it before season 3 aired/before that season 3 promo ignited the Klaus x Stefan alarm bells in my brain. So anyway, in SWBS, Klaus and Stefan have that recent sexual history, and Klaus was probably sleeping with Rebekah a bit before Mystic Falls too, but does Klaus even see her as a woman? Doubtful, honestly. There’s something else going on there.
I’m pretty fluid though in terms of what I think Klaus’s recent sexual history is-- sometimes like in Just A Glimpse, he’s been sleeping with Greta, sometimes the affair with Rebekah and Stefan is full steam ahead like in Fairytale Ending, and sometimes it all fizzles on him like in SWBS.
I do still think it’s hilarious and amazing that the only time Klaus canonically sleeps with someone in TVD it’s because Hayley negs him into oblivion with her (entirely fair and accurate) assessment of his artwork.
Speaking of Klaus in SWBS wanting long term with Elena and there being a kid on the way, would they do the marriage thing? Elena has always wanted to grow up and live her life, but obviously Klaus never wants her die, so she would most likely have to end up being a vampire somewhere down the line. I’ve seen you talk about the marriage of convenience fic and it got me wondering how a marriage between the two would be. Would there be a proposal? Rings? A ceremony? I think about the oneshot where Elena has been compelled and they’re doing the domestic thing and I can’t imagine that ever becoming a thing if they are both their actual selves, but Klaus has already said he won’t be scared off by the thoughts of little league games. I guess it’s hard to picture their future in the long run. I know Elena does too, so I’m just curious to see how you believe everything would play out in the end. FE Klaus would certainly be different than SWBS Klaus simply because of the circumstances of their forever. One started out with the child always being in the close future and the other was more of a forced family dynamic that grew to be a real-albeit fucked up- one.
Okay I’ve been thinking about this a good deal since you sent me this. I think the general answer to your question-- would Klaus and Elena ever get married?-- is totally situational. I have different versions of the answer to that question for different fics-- like you said, the circumstances matter a lot.
The end-game scenario for FE is going to be very different than what I give you all in SWBS-- in SWBS, I think Klaus is willing to do whatever Elena wants. Does she want to get married and have a traditional wedding? Does she want to raise her kid in her family house? Sure, why not. It’s practically a lark for him anyway, either way-- you’re right that he would probably have the same long term reasoning in SWBS as he expressed in the FE 43 flashback-- he would view Elena becoming a vampire as an inevitability if she really meant it about wanting to be with him. But he would be willing to go along with whatever conventions she favored I think, because honestly, what is it to him, so long as it makes her happy and he gets to have her? One thing I do wonder about is whether Klaus is old-fashioned enough in mindset to desire to marry to legitimize the child in SWBS-- which I think is something he would only care to do if (lol, when) he finds out he’s the actual father. Obviously that never came up in the Originals, but I often think Klaus’s mindset must be much more medieval than the show really ever explored, and things like heirs and “legitimacy” would be hot button topics for him-- after all, isn’t his tragedy, simply put, just that he’s not a legitimate son? I feel like he probably has hang ups about this that are kind of hard for us to conceptualize since it honestly doesn’t matter in the 21st century but that might matter to Klaus.
Then there are other scenarios where marriage would be out of the question, like ATFBBTF-- I think Elena is so far past thinking of a normal life in that fic, and of course, she’s a vampire, that marriage/wedding/etc just isn’t going to be a thing. Why would it ever occur to either of them?
So, maybe in summary, I can only think of 2 reasons why they might generally get married-- 1) Elena as a human desires the convention 2) if they’re going to have a baby, Klaus might decide he wants to marry Elena to legitimize the child in his funky medieval brain/be unable to resist the urge to hack at his own trauma as a bastard (might being the operative word-- he might very well decide that Elena is simply his consort and the child has status simply by being his, the end)
As for the marriage of convenience fic/arranged marriage fic... I call it that, but they don’t get married in a regular ceremony in that fic-- it’s more like they undergo a supernatural ritual that essentially marries them, and is going to end up generating a lot of the situations and angst which are so delicious in arranged marriage fics... so, again, another entirely situational “they get married.”
That analysis on the marriage things is 💯. Honestly, the circumstance is just so important with this ship. There are a million different stories to tell with these two getting together, and they will all yield wildly different results. Their characters are just so complex and complicated, and it definitely messes with how they would be around each other because of the level of guard either one is putting up at each moment. I love how in every fic, the label thing is different.
In Love Bites, Klaus thinks, “The question brings up another line of speculation—of what Elena will do with herself once he restores her mortality to her. He cannot imagine himself her lover last fall, before she turned. Too much of what they are has been a primal response to each other’s essential vampiric natures. A human girl would want something mundane—a boyfriend, which he could never be. And yet, he does not want to give her up once he cures her.”
And in SWBS, this is reflected when Elena thinks, “She's not ready to explain the whole Klaus may sort of maybe be my boyfriend now—ta da! situation to her friends—least of all Bonnie, who had never approved of any of her vampiric boyfriends.”
In FE, Elena is sort of just “part of the family.” I think Klaus in this universe thinks of her more as his “queen.” That family very much likes to think of themselves as royalty and it has been eluded to before. “Klaus is the king, Rebekah is a princess, and Stefan is their courtier. She wonders what role it is Klaus imagines for her.”
And in ATFFBTF, there is no reason to say anything. The world is scattered and separated and survival is key. They are together and that’s that. “Elena, my girl—are you my girl?”
Just...these two! Everything is always consistent, it really just depends what is going on, and I love that. Thank you for putting so much time into making these beautiful stories! I honestly joined this ship because of you and now I can’t look away. I would read a thousand stories of all the different ways these two will realize their destinies and places with each other! ❤️
oh my God oh my God oh my God you’re quoting my fics I am kajfkdajfdklaj
The thing I most enjoy about writing this ship is figuring out all of these different permutations for how on earth they might end up together, and really attacking it from a different angle every time (well, as best as I can anyway). You make such a great point that one of the things that is hard (and so much fun) about writing the two of them is that they both have their guards up so much. I often find myself thinking, how would one of them slip past the other’s armor? Because that’s exactly what it boils down to.
That marriage analysis was such a tricky ask because pretty much everything with them is so situational-- partially because it would take just the right series of events for them to end up falling together, I think-- I do get a laugh though out of that line from Klaus in Love Bites imagining that they would never have gotten together while she was human... honestly I always cackle to myself “you want to bet?!?!”
That line you picked out from FE is probably the most indicative in the whole fic of what exactly Klaus had in mind before daggergate. He very much so sees himself as king, so yes, naturally, Rebekah is a princess. Stefan is close to the family, but he can never really be more than a courtier, because his place is always faintly imperiled/he has to stay on their good side, so he has to be really politically and emotionally deft to keep himself in favor and avoid getting the axe. But Elena... Klaus wanted to pull her in even closer. She hit the nail on the head in that flashback when she pointed out that he was lonely because Rebekah and Stefan have each other, but he’s not quite a part of that (which of course gave him the idea to seduce Elena originally). But having fallen for Elena, having come to think of her as his own, he wanted to set her beside himself as his queen consort. This strikes me as a very vampiric way of thinking, and one that especially an old and powerful vampire like Klaus would espouse. The issue of course ends up being that Elena isn’t really queen consort material. She’s a queen regnant in her own right down to her bones, which is part of why they just didn’t work out three years ago. The question is really not so much then whether Klaus wants to set Elena beside him, but whether he can stand to share his throne.
I’m flattered beyond words that my work persuaded you to this ship!! It’s such a hellship but it’s also the best hellship. ❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️
7. What story/headcanons do you feel the proudest of?
Defining Elena’s doppelganger magic-- particularly the idea that Elena’s blood actually turns the laws of Nature on their ear, which is why it’s so valuable. I feel like the show suggests that when her blood is used to break Klaus’s curse/create the hybrids (breaking the basic law that no creature can be two magical beings at once), but never ever comes near stating that, so playing with that idea and expounding on it for my world-building in pretty much all of my fics is definitely the thing I’m proudest of. I feel like I’ve created a robust theory, made it useful, and used that to flesh out all sorts of magics within my fics.
9. If you had to assign a theme song to [Fanfic Name], which would you assign?
Hmm for Fairytale Ending I would assign either Never Met a Girl Like You Before by The Insects or Every You, Every Me by Placebo
After the Fire, But Before the Flood’s theme song was definitely Future Starts Slow by The Kills
...honestly nothing comes to mind specifically for (The Stars Were Brightly Shining) except for where I ripped the title, which was O, Holy Night, which.... yeah maybe it fits
ok i am LOVING your take on season 4 and i'm so excited to see where this goes cuz honestly season 4 was like... a bit of a trainwreck?? the beginning of the end really? but it definitely had potential so now i'm really looking forward to seeing you make s4 just like narratively more coherent and everything. but also uh... didn't u say SWBS was only gonna be like 30 chapters? i'm guessing not anymore 😂 anyway i just wanted to say this fic is turning out to be way more exciting and action-y than i anticipated from your original description of it as a christmas/baby fic but i am HERE FOR IT 💜
bahahaha did I say 30 chapters? Sounds like me. I still laugh at myself for thinking that FE would run about 20,000 words. A lot of that misestimation comes from my early struggles as a writer-- I used to have tremendous difficulty writing many words-- maybe there was a strength to the economy I used to have, but it often felt like a struggle to convey what I wanted to say as deeply as I wanted to say it back when I was a less experienced writer. Like, SWBS is now the length of ATFBBTF, which is wild, because SWBS still feels like a lark to me, a random side project that I’m working on as a bit of wish fulfillment, and ATFBBTF was a major project that took me 4 years to complete. Just. WHAT.
I’m really pleased that you’re so enjoying the way I’m twisting the plot in SWBS. I agree that season 4, while it was the last season I think was good, the train was sort of already on fire and hurtling down the tracks, so to speak. I’m not planning to get through the entirety of season 4 or anything-- just touch on the parts that can build up the emotional arcs I’m building in SWBS. We’re definitely near the end of the fic-- I would estimate 10 or so more chapters? It’s a little hard for me to estimate because, in an effort to make this fic a pretty much stress-free writing experience (gentle writing, like that post I reblogged last week), I just sort of write until I hit a stopping point somewhere between 1500 and 2500 words and then I post; I know what I want to happen in this fic, but the actual chapter breaks aren’t all that planned. I just sort of go, yep! seems like a good place to stop for today!
and ajdaflkdjakljfalk honestly I love action and plot and the opportunity to make characters do things and obviously I just couldn’t resist? yet again?
“In the burgeoning morning light, as the sun gilt her hair like honey and the blood trickled down her face, she could almost be…”
This is THE defining line for me of After The Fire, But Before The Flood - both the original line in Chapter 2 and the call back to it in the final chapter (which urgh, be still my beating heart, that ending still destroys me) - and I think it just really captures the haunting beauty of your writing style, and how utterly compelling your stories are to read.
This line pops up in my head so often when I think of Elena and the doppelgängers (and Klaulena by that virtue). It is just *chef’s kiss*
Anyway, I love you and your writing - and am merrily rereading The Stars Were Shining Brightly between FE updates. Have a lovely day! xxx
^my heart exploding as I read this message
seriously you have no idea how much it makes me grin like a complete fool when I read that ATFBBTF quote-- that fic is like my eldest child and it always makes me so happy when it’s mentioned. And that’s one of the lines I’ve always been most proud of.
Also also also I’m feeling mad joy that the circularity of the ending stands out to you because I’ve always wondered if I lost my mind drawing that circle, but maybe not???
And funny you should mention SWBS! That fic is on my mind A LOT lately as we head into fall-- I’m going to dust it off and finish it once the holidays get a bit closer! (I’m thinking Novemberish or possibly December for the updates to start coming out again)
