icarusofathousanddays

[icarusofathousanddays]

What is your opinion on love triangles in TVD?

personally while watching tvd and then to I was quite shocked by thenconstant thread of everyone swapping sexual/romantic partners–

don't get me wrong, I love poly fics, about Mikaelsons or Salvatores and would love to read some elena/fem oc/salvatores fic but like outside of fanfics and soulmates, poliamory and all– isn't it weird that both Stefan and Damon were both with Katherine, Elena, Caroline and Rebekah? or that elijah saw this girl, found out she was pregnant with his brother's baby, and was like, "Yeah, so hot and interesting" (Before that, there was also Katherine, who, even though she wasn't with Klaus, was courted by him, <if only for appearances>, if I remember correctly. Why would he even...?)

then we have matt and ty with caroline

or elena and caro just swapping boyfriends like wtf

I would be so mad if my friends/siblings slept or dated my exes and I would be simply weirded out if they went after people I fucked and slept with them too

(sorry for venting to you, but I read your fics, read some comments and posts and really want to hear abt your perspective on this)

“sorry for venting to you, but I read your fics, read some comments and posts and really want to hear abt your perspective on this” omg please don’t apologize! This is going to make me sound a little psycho, but I recognize your icon and I actively look forward to your comments whenever I post. 😭 Lowkey feel like I’ve developed a parasocial friendship at this point LOL. I feel like we’re already buddies

(Side note, but… I would literally die to have a FL thrown into the main love triangle—not just as the default caretaker for whichever Salvatore the author thinks Elena was mean to, but actually in it. Elena deserves a girlfriend too.)

I have such a love/hate relationship with love triangles in TVD. On one hand, I think they can be fun shorthand for building character tension, and I fully expect them in this genre. On the other, I often end up hating them.

Part of it is that most of the ‘triangles’ in TVD are really just love corners. To me, for it to be a real love triangle, all three characters have to have some kind of relationship with one another—it doesn’t need to be romantic, but there has to be significant. That’s why the main love triangle works: Damon and Stefan are siblings, so there’s an inherent dynamic there and they have history. Another good example is Klaus/Caroline/Tyler—because honestly, Klaus and Tyler have the more compelling relationship there.

The biggest weakness of the TVD love triangle for me is that one character almost always gets ruined or shafted once the writers pick their endgame. We see this all over YA really. There’s usually a love interest who is the “better partner” on paper and a “more interesting dynamic partner” in practice, and once the triangle resolves half the audience is left unhappy. And even the ones who are happy still have to deal with the baggage of whatever happened with the other LI. And inevitably, the FL ends up hated by the fandom—because the triangle positions her as the person “choosing wrong.” And when it’s a ML who is in the middle of the triangle, often the resolution will be him doing something terrible and one of the LIs giving up on the relationship.

And yet… some of the triangles in TVD had interesting potential! The main triangle was compelling at times, but I never liked Delena (though I get the appeal). My issue was always that once the triangle resolved, the show had to scramble to recreate that same tension, and instead of building compelling relationships outside of that kind of a-triangle-is-required-dynamic, they just threw characters at each other.

Everyone dated everyone, everyone hurt everyone, but for some reason… none of them were willing to disengage? Move away? (If I was any of these characters, except maybe Elena, I’d be booking it LOL) Instead, when those issues became too big to actually deal with, the writers killed off characters or bizarrely pretended certain relationships never mattered/existed.

That’s why you end up with messy questions the show never touches. Why is Caroline—who canonically struggles with feeling less desirable than Elena—dating Matt and Stefan, both of Elena’s exes? Why is Stefan her endgame? And if that’s the case, why isn’t he unpacking how she’d also been with Damon (and not willingly at that)? Why doesn’t Bonnie ever confront Elena for dating Damon—the same man who contributed to her grandmother dying—and why the hell doesn’t Caroline have something say about it? Why doesn’t Elena lose it at Bonnie for dating her fifteen-year-old, drug-abusing little brother? Why doesn’t she lose it on Caroline for dating Matt? (She’s a better person than me. I would have immediately accused Care shopping around my sloppy seconds.) The show constantly sidestepped any real fallout—even in those smaller teenage-level relationships.

And I really don’t mind a FL who dates around or has a history of relationships—that’s normal. But it has to be weird to marry someone whose “epic love” was the girl you are the most jealous of—and in many ways, he still prioritizes everyone over you. Or, in the case of Forwood, to know that your first real long-term relationship slept with the man who murdered you and your mother. Like… how do you even begin to unpack that?

And then you get the “triangles” that weren’t really triangles at all imo: Jeremy/Vicki/Tyler, Anna/Jeremy/Bonnie (I have Opinions™ about that one). Some were just terrible: Stefan/Caroline/Alaric, Enzo/Lily/Julian. Some I wish were fleshed out more: Ansel/Esther/Mikael, Amara/Silas/Qetsiyah. And there are some love triangles I am surprised we never explicitly got: Klaus/Stefan/Rebekah and Damon/Bonnie/Enzo. (The writers were cowards LOL)

One thing I actually like, though, is the way the Petrova doppelgänger triangles mirror across history. Katherine is the thread that ties them together: Klaus/Elijah have Tatia and Katherine, Damon/Stefan have Katherine and Elena. Even if I don’t personally read Tatia/Klaus or Katherine/Klaus as romantic—I still think that’s a fun little detail.

LOL this was super long, but it basically boils down to: I expect love triangles, and I try my best not to hate something that is just meant to come with the territory of the genre you’re consuming… but it’s so hard to not be a hater tbh. (It’s my default setting.) I think they can be fun, but TVD often fumbled them or just refused to give me the ones I actually wanted.

[icarusofathousanddays]

are u ever writing a scene and you're screaming at your characters "PLEASE JUST GO TO THE NEXT PLACE I AM BEGGING YOU" but there's nothing u can do about it. they are in there now.

[icarusofathousanddays]

What's your ranking of the Mikaelsons? (original siblings only)

Oh! This is a fun question—I suppose it depends on whether you mean my favorite character in general, or my favorite to write.

My general rankings tend to shift around depending on my mood, but right now it’s: Kol → Finn → Elijah → Klaus → Rebekah (it's been strange tbh, usually Rebekah is never this low for me... but I've just been vibing with the rest more recently)

Kol has consistently been my favorite ever since my second watch-through. I didn’t care for season four when I originally watched it, and because of that he suffered from my initial dislike of the cure storyline (I’ve warmed up to it since then)—plus the fact that they killed off my favorite (Finn) from my first watch. Once I revisited the show, Kol immediately shot up in my estimation and he’s stayed there ever since. (I just think he’s a riot LOL. And I’m sorry, I know we’re suppose to hate the actor, but he’s very dreamy…)

Finn has sat comfortably at number two for the past few years. I think the biggest mark against him is that there’s a lack of fanworks that treat him with the same depth I imagine he has. My version of Finn is different from most interpretations I see—I don’t buy him as just a sad boy. He’s absolutely haunted, yes, but he also has a core of rage that I think is often overlooked. (And honestly, the baby-killing plot never bothered me. I know that probably sounds unhinged, but this is TVD and he’s a Mikaelson? It comes with the territory. I think the only Original who probably hasn’t attempted (or succeeded) in killing toddlers is Rebekah. I actually like the clear line it draws between the Originals and Marcel, who is unwilling to kill children.)

After that it gets messier. Usually Rebekah takes third place—I loved her on screen. Her bratty interactions with Caroline? Every scene she had with Kol? The way I absolutely lost it when she destroyed those blood bags in front of Klaus? How often (and how horribly) she ruins her own life REPEATEDLY? All her scenes with no-humanity Elena? Perfect. No notes. (Actually, I have one note: please leave Marcel alone. 😔)

Klaus and Elijah are constantly tussling for last place. They’re still high up on my overall TVD/TO character list, but not as much as their siblings.

Elijah usually edges into fourth because I think he’s funny. Klaus is supposed to be funnier with his one-liners (and he is!), but Elijah makes me laugh harder. Not because of his wit, but because every time he says “you have my word” and immediately goes back on it, I lose it. When he says “you can’t beat me” in his introduction only to get absolutely wrecked is hilarious to me. He’s the biggest conman in TVD history. How has he coasted through centuries with such a stellar reputation? Probably because he actually successfully follows through with all his murder plans. He is so eldest daughter coded fr

I love Klaus, but I really liked Carol 😭 so he permanently lost points when he killed her. I’ve always been a Lockwood girlie

As for my favorite POVs to write, my ranking is: Elijah → Klaus → Kol → Finn → Rebekah

I really like how analytical Elijah’s POV is—he notices everything, but what he chooses to notice (and what he chooses to ignore) allows me to give commentary on him as much as the events themselves. It makes for a wonderful writing experience.

Klaus obviously is delightful to write for. He’s so paranoid that you can spin his inner monologue in almost any direction—grandiose, obsessive, feverish, petty—and it still feels like him.

I always have a great time writing in Kol’s POV. He’s snide, dramatic, self-indulgent, and yet deeply emotional underneath it all. Whenever I want to practice writing humor, I pick up his POV.

Finn’s POV is soothing to write. He’s also the one most willing to sit in silence, which gives his narration space for the silly flourishes I love getting lost in.

I admittedly shaft Rebekah a lot. I love her sm! But I feel like I struggle with writing her POV and making it distinct from the other characters. I try to aim for something sharp but confessional—she ricochets between biting observations, self-conscious vulnerability, and fierce loyalty. She’s thoughtful but insecure, not as vicious as Klaus but not as controlled as Elijah, and I try to capture how she is trapped between feeling unlovable and clinging tightly to her family.

[icarusofathousanddays]

The Vampire Diaries 🩸 S1E02 "The Night of the Comet"

[icarusofathousanddays]

A few random things for the Eleanor AU:

The mark doesn’t just grow with every vampire killed—the hunter’s power does too. (After all, what’s the point of supernatural vampire hunters if even the strongest of them were still weaker than the weakest vampire?)

The more vampires slain—especially the older and more powerful ones—the more the hunter begins to take on an almost vampiric edge themselves. When El killed Mikael, she accomplished what no other Hunter ever had: she killed an Original. Because he had no sireline, her tattoo didn’t grow much, but the act made her powerful enough to turn into a true scourge of the supernatural world—a living boogeyman. (Does that mean El makes it a sport to hunt down the oldest vampires in existence? Yes. The Trinity live in fear of her. She's already killed 10 of the vampires claiming to be the first in Kol's sireline—it's a whole thing. Kol didn't really care about it and just started turning people, but not keeping track so there's like 30 people turned between 1002-1005 who all think they were his first. Sage met her once and smartly booked it after making a funny little quip, they haven't met since.)

Before Silas’s death, turning a hunter would simply create a normal vampire, since the supernatural balance required Five Hunters in existence (either living or haunting their killers) at all times—the mark would pass on upon death, and there could only ever be five. After Silas is gone, however, that need ends, meaning existing Hunters retain their powers permanently, even in death, rather than passing them on. This explains why Jeremy could be resurrected with his abilities intact, and suggests that Eleanor, if turned, could keep her hunter traits—essentially becoming a proto-Augustine vampire. Still driven to hunt but able to control it once her tattoo was complete, with her instincts possibly tied more closely to her bloodlust.

But that raises a question: if someone turned her, would they be inflicted with the curse? If she chose to end her own life with vampire blood, would the curse latch on to her? And could it even be cured, now that no future hunters are being selected?

I also think this world’s version of Hope would be fascinating as a carrier of the Hunter gene. If she could ever access its benefits, it might mean the Hollow couldn’t possess her. (Also, canonically Hope got all three sides from Klaus, with Hayley just providing her with the Labonair specific bloodline, so girlie would still be a tribid. But maybe she also has a little hunter in her. Who knows!)

Hope is definitely getting a new name in this story. Eleanor is way too crazy to be down with naming her kid "Hope." (Also we're firmly getting an actually dangerous Hope in this one. If Fronia's version bites and Hilda's is probably a perfectly little angel, then El's is actually the devil. She was born with a knife in hand and enough killer instincts to know how to use it.)

El is extra OP because she has the Gilbert Compass (which completely derails that entire surprisingly minor canon plotline) and likely one of the Gilbert rings—she wouldn’t realize that it wouldn’t work on her. Or maybe she deliberately left it for Grayson, not wanting Elena and Jeremy to lose their father if danger ever came to town. If I want to get spicy, that means John either didn’t have his ring and actually died when Damon threw him off the roof, or he never gave it up willingly (knowing it couldn’t be replaced), or he reclaimed it once he got serious about hunting—leaving Alaric to actually die when Damon staked him.

And then there’s El’s little psychopathic hobby: collecting daylight rings from her kills. Klaus goes absolutely feral when she casually drags Mikael’s out of a shoebox stuffed with over four hundred rings (our girl is a serial killer, real Dexter shit), digging through them like jewelry clutter until she recognizes it by its distinctive design.

This timeline also turns out to be the best one for Zach Salvatore. At that infamous party, El nearly killed Damon when she caught his scent (and then probably Stefan too, she’s an equal opportunity vamp killer), and it was only her inexperience that saved him. Damon bolted, shaken, and by the time El left town he had bigger problems than tormenting Gail. That meant Zach actually got to marry, raise his daughter, and build a family. When Damon finally returned to Mystic Falls, Zach and Gail decided it was time to conveniently take a very long vacation to visit their daughter in North Carolina—by the time they came back, Damon had moved on from his villain era, leaving them safely out of harm’s way.

[icarusofathousanddays]

do u perhaps… have a lil snack (aka snippet) of the next chapter 👁️👁️

I'm not sure which story you want a sneak peak for, but here's a little snippet from the next chapter of WRTG.

Please keep in mind that there's no guarantee that this is how it's going to look once it's done. I'm still making edits/changes to it.

...

The next baby is Niklaus, who cries and cries and cries. His small voice cuts through the walls like something wounded, high and endless, until it seeps into Finn’s dreams. Esther holds him compulsively, as though the crying might stop if she keeps him close enough. She sways with him in her arms, murmuring words too low for Finn to catch.

It is not the way she held Elijah.

In truth, Finn cannot remember her holding Elijah like that at all. Not with that kind of urgency. Not with that all-consuming focus that makes the rest of them fade into background noise. Elijah had been passed between hands—Esther’s, Finn’s, sometimes Mikael’s when it suited him to pretend at fatherhood. Niklaus is different. Niklaus is hers.

Mikael stalks the halls in those days. He has not raised a hand in anger, but time has worn him thin. His eyes follow the baby sometimes, sharp and calculating, as though already weighing the child against some unseen measure. He becomes more erratic with each passing month—more suspicious, more restless. His temper shifts without warning.

And Elijah—

Elijah follows Finn everywhere, a shadow in smaller shoes. Always chasing, always asking, always demanding some piece of attention that Finn cannot seem to give. He clings to Finn’s sleeve, to his words, to his presence as if it might keep him safe from something. Finn knows he should be gentler. Knows he should answer when Elijah calls. But he is so tired.

The tiredness isn’t just in his limbs. It sits deep, behind his ribs, in a place sleep cannot reach. Some mornings, it feels as if the air is heavier than it was the night before, pressing down until his chest aches from the effort of drawing breath. Food tastes like nothing. The days blur together. The joy he once found in the forest, in Freya’s laughter, in the sound of the river—those things are distant now, unreachable.

He doesn’t have a name for it. He only knows that even when the house is warm and the fire is lit, there is a coldness inside him that will not leave.

And he is certain—though he does not know how—that he will die young. Sometimes he dreams of it. Sometimes it is all he can dream of. The shapes change—fever, drowning, the press of earth overhead—but the ending is always the same. He wakes with the taste of it in his mouth, metallic and final, and carries it with him through the day like a shadow no one else can see.

So when Elijah calls his name again, tugging at his sleeve, Finn turns away. Not because he doesn’t care—though he knows it must look that way—but because he fears what will happen if he lets the boy see the hollowness staring back.

…

Once, Finn comes inside at his mother’s request and finds Mikael standing before the hearth, the fire snapping and spitting, heat curling into the room like a living thing.

Mikael is holding little Niklaus. His eyes are riveted on the baby’s face, unblinking, studying him as though he is some strange creature washed ashore. His hands—so large, so capable of breaking—grip the small body too tightly. And he’s holding him close. Too close. So close that the firelight stains the infant’s skin and Finn’s heart lurches with sudden panic, the kind that doesn’t think, only knows: he’s going to throw him in.

Finn crosses the room before he’s even aware of moving, the words already out of his mouth. “Mother wants the baby.” His voice is steady—he makes it steady—though his hands have gone cold.

Mikael turns his head. Slowly. His eyes catch Finn’s in the flicker of the flames, and then—suddenly, sharply—he laughs. It is not a sound that belongs in a warm house.

He shoves Niklaus into Finn’s arms. Not roughly, but not gently either. Just enough to make Finn stumble back a step, adjusting his hold so the baby’s head doesn’t loll too far. Niklaus makes a small, restless sound, mouth opening in protest before settling against Finn’s chest.

Finn’s hands are shaking. He can’t seem to stop them. He draws the baby in closer, angling his body away from the hearth as if to shield him from the heat.

Mikael is already turning back toward the fire, as though nothing had happened.

[icarusofathousanddays]

My ideal date? You release me into the wild to hunt me for sport on your remote island BUT I’m not very good at hiding so you find me within 20 minutes. You hold the gun to my face but there is something so earnest in my eyes and hands that you cannot carry through. You pick me up and carry me back to your mansion. I am so polite and charming that you nurse me back to health. You grow to love and trust me despite the fact you’re holding me hostage after I fell of a charter vessel bound for Brazil. You buy me new clothes and have them shipped to the island. I kiss you good morning every day. You propose marriage. I accept. We skype in a priest and get married with the butler as our witness. That night I kill you and the butler. I redistribute your wealth. I live in the mansion on the abandoned island for the rest of my days. I study snail ecology. I never remarry. You were the love of my life but you were too dangerous and evil to live. I am buried next to you. The tides eventually wash our bodies away. Into the depths of the ocean, together.

[icarusofathousanddays]

Mädchen Amick as Laurie Harris in Baywatch: Panic at Malibu Pier (1989)

[icarusofathousanddays]

Two things.

First—I decided her FC will be Mädchen Amick. (And I added her to my OC page.)

She fits the vibe perfectly. She has her brothers' eye color, John's light brown hair, and even shares some of Jeremy’s stronger features. (I still need to sit down and do the math on how old she’d be at canon to determine what era of Madchen's filmography to pull her appearance from, but I think she definitely fits the bill for “insanely attractive FL in a TVD story” LOL) Bonus points: she shares enough features with Danielle that I wouldn’t have to recast Hope for once.

Second—I’m toying with the idea of setting part of the story in the 90s, during Elijah’s revenge era (love that for him). Fronia’s story is focusing on Finn/Klaus heavily rn and Hilda’s is dealing with Freya/Daggered!Trio… so why not treat the Elijah girlies (and myself ❤️) by giving him a scheming partner (who is actively fighting the urge to attempt murder against him 24/7) for a couple of years? He’d thrive with that dynamic. It would also explain why Eleanor isn’t in Mystic Falls during seasons 1–2, because let’s be honest: if she caught wind of Damon or Stefan anywhere near her niece, they’d both be DEAD-dead.

Anyway—here’s a very quick possible opening draft for her story. No clue if this is the exact direction I’ll take, but I had a vivid image of Eleanor being ridiculously proud of her baby niece for doing totally age-appropriate things (like grabbing hair and giggling) and the idea of how she might have triggered her mark.

It’s an early/messy draft, so please don’t notice the typos 😭

...

It is a beautiful day for a funeral.

Eleanor Gilbert stands near the front, hands buried in the pockets of her wool coat.

She has never liked funerals—has a long, proud history of avoiding them, in fact. If she could have sent her condolences in the form of a well-worded note and a casserole, she would have.

But this one isn’t optional.

Not when it’s her father in the casket. Not when the man they are lowering into the ground is the same one who taught her how to ride a bike, how to balance a checkbook, how to swing a bat without breaking a window. (That last lesson, she’d had to relearn multiple times—she was, as her mother liked to say, always certain she could improve on the last swing, even when she couldn’t.)

Her shoes—her only non-heeled shoes that she thought would be “formal enough” this morning—are doing nothing against the frozen ground. The walk up to the cemetery has left her legs aching. Her cheeks burn red from the wind, and her nose has been raw since the first hymn. She tells herself it’s just the cold.

A week ago, she came home to find a stranger in the kitchen, his mouth clamped on her father’s neck.

It wasn’t the existence of vampires that had shocked her—she’d known they were real since she was a little girl, back when her father first started reading the Gilbert journals to her like bedtime stories. Robert Gilbert’s shelves were stacked with sharpened stakes and town council minutes, his “enthusiast” hobby lad out in neat rows.

What she couldn’t wrap her head around was how one had ended up in her house. Her father had never actually seen a vampire before, but he sure as hell wasn’t in the habit of inviting strangers inside.

The next few moments were a blur—moving without thinking, driving wood through a heart mid-drink.

John had found her nearly twenty minutes later, coming by to drop off his laundry for their mother to deal with when she got back home in a few hours. He’d walked into the kitchen and stopped cold—two bodies on the floor, Eleanor still gripping the stake like she might use it again. She’d been prepared to, because there was always the chance one of them might get back up and start explaining themselves.

John called Grayson, and twenty minutes later he arrived with a baby in his arms. Miranda was out of town, so he’d brought Elena along—John’s daughter, but Grayson’s to raise, complete with Eleanor’s old nickname.

She’d been Grayson’s first Elena, back when their mother decided Eleanor was too stuffy and old-fashioned for a child. Eleanor had disagreed—so had their father, who thought names were names and nicknames were for people not content with their lot in life—but her opinion hadn’t counted.

For years, she tolerated “Elena” in that put-up-with-it-because-you-have-to way that siblings know too well. Then she dropped it the second she could, figuring she’d earned the right to go by the name on her birth certificate.

She wasn’t mad about the baby’s name. Not really. She just found it… funny. In the petty, pointed way that only Grayson could manage. Like his own quiet brotherly jab: Oh, you didn’t appreciate the nickname? Fine. I’ll give it to someone who will.

He’d shoved the baby into her arms without so much as a warning, and the kid—barely three months old—had immediately started giggling before latching onto Eleanor’s hair with both fists. For someone so small, she had surprising tactile strength—probably advanced for her age, Eleanor thought with the blind certainty of an aunt convinced her niece was a genius.

And unlike Eleanor, who had always been afraid to use more than five percent of her own strength, Elena had no such reservations.

She endured it—giggles, hair-pulling, all of it—for about twelve minutes, standing there while Grayson tried to resurrect their already-dead father with CPR, ribs giving a sick crack under the force. Each snap made her flinch, not just from grief but also from the unpleasant knowledge that she’d never be able to make an omelet again without thinking of it.

Her brothers had pelted her with questions before she finally broke down and left the room with her niece to call Sheriff Matthew Fell and Deputy Sherman Forbes—both council members, both in the know—to start weaving the cover story.

The cover story they built was neat, tragic, and boring. A sudden heart attack. Nothing supernatural here, folks. Move along.

But since that afternoon, Eleanor has been walking around with a permanent pinprick of black ink on the back of her hand. No matter how much she scrubs, it won’t fade. No one else can see it, but her skin crawls every time her eyes catch on it—itching like she should be somewhere else entirely,, tracking something through the woods with the express intent of turning it into a rug.

The minister’s voice rises over the the wind.

Eleanor keeps her eyes on the coffin. She tries not to think about the last conversation she had with her father, or the fight they never resolved.

It’s easier to focus on the small details—the way the snow clings to the black fabric draped over the casket. The wreath of white lilies her mother ordered from the florist on Main Street. The glint of brass from the handles.

[icarusofathousanddays]

Alaric Saltzman, whose resume currently consists of killing Logan Fell and a couple of tomb vamps: You know, I’m something of a vampire hunter myself.

Eleanor Gilbert, whose kill count is in the triple digits and has both a “flee on sight” order from the Strix and “call Marcel Gerard immediately if seen” wanted posters hanging in all supernatural-friendly businesses in NOLA:

[icarusofathousanddays]

watching a new oc be born thru ur tags is like watching the mona lisa be painted

[icarusofathousanddays]

Eleanor Gilbert 🤝 Elijah Mikaelson

refusing to use nicknames

[icarusofathousanddays]

ELENA BEING NAMED AFTER ELEANOR WAIT

EXACTLY!!

[icarusofathousanddays]

I desperately want to read (or I guess write) one of those "Elena’s aunt is the shared soulmate of the Mikaelson siblings" stories, but instead of her being Miranda's sister, she's Grayson's. And she should be a member of the Five while we’re at it. We need more true enemies-to-lovers stories in this space.

[icarusofathousanddays]

Jenny Slate, Little Weirds

[icarusofathousanddays]

Louise Glück, from "Blue Rotunda" in Averno: Poems

[icarusofathousanddays]

Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals