#zem diary | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

letterboxd · 3 years

Photo

After Agnès: Ten French Filmmakers to Watch in 2021.

It’s not every day that a grass-roots fandom inspires a Letterboxd Easter egg, but the love for Portrait of a Lady on Fire was so strong that those flames are here to stay. With a new Céline Sciamma fairytale on the horizon, we invited Sarah Williams—one of the #PortraitNation instigators—to highlight ten femmes de cinéma with new works due out this year, and suggest films from their back catalogs to watch now.

Among many dramatic moments in cinema in 2020, there was the resignation of the entire César Academy board, following protests about the nomination of filmmaker and child rapist Roman Polanski (dubbed ‘Violanski’ by French feminists). Then there were the walkouts at the 45th César Awards ceremony itself, led by actress Adèle Haenel, after Polanski won there. Firm calls for change followed from Le Collectif 50/50, a movement that has urged parity on festival selection committees, after seeing how few female filmmakers were allowed into competition categories. (They have had some success, particularly with Cannes, where selection committees have moved towards more transparency and a better gender balance.)

Actress Adèle Haenel has a message for the 2020 César Awards, shortly before walking out of the ceremony.

This year’s Césars were tame, by comparison: actress Corinne Masiero stripped on stage, using her brief spotlight to focus on the pandemic and the crisis of shuttered cinemas across France. May they open as soon as it’s safe, because many of the filmmakers prominent in these social movements have new movies on the horizon. As the older generation retires, this newer group of progressive filmmakers is making waves on the festival scene, working from perspectives often denied or overlooked in mainstream cinema. French cinema is at a sort of crossroads, and the next Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Divines or BPM could be just around the bend.

Letterboxd members are well schooled in the power of Agnès, and Céline Sciamma has entered the worldwide critical sphere—and Letterboxd’s highest ranks—thanks to the success of Portrait of a Lady on Fire (🖼️🔥 forever), but there are many more French storytellers worthy of your watchlists. Alongside Sciamma, here are nine more for your consideration.

Céline Sciamma’s ‘Petite maman’.

Céline Sciamma

Coming soon: Petite maman Watch now: Water Lilies, Tomboy and Girlhood

Before her worldwide hit Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Céline Sciamma helmed a trilogy of acclaimed coming-of-age stories, Water Lilies, Tomboy and Girlhood. Her fifth feature, Petite maman, both lives in the world of this trilogy, and radically differs from the trio.

Petite maman premiered at the 2021 Berlinale, where the North-American rights were snapped up by NEON, Sciamma’s partner on Portrait’s release. In the film, Nelly (Joséphine Sanz) is eight years old when her grandmother dies, and she goes with her parents to help empty the house. One morning, her mother, Marion (Nina Meurisse) disappears, and she finds a young girl also named Marion (Gabrielle Sanz) building a fort in the same place her mother had as a child. A non-traditional view of motherhood, Petite maman’s supposed twist is never meant to be a twist at all, as this Miyazaki-like fairytale never tries to hide where Nelly’s mother really is.

Unlike other time-travel films, Petite maman is not concerned with physics. It’s a gentle act of love that blurs generational lines, answering the question of what it would be like to see life through your parents’ eyes at your age.

What Sciamma does here is radical even for her, creating an entire film that lies in a safer place of childhood. Where in Water Lilies, Girlhood and, especially relevant, Tomboy, shot in the same forests of Cergy, she depicts the full violence that comes with adolescence, the two young girls here console each other, and don’t have a camera on them for the rougher events of their childhoods.

Sciamma’s earlier films about youth feel like personal catharsis, but also unflinchingly show coercion, a child being outed, and teenage gang violence. With Petite maman, the two young girls are allowed to live in the more innocent parts of their childhoods, and though they deal with grief, worries of abandonment, and one nervously awaits a major surgery, Sciamma now tells a weighty story without needing to show pain on screen.

The end result is a warm, nostalgic film that isn’t bound by time period or the specifics of setting. It’s a live-action Ghibli fairytale that, despite having Sciamma’s youngest leads, has matured from her earlier work. The plays acted out by the children sometimes parallel their own stories, and once, in a scene of a countess and maid, almost seem to be calling back to past films, in this case Portrait of a Lady on Fire. Many times, including at the film’s Berlinale Q&A, Sciamma has said she does not write characters, but stories and situations to enter. This feels more than true with this latest effort, a steady hand extended to an audience, promising us that it will be okay, some day.

Alice Diop’s ‘We’.

Alice Diop

Coming soon: We (‘Nous’) Watch now: Towards Tenderness (‘Vers la Tendresse’)

Through the many shortcomings and scandals of France’s César Awards, a memorable win of recent years was Alice Diop’s 2017 award for best short film for Vers la Tendresse (Towards Tenderness), a prize she dedicated to victims of police violence. The film is a 38-minute poetic exploration of how men view sex and romance in the French banlieues (suburbs). One line in the film summarizes Diop’s central thesis: “It’s just hard to talk about love. We don’t know what it is.” These young men struggle to conceptualize love from what they are taught, and their flaws are laid bare in the name of understanding the limitations of masculinity.

Though more abstract, Diop’s new film, We, which had its premiere in the 2021 Berlinale industry selection, comes from a similar desire for collective understanding. The train line of the RER B crosses Paris from north to south, and with it, so does an attempt to connect fragmented stories around the city. The film heavily recalls the Varda tradition that a documentary can be made just by walking and waiting. Using a series of suburban vignettes, Diop is able to piece together a wildlife conservatory of ordinary lives, looking at her own community and trying to capture the warmer side of society. She talks to a mechanic, a writer, and even her own father, in a sort of David Attenborough of human landscapes. We weaves through parts of the city with overwhelmingly Black and immigrant populations, building a nostalgic breed of documentary not focused on the gotcha! reveal.

Rebecca Zlotowski’s ‘An Easy Girl’ (2019).

Rebecca Zlotowski

Coming soon: Les enfants des autres Watch now: An Easy Girl (‘Une fille facile’)

Writer and director Rebecca Zlotowski has steadily released a film every three years since 2010. Her stories have centered on Jewish and North-African characters, and her television series Savages, based on a series of novels from Sabri Louatah, focuses on the attempted assassination of a fictional Arab President-elect in France. Very little has been spilled about Zlotowski’s newest film, Les enfants des autres, which began shooting in March. We know that Virginie Efira and Roschdy Zem are attached, and there were casting calls looking for children, and for extras for a scene set in a synagogue.

Though each of her four previous features have their strengths—and I’m even partial to Planetarium, an overzealous magical-realist film about American sisters with a supernatural gift, set in the Parisian film industry around the rise of anti-semitism—2019 Cannes selection An Easy Girl, readily accessible on Netflix, is a choice pick. Notable for its controversial casting of Zahia Dehar, who became infamous for relations with the French national football team while an underage sex worker, this choice proved to be a clever deception in a film about how women said to be easy with men are dismissed.

Dehar plays the older cousin to newcomer Mina Farid’s Naïma, a sixteen year old who longs for her cousin’s seemingly glamorous lifestyle. Naïma soon learns this life isn’t just fashion, but about learning to please wealthy men in order to get what she wants, while never having to give too much of herself away. While most of the director’s closest contemporaries are pioneers of a coherent movement of female gaze, Zlotowski chooses here to shoot through a decidedly male gaze, challenging her audiences’ perceptions of how they treat her characters before we come to understand them.

Also noteworthy is Zlotowski’s debut feature Dear Prudence, based around a diary she’d found in the street. Starring a very young Léa Seydoux as a seventeen-year-old girl who joins a motorcycle gang after the death of her mother, the film’s unique source material makes this Zlotowski’s most intimate film.

Julia Ducournau’s ‘Raw’ (2016).

Julia Ducournau

Coming soon: Titane Watch now: Raw (‘Grave’)

Julia Ducournau’s cult-favorite, coming-of-age, cannibal gorefest Raw quickly made her a name to watch. When Garance Marillier’s Justine tastes meat for the first time at a veterinary-school hazing, it awakens a cannibalistic desire within her. Shot as one would an erotic realization, Raw is at its essence an uncontrollable thread of self discovery.

Already backed by NEON for US distribution, with a possible mid-2021 release date, Ducournau’s follow-up Titane looks to be a wild thriller, if somewhat more traditional than the teenage “monstrous feminine” body-horror of her early work. Much of the production has been kept under wraps, but we know Vincent Lindon stars alongside newcomer Agathe Rousselle. Lindon plays the father of a mysterious young man named Adrien LeGrand, who is found in an airport with a swollen face, claiming to be a boy who had disappeared ten years before. Ducournau is a filmmaker unafraid to shy away from the provocative, and Titane is all but guaranteed a major platform come premiere.

Catherine Corsini’s ‘La Fracture’ (2021).

Catherine Corsini

Coming soon: The Divide (‘La fracture’) Watch now: Summertime (‘La belle saison’), An Impossible Love (‘Un amour impossible’)

Coming a generation before many of the other filmmakers here, Catherine Corsini is best known for her complex romantic dramas. Her most recent are the 1970s feminist-tinged Summertime (2015), starring Cécile de France and Izïa Higelin as a couple torn between rural farmlands and Paris, and An Impossible Love (2018), a novelistic chronicle of a couple (Niels Schneider and Virginie Efira) as their relationship sours from 1958 to the present day.

Summertime, which is currently available to rent or buy in the US, is Corsini’s first film to consciously depict a relationship between two women (though 2001’s Replay is ambiguous as to what is happening between Pascale Bussières and Emmanuelle Béart’s characters). The young lovers learn what freedoms they gain and lose between the pastoral countryside, and the feminist organizers they run with in Paris. It’s a fairly standard romantic arc, but illuminates a fiery counter-culture feminist era, and is a staunchly progressive film from a national cinema built so firmly upon a more traditional view of seduction.

La fracture, Corsini’s latest (and the third film produced by her life partner Elisabeth Perez) centers on yet another couple (Marina Foïs and Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi) who are on the verge of breaking up when a demonstration outside causes tensions to rise at the hospital they’re confined within. A relationship under strain alongside French protest culture? Extremely French subject matter indeed.

Claire Burger’s ‘Real Love’ (2018).

Claire Burger

Coming soon: Foreign Language (‘Langue étrangère’) Watch now: Real Love (‘C’est ça l’amour’)

Most likely known for her Clouzot-tinged music video for Kompormat’s ‘De mon âme à ton âme’, starring Adèle Haenel, Claire Burger is a filmmaker heavily rooted in location. Her past films, including a graduation short and two features, have been set in the north-eastern town of Forbach, where she grew up, just fifteen minutes from the German border. This looks to be a thread that runs through her next film: Foreign Language is about a friendship between two girls who live on either side of the French-German border. BPM producer Marie-Ange Luciani is set to produce; a poster for BPM made a cameo in Burger’s last feature, Real Love.

A personal story, Real Love is one of non-traditional fatherhood and a family that does not rely on masculinity. When his wife leaves, Mario (Bouli Lanners) is left to raise his two teenage daughters in their small town, all while taking part in a community-theater production. Most of the film is told from the perspective of the younger daughter (Justine LaCroix), experiencing first love with a girl from school, who doesn’t seem to want anything serious.

Notably, after her debut and a lengthy series of short films, this was the first time Burger, who edits her own films, cast professional actors, in the case of Lanners and Antonia Buresi (as a theater director). Yet it is the performance of the actresses playing the sisters that most touched the hearts of Letterboxd fans—as Lyd writes, “Maybe it was the opera music or the fantastic performances by Justine Lacroix and Sarah Henochsberg as the daughters, but it just affirmed so many things about life choices and the tipsy-turvy nature of love as just, everything.”

Marie Amachoukeli’s ‘Party Girl’ (2014).

Marie Amachoukeli

Coming soon: Rose Hill Watch now: Party Girl

A rare non-Sciamma project backed by producer Bénédicte Couvreur, Marie Amachoukeli’s solo debut is much anticipated, after Party Girl, where she was one-third of a directing trio with Claire Burger and Samuel Theis (who is shooting a feature of his own titled Petite Nature). Outside the collaborations with Burger, which began in film school, Amachoukeli is screenwriting for a number of films including Franco Lolli’s The Defendant, and has collaborated with animator Vladimir Mavounia-Kouka on two shorts, The Cord Woman and I Want Pluto to Be a Planet Again. A synopsis has yet to be released for Rose Hill, but in an old interview with Brain magazine, Amachoukeli mentioned searching for backers for a lesbian spy comedy.

Party Girl is essentially docu-fiction, with actors cast as versions of themselves building an authentic troupe of real people. Though it’s a collaboration, Amachoukeli shines as a screenwriter, introducing the story of a bar hostess who still lives the partying, single life of a woman in her twenties, despite having reached sixty. She is thrown when a man asks her to marry him, and she must reconstruct her outlook on love. From such young filmmakers, Party Girl is a sensitive portrait of an imperfect, ageing woman, which feels so rare in a cinematic landscape that longs for a fountain of youth.

Audrey Diwan’s ‘Happening’ (2021).

Audrey Diwan

Coming soon: Happening (‘L’evenement’) Watch now: Losing It (‘Mais vous êtes fous’)

French memoirist Annie Ernaux works by reconstructing her life over and over as time passes. One of her more well-known books, L’évènement, retraces her experiences trying to get an abortion in 1963, during a time when the procedure was banned in France.

Audrey Diwan—whose 2019 debut film Losing It follows a pair of young parents (the always-charming Pio Marmaï and Céline Sallette) working through the father’s spiral into addiction and recovery—has a knack for solid performances. She’s able to write a relationship under strain with nuance, and Céline Sallette’s character shows strength as a mother choosing between protecting her children and repairing her relationship to their troubled but good-hearted father, whom she still loves dearly. This skill for writing family should pair well with Ernaux’s deeply personal prose.

Happening sweeps up a small army of promising young actors: Being 17 star Kacey Mottet Klein, and Portrait of a Lady on Fire and School’s Out supporting breakout Luana Bajrami, appear alongside lead actress Anamaria Vartolomei. Her character, Anne, is a bright student who risks everything once her pregnancy starts showing, so that she can finish her studies. Audrey Diwan’s film isn’t the only Ernaux adaptation currently, with Danielle Arbid’s Passion Simple having premiered at Venice in 2020.

Claire Simon’s ‘I Want to Talk about Duras’ (2021).

Claire Simon

Coming soon: I Want to Talk About Duras Watch now: Mimi

One of few figures to bridge cinema and literature equally, Marguerite Duras was a social commentator on her world; she grew up poor in French-colonized Vietnam, took on a staunch leftist perspective, and developed a singular tone in her observational assertions. Duras’s 1975 film India Song, based on her novel of the same name, was a landmark in feminist film. Through a hypnotic structure (“a viewing experience like no other, one that touches all of the senses,” writes Carter on Letterboxd), India Song delivers a strong criticism of class and colonialism through its story of Anne-Marie Stretter (Delphine Seyrig), a French ambassador’s wife in 1930s Kolkata.

In I Want to Talk About Duras, writer-director Claire Simon (best known for her documentaries on the seemingly mundane) adapts a transcript of conversations between Duras (Emmanuelle Devos) and her much younger partner Yann Andréa Steiner (Swann Arlaud), in which the pair break down the codes of love and literature. These conversations were published in a book named after Steiner, who met Duras when he approached her after a screening of India Song.

The highlight of Simon’s previous work is Mimi, in which she settles down in the countryside with an old friend, and tells her life story over 105 minutes. Recently programmed as part of Metrograph’s Tell Me: Women Filmmakers series, it’s clear the film was selected for its authenticity. However, many Letterboxd members may heavily benefit from seeing The Graduation, her 2016 documentary about the famous Parisian film school La Fémis, and its difficult selection process. Most of the other filmmakers in this list passed through its gates, and Claire Simon’s Wiseman-lite documentary sheds light on the challenges these young people take upon themselves for a chance at a world-renowned filmmaking education.

Amandine Gay’s ‘Speak Up’ (2017).

Amandine Gay

Coming soon: A Story of One’s Own (‘Une histoire à soi’) Watch now: Speak Up (‘Ouvrir la voix’)

Amandine Gay has much to say about access to film school—and opportunities in the film industry—for those outside the mainstream. Initially on the radar for her Afro-feminist activism, Gay arrived on the cinema scene with Speak Up, a narrative reclamation focusing on the diaspora in France and Belgium.

Talking to Francophone Black women who may not be considered formal scholars, allowing her subjects to speak as experts on their own experiences, Gay disproves the idea that France is a race-blind society. She shoots mainly in regal close-ups and using natural light, allowing her subjects the clarity to speak for themselves, unfiltered. (And to put to bed the misconception that Black performers are harder to light, one of many important angles discussed in an excellent interview with Letterboxd member Justine Smith.)

Using family photos and home videos from subjects, Gay’s engaging documentary work is a mouthpiece to spark conversation. Her next documentary, Une histoire à soi, centers on transnational adoption and will likely take a similarly conversational approach in exploring a unique cultural divide; putting the microphone in front of those who can provide a first-person point of view. Though not officially backed yet, she’s also—for years!—teased a Black lesbian sommelier film on podcasts and in interviews. That’s a story that I hope won’t need much more maturing before we see it. A votre santé.

Related content

Feature-length French films by Women—Sarah’s list

The Official Top 100 Narrative Feature Films by Women Directors—featuring Portrait of a Lady on Fire at number one

Little White Lies: 100 Great Movies by Female Directors

Follow Sarah on Letterboxd

90 notes · View notes

anime-lover-forever-1127 · 2 years

Text

Two In One - Part 1 {Klaus x Caroline}

Two In One {Part 1}

*****

Disclaimer - (Cause fanfiction is tricky ground and I hope not to offend the creator of the original story and get sued)

I do not own "The Vampire Diaries", it belongs to its original creator Kevin Williamson, Julie Plec, and L. J. Smith. Nor do I own "The Originals", which belongs to it's rightful creator Julie Plec Michael Narducci, Leslie Morgenstein, Gina Girolamo. This is only a fanfiction that I was inspired to write by the original work. Please support the official release of "The Vampire Diaries" and "The Originals". Most of the media - such as the art and illustrations, gifs, video's, etc. used in this fanfiction - are from the web. Thus, most of them aren't mine (because I really, really can't draw) unless mentioned. To fit the story, images are also edited by various apps and websites. So they aren't mine, just edited.

Also if you own a picture or Video that I found online, and you either want your name added, or me to take it down. Please contact me and we can talk it out. P.s. I also ask that you do not copy my work and publish it onto any other website.

If you're gonna use my idea, please ask me (If you ask nicely, I for sure, will agree). If I don't contact you within a week, then just assume I'm giving you the all clear and go for it. Just remember to credit me and the story you are getting the idea from.

Warnings: Damon bashing, Katherine x Elijah, Hayley bashing, Elena bashing(? - Kind of)

Info You Might Need To Know: Here, Klaus didn't come to gloat over Katherine's dying body. This is after The Originals season 1, episode 8 (Klaus' fight was badass by the way. I saw a clip of the coin scene from the show, and fell in love with the guy all over again) So Klaus has control over the city..

Word Count: 3.9K

Requested: By no one

Summary: Where instead of jumping into Elena's body, Katherine jumps into Caroline's. And head off to New Orleans with Nadia.

*****

Today's Special

Two are better than one,

If two act as one.

*****

Mia turned to Katherine, "Repeat this spell so I know you understand how the passenger works."

Katherine shook her head, "I can't."

"Just say it. Jaryakat a zem. Daryeet acza." Nadia said, getting frustrated and desperate. Her mother was running out of time. "Say it and it's done. Your spirit goes inside my body and Mia will activate it by calling you forth and you get to live."

"Can I have a moment with my daughter please?" Katherine asks Mia. Looking at Katherine, Mia nods, and exits the room.

Nadia shook her head, "I know what you're going to say."

Katherine shook her head, "We don't have time for this. Nadia, letting my father rip you out of my arms...it was the biggest regret of my life. I should've fought harder to keep you, but I didn't. So I spent the next five hundred years making sure I didn't make that mistake again. I fought for everything, and in the process, I had a long, full life. And I got to know my beautiful daughter. You spent the last centuries searching for me."

Katherine picks up a syringe from the table. "Don't waste another minute on me. It's your turn to live."

It's now Nadia's turn to shake her head. "You can't do this."

Damon, who is still laying on the floor, regains consciousness in enough time to listen in on Katherine and Nadia's conversation.

Katherine was about to deny her daughter once again, when they heard a loud commotion form downstairs. "What's happening?"

Nadia rolled her eyes, "Caroline just came back."

Katherine was about to move on, when an idea formed in her head, and a smirk appeared on her face. "I think I may have thought of a way for me to live. To truly live without the fear of Klaus hanging over my head."

*****

When Nadia had come down to tell her that Katherine had wanted to talk to her, Caroline had been hesitant. But seeing that she was a vampire, and the woman was dying. Caroline couldn't see the harm in it. So the baby vampire found herself walking into the room.

Katherine had grown pale, and you could clearly make out the wrinkles on her eyes. Asking if she was ok, seemed a little insensitive at this point. So Caroline settled for a kind, "You wanted to see me."

The doppelganger nodded, she patted next to her, asking for Caroline to sit down. The blond was tempted to draw the line here. But seeing the woman's condition. She couldn't find it in herself to say no. So she took the offered seat.

"It has come to my attention that I owe you an apology." Katherine tells her. "I'm the one who turned you into a vampire, without your permission and I'm sorry."

Caroline felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise. "It's fine. It turned out to be the best for me in the end." Despite the fact that Katherine had in fact killed her. She didn't want the brunette to die with any more baggage on her conscience. So she found herself nodding, "It's alright. I… I forgive you."

"I'm also sorry for this. If nothing else. You were probably the only one in this damn scooby gang that I could actually tolerate. Maybe even liked." Katherine says, confusing the blond. Without giving her a moment to understand what was happening the brunette takes her hand and says the spell, "Jaryakat a zem. Daryeet acza."

Caroline's eyes turn black. She slumps onto the floor. As she does, Katherine's body dies. Caroline is then woken up by her phone ringing. Still in a groggy state, she answers it without looking at the ID.

"Hello? Who's this?" Caroline asks.

The only response she received was Mia's "Vyjdi." Once again, Caroline's eyes turn black, indicating that the traveler's spell has been activated. Katherine has officially taken over Caroline's body.

Katherine hears her daughter's voice from the other side. "Hello. Are you there?"

"I'm here." The doppelganger answers.

"Talk to me. Did it work?" Nadia asked, hopeful.

Katherine, in Caroline's body, walks over to her own corpse and checks her pulse to make sure she is truly dead. "Of course it worked. I'm Katherine Pierce...I survive. I'll see you soon."

*****

Katherine was in the bathroom, touching up her makeup when Caroline woke up. The original host of the body had caught the guest off guard. Enough to push her back and regain control of her body.

It took Caroline only an instant to realize what had happened to her. Klaus had told her all about it. She was assuming it was similar to what had happened to Alaric, Tyler, and Matt. Meaning there was definitely hope for her to get her body back and kick Katherine out permanently.

Caroline looked into the purse Katherine had been carrying, and found her phone. Lucky for her, Katherine hadn't thrown it away yet.

Caroline first called Bonnie, but it instantly went to voicemail. She tried Elena, but when she didn't answer after eight rings, Caroline hung up. She then tried Calling Stefan, but his phone was apparently out of service!

Caroline was running out of people to call. She tried Damon next. Every second she waited, only made her more anxious. She could feel Katherine trying to fight for control, and knew it was only a matter of time before the ones helping her realized she'd been gone for too long and came looking for her.

"What do you need, blondie?" Damon asked.

"Damon, I need you to find me. I have no idea where I am. I don't have long. Katherine's taken over my body and I can't get her out on my own. So please-"

Damon cut her off. "Yeah, I know."

Caroline's heart fell. "What do you mean you know?"

"Yeah, well it was either you, or Elena." With that Damon hung up. Caroline's arm limply fell to her side, the phone dropping to the floor. Caroline soon felt herself joining it on the ground.

Once again, she was second place to Elena. But this wasn't about grades, looks, or even who got the boy. This was life or death. And they had chosen Elena's over hers. Damon knew. Maybe they all did, and she was the fool walking into the trap.

Nobody had cared.

Nobody put her first.

'However long it takes.'

Caroline felt a sob rise up in her chest.

Klaus.

He was the only one who actually put her first. He had even chosen to save her… over his own sister.

And she had only used him.

Caroline cried into her arms. Realizing that it was too late.

He was gone. And he wasn't going to come back. He had wanted her to come to him. And by the time that she did find him, Katherine probably would have already made this permanent. She'd be gone.

Katherine would have her body. Maybe Klaus wouldn't notice and would get played by her. But she doubted that it would be anything worse than what she had done.

She had broken his heart.

The door to the restroom opened and Nadia walked in. Her eyes instantly zeroed in on Caroline, sobbing on the floor. A part of her wanted to comfort the sweet girl. But this wasn't just about her. This was about her mother. So Nadia instead said, "Vyjdi."

Katherine woke with a gasp. "What happened?"

"Caroline woke up." Nadia answered. "There's a witch in Mexico that we need to see. To make the transition permanent."

Katherine nodded. "But first, we need to stop by New Orleans."

"New Orleans?" Nadia asked. "But why?"

"Because Elijah is there." The brunette answered, washing the tear streaks off of Caroline's face.

"But so is Klaus." Nadia pointed out.

Katherine smirked, "Oh I know. But he wouldn't even suspect Caroline. I've been running from that man for five hundred years. God, the satisfaction of knowing that he'd be chasing after me."

"He'd be chasing after Caroline." Nadia corrects. "Which you aren't. What if he finds out."

Katheirne sighs, "I know that. That's why I'll try my best to avoid him. Something Carebear has done on multiple occasions. So I won't have to worry about my cover being blown."

Nadia doubted that they'd be able to enter New Orleans without the hybrid knowing. But this was the first time she'd gotten to spend time with her mother, practically since she was born. Not wanting to risk it, she chose to keep her thoughts to herself.

*****

When Katherine went to sleep later that night, she found herself in a park. She saw Caroline sitting on a bench, with her arms around her knees, and pulled close to her chest.

Katherine found herself sitting next to her. "So what now?" Caroline asks, without looking up.

"Well you've always been the smartest of the bunch. I'm sure you already have an idea." Katherine tells her. "I'm going to be stealing your body. There's a witch in New Mexico who can make this permanent. We're still not sure what the spell will do to your soul. Just that it will give me full control."

A part of Caroline is telling her to stay strong, to lash out. The part of her that want's survive is demanding that she fight. But she's just so sick of it. Ever since she became a vampire. The only thing her friends have done is doubt her. And now, they even gave up her body for Elena.

"Why my body?" The blond finds herself asking.

"Because they wouldn't care nearly as much. They would barely even try to get it back. Sure they may try a couple of tracking spells. But after a certain distance, I doubt they'd even follow. And in a couple months, they would have pushed it all into the past." Katherine tells her. "Another bonus is that Klaus wouldn't even try to hurt it. For the first time in five hundred years. I'd be completely free. And even if he does capture me. It's not like he can exactly torture me and get his revenge."

Caroline sighs, "Well you were right about one thing." Katherine turns to her, raising an eyebrow. "Damon picked up my call." Seeing Katherine's panicked face, Caroline chuckled humorlessly. "Don't worry. He told me he knew you had my body… and that it was better than you having Elena. Bonnie, Elena, and Stefan didn't even pick up the phone. So I'm assuming they know to."

Katherine's eyes widened and she subconsciously found herself feeling sorry for the girl. She had been abandoned by all her friends. All for little old Elena. Constantly time and time again she was put in danger. Heck, it was the reason Katherine even changed her into a vampire. And now, she was going to lose her body. In a way, she was only in this mess because of the doppelgangers. In a way they were alike…

The brunette quickly shook her head. Her life was on the line. Her only chance to be with her daughter. She didn't have time for this. She needed to say her goodbyes to Elijah, get the spell to make this body hers, and then finally move on with her life… and be with her daughter.

"So… where are you going?" Caroline asked.

"New Orleans."

Hearing the name, a spark of light appeared in Caroline's eyes. "Isn't that where…"

Katherine nodded. "Klaus is there. So is Elijah. I intend to say goodbye to him."

Caroline nodded.

The sun around them began to set, meaning Katherine would soon wake up.

Katherine was standing up, when Caroline grabbed her hand, "Please don't hurt Klaus. You in my body…which means you do have the power to."

"But didn't you?" Katherine finds herself asking. And instantly finds herself wincing at the harshness of her tone.

Caroline's face fell, "I know… but…"

Katherine sighed. "I won't. In fact I intend to stay as far away as I can from him."

Caroline nodded. The fear and aching was still growing steady in her chest. But she felt relieved. At least now Klaus wouldn't be dragged into another one of her messes… that were really Elena's messes that she always ended up dragging him into.

*****

Katherine and Nadia had been traveling in a car for six hours. So as soon as they had checked into a hotel room. The first thing they wanted to do was explore the city. Katherine was dressed in black, skin tight jeans. A blood red halter top with an open back. She finished off her look with a black leather jacket.

"Hmm. Not so sure how I feel about the blond. But I gotta admit. It can go well with a lot of looks." Katherine said, aspecting Caroline's image in the mirror.

Nadia sighed. "Come on. Let's go. I could definitely use a drink."

"All right, all right." Katherine sighed, following her daughter out.

Nadia stopped in front of a bar. "Rousseau's, come on. Let's try it."

It was noon. So the bar was pretty empty. They were greeted by a blond woman behind the counter. "Hi. Just give me a sec and I'll be with you."

Katherine nodded.

"Caroline?" A voice asked. Katherine felt the blood in her veins freeze. She'd heard that voice many times before. And even when she didn't, there wasn't a night that went by that it didn't haunt her dreams. But it was lacking it's usual malice and threats. Of course it was. It was calling for Caroline, not Katherine.

Katherine forced herself to turn around to see Klaus. Elijah stood just a few feet behind him. From the corner of her eye she could see Rebekah sitting on a bar stool. Both were just as surprised to see Caroline in New Orleans.

Katherine pushed her fears aside, and painted on her best smile. "Hey Klaus."

"Not that I'm not happy to see you, love. But what exactly are you doing in New Orleans?" Klaus asked, smiling.

Katherine shrugged, "I was getting bored. So I decided to go on a road trip."

Klaus raised an eyebrow, "I thought you'd be starting at Whitmore this year?"

Katherine resisted the urge to scream. Why did Klaus have to remember everything about Caroline. You'd figure that as the bloody hybrid, he'd have more pressing concerns then a baby vampire. "I decided to take a gap year." she answered.

Klaus nodded, accepting the answer.

"Why don't you join us for a drink?" Rebekah said, flashing a smile. She could see that the baby vampire wanted to get out of here, and decided on angist letting that happen. Something about the baby vampire was off. She could tell that Nik had picked up on it too.

Katherine was about to turn her down, but was cut off by Klaus. "That's a great idea sister." He said, leaving no room for Katherine to refuse.

As Katherine and Nadia sat down, Rebekah spoke again. "Since when do you wear leather jackets? I thought your thing was supposed to be sweaters."

Katherine cursed herself for not being more careful. "Nadia chose it for me. I figured trying something new wouldn't hurt."

Klaus turned to Nadia, "I'm assuming your little friend here is Nadia?" The brunette nodded, on guard. This was the man who had hunted her mother down for five hundred years. "Where exactly did you meet her love?"

"On the road. We ended up becoming travel buddies." Katherine answered at once.

Klaus leans back nonchalantly. Something was wrong, and he intended to find out what. Klaus was just given the perfect opportunity to test her.

"Well my offer still stands, love. I did give you my word that I would show you Italy, Iceland, Switzerland?"

Katherine laughs and agrees. Within a second she felt the world spin around it's access as she was pinned against a wall. "What?!"

"Wrong." Klaus growls. "I promised Caroline Rome, Paris, and Tokyo."

"Fine. You're right. I'm not Caroline." Katherine confessed. As she felt Klaus put more pressure on her throat. She quickly went on. "But this is her body."

Klaus loosened his grip, but kept a firm hold on her. "What do you mean?"

"I was dying. So we transferred my soul into Caroline's body. It's still her body. And she's still in there somewhere." Katherine informed him. "So go ahead. Try and hurt me. You'd only be hurting your precious Caroline."

"Then who are you?" Klaus asked.

It was Elijah who answered, "Katerina." He had been in love with the woman for five centuries. Of course he knew all her mannerisms and the way she dressed to the way she carried herself.

Klaus growled, "You took her body."

"Karma's a bitch." Katherine laughed. "You can't do anything to me."

"I wouldn't be so sure." Klaus growled, his eyes flashed golden. "You will give Caroline control of her body back. You will stay quiet and still, until we can find a way to remove you from her body. Permanently." He compelled.

But Katherine just shook her head, "Vervain. And you can't bleed it out of me. Unless you'd enjoy watching this baby vampire's blood drip down her arms as you bleed her dry."

Klaus shook his head. "Fine. You bought yourself a couple more days. But as soon as that vervain passes through your system. Your fate is sealed. Consider yourself lucky that you are in her body. If you weren't…" Klaus growled.

"You can't, I won't let you." Nadia stepped in.

Katherine's eyes widened. She had completely forgotten about her, judging by the looks on everyone around thems faces. She wasn't the only one who'd forgotten.

"Oh, and pray tell, how do you think you're going to stop me?" Klaus asked.

"No!" Katherine shook her head. "Leave her out of this."

"Mother!" Nadia cried.

A smirk appeared on Klaus' face. "Mother? And here I could've sworn I had already killed all of your family." he then turned to Katherine. "I may not be able to currently harm you. But she's a whole other story. I could always make you watch, as I slowly torture her to death."

Katherine shook her head, and turned to Elijah, "Elijah, please. If there was even a tiny part of you that ever loved. The please. Protect my daughter."

Even on Caroline's face, Elijah could clearly see Katherine's fear. "I will."

Klaus turned his head around, his grip on Caroline's throat had moved to a firm, but gently held on her arm. "You're kidding me right? Now, you choose now to make your stupid promise. Isn't your plate getting a little full. With the promise to Hayley, Sophie, and Marcel's little witch as well? You wanna add your soon to be dead lover's daughter onto there as well?"

Elijah stayed silent, so Klaus turned to Katherine, "I suggest you enjoy knowing that as soon as that vervain passes through Caroline's system. I'm making sure she regains control over her body once again. And then, finding a way to remove your parasitic soul from her body permanently."

Caroline's heart pounded rapidly, giving away Katherine's fear.

"Come on. We're going home." Klaus told his siblings. "Normally I'd be more than happy to leave Katherine to the wolves. But right now, she is in Caroline's body. I'm not gonna risk anything." He then turned to the woman in question, "and remember this, if anything happens to Caroline or her body. Your daughter will be the one paying the price ten fold. Elijah's promise be damned."

*****

I got the original idea for this from venomandchampagne over on Fanfiction . Net, who has her own Klaroline one shot book.

Was the idea of Katherine going to New Orleans before the spell was permeant, stupid? Yeah. But in my defense, their really wouldn't be much of a plot without it.

There will definitely be a part 2 of this coming out. (I do have it planned out. Just need to write it. I'm trying to write the part two's to several of the Klaroline one shot's I have lined up. It's just that I have so many ideas (Literal six google doc's pages worth). It may take some time (Even years) but all the part two's I have told you guys about, will come out… Eventually.

Also, I saw this on YouTube, and just had to share it. (One of the few things I actually am looking forward to, when watching the originals). Like that moment when Rebekah realised that they were screwed. Loved it.

For those of you reading on , I sadly can't add the video or the link. So here's the name of the video: The Originals 1x08 Klaus fights Marcel

Anyways,

KLAROLINE FOR LIFE!

#klaus mikaelson #niklaus mikaelson #klaus #Caroline x Klaus #caroline forbes #Klaus x Caroline #Elijah x Katherine #Katherine Pierce #Elijah Mikaelson #damon salvatore #Rebekah Mikaelson #The Originals #The Vampire Diaries

13 notes · View notes