lydia gilbert ➳ the vampire diaries original character

✧ I L L I C I T L O V E

fun facts about illicit love

1. lydia was meant to die in the last chapter of act one originally and that was going to be the end of the book but i fell in love with it and didn't want it to end.

2. this book was inspired by a couple of songs such as enchanted and love story by taylor swift, secret love song by little mix, they don't know about us by one direction and already gone by sleeping at last and as you noticed they all fit the theme of the first act and not the rest because the book was only suppose to be this act and already gone was the last chapter. not sure if inspired is the right word because it's honestly really fuzzy because this was years ago and i think i started writing without these songs in mind but i really don't remember so i can't say for sure. but i love these songs and think of kol and lydia when i listen to them now. and they give off the vibes i wanted for act one.

3. lydia calls katherine katerina because she learned about her through the mikaelsons and that's what they call her.

4. there was originally going to be an AU spin off of lydia and klaus having a child together, but ultimately i don't think lydia and klaus would ever be together because they wouldn't do that to klaus and i couldn't come up with a plot so i scrapped it.

5. i never felt the need to turn the book into separate books. i think it's all one story. i separated them into acts but i don't think there's a point in the story where i could say "okay the first book should end here".

6. i desperately want to change the name. originally it was titled illicit love because i wanted it to be forbidden on both sides of their family and never accepted. but while writing i didn't think that was accurate to the characters. i see in a lot of kol fanfics the mikaelsons often hate the person who he's dating for no real reason and like i've said before, people can write the characters in anyway they want and people interpret them differently, but i don't think the mikaelsons would hate kol's SO just because they were dating kol. i understand if they see the SO as a threat or was preventing them from getting whatever it was they wanted, but other than that i don't think they'd hate them and we see elements of that in the show with kol and davina. while it was definitely wrong of them, elijah and freya only hurt davina to protect their family, but they didn't do it just to spite kol. if i recall correctly, klaus even said not to hurt davina because that would hurt kol and when it comes to lydia, i think kol's sudden interest in sticking around and controlling his wild behaviour would tell klaus kol's feelings are serious and genuine which would be enough to get klaus to leave the situation alone (not to mention lydia kept kol busy so he wasn't causing chaos). i think rebekah (no offence) was pretty desperate for a normal high school life in season 3 and lydia helped her do that, but before they officially met i think rebekah would maybe dislike her because she's elena's sister and klaus told her not to harm her which would probably annoy her. elijah on the other hand was a bit against the relationship but it was only because he didn't want kol to hurt lydia. and if you recall, they all met/knew off lydia before she met kol and she was kind to and understood them so they would already take some liking to her. also at that point in time, lydia was seen as a pretty fragile human woman so it's not like they had anything to fear by letting her in.

wow i got so off track. basically the book was originally going to end with lydia dying to save kol with everyone against their relationship and not knowing of it until that moment. kol was then going to disappear forever. that's not really true to the title anymore so i've been thinking about changing it.

7. this book does not fully go into the originals. that is mostly because i don't know the plot and episodes as well as i do with the vampire diaries so i could never think of a way to incorporate it in. it's also a bit more difficult to do because i would not only have to insert lydia into the plot but kol as well and figure out his role. in the vampire diaries, that's pretty easy to do because the plot didn't revolve around the mikaelsons as much as it does in the originals and if he were to join klaus, elijah and the rest of them, that's his family so he would be incredibly involved. plus lydia is tied to every character in the vampire diaries but not the originals (with the exception of the mikaelsons). not to mention lydia called klaus when he was with hayley so hope never happened and i would have no clue how to handle kol's scenes in season 2 because he's brought back from the dead and that's the start of his storyline but kol never dies.

8. i figure some people might think kol and lydia were rushed because i notice people tend to think any couple that gets together within weeks of knowing each other is rushed and a lot prefer slow burns, but i really wanted to show their instant connection and there was no real reason to keep them from being with each other after a certain amount of time. there will be. just not at the beginning.

9. sometimes i get extremely frustrated because i have two ideas but only one can be used because it makes the other idea impossible and it's all i can think about at night and it causes delays in writing.

10. if you noticed, lydia didn't really experience a personality change or heightened emotions when she became a vampire which is for two reasons. one, her transition was messy and didn't happen at once and by the time she fully became a vampire she had gotten used to things. two, when she made the transition it was when her life was beginning to get better so she loves being a vampire and thinks that it gave her clarity and strength. it only empowered her.