meowch.

Ravenclaw. Cats. Bonkai. Probably overthinking at the moment.

[veladoe]

Here are some quick colors. I hope you guys had as much fun as I did with this comic journey! I've decided to call it good here, as the engagement is not enough to continue coloring-no hard feelings, just gotta move on to other projects:) I did manage to get two pages to look decent enough :) Now it's time to pour all my energy back into original comic story ideas (Limbus) and pitches to grow my portfolio, toodles! It's been real:)

[veladoe]

Official inks for this, color starts if this does well, if not, well you got some hella good inks :) yay!

[veladoe]

Happy May 10th, everyone! Figured this would be a good time to share this small comic sample of the original comic book I'm making based on bonkai!:) Sorry, it took so long to really show anything, but I just graduated with my illustration degree and am teaching myself from the ground up on how to make this comic happen:) I've been working on a website to start commission work for drawing for this fandom as well or to find some way to allow fans of the original comic to fund the comic if its captivating enough, but until that is ready and more official, I'll be back with a link and more info on that later.

Back to the comic, this is just a four-page sample showing the perspective of the second main character as a new "arrival" falls into Limbus. I'm going to keep some of his info hidden for a bit, but I'm sure you can piece things together on your side as well. Message me if you have any questions! I also got to display this in my senior exhibit, and it was really cool to show everyone this crazy world I built and its monsters and characters. It's really rewarding to have people still respond to Bonkai inside and outside of the fandom, which made me really happy! Anyways, happy May 10th:)

[hysteriaww]

LOOK HOW FAR YOU'VE COME!! <3 <3

[veladoe]

Hello everyone! Sorry that I haven't posted in so long, still trying to figure out what I should keep to myself for writing and creating versus sharing online! As an update, I've decided to turn my comic (which was initially inspired by You-know-what-for-the-sake-of-copyright) into an original comic book with my own unique lore, characters and world-building! I’ve been working on it for my class assignments and *hopefully* my senior capstone for my final year at uni! I wanted to share a few pieces of it and I wish I could show you the whole thing but the story works so much better with some surprises:) These are still concept pieces and works so they are rough with the short deadlines I’m given, but they mean a lot to me and the very sweet and kind feedback I’ve received from the discord and beta reader helping me:) Thank you guys for being here so far and I hope you guys enjoy my original comic too! Hopefully once I graduate I can actually start officially making this comic book and finding a good indie website that would support it:) If you have any advice on that, I’m always here for it, either way my professors have been awesome with guiding me through self-publishing and figuring this out on my own too! Happy holidays!- part 3:)

[veladoe]

Hello everyone! Sorry that I haven't posted in so long, still trying to figure out what I should keep to myself for writing and creating versus sharing online! As an update, I've decided to turn my comic (which was initially inspired by You-know-what-for-the-sake-of-copyright) into an original comic book with my own unique lore, characters, and world-building! I’ve been working on it for my class assignments and *hopefully* my senior capstone for my final year at uni! I wanted to share a few pieces of it and I wish I could show you the whole thing but the story works so much better with some surprises:) These are still concept pieces and works so they are rough with the short deadlines I’m given, but they mean a lot to me and the very sweet and kind feedback I’ve received from the discord and beta reader helping me:) Thank you guys for being here so far and I hope you guys enjoy my original comic too! Hopefully once I graduate I can actually start officially making this comic book and finding a good indie website that would support it:) If you have any advice on that, I’m always here for it, either way my professors have been awesome with guiding me through self-publishing and figuring this out on my own too! Happy holidays!-part 2:)

[veladoe]

Hello everyone! Sorry that I haven't posted in so long, still trying to figure out what I should keep to myself for writing and creating versus sharing online! As an update, I've decided to turn my comic (which was initially inspired by You-know-what-for-the-sake-of-copyright) into an original comic book with my own unique lore, characters and world-building! I’ve been working on it for my class assignments and *hopefully* my senior capstone for my final year at uni! I wanted to share a few pieces of it and I wish I could show you the whole thing but the story works so much better with some surprises:) These are still concept pieces and works so they are rough with the short deadlines I’m given, but they mean a lot to me and the very sweet and kind feedback I’ve received from the discord and beta reader helping me:) Thank you guys for being here so far and I hope you guys enjoy my original comic too! Hopefully once I graduate I can actually start officially making this comic book and finding a good indie website that would support it:) If you have any advice on that, I’m always here for it, either way my professors have been awesome with guiding me through self-publishing and figuring this out on my own too! Happy holidays!

[pedrropascal]

MIGUEL O’HARA aka SPIDER-MAN 2099 Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023)

[hysteriaww]

Hi ! It's going to sound weird but....

How do you think Kai would have influenced Luke's personality if Luke actually won during the merge ?

I know Kai was stronger, but let's say Luke wins.

He was already pretty strong since he was able to break Liv out of the spell she was trying to do. He was stronger than his sister. He would have won if they were to do the merge. I don't exactly remember how powerful he was but I suppose he was fairly quite good with magic.

And magical powers aside, he has quite a strong personality. He's fed up with the Mystic Falls gang bullshit. He was not even that scared of Kai. I mean, he knew his brother was a freaking threat, but he did not hesitate to go on his own and do the merge with Kai. Even when Kai didn't want to do it Luke was like "Hey bitch, you scared I could win ?"

I don't think Luke really thought he could win or maybe he did, anyway he just wanted it to end. He wanted to project his sisters.

So, with Kai's personality inside of him, what would he be like ? I think that guy would at least find a way to end that Gemini tradition crap about the merge, and the lives of the whole coven linked to the leader.

Apart from that I don't know.

That would not be as fun as seeing Kai struggle with new emotions 🤣 but I want to see Luke being even more badass you know.

Yup, really long question sorry not sorry. X)

This is a very interesting question! Tho I have wondered what Jo would be like if she merged w Kai & won, I've never wondered about Luke until now... I think it could be a very compelling arc for him & the gemini coven. Here's what I think would happen! (I wrote a whole ass mini-fanfic in my answer lmfao):

Fresh after the merge: Luke would initially act & feel almost exactly like same old Luke, except maybe he'd rightfully be a bit more grim, traumatized and world-weary after defeating Kai. Liv & Jo would be concerned but he'd tell them not to worry bc he just needs some time to recover & leading the coven rn is more important than his mental health anyway (aka the FIRST Red Flag). Liv & Jo would disagree but let it go for now to avoid stressing him out.

First few months as leader: I think Luke's first order of business would be to undo the damage Joshua did as a terrible coven leader. That might mean overturning fucked up coven laws, etc. but Joshua doesn't like this, so he gets his supporters in the coven to back him & veto Luke's changes. Meanwhile, Luke's own coven support is growing bc I do believe he'd be a MUCH better leader than Joshua, so old man's resentment grows more. Eventually, it reaches a point where Luke feels boxed in like he can't make any real GOOD change bc of Joshua's puppets & THAT is when... the whispers of Kai's voice begin to awaken in Luke's mind. Uh-oh...

Conflict resolution 101: The part of Luke that's in control tries to be diplomatic about getting rid of Joshua's supporters but it just. doesn't. work. The assholes are FLUENT in gemini bureaucracy bc they've been around longer so they outmaneuver Luke constantly. That's when Kai begins suggesting some... less diplomatic solutions, including the idea that Joshua's supporters wouldn't be such a problem if JOSHUA was gone. Luke spends a long time rejecting this & literally warring with himself, so Liv & Jo are like "dude are u ok" and in a moment of weakness he admits his idea about taking joshua out. They're shocked, but after a sec, they're like "wait this is the same man who tried to off his own kids more than once. Uk what? yes lets do it." And suddenly all 3 (ahem, 4) Parker kids are plotting to put dad in a magical coma (hmm does that sound familiar? I wonder which sibling's idea this was...) so he can't influence his supporters anymore. And the siblings succeed! Joshua's out! but it becomes their lil secret, hidden from the coven...

A Good Ol' Frame Job: Lo and behold, Joshua's supporters still stay loyal to the man in a coma instead of Luke! Liv & Jo are like "it's fine luke, dad isn't gonna wake up so eventually they'll have no choice but to listen to you" but KAI isn't convinced... and neither is Luke. Diplomacy didn't work, sleeping beauty-ing joshua didn't work, so now he needs to play dirty. He doesn't jump to violence or anything - he simply frames a few of them for crimes they didn't commit. Snakey, but simple. Only problem is... Luke can't recall if this idea was his own, or Kai's...... bc they're both equally likely to have thought of it. Kai's influence is growing... So when Jo & Liv come to him like "wow crazy how those supporters got revealed as criminals right? That worked out conveniently," Luke goes w the safest option & says "haaa yea what a coincidence! no idea how that happened" ......and now he's lying to his sisters (Big Red Flag #2)

Calm before the storm: Now that joshua's remaining supporters (who haven't been framed) are very few, Luke doesn't face much resistance anymore & he actually succeeds at reforming a lot of fucked up gemini practices & making positive change. Maybe he even succeeds at eliminating the merge altogether! Luke's flying high, believing he's a true protector of the geminis & the best leader and savior (which, to be fair, he rly is better than the shitty leaders before him)! Kai's influence here is very sneaky bc some of Luke's old sense of humor comes back to him, with some new hints of cockiness that weren't there before. Luke's golden boy charm & Kai's cockiness creates the perfect politician cocktail & liv and jo appreciate the good he's done for geminis but also lowkey resent the big-headed self-important persona he's growing.

But THEN there's trouble in paradise: joshua's leftover supporters find a piece of evidence that proves Luke framed the others & they threaten Luke w it, deducing that he also had smthg to do w Joshua's coma. They order him to step down but he can't do that. Not now, when he's finally *this* close to changing the coven for good! These pricks will wake joshua & bring the old laws back! No, he can't let that happen, he can't let it- ....Luke snaps. He blacks out, then wakes up in horror to realize he violently killed. them. all. He panics, calling Jo & Liv for help BUT to cover his ass, he lies & says he had to kill them bc they found out about "all 3 of them" cursing Joshua... while choosing not to mention how they also discovered his frame jobs. Liv & Jo are horrified yet they help him cover this up bc he's falsely led them to believe their asses are also on the line for cursing joshua... but then Jo notices some of them were killed in very "Kai" ways (bled to death from their spleens getting cut out, etc.) & Liv finds the piece of evidence they had that links Luke to the frame jobs...... the 2 of them realize Luke is not in control anymore.

The Climax: Liv & Jo confront Luke, asking him to step down but warning him that they'll MAKE him if he doesn't agree. He doesn't agree. A fight ensues & Luke is pretty OP despite the 2 v. 1. Luke gets *this* close to killing them (while Kai cheers him on), but then says SIKE and kills JOSHUA's comatose body instead, shocking everyone. Jo, Liv AND Kai are like "wha- why?!" & Luke the politician diabolically reveals that he can't bring himself to kill them - but he can frame them for Joshua's death & turn the coven against them.... OR he can frame the dead supporters for Joshua's death & save his sisters, IF Liv & Jo stay loyal to his cause. At this ultimatum, Jo & Liv finally give up, saying they'd rather get framed or killed than let him rule the coven like this. The Kai in Luke gets triggered by their abandonment bc he's a gOoD LEADER can't u SEE?! Kai's increased presence & Luke's increased lack of control make his SIPHONING manifest for the first time & he unintentionally starts siphoning the sisters. And Luke gets triggered by them trying to overthrow him bc he's the OnLy one who can PROTECT the coven!! Just like he protected Jo & Liv from Kai!! At this point the sisters' resentment RLY comes out like "WE DIDNT ASK YOU TO!! YOU chose to merge to protect us WITHOUT ASKING what WE wanted!! U literally knocked out Jo when she was ABOUT to merge! You protected us bc that's what U wanted, not US. And now the coven doesn't need to be protected BY you anymore, it needs to be protected FROM you!!" Like a bucket of ice water, Luke realizes he's siphoning his sisters rn. He has become Kai. They're right. He is not in control anymore. He steps away & realizes the whole coven itself is broken. The best way to save it is to take the ruling family nonsense out of it & free everyone. He agrees to step down & Jo & Liv help him break the coven link altogether and they free the coven! For a moment, it seems like Kai is going to stop them, but then even the Kai in his mind realizes the coven fucked him over his whole life & he'd much rather see it gone. So all 4 kids unite in Sibling Solidarity and liberate the coven!

Epilogue: Luke gets therapy & that means Kai begrudgingly gets it too bc he's stuck in luke's head. They both start healing & finding a medium ground of how to share space in luke's head. Kai even uses Luke to apologize to Liv & Jo for his own crimes. I'd like to think he'd even get Luke to go to Bonnie and apologize on his behalf & maybe help her out whenever he can, tho i don't think it would be sexual, bc in canon the merge didn't change kai's sexuality so i doubt it would change luke's. But yea I think bonnie would still at least have a new ally in luke thanks to the Kai in him xD

THE END lol I hope my impromptu mini-fanfic here answered your question ahaahaha thank you for asking!!!

[hysteriaww]

Happy bonkai day may 10th

Aw noo I'm late but happy belated bonkai day!! Here's an old bonkai edit I remember loving a few years ago :)

[hysteriaww]

Y'ALL I just opened my email inbox to find THIS^^ today and I- !!! this might seem like a small number to you or a big number, but to me it is SO WILD to see 9 HUMANS liked what i wrote 2 yrs ago enough to all leave me kudos in one day!?!

THANK U to whoever you 9 mysterious souls are, and THANK U to anyone who's ever left me a kudos!! Today was just a random day and then THIS happened and now this has made not just my day, but my whole WEEK!!! AO3 writers notice & LOVE this stuff, people!! Keep doing what you're doing ❤️

[leianaberrie]

“after-credits” scene.

I hollered. Lmao!

No but they really did gymnastics trying to avoid a Bonnie and Kai scene through the 3 episodes Kai was in. And then the actual Bonkai scene we get at the very end, the writers use Kai to give a blandish introduction for the Petrova.

We already know how “impressed” Kai would be with Katherine - the same level of impressed he felt for Damon (her spiritual doppelgänger) and Elena (her literal doppelgänger). Kai wasn’t impressed with Damon’s tortured, bad boy, “I do evil things but I sometimes feel bad about them and that makes me redeemable” act and he wasn’t impressed with Elena’s basic looks. People that claim he would have been impressed with her (or she with him for that matter because Katherine had a clear type) are people that are desperate to pair Kai with any white woman.

[hysteriaww]

No bc LITERALLY Katherine *consistently* fell for goodie-two-shoes types!! Elijah, stefan, even MATT lmfao and she never once expressed genuine attraction to Klaus, and for Damon, she was crystal clear that she always loved Stefan MORE. So in what universe would she be impressed with Kai?

Secondly, as u said, KAI consistently saw right through the gimicky "bad boy" types like damon so he'd 100% see right through Katherine too! I could see a part of him *maybe* respecting her for owning up to being an asshole instead of pulling a damon and pretending she's morally better than Kai BUT i don't see him falling for her bc.. they'd agree on everything! Kai has demonstrated that he loves the thrilling challenge, tension & conflict of being at odds with Bonnie ethically/morally bc it's her RIGID values that make her so appealing to him! He wants to experience the slow, steady process of watching her values get corrupted bc of him and maybe a tiny self-loathing part of him also wonders if her strong values might infect him ("You're brave, loyal, patient. I wanna be more like you.")

He doesn't get obsessed w people who have bendy/flexible values bc 1) it lessens his respect for them and 2) where is the challenge?! He'd get bored intellectually bc someone like elena would cry about morals but not act on them, someone like katherine would challenge him w betrayals/etc. but never rly challenge his *worldview* (bc she'd agree w it), and someone like caroline would talk too much for his liking bc he prefers the mysterious strong, silent types who'd listen to HIM talk too much (cough BONNIE cough)

In fact, I have a lil crack theory that bon unknowingly triggers kai's huuuge Daddy Issues bc her rigid disapproval of him as a powerful witch subconsciously reminds him of never being good enough for Joshua 💀 so i think in his mind, successfully infecting bonnie with himself and vice versa feels like finally proving that he is good enough for AND deserving of love from (someone like) joshua

[hysteriaww]

You get kai and bonnie so much together and individually everything you say fits them in canon so well it's too bad the writers really fumbled with them because when kai showed up he was a breath of fresh air and the best part about him is he's all about bonnie that was new and realistic bonkai was their last shot at getting the vampire diaries interest back up again

AH thank you so much for this lovely message, you're so sweet!! Yes, it really is such a shame the writers fumbled Bonkai bc it rly did seem like they had some great ideas there in the beginning, but the execution fell flat :( I feel like Kai was a breath of fresh air not just for us fans but also the cast & crew! U could rly feel their spark of new excitement for a dying show when kai showed up bc i think they all sensed that he was unique and different from the tired, recycled plotlines they'd had since S4.

Ian in particular seemed much more interested in his scenes when Kai was around (and much more lifeless when he wasn't) and Bonnie ofc was *given* much more interesting scenes when Kai was around, compared to prior seasons. Even Alaric & Jo, who started S6 as rick's new boring romance of the season, became relevant, layered and interesting bc of their links to Kai. Like rick loved to play the hero & act like damon was morally beneath him in S6 but his need to protect Jo from Kai brought out a selfish streak that made him go behind Jo & her fam's back to make shady deals w Damon & Kai as long as it kept Jo safe! Even Jo was revealed to be quite crafty considering her backstory of how she tricked & betrayed Kai in 1994, which made her much more interesting than her early role as rick's bland gf.

Even Liv & Luke were (im sorry) SO BORING in S5 but 1000x more interesting in S6 once their story got linked to Kai. His existence single-handedly linked so many disjointed characters & plotlines from previous seasons (like why'd they even bring Rick back after dying in S3? His relationship w Jo (and by extension, Kai) was the only thing that made him relevant for the rest of the goddamn show)! Even the Heretics were introduced to the show through KAI & the gemini/siphoner lore and fully lost steam as soon as Kai wasn't there to make 'em interesting!

As for Kai's links to Bonnie, ya i agree she rly was their last chance to make things interesting bc they'd already given Elena & Caroline "dark" romances that fans were too attached to to accept anything else (see: Delena being forced to stay together; Steroline forever being overshadowed in most fans' minds by Klaroline) so giving Elena & Caroline new pairings would've disappointed fans, whereas Bonnie was a blank slate they could've gone WILD with bc none of her canon pairings had strongly attached fans... yet they gave Elena & Caroline new romances anyway and scrapped Bon's romance with Kai :)))

That is what felt malicious. In S6 alone, they gave Elena who ALREADY HAD DAMON the new guy Liam, then gave Caroline the same guy Liam, Enzo (briefly) AND Stefan, whereas Bon *almost* got Kai & *fully* lost Jeremy in S6. ??? Any writer who paid half as much attention to her fans as Plague did (considering how much ott fan-service she wrote into tvd & how many twitter fights she got into w fans whose ships she disapproved of) HAD to have known her fans wouldn't accept Caroline/Enzo, Care/Stef, Care/Liam or Elena/Liam as much as they loved Care/Klaus & Elena/Damon. Yet she did it anyway bc she preferred LOSING FANS to giving Bonnie someone interesting!

She even planned Kai to be Bon's love interest in S6 bc she thought he wouldn't be popular w fans & instantly torpedoed that once she noticed fans' love for him bc, as I said before, Plague PAID ATTENTION to her fans' reactions. So fans having lukewarm feelings about Steroline was enough to get 'em married, but fans LIKING Kai was enough to get Bonkai axed. It's a common joke that Plague saw Caroline as her self-insert (neurotic, hyper-organized blonde control-freak) which is why she dated more men than even Elena. But I think a large chunk of tvd's white teen girl fans saw Care as a self-insert too (bc w each subsequent season, Caroline was increasingly written & designed that way, which is why fans turned on tvd's original self-insert, Elena, & worshipped Care instead).

Her "im never the one, im not perfect like elena" insecurities made her a blank canvas for (white) girls to see themselves in, which is why she wins Miss Mystic Falls, why she's a privileged Founding Fam member, why she gets to dress fancy & go to Mikaelson balls that have nothing to do w her, why she gets ALL the men, why she becomes the 1st vampire to be pregnant, why she gets to marry Stefan (then instantly lose him so she can go kiss Klaus in the spin-off), why she gets to be tvd's last vampire standing, why she repeatedly gets to have her cake and eat it too. By presenting Elena as "perfect/ideal" & Caroline as an "underdog," fans naturally sympathized more with Care's "struggle" (even tho she repeatedly got EVERYTHING!) Based on this, Plague refused to let ppl like Klaus date Bonnie (which would've made sense) but shoved him w Caroline (which didn't make narrative sense) bc that gave her & white fans the chance to see themselves in Care & feel like THEY were dating Klaus.

(Btw I wanna add that I actually do like & enjoy Caroline! This is a critique of the shadiness that went into *writing* Caroline, not a critique of Caroline herself)

Similarly, Kai was allowed to want Bonnie as long as fans didn't like him, but once he got popular, Plague killed Bonkai bc she believed that she & her (white) fans wouldn't be able to see themselves in Bonnie and feel like THEY were the ones dating Kai. But Kai was not Klaus, Stefan, Damon, Enzo or Kol. His character was CONCEIVED w Bonnie in mind to the point that erasing his obsession w her would make him not even feel like KAI anymore. And that wouldn't work bc fans wanted gucci kai, not walmart kai. Also, his general personality quirks were just not the type that would vibe w Caroline. Chris Wood said it himself, "Kai likes to be the one who talks, he doesn't like to listen, so I think Caroline might make him wanna snap her neck & move on" bc Caroline ALSO likes to talk. So writing him w Care would change Kai too much & writing him w Elena was not an option bc Delena was set in stone & Nina was leaving. So, how'd plague have her cake & eat it too? She refused to let Bon have Kai, and bc there was no other white girl who made sense for him, she kept Kai eternally single so white fans could eternally imagine themselves w him.

And uk what's the worst part? I don't believe all white fans would've necessarily struggled to see themselves in Bonnie if she'd dated Kai. I think Bonnie being the ACTUAL underdog struggler of the show made her very relatable to people, regardless of what your race is (esp bc tvd rarely addressed her race or centered any plotlines on it). I think Plague's own subconscious biases just made it impossible for her to fathom seeing herself in a PoC character, which is why she wrongly assumed all her majority white fans worked the same way & letting Bonkai happen would've disappointed them & made them stop watching. (But that being said, even if it was just a "business decision" to her... isn't it funny how disappointing masses of white klaroline fans didn't stop her from tossing Care at stef, enzo, whoever she wanted, but ONLY stopped her when it came to Bonnie's ships (bc she was looking for excuses to scrap 'em anyway)? Oh plagueee ur biases are showing, girlieee)

[rhaenin-time]

Oh no, not this stirring up memories of my abandoned (for length) attempted essay with a whole rant about how Elena and Bonnie should have swapped S6 storylines because Elena was the one who needed to choose to live just for herself (hell, they could have trapped her in another dimension until Nina returned for the finale) while Bonnie had known for a long time that she deserved better, that she wanted to live her life, but the writers wouldn't let her.

Basically, Elena needed the time on her own and the chance to finally get to choose to live for herself, while Bonnie needed the WRITERS to let her LIVE. With HOBBIES. And a quality LOVE INTEREST.

Additional note: Why does Caroline give me "Trapped in an Island with Josh Hutcherson" vibes where Jenny Nicholson points out that the author wrote a self-insert, proceeded to get jealous of the self-insert, and so crafted a new self-insert to push the original one aside?

[hysteriaww]

@rhaenin-time WAIT that "trapped in an island" self-insert scenario hilariously seems like *exactly* what happened to Plague with Elena vs Caroline lmfaooo 💀

Like even down to the no. of times tvd pitted elena against caroline when it came to men, vamp powers, and even friendships (bonnie)! I think S4 was one of the most obvious examples of it bc of the no. of comparisons they drew b/w Elena struggling to cope w vampirism and Caroline adapting to it much better than her & OMG that moment when Elena had her humanity off and picked a fight with Caroline and got her ass beaten, all while the two of them took turns slut-shaming & being downright hostile to each other throughout S4 my god what a mess... The best way to notice the difference b/w the show's framing of Caroline vs Elena is to pay attention to how S4 humanityoff!Elena did bitchy things & INSTANTLY got put in her place for it vs S6 humanityoff!Caroline did horrific things too but the characters AROUND her got punished for it more than her.

Even the core ethos of the show changed when the self-insert shifted from elena to caroline! Notice how tvd's core message had always been "humanity > vampirism" in S1 back when Elena was the self-insert, which is why the show's "morally good" vampires e.g. stefan envied & admired her humanity while the "morally bad" vampires e.g. damon, isobel, katherine preferred vampirism to being human, which was framed as less noble of them. Jump to S3-4 & slowly that worldview starts changing along w the show's preference for Care over Elena. Suddenly, we have characters like Damon becoming "good/noble" yet still preferring vampirism to humanity, while characters like Rebekah & Silas are framed as "bad" but now hungering for humanity/the Cure to vampirism, which is the total opposite of tvd's S1-2 ethos.

By S3-4, the show's original stance^^ on "Humanity vs Vampirism" began shifting & was no longer framed as "Honor/Morality vs Lack of Morals," but rather framed as "the Boring Choice vs the Cool Choice." So characters like stefan & elena are now considered "boring" rather than "noble" for favoring humanity over vampirism by S4 (hell, in Stefan's case, the show even frames him as WRONG/BAD now for wanting to help elena turn human again...... which is what she'd consistently wanted for all of S1-3 until randomly changing her mind in S4!! No wonder stef wanted to help her bruh!?). Meanwhile, Caroline is framed as an aspirational girlboss for preferring vampirism over humanity in S4-6 (while fandom views elena as a weak whiner for missing being human). Even Elena's "girlboss" move of feeding Katherine the Cure in 4x23, which would've been framed as a heavy "im gonna sacrifice my intense desire for humanity just to save us from katherine" moment in S2, instead got framed as a petty joke by S4-5 like "hehe lets give katherine some icky lame humanity" as if it's a DISEASE 💀 with like NO angst whatsoever about elena/stefan/whomever watching katherine waste her shot at humanity that should've been theirs!!

THAT big of a perspective & worldview shift w/i tvd's core messaging happened so abruptly all bc human Elena was no longer the gold standard self-insert, and got replaced by vampire Caroline! WILD. No wonder the series finale turning all the vamps human again (except Caroline) felt so hollow as a "happy ending" bc.. was it really?? In tvd S1-2, all the "good" vamps would've considered being human again a happy ending, but by S8 after tvd's shift to "humanity < vampirism"? Turning them human again felt more like a PUNISHMENT lmfaooo i mean why else was plague physically unable to do that to her self-insert Caroline, while sparing NO ONE else..?

What sucks is they rly could've handled that shift from humanity > vampirism to vampirism > humanity with more grace and compelling character arcs (for more ppl besides just caroline) if they wanted, but nuance is one of many things tvd lacked sighhh

(BTW where do i find the link to this josh hutcherson self-insert roast by jenny nicholson?? LOL)

[rhaenin-time]

Oh no it's happening.

I also think there's another aspect to the "Trapped in a Island" issue with TVD. I get the sense that Elena was reworked a lot to represent "the white girl next door" in the hopes that what the CW considered their "general audience" could easily see themselves in her.

The problem is that TVD falls into what I call the unholy trinity of CW shows that HATE their audience: The Vampire Diaries, Supernatural, and The 100.

I think it's consensus by now that the writing went downhill when Kevin Williamson left, and I think he had more regard for Elena as a character (I do remember him saying that he used her as an outlet to write about grief, depression, and healing.) But it makes me wonder if at some point, certain writers started to view Elena AS their audience. As "every other girl." And because they worked so hard to present Elena in a way where she's "like other girls," even the audience started to pick up on that.

So... if you're "not like other girls," who are you going to identity with? The character who's not like her. Who is somehow both the underdog yet "BETTER" than her. The character that CERTAIN writers see themselves in.

Am I saying that Caroline is a self-insert for both writers and audience who would never stoop to inserting themselves into a character that accidently revealed she's the avatar for a general audience, and therefore not "special?"

Maybe.

Am I saying that, especially in the later seasons, certain writers use Elena to show what they think of their "general audience" and Caroline to show what they think of themselves, as well as other special viewers?

Umm... I think I need to look into this.

And you're on to something with the vampires. As in, I think at some point, they did start to stand in for special and elite. And... that's also kind of telling.

[hysteriaww]

"at some point, they [vampires] did start to stand in for special and elite."

This... feels so extra insidious when you begin to do the math of how many vampires in TVD were white VS how many witches and werewolves were POC who explicitly got screwed over/murdered/etc. by white vampires OH GOD MAKE IT STOP PLS MAKE IT STOP i can't unsee it now..

(Also lmfao at the way Elena vs Caroline can rly be summarized as pick me/Not Like Other Girls nonsense in a nutshell ur so right 😭)

It's extra funny bc Elena was initially framed as an NLOG & Caroline was the original "most girls" -> they're LITERALLY "sheee wears short skirts [Caroline]; I wear T-shirts [Elena]; she's cheer captain [Caroline] and I'm on the bleachers [Elena]" 💀 but then it completely flipped

[rhaenin-time]

I think making Elena "not like other girls" failed because the writers got way too obvious and condescending about it. As in they were basically trying to tell the whole audience that "you're special" while also keeping her "relatable" and it became so apparent that the audience caught on without even realizing what they were catching on to. And then at some point the writers just gave up.

Oh no not you also reminding me how TVD also had this terrible, suspicious habit of casting PoC as victims to the "acceptable" murders. If you do the math, it's DAMNING. I really need to return to my shelved video essay aspirations. Unfortunately I got overwhelmed in the outline process of the TVD one because there was SO MUCH going on and I couldn't figure out how to even separate the issues into smaller essays because it's all connected in this hellish circle of CW racially-and-misogynistically-fueled elitism.

[hysteriaww]

@rhaenin-time thank u for using the term "acceptable murders" bc tvd RLY had a nasty tendency to frame certain crimes/murders as "acceptable" while others were framed as "TOO FAR" when… a lot of those crimes would acc be quite similar?? Yet despite all the similarities, we (and the characters) were expected to be horrified by some and FINE with the others, with the only real differences b/w them being the RACES of the victims!!

Why does Caroline's Dad (who ABUSED her) get an entire episode dedicated to her sadness over his death (a death he CHOSE by refusing to turn into a vamp) v/s Bonnie's Dad (who was generally good to her) gets NOTHING dedicated to her grief over watching him get brutally murdered in front of an audience??? Why is one of these deaths framed as "woe is me" while the other one's treated like "u win some, u lose some.. welp movin' on!" U can't argue that Bill Forbes was more important than Rudy Hopkins bc... Bill was a guest star visiting Mystic Falls for like 3 episodes after which he died, whereas Rudy was a recurring character for S4-5 and was literally MAYOR of Mystic Falls when he died?!? U also can't argue that "Caroline is a more important character than Bonnie, so her grief deserves more screen-time" bc they're BOTH part of the main cast as Elena's best friends constantly involved with plot-heavy stuff! Add the fact that Caroline's Dad tortured her for being a vampire while Bonnie's Dad actually cared about her and u SHOULD logically have given CARE's dad a brutal death while BON's Dad got a more emotional one but... ???

^^he's talking about his own daughter being a vampire here, meanwhile:

....Notice one father sees his daughter as a monster, while the other dad calls his daughter's power A GIFT.

UK I'd also like to add that Tyler's Mom ALSO deserved a more emotional send-off considering she was also brutally murdered while being a very important recurring character who had EQUAL screen-time as Caroline's Mom in S1-3!! Yet.. Sheriff Forbes gets multiple episodes dedicated to her emotional death in S6 while Carol Lockwood gets.. drowned in a fountain by Klaus on her own property in S4. And Tyler's rightful rage over it is dismissed by the others basically ignoring it & not even checking on him??? Meanwhile the world STOPS for Caroline's Mom and Dad dying (MOST of the cast showed up at her house to make her feel better about her dad choosing not to transition!! Sheriff Forbes got a whole town-wide funeral bc of her title as sheriff.. yet Tyler's Mom didn't get that as MAYOR?? and Bonnie's Dad ALSO didn't get that AS MAYOR?) Notice how Tyler & Bon were both played by PoC actors, tvd...

I can see why u got overwhelmed by outlining a TVD video essay bc clearly, there is SO MUCH that would need to be covered, but if u ever decide to go ahead with it, i will 10/10 watch it xD There's also a few TVD vid essays out there (like jenny nicholson's) that u could check out for inspo on how to separate the show's issues into smaller topics/essays if that's intimidating you! (Or, uk, come ask crazy ppl like me if u need a sounding board hahaha i'd be happy to help u arrange ur ideas into smaller essays too, if u rly wanna do it!)

[xnighten]

[hysteriaww]

That ask you got about if Kai would’ve saved Bonnie in 6x22 and how you think it would’ve been out of spite 😂

I just wanna say Respectablealcoholic has a beautifully written fic centered around exactly that. It’s called the Hearsay Series. The first part “The Invitation Barrier” is about Bonnie and Kai’s dynamic immediately after he saves her in 6x22 after Damon leaves her to die.

HAHAHA I'm glad you liked my answer lmfao even I cracked up myself when I realized "no kai srsly would save bonnie out. of. SPITE." 💀

Thank you for ur amazing fic rec!! I actually read @respectable-alcoholic's Heresy series waaayyy back before I even had a tumblr or ao3 and I remember the thrill of refreshing ffn.net every few days/weeks back then to see if a new chapter had come out yet :') (yes folks, this was a time when more of the bonkai fandom posted on ffn rather than ao3 lol!) And you are SO RIGHT anon, I think Bonnie and Kai *both* had many moments of descending to such extreme levels of spite in that series, it had me glued to the screen!

The whole trilogy was an emotional roller-coaster that I strongly recommend. The angst, tension, conflicts and smut were *sublime* and pretty believable extensions of canon imo, tho i will say- when that story got dark, it got DARK. Like my soul sometimes felt *heavy* bc the series did not shy away from letting characters brutally hit their lowest points and it was gut-wrenchingly painful, but also necessary for that story tbh. Really intense series overall, people go check it out if u haven't already! It's like an iconic part of the bonkai fandom collection srsly ask anyone!

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/series/520816

FFN (link to the first chapter): https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11716708/1/The-Invitation-Barrier

Happy reading, guys! And thank u, anon! <3

(Btw does anyone else remember reading this fic as it was coming out? No joke i remember *exactly* where i was the first time bonkai kissed in this series BAHAHA core memory)

[hysteriaww]

You get kai and bonnie so much together and individually everything you say fits them in canon so well it's too bad the writers really fumbled with them because when kai showed up he was a breath of fresh air and the best part about him is he's all about bonnie that was new and realistic bonkai was their last shot at getting the vampire diaries interest back up again

AH thank you so much for this lovely message, you're so sweet!! Yes, it really is such a shame the writers fumbled Bonkai bc it rly did seem like they had some great ideas there in the beginning, but the execution fell flat :( I feel like Kai was a breath of fresh air not just for us fans but also the cast & crew! U could rly feel their spark of new excitement for a dying show when kai showed up bc i think they all sensed that he was unique and different from the tired, recycled plotlines they'd had since S4.

Ian in particular seemed much more interested in his scenes when Kai was around (and much more lifeless when he wasn't) and Bonnie ofc was *given* much more interesting scenes when Kai was around, compared to prior seasons. Even Alaric & Jo, who started S6 as rick's new boring romance of the season, became relevant, layered and interesting bc of their links to Kai. Like rick loved to play the hero & act like damon was morally beneath him in S6 but his need to protect Jo from Kai brought out a selfish streak that made him go behind Jo & her fam's back to make shady deals w Damon & Kai as long as it kept Jo safe! Even Jo was revealed to be quite crafty considering her backstory of how she tricked & betrayed Kai in 1994, which made her much more interesting than her early role as rick's bland gf.

Even Liv & Luke were (im sorry) SO BORING in S5 but 1000x more interesting in S6 once their story got linked to Kai. His existence single-handedly linked so many disjointed characters & plotlines from previous seasons (like why'd they even bring Rick back after dying in S3? His relationship w Jo (and by extension, Kai) was the only thing that made him relevant for the rest of the goddamn show)! Even the Heretics were introduced to the show through KAI & the gemini/siphoner lore and fully lost steam as soon as Kai wasn't there to make 'em interesting!

As for Kai's links to Bonnie, ya i agree she rly was their last chance to make things interesting bc they'd already given Elena & Caroline "dark" romances that fans were too attached to to accept anything else (see: Delena being forced to stay together; Steroline forever being overshadowed in most fans' minds by Klaroline) so giving Elena & Caroline new pairings would've disappointed fans, whereas Bonnie was a blank slate they could've gone WILD with bc none of her canon pairings had strongly attached fans... yet they gave Elena & Caroline new romances anyway and scrapped Bon's romance with Kai :)))

That is what felt malicious. In S6 alone, they gave Elena who ALREADY HAD DAMON the new guy Liam, then gave Caroline the same guy Liam, Enzo (briefly) AND Stefan, whereas Bon *almost* got Kai & *fully* lost Jeremy in S6. ??? Any writer who paid half as much attention to her fans as Plague did (considering how much ott fan-service she wrote into tvd & how many twitter fights she got into w fans whose ships she disapproved of) HAD to have known her fans wouldn't accept Caroline/Enzo, Care/Stef, Care/Liam or Elena/Liam as much as they loved Care/Klaus & Elena/Damon. Yet she did it anyway bc she preferred LOSING FANS to giving Bonnie someone interesting!

She even planned Kai to be Bon's love interest in S6 bc she thought he wouldn't be popular w fans & instantly torpedoed that once she noticed fans' love for him bc, as I said before, Plague PAID ATTENTION to her fans' reactions. So fans having lukewarm feelings about Steroline was enough to get 'em married, but fans LIKING Kai was enough to get Bonkai axed. It's a common joke that Plague saw Caroline as her self-insert (neurotic, hyper-organized blonde control-freak) which is why she dated more men than even Elena. But I think a large chunk of tvd's white teen girl fans saw Care as a self-insert too (bc w each subsequent season, Caroline was increasingly written & designed that way, which is why fans turned on tvd's original self-insert, Elena, & worshipped Care instead).

Her "im never the one, im not perfect like elena" insecurities made her a blank canvas for (white) girls to see themselves in, which is why she wins Miss Mystic Falls, why she's a privileged Founding Fam member, why she gets to dress fancy & go to Mikaelson balls that have nothing to do w her, why she gets ALL the men, why she becomes the 1st vampire to be pregnant, why she gets to marry Stefan (then instantly lose him so she can go kiss Klaus in the spin-off), why she gets to be tvd's last vampire standing, why she repeatedly gets to have her cake and eat it too. By presenting Elena as "perfect/ideal" & Caroline as an "underdog," fans naturally sympathized more with Care's "struggle" (even tho she repeatedly got EVERYTHING!) Based on this, Plague refused to let ppl like Klaus date Bonnie (which would've made sense) but shoved him w Caroline (which didn't make narrative sense) bc that gave her & white fans the chance to see themselves in Care & feel like THEY were dating Klaus.

(Btw I wanna add that I actually do like & enjoy Caroline! This is a critique of the shadiness that went into *writing* Caroline, not a critique of Caroline herself)

Similarly, Kai was allowed to want Bonnie as long as fans didn't like him, but once he got popular, Plague killed Bonkai bc she believed that she & her (white) fans wouldn't be able to see themselves in Bonnie and feel like THEY were the ones dating Kai. But Kai was not Klaus, Stefan, Damon, Enzo or Kol. His character was CONCEIVED w Bonnie in mind to the point that erasing his obsession w her would make him not even feel like KAI anymore. And that wouldn't work bc fans wanted gucci kai, not walmart kai. Also, his general personality quirks were just not the type that would vibe w Caroline. Chris Wood said it himself, "Kai likes to be the one who talks, he doesn't like to listen, so I think Caroline might make him wanna snap her neck & move on" bc Caroline ALSO likes to talk. So writing him w Care would change Kai too much & writing him w Elena was not an option bc Delena was set in stone & Nina was leaving. So, how'd plague have her cake & eat it too? She refused to let Bon have Kai, and bc there was no other white girl who made sense for him, she kept Kai eternally single so white fans could eternally imagine themselves w him.

And uk what's the worst part? I don't believe all white fans would've necessarily struggled to see themselves in Bonnie if she'd dated Kai. I think Bonnie being the ACTUAL underdog struggler of the show made her very relatable to people, regardless of what your race is (esp bc tvd rarely addressed her race or centered any plotlines on it). I think Plague's own subconscious biases just made it impossible for her to fathom seeing herself in a PoC character, which is why she wrongly assumed all her majority white fans worked the same way & letting Bonkai happen would've disappointed them & made them stop watching. (But that being said, even if it was just a "business decision" to her... isn't it funny how disappointing masses of white klaroline fans didn't stop her from tossing Care at stef, enzo, whoever she wanted, but ONLY stopped her when it came to Bonnie's ships (bc she was looking for excuses to scrap 'em anyway)? Oh plagueee ur biases are showing, girlieee)

[rhaenin-time]

Oh no, not this stirring up memories of my abandoned (for length) attempted essay with a whole rant about how Elena and Bonnie should have swapped S6 storylines because Elena was the one who needed to choose to live just for herself (hell, they could have trapped her in another dimension until Nina returned for the finale) while Bonnie had known for a long time that she deserved better, that she wanted to live her life, but the writers wouldn't let her.

Basically, Elena needed the time on her own and the chance to finally get to choose to live for herself, while Bonnie needed the WRITERS to let her LIVE. With HOBBIES. And a quality LOVE INTEREST.

Additional note: Why does Caroline give me "Trapped in an Island with Josh Hutcherson" vibes where Jenny Nicholson points out that the author wrote a self-insert, proceeded to get jealous of the self-insert, and so crafted a new self-insert to push the original one aside?

[hysteriaww]

@rhaenin-time WAIT that "trapped in an island" self-insert scenario hilariously seems like *exactly* what happened to Plague with Elena vs Caroline lmfaooo 💀

Like even down to the no. of times tvd pitted elena against caroline when it came to men, vamp powers, and even friendships (bonnie)! I think S4 was one of the most obvious examples of it bc of the no. of comparisons they drew b/w Elena struggling to cope w vampirism and Caroline adapting to it much better than her & OMG that moment when Elena had her humanity off and picked a fight with Caroline and got her ass beaten, all while the two of them took turns slut-shaming & being downright hostile to each other throughout S4 my god what a mess... The best way to notice the difference b/w the show's framing of Caroline vs Elena is to pay attention to how S4 humanityoff!Elena did bitchy things & INSTANTLY got put in her place for it vs S6 humanityoff!Caroline did horrific things too but the characters AROUND her got punished for it more than her.

Even the core ethos of the show changed when the self-insert shifted from elena to caroline! Notice how tvd's core message had always been "humanity > vampirism" in S1 back when Elena was the self-insert, which is why the show's "morally good" vampires e.g. stefan envied & admired her humanity while the "morally bad" vampires e.g. damon, isobel, katherine preferred vampirism to being human, which was framed as less noble of them. Jump to S3-4 & slowly that worldview starts changing along w the show's preference for Care over Elena. Suddenly, we have characters like Damon becoming "good/noble" yet still preferring vampirism to humanity, while characters like Rebekah & Silas are framed as "bad" but now hungering for humanity/the Cure to vampirism, which is the total opposite of tvd's S1-2 ethos.

By S3-4, the show's original stance^^ on "Humanity vs Vampirism" began shifting & was no longer framed as "Honor/Morality vs Lack of Morals," but rather framed as "the Boring Choice vs the Cool Choice." So characters like stefan & elena are now considered "boring" rather than "noble" for favoring humanity over vampirism by S4 (hell, in Stefan's case, the show even frames him as WRONG/BAD now for wanting to help elena turn human again...... which is what she'd consistently wanted for all of S1-3 until randomly changing her mind in S4!! No wonder stef wanted to help her bruh!?). Meanwhile, Caroline is framed as an aspirational girlboss for preferring vampirism over humanity in S4-6 (while fandom views elena as a weak whiner for missing being human). Even Elena's "girlboss" move of feeding Katherine the Cure in 4x23, which would've been framed as a heavy "im gonna sacrifice my intense desire for humanity just to save us from katherine" moment in S2, instead got framed as a petty joke by S4-5 like "hehe lets give katherine some icky lame humanity" as if it's a DISEASE 💀 with like NO angst whatsoever about elena/stefan/whomever watching katherine waste her shot at humanity that should've been theirs!!

THAT big of a perspective & worldview shift w/i tvd's core messaging happened so abruptly all bc human Elena was no longer the gold standard self-insert, and got replaced by vampire Caroline! WILD. No wonder the series finale turning all the vamps human again (except Caroline) felt so hollow as a "happy ending" bc.. was it really?? In tvd S1-2, all the "good" vamps would've considered being human again a happy ending, but by S8 after tvd's shift to "humanity < vampirism"? Turning them human again felt more like a PUNISHMENT lmfaooo i mean why else was plague physically unable to do that to her self-insert Caroline, while sparing NO ONE else..?

What sucks is they rly could've handled that shift from humanity > vampirism to vampirism > humanity with more grace and compelling character arcs (for more ppl besides just caroline) if they wanted, but nuance is one of many things tvd lacked sighhh

(BTW where do i find the link to this josh hutcherson self-insert roast by jenny nicholson?? LOL)

[rhaenin-time]

Oh no it's happening.

I also think there's another aspect to the "Trapped in a Island" issue with TVD. I get the sense that Elena was reworked a lot to represent "the white girl next door" in the hopes that what the CW considered their "general audience" could easily see themselves in her.

The problem is that TVD falls into what I call the unholy trinity of CW shows that HATE their audience: The Vampire Diaries, Supernatural, and The 100.

I think it's consensus by now that the writing went downhill when Kevin Williamson left, and I think he had more regard for Elena as a character (I do remember him saying that he used her as an outlet to write about grief, depression, and healing.) But it makes me wonder if at some point, certain writers started to view Elena AS their audience. As "every other girl." And because they worked so hard to present Elena in a way where she's "like other girls," even the audience started to pick up on that.

So... if you're "not like other girls," who are you going to identity with? The character who's not like her. Who is somehow both the underdog yet "BETTER" than her. The character that CERTAIN writers see themselves in.

Am I saying that Caroline is a self-insert for both writers and audience who would never stoop to inserting themselves into a character that accidently revealed she's the avatar for a general audience, and therefore not "special?"

Maybe.

Am I saying that, especially in the later seasons, certain writers use Elena to show what they think of their "general audience" and Caroline to show what they think of themselves, as well as other special viewers?

Umm... I think I need to look into this.

And you're on to something with the vampires. As in, I think at some point, they did start to stand in for special and elite. And... that's also kind of telling.

[hysteriaww]

"at some point, they [vampires] did start to stand in for special and elite."

This... feels so extra insidious when you begin to do the math of how many vampires in TVD were white VS how many witches and werewolves were POC who explicitly got screwed over/murdered/etc. by white vampires OH GOD MAKE IT STOP PLS MAKE IT STOP i can't unsee it now..

(Also lmfao at the way Elena vs Caroline can rly be summarized as pick me/Not Like Other Girls nonsense in a nutshell ur so right 😭)

It's extra funny bc Elena was initially framed as an NLOG & Caroline was the original "most girls" -> they're LITERALLY "sheee wears short skirts [Caroline]; I wear T-shirts [Elena]; she's cheer captain [Caroline] and I'm on the bleachers [Elena]" 💀 but then it completely flipped

[hysteriaww]

You get kai and bonnie so much together and individually everything you say fits them in canon so well it's too bad the writers really fumbled with them because when kai showed up he was a breath of fresh air and the best part about him is he's all about bonnie that was new and realistic bonkai was their last shot at getting the vampire diaries interest back up again

AH thank you so much for this lovely message, you're so sweet!! Yes, it really is such a shame the writers fumbled Bonkai bc it rly did seem like they had some great ideas there in the beginning, but the execution fell flat :( I feel like Kai was a breath of fresh air not just for us fans but also the cast & crew! U could rly feel their spark of new excitement for a dying show when kai showed up bc i think they all sensed that he was unique and different from the tired, recycled plotlines they'd had since S4.

Ian in particular seemed much more interested in his scenes when Kai was around (and much more lifeless when he wasn't) and Bonnie ofc was *given* much more interesting scenes when Kai was around, compared to prior seasons. Even Alaric & Jo, who started S6 as rick's new boring romance of the season, became relevant, layered and interesting bc of their links to Kai. Like rick loved to play the hero & act like damon was morally beneath him in S6 but his need to protect Jo from Kai brought out a selfish streak that made him go behind Jo & her fam's back to make shady deals w Damon & Kai as long as it kept Jo safe! Even Jo was revealed to be quite crafty considering her backstory of how she tricked & betrayed Kai in 1994, which made her much more interesting than her early role as rick's bland gf.

Even Liv & Luke were (im sorry) SO BORING in S5 but 1000x more interesting in S6 once their story got linked to Kai. His existence single-handedly linked so many disjointed characters & plotlines from previous seasons (like why'd they even bring Rick back after dying in S3? His relationship w Jo (and by extension, Kai) was the only thing that made him relevant for the rest of the goddamn show)! Even the Heretics were introduced to the show through KAI & the gemini/siphoner lore and fully lost steam as soon as Kai wasn't there to make 'em interesting!

As for Kai's links to Bonnie, ya i agree she rly was their last chance to make things interesting bc they'd already given Elena & Caroline "dark" romances that fans were too attached to to accept anything else (see: Delena being forced to stay together; Steroline forever being overshadowed in most fans' minds by Klaroline) so giving Elena & Caroline new pairings would've disappointed fans, whereas Bonnie was a blank slate they could've gone WILD with bc none of her canon pairings had strongly attached fans... yet they gave Elena & Caroline new romances anyway and scrapped Bon's romance with Kai :)))

That is what felt malicious. In S6 alone, they gave Elena who ALREADY HAD DAMON the new guy Liam, then gave Caroline the same guy Liam, Enzo (briefly) AND Stefan, whereas Bon *almost* got Kai & *fully* lost Jeremy in S6. ??? Any writer who paid half as much attention to her fans as Plague did (considering how much ott fan-service she wrote into tvd & how many twitter fights she got into w fans whose ships she disapproved of) HAD to have known her fans wouldn't accept Caroline/Enzo, Care/Stef, Care/Liam or Elena/Liam as much as they loved Care/Klaus & Elena/Damon. Yet she did it anyway bc she preferred LOSING FANS to giving Bonnie someone interesting!

She even planned Kai to be Bon's love interest in S6 bc she thought he wouldn't be popular w fans & instantly torpedoed that once she noticed fans' love for him bc, as I said before, Plague PAID ATTENTION to her fans' reactions. So fans having lukewarm feelings about Steroline was enough to get 'em married, but fans LIKING Kai was enough to get Bonkai axed. It's a common joke that Plague saw Caroline as her self-insert (neurotic, hyper-organized blonde control-freak) which is why she dated more men than even Elena. But I think a large chunk of tvd's white teen girl fans saw Care as a self-insert too (bc w each subsequent season, Caroline was increasingly written & designed that way, which is why fans turned on tvd's original self-insert, Elena, & worshipped Care instead).

Her "im never the one, im not perfect like elena" insecurities made her a blank canvas for (white) girls to see themselves in, which is why she wins Miss Mystic Falls, why she's a privileged Founding Fam member, why she gets to dress fancy & go to Mikaelson balls that have nothing to do w her, why she gets ALL the men, why she becomes the 1st vampire to be pregnant, why she gets to marry Stefan (then instantly lose him so she can go kiss Klaus in the spin-off), why she gets to be tvd's last vampire standing, why she repeatedly gets to have her cake and eat it too. By presenting Elena as "perfect/ideal" & Caroline as an "underdog," fans naturally sympathized more with Care's "struggle" (even tho she repeatedly got EVERYTHING!) Based on this, Plague refused to let ppl like Klaus date Bonnie (which would've made sense) but shoved him w Caroline (which didn't make narrative sense) bc that gave her & white fans the chance to see themselves in Care & feel like THEY were dating Klaus.

(Btw I wanna add that I actually do like & enjoy Caroline! This is a critique of the shadiness that went into *writing* Caroline, not a critique of Caroline herself)

Similarly, Kai was allowed to want Bonnie as long as fans didn't like him, but once he got popular, Plague killed Bonkai bc she believed that she & her (white) fans wouldn't be able to see themselves in Bonnie and feel like THEY were the ones dating Kai. But Kai was not Klaus, Stefan, Damon, Enzo or Kol. His character was CONCEIVED w Bonnie in mind to the point that erasing his obsession w her would make him not even feel like KAI anymore. And that wouldn't work bc fans wanted gucci kai, not walmart kai. Also, his general personality quirks were just not the type that would vibe w Caroline. Chris Wood said it himself, "Kai likes to be the one who talks, he doesn't like to listen, so I think Caroline might make him wanna snap her neck & move on" bc Caroline ALSO likes to talk. So writing him w Care would change Kai too much & writing him w Elena was not an option bc Delena was set in stone & Nina was leaving. So, how'd plague have her cake & eat it too? She refused to let Bon have Kai, and bc there was no other white girl who made sense for him, she kept Kai eternally single so white fans could eternally imagine themselves w him.

And uk what's the worst part? I don't believe all white fans would've necessarily struggled to see themselves in Bonnie if she'd dated Kai. I think Bonnie being the ACTUAL underdog struggler of the show made her very relatable to people, regardless of what your race is (esp bc tvd rarely addressed her race or centered any plotlines on it). I think Plague's own subconscious biases just made it impossible for her to fathom seeing herself in a PoC character, which is why she wrongly assumed all her majority white fans worked the same way & letting Bonkai happen would've disappointed them & made them stop watching. (But that being said, even if it was just a "business decision" to her... isn't it funny how disappointing masses of white klaroline fans didn't stop her from tossing Care at stef, enzo, whoever she wanted, but ONLY stopped her when it came to Bonnie's ships (bc she was looking for excuses to scrap 'em anyway)? Oh plagueee ur biases are showing, girlieee)

[rhaenin-time]

Oh no, not this stirring up memories of my abandoned (for length) attempted essay with a whole rant about how Elena and Bonnie should have swapped S6 storylines because Elena was the one who needed to choose to live just for herself (hell, they could have trapped her in another dimension until Nina returned for the finale) while Bonnie had known for a long time that she deserved better, that she wanted to live her life, but the writers wouldn't let her.

Basically, Elena needed the time on her own and the chance to finally get to choose to live for herself, while Bonnie needed the WRITERS to let her LIVE. With HOBBIES. And a quality LOVE INTEREST.

Additional note: Why does Caroline give me "Trapped in an Island with Josh Hutcherson" vibes where Jenny Nicholson points out that the author wrote a self-insert, proceeded to get jealous of the self-insert, and so crafted a new self-insert to push the original one aside?

[hysteriaww]

@rhaenin-time WAIT that "trapped in an island" self-insert scenario hilariously seems like *exactly* what happened to Plague with Elena vs Caroline lmfaooo 💀

Like even down to the no. of times tvd pitted elena against caroline when it came to men, vamp powers, and even friendships (bonnie)! I think S4 was one of the most obvious examples of it bc of the no. of comparisons they drew b/w Elena struggling to cope w vampirism and Caroline adapting to it much better than her & OMG that moment when Elena had her humanity off and picked a fight with Caroline and got her ass beaten, all while the two of them took turns slut-shaming & being downright hostile to each other throughout S4 my god what a mess... The best way to notice the difference b/w the show's framing of Caroline vs Elena is to pay attention to how S4 humanityoff!Elena did bitchy things & INSTANTLY got put in her place for it vs S6 humanityoff!Caroline did horrific things too but the characters AROUND her got punished for it more than her.

Even the core ethos of the show changed when the self-insert shifted from elena to caroline! Notice how tvd's core message had always been "humanity > vampirism" in S1 back when Elena was the self-insert, which is why the show's "morally good" vampires e.g. stefan envied & admired her humanity while the "morally bad" vampires e.g. damon, isobel, katherine preferred vampirism to being human, which was framed as less noble of them. Jump to S3-4 & slowly that worldview starts changing along w the show's preference for Care over Elena. Suddenly, we have characters like Damon becoming "good/noble" yet still preferring vampirism to humanity, while characters like Rebekah & Silas are framed as "bad" but now hungering for humanity/the Cure to vampirism, which is the total opposite of tvd's S1-2 ethos.

By S3-4, the show's original stance^^ on "Humanity vs Vampirism" began shifting & was no longer framed as "Honor/Morality vs Lack of Morals," but rather framed as "the Boring Choice vs the Cool Choice." So characters like stefan & elena are now considered "boring" rather than "noble" for favoring humanity over vampirism by S4 (hell, in Stefan's case, the show even frames him as WRONG/BAD now for wanting to help elena turn human again...... which is what she'd consistently wanted for all of S1-3 until randomly changing her mind in S4!! No wonder stef wanted to help her bruh!?). Meanwhile, Caroline is framed as an aspirational girlboss for preferring vampirism over humanity in S4-6 (while fandom views elena as a weak whiner for missing being human). Even Elena's "girlboss" move of feeding Katherine the Cure in 4x23, which would've been framed as a heavy "im gonna sacrifice my intense desire for humanity just to save us from katherine" moment in S2, instead got framed as a petty joke by S4-5 like "hehe lets give katherine some icky lame humanity" as if it's a DISEASE 💀 with like NO angst whatsoever about elena/stefan/whomever watching katherine waste her shot at humanity that should've been theirs!!

THAT big of a perspective & worldview shift w/i tvd's core messaging happened so abruptly all bc human Elena was no longer the gold standard self-insert, and got replaced by vampire Caroline! WILD. No wonder the series finale turning all the vamps human again (except Caroline) felt so hollow as a "happy ending" bc.. was it really?? In tvd S1-2, all the "good" vamps would've considered being human again a happy ending, but by S8 after tvd's shift to "humanity < vampirism"? Turning them human again felt more like a PUNISHMENT lmfaooo i mean why else was plague physically unable to do that to her self-insert Caroline, while sparing NO ONE else..?

What sucks is they rly could've handled that shift from humanity > vampirism to vampirism > humanity with more grace and compelling character arcs (for more ppl besides just caroline) if they wanted, but nuance is one of many things tvd lacked sighhh

(BTW where do i find the link to this josh hutcherson self-insert roast by jenny nicholson?? LOL)

[hysteriaww]

Favorite bonkai moment?

Wow it's been a while since I got one of these haha! MM I'd say my answer to this changes pretty often but rn I think it's the 6x05 scene when Bonnie challenges Kai to siphon her in the woods in front of Damon *just* to prove Kai doesn't actually know the spell to get them out of 1994. I enjoyed how Bonkai were so wrapped up in their petty power struggle that Damon ended up feeling like a third wheel with nothing to do there xD It showed that Bonnie and Kai were on a similar mental wavelength, somehow able to sense what the other was thinking/hiding, whereas Damon was left feeling lost and out of touch with their battle of wits. Also, I appreciated Bonnie being confident enough in her own intuition and skills as a witch to take a giant risk with Kai and be proven right!

That being said, this scene was also the first time Bonnie ever murdered another character in canon, and I wish the show had.. emphasized that more?? She remorselessly kills Kai with no idea that he'll respawn and yes, Kai deserved it, but how did neither Damon nor Bonnie discuss the fact that Kai was her first kill ever?? That's huge! Ofc tvd had lost a lot of their care for continuity by that point so they prob didn't even realize Bonnie had never killed anyone before Kai when they wrote that scene but STILL.

But yea, as of now, that's currently my fav Bonkai scene! It was also one of the first times their sexual tension was so absurdly LOUD to me and in-your-face that I had to pause the scene and wonder if it was intentional or not.. bc I thought "SURELY it can't be ambiguous subtext anymore if it's THAT overt, right??" As a fan of many shows, have I been guilty of reading too much into innocent scenes to find underlying meaning that isn't there or wasn't intended by the creators? Eh, sure. But with scenes like THIS, there's no way the vibe wasn't there!!! You'd have to be willfully blind not to see it!

[upper-echelon-h3arts]

The heavy breathing, the silence. Don't tell me they didn't want each other.

[hysteriaww]

@upper-echelon-h3arts Right?? the utter FRUSTRATION (...both for the fans & for the characters with all that pent up tension, i mean PHEW 😮‍💨)