what's up with all this "Kai is better than Damon because Damon is a rapist!!!! why would you ship Bonnie with Damon!!!?!!!!!" Like Kai is a fucking saint. I don't understand why people love comparing villainous characters so much. None of the guys on the show deserve Bonnie Bennett and I cannot freaking comprehend why people fight about who's the least villainous character Bonnie can date.
i mean, if we’re going to split hairs, yeah no one’s good enough for bonnie but this is goddamn TVD and ppl need to understand that this show is more problematic than the GOP.
i am still super bitter damon’s first season behavior towards caroline was never fully addressed and am horrified his actions were kinda swept under the rug BUT i will say that the damon we’re dealing with now would never do that again. it’s a weak improvement, i know & it still doesn’t excuse his absolute fuckery, but this is the show we’re watching. i tell myself i’d quit if i wasn’t so invested in bonnie. *sigh*
as for ‘kai vs damon’, yeah that’s a tricky and kind of useless comparison. kai may have done fewer inexcusable things simply because he had a smaller run-time. he did his share of nasty stuff, tho. what i will say, and what i have said in a previous rant, is that kai’s villainy and general evilness had some serious motivation plus a good helping of mental disorder. damon, on the other hand, kinda just did bad stuff gratuitously. not saying kai didn’t enjoy pulling some of the crap he did, but he had a muuuch bigger endgame in sight, which was to terminate his creepy abusive coven and gain all the power possible. damon sometimes had goals, but sometimes just went “what the hell, that person’s aorta looks yum”. i think we excuse damon more because he had actual narrative arcs and emotional/moral development, whereas kai’s ‘development’ was cut short and he was killed off.
(hey isn’t it interesting how both kai and damon killed pregnant ladies? and if you think about their motivations, you realize it’s all about gratuity again)
and look, the originals committed massacres by the dozens but we still rooted for them, stefan was a notorious ripper but we found ways to empathize with him etc. good or bad writing, if you are given enough time with a character, you will come to overlook some of the shitty stuff. it’s how these supernatural shows function. hell, even my bby girl bonnie has tapped into her dark side, which i kinda love.
so yeah, i agree that trying to figure out who is the least villainous choice for bonnie is not the POINT on this show
the only really really really healthy and non-problematic relationship i could think of is monnie, but kat mentioned she’d do smth creepy to matt in the first few episodes of S7 so LOL that ship went dark too
tl;dr it’s a supernatural show full of problematic bullshit, so just ship it and have fun and try to be considerate to other ppl in the fandom