I’ve been looking through your GG tags and I was wondering what your favorite thing about Serena was? ❤️
Serena was like the sun to me. She lit up everyone around her, she was warm enough to touch everyone and make everyone’s life a little happier, but if you got too close she’d burn you without meaning to, she was too much. I feel like that made her really vulnerable and lonely, and it always fascinated me how someone so bright could also be so insecure and lonely.
it’s also why I ship her with Nate so hard? I feel like he was the one person who didn’t care how many times he got burned, he never stopped trying to reach her. For Dan, she had to be colder. For Blair, she had to dim her light. But Nate, he just... took it, because that’s how much he adored her, and she deserved someone who could show her what she really meant.
Do you think it's possible for Damon to go back on the deep end if Bonnie and him were to have a fight or short break up if they were to get together? Sorry if that sounds confusing. Love your writing by the way:)
[Thanks for reading! And for such an interesting question. I swear this was going to be short, but then I wrote an essay, lol. I hope you don’t mind this being public!]
The thing about Damon is that he can be is very immature, but he has progressed quite a bit from the ‘kill because someone hurt my feelings’ attitude that he had previously. Which I like, because that version of Damon, while entertaining from a dramatic standpoint, was not reaching his full potential as a character. He was like a B-villain of will I/won’t I, which gets boring and repetitive after a while. The person he is now has come a long way from that…
With Bonnie, if they were to get together and break up/fight, I don’t think he’d regress like that. I think he’d get sulky and drink too much and try to rile her up to show her there was still passion between them and they could be good together. Fighting is kind of their foreplay, lol. But killing people and going off the deep end was unhealthy, both for him and those who enabled him (and especially unfortunate for the humans he killed). I think, as much as he can be immature, his relationship with Bonnie is too healthy for him to react that way. He acts differently with and toward her. And I would hope that, instead of regressing into killing patterns and turning into the dick who cares too little, he would put more of his attention on what he could do to fix it…
A lot of what Damon used to do was to get attention. He wanted people to prove they cared because he never really believed they did. His father rejected him long before he was a vampire. His brother was always complaining that he was reckless and terrible and past redemption. The one friend he did have (Enzo), he abandoned (not without reticence), and so he convinces himself he’s not worth loving. Despite loving and wanting to be with Katherine, he did know she was with his brother and that had to cause 145 years worth of angst and desperation to prove he was the better choice. Then, of course, when she shows up totally alive, she drives it in a little deeper that nope, she always wanted Stefan and he was just a play thing/tool. And even Elena, I mean you can look at it as some tragic will they/won’t they relationship, but really, she dragged him around just as bad. She frequently used his feelings for her to get him to do what she wanted, and sure, you can say it was for the greater good, but that doesn’t make it any less manipulative.
Damon has always been second choice, if he was ever really a choice at all. So his previous actions, of lashing out and hurting people and showing off were primarily based in a look at me/notice me or I’ll do whatever necessary to get you to mindframe. As a protective mechanism, he also had to pretend he didn’t care what they did or whether they noticed or how they viewed him, be it monster or man. And sometimes he didn’t, but sometimes he did, as shown in his breakdown and admission that he missed being human.
Now, his relationship with Bonnie is different. Bonnie, unlike the others, made no secret of her disdain for Damon. Which, I imagine, is actually kind of refreshing. Did he want her to like him, sure. It would’ve made things easier for him. But in a way, I think he liked that she didn’t play games. Bonnie is explicit when she has to be. She’ll tell him to his face that he’s wrong or evil or whatever, whereas all the other people in Damon’s life walk a thin line of ‘placate him so he won’t hurt others.’ Damon’s not an idiot, aside from the occasions where he’s blinded by love and wants to believe that Katherine/Elena’s actions are based in real desire/love for him, he’s aware when he’s being played. He knows Stefan. He knows when his brother is trying to play on his sympathies or emotions or whatever in order to get Damon to be ‘good.’ And, you know, for a long time, I don’t think he truly believed Stefan cared about him, which made it worse, because even when he was angry at his brother, even when he resented him, he still loved him. And Stefan felt the same way, it’s just that Damon has such a huge inferiority complex, especially when it comes to Stefan, that he couldn’t see it.
Anyway, back to Bonnie. Like I said, she’s very honest about her feelings toward Damon, and for the most part, those feelings were negative. But Damon, even if he didn’t always like that she disliked him, appreciated that honesty. It’s very straightforward in comparison to how his relationships with other women have been. So when their friendship actually started to happen, that was probably a huge win for him, because now he’s getting in Saint Bonnie’s good graces. I mean, this is a guy who pretends he’s cool with being the bad guy, but really wants to be the hero. He’s constantly saving people and brushing it off like it’s no big deal or says it was only for Elena (and sometimes it was, but there were times he did it because he wanted to/cared). And Bonnie is the pinnacle of do-goodery in his mind. That’s why he’s always calling her judgy; she lives on the moral high ground. So for her to start considering him a friend is probably a little pat on the back for Damon, like he’s actually being recognized for his growth.
It’s not really until the prison world that this friendship hits its stride though, becoming a lot more apparent than just a few casual comments about being friends (ie. Bonnie to Shane: “this is my friend Damon”) or others just assuming/recognizing the friendship (ie. Galen Vaughn: “You’re my leverage, Damon. I use you to get your witch friend to open the passage to Silas’ crypt for me…” ; and Elena’s comment to Matt: “I think he actually kind of loves her”). Now we’re seeing that a real friendship has grown; if a little antagonistic, as is their nature. Damon cooking for her, sharing the newspaper (so domestic), joint grocery-shopping, board games/bickering/talking for hours, protecting her from Kai (“We may be having a bit of a disagreement, but don’t you ever put your hands on her” and “Kai, if you so much as hurt one hair on her annoying little witch head, I will kill you…” ), joint suicide-pacts (which is pretty damn huge, actually - also, look at his face, he’s devastated), and the whole “I’m sure there are a million/billion people you’d rather be here with…” “A couple thousand at most” / “Not exactly” thing, which is progress in and of itself. And it’s in this world that they really find each other and grow together and have the actual time to learn about one another, good and bad.
This is where Bonnie lays out her biggest qualms with Damon, his careless attitude towards killing, and where Damon admits regret for at least one big occasion. It’s where Bonnie tells him “there’s hope for you.” Which is so huge, okay. Because this is a guy who says ‘screw you’ to redemption not because he doesn’t want it, but because he doesn’t think he can achieve it. And when Bonnie says it, she’s not doing it to placate him or to comfort or to get Damon to do what she wants. It’s not a manipulation at all. It’s sincere and honest hope for him.
So later, when Kai says they have an opportunity to go home, but only if he gets to come along, and Damon pleads his case to Bonnie - “Look, I know this guy’s not a model citizen, okay, Bonnie, but I gotta get back. Not just for Elena, but my brother.“ “I’m sorry, Damon.” - and here, right here, would be where the old-Damon would snap, push her to do what he wants, whatever means necessary. But when Kai goes to do exactly that, Damon stops him. Because he respects Bonnie. He cares about her. And even if it means not getting what he wants, even if means spending an eternity there, he’s not going to hurt her to change that. That is huge progress for him. Yes, he probably figures he’s got time to convince her, though he’s fully aware of how stubborn she is, but he’s not the most patient person. So he makes the decision in that moment that he won’t push her.
And this is why I think, if they were to get together and something were to happen, they break up or they need space or whatever, he wouldn’t regress into old patterns. In that moment, all he wanted was to go home, to see his brother, who, yes, he does love above anyone else. I mean, he’s acknowledging here that he wants Stefan more than Elena. And even knowing Bonnie’s standing between him and getting back to his brother, he makes the conscious decision to protect rather than hurt.
Their friendship manifests into something he holds very close to himself, showing rare degrees of emotional breakdowns due to their separation (when he calls her phone to leave a message; when he finds the bear; when he tells Elena about his and Bonnie’s 4 months together - noticeably focusing on Bonnie and not turning it into a chance to ensnare Elena). And what’s great about this is that you actually see Damon focusing on Bonnie, you don’t see him covering up his feelings or joking them away. Yes, there’s that one moment with Alaric where he jokes about his history with Bonnie, but overall, he’s sincerely focused on getting her back. When you see these moments, they’re all a culmination of something.
This is Damon taking a huge step forward in expressing himself. But it’s also a big sign in recognizing that Damon is already so invested in her that the loss of her just as a friend is painful for him. We saw this the first time she died and Jeremy informed him. Yes, some can chalk that up to Delena, but I think a lot of it had to do with that mutual respect he had for Bonnie already and how she was consistently honest with him, regardless of whether it was kind. So now that they’re friends, that emotional connection has leveled up. Which means if when they become a romantic partnership, that connection and how he reacts to losing her in any capacity will be even stronger.
However, because of their relationship and how they view each other, if they broke up, he’d be hurt, absolutely, and he’d drink himself blind, and he’d probably screw up and feed from humans. But seriously, I could see him compelling them to sit around and listen to him drunkenly complain about how ‘stupid Bonnie’ doesn’t know what she’s missing out on, and how he treated her like a queen, and why doesn’t she want him?!, what’d he do wrong!?, before eventually going over some elaborate plan to get her back. And this bored, compelled victim is like ‘are you going to drink from me or can I go home?’ To which Damon mutters, yeah, fine, and sends them on their way, compelling them to forget.
He’s not going to go sadistic or on a killing spree or turn off his humanity (can he even do that anymore? they said previously that it doesn’t work after a certain point, but Stefan could so… Continuity error?). He’s still immature, so I think he’d make mistakes, but not quite as volatile as before, and that’s not because he cares less about her, it’s because he recognizes the lines Bonnie would draw, and crossing them would mean never getting her back. Elena didn’t have those lines (or if she said she did, she didn’t actually stand behind them). I mean, jesus, he “killed” Jeremy and she still wanted him. With Bonnie, I think if they were in a relationship and she put her trust in him, if he did something that extreme, she would never let him back in. He values her trust and he’s aware of her boundaries, and that’s why I think he’d be more careful about what he did.
In Damon’s mind, Bonnie’s already committed the greatest thing anyone’s ever done for him. She chose him. She sacrificed herself for him. People don’t do that for Damon. You can argue that eventually Elena chose him, but, I mean, technically, she chose Stefan, time and time again, and when she did finally go with Damon, a lot of that was sire bond stuff that got really mixed up. So while it’s possible that while with him she decided he was who she wanted to be with, she didn’t make that choice voluntarily until after she’d already been unintentionally forced into that situation.
What’s also telling is that Damon has been making choices regarding Bonnie. Choosing her over getting home. Choosing to get her home over getting Elena back. And this could be seen as a mirror to Bonnie coming back all 13 times. Damon also had a tendency of being abandoned (his mother, Katherine, Stefan, and now Elena with the memory wipe), so having Bonnie always come back says something big. There’s different ways to look at it: a) he trusts their bond enough that eventually they’ll get back together so he just doesn’t go off the deep end; b) he loves her for always being that consistent person in his life and he doesn’t want to do anything to hurt her, regardless of whether they’re together or not, so he doesn’t go nuts, or c) he won’t risk their relationship, in limbo or not, by screwing up so much that she won’t come back, even if it’s just as a friend.
This whole season Bonnie and Damon have had a ‘hope’ theme going on between them, so I like to view that in the lens that they’re each other’s hope. Damon has spent much of his life fighting for what he wants, tooth and nail, and not always in the right ways. Bonnie’s the first relationship that was built organically. He didn’t force it; if anything he often hindered it. So their growth together leads them to a new ground and a healthier relationship than his previous ones. I think for Damon, instead of reacting with that old, immature, volatile, fuck-shit-up attitude, he would lean more on trying to have hope that they’d come back to one another. Which is a far more healthy and mature way of doing things.
While I think they’ll have their ups and downs and they’ll probably fight and go their separate ways here or there, I also think they’re happiest with each other. We just don’t see them smiling like they do with anyone else, and I think that comes from a genuine place of acceptance. It’s not that Bonnie ignores or enables Damon’s behavior. Often, she condemns it when it’s bad. But Damon needs that sometimes. Just like Bonnie needs to loosen up from time to time and stop sacrificing herself. Damon is selfish enough that he can teach her how to look out for herself and not always throw her life on the line. And Bonnie is moral enough to step in and say ‘let’s find another way, one that doesn’t end with innocent blood.’ There’s a balance there that they would find with each other.
They’re not perfect though, so they will knock heads, but it would be smart writing to have Damon’s past of being abandoned/second choice culminate in him being with someone who won’t do that to him now that they’ve created a friendship and, eventually, a relationship.
could you do one where Caroline fangirls over One Direction and Klaus gets jealous
I would, love, but I really don't like One Direction. I'm sorry if you do, and I bet I'll lose followers over this, but I really cannot write a drabble where I have to even pretend to like them. If you like them, great, that's awesome, go listen to their new album, my friend says it's awesome, but I don't.
Please don't hate me, love. Can I offer you a cookie? This GIF of Taylor Swift's cat?
(Another logical reason why I can't do this drabble is because the time frame of the show is late 2010. At that point, One Direction were still in the X factor and weren't well known in America)
Okay, good ot know. Anyway so what is there to do at Camp-Half Blood, i'm realy nervous to be here.
Hey, no need to be nervous. Your chances of dying diminish within the first week of training!
Uh, that was a joke. But anyway, like I said, training and swimming is a great way to pass the time. I bet Athena's cabin has a ton of books if you're interested in that. Oh! And don't forget the games of capture the flag! That's great.
Hi Peter! Could you take me to Mermaid Lagoon so i can see the mermaids? Please!
Peter grinned. "Gee whiz, I sure could.." Pan replied, smiling and continuing to talk. "But... you gotta' be real careful, the Mermaids aren't nice all tha' time! They tried'a drown Wendy once- Of course, I saved her!" Pan replied, always trying to place himself into the hero mode and be a little cocky.
