The purpose of this post is to rant about recent Damon spoilers, so this will be...spoilery. You can read the interview, and awesome comments here:
meganbmoore.livejournal.com/1263279.html Thanks
ladygawain!
First I want to talk about those new promotional ads. *Sigh* For the past two days, I've been shaking my head at the CW. The first ad that came out was this one:
ewinsidetv.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/vampire-diaries-billboard1.jpg. When I first saw it on vampire-diaries.net, I thought nothing of it. It's obviously saying catch The Vampire Diaries on Thursday nights. It helped that there was a picture of the main three and other information for the onlooker. I then googled to see why most people were shaking their heads at the ad. VD generally means Venereal Disease. Aslo? The actual billboard looks like this:
http://ewinsidetv.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/catch-vd-11.jpg.Just the letters VD on a black background with no other information.
The fact that they don't even have the actors on there tells me that the CW was looking for controversy, and they did want people's minds to go there. Just so they could tell people they're wrong because they're so obviously talking about Vampire Diaries. It's so stupid because the show's name isn't Vampire Diaries. It's The Vampire Diaries. That poster should read Catch TVD. Oh, but those acronyms don't really bring the controversy, now do they? And am I the only one who thinks the actors look sickly in that poster, just because of the connotation of VD? I've seen that picture before but with those letters, they're greased up bodies and void faces take on a whole new meaning. And the CW would put Catch VD on a poster with a threesome. That's so edgy.
The second ad campaign asks us if we've got wood. Before telling us to catch VD, of course:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSG30rleFt8. This ad pisses me off more than the first one. The first one is just dumb, this shit...is so basic! The main female protagonist whom they love to plaster all over the posters is in danger of being sacrificed. There are original vampires coming (I'm ignoring the storylines of the other characters, because they never have 1,000 posters made about them). And the CW people boiled all of this down to sex? Really? The show has too many triangles, but that actually isn't all that you see when you tune in. For God's sake, Tyler just turned into a werewolf! If I were Kevin and Julie, I would be pissed if after I poured my heart into writing that wonderful arc for Tyler that culminated in him turning, it was all ignored to say that my show is all about sex. Annnddd I just talked about a non-Big Three character. But seriously, this type of crap doesn't work for TVD. It works for Gossip Girl because that show is all about a group of friends who can't find anyone to date outside of each other (I stopped watching in season 2), but The Vampire Diaries is much more than that for all of it's faults. Does the CW even watch the show?
I for one actually wouldn't tell people to watch the show after those promos. How can you rebuff their claims that the show is just Twilight with brothers after these two ad campaigns?
And now for something I can blame the producers for:
Oh my fucking God! So Ian gave an interview where he spoiled us like nobody's business. Damon is going to get a new woman by way of compulsion. He is going to do the same thing to her that he did to Caroline, except she'll probably get treated worst by the writers because she isn't a permanent character like Caroline: he's going to sleep with her and feed on her, and she'll be okay with this because he'll make her okay with it. Anyways, Damon is going to think of her as his girlfriend, but of course she won't think of him as her boyfriend no matter what she says because she won't have all of her fucking mental capacities! Let me tell you guys how this "storyline" is going to play out:
Damon is going to compel Andy to be his girlfriend. There will be like 3 episodes of Andy being Damon's toy (Ian and Kevin Williamson assure us that Andy won't be just a toy. She'll have a personality and everything! She'll be witty, and it's great because she's an adult. Who gives a shit? She's here to be Damon's toy. It's about him, not her. She'll leave and we won't hear anything about how she questions the decisions she made that were so not her). Throughout these 3 episodes, Stefan will shake his head disapprovingly at his brother. Elena will too, asking Damon what's wrong with him and bullshit like that. Damon will act like he doesn't care, but he totally will care because he loves Elena and wants to be with her, but this is necessary for her to not think much of him so that he'll have an easier time not being with her. Of course throughout all of this we'll have Andy commenting on Damon's feelings for Elena so that he can be condescending towards her. And then something will happen where Elena gives Damon that look she does, and he'll feel like scum, so he'll let Andy go. She won't die, because we won't need to take any more steps back than we already will.
And with this Damon will become the most predictable character on TVD.
Before I continue, can I say a hearty fuck you to all the fans who believe that Elena and Stefan's disapproving of Damon is anything at all like Bonnie disapproving of him?
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Fuck. Yoooouuuu!!!!! This is exactly what I'm always talking about. Damon doesn't give a fuck about Elena and Stefan's disapproval. Because he knows he'll always get in good with them. Because he, just like me and some other fans, recognizes their pattern. That's why he antagonized Jules which got Rose hurt, and this was after he antagonized Katherine which got Jenna hurt, which was after he antagonized Mason which got Stefan hurt. This is why he snapped Jeremy's neck after months of Elena being his friend and understanding him like only she can. That's why he didn't take her anger at him seriously during the road trip, and it's why he was still talking to her after she told him he'd lost her forever. He knows that shit won't stick. Damon's feelings of contrition last as long as Elena's anger towards him: three episodes. It's one thing if you want to say and believe that Stefan and Elena's disapproval of Damon's actions have an effect on him, but to fucking tell me that it's more effective than Bonnie's disapproval? That they're negative feelings towards him have more of an impact on him? Shut the fuck up. It kills me that you guys will take pleasure in saying things like, "Damon doesn't care about what Bonnie thinks." Because he gives two shits about what Stefan and Elena think, right? Lmao. It's funny how Damon doesn't care about what Bonnie thinks, according to what you say, yet after she grilled his ass, further showing him that she is not the fucking one, he actually planned ahead before approching her by bringing Stefan. The thing with you is that you don't want Bonnie to have any kind of influence on Damon whatsoever. I can admit that Elena has influence on Damon. I also admit that it's ineffective. Less effective than Stefan (And really, I'm only including Stefan in this to be fair. You guys always talk about Elena's influence while giving Stefan little credit). You think Elena has more of an effect on Damon because he'll sometimes squint when she's being stern with him? Lmao. You say violence isn't what Damon needs. Sure as hell seems like it to me. And I am not looking forward to your bullshit when this "arc" starts.
He's vampire, you say? Curious how you guys always trot this out whenever he does something any normal person reprimands him for. You trot out this line, and we're supposed to automatically stop looking at things from the victim's point of view. That line is also funny because Damon doesn't even act like a vampire anymore. By that I mean that he doesn't act like he enjoys being a vampire. Last season you could tell that he enjoyed being a vamp, and it went beyond compelling women so that he can feed from them and sleep with them. He's so damn miserable this year. He's the new Jeremy! Damon this year comes just short of apologizing for being a vampire. Even though the character never asks for this apology, it sometimes seems to me that the producers themselves are asking for this apology by saying shit like he's not worthy of Elena. I wish I could expand on this idea more, but the words just aren't materializing. Maybe they will when the season picks back up, and I see this atrocity on my screen.
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Back to the interviews:
Ian said that Kevin said that they had to get Damon a "girlfriend" because the otherwise oblivious citizens of Mystic Falls would soon start to wonder why he isn't dating. Should I even say why this is bullshit? Aside from the fact that the citizens of Mystic Falls would somehow stop being oblivious in order to speculate about Damon's love life of all things, how much do you want to bet Andy will show up, and we won't have seen a single Mystic Falls citizen wonder about Damon's love life? Kevin, if you wanted to bring in a new woman for Damon to objectify, all you had to do was say it. What you said instead just makes no sense. It reminds me of the fans who speculated that Bonnie might be gay since she'd never had a love interest (yes, I responded about how that shit was wrong: both the claim that Bonnie had never had a love interest and that because she didn't spend as much time talking about boys as Elena and Caroline that she simply didn't like them).
Ian says it's tragic that the only way Damon can express his feelings is by erasing them from the woman's person's memory afterward. That shit isn't tragic, Ian. It's annoying. I already don't get Damon's feelings for Elena since he fell in love with her in an episode that apparently ended up on the cutting room floor, so I'm not particularly interested in hearing him talk about them. Add in the fact that he's compelling people in order to protect these feelings, and you've lost me forever. And that's the thing, isn't it? Damon can only express his feelings for Elena if he can erase them afterward. Because Damon actually has no problem expressing his feelings. He certainly has no problem expressing anger. When it comes to other emotions, he makes jokes and is sarcastic to hide his more tender feelings, but he's never been so fucking crippled that he had to find someone to tell his feelings to and then compel them to forget all while he's sleeping with them and feeding from them. That's a new retcon development to get us to sympathize and feel sorry for Damon.
It's funny that Julie had no problem saying that they don't know what to do with Alaric. When will she say the same thing about Damon? Because it seems that they don't know what to do with him either. His storylines are already repeating: he went on a road trip with Elena last season where she didn't trust him. Did it this season. KW says that Rose is here in order to be a mirror for Damon about his feelings for Elena (and this is after Damon already realized and told Elena that he loves her), and now Andy is going to be doing the same thing for him since he'll be confessing his feelings for Elena to Andy while they're in a bathtub.
This whole thing pisses me off because I actually like Damon. I'm actually interested in his storyline and growth, and I'm mad because the producers have reduced them to revolve around Elena. Damon isn't growing as a person. He's growing in order to get with Elena. The shit he did to Caroline? Who cares? She pushed him down a hall and told him he sucked. It's over. She was comfortably talking to him in her bedroom. All she needed to do was push him and that was it. Now they're friends which is why he won't think twice about doing the same thing he did to her to another woman. Any chance we'll hear a peep from Caroline about this? No. They're friends now. I'm sure she'll always conveniently be with Tyler. I hope that shit never happens to Bonnie. It's ridiculous that the producers thought that people couldn't love Damon as he was in season 1 (Note To Producers: I actually started shipping him with Bonnie in season 1. Just so you know), and it's beyond stupid that they think that the only way to redeem him is through Elena. Not Stefan, not Bonnie, not Caroline, not even Jeremy. Not (platonic) relationships people might care about. Through Elena. Damon's redemption won't be a result of several of the characters coming to forgive him and maybe liking him. It'll be solely through Elena.
I'm also having a hard time deciding if this is Damon messing up, or if it's the producers regressing the character (as in making him act ooc). Damon doesn't strike me as someone who can't learn his lesson. He's too smart for that. Well, he was. This season he's attacking a werewolf on a full moon. Damon isn't changing in Elena's eyes. The writers are changing him. There is a difference.
I'm not looking forward to watching Damon repeat the same damn storyline, only with Andy being worse off than Caroline because she isn't a main character. I'm not looking forward to reading about fans buying what the producers are selling and feeling sorry for him while acting like Andy doesn't matter and, in fact, doesn't exist. I'm not looking forward to reading debates about whether or not compulsion is rape. People: yes, Caroline (and maybe Andy) slept with him of her own free will the first time. But then he took that free will away! If it wasn't taken away, then she wouldn't have slept with again. Being compelled means that she would never, ever, ever, ever say no! It fucking means that the power to say no is all in Damon's hand. He can have her open her legs for him forever if he wants, and she will always have a smile on her face while she does so. Do you understand it better in those terms? Please stop saying, "Yeah, it's bad, but..." Then again, you guys can't even understand where Bonnie's coming from, and Damon never laid a hand on her, sexually speaking.
And because the critics swallow all of this up, we probably won't be seeing a change any time soon. I'm so happy I watch for Bonnie. And thank God for fanfiction where Damon actually grows up and knows how to stop a behavior.