Thicker Than Water (aka TVD is making use of titles we used for our crack!fic that one time)
I thought I was done with the whole episode-recap thing D: [On an unrelated note, I also really badly want to write a Spike meta for some reason.]
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- So this happened and turned an otherwise average episode around.
THE ORIGINAL BAMF IS BACK, ON YOUR KNEES EVERYONE. Dude, the first thing he did was pull out random-hybrid-heart. HOW SO FLAWLESS?
I was actually spoiled for this because the moment I entered college, half the people are like “ELIJAH’S BACK” and I’m all “I haven’t seen the episode yet, wtf DDD:”
- Bonnie’s storyline. That was some fantastic acting by Kat Graham. The snark, the teenage angst, the hurt, the very visible not-dealing, and the expressions. It wasn’t a reunion that led into the sunset, it was painful and it was awkward and just beautifully captured.
- LOLOLOLOL@Damon checking out the competition. He’s all ‘okay, you’re a psychopath, presumably killed your ex-boyfriend, so stay away from mine’.
- Stefan/Elena confrontations were so emotionally charged in expression and silences, GUH. And I think it says a lot for their relationship that Elena can still only be honest about her feelings with him; admit things she doesn’t even want to admit to herself. “I kissed him” (markedly different from her “Damon kissed me” to Bonnie, and Damon’s “we kissed”).
- Damon just going ‘we kissed, now it’s weird.’ BEST MOMENT EVER. What have we been saying about our BrOTP all this while, children? THEY NEED TO HIT PUBERTY BEFORE THEY CAN SEX IT UP. Exhibit A.
- Dr. Fell just taking blood from Damon like nbd. Also, please dude, I came up with this like way before, what is this town even? That time with Jeremy and the hybrid and the meat cleaver, all I was really thinking was; but why don’t they just store the blood and give some to Alaric? IS THERE A STORY BEHIND WHY THEY CAN’T? Except apparently they can. And nobody’s ever thought of this before?! Well, I guess the whole negotiating all the triangles in the town takes up all their time, so (Candice called it a ‘huge geometry problem’, hee).
- That was Rebekah’s coffin Klaus was stroking? Of course it was.
- OKAY, SO ALARIC TOOK HIS NEWEST LOVE INTEREST (bets on how long she lasts. It’s Alaric, after all) TO ELENA’S PLACE? He’s still living with his just-turned-eighteen, history student, after they made her sixteen-year-old brother skip town? And you’re trying to tell me the show doesn’t want me to ship Alaric/Elena?
- Damon-and-Alaric bromance just sort of went off charts. They check out each other’s’ potentials (hey, that’s probably why Alaric was so mad at the Damon/Elena thing) and they casually watch each other lift weights, just your regular hetrosexual male stuff.
- Stefan punching Damon and Damon’s complete lack of reaction. After all, this is their own particular brand of love. Ah, Salvatores.
- EVERYTHING IS KLEFAN AND NOTHING HURTS.
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- What was the characterization? I don’t know what the general consensus is but this episode Stefan’s characterization really made me O.o His reactions just felt so…not-Stefan to me. I can understand “you’re better than both of us” (…or something) but “you’re better than him?” Stefan Salvatore who stans Damon like it’s his job? I know everyone’s going to cite all those times when Stefan acted the part of the possessive boyfriend (in Isobel, I think), but that is not normal-Stefan-behavior. Because Stefan Salvatore was the first to tell Elena that Damon had seen the ring before snapping Jeremy’s neck. That it was only because he loved her and couldn’t bear to let her die that he’d tried to force feed her his blood. Who told Elena that Damon was on death’s door after being explicitly told not to.
The problem isn’t that Ripper!Stefan or Turn-It-Off!Stefan or Crazy!Stefan feel like different people; that’s absolutely fine. In fact, that’s catapulted Stefan to the list of my favorites on this show. The problem is that, right now, Stefan feels like a different character. It’s like Damon, in all his glory killing days in beginning of season one is still relatable with all the snark and clock-fixing and pouts to the very-much-in-love Damon of right now. But Stefan in the present time shares practically no character traits with Stefan then.
Also, what’s more O________O Is Stefan’s reaction to Elena having kissed Damon. Like, where did that even come from? He’s spent all this while actively trying to distance her, and he’s succeeded, and I can understand the silences when he realizes how much he’s lost, but I genuinely cannot understand “maybe the bridge thing was going too far”. YOU THINK? Also, there seems to have been no fallout from that, which too is just D:
It’s silly to blame a fictional character; this is just a product of shoddy writing. I’m just annoyed because all those Stefan vs. Damon (WHO’S BETTER? DAMON KILLED ONE PERSON LESS SO OBV HIM. OR STEFAN IS DOING EVERYTHING FOR DAMON SO OBV HIM. Ugh) debates would’ve been roused again, and I was really hoping to not have to deal with too much character hate.
- Also, I’m just really disappointed that Caroline was present in that scene with Tyler and her dad. I can understand Tyler going that distance, and Bill is batshit crazy with his behavior modificational therapies, but Caroline? I genuinely would’ve expected her to put up a fight there; she’s been through that. The situation is different of course, because Tyler genuinely seems to have no free will with respect to Klaus’ commands and wants to be free of it, but I can’t see Caroline being all ‘yeah, sure, whatever’ about it. It would’ve made way more sense to me if Tyler had just arranged the whole thing on his own and there was no Caroline involvement. And tbh, that whole arc was just boring.
- This is just a minor gripe, but every time it seems TVD might actually pass the Bechdel Test, it just…doesn’t. The Bonnie/Elena road trip was such a good time for genuinely bonding; dealing with outstanding Jeremy issues, talking about Bonnie’s mom and how she feels (“I don’t know what to say” is a narrative choice, not the ultimate truth), but instead it’s all about oh-you-kissed-Damon. Just like that time when Caroline had been tortured by her dad, and her next-day topic-of-conversation was ‘so what’s up with you and Damon?’ Also, no mention of the fact that Caroline nearly died and was revived by freaking Klaus’s blood. Ditto Elena and Wickery bridge. The parallel narrative arcs are almost so parallel, they might not even be part of the same episode :s And ever since my recent Buffy obsession, this is somehow really important to me.
HOWEVER, NOW THAT ELIJAH IS BACK, I CANNOT WAIT FOR MORE. 3X14 specifically, hee. Here, have some icons in the meantime xD
The Vampire Diaries Season Three: 45in45
[45 thematic + 6 misc]
10 so, one day more am I deified
|bamf||gaze||quote||texture||stay|
|funeral||hope||smile||lost||mirror|
5 nothing gold can stay
#gold#purple#blue#red#green
5 that's just the way it looks from where I'm standing
center #1right #2side #3left #4down #5
5 just maybe you'll remember me
single scene #1single scene #2single scene #3single scene #4single scene #5
5 I think I made you up inside my head
ship #1ship #2ship #3ship #4
ship #5
5 it's only words, and words are all I have
text #1text #2text #3text #4text #5
5 don't look too deep into those angel eyes
#1#2#3#4
#5
5 some say the world will end in fire
Artist's Choice #1Artist's Choice #2Artist's Choice #3Artist's Choice #4
Artist's Choice #5
6 Misc
+ Please comment and credit if taking!
+ Please do not edit or hotlink.
+ Enjoy
ETA: JOSH FUCKING HOLLOWAY JUST MADE AN APPEARANCE IN THE FIRST EPISODE OF Angel. LOLWUT. [Still haven't finished Buffy, can't physically bear to cuz I don't know what to do with my life after D:]