Last weekend, on the fourth of July, after we had begun packing the car for our once every two years family reunion... my beautiful baby girl, Snickers Olsen, a full-size dachshund, reddish brown, 15.8 pounds, collapsed.
Her rear hind legs just gave out, she began dragging herself, like a wet seal, across my carpet to the couch, as I cooed to her, to come see her mommy.
I had no clue that she had just been paralyzed with a type 2 disk degeneration. It broke my heart. We were just on our way out to finish loading our luggage into the two cars, we dropped everything to say goodbye to Snickers Olsen.
I pulled her body across mine, gently laying her down in my lap, stroking her beautiful, slightly matted fur, murmuring words of love, comfort, as I spread kisses across her face, head. Her body weight was entirely shifted onto my numb leg, which she laid on, but I could care less. The only thing in the world that mattered was my Snickers.
My dad phoned our vet friend and he told us, from the looks of it, Snickers was going to have to be put down. At 14 years of age, she was getting too old. Her body couldn't handle the enormously expensive 4,000 surgery that she might need and the fracture she sustained would most likely be too much.
We would have to say goodbye. My mom, generally insisting she doesn't love all three of our dogs, knelt down, laid her head across Snickers', kissed her forehead, tears dribbling down her cheeks. My sister screamed, ran to her bedroom, to cry in silence. My brother, Jon, mostly stoic, was clearly upset.
And my little brother, Riley, was even crying, gently petting Snickers, comforting her. We packed her into the car, with her favorite blanket, toys, in my dad's lap and transported her to the vet's office in Riverton. What seemed like an eternity, but was really twelve-to-fifteen minutes, and we arrived at the clinic.
I opened the door, hustled my dad, who bundled Snickers, into his arms, into the office, my remaining family members trailing behind us. We were a troop of solemn soldiers, preparing to pay our respects, to our fallen comrade.
We were ushered into the largest room they had, offered lukewarm, small, bottles of water. The room for being their "biggest" was small, slightly cramped. It contained a medicine cabinet, a scale to weigh dogs, a counter to lay them upon and six small chairs. Otherwise, the sparse room was decorated in cat paraphernalia.
Snickers was panting, heavily, still, clearly in a deep amount of pain. Our vet arrived, tested her, weighed her, gave her an x-ray. When he took Snickers away, in his arms, for the x-ray, I feared I would never get her back. That he was secretly signaling mom and dad, to let them know, he was gonna put Snickers down, to sleep, that there was no hope for my baby girl. My girl, who would make the angels cry at one glance at her.
Then he pronounced, a slight, trembling smile on his face, said, "the situation is optimistically hopeful. Snickers will live. Here's some medicine. You have a four week trial period. If she improves, she lives. If she doesn't..."
We shuffled out, parted ways. At home, dad said a tearful goodbye to Snick and everyone but Mom and me left for the family reunion. Snickers was the world's worst patient.
Our first day, she jumped off the bed, nearly straining her back. She couldn't potty. She couldn't do it by herself. She couldn't walk. We had to hand-feed her. She was refusing solid food, still is. We feed her medicine through peanut butter on a spoon.
I'll update more on the situation, later, but my baby is struggling.
I hope I don't have to put her down.
I love her.
She's my everything.
My sun. My moon.
There is no world without her.
I don't even want to see the sunlight, when I know, on a nice day, I can't enjoy it in the park with her. I don't want to see the day, when I know she could be walking beside me, trotting, growling, demanding, cutely, for a treat from the jerky bag in my fingers.
I would do anything to make sure she was okay, to ensure that my world remained intact, with Snickers Olsen, in my life.
Just long enough even for her to see me graduate high school.
I would give her every year I had left of my own near 18 years of life to ensure that.
I'm praying for a miracle.
---Emily
Tuesday, July 8, 2014
Friday, June 6, 2014
Edge of tommorrow movie review
Image credit: David James
Tom Cruise has outdone himself this time. In The Edge of Tomorrow, he not only managed to keep his shirt on (the entire film), but also hook us into a world that is true to it's tagline, "Live, Die, Repeat." The movie begins with Major William Cage, a coward, less than gracefully moving in the front lines to the English Channel.
But let's rewind for a brief moment and explain exactly what Cage does.
He is the slick, charming, ever-smiling UDF PR spokesman, the smoother than oil "talking head" of the United Defense Forces. And when he charms the masses, The General (Brendan Gleeson) decides to force him into the front-lines to capture heroic footage of their spokesman.
Cruise panicking is a welcome sight, even the nervous, "I'm not a soldier" stutter is surprisingly enduring.
So Major William Cage does what all desperate, sleazy spokesman do best: he stutters nervously, in a surprising move of boldness, tries to blackmail the General.
That lands his pretty, panicked face in the front lines for the hell of it. Cruise's reaction is perfect and proves that he can definitely underplay emotion when necessary to better the script. After a few major failings, one of them being his 2013 Oblivion, a movie no one remembers, that fades just like its title.
Thrown to the wolves, he wakes up in an unknown location, uncertain of his surroundings. He's quickly treated to a rude awakening by a stern, deep fried Sergeant (Bill Paxton), labelled a deserter, handcuffed and led to his new team and a suicide mission: the J squad, the misfits of the army, who squabble and play poker. (Despite the consequences from the sergeant, such as forcing them to eat the poker cards because, "Their fate is in their own hands."
Untrained, ill suited for the job, Cruises muscular body is suited up in high tech robot armor, ready to propel strange Ailen metallic cresties away. Once he learns how to work it, that is...
Forced to confront his greatest fear, death, Cage, armed, is strapped into a plane, with the J Squad, failing to get advice on where the safety is on his suit. The plane is immediately hit, near-exploding.
Panicked, he struggles to "drop" from the plane as the rest of his J Squad is already on the ground. Seconds near death, he drops and falls into the water, right in the middle of the battle.
He wades through the battlefield, successfully evading death, even as his fat team-mate, immediately gets it. But his suit is foreign to him, he grapples with his blaster.
And after watching the glorious, Full Metal Bitch, aka the Angel of Verdun, Rita Verdanski (Emily Blunt), all muscles and business, in action, he shoots a blue creature and bites the dust.
The screen goes black almost immediately. And Cage wakes up, once more, back at the begining. What is going on here?
Cage is forced to relieve the events of the day over and over again, video-game style, until he gets the day right, wins the war. Going through a super-cool training sequence, he repeats the day, trying to force them to realize the plane is going to be bombed, they will be immediately attacked, forced to drop down, unprepared.
Cruise, unfairly, has clearly re-lived this day, over and over again, learning new things about his team-mates to convince them to be on his side, things we never got to see. Finally, after dying more than 60 times, Cage finds Rita, shooting at all the right places, saving her life, proves that whatever blood he absorbed is now giving him the power to re-set the day, over and over.
Rita glances at him, desperate burning in her eyes and demands he find her when he wakes up. Then they both die in a fiery explosion, he is back at the beginning.
This time, he says and does all the right things, participating in training. Making a cheeky remark, he is forced to do 50 pushups, after doing 5, sees which truck she is in, rolls under it, getting run over, dying immediately.
Three more times is the charm and he rolls, perfectly, under the car and scurries onto the training grounds, dodging metal training bots about to scissor his body, finds her, doing a push-up, her body gloriously fit. Cage's eyes can't leave her and they argue, he convinces her, they begin making a plan of attack to use this power, as a team, defeat the beasties.
But first, she trains him in a very cool, combat sequence. Unfortunately, after coming so close in the battlefield, they desert the army and trek together, using a stolen car, to a farmhouse. Cruise's true emotional abilities are shown, beautifully, as he pained, begs Rita not to start the chopper. Once the engine starts, the metallic cresties show up and she dies. She never gets farther than this farmhouse.
Rita firmly, learning this knowledge, that he just wants her to survive, demands, "Why is my life so important? I'm a solider..." And ignores him, starts the engine.
Desperate, Cage dives into the action, but Rita is still dead. So when he repeats the day, again, he goes on without her.
Eventually they reach a point when they realize the monster brain is using Cage to learn how humans fit, just like Rita was chosen for. Turns out, she offered humanity at victory at Verdun, but it wasn't real for the ailens allowe dher to win to observe nad master her tactics. Once they figure this out, they recognize they must get one step ahead of the aliens and anticipate their play one move in advance, in order to make their advance towards the final battle in Paris.
I highly recommend you watch this film. It is one of Tom Cruise's best movies. For the first time in a long time, he is not just a sexual object of women's fantasies. He is an actor who gives it his all, truly enjoys this concept of Live, Die, Repeat.
As one of the last actors of a previous era, still fighting for time on the big screen, Cruise does a fabulous job. Perhaps, this is his greatest acting up to date (despite never taking his shirt off, not once, ladies). It might never win an award, but it definitely will help the box office this June.
Edge of tomorrow receives an A-. Running time: 1 hour and 53 minutes. Pg-13
Thursday, January 16, 2014
2014...Bitches!
Greetings, bitches!
I heard that off a T.V. show yesterday and it just called to me. To anyone who still reads this blog, it's 2014 and I am back.
What has 2014 been like?
Honestly, it's a blue Thursday. I've been depressed, struggling with the ACT, I lost my best friend, J, to boys.
And yes, I know that girls like boys and boys like girls, but when all you want is to spend a little time with her, she rejects you in favor of guys, what can you do...but feel a little bit hurt, rejected?
On a brighter note, this is my first real attempt at writing again. I've been quite struggling to read or write lately, much less get up off the couch.
I now own two lovely, beautiful dachshunds, in addition to my dog, Snickers, also a dachshund. Their names are Peanut and Butter, they are 5 and they love me.
I am still not over this gorgeous guy I've been crushing over for a like a year now. It's inappropriate, not my place to feel this way, because of work reasons, but I do.
I'm fighting it, it's working, but its still a struggle, especially when half the time all I can do, is put my foot in my mouth, try not to stutter.
Yet, losing my best friend to a few bad boyfriends, the bottle, has made me realize that I can incorporate all this in my story, Obsessed and repurpose it like I've done for the last six years.
Maybe 2014 is my year to shine.
Luck to all.
I will start updating this again.
Weekly.
Live long and prosper as SPOCK would say.
I heard that off a T.V. show yesterday and it just called to me. To anyone who still reads this blog, it's 2014 and I am back.
What has 2014 been like?
Honestly, it's a blue Thursday. I've been depressed, struggling with the ACT, I lost my best friend, J, to boys.
And yes, I know that girls like boys and boys like girls, but when all you want is to spend a little time with her, she rejects you in favor of guys, what can you do...but feel a little bit hurt, rejected?
On a brighter note, this is my first real attempt at writing again. I've been quite struggling to read or write lately, much less get up off the couch.
I now own two lovely, beautiful dachshunds, in addition to my dog, Snickers, also a dachshund. Their names are Peanut and Butter, they are 5 and they love me.
I am still not over this gorgeous guy I've been crushing over for a like a year now. It's inappropriate, not my place to feel this way, because of work reasons, but I do.
I'm fighting it, it's working, but its still a struggle, especially when half the time all I can do, is put my foot in my mouth, try not to stutter.
Yet, losing my best friend to a few bad boyfriends, the bottle, has made me realize that I can incorporate all this in my story, Obsessed and repurpose it like I've done for the last six years.
Maybe 2014 is my year to shine.
Luck to all.
I will start updating this again.
Weekly.
Live long and prosper as SPOCK would say.
Friday, November 15, 2013
Seminary: Relevant or just a damn waste of time?
I confess I am less than your...shall we say, perfect Mormon. Far from it.
I attend seminary, but only because I pretty much have no choice. No way of changing classes without parental approval, no way of leaving, because my car...is nonexistent, so I AM stuck in that building for an hour and thirty minutes of pure hell.
At least in church if you pull out your phone, you don't have belligerent teachers breathing down your neck, fanning in your face, insisting you put it away. HELLO, this isn't a real class. It never has been.
It's basically a course where teachers, who think, they are smarter than you, better than you, more religious than you, can change "students life" but really they stick their nose in your business, look down on you, discuss "morals" all while being judgmental pricks.
And this is in my opinion of "course", so no hard feelings for those religious caring folks.
But seriously, if I have "free agency" then why can't I pull out my damn phone and just use it? If I want to study chinese during "bible time" and ignore the teachers warnings, or study "serial killers and their effects on society", who is to stop me?
Seriously, this is my life and if I sound angry, belligerent and unreasonable, then "it's their fault".
I take full responsibility for wanting to pull my phone out, but who is to say that I cannot wander the halls, leave class, exit out the doors, bag in hand.
It's not like I'm out there, smoking weed, in the grass in front of the whole school. I am merely leaving a class that doesn't count for a grade that I don't feel like attending.
What do you think? Am in the red zone?
Was I wrong?
Was I angry?
Should I SUFFER for a whole year and another year in that hellish, judgemental gospel hell?
Is there a way out?
I attend seminary, but only because I pretty much have no choice. No way of changing classes without parental approval, no way of leaving, because my car...is nonexistent, so I AM stuck in that building for an hour and thirty minutes of pure hell.
At least in church if you pull out your phone, you don't have belligerent teachers breathing down your neck, fanning in your face, insisting you put it away. HELLO, this isn't a real class. It never has been.
It's basically a course where teachers, who think, they are smarter than you, better than you, more religious than you, can change "students life" but really they stick their nose in your business, look down on you, discuss "morals" all while being judgmental pricks.
And this is in my opinion of "course", so no hard feelings for those religious caring folks.
But seriously, if I have "free agency" then why can't I pull out my damn phone and just use it? If I want to study chinese during "bible time" and ignore the teachers warnings, or study "serial killers and their effects on society", who is to stop me?
Seriously, this is my life and if I sound angry, belligerent and unreasonable, then "it's their fault".
I take full responsibility for wanting to pull my phone out, but who is to say that I cannot wander the halls, leave class, exit out the doors, bag in hand.
It's not like I'm out there, smoking weed, in the grass in front of the whole school. I am merely leaving a class that doesn't count for a grade that I don't feel like attending.
What do you think? Am in the red zone?
Was I wrong?
Was I angry?
Should I SUFFER for a whole year and another year in that hellish, judgemental gospel hell?
Is there a way out?
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
Song of the Week: Save the World by Swedish House Mafia
Ever imagined escaping, to that happy place, where you can hunch your shoulders and disappear?
Well, during school hours, I can't, so my happy place is a little modern invention we call the iPhone, which I adore, use quite frequently.
This week's amazing song, is by Swedish House Mafia, called Save the World.
Every girl or boy has imagined being a superhero once in their lifetime, no matter their age. Heck, I'm a girl and I dare to dream about being Tony-frickin'-Stark, every once in a while, because Iron-man, just plain awesome!
And he's hot, rich, and in his own words a genius billionaire playboy philanthropist, who settles down with the down to earth, equally hot, lovely, Ms. Pepper Potts.
Whose life can get much better than that, not to mention a pink Iron man suit would compliment me, awesomely. But the point is, everyone dreams, everyone falls, everyone is inspired by heroes.
And in my mind, that is what this song, accomplishes. Built more for dancing, than lyrics, I enjoy the simple lyrics of two lines.
One, "It’s far from home,
It’s for the better
What we dream, it’s all that matters
We’re on our way, united."
The other?
Line 2: " Who’s gonna save the world tonight,
Who’s gonna bring it back to life
We’re gonna make it, you and I,
We’re gonna save the world tonight."
This song reminds me, somewhat, that like this blog was made for, dreams are always capable of being achieved, that somehow, somewhere, deep down inside, we are built for dreaming, we dream, we come alive, just like Tony Stark, Clark Kent, Wonderwoman, that is inside all of us.
Xia Xia Zai-Jen, (Thank you, Goodbye),
Emily (Ou yang ha hua).
Friday, March 1, 2013
Yard Saling Tips!
Pills, pills for everyone! Just kidding, now as you all know or will know, I am an avid garage sale addict!
Me and my neighbors: Lori, Lynell, Melanie and sometimes their husband's, kids, and daughters go garage saling with us all over Utah every Saturday beginning in May to late October.
And I'm going to share our very best secrets with you, so that when you see a yard sale, you know whether to pull over or go!
Tip number 1: Bring a car with great gas mileage and plenty of seats! If your as addicted and in love as I am with sales, then you are definitely going to be hitting all the spots around the town, so make sure you got a car that doesn't have to hit every gas station in Utah to run!
Tip number 2: Always have cash on you! You never know how much money or "dosh" you'll need, so make sure you bring your sis/bro/friend's, mutual companion's, etc. and their change jar because you might end up spending more than you originally planned!
Tip number 3: How to know whether to park and browse or speed away. You can tell if a yard sale is worth stopping for by pausing in your car and glancing discreetly at the junk spread out on the lawn. If you see baby clothes, diapers, binkies, it's probably not for you. If you see cool items you believe are worthwhile, or a DVD collection, it might be worth stopping for. But always glance before you get out, so you don't waste the gas!
Tip number 4:Keeping your passengers happy. Th ere is a century old art of "If mom's happy, everyone's happy," well the same goes for your passengers. By the middle of this trip they will have been out all around for hours, with no breakfast or caffeine in your system, so make sure you feed them a donut and provide their choice of soda, so you can stay out longer!
Tip number 5:And finally, look up on your neighborhood site for garage sales in your community or city and print 'em out. It saves a heck of a lot of time and blood and tears trying to look for things, if you have a list ready and waiting to go, so when you hop into your vehicle and drive with your friends, your not only looking awesome for saving them from driving aimlessly, but you also Are PREPARED!
Garage sale safe in May and have fun!
Yours,
Emily Lane
Me and my neighbors: Lori, Lynell, Melanie and sometimes their husband's, kids, and daughters go garage saling with us all over Utah every Saturday beginning in May to late October.
And I'm going to share our very best secrets with you, so that when you see a yard sale, you know whether to pull over or go!
Tip number 1: Bring a car with great gas mileage and plenty of seats! If your as addicted and in love as I am with sales, then you are definitely going to be hitting all the spots around the town, so make sure you got a car that doesn't have to hit every gas station in Utah to run!
Tip number 2: Always have cash on you! You never know how much money or "dosh" you'll need, so make sure you bring your sis/bro/friend's, mutual companion's, etc. and their change jar because you might end up spending more than you originally planned!
Tip number 3: How to know whether to park and browse or speed away. You can tell if a yard sale is worth stopping for by pausing in your car and glancing discreetly at the junk spread out on the lawn. If you see baby clothes, diapers, binkies, it's probably not for you. If you see cool items you believe are worthwhile, or a DVD collection, it might be worth stopping for. But always glance before you get out, so you don't waste the gas!
Tip number 4:Keeping your passengers happy. Th ere is a century old art of "If mom's happy, everyone's happy," well the same goes for your passengers. By the middle of this trip they will have been out all around for hours, with no breakfast or caffeine in your system, so make sure you feed them a donut and provide their choice of soda, so you can stay out longer!
Tip number 5:And finally, look up on your neighborhood site for garage sales in your community or city and print 'em out. It saves a heck of a lot of time and blood and tears trying to look for things, if you have a list ready and waiting to go, so when you hop into your vehicle and drive with your friends, your not only looking awesome for saving them from driving aimlessly, but you also Are PREPARED!
Garage sale safe in May and have fun!
Yours,
Emily Lane
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Getting a Job Part 1: The Phone Call
For everyone who has every applied for a job online, I'm sure you know how "fun" that is, seeing as once you find your information to put on it, you have to wait a ton of time to get what some would consider "the almighty call".
Or as I like to call it "the phone call" that ties to my imminent soda/ high school survival. Because I need money for Doctor Pepper and it is expensive. Like 7 dollars plus tax for 20 cans that will be gone in less than a week.
So I applied for my favorite Movie Theater about ten to fifteen minutes from my house, The Megaplex.
It's really a nice theater with comfy, cushioned seats that recline slightly back, just enough that you can enjoy the movie, as long as you sit in the backrow. Also, if no one is sitting behind you, you can rest your feet on the chair next to some poor unsuspecting bystander's head.
And their concessions, totally unreasonable in prices. But the bonus for going there and buying the 11 dollar cup plus tax?
1 dollar drinks, with no tax! In a frickin' awesome machine that has dozens of sprite and fanta flavors ranging from regular orange or lemon lime sprite to strawberry and pina colada!
But that's beside the point. So it's Tuesday, right? I'm sitting at home, on the computer, typing up my outline for Nanowrimo and listening to my music. Mainly, Three Days Grace's new album, Transit of Venus (which rocks by the way! My favorite songs are: Time that Remains, Give me a reason and Anonymous).
And suddenly my mom answers her cellphone, because she insisted I put her number down cuz I'm bound to lose my cellphone. So she gets this odd look on her face, says something I can't hear and then whispers to me, "Emily, it's for you!"
I take the phone from her fingers and answer cautiously, "Hello?"
Because I never know if I'm talking to our friend, Courtney Ricks, or one of my grandparents.
And then I hear a woman's voice on the end of the other line, I think her name was Jeanette, say, "Is this Emily Olsen?"
"Yeah."
"This is the Megaplex. On your application you said you can work afternoon's monday to friday. Can you work Sunday's?"
"Absolutely," I replied, and I thought my heart was gonna drop to my stomach, and I was gonna keel over from a heart attack.
But this was a problem for me because every sunday I have no choice but to go to church from 11 am to 2pm. And my parents strongly disapprove of me working Sunday's. But if I said no, then like my brother, I'd have no chance at the job.
"Could you work from the afternoons to closing time?"
"Of course."
"Of course."
Another problem? I get home at 2:40 from the bus, and closing time doesn't start and end until 11pm. My parents couldn't pick me up to take me home that late every night.
She said something I didn't hear, and then said, "We're having interviews while students are on Fallbreak. I can get you in on Monday. They're from 9-12. What would work best for you?"
"What?" I asked her. "Could you repeat that. I'm sorry, I didn't hear you."
She repeated the question and I held the phone to my chest and look at my mom, panicked.
"What time would work best for an interview?" I practically hissed at her.
Mom looked at me, and said, "It's your interview. You pick a time."
"But what would work best on a monday?" I implored her, desperately not wanting to keep the woman possibly becoming my future employer, waiting.
"1o?" Mom suggested.
I mouthed thanks, and hurriedly picked up the phone, my heart thundering in my chest. "Would ten am work for you?"
"How about 10:10?" the woman on the other line, suggested.
"Sounds great."
She then proceeded to tell me where to arrive for the Megaplex to get to the interview and said, something like see you Monday.
I replied, "Thank you!" and hung up.
Now I have an interview for Monday the 15th, 10:10 pm.
Any tips or suggestions?
Yours,
Emily Lane
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
DONNA AND HARVEY ON SUITS. SOOO SAD.
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| Harvey begging Donna to do "their canopener" moment before his trial, as she makes him squirm. |
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| Season 1, when she tells him, she gave Jessica the DA file because she cares for him. |
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| Donna speaking about Harvey Specter, her boss. |
Thursday, May 24, 2012
BTVS scooby manips week 1!
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| Scooby's past relationships brought up with a bang! |
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| Best team banter between Anya Jenkins, Willow Rosenburg. |
Buffy and Spike manipulations week 2
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| Buffy denies her ever-growing attraction towards Spike! |
B
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| Spike shows Buffy that she can't resist his charms. |
Buffy and Spike manipulations week 1
They literally break a house apart, with their first kiss...!
Saturday, May 19, 2012
VAMPIRE DIARIES INTERVIEW 3:
JULIE PLEC'S SPOILDER ALERTS
Zap2it: In Season 2, you guys told the story of Caroline's transition to being a vampire so beautifully. How do you expect Elena's transition to be different, so that it feels like a new story?
Plec: I think the differnce here is that you have two vampires, two brothers who love this girl equally, who are going to have significantly diverging opinions about how it should all go down and what the most effective way to be a vampire is. One of the things we've seen in the last three years, especially this season in the [1912] flashback, is that neither of them particularly took to vampire life all that well. Damon was bitter and pissed off about it for 50 years before he realized he could have fun, and Stefan had his own demons, his Ripperhood. They're both going to have an opinion on how to help Elena. Stefan's method was very successful for Caroline, and we'll see him trying to teach Elena, where Damon is taking the opposite point of view. We're going to have a lot of conflict attached to those opinions.
Do we know whose blood Meredith used to turn her? We know she did have a stash of Damon's blood.
That will be a good question to ask and answer when we come back.
Was there a debate in the writer's room as to whether she would choose Stefan or Damon in this episode, or did you always agree that it would be Stefan?
We were heading toward the end of the road knowing that as a human, Stefan was Elena's choice. We also knew what was going to happen at the end of the episode. Elena is no longer a human when she wakes up and when the memories come back and when her whole life goes upside-down. Who's to say what that does to her? Who's to say what kind of person she becomes, and how that impacts who she loves and why she loves them? I'm not saying that's going to send her running instantly into Damon's arms, absolutely not, but it's going to cloud the issue even more.
Her kiss with Stefan in her house was the first one they've shared all season.
We really wanted to see Stefan and Elena come back together after a really long and really horrible season. She was his champion and fought for him, even when he didn't deserve to be fought for, she still came back and said "I couldn't stop loving you, I could never stop loving you." That deserved payoff. When we wrote "The Last Day" last year, we knew where Stefan was going, and that was the last romantic episode those two were going to have probably for a year. We knew it was all going to go to hell, so finally being able to have one tiny moment of intimacy was nice.
The flashback to Elena and Damon's first meeting was a big shock for fans. In terms of your thought process there, what was the purpose of it? How did it drive the story?
It serves multiple functions. When Damon shows up in the pilot, he knows a lot about Elena, so there's always been a question about where he's been and what he was up to. How did he know all this? He clearly didn't just walk into Mystic Falls with his crow. He's been around too. We always said that one day we'd find out what he's been doing. It was us wanting to give Damon something to fight for. Ric is unbeatable, a jillion times stronger than Damon. Damon was a dead man, and Ric was relishing beating him, and Damon had nothing left to live for, having been passed over once again. It was just that slight little thing that she said to him, when she was just trying to take the sting off: "Hey, maybe if you and I had met first." She was just trying to soften the blow. But in reality, he had this memory that gave him the will to fight back. I love that moment, where Ric's about to drive the stake into him, and he's like "You know what? I'm not ready to die today."
Bonnie took charge in this episode, helping Klaus into Tyler's body. Was that a function of her being tired of being kicked around all season, or was it the influence of the dark magic she tapped into for the spell last week?
It's definitely a result of being kicked around all season. It's Bonnie saying, "I'm not the pawn anymore. Don't underestimate me and don't tell me what to do." I think the witches sending her to Alaric really burned her, because she'd already been fighting to get her strength against the vampires, and then her own "sisters," as they said, betrayed her. For Bonnie, this is like "Hey, look. I've got a point of view, I've got the ability to do something about it, and damn it, I'm going to do it." To tap into that kind of power she had to dig even deeper into her darkness. In the first episode back, I can't imagine that we won't be looking for some kind of magic to prevent Elena from having to transition. It'll be a question of how far Bonnie is willing to go to help her friend, and what are the repercussions and consequences attached to that.
Does Klaus owe Bonnie one now? Or does he never owe anyone anything?
I think that this definitely changes the dynamic between Klaus and Bonnie a little bit.
When "Tyler" was saying goodbye to Caroline and talking about her beautiful future, was he already Klaus, at that point?
Yeah. We definitely were hinting at that with the "you're beautiful and you'll have a great future" line. That was a classic Klaus-Caroline line, so we wanted to give a little hint there. All that smooching and all that emotion wasn't Tyler at all, in fact, was Klaus.
We didn't see Klaus's body turn to ash, so I assume there's some plan in place to keep Joseph Morgan in the mix.
Yep. I'd say there's a fairly significant chance, if not a 99.9% likelihood that body did not burn up in that coffin.
Before we see him return to that body, is he going to have a little fun being Tyler?
Yep. He's definitely going to prolong his stay, at least in the first episode, due to circumstance. Whatever goes down between Caroline and "Tyler" in the first episode will actually be happening between Caroline and Klaus, so we'll have some fun there.
I know you said Stefan and Elena will definitely make a go of being in a relationship again, but outside of that, where is Stefan's head right now? How is he looking at the choices that he made? He looked absolutely wrecked in that final scene.
He was destroyed for so many reasons. Meredith had already broken the news to him, so in that moment of lying over Elena's body, he was mourning her as a human and realizing that ultimately he was unable to save her from the one thing she never wanted, which was to be a vampire. That's going to weigh on him really heavily and it's going to piss Damon off like nobody's business, that Stefan saved Matt instead of Elena. Stefan had a big burden in that moment and what he had to do was be true to Elena. It's like choosing to take someone off life support because it was their wish or to keep them on because you can't let them go. It was what she wanted, and Stefan, if nothing else, has always been able to let her make her decision. If, as a vampire, she starts to make the wrong decisions, then we'll see a shift in Stefan and how he feels about helping Elena through things. I think we'll start to get a glimpse at the different sides of Stefan in a relationship, where it's not going to be all peaches and cream and love and unconditional, unwavering support of Elena's decision. Elena is no longer Elena.
Would you say that the love triangle will be stronger than ever next season?
Yes. I say that at my own peril, but yes. People can get frustrated by the love triangle, people can find it grating or whatever, but the premise of the show is two vampire brothers and their love for the same girl.
That's where we started and it's always going to exist in the landscape of "The Vampire Diaries."
Some years it'll be more in the forefront than other years, when it's delicately laid in the background.
Elena becoming a vampire will make it fresh. It changes things, and makes us ask new questions. It makes things a lot deeper. It's all part of this process of growing up.
As our characters are working toward graduation and all kinds of life decisions -- do I go to college, do I leave my hometown, is my high school boyfriend going to be my college boyfriend -- all those life things, it's all going to be supported where Elena is with Damon and Stefan.
Zap2it: In Season 2, you guys told the story of Caroline's transition to being a vampire so beautifully. How do you expect Elena's transition to be different, so that it feels like a new story?
Plec: I think the differnce here is that you have two vampires, two brothers who love this girl equally, who are going to have significantly diverging opinions about how it should all go down and what the most effective way to be a vampire is. One of the things we've seen in the last three years, especially this season in the [1912] flashback, is that neither of them particularly took to vampire life all that well. Damon was bitter and pissed off about it for 50 years before he realized he could have fun, and Stefan had his own demons, his Ripperhood. They're both going to have an opinion on how to help Elena. Stefan's method was very successful for Caroline, and we'll see him trying to teach Elena, where Damon is taking the opposite point of view. We're going to have a lot of conflict attached to those opinions.
Do we know whose blood Meredith used to turn her? We know she did have a stash of Damon's blood.
That will be a good question to ask and answer when we come back.
Was there a debate in the writer's room as to whether she would choose Stefan or Damon in this episode, or did you always agree that it would be Stefan?
We were heading toward the end of the road knowing that as a human, Stefan was Elena's choice. We also knew what was going to happen at the end of the episode. Elena is no longer a human when she wakes up and when the memories come back and when her whole life goes upside-down. Who's to say what that does to her? Who's to say what kind of person she becomes, and how that impacts who she loves and why she loves them? I'm not saying that's going to send her running instantly into Damon's arms, absolutely not, but it's going to cloud the issue even more.
Her kiss with Stefan in her house was the first one they've shared all season.
We really wanted to see Stefan and Elena come back together after a really long and really horrible season. She was his champion and fought for him, even when he didn't deserve to be fought for, she still came back and said "I couldn't stop loving you, I could never stop loving you." That deserved payoff. When we wrote "The Last Day" last year, we knew where Stefan was going, and that was the last romantic episode those two were going to have probably for a year. We knew it was all going to go to hell, so finally being able to have one tiny moment of intimacy was nice.
The flashback to Elena and Damon's first meeting was a big shock for fans. In terms of your thought process there, what was the purpose of it? How did it drive the story?
It serves multiple functions. When Damon shows up in the pilot, he knows a lot about Elena, so there's always been a question about where he's been and what he was up to. How did he know all this? He clearly didn't just walk into Mystic Falls with his crow. He's been around too. We always said that one day we'd find out what he's been doing. It was us wanting to give Damon something to fight for. Ric is unbeatable, a jillion times stronger than Damon. Damon was a dead man, and Ric was relishing beating him, and Damon had nothing left to live for, having been passed over once again. It was just that slight little thing that she said to him, when she was just trying to take the sting off: "Hey, maybe if you and I had met first." She was just trying to soften the blow. But in reality, he had this memory that gave him the will to fight back. I love that moment, where Ric's about to drive the stake into him, and he's like "You know what? I'm not ready to die today."
Bonnie took charge in this episode, helping Klaus into Tyler's body. Was that a function of her being tired of being kicked around all season, or was it the influence of the dark magic she tapped into for the spell last week?
It's definitely a result of being kicked around all season. It's Bonnie saying, "I'm not the pawn anymore. Don't underestimate me and don't tell me what to do." I think the witches sending her to Alaric really burned her, because she'd already been fighting to get her strength against the vampires, and then her own "sisters," as they said, betrayed her. For Bonnie, this is like "Hey, look. I've got a point of view, I've got the ability to do something about it, and damn it, I'm going to do it." To tap into that kind of power she had to dig even deeper into her darkness. In the first episode back, I can't imagine that we won't be looking for some kind of magic to prevent Elena from having to transition. It'll be a question of how far Bonnie is willing to go to help her friend, and what are the repercussions and consequences attached to that.
Does Klaus owe Bonnie one now? Or does he never owe anyone anything?
I think that this definitely changes the dynamic between Klaus and Bonnie a little bit.
When "Tyler" was saying goodbye to Caroline and talking about her beautiful future, was he already Klaus, at that point?
Yeah. We definitely were hinting at that with the "you're beautiful and you'll have a great future" line. That was a classic Klaus-Caroline line, so we wanted to give a little hint there. All that smooching and all that emotion wasn't Tyler at all, in fact, was Klaus.
We didn't see Klaus's body turn to ash, so I assume there's some plan in place to keep Joseph Morgan in the mix.
Yep. I'd say there's a fairly significant chance, if not a 99.9% likelihood that body did not burn up in that coffin.
Before we see him return to that body, is he going to have a little fun being Tyler?
Yep. He's definitely going to prolong his stay, at least in the first episode, due to circumstance. Whatever goes down between Caroline and "Tyler" in the first episode will actually be happening between Caroline and Klaus, so we'll have some fun there.
I know you said Stefan and Elena will definitely make a go of being in a relationship again, but outside of that, where is Stefan's head right now? How is he looking at the choices that he made? He looked absolutely wrecked in that final scene.
He was destroyed for so many reasons. Meredith had already broken the news to him, so in that moment of lying over Elena's body, he was mourning her as a human and realizing that ultimately he was unable to save her from the one thing she never wanted, which was to be a vampire. That's going to weigh on him really heavily and it's going to piss Damon off like nobody's business, that Stefan saved Matt instead of Elena. Stefan had a big burden in that moment and what he had to do was be true to Elena. It's like choosing to take someone off life support because it was their wish or to keep them on because you can't let them go. It was what she wanted, and Stefan, if nothing else, has always been able to let her make her decision. If, as a vampire, she starts to make the wrong decisions, then we'll see a shift in Stefan and how he feels about helping Elena through things. I think we'll start to get a glimpse at the different sides of Stefan in a relationship, where it's not going to be all peaches and cream and love and unconditional, unwavering support of Elena's decision. Elena is no longer Elena.
Would you say that the love triangle will be stronger than ever next season?
Yes. I say that at my own peril, but yes. People can get frustrated by the love triangle, people can find it grating or whatever, but the premise of the show is two vampire brothers and their love for the same girl.
That's where we started and it's always going to exist in the landscape of "The Vampire Diaries."
Some years it'll be more in the forefront than other years, when it's delicately laid in the background.
Elena becoming a vampire will make it fresh. It changes things, and makes us ask new questions. It makes things a lot deeper. It's all part of this process of growing up.
As our characters are working toward graduation and all kinds of life decisions -- do I go to college, do I leave my hometown, is my high school boyfriend going to be my college boyfriend -- all those life things, it's all going to be supported where Elena is with Damon and Stefan.
Vampire Diaries Interview 2: Plot Points, Elena, and DAMON...?
 |
| A major chunk of The Vampire Diaries‘ fan base was bummed when Elena (Nina Dobrev) straight-up chose Stefan (Paul Wesley) over Damon (Ian Somerhalder)
on last night’s season finale, but “Delena” shippers probably shouldn’t
throw in the towel just yet. “Nothing’s ever set in stone — ever,” Nina
told HollywoodLife.com at the unveiling of her “Got Milk?” ad May 10 at Seventeen‘s NYC headquarters. “Everything changes all the time, whether it’s people or relationships or experiences.”
Considering the finale’s big twist ending, I’m thinking Elena’s feelings for Damon are going to change drastically when the show returns in the fall.
During their phone
call, one of her main points was that things might have turned out
differently if she had met him before Stefan.
Well guess what? She did!
And now that she’s becoming a vampire, there’s a good chance Elena will
remember that fateful first meeting Damon compelled her to forget.
On the subject of Nina donning a pair of fangs, she also told me she
was actually relieved that vampire Katherine was M.I.A. for much of
season three.
“My sleep habits don’t miss her, because I’m getting a lot more rest
and I’m much healthier,” Nina admitted. “But it is fun playing
Katherine. Variety is always good in any regard, but it’s all about
moderation.”
And given that lead-in, I couldn’t help but ask Nina about the possibility of playing three characters next season: Elena, Katherine and Tatia — the original Petrova who was pointedly mentioned earlier this season.
“I guess we’ll have to cross that bridge when we get there,” she
said. “I literally have to figure that whole thing out — if and when
that happens.”
OK, so that remains a question mark.
But one thing Nina can count on is Elena’s platonic bestie Matt (Zach Roerig) always being there for her. In fact, she told me she thinks every girl should have a Matt Donovan in her life.
“I think every girl has to have a really good girl friend
and a really good guy friend, so you can bounce ideas off them and have
objective opinions from both sides,” she explained. “Our minds are
wired so completely differently, so yeah, it’s always great to have a
guy friend and a girl friend.”
How do you feel about Nina’s outlook on Elena and Damon next
season?
Do you think Elena will change her mind when she remembers she
met Damon first, or will she stay true to Stefan?
And do you miss
Katherine as much as I do?
In fact, the finale gave us a LOT to look forward to next season, so allow me to break down the five pivotal plot points I can’t wait to see in the fall: 1. Elena remembering her meeting with Damon:When you become a vampire, all compulsion wears off, which means Elena will remember that she actually met Damon (Ian Somerhalder) before she met Stefan (Paul Wesley). And considering she told Damon things might have worked out differently if she’d met him first, I could see that being a victory for Team Damon.2. Elena adjusting to life as a vampire:Elena has always talked about someday having a vampire-free life, but that’s going to be pretty difficult, you know, now that she’s a vampire herself! Once she gets over the self-loathing — if she ever does — it’ll be intense watching her feed and fight for the first time. I know we’ve seen Nina as Katherine, but Elena as a vampire is going to be a completely different beast. Literally.3. Damon and Stefan fighting:Any way you slice it, Stefan let Elena drown by saving Matt (Zach Roerig) instead of her, and that’s why she’s now a vampire. I can’t imagine Damon will be too pleased with his little brother’s decision — and I think Elena will be even less thrilled. Great, as if the Salvatores need another reason to be at each other’s throats!4. Everyone realizing Klaus is alive:Damon and Rebekah (Claire Holt) may have watched Klaus’ (Joseph Morgan) physical body go up in flames, but as we all know, his spirit is still very much alive inside of Tyler’s (Michael Trevino) body — which, is good news for “Klaroline” shippers, as every romantic scene between Tyler and Caroline (Candice Accola) in the premiere will actually be a scene between Klaus and Caroline scene. Oh boy.5. Finding out if Tyler survived the switch:On the flip side of Klaus being alive, the other question on everyone’s mind is whether or not Tyler survived the body swap.Did Bonnie (Kat Graham) put Tyler’s spirit inside Klaus’ body, or are both spirits currently inside Tyler’s body, with one just waiting to be expelled? Magic is so confusing sometimes. What are YOU most looking forward to in season four? Do you think Elena will change her mind and decide to be with Damon? Do you think Tyler will ever be Tyler again? Do you think Klaus will ever get his body back? |
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Vampire Diaries Interview with Julie Plec
VAMPIRE DIARIES SEASON FINALE SPOILERS AND INTERVIEW.
I no longer watch the show, but I couldn't resist putting this on my blog for I adore Damon and Elena and LJ Smith's original story before the show became a bit screwed up.
So here it is. Enjoy!
While the cast and creators of THE VAMPIRE DIARIES are notoriously tight-lipped about sharing spoilers or anything about the upcoming final two episodes of Season 3, at a recent Q&A in a roomful of press, executive producer Julie Plec and cast members Candice Accola, Michael Trevino, Steven R. McQueen, and Zach Roerig shared a few candid thoughts on what to expect as the 3rd season races towards its climatic finale and their hopes and speculations for Season 4.
Alaric
JULIE: “He’s very clearly a badass vampire killer with a pretty magnificent, deadly and unburnable stake, so I definitely think he’s going to be a conflict provider. Not to make it an understatement, but he’s not going to be the friendliest version of Alaric that we’re ever met. He’s going to be pretty hardcore, which is going to be kind of equally exciting and devastating, obviously ’cause one of our heroes is no longer one of our heroes.”
Turning Vampire-Hunter Into a Vampire
JULIE: “We knew he needed to be stronger, as strong, resilient, immortal, fast, furious, fierce, and the idea of kind of ironic symmetry of having the witch who is desperate to irradiate vampires and this alter-ego of Alaric’s who hates vampires, and knowing that in becoming a vampire your darkest impulses and your greatest wants are magnified to such a degree, it felt like it was this way of bringing the Original Witch’s part in this mythology full circle. Her kind of passing the baton to a villain who actually could succeed at the task that she’s been failing at all season.”
Are Alaric & Elena Bonded Now Because of Her Blood?
JULIE: “I have no idea! I don’t know. You’ll have to wait and see about that.”
Klaus v. Alaric
JULIE: “That’s next week’s episode. Tune in next week. That will probably tell you more. Alaric wants the Originals dead and the very first thing that we see in the next episode is Alaric in the high school where Caroline and Rebekah are having a little post-dance clean-up. So things only get worse from there. They start hot; they stay hot. It’s a very extreme, hardcore episode of Alaric sort of on a tear, and no one is safe.”
Which characters are in the cross-hairs?
JULIE: “There’s are going to be a lot of people that we’re not going to be sure if they’re gonna make it to Season 4. That’s all I’ll say. . . No one ever [is un-killable]. Would I be so quick to write anyone’s death sentence? No.
But I definitely think that you have to have the risk that someone can never be seen again. Otherwise, the death doesn’t matter.
Do we like telling people goodbye forever? No. As you’ve seen, we’ve sort of emotionally found a lot of different ways in our narrative to bring people back that we love, for better or for worse. For better, for us. This year is not without its emotional casualties.”
Is Elena vulnerable?
JULIE: “For sure. I mean, she’s got a Katherine. She’s got god knows how many dopplegangers are out there.”
Katherine
JULIE: “You will not see hide nor hair of Katherine until Klaus is gone for good. So his survival ties in to her appearance, or lack thereof.”
Dare to Kill Off Klaus?
JULIE: “It is logistically possible. It would be very, very traumatic, but possible.”
Stefan
JULIE: “Stefan’s whole struggle this year has been, one, he’s been clinging on by such a tenuous thread for the first half of the season, then he lost his mind for a nice chunk in the middle and so he’s been terrified of opening himself back up and letting his feelings in. It’s been a slow, slow permeation of [Stefan’s] emotional life over the latter section of the season. In this moment, seeing her in her most vulnerable and needing to give her the support that she’s been trying to give him the whole season.
It’s finally him sort of saying, ‘It’s okay to feel. I heard you all of those times when you told me: It’s okay to feel and it’s okay to have hope. I heard you and now let me give that back to you.’ I think that all of this is just illuminating for this girl at this point in her life. These two men that are so important to her, and she has no one, and almost everyone who’s ever mattered to her, and how do you choose in a moment like that? The last 2 episodes of the season are really about her asking herself that question and really trying to understand how she could possibly let one of them go when she’s already lost so much.”
Elena’s Choice
JULIE: “It will effect everything… you’re going to have to ask me that question after the finale airs, because then I can expand on it a little bit more. . .If Jeremy had his way, it would be, ‘I choose neither of you vamps’ Jeremy obviously is very protective of his sister, and would probably choose Team Matt if given the choice. [Laughter] . . .
One of the things that we set out to do during this whole year — as Damon found himself more and more deeply in love with his brother’s girl and all the things that came along with that — was make sure that the brothers found their way back to each other . . . They would get stronger instead of weaker as brothers, in spite of this looming conflict.
This looming decision. There’s a really nice scene in next week’s episode that kind of shows us that they might survive this no matter how this plays out. That when all is said and done — what is it? ‘Bros before hos’? — but I think that the cliché is that the girl tears them apart, and so how could we let the girl bring them even together, which of course makes her decision even more difficult.”
CANDICE: “Caroline is such a Stelena worshipper. Also, Damon and Caroline wouldn’t have the cleanest past of the bunch either. So I think that she just recognizes that Stefan is someone good for Elena, and she is rooting for her to open her eyes and give him a chance. I think Caroline, deep down, does have that little ‘He is the best for you. He is your one epic true love. I’m not going to let you just throw him away because you’re getting distracted by shiny Damon things’.”
Jeremy
JULIE: “It’s a big burden on him now. He is the man of the house and he and his sister are all that they have. So there’s going to be a lot that he has to do to grow and keep himself together, and be a champion for Elena as she is always trying to be a champion for him. . . Jeremy is on the up right now. We don’t have any secret manipulations buried for him for the rest of the season. He is very much in that ‘batten down the hatches, protect the family, guardian just died, how am I going to get through this?’ kind of mode.”
Jeremy’s Ring
JULIE: “The stakes of death and resuscitation are possibly not as intense for Jeremy as they were for Alaric, because obviously [Alaric] had something happen on the other-side. There’s always going to be a concern of consequences for cheating death too many times. It just might not come in the form of a Jekyll and Hyde alter-ego. . . The rings are going to stay in play for awhile because ultimately it’s that kind of coin-toss of ‘I can’t be in the fray, fighting the good fight, if I can be killed.’ So you roll the dice.”
ZACH: “Hey, I roll the dice!” [Laughter]
Klaus
JULIE: “He started this season — once he realized that the Original Witch was screwing with him from the other-side, he was like, ‘I’m going to batten down the hatches, I’m going to pull my family together, but prior to that he’s going to build an army of hybrids. Klaus has big plans for himself, and now that he realizes she will not stop coming after him, whether it is her own self or what she just did with manipulating the witches, so this is a second call to arms for Klaus, who may have gotten a bot distracted by pretty blondes and paintings and horses, and all that.
This is the reminder that this guy means business, and he’s not going to let his guard down again. So it’s a nice kind of reboot of the villain. . .We like our villains — when they are acting against the best interests of our heroes – to have a deep emotional core that lets us understand them a little bit.
Understand their wants and their why. When our villains have to work with our heroes for a shared agenda, we love our villains to be especially naughty, violent and bad because we love them in spite of their behavior. . . Klaus will never be a hero. That is not to say he won’t do heroic things in this journey. Just like Damon will never be a true good guy, and Stefan will not be a true hero all the time. Life is more complicated than that.”
Klaus’ Ultimate Goal
JULIE: “He is someone who wants purpose, and with purpose comes intent to do something for someone. For the love of someone. To have someone. To not be alone. So building the army is to protect himself and those that he cares about. The problem is that his behavior tends to reject more than it magnetizes.
I think Klaus, when all is said and done, all the bodies strewn on the battlefield — would like to life with a nice Caroline Forbes kind of girl to carry on through eternity knowing that they will be forever safe and untouched, no matter what kind of villain comes at them. But he’s a work-in-progress. He’s a messed up dude.”
Caroline & Klaus
CANDICE: “I love getting asked the question, ‘Oh, Caroline and Klaus?’ ‘Cause Caroline, she’s made so many mistakes and put her foot in her mouth and fallen for the bad guy.
This is the first time where she is staying true to her feelings and not getting caught up in the guy with the accent.
She loves her high school love and boyfriend. But the only thing is, in high school, how can you not think of all a sudden when someone is putting into your head thoughts of places to travel and semesters abroad?
All of these experiences you’re going to have when you grow up and grow older. It’s hard not to think about them. So I think that’s the only way she’s wooed by Klaus. The idea that there’s another world out there. But right now, in the present, she is fighting like hell to just have a normal relationship with her boyfriend in high school. It’s all she wants.”
Tyler & Klaus
MICHAEL: “What we’ve seen with Tyler is he’s biting his tongue, especially with this sire-bond that now has been broken through. So, you know, enough’s enough.
Between the two of them [Tyler and Caroline], he’s like, ‘I shouldn’t have let him dance with you.’ . . I think in these last two episodes, if not next week’s episode, we might see him actually take some action against Klaus, and maybe not follow his orders when it comes to Caroline. . . Next week, Tyler finally sticks up for himself. He is tired of being b*tched around and he acts on it — and it gets messy.”
Matt & Elena
JULIE: “Matt is one of the vestigial representatives of this life that was clean and simple for her. Their friendship dates back to when they were in the sandbox together. So we get a nice little flash of what it was like when they were dating, and that they were themselves a troubled relationship. So even though she’s remembering a simpler time, her problems were actually just as complicated.”
Caroline Warning Matt About Elena at the Dance
JULIE: “That was meant more to imply that people that love her and care about her, tend to get hurt.”
ZACH: “She really beat that one home, didn’t she?!” [Laughter]
Matt & Rebekah
JULIE: “What do you think about that, Donovan?”
ZACH: “I can handle it! Though I’m also happy being single at this point.”
JULIE: “Exploring your options?”
ZACH: “Hey, I’m happy being everyone’s ex-boyfriend at this point.” [Laughter]
JULIE: “Should Matt be so lucky to survive Season 3 and should Rebekah be so lucky to survive Season 3, there’s a little crush brewing on her side there, so maybe there’s some story there to tell.”
Flashback in Finale
JULIE: “It’s a small little runner that goes throughout the episode as Elena is looking back at a part of her life when things were more simple, at least from a supernatural level. . . We actually will get a little flash of something else that happened during that time that we really never considered and it’s more an emotional thing than it is a suspense thing.”
Dr. Meredith Fell
JULIE: “If Dr. Fell is lucky enough to survive Season 3, I think that every town needs a nice pretty doctor and Damon might need a new drinking buddy — ‘cause we’ve already established her as a day-drinker, so there might be something nice friendship that could happen there. . . As a caretaker and as a compassionate human being, she and Elena will probably have a bond that could develop into a nice friendship as well."
Was Bonnie Possessed?
JULIE: “She was very clearly under some sort of witchy influence, which is really Bonnie’s issue now. Like, ‘what the hell, man? I’ve got vampires telling me what to do. I’ve got other people telling me what to do, and now I’ve got my sisters — the witches — telling me what to do. Where’s my free-will? Where’s my choice?’ And that’s going to impact her character moving forward.”
What the Show Really About
JULIE: “We obviously have supernatural stakes; we’ve got the ‘Death Toll List’ is reaching a hundred; we’ve got danger in every act break; villains and people battling for life and to rescue the love of their lives; and in the midst of all of that we’re still intent on telling a very human story about very human people who live in a small town and go to a small high school, and who are falling in and out of love and dealing with issues with their parents and issues with their friends — questions of loyalty, friendship and family. . . The emotional stakes of this series are about these young people partnered with these people who have lived and will continue to live an eternal life; and all the complications of that and everything that means and stripping these kids from the comfort of a loving and caring and supportive family and giving them the challenge of survival, emotional and literal survival. . . This is a show about young people coming of age and into their own adulthood facing some of the most horrific and difficult part of life, which is when you have to go at it alone.”
Season 3 Finale
JULIE: “The penultimate episode is very, very adrenaline-infused and there’s some big mythology moves that happen and it’s a pretty big deal. Whereas the finale is definitely more emotion, but it is by no means the epilogue to the season. If anything, its half closing the door to one year and then blowing the freakin’ lid off the door to the next.”
Season 4
JULIE: “We’ve already started talking about Season 4, which will take us through the rest of these guys’ final year in high school. As they’re all going through some pretty extraordinary changes in their own emotional lives, their own personal lives, romantic lives, and supernatural lives, they are making decisions about their future, and what that will bring and all those great things leading up to graduation and choices of: does I stay or do I go?”
Note that while Julie was careful not to specify who she and the other writers are planning the Senior Year trajectory, given the level of confidence from the cast in the room at the Q&A, they are feeling pretty good about their characters making it into the next season. That is not to say that Caroline, Matt, Tyler and Jeremy are not at risk, but the actors themselves seemed pretty self-assured about being back for next season.
And we are all but certain that Elena, Stefan and Damon are also safe – probably Bonnie too since she is their one witchy link to the other-side.
Which leaves the guillotine ax ready to fall on possibly Klaus, Rebekah, Esther, Elijah, Kol, Alaric, and Dr. Fell. Surely one or more will be holding Death’s Card by the end of the season – and we cannot wait to find out who!
I no longer watch the show, but I couldn't resist putting this on my blog for I adore Damon and Elena and LJ Smith's original story before the show became a bit screwed up.
So here it is. Enjoy!
While the cast and creators of THE VAMPIRE DIARIES are notoriously tight-lipped about sharing spoilers or anything about the upcoming final two episodes of Season 3, at a recent Q&A in a roomful of press, executive producer Julie Plec and cast members Candice Accola, Michael Trevino, Steven R. McQueen, and Zach Roerig shared a few candid thoughts on what to expect as the 3rd season races towards its climatic finale and their hopes and speculations for Season 4.
Alaric
JULIE: “He’s very clearly a badass vampire killer with a pretty magnificent, deadly and unburnable stake, so I definitely think he’s going to be a conflict provider. Not to make it an understatement, but he’s not going to be the friendliest version of Alaric that we’re ever met. He’s going to be pretty hardcore, which is going to be kind of equally exciting and devastating, obviously ’cause one of our heroes is no longer one of our heroes.”
Turning Vampire-Hunter Into a Vampire
JULIE: “We knew he needed to be stronger, as strong, resilient, immortal, fast, furious, fierce, and the idea of kind of ironic symmetry of having the witch who is desperate to irradiate vampires and this alter-ego of Alaric’s who hates vampires, and knowing that in becoming a vampire your darkest impulses and your greatest wants are magnified to such a degree, it felt like it was this way of bringing the Original Witch’s part in this mythology full circle. Her kind of passing the baton to a villain who actually could succeed at the task that she’s been failing at all season.”
Are Alaric & Elena Bonded Now Because of Her Blood?
JULIE: “I have no idea! I don’t know. You’ll have to wait and see about that.”
Klaus v. Alaric
JULIE: “That’s next week’s episode. Tune in next week. That will probably tell you more. Alaric wants the Originals dead and the very first thing that we see in the next episode is Alaric in the high school where Caroline and Rebekah are having a little post-dance clean-up. So things only get worse from there. They start hot; they stay hot. It’s a very extreme, hardcore episode of Alaric sort of on a tear, and no one is safe.”
Which characters are in the cross-hairs?
JULIE: “There’s are going to be a lot of people that we’re not going to be sure if they’re gonna make it to Season 4. That’s all I’ll say. . . No one ever [is un-killable]. Would I be so quick to write anyone’s death sentence? No.
But I definitely think that you have to have the risk that someone can never be seen again. Otherwise, the death doesn’t matter.
Do we like telling people goodbye forever? No. As you’ve seen, we’ve sort of emotionally found a lot of different ways in our narrative to bring people back that we love, for better or for worse. For better, for us. This year is not without its emotional casualties.”
Is Elena vulnerable?
JULIE: “For sure. I mean, she’s got a Katherine. She’s got god knows how many dopplegangers are out there.”
Katherine
JULIE: “You will not see hide nor hair of Katherine until Klaus is gone for good. So his survival ties in to her appearance, or lack thereof.”
Dare to Kill Off Klaus?
JULIE: “It is logistically possible. It would be very, very traumatic, but possible.”
Stefan
JULIE: “Stefan’s whole struggle this year has been, one, he’s been clinging on by such a tenuous thread for the first half of the season, then he lost his mind for a nice chunk in the middle and so he’s been terrified of opening himself back up and letting his feelings in. It’s been a slow, slow permeation of [Stefan’s] emotional life over the latter section of the season. In this moment, seeing her in her most vulnerable and needing to give her the support that she’s been trying to give him the whole season.
It’s finally him sort of saying, ‘It’s okay to feel. I heard you all of those times when you told me: It’s okay to feel and it’s okay to have hope. I heard you and now let me give that back to you.’ I think that all of this is just illuminating for this girl at this point in her life. These two men that are so important to her, and she has no one, and almost everyone who’s ever mattered to her, and how do you choose in a moment like that? The last 2 episodes of the season are really about her asking herself that question and really trying to understand how she could possibly let one of them go when she’s already lost so much.”
Elena’s Choice
JULIE: “It will effect everything… you’re going to have to ask me that question after the finale airs, because then I can expand on it a little bit more. . .If Jeremy had his way, it would be, ‘I choose neither of you vamps’ Jeremy obviously is very protective of his sister, and would probably choose Team Matt if given the choice. [Laughter] . . .
One of the things that we set out to do during this whole year — as Damon found himself more and more deeply in love with his brother’s girl and all the things that came along with that — was make sure that the brothers found their way back to each other . . . They would get stronger instead of weaker as brothers, in spite of this looming conflict.
This looming decision. There’s a really nice scene in next week’s episode that kind of shows us that they might survive this no matter how this plays out. That when all is said and done — what is it? ‘Bros before hos’? — but I think that the cliché is that the girl tears them apart, and so how could we let the girl bring them even together, which of course makes her decision even more difficult.”
CANDICE: “Caroline is such a Stelena worshipper. Also, Damon and Caroline wouldn’t have the cleanest past of the bunch either. So I think that she just recognizes that Stefan is someone good for Elena, and she is rooting for her to open her eyes and give him a chance. I think Caroline, deep down, does have that little ‘He is the best for you. He is your one epic true love. I’m not going to let you just throw him away because you’re getting distracted by shiny Damon things’.”
Jeremy
JULIE: “It’s a big burden on him now. He is the man of the house and he and his sister are all that they have. So there’s going to be a lot that he has to do to grow and keep himself together, and be a champion for Elena as she is always trying to be a champion for him. . . Jeremy is on the up right now. We don’t have any secret manipulations buried for him for the rest of the season. He is very much in that ‘batten down the hatches, protect the family, guardian just died, how am I going to get through this?’ kind of mode.”
Jeremy’s Ring
JULIE: “The stakes of death and resuscitation are possibly not as intense for Jeremy as they were for Alaric, because obviously [Alaric] had something happen on the other-side. There’s always going to be a concern of consequences for cheating death too many times. It just might not come in the form of a Jekyll and Hyde alter-ego. . . The rings are going to stay in play for awhile because ultimately it’s that kind of coin-toss of ‘I can’t be in the fray, fighting the good fight, if I can be killed.’ So you roll the dice.”
ZACH: “Hey, I roll the dice!” [Laughter]
Klaus
JULIE: “He started this season — once he realized that the Original Witch was screwing with him from the other-side, he was like, ‘I’m going to batten down the hatches, I’m going to pull my family together, but prior to that he’s going to build an army of hybrids. Klaus has big plans for himself, and now that he realizes she will not stop coming after him, whether it is her own self or what she just did with manipulating the witches, so this is a second call to arms for Klaus, who may have gotten a bot distracted by pretty blondes and paintings and horses, and all that.
This is the reminder that this guy means business, and he’s not going to let his guard down again. So it’s a nice kind of reboot of the villain. . .We like our villains — when they are acting against the best interests of our heroes – to have a deep emotional core that lets us understand them a little bit.
Understand their wants and their why. When our villains have to work with our heroes for a shared agenda, we love our villains to be especially naughty, violent and bad because we love them in spite of their behavior. . . Klaus will never be a hero. That is not to say he won’t do heroic things in this journey. Just like Damon will never be a true good guy, and Stefan will not be a true hero all the time. Life is more complicated than that.”
Klaus’ Ultimate Goal
JULIE: “He is someone who wants purpose, and with purpose comes intent to do something for someone. For the love of someone. To have someone. To not be alone. So building the army is to protect himself and those that he cares about. The problem is that his behavior tends to reject more than it magnetizes.
I think Klaus, when all is said and done, all the bodies strewn on the battlefield — would like to life with a nice Caroline Forbes kind of girl to carry on through eternity knowing that they will be forever safe and untouched, no matter what kind of villain comes at them. But he’s a work-in-progress. He’s a messed up dude.”
Caroline & Klaus
CANDICE: “I love getting asked the question, ‘Oh, Caroline and Klaus?’ ‘Cause Caroline, she’s made so many mistakes and put her foot in her mouth and fallen for the bad guy.
This is the first time where she is staying true to her feelings and not getting caught up in the guy with the accent.
She loves her high school love and boyfriend. But the only thing is, in high school, how can you not think of all a sudden when someone is putting into your head thoughts of places to travel and semesters abroad?
All of these experiences you’re going to have when you grow up and grow older. It’s hard not to think about them. So I think that’s the only way she’s wooed by Klaus. The idea that there’s another world out there. But right now, in the present, she is fighting like hell to just have a normal relationship with her boyfriend in high school. It’s all she wants.”
Tyler & Klaus
MICHAEL: “What we’ve seen with Tyler is he’s biting his tongue, especially with this sire-bond that now has been broken through. So, you know, enough’s enough.
Between the two of them [Tyler and Caroline], he’s like, ‘I shouldn’t have let him dance with you.’ . . I think in these last two episodes, if not next week’s episode, we might see him actually take some action against Klaus, and maybe not follow his orders when it comes to Caroline. . . Next week, Tyler finally sticks up for himself. He is tired of being b*tched around and he acts on it — and it gets messy.”
Matt & Elena
JULIE: “Matt is one of the vestigial representatives of this life that was clean and simple for her. Their friendship dates back to when they were in the sandbox together. So we get a nice little flash of what it was like when they were dating, and that they were themselves a troubled relationship. So even though she’s remembering a simpler time, her problems were actually just as complicated.”
Caroline Warning Matt About Elena at the Dance
JULIE: “That was meant more to imply that people that love her and care about her, tend to get hurt.”
ZACH: “She really beat that one home, didn’t she?!” [Laughter]
Matt & Rebekah
JULIE: “What do you think about that, Donovan?”
ZACH: “I can handle it! Though I’m also happy being single at this point.”
JULIE: “Exploring your options?”
ZACH: “Hey, I’m happy being everyone’s ex-boyfriend at this point.” [Laughter]
JULIE: “Should Matt be so lucky to survive Season 3 and should Rebekah be so lucky to survive Season 3, there’s a little crush brewing on her side there, so maybe there’s some story there to tell.”
Flashback in Finale
JULIE: “It’s a small little runner that goes throughout the episode as Elena is looking back at a part of her life when things were more simple, at least from a supernatural level. . . We actually will get a little flash of something else that happened during that time that we really never considered and it’s more an emotional thing than it is a suspense thing.”
Dr. Meredith Fell
JULIE: “If Dr. Fell is lucky enough to survive Season 3, I think that every town needs a nice pretty doctor and Damon might need a new drinking buddy — ‘cause we’ve already established her as a day-drinker, so there might be something nice friendship that could happen there. . . As a caretaker and as a compassionate human being, she and Elena will probably have a bond that could develop into a nice friendship as well."
Was Bonnie Possessed?
JULIE: “She was very clearly under some sort of witchy influence, which is really Bonnie’s issue now. Like, ‘what the hell, man? I’ve got vampires telling me what to do. I’ve got other people telling me what to do, and now I’ve got my sisters — the witches — telling me what to do. Where’s my free-will? Where’s my choice?’ And that’s going to impact her character moving forward.”
What the Show Really About
JULIE: “We obviously have supernatural stakes; we’ve got the ‘Death Toll List’ is reaching a hundred; we’ve got danger in every act break; villains and people battling for life and to rescue the love of their lives; and in the midst of all of that we’re still intent on telling a very human story about very human people who live in a small town and go to a small high school, and who are falling in and out of love and dealing with issues with their parents and issues with their friends — questions of loyalty, friendship and family. . . The emotional stakes of this series are about these young people partnered with these people who have lived and will continue to live an eternal life; and all the complications of that and everything that means and stripping these kids from the comfort of a loving and caring and supportive family and giving them the challenge of survival, emotional and literal survival. . . This is a show about young people coming of age and into their own adulthood facing some of the most horrific and difficult part of life, which is when you have to go at it alone.”
Season 3 Finale
JULIE: “The penultimate episode is very, very adrenaline-infused and there’s some big mythology moves that happen and it’s a pretty big deal. Whereas the finale is definitely more emotion, but it is by no means the epilogue to the season. If anything, its half closing the door to one year and then blowing the freakin’ lid off the door to the next.”
Season 4
JULIE: “We’ve already started talking about Season 4, which will take us through the rest of these guys’ final year in high school. As they’re all going through some pretty extraordinary changes in their own emotional lives, their own personal lives, romantic lives, and supernatural lives, they are making decisions about their future, and what that will bring and all those great things leading up to graduation and choices of: does I stay or do I go?”
Note that while Julie was careful not to specify who she and the other writers are planning the Senior Year trajectory, given the level of confidence from the cast in the room at the Q&A, they are feeling pretty good about their characters making it into the next season. That is not to say that Caroline, Matt, Tyler and Jeremy are not at risk, but the actors themselves seemed pretty self-assured about being back for next season.
And we are all but certain that Elena, Stefan and Damon are also safe – probably Bonnie too since she is their one witchy link to the other-side.
Which leaves the guillotine ax ready to fall on possibly Klaus, Rebekah, Esther, Elijah, Kol, Alaric, and Dr. Fell. Surely one or more will be holding Death’s Card by the end of the season – and we cannot wait to find out who!
Friday, April 6, 2012
Character Naming Lists: A break from my script
Do you have a super secret list of character names for future use kept under your bed or in a closet, maybe even hidden in a word doc? I do.
It's something I like to keep on hand.
It's how I eventually decided on the names Dana Reeves and Carter Hampton.
An excerpt of my list of first names:
Alexandra.
Veronica.
Daniel.
Evelyn.
Sarah.
Tess.
Katherine.
Last names:
Lazarus
Mercer.
Qin-Lee-So.
What's your list and what does it involve?
E.L.
It's something I like to keep on hand.
It's how I eventually decided on the names Dana Reeves and Carter Hampton.
An excerpt of my list of first names:
Alexandra.
Veronica.
Daniel.
Evelyn.
Sarah.
Tess.
Katherine.
Last names:
Lazarus
Mercer.
Qin-Lee-So.
What's your list and what does it involve?
E.L.
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
Script Frenzy Days 3 and 4: Hunger GAMES AWAITS
Wondering, searching, hoping, for a water source. No going for the weapons, I have to find water. WATER, rushing, water is nearing, I can hear it, loud and echoing. I search along the path on foot, eventually wander towards a bubbling brook of water.
I fill my canteen, once, twice, three times and wait thirty minutes as a I purify it with iodine before drinking. Eurika. Then a big, hulking tribute from District 4 carrying a sledge arrow rushes forward, aiming for my head, and I duck numbly, throwing myself into the water. I'm drowning in my own screams...I'm gonna die...
Then the screen turns blank, I return to the couch, nestled next my dog, and I breathe a sigh of relief.
Day 3 and 4 and I have a page count of 20 pages! GO ME! I'm 4 ahead for tomorrow!
Game change is going great.
Best of luck to all who do Script Frenzy!
E.L.
I fill my canteen, once, twice, three times and wait thirty minutes as a I purify it with iodine before drinking. Eurika. Then a big, hulking tribute from District 4 carrying a sledge arrow rushes forward, aiming for my head, and I duck numbly, throwing myself into the water. I'm drowning in my own screams...I'm gonna die...
Then the screen turns blank, I return to the couch, nestled next my dog, and I breathe a sigh of relief.
Day 3 and 4 and I have a page count of 20 pages! GO ME! I'm 4 ahead for tomorrow!
Game change is going great.
Best of luck to all who do Script Frenzy!
E.L.
Monday, April 2, 2012
Script Frenzy Day 2: Relaxation is for Dummies
Ever wondered why people relax after getting ahead of their goals? That has now been answered: they aren't thinking.
I may be ahead by four pages, but if I can't get in another four, I'll fall behind when math homework crushes me at my weakest.
So...what do you do? When relaxation comes, you keep up writing your script and throw it back in your inner editor's evil, demonic, cruelly laughing face, with a triumphant scream.
Four pages will be completed...
On scriptbuddy.com, if I can figure out how to put it into PDF form without paying 15 dollars and .50 cents.
Anyway back to the drawing board.
Back to the jungle.
Back to finding a water source.
As Effie Trinket said in Hunger Games, "May the odds be ever in your favor."
E.L.
I may be ahead by four pages, but if I can't get in another four, I'll fall behind when math homework crushes me at my weakest.
So...what do you do? When relaxation comes, you keep up writing your script and throw it back in your inner editor's evil, demonic, cruelly laughing face, with a triumphant scream.
Four pages will be completed...
On scriptbuddy.com, if I can figure out how to put it into PDF form without paying 15 dollars and .50 cents.
Anyway back to the drawing board.
Back to the jungle.
Back to finding a water source.
As Effie Trinket said in Hunger Games, "May the odds be ever in your favor."
E.L.
Sunday, April 1, 2012
Script Frenzy Day 1: My Journey through the Jungle
I'm roaming the jungle. My only tools are the clothes on my back, a pocket-knife, and a half-full canteen of water. I have to get to higher ground, the thieves are catching up with me. I break into a run, hurrying, and my foot catches a tree root.
I'm stumbling, tripping over my feet, and I pitch forward. There's no light, all I see is blackness. I sense my imminent death, and...the script stops.
I'm back in my own chair, writing. That is where I have been, typing out my script as fast as I possibly can for the past two hours.
My goal for Script Frenzy is every screnzy's goal: 100 pages.
My current page number of my script for Day 1: 10 pages.
I now have a day and a half of rest ahead of me, after I finish my math homework, my science homework.
Go me!
Keep writing for anyone who has a script in mind as we keep working towards a hundred pages.
Your very own-tiger-tamer, (not true by the way in case your wondering),
E.L.
I'm stumbling, tripping over my feet, and I pitch forward. There's no light, all I see is blackness. I sense my imminent death, and...the script stops.
I'm back in my own chair, writing. That is where I have been, typing out my script as fast as I possibly can for the past two hours.
My goal for Script Frenzy is every screnzy's goal: 100 pages.
My current page number of my script for Day 1: 10 pages.
I now have a day and a half of rest ahead of me, after I finish my math homework, my science homework.
Go me!
Keep writing for anyone who has a script in mind as we keep working towards a hundred pages.
Your very own-tiger-tamer, (not true by the way in case your wondering),
E.L.
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