Yuletide reveal

[meganbmoore]

So, I wrote 3 stories for Yuletide, all for The Vampire Diaries. They were also all pretty Caroline centric (and 2 platonic!Bonnie/Caroline centric) even though she technically wasn't in one. My main relationship investment in the show is the Bonnie/Caroline/Elena friendship, which is reflected in the fics, and two were almost more character meta than fic, though hopefully, the recipients didn't mind.

Also, my descriptions are not exactly awesome and my titles are on the manipulative a twee sides.

 

The Daily Life of the Newly Undead

This prompt showed up on the pinchhit list a few days before the deadline, and was for Caroline slice-of-life, though it got away from me and didn't end up that, really. Hopefully, the recipient (who I realized I new after I started) didn't mind. This is written first-person-present tense, which is making people laugh at me now, because I have been very vocal about my dislike for the style in the past, and I had to pretty much be talked down from trying to justify it in the fic. Writing it, though, I realized that my problems with present tense are directly related to it being used to narrate actions, but have never had problems with it in monologue, or explaining what someone is seeing, and I think this reads more like a monologue. I almost picture Caroline ending it with "There, happy?" and Jeremy being all "OMG, thank goodness Stefan verbally smacked me out of that!")

My thinking behind it was mostly what it's like to be a vampire (as vampires are shown here) when you're still trying to get used to it. I set it between episodes 6 and 7 of the current season because, even though it was only a few days (I'm not sure how long, but Bonnie had her schoolbooks when she reached the Salvatores' and Jenna had to heal from a severe knife wound, so I' guessing at least a week) it's the time her life as a vampire has most closely resembled her life as a human, particularly regarding her relationships with Liz, Bonnie and Elena. I mostly took things about being a vampire and what she does and how she deals (spottingg the diference between Elena and Katherine better than the Salvatores, the eating, the rings, not being able to be near Matt without him smelling like food, how we saw Tyler dealing with his new strength, which is less than hers etc.) and took them to what I hoped was a logical impact on her daily life. I emphasized the times and slowness partly because it's always struck me as having to be very tedious to have superspeed but have to operate in a world where most people use a fraction of that speed, and also because Caroline is someone who is used to keeping extremely busy and always doing things. And while she's often portrayed/interpretted as the flighty blonde, I've always seen her as extremely organized and detail oriented, and tried to show how that might affect her new abilities.
 
Conversations About A Girl

I think the recipient for this one actually dropped out. S/he didn't comment on this or hir other story, and I couldn't find the Dear Writer letter that was linked. But I found the prompt browsing the chromatic chalenge, and it was for something with the Stefan, Bonnie and Caroline friendships.

I'm not sure what led me to setting it between episodes 2 and 3 of this season, but it ended up having only Bonnie and Stefan as the actual characters involved, but the focus was almost entirely on the Bonni/Caroline friendship, with Stefan bing concerned about both and shipping their BFF-ness, and I think he largely served as a stand-in for Caroline because it was a time Bonnie had difficulty facing Caroline. Like the TDLotNU, it's almost more character meta, and is my trying to get in a characer's head at a certain time. Bonnie gets a lot of flack for rejecting Caroline at this point, but, due to her previous experiences with vampires and how that went down,I always thought it made perfect sense (Though it didn't lessen my annoyance with the writers for how they handled it.) and tried to show tha the rejection had as much to do with caring about Caroline and concern for the consequences of her own actions as it was with being overwhelmed by everything that happened. As such, I think that parts of it may have ended up almost reading (or even flat-out reading) as a defense of Bonnie's actions, though no one has brought that up. Like with Caroline's new abilities, I tried to delve a bit into Bonnie still learning to be a witch (I disagree with the "semi-competent" comment of Damon's that fandom has jumped on. For someone who's only known magic existed for maybe half a year, ink she's doing well. And, well, we all know Emily was the Super Witch.) though not as much.

 

 

Like When We Were Children

This showed up on the pinchhit list only a few hours before the deadline, and is the only one not in the main collection. (Possibly amusing side note: unknown to both of us, a listie IMed me for mostly-title inspiration for a fic in a different fandom for the same peron.) The prompt was, IIRC, Caroline dealing with Bonnie growing old. Since I didn't have time to, well, plot or put deep thought into it, I went with the "immortal at death of mortal loved one when they're old." It's a blatantly manipulative trope, but one that petty much always works?

I basically tried to show Bonnie as being influenced by having immortals in and out of her life while she aged and they stayed young, but to not regret aging herself, and Caroline seeing a part of her life end and accepting that a transition was completing. I've actually gotten the most feedback, I think, on the comments regarding Damon. Despite my personal feelings on Damon, I think/hope that he and Bonnie are moving to a neutral working relationship, and if he keeps on living, I actually kind of like the idea of his remaining tied to the Bennetts for generations as long as it isn't "black women serve the needs of white men." Most fics using this trope seem to try to guess at what will happen to the characters, but I wanted to avoid that. I did take a quick look at the recipient's TVD tag, though, and saw that she likes Bonnie/Jeremy and I think falls into the "Elena will become a vampire" camp, and so I tried to leave both open by being vague about how many "others" there were, and by saying that Bonnie's family was tied to them in multiple ways. But mostly, I took a quick look, decided that writing for my own Id was probably a pretty safe bet in this case, and went with it. Thankfully, it seems to have worked well. It also has the best hits/feedback ratio of the three.