What I find ironic about this parallel is it shows how much Plec was Bull Shitting about Tonnie. She was worried about copying BTVS, insert white witch, problem solved đ
I mean Damon went off to live happily ever after with Elena and he is human nowâŚhis story is over tbh he got the girl lmao.
With Bonnie she is a witch and has more story to tell. Also, yeah with Kai he is a witch and part of Gemini coven so that gives more room for story so he could be involved plus he is Bonnieâs enemy and their is history.
I don’t remember who said it but they said “we’ve been asking for a Bamon/Bennett witches spin-off for years” and I couldn’t help buy think “who would watch that?” Damon does not have enough presence to be relevant in a spin off with Bonnie.
While I will agree that Bonnie has load of potential to be the main character of a spin-off and has more story to tell than all of the other characters combined but I honestly feel that a lot of current canon would need to be redone and retconned for it to work because by season 8 they royally fucked up her character.
For starters she’s the last remaining Bennett witch which does have it’s own interesting prospect but at the same time it would end up just being a lot of what we’ve already seen on TVD–her figuring shit out on her own. The only person who can help is an absentee mother who continues to be absentee.
“Love of her life” Enzo watching her for eternity to the point that she can’t move on. That’s how she’s written canonically, literally to the point that she can’t have any romantic relationships anymore even after we don’t see her.
Her season 8 characterization as Elena 2.0, that one is more fixable as canon did allow her to get somewhat back to normal but only when she lost Enzo and became the magic negro again.
Like for me to watch her spin-off I’d need to go way back in season one and right a lot of the wrongs and actually develop her character, but that would exactly be the spin-off, retconning Plec and the damage done there because the thing about Bonnie is that she’s mostly just wasted potential in order to like her you have to see past the shitty writing.
So the other night when I definitely should have been asleep since I had an important appointment the next day (it was at 1:00 so it was all good), I jumped into a time machine of tumblr posts all from the Kennett controversy during season 3–when everyone’s suspicions about the racism in TVD were confirmed. I won’t bore you with the details of how I went down the rabbit hole instead Iâll just share the rabbit hole with the posts from then because it was quite fascinating to see what the fandom used to be like that early. Though I watched the show I didn’t a) have a tumblr, and b) engage with the fandom, and I gotta say it was much worse then although I guess slightly better because it was less rude anon’s on your inbox and more blatant posts in the wrong tag which is only better because you could trace who these people were.
Anyway if you donât know what the controversy from then was about here’s the original encounter:
That then led to this passive aggressive apology and pretty much blew up on her face.
I think one of the things worth noting, which we kind of all knew is that the controversy was never really about Kennett, a ship at the time that wasnât that popular, it was a crack ship until Plec made this statement and it became more than a crack ship, it became the embodiment of everything wrong with the show because of Plecâs distaste for Bonnie fans shipping her with anyone besides who she wrote to be with Bonnie and even more so her rude response that brought up a ship that wasnât even mentioned. Thereâs a reason why this was such an eye opener–while people had their suspicions this is what essentially outed her as a racist.
So to start I found the post from the person who actually sent the tweet that Plec responded to:
Other responses to Plecâs tweet: although it hould be noted that Plec deleted the tweet after she realized the shit storm she brought on herself and it still didnât save her.
Anyway I may edit this later and add more links if I go back into the rabbit hole, but damn was this a fun blast from the past–it was really cool seeing exactly when everything completely collapsed for Plec with Bonnie fans and honestly never recovered. The only thing that stopped the boycott was Kat having to personally ask her fans to not which I hope she was well compensated for that (even though we know she wasnât).Â
iâm not even a Kennett shipper and iâm fucking baffled. when i first read this, i thought it was someone from the fandom, not the runner of the whole damn show. i had to do a double take to realize it was julie.
WHOMST the fuck? davina is paired with kol nbd, and sheâs literally a baby bunny in human form, but bonnie canât be with a scawy vampire? what a fucking joke
My second shipâŚyep. Let me just say that she only outright ridicule Kennett and BonKai shippers even though she had shut down all Bonnie ships at one point. Just never with such contempt like when people paired Bonnie with Kol or Kai.
Not even gonna get into the lost potential of Kennett, it still makes me wanna hit something. For the life if me, I still canât fathom how she even thought Bonnie x Jaime would be a viable pairing?!?! I mean, I know he was something thrown to the Bonnie fans as a âhere, now shut the hell upâ ship.
But how could NO ONE in that writing room even stop for a second to think how this kid would make Bonnie feel? Her mother, her own blood just up and left Bonnie as a child, and chose to help raise a kid that wasnât hers. Coupled with Grams having died, her father was non-existent at that point, logically speaking there should have been some MAJOR resentment on Bonnieâs part.
Itâs like the writers (and parts of the fandom) donât seem to realize Bonnieâs human, and should have human emotions and reactions to things that happen around her. Not saying that Bonnie should have treated Jaime like shit, but a good writer would at least have acknowledged the elephant in the room.
But nope, Bonnie has spells to do and people to save, no time for those pesky emotions.
^ All of this. I still canât get over the fact I thought Plecâs tweet was a shitty anti Bonnie fan for a whole two seconds. Itâs so baffing and unprofessional she would say what she did at all, just base line?? But to throw in the fact itâs utterly ridiculous, since toxic ships are TVDâs bread and butter, itâs like⌠Wow. Wow, she doesnât even know?? Like her head is so far up her ass she doesnât even realize her double standard /hatred of Bonnie. She really does believe sheâs an advocate for feminists and POC by making Bonnie beautiful and strong (and hey, she is), but then NOT giving her any sensical writing or love interests that arenât her momâs adopted son and her best friendâs little brother (who cheated on her). Bleh. I love Bonnie in spite of Julie, but she doesnât seem to understand that she held Bonnie fans at an armâs length and just completely alienated them next to other TVD fans. Itâs vampire fictionâ the relationships were always going to be spotty at best, toxic at worst. Just fucking roll with it and give Bonnie her love interests like everyone else
Plec about Bonnie: She’s a strong independent black woman who can endure any and all pain and doesn’t need a man and definitely doesn’t need anyone to save her. Seriously, no one needs to save her that’s her job. Also saving everyone else. Why can’t everyone get that through their thick skulls? This is a great way to write black women, it’s tradition, get with the program.
the word youâre looking for is slavery. Bonnieâs story on TVD is a modern day slave narrative set in a plantation town with plantation power dynamics. i dont usually make transparent analogies of this nature but the show has spent 8 seasons insisting on its own nature so all iâm doing is naming that.Â
BOOM! Iâve always thought it was strange as heâll that NOBODY has noticed that, or commented on it. Everyone on the show has lost people, but they died by either enemies, or genuine accidents (Elenaâs parents)
But Bonnie? You can trace ALL her losses back to her circle of friends and their actions. I donât understand why sheâs still there! I mean I know why, (show reasons) but the closest anyone has come to verbalizing it was Caroline to Elena after Abby was turned.
And come to think of it, has Bonnie ever asked for an apology? No sane, self respecting person would hang around after that.
“…so technically you’re a walking reminder of the horrible things that happened to me.”
I honestly will never forgive Elena or Plec for that line. I wonder what seeing her face does to Bonnie since everything she’s lost always comes back to Elena.
And what makes that line even worse is that Elena doesn’t even say because something Bonnie did got Jeremy killed, no she says it because Bonnie couldn’t bring Jeremy back. They were all so entitled to Bonnie’s help back then that when she fails a difficult task it’s all her fault for their pain and suffering. She didn’t have to do shit to begin with and no one can even be the slightest bit grateful that she even tried.
Me at Esther Mikaelson being called the Original witch:
I think this was the point when I realized âwow, this show has really lazy stupid writingâ.
Ikr, and this is season 3 when the writer was âgoodâ. She couldnât have even been called the Original Witch in the episode sheâs introduced because the spell that makes her famous isnât even her spellâitâs one she got from another witch who got it from her ancestors. I get that they wanted to give her a fancy title as the mother of the originals and creator of vampires, but maybe a name thatâs accurate and doesnât over estimate her.
I mean Qetsiyah, creator of the immortality spell (because Silas didnât do shit but take credit for her work) and the other side, doesnât even have a title like that and sheâs miles ahead of Esther in power and a lot closer to being called the Original Witch (even though itâs still not true because witches are born not created).
Like I said in the tags sheâs not the Original Witch, sheâs just white.
EXACTLY!!Â
How freaking stupid was that?! Sheâs the âOriginal Witchâ and it wasnât even her spell and she wasnât the one who cast it! (there was another witch with her, right?)
Qetsiyah was awesome. She deserves that title.
I got a name for Esther – The 1000 year old White Witch who took credit for other, much more epic witchesâ work.Â
^^^ this.
And I always hated what her introduction pretty much told us as the audience. Again, what I said in the tags, sheâs just the first white witch to be introduced. Up until that point all witches had been black, and all those witches were servants of some kind usual vampires. It was something noted and not appreciated in the slightest. Then the first witch with agency, the first witch not to be serving , but has people serving her is a 1000 white woman whoâs most famous spell is not one she created but stole from a black witch who was serving her.
Up until her introduction the writers could have at least claimed ignorance, but that was just so blatantly racist that Iâm actually surprised that that wasnât what Plec got called out for but instead the Kennett controversy.
Yep. Thatâs it. Honestly, Iâm shocked that the treatment of witches – up until that point and past that point – wasnât the ââŚhold on, we need to address this/fix thisâ moment because, like you said, all the witches were black and were servants to the vampires (pretty poorly treated by them, too)⌠and it kept going.. and going.. the racism is blatant, writers.Â
(your tags are always epic, btw)
And that’s the thing, they did improve the treatment of witches, but only the white witches, so they could think the did a job well done. I mean think about it, Esther, Liv, Davina, Jo, Kai, the Gemini coven, the heretics (all except for one who happened to be black and mute and even the Asian one to a degree), all had an amount of agency that no black witch has ever had, and way more than Bonnie ever got in her entire 8 seasons on the show. Seriously ignorance cannot account for this because if just how blatant it is.
You would think they would want to improve that but as situations like this and many like it prove they’re perfectly content with their racism and will go out of their way to stay as racist as possible.
since all this grahamwood supporting bonkai is back on our dashes, can i say how ridiculous i think it is that kat and chris couldnât talk about their characters or their ship at length for fear of getting in trouble or retribution? like. they didnât write the show or have any influence over what happened to their characters, but the fact that they couldnât even entertain the possibility even in a hypothetical sense? what kind of workplace environment bullshit is that?
i remember all of this happening in realtime, and how we watched as there seemed to be a clear ban put on these two, specifically, talking about bonkai. like, the beginning of the convention season they were gungho and giddy having panels together and then towards the end they spoke less and less freely, but in a way where it was like tptb had gagged them. longwinded answers became âyou know whyâ. and then once kai was off the show, chris still did tvd cons but never shared any more panels with kat. like, nate had panels with kat years after they snuffed kennettâŚ
clearly, iâm still bitter, but i feel like that instance is indicative of the kind of show plec was running and i wouldâve hated to have a boss like her.
It took years for Ian and Paul to be able to talk candidly about the show and that’s only after it became clear that they couldnt be fired, so yeah…Chris, the new guy and Kat, the black girl, were never really going to be given such luxury. Chris might have if his character was romantically linked to anyone other than Bonnie (note Nate’s character being paired with Davina opening s whole lot more opportunities for him), but he wasn’t and even when he was off the show Plec was still his boss so he still couldn’t really talk since she was who provided him with the most regular work he had at this point (Carrie Diaries, TVD, Containment).
Plec made it very known just how little power their actors had, almost reveled in it. It was so bad that Ian of all people, because we know how much that show was up his and Damon’s ass, had to bribe Plec at a dinner to get scenes with Kat. I know I keep asking this question but how does she still have a job? She’s not good at, clearly unprofessional, and is literally the worst person to work with, no one’s dying to work with her again.
I will always love how whenever Julie plec tweets about feminism, she gets instantly roasted about how she treated Bonnie Bennett and various other female characters on tvd
Iâm still trying to figure out if she really is that clueless though. I know a part of it is just her trying to seem âdownâ and progressive and to help paint herself as a victim, but then it really seems like she believes all her delusions.
That type of cluelessness canât be faked. She really does believe sheâs some sort of progressive âwokeâ feminist
I remember reading this when Plec wrote that whole essay about feminism after the Trump election. No one was buying it then and we for damn sure ainât buying now.
If it was just plain ignorance Iâd be willing to give more leeway because ignorance can be fixed, while a lot of people willingly stay ignorant, it’s not a state that has to be perpetual, but itâs more than that with her. Itâs something thatâs been instilled in her to the point that she canât see past it, she can only think of what effects her. She lacks the empathy needed for us to believe her efforts are real.
I remember that article about sexual harassment on the TVD a little while back and thinking this is unbelievable, literally. Not because I think anyone there was above it, but simply because the article was written in a way that mostly seemed to applaud Plec for firing him and the âteaching momentâ that one doesnât have to endure abuse, which are all great and well, but a) this director was never named which is further protecting him not her, and b) the article stops focusing on the victim, the person whoâs voice should matter in such article. It focuses on Plec and her feminism AKA white feminism, and quite honestly what ever feminism sheâs preaching is too vague for anyone to take seriously.
Plec is a fortunate white woman (because honestly how does she still have a job) who has never really faced adversity outside twitter comments so unsurprisingly her views are just as dense as her background suggests.
POC of TVD 