The Vampire Diaries - Fanlore

The Vampire Diaries

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Name: The Vampire Diaries
Abbreviation(s): VD, TVD
Creator: LJ Smith
Date(s): 1991/1992: original series
2009/2010: Return trilogy
2009-present: TV series
Medium: book, television
Country of Origin: US
External Links: VampireDiaries.net (official)
Vampire-Diaries.net (fansite)
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Contents

The Vampire Diaries is a book series by LJ Smith; it was adapted into a CW TV series by the same name.

Book Series

The Vampire Diaries is a series of YA books by author L.J. Smith.

It consists of four original books published in 1991 and 1992 (The Awakening, The Struggle, The Fury, and Dark Reunion), and a new trilogy written to mark the author's return from her ten-year hiatus. The Return trilogy includes Nightfall (published February 2009), Shadow Souls (due February 2010), and Midnight (due 2010-11).

Synopsis Original Series

In the first book of the original series, The Awakening, Elena Gilbert is a high-school senior who is popular and beautiful but lonely. When an attractive Italian boy enrolls at her school and ignores her attempts to attract his attention, she determines she’ll make him hers. However, Stefan Salvatore is a vampire trying to start a new life for himself, and he is rejecting Elena because she is the near-perfect double of his lost love, Katherine von Swartzschild. Katherine changed both Stefan and his older brother, Damon Salvatore, into vampires five hundred years ago; she then committed suicide and the brothers killed one another because each blamed the other for her death. Even when Stefan admits he loves Elena and starts dating her, he initially keeps his nature a secret. Elena discovers the truth after a teacher is murdered on Halloween and the town blames Stefan for it. Elena believes, however, that the killer isn’t Stefan but the more powerful Damon, who’s been trying to seduce her on the sly. Stefan confronts Damon and warns him to stay away from Elena, but Damon says he intends to make Elena his own, and the book ends with violence between the two brothers.

In the second book, The Struggle, Stefan and Elena find themselves in growing conflict with Damon. Damon tries to persuade Elena to abandon Stefan in favor of him and continues to threaten Stefan. Elena attempts to protect Stefan by not telling him how Damon has tricked her into blood exchanges with him. Meanwhile, Elena’s diary has been stolen by other high school students who intend to use it to make the town believe that Stefan is responsible for a rash of assaults and the teacher’s murder. When Elena finally is unable to find a solution and confesses the truth to Stefan, he promises to help her and stay with her no matter what happens, and the two become engaged. However, it is Damon who saves Elena and Stefan by stealing Elena’s diary back. The attack of a supernatural force causes Elena to drown unexpectedly, and Stefan, who believes Damon is responsible, tries to kill Damon in revenge.

In the third book, The Fury, Elena wakes up as a vampire and interrupts the brothers’ fight to the death. She identifies the force that killed her as someone other than Damon, and the three vampires band together to find it, despite the continuing tensions between Stefan and Damon. In the end, the Other Power is finally identified as Katherine von Swartzschild, who - it turns out - faked her suicide, and has since gone insane. Elena manages to kill Katherine but dies in the fight. Stefan and Damon make her a deathbed promise to end their conflict and look after one another.

In the fourth book, Dark Reunion, Elena’s high school friends receive messages from Elena’s spirit just before one of them is killed in a mysterious attack that seems to have supernatural elements. Elena’s friends summon Stefan to help them fight the new evil. Stefan and Damon arrive, but before they can identify the killer, another human girl is killed and a high school boy is identified as a werewolf. The killer turns out to be the ultra-powerful vampire Klaus, who made Katherine von Swartzschild into a vampire, and to whom she returned after her fake suicide. All of Elena’s friends receive mortal wounds on the battlefield, but Elena’s spirit appears and heals them; she also summons an army of restless Civil War spirits, who carry a screaming Klaus away into the night. When Elena comes back to life, now a normal human girl again, and is reunited with Stefan, the original series has a happy ending.

Synopsis Return Trilogy

In the fifth book (first of the Return trilogy), Nightfall, the newly returned Elena appears more like an angel than a human being. She has White Powers and four sets of magic wings that can, respectively, allow her to fly, cause people to remember, redeem people from their sins, and destroy supernatural contaminating influences. Two malicious kitsune twins attack the town, causing hostile trees to walk and monstrous tentacled creatures called malach to possess humans. Damon is possessed by one of the tentacled creatures, and under its influence he helps one of the kitsune kidnap Stefan. Damon then pursues Elena, who flees and fights him until she is badly wounded. Damon heals Elena, who uses her magic wings to free him of the tentacled creature possessing him. Damon, Elena, and her friends fight the two kitsune, who are eventually defeated. To rescue Stefan, though, Damon and Elena will have to find the two halves of the kitsunes’ magic key. They set out to do so at the end of the book.

Shadow Souls (not yet published): A penitent Damon, along with Elena, and Matt follow Stefan into the darkest dimension in an attempt to set him free from the prison he has found instead of salvation. Bonnie and Meredith join Elena as all three are forced to enter as slaves, the chained and leashed property of a vampire--Damon.

Midnight (not yet published): The surviving group of Fell’s Church friends return to find their town in a shambles. Meredith makes a horrifying discovery in her research and Bonnie has an out of body experience which might explain all the mayhem that is going on. Matt faces down Caroline, while, Elena must face the most important question of her life: who does she really belong with? Stefan or Damon?

Fan Reaction to Nightfall

Reaction to the new trilogy has been incredibly mixed [1]. Many fans expressed dismay over the large number of inconsistencies and inaccuracies in Nightfall, including the heavy use of modern technology when it's still technically 1992. LJ Smith also made significant changes to the characters' personalities, especially Damon (a fan favorite), upsetting many long-time members of the fandom. Some have accused LJ Smith of not familiarizing herself with her books before writing Nightfall. In her defense, other mostly newer fans (who entered the fandom after reading the 2008 omnibus reprints of the original books) have pointed out that LJ Smith has not been writing for over ten years, so some inconsistencies can be expected and forgiven. LJ Smith herself has admitted it's not her best work, and blames the poor writing quality on problems with her editors. However, many fans remain unhappy with the direction of the new books, citing Nightfail's ridiculous plotline, vaguely homophobic references, and disturbing characterization that reads like bad fanfic.

Fans React and Create Slash

Many fans have noticed a startling amount of subtext in the original books. The Vampire Diaries is perhaps LJ Smith's slashiest work. Included is a deep friendship between Matt and Stefan, two male characters who bond immediately, and a famous (or infamous) broyay pseudo-rape scene between Stefan and Damon Salvatore in The Awakening. In the books, several characters make comments on 'kinky' threesomes. This has spawned a large amount of slash fanfiction, more so than in any of LJ Smith's other books, even Nightworld.

TV Show

In early 2009, plans were announced by Alloy Entertainment to develop The Vampire Diaries into a TV show. The pilot was filmed in Vancouver, and the show has been officially picked up by The CW Network for the Fall 2009 line-up.

Communities

General

  • tvd_fans - Fans of L.J. Smith's The Vampire Diaries. This community welcomes anything and everything that is related to The Vampire Diaries, be it based on the books, the game, or the possible upcoming television series on the CW. 1600 members.
  • tvdnewsletter - This is a newsletter for The Vampire Diaries on The CW.
  • ontd_tvd - Oh No They Didn't comm for the Vampire Diaries.
  • ontd_tvdiaries - Community dedicated to the CW television show The Vampire Diaries.

Fanfic

  • tvd_fic - Fanfiction based on both the Vampire Diaries books and TV series. Fanfiction of all ratings, lengths and genres is allowed. Drabbles, multi-arc fics, adult, AU, crossovers, slash, works-in-progress.
  • vdiaries_fanfic - This is fanfiction community for the TELEVISION SERIES. This is not a community for fanfics of the novels themselves also entitled The Vampire Diaries.

Icons

  • tvdicons - Community created with the purpose of sharing icons related to the CW's series, The Vampire Diaries.

Pairings

  • damon_alaric - The first source for Damon/Alaric on Livejournal.
  • damonandbonnie - LJ Community for Damon/Bonnie from the CW's Vampire Diaries series.
  • damon_elena - Damon/Elena shippers from The Vampire Diaries, community is flocked. More than 2,000 members.
  • jeremytyler - Jeremy/Tyler slash.
  • mattandcaroline - Community for the ship Matt/Caroline from The Vampire Diaries.
  • salvatoreslash - Community for fans of Damon/Stefan slash and/or Ian Somerhalder and Paul Wesley RPS in the CW tv series of The Vampire Diaries. 400 members.
  • salvatore_sd - This community is completely about the relationship between Damon and Stefan as brothers. Community is flocked.
  • stefan_elena - Stefan/Elena shippers community.
  • tvd_slash - Dreamwidth community for fic, meta, icons, and other material relating to slash pairings from The Vampire Diaries. One caveat: all slash pairings are welcome except those including incest.
  • tvd_slash - Livejournal community to provide a place where authors and readers can connect and enjoy slash fanfiction about the characters from The Vampire Diaries, both in their television incarnations and their book incarnations. Salvatoreslash and any future 'cest slash pairings are welcome.

Regional

  • vd_fr - French LJ community for fans of the books and TV series.

Websites

In response to the flurry of activity and interest surrounding The Vampire Diaries, a new fansite was created in March 2009. Vampire-Diaries.net features the latest news on the TV show and books, as well as a comprehensive wiki (from which the plot summaries were gakked), fanfiction archive, fanart gallery, and forum. There is also a twitter account and LiveJournal community.[2] An official but less comprehensive and more profit-oriented website, Vampirediaries.net, was later created by Alloy Entertainment to promote the TV show and books.

Multifandom Fanfiction Archives

Resources

References

  1. ↑ http://lj-smith.com/forum/viewthread.php?tid=491
  2. ↑ http://community.livejournal.com/tvd_fans/
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