I don't think I've ever seen you more alive.

I want to be able to cuss on here if I want... and I'm a teacher, so...

In my overwhelming desire to procrastinate, I searched "Once Upon a Time" on tumblr and was amused by some of the other blog posts. Yeah, I'll probably be breaking rules by not crediting the comments, but there were so many of them. I'll just say "None of the below is mine" but it's part of a new segment, I like to call "voices from this side".

*It's pretty spoilery about yesterday's episode 1x09: True North*

• Stupid children. When the Evil Queen asks you to come live with her and practically adopts you, the right answer is 'WHERE DO I PUT MY STUFF AND CAN I CALL YOU MOM'.  
• Hansel didn’t do a damn thing. Clearly, Gretel got all the awesome traits.
• I appreciate a show that recognizes that a key component of an evil queen is excellent cleavage.
• Emma/mysterious stranger had more chemistry in one line then emma/graham did in 7 episodes
• You know you watch too much Once Upon a Time when: You say, "He could totally be Rumplestiltskin's son" and "That would make complete sense!" in the same sentence!
• if they are dwarves, how can they be taller than her?
• I completely adore the Evil Queen’s lipstick in this episode.

~~~~~~~
My thoughts:

• I agree that Hansel is pretty stupid!
• I'm waiting for this show to actually progress in linking the two sides. The closest we've gotten is Prince Charming's  parallel David going to the Troll bridge. The whole Huntsman thing was AMAZING, and then they had to kill off the sheriff!
• Emma Cauffield was the blind witch! I squee'd. Lately, though, I have been thinking "Who is this? Have I seen this person before?" and then look them up and am hit with a huge "Ohhhhh" which makes me feel super stupid. For example: Emma Swan is played by Jennifer Morrison, who I knew as Zoey from HIMYM (and it took Donald to point that out). Emma Cauffield was the Blind Queen. Eion Bailey is the mysterious stranger, and I squee'd when I saw him... he's not super famous, but definite eye-candy!

That one day, hybrids and normal vampires will live together in peace and harmony.

Why are you so chipper?
I just kissed your ex-girlfriend and I'm supposed to feel guilty about it, but I can't help but feel.... good.


Maybe if Damon stops bringing up Elena, Stefan will forget about trying to use her against Klaus from now on.

What if a week from now Klaus brings his hybrids back? Will Stefan have to kill Elena?

I read that Nina Dobrev had her wisdom teeth out around these episodes... She's been super mumbly lately. I guess I can forgive her. -Is that why there was a lot less face holding in this episode?

I love how the tumblr communities I belong to do something with pictures. I follow an "Awkward TVD Moments" and a "Vampire Diaries Problems" blog. I want to do something like that. Sure, I like my "random thoughts" but I want to do something with pictures. Any suggestions?

Vampire Diaries related:

• Let's say, hypothetically, Damon and Stefan un-dagger the rest of the family... what do you think would happen?
• People are saying that Logan Fell's death is going to be problematic for Alaric, given that Meredith has been rumored to be cray-cray. Don't you think she'd understand that he was a vampire?
• I'd actually be fine if Rebekah doesn't come back. I found her character annoying.
• How do werewolves become werewolves in Vampire Diaries lore? Is it just genetic, or did they explain this?
• I want to ship Jerbow! I read this quote on the Vampire-Diaries.net forum:  it would totally make all the Jerbow (Jeremy/Crossbow) shippers happy
• If Meredith has been crazy this whole time, then why did she wait until last episode to kill her boyfriend? Something's rotten in Mystic Falls.

Non-TVD related:

• G-MENNNNN!
• I almost always eat the sticker on apples. phlew
• I microwaved some pre-packaged cookies and they started sizzling!
• I love when people comment on my posts!

*Includes 3x11: Our Town Spoilers

I re-watched episode 3x11 of The Vampire Diaries this afternoon, and some more things sprung up.

• I'm left wondering if Klaus had Tyler attack Caroline knowing Tyler would refuse so that Klaus would swoop in and save the day in order to win over Caroline and her mother. Caroline says, "You've come here to kill me?" and he responds, "On your birthday?" with such sincerity. She holds up a front at first, but is easily convinced she wants to live. She didn't seem too upset that it was his fault Tyler bit her in the first place.
• Caroline got sick really fast. Much faster than Rose and Damon.
• Stefan picked up a knife that was randomly sitting out on a table where there was no food and nobody seemed to be eating at this particular party. Don't they usually keep that stuff in the kitchen anyhow?

Which led to a discussion I had with my boyfriend.

D: That's a writer's lazy way of providing an easy weapon to a character. Could you think of a more creative way?
Me: He could have broken a chair or something.
D: That's even lazier. How many actual pieces of broken furniture have you seen that actually looked like stakes?
Me: Well, at least he would be improvising.
D: What a lazy villain/hero! If he was on a mission to do some damage, how about bypassing the need to find a weapon and actually bring your own. That's why Blade is so much better than those shows. They actually had their own weapons. I say so much could be resolved with a gun.

My boyfriend says this about many things. He found Harry Potter to be dreadfully boring because he said they could have ended it in the first movie by shooting Quirrell in the head. Skip the guns and buy a glock.

• Damon said, "In order to beat the villain you have to be smarter." If one sees Stefan as the villain, then Damon really didn't follow his own advice. Practically gave Stefan his whole idea of killing Elena.
• Stefan still cares about Elena... he would have just straight out killed her if it came to that. Instead he's going to bring her back as a vampire? Even if she didn't die in the car crash, he could just easily break her neck.
• Funny that Matt feels sorry for them... peripheral character.
• Oh and yes, it's pressing that Caroline was bit by a werepire, but couldn't Matt also mention that Elena was kidnapped and he was thrown into a wall, considering he brought her to the sheriff's house. Is she the only police officer in Mystic Falls? Or is it like, "Oh a vampire kidnapped her... nothing we can do about that." 
• And then Matt and Elena have their touching moment on the bridge, and I'm thinking: shouldn't Matt be like, "Hey, you were kidnapped by crazy Stefan. You okay?" Instead he's all like, "It's okay to not be who you were when we dated and stuff." 'da hell?
• Matt has no eyebrows!
• Caroline's dad will lay the smackdown on Tyler in the next episode, which is weird to me. I know he loves his daughter and wants to "fix" her, but it just seems weird that he would go after Tyler for attacking her when her father tortured his daughter and then when she saved him, he was all "Yeah, but you're never going to be fixed of your vampirism".

I'm going to be hanging out with some friends tonight - friends who don't watch TVD so it's going to be a while before I'm back lurking about. Fear not! It's a three day weekend for me! I shall be back.

Until then, here are some thoughts for today. I started writing them down early this morning.

• In my last post I wrote about natural progression and how I'm glad there was no kissing and fawning on Elena's part in last night's episode. I'm proclaiming this to the fandoms! as suggested :)  I know I'm not the standard for relationships, but I was in a pretty serious relationship when I was 18, and he dumped me. He didn't try to drive me off a bridge or anything, but I was pretty devastated. I think Elena is handling herself much better than I did (and she drinks blood and sends her brother away and deals with way more than I did... I just had a broken heart). It would be horrible for her to use Damon as a rebound. 
• The necklace belonged to Ayanna, the other Original Witch that refused to perform the spell that turned the family into vampires. Remember?

Could it be that she is a part of all of this and is hiding in the coffin? Gloria was able to slow down her aging considerably, and I know she'd be a reeeeeeally old witch, but it could be possible.

• The scarf I'm wearing is so long it would probably get me strangled if I was on TVD.
• My thoughts flow much more freely the day after an episode.
• This morning Donald said, "If vampire blood is like a virus that causes you to become a vampire when you ingest it... then what happens when they have sex? Will they have vampire babies?" I said, "No" because they said they can't procreate. This led me to wonder, "If Damon and Elena have sex, and then Elena dies, will she become a vampire?" but then I was thinking maybe it's only blood. Do they still need to wear a condom? Is it considered necrophilia? Can a vampire carry an STD? Too many TMI thoughts stem from this!
• In the upcoming preview Bonnie gets herself trapped in a coffin... this makes me think that whatever is in that coffin is more linked to Bonnie than to everything else... and I think that makes me feel like it's Ayanna more and more.
• Oh, and vampire blood... gross! It must be awful to have to keep drinking blood. I know they get a kick out of it, but I hate when I get a nose bleed and blood runs down the back of my throat or I cut my lip or finger or something and ingest blood.

This morning I saw this cake

It reminded me of Caroline.

• I ALMOST didn’t make it on time for TVD! I booked it home, though and got to see Damon smiling in the shower!
• TVDBloodstream on LiveJournal has made me rethink the entire show.
• No wonder public schools have no money. Students pay them in Trident Layers
• Secret Circle? Does anyone watch this show? I’ve really tried to watch it… okay I tried twice, but couldn’t get past the first five minutes. The second time I attempted I couldn’t get past the “previously on”
• My LJ profile picture is:

It looks like a hybrid heart… Foreshadowing!

• Even if Elena says, “Okay, Stefan, I completely forgive you.” Do you think that would actually change Stefan’s mind about anything?
• I have a papercut right on the tip of my pinky finger, and it doesn’t go across, it goes up and down my pinky, which super sucks!

Not all of the Random thoughts today were Vampire Diaries related. In fact, I had a pretty rough day at school (I'm a teacher).

• What are the best vampire series to read? I heard that the actual Vampire Diaries books weren't good, and I heard this from several sources; they are nothing like the television show. I am currently reading Vampire Academy and it's pretty okay, so far. A student of mine recommended Marked. I definitely am not going to attempt Twilight again.
• Are we going to get lesbians on Vampire Diaries?
• The vampires in Vampire Diaries have super sensitive hearing and can hear things from a mile away. I can hear the pizza delivery man coming up the steps from the moment he gets out of his car. It's like I know it's not actually a neighbor - it's him every. single. time.... Maybe I'm more of a vampire? or maybe it just shows how horrible I am when it comes to enjoying pizza!
• I really like the discussions on tvdbloodstream! They are so thought-provoking!

Other random thoughts:

• Do you ever get a song stuck in your head that you swear nobody was singing and you hadn't heard in a really long time? I had Be Prepared from Lion King stuck in my head while I was teaching and for the life of me couldn't figure out why. Then I had to explain to my students which song it was from Lion King and sighed when they didn't understand.

• What the hell is a "Belieber"?
• Why did Caroline Forbes care so much about the bartender selling alcohol to minors when her daughter got drunk, but nobody even remotely cared about all the booze at the makeshift homecoming dance in season 3.09?
• Who "wakes" Bonnie up in her dream? She turns around because someone is behind her and wakes up. I just figured it was Stefan. I wonder if it's just one of those "OH crap, I need to wake up suddenly from this dream" sort of things?
• Do the souls of 100 witches just hate Damon? Stefan can navigate perfectly fine.
• Why was Alaric cutting herbs with a meat cleaver?