Well helloooo

I hope the first few days of the New Year have been treating you well!

Nothing changes for me, I guess that’s a plus *grin*

I’ve been happily plotting away on the Bella/Kol that I’m writing that’s more of a… very slow burn? After I lost the notes to my last fic, I’m not going to take any chances and I have them saved in Google Docs. I have 7 pages of notes so far, and that’s the first part of the story plotted but no Kol in sight yet. Yeah. That slow. But also you know, I haven’t had my head in both universes for a long time now, so everything needs to be re-researched…

Anyway, I figured to post a blog post and answer this question that’s on the planning spreadsheet of Meeko and myself;

What’s a character that was severely underused and neglected on TV or in movies? 

I mean, everyone has their favourite TV show, and everyone has their TV shows or movies that they write about. I don’t get angry about TV shows or turned off easily when something doesn’t go my way, but not going to lie, I didn’t like the way Kol Mikaelson was treated across The Vampire Diaries and The Originals.

Is this character a surprise to you? No? Good! I mean, I’ve been using him a lot in the last few years in stories…

I started to watch The Vampire Diaries quite late. It was so late that I was trying to watch it all before Daniel Sharman would appear in The Originals so that I would at least have been up to date with the universe. Oh, the things you do…

In all honesty, I didn’t like The Vampire Diaries much, although it was certainly a better love story than Twilight (is that still a meme? It’s still a meme!) which I wasn’t a big fan of, either (says she who went to a midnight showing for one of the movies). When Kol was introduced, however, it became a lot better instantly. He was unpredictable and volatile, and a manchild of his word.

I would have LOVED to have seen him explore his interactions with Jeremy in Denver. I understand that there’s limited screen time and such, but at least it could have MEANT something that Kol was sent to Denver by Klaus to keep an eye on baby Gilbert. The betrayal wasn’t there, it felt more like a… “oh well” moment before baby Gilbert killed Kol in the kitchen.

Baby Gilbert as a baby Hunter in the kitchen with Vervain water and a stake.

It didn’t make sense, even if you’d included the magic. Kol may have been rusty, due to his sleepy sleeps but it shouldn’t have been that easy to kill an Original.

Plus, it was a little unfinished business there too, right? I would have loved to have seen Kol being around when Silas broke loose and started to wreak havoc on Mystic Falls and just being like… “I told you so, but you didn’t listen” (I am glad, however, he sort of got that moment in The Originals).

There was no room for Kol on The Vampire Diaries, that’s why I thought with a name as “The Originals”, he’d have had a better presence and he’d be treated… better as he was an Original. But instead, he kept dying and coming back. UGH.

“He’s so hard to write for!” “He’s too much like Klaus!” “He’s too chaotic!”

I mean, I guess I shouldn’t complain because there’s only one Mikaelson sibling who got less attention and that’s Finn. But Finn was a stick in the mud and boring. A real mummy’s boy. Kol was far more interesting, in my opinion.

What if… (redacted for a fanfic idea)

Anyway, I had hoped that on The Originals they’d continue with Kol’s story and his behaviour on The Vampire Diaries, but instead, after his turn as a human, he became a whiny, sad little puppy in love with a Claire witch. I get it, Kol loves his witches, but her? While I’m grateful for the time we had with Kol, I had kinda hoped he’d have gone off on his own sooner so that the whole… Kolvina thing didn’t happen. There was no spark between the two, and while Kol had his ‘insane’ moments, he was domesticated for the most part.

“But Buggy! You write him that way too!”

No, I write him as a caring person, because Kol does care, and he cares about people if they care for him the right way. Not out of pity, or out of puppy love, or whatever. Bella and Kol are equals in my stories, mutual respect, I never got that feeling from Davina and Kol. There was no balance. Make no mistake, I do think Kol was smitten with Davina, I don’t think it was the same way for her, and she simply settled for him – despite the history she had with Mikaelsons. She turned into a hypocrite by dating Kol.

So I am grateful for fanfiction in that sense, where we can re-write or do deep dives on our favourite shows and characters, and fix things. Fanfiction provides such a creative outlet for us people to reimagine and expand on the information we get from canon.

So here’s my question for you… What’s a character that was severely underused and neglected on TV or in movies? Let me know in the comments!

xxx Buggy