Dear Diary, Today I cried and cried.

There were two reasons I stopped recapping The Vampire Diaries last season - the first is that I got a lot busier at work which made me less anxious to spend my free time trying to be witty. Being witty is exhausting. The second is that I wasn't enjoying the show enough to spend several hours rewatching and dissecting it. There were still episodes I outright loved last year but on the whole I found the third season by turns boring and irritating.

I loved the shit out of the way it ended though and I was looking forward to how a vamped Elena would spice things up and inject some much-needed badassery into the snoozy proceedings. The fourth season got off to a pretty good start and when everyone - literally EVERYONE - got a chance to be a badass in "Memorial" I thought the show had really gotten back to what made me love it in the first place.

But then things took a turn for the...well, whatever the opposite of badass is. Vamped Elena isn't fun and the continued fight over which Salvatore brother loves her more and is better at being her knight in shining armour is not interesting. 

It isn't interesting when one character is all, "I got this" while eveyrone else on the show has to sit around like helpless, ignorant, baddy-fodder with their thumbs up their asses. Or when Damon and Stefan threaten to kill each other over a girl. Or when Stefan and Damon treat Elena like a helpless kitten they must protect. It really isn't interesting when Elena whines.

You know what would be interesting? If TVD were never about how Elena needed to be saved, rescued, protected, looked after, tended to or otherwise treated as a damsel in distress. If every single person on the show didn't prioritize what's best for Elena above literally everything else. If it weren't always about which Salvatore knows better what's best for her.

I'd find it very interesting if everyone on the show got a chance to be a badass. To fight, to scheme, to be smart, to work together and know what the fuck was going on, and to save themselves and each other. If the Salvatores cared enough about Elena to let her take care of herself and make her own choices and be a strong, adult woman and then respected the choices she made rather than ignoring her decisions and substituting their own poor judgement instead.

I'd be very interested in a lot less whining.

I'd be interested in our whole Gang of Misfit Danger Magnets being looped into this "cure" business and then kicking back over several drinks in the Salvatore library to discuss how this is probably just like The Sun and Moon Curse and asking snarkily if anyone's checked the silverware drawers for the sword that holds the key to busting this secret wide open. And then, if they decide they're willing to risk their lives on the chance that this cure exists, they do it because EVERY ONE OF THE FUCKING VAMPIRES whats a chance to be human again and not because poor little Elena got the fuzzy end of the vampire lolly pop and who gives a shit how vampirism has screwed up anyone else's plans.

Nothing would interest me more than Elena putting on her big-girl pants and telling Stefan to take his chauvinism, his condescension, his sanctimony and his misplaced savior complex and worry about himself because she's got this. Then telling Damon to focus his energies on not threatening to kill everyone she loves instead of making sex eyes at her all the time. I'd watch those scenes on repeat forever just to erase the memory of her pathetic hissyfit over killing Connor. The Vamp Elena I'd like to see is the one who puts her game face on and is ready to protect herself and the people she loves at all costs and refuses to apologize for the casualties when she's pushed too far. Human Elena had it in her, why doesn't Vamp Elena?

I hope the show starts to be a little less about the complicated plot and how the characters' personalities can be stamped down to fit into the narrative and a little more about how a group of badass people can handle their shit if they're given half a chance because I'd hate to fall completely out of love with this show.