Saying goodbye to a series

I travel a lot, so you think I’d be pretty good at saying goodbye. But when it comes to The Vampire Diaries, I have a lot of feels about the series coming to an end in just a few episodes. In fact, according to the cast’s Instagram feeds, today is their last day of shooting. RIP TVD.

#tvdforever

A video posted by Candice King (@craccola) on Feb 8, 2017 at 10:58am PST

Like many millennials, I don’t have a physical television, and I haven’t for the majority of the show’s eight year run. But that doesn’t mean The Vampire Diaries hasn’t been with me longer than some friends, and we’ve been through a lot in those eight years.

I started watching it at a friend’s house after school in high school. It’s forced me to work out for a full hour on the elliptical at the rec center during college. It was one of my best sources of escape during a terrible breakup. I’ve stayed up all night streaming episodes on a hostel computer in Bogotá, Colombia. Eight years is a long relationship, and I’m quite sad it’s coming to a close.

Saying goodbye to fandoms is always hard, especially when they are such meaningful ones. I don’t think I’ve felt these feels since the final Harry Potter movie.

Recently my view on an aspect of the real life/show drama was shattered when Ian Somerhalder, Nina Dobrev, and Nikki Reed posted on Instagram saying they were friends and there were no bad feelings between them. It was always speculated by fans and gossip mags that Dobrev quit the show after the sixth season because of her breakup with Somerhalder and his new marriage to Reed. But the celebrities put the rumor to rest on social media on Tuesday at their TVD wrap up dinner.

Can’t believe how time flies. Farewell dinner with team Somereed! So good catching up with these goofballs. All ❤

A photo posted by Nina Dobrev (@ninadobrev) on Feb 7, 2017 at 9:47am PST

Chilling with these two… After years of websites pretending these two badass ladies knew each other well and baseless, false information of back stabbing and hatred from low-brow websites filled the minds and hearts of fans… They finally were able to get together for their first real dinner. Let’s stop spreading hate everyone, there’s already too much of that right now in our world. Join in on the love. Only love here- always has been always will be. Media companies preying on the passion from vulnerable and or impressionable minds of fans to sell advertising through click-though traffic is a disease in our society. It’s poisonous. Let’s finish this series with respect and kindness and continue that in our lives. I think it’s time. What do think?

A photo posted by iansomerhalder (@iansomerhalder) on Feb 7, 2017 at 1:26pm PST

For the last few years we thought addressing any baseless rumors with silence was the best way. Besides, who wants to respond to made up stories about "friends backstabbing friends", "cheating exes", or "cast members exiting shows" on low-brow websites like hollywoodlife that are just perpetuating trends that preceded us. Yuck. I now see that silence was taken as an opportunity to fill in the blanks with even more falsities, and juicer stories, and we, yes WE, believe we have a moral responsibility to young girls to end that narrative, because at the end of all of this, those young girls are the ones who lose. Their passion and endless devotion for a tv show is being taken advantage of, replaced with feelings of anger through divisive techniques, & even worse, their minds are being shaped & molded as their view of themselves, other girls, & what those dynamics should look like are being formed. So here's to putting an end to all those fake stories of on set jealousy, betrayal, made-up-friendships lost & women hating women. Because at the end of the day, that's what this is about: teaching girls that you have to hate other girls only breeds a generation of women who believe you have to hate other women. And that's what these magazines, websites and blogs don't understand. That is the harmful unintended consequence of their bullshit stories and we have a moral responsibility to fix that. Let's turn this page together, as we all walk into the next chapter peacefully. And finally, let's use this as an example of how important it is to stop this trend of writing horrible headlines about women, painting us as bitter, angry, insecure, heartbroken, childless, feuding, backstabbing monsters because whether we want to admit it or not, it changes the way all women view themselves. And shame on these websites for now targeting an even younger demographic, instilling this at an earlier age when girls are even more susceptible, more vulnerable and more malleable. When we write these headlines we teach hate. I've seen it firsthand. Let's shift what we put into the universe starting now, & hopefully we will start to see a shift in the way we treat each other & view ourselves❤

A post shared by Nikki Reed (@iamnikkireed) on Feb 7, 2017 at 10:51am PST

Although I am sad to see The Vampire Diaries go, at least we still have the new season of the spin-off show The Originals to look forward to, and I’m glad the stars are ending on a good note in real life.