Posted by Staff | February 21, 2010, 11:20 (EST) | 29 Comments
Category: Fandom, Website

A year ago today we registered the domain ‘vampire-diaries.net’ and set up a little website and blog. Our mission was to get up information about the Vampire Diaries books, and to keep fans up-to-date with news about the impending TV series. At the time we didn’t know who would be cast in the roles of our beloved characters, what was being planned for the story, or even if the TV series was going to go anywhere beyond the ordered pilot. It never even crossed our minds that this site would grow anywhere near as big as it has. Yet here we are a year later with a TV series that keeps on blowing people’s minds, a website that keeps on growing, and a fandom that is just plain awesome.

We didn’t get here alone, though. A lot of people helped us out along the way, and we’d like to take this opportunity to express our thanks to you all.

• Thank you to L.J. Smith for creating the Vampire Diaries book series all those years ago. You sparked our imaginations and led us both to a 10+ year friendship.
   
• Thank you to all our old-school fandom friends who helped us out with content, costs, and shoulders to lean on. We love you guys so much.
   
• Thanks to Marcos Siega for being so patient and accommodating in those early days of pilot-filming, when he was quite literally the only source of information we had.
   
• Thanks to the cast & crew of the TV series for rocking it out on the show and giving us grade A television to look forward to each week. Special thanks to Michael, Ian, Nina, Katerina, and Candice for the kind words they’ve had for us and our site.
   
• Thanks to our fellow Vampire Diaries and cast fan sites who have been there with info, advice, support, and horrible puns. We’ve made some really awesome friends.
   
• Thank you to the folks over at the Ian Somerhalder forums on MediaBlvd for their good humour and making us feel so welcome in their space.
   
• Thank you to Carina, Connie, Jen, Lucia, and Melissa for various reasons, including hanging out at Comic-Con, fun times with podcasts, twitter madness, and support in times of weird. Here’s to Paleyfest, guys!
   
• Thank you to Susan, Ellie and Jess for stepping up to help mod the forums and get the wiki whipped into shape. Welcome them to the team!
   
• Thank you to everyone on our forums and on twitter. You’re an insane bunch with a wicked sense of humour, and we appreciate every laugh and entertaining message you’ve ever had for us.
   
• Thanks to every single person who has visited the site, especially those of you who have clicked on an ad or purchased something on Amazon through us. You keep the site going, and for that we are eternally grateful.
   
• A special thank you to one particular seasoned gentleman who has supported us nearly from the start and who – when we were fretting over implementing ads – found our ad-free idealism quaint, gave us a virtual pat on the head, and said, “Get the [bleepin'] ads.” You put us at ease, sir, and we’ll never forget it.
   
• And last, but certainly not least, extra-special thanks to Kev and Julie. If we start in on the why, we’ll never stop. We <3 you guys.

 
We’re sure that this next year is going to be even more fantastic than last year, and we look forward to experiencing it with you all.

Love,
Red + Vee

Posted by Red | December 30, 2009, 13:33 (EST) | 15 Comments
Category: TV Series, Website

At long last, we have some episode stills for episode eleven of the Vampire Diaries, “Bloodlines”, courtesy of SpoilerTV. We’ve got our first look at Bree (Gina Torres) and Anna (Malese Jow), along with Elena, Damon and Jeremy. Hopefully we’ll be seeing more stills soon.

 
We should be slipping back into a more regular posting schedule now that the holidays are (almost) over. We’ve had a break, and are now recharged and waiting impatiently for January 21 to hurry up and get here. ;)

We’d also like to take a moment to apologise for the Infernal Server Errors that keep cropping up – if you encounter these errors, hitting refresh a couple of times should fix it. We’re working with our hosting support to try and work out what exactly is causing it so we can fix it. It’s likely something to do with the recent WordPress upgrade, and hopefully we can get it fixed soon without resorting to reinstalling it.

Posted by Staff | December 24, 2009, 23:09 (EST) | 16 Comments
Category: Fandom, Website

Posted by Vee | October 19, 2009, 14:00 (EST) | 10 Comments
Category: TV Series, Website

Thanks to Fan Forum: Ian Somerhalder for the heads up on this super-brief video of Ian and Paul Wesley on the SCREAM Awards red (well, checkered) carpet:

 
Thanks to @LilMissX we’ve got our first look at Lexi, as played by Arielle Kebbel, who will be appearing in the eighth episode of The Vampire Diaries, 162 Candles. We’re not sure that Matt will be entirely pleased to find out his pool table has been hijacked…

 
Finally, apologies for the downtime earlier. Our hosts implemented some fixes to help reduce server load, only accidentally missed a few files they were supposed to unlock again when they were done. This resulted in ‘403 Forbidden’ errors making an unwelcome appearance across the site. As soon as the fault was reported, they got it fixed quickly (they’re awesome like that), and everything should be working smoothly again. Please let us know if you encounter any problems.

Posted by Red | September 12, 2009, 15:11 (EST) | 16 Comments
Category: Website

Update: We’d like to say a big thank you to the people who donated money to put towards running costs today. Between the money Vee and I have put together and the money you guys have donated, we’ve all ensured that the running costs of the site are covered for the next month. Huge amounts of love to you all, and to the people who re-tweeted the plea for help on twitter. We appreciate it so much. You guys are all fantastic.

Today we’ve had a reality check. We’d like to be all idealistic and remain ad-free, but in order to cover the costs, the only sane solution is to get some revenue from adverts on the site. So, for the sake of the site, we’re biting the bullet and we’re going to be looking at getting some ads in place as soon as possible.

Now, it will likely be at least a month before we see any kind of payment for any advertising, so if you can spare a couple of dollars to help us cover our bases for another month, we would be eternally grateful. After this, we hope we never have to make a plea like this again.

So to sum up, you all rock, and we have a plan of action. :)

THANK YOU!

Posted by Vee | August 28, 2009, 4:19 (EST) | No Comments
Category: TV Series, Website

We rounded up this factoid last night and weren’t quite 100% on it; seeing as the name popped up in our comments too, we feel pretty confident in saying that our Jason Harris in the Vampire Diaries: A Darker Truth webisodes is an actor by the name of Matt Perello. The only major credit we could find to his name is a film called Last Bullet. You can see his bio on the film’s website. (Thanks to Danielle and jlgparis for the info.)

Also: The start of our Vampire Diaries Episode Index is now up. Not much there now as we await network synopses and some titles for post-Pilot episodes, but you can get an idea for how we’re planning to organize it. The landing page will be fairly streamlined, with the bulk of info for each episode living elsewhere on the site. (And can we just mention that we’re getting more and more excited about adding to this? And soon? A note about the episode numbering: We went with the production numbers to avoid confusing the slew of you who follow the production team/cast on Twitter. If you’re still confused why you see different episode numbers elsewhere, check out the infobox on the Pilot episode entry in the Wiki for clarification.)

• [Images] Obviously this will link to that episode’s stills in our Media Gallery.

• [Spoilers] In an effort to curb some of the more spoilery spec here on the blog, spoilers will now live in the Spoiler Zone in our discussion forum. There are two reasons for this: 1) We wanted to make the choice to seek out spoilers just that – a choice. If you click into the Spoiler Zone and then come crying to us about being spoiled, we won’t have any sympathy for you, and 2) relegating the spoilers to the discussion forum will make it easier for people to talk about them freely, away from virgin eyes. That said, we’ve removed a lot of specifics from the spoilers posted (and context). From this point forward, we’re into building anticipation (and we know some of you live for spoilers), not ruining major plot points. That said, this doesn’t mean we’re eliminating spoilery topics from the blog completely and we’ll continue to use the spoiler banner to give a heads up. (And now “spoiler” doesn’t even sound like a real word anymore after all of that.)

• [Wiki Entry] This is where you will find expanded info about each episode, including a detailed synopsis (after the episode has aired in the U.S.), other cast info, trivia, production details, music, quotes, reviews, etc. And it’s as good as you help make it, so why not sign up for the Wiki and help out?

SpoilerTV has an synopsis for “Night of the Comet” (1.01 or episode 2) up on their site, via the CW. If you want a play-by-play of the ep, by all means – have at it. If you’d rather have a general, abbreviated version, you can check it out on the Episode Index page.

And finally, we have a slew of new spoilers up. Again, visit the Episode Index to pick your poison.

Posted by Vee | August 6, 2009, 15:54 (EST) | 26 Comments
Category: TV Series, Website

We’ve found ourselves on the receiving end of some amazing fandom love and generosity and we think it’s only right to pass on the good karma. We know a lot of you were unable to make it to San Diego for Comic Con and have been envying some of the Vampire Diaries goodies featured at the Warner Bros. booth. Well, here’s your chance to score some of that sweet schwag – we’re having our very first contest! (Damon is smirking because we’re going to ask you to flex your witty one-liner muscles for this one.)

The Prizes:

• TWO big winners will each receive a Vampire Diaries Comic Con bag
• THREE runners-up will each receive a Vampire Diaries poster and button

Here are some (not-so-great) snapshots of the limited edition bags, the button (bit blurry, but you get the idea of the size), and the poster.

The Contest:
Write a caption for this photo of Elena, Stefan, and Matt (click to enlarge).

What is a Caption Competition?
The point of a caption competition is to come up with a snappy (usually funny, sometimes profound) caption based on what springs to mind when looking at a given picture, often based on something that sticks out to the viewer. They’re usually no longer than a couple of sentences, though can be presented in the form of a short conversation between any people who may be in the picture.

Example Caption:
“Matt and Stefan only started to appreciate the depths of Tyler’s evil when they realised that he’d super-glued their hands together.”

The Rules:

• One entry per person. One caption per entry. You get one shot!
• Keep it clean, please.
• If you use their names in your caption, spell Stefan and Elena correctly – if you don’t, you’re automatically disqualified. NO exceptions.
• Email your caption entry to contest [at] vampire-diaries [dot] net. Please include the name you would like to be identified by on the website.
• Deadline: Entries must be received by Friday, August 14th at 11:59 p.m. Western U.S. time. (To find out what time that is in your area, check The World Clock.)

This contest is open internationally. We don’t care if you’re in Poland, Bulgaria, Brazil, Thailand, Israel, etc. – if you live on planet Earth and you win, we will mail the goods to you.

After the deadline:

• We will narrow the entries down to our 10-15 favorite submissions.
• We will then post that top 10-15 in a poll on the website (who submitted what will remain anonymous).
• The readers of Vampire-Diaries.net will vote for their favorite caption.
• The five entries with the highest number of votes at the end of the voting period will be our winners. The two entries with the most votes will win the Vampire Diaries Comic Con bag, and the three runners-up will win the Vampire Diaries poster/button.
• Winners will be notified and celebrated on the website!

Contest starts now – have fun! We look forward to seeing what you guys come up with. Again, deadline for entries is Friday, August 14th at 11:59 p.m. Western U.S. time. And please spread the word!