The Vampire Diaries is the undisputed king of the CW’s line-up. So, how is it that I know next to nothing about it despite having been on The Secret Diaries podcast?

I know, unbelievable, the fact that I know next to nothing about the show. When I did the Secret Diaries podcast two years ago, did you ever notice that I never said anything the first half of the podcast? I wasn’t really listening. I was prepping for the second half of the show which was all about the Secret Circle.

It’s because I’m not really a vampire person. Believe me, if you know something about my background, the irony is overwhelming. Save for two franchises: Twilight and The Black Dagger Brotherhood, I never really found vampires all that appealing, and even then I wasn’t really into the vampire specific aspects of those stories.

When Selina came up with the idea of the Hypable staff seeing if they could figure out what was going on in a particular show based on Tumblr impressions alone, I thought “OK, if she did it with Teen Wolf, Vampire Diaries here I come.”

Up until now, here is what I knew about The Vampire Diaries. There are these two brothers named Damon and Stefan who are vampires. They are both in love with this girl named Elena. I know Ian Somerhalder of LOST plays one brother and Paul something-or-other plays the other one. Nina Dobrev plays Elena. There is this spin-off called The Originals that I think has something to do with their creators. And…well…that’s pretty much it.

So, here we go, I’m diving into Tumblr now.

Damon is snarky one who wears leather

No one other than Damon ever says anything witty or snarky. He is the king of the eye-roll, the exasperated look, the disdainful glower. His cadre of stock looks are often accompanied by big arm motions or head snaps, and frequently both.

Stefan spends a lot of time looking constipated. This is probably not a good thing.

So, I’m thinking Stefan isn’t the guy who gets that girl? If he’s going for brooding, he’s doing it wrong. Is that why he looks like he just sucked down a bad batch of tequila, or is trying to pretend he’s the guy who didn’t just pass gas? Because the only time I ever see him looking happy on Tumblr with Nina Dobrev are in candids taken when they aren’t shooting.

They don’t have fangs? Really I thought there would be fangs.

If for no other reason than I’ve see the Hillywood Show’s Vampire Diaries parody, I thought there would be fangs. There’s lots of mouth action, but it seems to be about kissing and not biting or drinking blood. In fact there seems to be no blood at all. Do they not get hungry? Do they gorge off screen? I saw more blood in Twilight, surely there is blood! Maybe they are all on a diet.

The major ships are Delena and Klaroline

I think I’ve got this Delena thing figured out, it’s Damon and Elena. Damon’s the snarky and more fun to be with brother. As for Klaus and Caroline, what I am getting is that they are blond. He’s the nearest challenger to Damon’s haunting eyes. In fairness, I’m sure they have some sort of plot line, but I can’t figure out what it is other than the blonde thing. They seem to dance a lot in period costumes. Are they practicing for Dancing With the Stars? Are they a flashback to a 100-years-ago couple? They also seem to dress up and do period hair a lot. I’m not sure. Also, I think she might be a high school student despite the fact that she looks like she’s 26, and he’s an adult, so inappropriate relationship much?

Bonnie is the only person of color in town

So much for racial diversity. Then again this is the CW, this shouldn’t surprise me. The only other person of color I could find is Bonnie’s dad, and that was just one gif. Come to think of it, he’s the only adult I found other than that Klaus guy. Are the parents around as much as the no-show parents from 90210? Also what does Bonnie do exactly? Does she have a relationship with anyone. I’m also vaguely fascinated by her nail piercings in PR shots. Does she have those in the show?

Surely there’s a slash ship

Even if it isn’t canon, every fandom has slash ships. Oddly I couldn’t find much evidence of slash or femslash. Maybe because the two main male characters are brothers, so there an obvious EWWWWWWWW factor. The closest I could find was the above image, and I instantly thought, “So someone turned Jordan Catalano into a vampire, and this explains why he still looks so young.”

The cast spends a lot of time on social media and doing PR shoots

A good third if not more of the gifs and jpgs that I found are not show screen caps. They seem to be having a great time, but often it isn’t in costume. They are either from what I assume are the actors’ Instagram and/or Twitter accounts. So, do when do they shoot the show actually?