#ʜᴇʀᴇ ʟɪᴇs ᴄᴀʀᴏʟɪɴᴇ ғᴏʀʙᴇs ⸺ headcanon.

[seesgood]

no because you don’t understand, i can’t pick an unbiased  “actually caroline should have ended up with ___”  ship because

a)  matt was the human love of her life, he was the epitome of everything that she wanted as a human and the definition of her Dream Guy. matt was her dream romance. if she had stayed human, she would have wanted the white picket fence, 2 car garage. 2.5 kids and a golden retriever with him and she would have been happy --- but matt couldn’t accept the vampire part of her and

b)  tyler could. tyler is the love of her young vampire life. her young, blissful “i am powerful and ageless and i can do anything and there are no limits and we might die tomorrow so lets just go all in with everything that we can right now”  crazy in love, love of her life. she could have spent the rest of her immortal life fleeing from klaus and evading responsibility and being reckless and stupid and crazy about him, but in the end the drama of their lives and tyler’s own need for retribution got in the way 

c)  klaus is the only person who saw her has a whole, who not only accepted the fact that she liked being a vampire, but who actually seemed to care about her because of the darkness that gave her, and not in spite of it. he acknowledged and seemed to respect the darkness, but still cared about her for the light. he also sacrificed his own desires ( i.e. revenge on katherine and tyler )  for her. he’s also the only one of her potential interests that really made her question everything, and really gave her a grounded, realistic impression of what immortality could be like. they could have had nola and paris and rome and tokyo and bickering and will they / won’t they and unconditional, probably kinda unhealthy supportive love, and she would. have. been. happy. but she was never going to be ready for that and by the time she was, there were too many things in the way and the timing was never right. 

d)  stefan is the mature love of her life, the healthy, grounded, passionate but realistic, supportive yet not blind love of her life. he’s all those different types of love rolled into one and he is, undoubtedly, her person. and she could have spent her immortal life with him learning about new things and traveling the world and growing with one another in the most genuine, supportive, healthy way. and she would have been happy. but he chose his brother, and he was always going to choose his brother over anything and anyone. 

and she wouldn’t be who she is without any of them, without any of the pieces of her that each of them gave her. and as sad as it is that her  “endgame”  is being alone and as much as i wish she would have gotten her True Epic Love, she got like 4 true epic loves. AND she got the 2 loves of her life, her daughters. AND she has her soulmates, bonnie and elena. 

see the thing about caroline forbes is that she’s going to soak up all the lessons she gets from all the people she interacts with, and she’s going to be a better version of herself for it. 

[seesgood]

i actually think about like, s1 / pre-s1 caroline and how it’s oh so canon that she’s just a Hot Mess that parties and underage drinks and gets drunk so often that when her mom gets called about it, it’s not even a surprise. and how she probably sneaks out and drinks and parties to get attention because her dad left and barely checks in and her mom works so much and how on at least a few occasions she’s probably come home super late, ready to get lectured for sneaking out / coming home drunk / going to that party / doing that stupid thing and liz just???? isn’t there because she’s working or she’s passed out exhausted after a long shift and just didn’t even notice and i just think about how fucking lonely s1 / pre-s1 caroline was. 

[seesgood]

listen, in almost any human / grown up / on her own verse, caroline has two things: (1)  a stray cat that she feeds that always shows up on her windowsill --- it’s not actually stray, it’s actually her neighbor’s cat, but she’s convinced that it’ll starve if she doesn’t feed it;  (2)  a plant bonnie gave her as a housewarming gift that she’s determined not to let die even though she over waters and over suns it, she’s probably had it for about a year ( probably longer )  and has not yet realized that it’s fake. 

[seesgood]

from the bottom of my heart, it is important to me that you understand two things:  (1)  if your muse is in need of comfort, caroline will offer to make them tea,  and  (2)  caroline is absolutely, positively, beyond belief terrible at making tea. 

[seesgood]

something something caroline having a thing for hair in a way that it’s not uncommon for her to play with someone’s hair when they’re close and when providing comfort she will do a lot of casual hair touching / brushing and she’s really good at styling hair bc she did her own for miss mystic and all these dances and how she probably watched tons of youtube tutorial to learn how to do black hair so she could do bonnie’s hair for cheer and dances and stuff and how when she starts to care about someone she will become really tactile with just running her fingers through / over their hair and she just really loves doing hair

[seesgood]

no but i really do think that bill was at least slightly abusive, like i don’t think it was uncommon for him to grab caroline a bit too aggressively or use more corporal means of punishment ( like slapping ); but i think the brunt of it was psychological ( high expectations that she could never reach, emotional distance, withholding approval or validation or acceptance as punishment ) and it’s the psychological aspect that definitely messed her up more than anything.

[seesgood]

i love whenever caroline does like  A Vampire Thing  ( killing / biting into herself to give someone blood / draining someone / etc )  she like almost instantly reverts into hyper soft 🥺💕 mode and i could write literal paragraphs about how that’s probably because so much of her survival in the early days hinged on people not seeing her as a threat and how she knew she had to Be Normal so any time she does a vampire thing she just has to be Extra Caroline for a hot minute because she feels like she has to make up for it ok i’m done 

[seesgood]

ah, but can we appreciate the fact that IN ADDITION to everything happening to mystic falls, constant life or death situations, losing loved ones, supernatural drama, etc. --- caroline STILL managed to graduate top of her class as valedictorian? like yes, we know that she probably never sleeps but just --- caroline squeezing in homework and studying in between researching old magic lore, caroline doing flash cards to quiz herself for finals while they’re out patrolling the woods looking for somethingorother.

[seesgood]

don’t picture 17 year old and younger caroline having panic attacks in her room, in the bathroom at school, beneath the bleachers, in any small private space she can find — because everything has to be perfect. she has to be perfect. and if she’s not then her dad will be disappointed and her mom won’t have any reason to care about her and her friends will leave and no one will love her or want her and choose her so every last detail needs to be perfect —

[seesgood]

[ insert well verbalized meta about how caroline probably expects some level of abuse or mistreatment in relationships because it’s all she’s ever experienced and she is genuinely baffled by the idea that people would (1) want to be with her without being convinced, and (2) treat her well and be loyal and fight for her. ]

[seesgood]

i will eternally be frothing at the mouth at the image of undone caroline forbes. no makeup. frizzy hair tossed into a messy bun. old / faded cheer shorts and shirt, mystic falls timberwolves sweatshirt. you can see the dusting of freckles over her nose / cheeks. the kind of way that she looks around people that she completely trusts and feels vulnerable around and doesn’t feel the need to put on any masks / armor 

[seesgood]

tvd forgot their own vampire lore but i didn’t so here are some neat tvd-vamp things that apply to caroline that might be good to note ! 

vampires need to breathe ,  if they can’t breathe they will suffocate and die and then wake up and then die again and then wake up and --- you get the picture. but they need to breathe. 

daylight rings are super duper rare ,  and you need to find a witch willing to make you one, which is apparently not super easy. the vast majority of vampires don’t have a daylight ring. 

vampires can’t sense other vampires ,  i’m sure there are like signs and stuff you could look out for if you were really looking, but overall there’s no vampiric spidey sense that alerts you to when another vampire is around. 

they have a normal heartbeat ,  everything biologically / physically is implied to still work the same as long as they’re drinking blood, so they do have a heartbeat and i’m not 100% if they ever actually address skin temperature but my default is to say that it’s normal, if not running just a little bit cold ( bc, you know, dead ) 

they need to be invited in to private residences that are owned by living occupants. if the owner is dead, they can enter. but it’s implied that it needs to be someone who legally owns the building ( i.e. i don’t think a kid can invite you into their parents house, but again i’m not sure )

weaknesses:  sunlight, vervain, stake to the chest, decapitation, desiccation from lack of blood, fire, werewolf venom

[seesgood]

no but i actually think about this scene a lot

( i.e. the one where damon feeds on her and doesn’t stop and is fully intent on draining her of her blood but stefan spiked her drink with vervain so it knocks damon unconscious before he can finish draining her. )  and like --- there’s really a lot there to go into, but of all the times when damon hurt her i think this is the time that really sticks out to her, and it’s only marginally because of damon trying to kill her.

for one, there’s the whole fact that stefan spiked her drink with vervain, knowing that damon would feed from her, and while she probably gets that that was the best way to incapacitate damon --- there’s still a little sting there that they were, at least for a time, sitting around waiting for him to not only bite her again, but to take so much blood that he would ingest enough vervain to knock him out -- i.e. that he’d try to drain her. and then there’s the fact that they just kinda leave her in the grass, unconscious from blood loss. no healing. no mind wipe compulsion. and again: she gets that stefan’s priority would be to get damon out of there. but again, there’s a sting there.

but it’s also the one time that no one compelled her to forget what happened and ( as far as we know and as far as is shown in the show ) no one ever gives her blood to heal any of the wounds. so the reaction that you see when elena eventually finds her  ( the shallow, frantic breathing, the obvious panic, the very thin, very high shaky voice, all of those mannerisms )  is probably how she feels the entire time but she can’t really let it out. and we could also go another layer deeper and talk about how she’s still under damon’s compulsion --- we see that in the next episode when he uses weird vampire mind shit to make her free him, even without having direct contact with her. 

so it’s like, i think about this scene a lot because i think it really perfectly encapsulates caroline’s role within her friend group within the first season, and how she probably sees her role within her friend group moving forward. and that is, she’s gonna be the collateral damage. she’s going to get hurt, and it will have to be fine, and she will have to lick her own wounds because no one else is going to think about doing so or remember to do so. and a lot of that i think stems from this moment, because even though everyone was doing their best, even though she knows, logically, that they couldn’t really have stopped and paused and given her the attention  ( healing, compulsion, mind-wipe, answers, etc. )  she needed, she’s not going to be able to stop feeling like they just kinda...left her. and let it happen. and then moved on and forgot about it and went directly back to rolling their eyes about her being oh so obsessed with damon ( who had her under deep compulsion ) .

[seesgood]

things your muse should absolutely roast caroline for:

the only type of music she listens to / knows are top hits and the kind of shit that is grossly overplayed on the radio

hasn’t seen a single marvel, star wars, or lord of the rings movie. she HAS seen at least 1-2 of the harry potter movies, but that’s probably because bonnie and elena made her watch them for a movie marathon night but she either fell asleep or got bored and stopped paying attention before finishing them

she only knows the marvel movies based on “the one with that hot guy” 

the only book series she’s really read was twilight, unironically. 

certified horse girl 

is NOT an animal person --- she likes animals! they’re great! so cute! but they get fur everywhere and they’re unpredictable and like, what do you do with them? they’re just a bit Much, you know?

color codes and alphabetizes everything 

most of the movies she’s seen are either old classics that her parents watched or modern rom-coms ( i.e. the notebook ) 

she thinks the notebook is the HEIGHT of modern cinema 

but her favorite movie will always be gone with the wind, catch her watching gone with the wind whenever she’s sad 

the only one of the popular sitcoms that she’s seen all the way through is friends. she’s a friends girl through and through. 

[seesgood]

miscellaneous post-series / legacies timeline relationship headcanons , 

elena ,   they keep in touch regularly and caroline spoils the shit out of elena’s kids, that being said though there’s always going to be a little bit of distance there. elena’s growing up and growing older and settling down and in a lot of ways, caroline can’t do any of that. elena is and will always be one of the most important people in her life, but they definitely don’t have the relationship they once had. and, in another sense, it’s probably really hard for caroline to be around elena when elena’s the only one that really got the happy ending that she always wanted. 

bonnie ,   they’re still super close and keep in contact all the time, a lot of time when caroline is traveling she does her best to go places where bonnie also is. bonnie is always her go-to when it comes to magical questions. but again, there’s a bit of distance there in regards to the weirdness that comes from both of them knowing that the reason they couldn’t be with the person they love is because of each other’s significant other. 

alaric ,     in a lot of ways, alaric is Her Person. and while she will defend him and a lot of the choices he makes publicly, there’s a lot that she’s oblivious to that she would / probably does chew him out for in private. she’s probably majorly concerned about his drinking and doesn’t approve of the things he says about certain things ( like stefan, klaus, the rest of the mikaelsons, etc. ) but like, he’s also her partner in all of this and she has to cut him a bit of slack because she firmly believes that no one else can understand just how much they all lost. but still, most days, she’s probably lecturing him behind closed doors.

damon ,    they’re weirdly close. not like close close, but like, she’s a regular at his bar and they drink together a lot and he’s the only person she’ll talk to about stefan and about how she’s actually dealing with shit. they still fight / argue / bicker about things all the time, but...weirdly he’s one of Her People. and also he’s probably one of the only people who she trusts to give her things straight without any ounce of bullshit or sugar coating.

matt ,   i feel like she tries to be really friendly with him and understanding of everything, but his reactions / actions / etc. towards the kids at the school and magical beings in general would not fly and they probably argue a lot. but also, it’s matt and she loves him. 

the mikaelsons ,     you can not and will not convince me that she doesn’t keep in touch with them regularly and gives them regular updates about hope ( both on a magical sense and also a personal sense ). 

[seesgood]

reminder that it’s canon that caroline snacks excessively to avoid hunger cravings --- and bc she probably doesn’t feed nearly as much as she could ( # vampire guilt ), she’s probably just constantly snacking on something. usually potato chips or fries or something. especially if she’s stressed / worked up about something