The Vampire Diaries’ Nina Dobrev will appear on The Originals as some new character

In news that—fingers crossed—hopefully makes sense to someone out there, The Vampire Diaries’ Nina Dobrev will appear on Vampire Diaries spinoff The Originals as someone who is technically not any of the several characters she has already played on her own show. See, Dobrev’s normal Vampire Diaries character, Elena, is what the show calls a “doppelgänger,” which basically means that she’s a magic lady who looks exactly the same as a bunch of other magical ladies who have existed for centuries. It’s more complicated than that, but the point is that the show uses the same actors to portray different characters throughout history who have some kind of mystical connection to other people who look just like them. Actually, it’s a bit like Cloud Atlas, but with vampires making out instead of Tom Hanks saying “true true.”