The Vampire Diaries‘ writers room has only just begun to map out Season 4, but boss lady Julie Plec is already privy to some storyline secrets — and TVLine was fortunate enough to pick her brain about a few of them at last weekend’s inaugural ATX Television Festival in Austin.

Here’s what the Mystic Falls mastermind revealed about new journeys for both Elena and beloved bitch Rebekah, how Klaus has managed to survive time and time again, impending graduation and more.

On Rebekah’s Role as the ‘Mean Girl’ Queen Bee | “What I’m excited about with Rebekah [in Season 4], specifically, is that we have never had a true antagonist on a human/teenage level,” she noted. “We’ve never had our Valerie [from Beverly Hills, 90210] or our Amanda Woodward [from Melrose Place]. And with Rebekah, who is so vulnerable and damaged but has that tough exterior, we get to see a queen bee in action; we get to see a mean girl. As we get into the second half of their senior year, here’s Rebekah, still in Mystic Falls, heading back to school, completely ostracized from the community of people that she knows because of what she did to Elena and Matt [in the finale]. She’s completely loathed by the one guy [Matt] that she had a crush on, and also by her past love [Stefan]. What’s she going to do about that? How does a vampire, who has all kinds of mind control capabilities and sass, carve her way into the high school world when the people that we love hate her guts? Once she gets over the hump of being “World’s Most Hated” in the yearbook, how will she live? And what will her life be like?”

Source: http://tvline.com