We Are Broken

Here is the thing about when Elena chose Damon. It really did bug me that when she did choose, nothing between her and Stefan changed. Not really. Because in season 3 she has this entire speech about “If I choose one then I’ll lose the other” that was the whole point, that Elena would feel the loss of whoever she didn’t choose but Stefan was still there and so there were no real consequences to her choosing his brother and that’s completely insane especially considering just how much these two meant to each other, that kind of connection, that kind of loves doesn’t just go away, it doesn’t happen so the fact that Stefan remained a fixture in Elena’s life bothered me, because like you, I wanted her to feel the loss of having him in her life. But what I also found hilarious is that Elena chose Damon and nothing really changed between her and Stefan because that love doesn’t just go away, which is why Elena can break through compulsion simply by thinking about Stefan and which is why in 5x03 all she can think about is saving him and there’s that intimate scene with the ring, which is why in 5x18 she can rest her head on his shoulder and she can continuously say that he knows her better than anyone.

And whenever it does look like Stefan is slipping away from her, Elena actually loses her shit.

When he tells Rebekah to erase his memories of her:

This was before Stefan slept with Rebekah:

This is her expression after finding out:

(to the point that Bonnie actually looks at her to see her expression, like everyone in the room tenses up because they know)

This is when she has no humanity and yet the sight of him and Caroline actually gets her to stop dancing:

When Stefan has no memory, he has over a century to remember, but she’s intent on him remember her and them:

And when she finds out he’s with Tessa, not only does she rant to Damon about it, she actually feels the needs to go over to her cabin:

All Tessa does is touch Stefan’s arm and we have:

And in 5x07 even though Stefan had already saved her life, Elena is still worried that he hates her that she wakes him up from sleeping and tells him she misses him. (She says she misses him as a friend because the script needed us to know in no uncertain terms that this was platonic but the fact remains, I don’t remember Elena ever hunting Damon down to try and make him forgive her when they were friends)

And when she finds out he slept with Katherine:

“the doppleganger spell SL was transparent & shadey. Twas designed to invalidate SE & prop DE up by making them seem more ‘real’. But the fact it wasn’t created until season 5 just proves how bullshit it really is. Like STOP this is not a true part of SEs story. Also that scene where stefan goes ‘it was real’…i know its meant to be a touching moment, but it was actually just insulting that they were forced into having to justify their love ?? like what other ship was disrespected THAT badly. The way KW had set SE up in the pilot-they just had an instant connection bc they JUST did. It was a part of what made them special. But then CD decided to disrespect that history & make what they ‘had’ seem less genuine. Tbh it was just another time-where the shows sole purpose was DE one-upping SE. They take things that were special to SE, that SE had 1st & try & twist it for DE. E.g. 3x22 they retcon in DE meeting 1st. S6 they retcon 3x01, take the necklace which was an SE thing etc etc.”

Hey, anon! I absolutely agree with you. I still can’t get over what a blatantly disrespectful and transparent invalidation of Stelena the season 5 doppelganger storyline was because it was excruciatingly awful and made zero amount of sense. As you said, Stefan and Elena met in the pilot and connected instantly because they simply did and what’s funny about it is that it wasn’t like instant love, it was instant intrigue, instant attraction, and then they talk and then they bond. What’s hilarious about the doppelgangers being drawn together by the promise of true love aspect is that if that was so, if all they needed was to be around each other to feel that promise, then why did the show need to insert fantasy lives in their heads? Like the writing is egregiously bad and inconsistent and not even toward ships but toward the entire show; Qetsiyah was a traveller and she was Bonnie’s ancestor so then how is Bonnie a witch and how did she not know about travellers? This is what I mean when I say Delena destroyed the show because the writing completely changed to bend to that relationship and it fucked everything up in the process.

And do not get me started on how they twisted Stelena moments and Stelena symbols into moments and symbols significant to Delena because that was just … on the one hand, it makes no sense. How is the show expecting me to believe that Elena knew she loved Damon in 3x01 when that same night she had that phone call with Stefan? More than that, how does the show expect me to believe that she knew from 3x01 that she loved Damon when the entire point of 3x22 was her confronting what she truly felt; we flash back to her life before she met either brother, to how she treated Matt because she was scared of hurting his feelings and letting go of that security, 3x22 was about Elena being brave and honest and confronting what she truly wanted and who she truly loved and it was Stefan. She says it, “I love him, Damon. He came into my life when I needed someone and I fell for him instantly. No matter what I feel for you, I never unfell for him.” Throughout season 3, “I don’t know how I feel.” “Stefan thinks I have feelings for you.” “Oh. Do you.” “I don’t know.” Her feelings for Damon were there, yes, but they were abstract and they were nothing significant enough to eclipse what she felt for Stefan, JP herself says that it was just confusion and if it weren’t for the sirebond all it would be is confusion, but the show expects me to believe that she knew she loved Damon in 3x01? Yeah OK. And that absurd insertion of her meeting Damon first as if that mattered. She met him first, what does that change? Damon was there for Katherine. Stefan is still the one who saved her from the accident. He’s still the one who knows her better than anyone else. Damon literally just met Elena first. If anything, Elena remembering that night would’ve just added to how fucking creepy Damon was. Like  … they met first. So. What? On the other hand, I found it kind of hilarious that the show did these things because I was like, woooooow you guys are scared as fuck because you know you can’t trust Delena to stand on its own two feet, you have to constantly try to dismember and dismantle the superior ship to make the one you want to work work. But that just shows how superior the other ship is. Like ….

This is an interesting question. Well it’s me so let’s look at some gifs (gotta love gifs amirte?):

I find the last gif particularly interesting because Stefan is the one who pulls away and yet he still moves his hand from Kalena’s waist to the side of her face and in the first gif, there is clear conflict in his expressio but there’s also clearly desire and the way he kisses her … its not like this “I thought that I wanted nothing more than to get her back and now that we’re kissing I’ve realized I moved on” there’s so much relish and enthusiasm and passion in the way that he’s kissing her, especially since there are so many false starts during this kiss. They press their lips together and she moves away and he puts his hand on her face, they kiss again and then he moves away but she kisses him and he never stops it until it’s clear that it will go somewhere else, like he forces himself to stop it because of Damon not because it isn’t what he wants. I mean:

Kalena is clearly the one whose hands are on his face, his hands/arms aren’t doing anything and yet he’s leaning in, he’s clearly participating and clearly turned on.