Emotions...I HAS DEM.
Okay, look, I'm at work right now, and luckily (or possibly unfortunately) my job is such that on certain days I have more time to think fandomly than other days. And of course today, no matter what, I'd be thinking fandomly anyway. Thus my second post in the space of four hours or whatever.
I said this on March 17, 2011 in a Damon/Elena Shipper's Manifesto (yes, I am vainly quoting myself, but it's necessary, I promise). The most important part is the bolded part at the end, but you need the rest of it for that part to have the right impact:
Sometimes you just connect with people, you know? I think all people everywhere have had that experience. You can't explain it, it just happens. And to me, that's what happens here with Damon and Elena. She can read him, he can read her, and though he's up to no good, and his intentions are bad, something magical happens to him anyway. In his effort to worm his way into Elena's life and mind, he opens himself up to her. It's all chance. It happens because he's not expecting her to be anything special. She looks like Katherine, but she can never compare to his ladylove.
Except that she doesn't compare, at all. She's far and away a better person, a kind human being, a girl of significance. And though you see a flicker of it on his face here, he has no idea what has just happened to him. [He got Punk'd.] No, seriously, what he got was woken up. The dead part of his soul, the part he shut away for 145 years pricks its metaphorical ears forward, hearing the call of...the woman who will change his life.
Now, that's not to say that Elena will save Damon. Physically, she eventually saves him from death several times, or her efforts have at least preserved his life. What will save Damon, ultimately, IMHO, is the way Elena makes him feel--or rather, that he feels anything at all because of her. And because of that, he doesn't just become "a person worth saving," he becomes "someone capable of greatness" -- and he becomes someone who will save himself.
Now that? THAT'S EPIC.
[And I suspect this will happen, even if Damon and Elena never get together, which, to my mind, makes them all the more 'Ship worthy.]
So, remember how this is a movie about a girl who tells a guy she doesn't want a relationship but she'll sleep with him, and he goes along with it because, well, he's a guy, but of course he falls in love with her, and when she doesn't really fall in love back, he gets all hurt and is an ass, and ultimately gets his heart ground into smithereens? I've been thinking about it the last couple of days because upupa_epops watched it at my recommendation and we were chatting about it, but it suddenly hit me again. Ian said you should have no expectations, and if I could actually do that, if I could actually HEAR what Elena is saying over what she is DOING, and even the language that she chooses that can be interpreted one way or another, I would be so much better off. Perhaps the whole fandom would.
Let me be clear: the idea of no Damon and Elena EVER in a way beyond "Friends with UST" situation is not okay with me. It quite literally breaks my heart and makes me tear up, because I just love them that much, but let's take a lesson from Tom in (500) Days of Summer. Let's believe what she's telling us, until she changes her mind. Let's be certain that she will change her mind, because the show has at least one more season, probably more, and it just seems so unlikely to me that anyone is now with whom they will be with at the end...but until then, I, for one, have to stop projecting what I want on to what IS. And that's the place I've come to, in the space of a few minutes, because for all its many flaws, this show has been my happy place for a very long time, and I'm not ready to let go of it just yet. S4 could prove to be the nail in the coffin, or they could revive and surprise me; they might end up giving me everything I've always wanted. But, if they don't, from now on, I'm going in with my eyes wide open. I'm listening to what Elena is saying, and even though it's the dumbest reason in the whole world, IMHO, to be with someone, that's what she's saying right now.
Now, going back to my Shipper's Manifesto. That last line that I MYSELF TYPED, months ago, long before Elena even kissed Damon goodbye in 2x22? If Damon and Elena are never going to be together, but they are still richer, better, evolved characters because of their impact on each other? To me, that is everything that *flashback* revealed. Elena, so young, so naive, her biggest problem is that her boyfriend wants to grow up and get married, and Damon, so old, so naive, his biggest dream is that the woman he's pined for for 145 years will be out of the tomb in just a few short months...and they meet. And they connect. And Elena's dreams are Damon's dreams, and Damon's humanity while buried enough to allow him to lie in the road and eat some unsuspecting idiot that's coming, is still poking up just enough that he can look at a girl with Katherine's face and he can wish her all the best, because at the heart of him he never has been the monster he tried to be. If that is all they are ever going to be, they are still magical to me, they are still characters who captured my mind and my heart and I will love them forever. I may leave them behind sooner rather than later, but there is something really poignant about them for me right now that won't allow that happen...not quite yet.
So, that's where I am now.
And this is for all of you:
:D
I said this on March 17, 2011 in a Damon/Elena Shipper's Manifesto (yes, I am vainly quoting myself, but it's necessary, I promise). The most important part is the bolded part at the end, but you need the rest of it for that part to have the right impact:
Sometimes you just connect with people, you know? I think all people everywhere have had that experience. You can't explain it, it just happens. And to me, that's what happens here with Damon and Elena. She can read him, he can read her, and though he's up to no good, and his intentions are bad, something magical happens to him anyway. In his effort to worm his way into Elena's life and mind, he opens himself up to her. It's all chance. It happens because he's not expecting her to be anything special. She looks like Katherine, but she can never compare to his ladylove.
Except that she doesn't compare, at all. She's far and away a better person, a kind human being, a girl of significance. And though you see a flicker of it on his face here, he has no idea what has just happened to him. [He got Punk'd.] No, seriously, what he got was woken up. The dead part of his soul, the part he shut away for 145 years pricks its metaphorical ears forward, hearing the call of...the woman who will change his life.
Now, that's not to say that Elena will save Damon. Physically, she eventually saves him from death several times, or her efforts have at least preserved his life. What will save Damon, ultimately, IMHO, is the way Elena makes him feel--or rather, that he feels anything at all because of her. And because of that, he doesn't just become "a person worth saving," he becomes "someone capable of greatness" -- and he becomes someone who will save himself.
Now that? THAT'S EPIC.
[And I suspect this will happen, even if Damon and Elena never get together, which, to my mind, makes them all the more 'Ship worthy.]
So, remember how this is a movie about a girl who tells a guy she doesn't want a relationship but she'll sleep with him, and he goes along with it because, well, he's a guy, but of course he falls in love with her, and when she doesn't really fall in love back, he gets all hurt and is an ass, and ultimately gets his heart ground into smithereens? I've been thinking about it the last couple of days because upupa_epops watched it at my recommendation and we were chatting about it, but it suddenly hit me again. Ian said you should have no expectations, and if I could actually do that, if I could actually HEAR what Elena is saying over what she is DOING, and even the language that she chooses that can be interpreted one way or another, I would be so much better off. Perhaps the whole fandom would.
Let me be clear: the idea of no Damon and Elena EVER in a way beyond "Friends with UST" situation is not okay with me. It quite literally breaks my heart and makes me tear up, because I just love them that much, but let's take a lesson from Tom in (500) Days of Summer. Let's believe what she's telling us, until she changes her mind. Let's be certain that she will change her mind, because the show has at least one more season, probably more, and it just seems so unlikely to me that anyone is now with whom they will be with at the end...but until then, I, for one, have to stop projecting what I want on to what IS. And that's the place I've come to, in the space of a few minutes, because for all its many flaws, this show has been my happy place for a very long time, and I'm not ready to let go of it just yet. S4 could prove to be the nail in the coffin, or they could revive and surprise me; they might end up giving me everything I've always wanted. But, if they don't, from now on, I'm going in with my eyes wide open. I'm listening to what Elena is saying, and even though it's the dumbest reason in the whole world, IMHO, to be with someone, that's what she's saying right now.
Now, going back to my Shipper's Manifesto. That last line that I MYSELF TYPED, months ago, long before Elena even kissed Damon goodbye in 2x22? If Damon and Elena are never going to be together, but they are still richer, better, evolved characters because of their impact on each other? To me, that is everything that *flashback* revealed. Elena, so young, so naive, her biggest problem is that her boyfriend wants to grow up and get married, and Damon, so old, so naive, his biggest dream is that the woman he's pined for for 145 years will be out of the tomb in just a few short months...and they meet. And they connect. And Elena's dreams are Damon's dreams, and Damon's humanity while buried enough to allow him to lie in the road and eat some unsuspecting idiot that's coming, is still poking up just enough that he can look at a girl with Katherine's face and he can wish her all the best, because at the heart of him he never has been the monster he tried to be. If that is all they are ever going to be, they are still magical to me, they are still characters who captured my mind and my heart and I will love them forever. I may leave them behind sooner rather than later, but there is something really poignant about them for me right now that won't allow that happen...not quite yet.
So, that's where I am now.
And this is for all of you:
:D