[Damon Salvatore: Don't Feel Sorry For Him, 'Cause Then He'll Have To Murder You, kthxbye.]
Vampiric, anti-hero badboys, they aren't for everyone.
These are ideas and thoughts I've had many times over my 3+ year journey with Damon Salvatore (started watching TVD in the summer of 2010, just as S2 had started, so I played catch up and didn't see my first *real-time* episode until 2x05), and they became more prominent when upupa_epops had a meta prompt at her journal.
The original prompt read:
TVD, canon Damon vs fanon Damon. What are the differences and why?
and I chose to take that in the direction of different aspects of his personality being explored in fic (sexually dominant vs. submissive) due to preferences of authors and/or readers at large, but someone else pointed out something that made other thoughts I have had for a long time swirl to the forefront in a need to be shared.
antonia_zar said:
"...fanon!Damon the misunderstood sex god who just wants love and who makes all the hard decisions is something that makes it harder for me to love canon!Damon sometimes."
Her point is one that I've pondered on again and again as I've seen it everywhere in fandom: in fic, in meta, in general comments. It's as if to love Damon means you cannot see any of his flaws for some people, which is strange to me, as I love Damon because of his flaws. Because he so desperately wants to be loved that he waited 145 years for a woman who, in his heart of hearts he had to know had betrayed him long before he acknowledged it; juxtapose that with being unwilling to apologize for something he's not truly sorry for, because he will not pretend to something even if it would appease Elena in some small way. One could look at that correlation and surmise that the one led to the other, but in some ways, I think Damon was always like that.
It's probably why his father didn't like him much; he wouldn't pretend to whatever ideal his father held dear. And whatever his reasons for not returning to the War, either noble or cowardly, he wouldn't justify himself, even then.
Damon doesn't justify himself to anyone. The only person who needs to think what he's doing is *right* or *necessary* is him, and to hell with everyone else, even those he loves.
So why is it that he gets fangirls defending him when he won't even defend himself?
I think that's exactly why some feel driven to postulate theories to his actions, or adhere to the idea that he "used" to be terrible and he's not anymore. He is by far, a different version of himself than who I first discovered in my television three years ago, but he isn't unrecognizable. He has softened because of love (both for his brother and Elena), and he has come to some big realizations: He didn't have to love Katherine, it was a choice; and he didn't have to blame Stefan for his miserable existence--he could blame the fact that he was a vampire on his brother, but he never would, because his choices have been his own. He could have taken his ring off at any time in the intervening years, but he never did. Stefan might have encouraged him to feed, but everything after that? All Damon.
And he would tell you that, himself. He has IN FACT told us all this, if we've been paying attention.
It's funny to me that anyone could profess to love him without fully embracing everything he is. That's what is so GLORIOUS about his relationship with Elena. Elena knows. She isn't deceived, she's not walking around saying, Oh, poor Damon, nobody gets him. She gets him entirely. And for a very long time, he terrified her, because he is brazenly all the things that she is, but she has tried to not be those things, or to hide those things through justification. Compelling Jeremy to go to Denver made her "feel like a terrible person" and Damon just reminded her, one older sibling to another, that estrangement is better than a dead brother. Feeding and partying with Damon at Whitmore College wasn't bad because it was feeding and partying, it was bad because she "should" have been doing it with Stefan.
Taking the cure for purely selfish reasons is NOT okay, unless you are the person she loves and you are dying of a werewolf bite. Did you see what they did there? Elena is Damon, Damon is Elena.
And thus we see that if Damon has changed (not for love, but because of love), so has Elena. They have met somewhere in the murky middle, and now they will have to navigate that, and it will be messy and gloriously awful and wonderful and interesting no matter what.
Because that's who Damon is, people. He's not someone looking for redemption, he's not someone hoping to be *fixed* anymore than Elena is; he wants it to be real, he wants it to be forever, and he wants it to be AS HE IS. And I guarantee, he'll do a fuckton more stuff that he WON'T apologize for.
Personally, I can't wait!
These are ideas and thoughts I've had many times over my 3+ year journey with Damon Salvatore (started watching TVD in the summer of 2010, just as S2 had started, so I played catch up and didn't see my first *real-time* episode until 2x05), and they became more prominent when upupa_epops had a meta prompt at her journal.
The original prompt read:
TVD, canon Damon vs fanon Damon. What are the differences and why?
and I chose to take that in the direction of different aspects of his personality being explored in fic (sexually dominant vs. submissive) due to preferences of authors and/or readers at large, but someone else pointed out something that made other thoughts I have had for a long time swirl to the forefront in a need to be shared.
antonia_zar said:
"...fanon!Damon the misunderstood sex god who just wants love and who makes all the hard decisions is something that makes it harder for me to love canon!Damon sometimes."
Her point is one that I've pondered on again and again as I've seen it everywhere in fandom: in fic, in meta, in general comments. It's as if to love Damon means you cannot see any of his flaws for some people, which is strange to me, as I love Damon because of his flaws. Because he so desperately wants to be loved that he waited 145 years for a woman who, in his heart of hearts he had to know had betrayed him long before he acknowledged it; juxtapose that with being unwilling to apologize for something he's not truly sorry for, because he will not pretend to something even if it would appease Elena in some small way. One could look at that correlation and surmise that the one led to the other, but in some ways, I think Damon was always like that.
It's probably why his father didn't like him much; he wouldn't pretend to whatever ideal his father held dear. And whatever his reasons for not returning to the War, either noble or cowardly, he wouldn't justify himself, even then.
Damon doesn't justify himself to anyone. The only person who needs to think what he's doing is *right* or *necessary* is him, and to hell with everyone else, even those he loves.
So why is it that he gets fangirls defending him when he won't even defend himself?
I think that's exactly why some feel driven to postulate theories to his actions, or adhere to the idea that he "used" to be terrible and he's not anymore. He is by far, a different version of himself than who I first discovered in my television three years ago, but he isn't unrecognizable. He has softened because of love (both for his brother and Elena), and he has come to some big realizations: He didn't have to love Katherine, it was a choice; and he didn't have to blame Stefan for his miserable existence--he could blame the fact that he was a vampire on his brother, but he never would, because his choices have been his own. He could have taken his ring off at any time in the intervening years, but he never did. Stefan might have encouraged him to feed, but everything after that? All Damon.
And he would tell you that, himself. He has IN FACT told us all this, if we've been paying attention.
It's funny to me that anyone could profess to love him without fully embracing everything he is. That's what is so GLORIOUS about his relationship with Elena. Elena knows. She isn't deceived, she's not walking around saying, Oh, poor Damon, nobody gets him. She gets him entirely. And for a very long time, he terrified her, because he is brazenly all the things that she is, but she has tried to not be those things, or to hide those things through justification. Compelling Jeremy to go to Denver made her "feel like a terrible person" and Damon just reminded her, one older sibling to another, that estrangement is better than a dead brother. Feeding and partying with Damon at Whitmore College wasn't bad because it was feeding and partying, it was bad because she "should" have been doing it with Stefan.
Taking the cure for purely selfish reasons is NOT okay, unless you are the person she loves and you are dying of a werewolf bite. Did you see what they did there? Elena is Damon, Damon is Elena.
And thus we see that if Damon has changed (not for love, but because of love), so has Elena. They have met somewhere in the murky middle, and now they will have to navigate that, and it will be messy and gloriously awful and wonderful and interesting no matter what.
Because that's who Damon is, people. He's not someone looking for redemption, he's not someone hoping to be *fixed* anymore than Elena is; he wants it to be real, he wants it to be forever, and he wants it to be AS HE IS. And I guarantee, he'll do a fuckton more stuff that he WON'T apologize for.
Personally, I can't wait!
