Elena Gilbert: Women Love Fest (Bonus Post 2)

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Corrected by idrilka. At least this time it was fun for her, because I'm braindead and I made some typos that are gonna be remembered for the next ten years.

Again, I wasn't supposed to be writing about Elena. I was supposed to focus on Donna Noble (Doctor Who) and do it in Polish, but than I started reading all those TVD meta posts and discussions on womenlovefest

Comments

[mlekopijca]

Nie chcę Damon/Elena. Nie lubię Damona z kobietami. Może poza Rose. Rose mogła skręcić mu kark.

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Rose mogła skręcić mu kark.

Wielokrotnie.

[ever_neutral]

Only during the fest-related discussions did I realize that this ship is actually my way of interpreting Elena, so it might be interesting to write a meta instead of yet another fic.

OMG. YOU TOO? Damn, I'm glad I'm not the only one. I feel pretty at odds with most of fandom because I don't really ship them because Damon wants her, or because she's awesome through Damon's eyes--but because Elena's interactions with Damon are what made me really understand her. (See: that hug in Fool Me Once.)

I want to see something like this on TV; I want to see a relationship go awry not because one party is a sadistic bastard who hurts his/her significant other for fun, but because they mean well and do it wrong; and I want to see that it is no excuse. I want to see that a bad boy thing often ends bad. I want to see that someone like Damon cannot be redeemed because of love of a woman; I want to see that people can change, but no one has ever been reformed by somebody else's romantic love.YES. YES. YES. THANK YOU. This is why I loved Damon and

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Thank you so much for your comment!

because Elena's interactions with Damon are what made me really understand her

I just realized that I don't describe Damon in those fics; I focus either on general dynamics, or on how does this relationship influence Elena. That might be because Damon is rather obvious and predictable in this contex, while with Elena you have to start with Why the hell would she even start this freak show? and go straight into How does it damage her?. And Damon in a relationship with Elena is just a romantic figure; appealing like hell, but not really interesting to explore (when I want to explore Damon, I go into gen or Damon/Alaric; I like to have historian's perspective on him).

And I'm absolutely with you that "the monster cannot be saved by the love of a good woman" is the story that the show is telling (but this seems to be an unpopular opinion; most of fandom, from what I've seen, really think that Damon is changing for Elena, and I just don't agree at all). Oh, because it's all so romantic, isn't it? It's

ramble ramble

[ever_neutral]

That's exactly how he was with Katherine, so there is something like this in him! You are a genius, did you know that? Could you please elaborate?Haha, I totally thought this was a common idea! Damon is pretty much the Bella Swan of the TVD universe--he was entirely willing to give up his life and humanity, and leave his family behind, for his abusive vampire girlfriend. Then he spends the next 145 years romanticising that abuse. It's really fascinating gender subversion

Re: ramble ramble

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Haha, I totally thought this was a common idea!

You know, I've been reading and writing some TVD fanfiction, but until now I haven't been so much into metas or discussions, so it's safe to asume that there are hundreds of common ideas I've never heard about ;). So thank you for explaining.

Hmmm. I'm actually convinced. I never wanted to take Buffy comparison that far, because I didn't see Elena abusing Damon the way Buffy was abusing Spike for most of s6 (I might be forgetting about something, but I think Seeing Red was the first time she was his victim, not the other way round), but this makes sense. I was so focused on Damon trying to make Elena obey him when it came to dealing with Klaus ("Who is gonna save your life when you're out there making decisions?") that I missed her attempts to manipulate him into being a better man. Oh my God, this could lead to such a beautiful tragedy! *excited*

[le_mru]

You got me thinking about Elena and how I feel about her, and I realised I got to like her, really like her as a character, and not a cardboard cut-out such as Bella Swan, when all you described just suddenly... shone through, and it dawned on me that we are alike in that aspect. And that's when realism comes in.

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The highest as the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography, isn't it? I can admit that this meta is partly about Elena, and partly about me suspecting that my tendency to believe in people and forgive them is eventually going to bite my ass of.

I'm glad I got you thinking. When someone gets you thinking about a fictional character, the results often make an interesting reading ;).

[goldy_dollar]

Just chiming in to say that I love this meta. Damon/Elena is not my ship, but.... for pretty much all the reasons that you have down in here. :p So I can really appreciate that you like it BECAUSE it has the potential to be so dark and screwed up! I just live in fear that the writers will romanticize the whole thing. *clings*

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If they do, I'm moving to AU land. It's a good place and they have cookies.