It just occurred to me that if Elena had been with Damon first, she never would have fallen for Stefan. If she had let herself love Damon from the start, it would have taken over ever part of her being and she wouldn’t have had any room for anyone else. But because she fell in love with Stefan first, before she knew the real Damon, her judgement is now too clouded by the history she has with Stefan for her to see how much stronger and more powerful her love for Damon is. If Stefan was the one she was meant to be with, she would never have fallen so deeply in love with Damon while Stefan and her were still together and she wouldn’t have kept coming back to Damon through everything.

I just realized that when Damon says “You are not dead … You are not dead” when Alaric dies, he’s talking about Elena, not Alaric. I thought he was upset over the fact that Alaric had to die in his arms and to him it feels like the real Ric just died all over again, but now it makes more sense that he realized the only way Alaric would be dead is if Elena died. That makes the scene so much more painful. There’s so much pain on his face and he’s desperate and unwilling to accept it and I don’t think there’s ever been that much pain on his face, ever. Elena’s death really would kill him and it’s horrible but also amazing that we could to see a portion of what it would do to him when he thinks she’s dead. She is the one thing he lives for now. For him, there’s no life without her and he loves her more than his existence. It will never stop being beautiful and the writers will never stop showing us that no one loves anyone and no one has ever loved anyone as much as Damon Salvatore loves Elena Gilbert.

The lyrics of Never Let Me Go are perfect for Damon and Elena, and they are so, so fitting for the 3x19 kiss. An Emmy needs to be given to the person or people who pick the songs for the Delena scenes and kisses. They do it so perfectly, and their song selections and edits make the moment or scene so much more powerful and amazing; the songs always have such a huge part in the beauty of it.

“I’m not giving up, I’m just giving in …” For one moment, Elena stopped denying her feelings and kissed Damon. It’s not that she gave up fighting how she felt about him, because she went back to that after the kiss; it’s that she gave in to her feelings for that one moment. And then after, she couldn’t let Damon know what she felt because she had to keep denying it for her own safety, so she waved the kiss off as testing her feelings to make up for the fact that she let herself give in. Her denial and the reasons behind it is a really amazing character construction.

The way Elena breathes into Damon when she rushes toward him and kisses him, how he leans into her—it’s like she’s finally letting out this huge breath she’s been holding in for ages, and he’s letting out his own held breath with her, and she’s letting go of this huge weight she’s been carrying when she kisses him, like she’s finally safe. Damon is her home—they’re coming home to each other and she’s finally coming home when she’s kissing him. They are each other’s home. 

I love how Damon doesn’t even take a moment to register that Elena’s kissing him, doesn’t take a second to process it. Her lips touch his and he instantly reacts, pulling her into him, closing his eyes just as soon as she does. It’s so sudden and yet Damon jumps right into it because this is something he waits for every day, something he’s been waiting for for months. To him, it doesn’t matter why she’s doing it or how sudden it is or what it means; her lips are on his and who cares about the context, he’s automatically and instantly kissing her back with everything he has.

And the scene looks so beautiful, with the lights behind them and them being on a balcony. It was the perfect setup. 

The lyric that she rushes to him and kisses him on is so perfect, so fitting, and I still can’t get over how amazing that first moment of contact is. Her kiss is saying “I can’t stand to be close to you because I want to do this whenever I’m with you and I don’t know if I should feel that way and I can’t handle it” and I love it and I think it’s a beautiful thing, that these are two people who love each other an unbearable amount and who have this thing keeping them apart and yet still have these moments where they let themselves go and let them have each other for one moment, let them rush at each other and feel what they want to feel because it’s too strong and they can’t push it away all the time, can’t keep ignoring it. They can’t keep fighting it—it’s something they have no control over and no matter what they do they keep being pulled back to each other. No matter what they do, they can’t stop coming back to each other. That’s what love is. I think that’s what makes a couple an OTP of mine: when they can answer that question. Each of my OTPs is a different definition of what love is.

Damon brings out a side of Elena that she never even knew she had. He brings so much life out of her, so much wild fire, so much rawness. Elena has all this passion inside of her that we never see come out of her, so much passion that’s been dried up, and the only person who brings it out is Damon. He dregs up so much of her unexpected passion in the kiss. Elena’s passion is so dried up and subdued, so hidden and dormant, that when it comes out it’s even more fiery than the passion of someone like Katherine. It’s the only passion in the world to match Damon’s, which is why they are the only people who can be with each other. Stefan doesn’t make that passion come out. Elena has never kissed Stefan like that, never with that much fire, and she’s never reacted that way to him. Damon makes her a different person, someone more wild and strong and fierce than the person she is with anyone else.

When Damon and Elena were watching each other silently in the motel, there was such a connection between, a beautiful and unbreakable and profound connection. And when he went and laid down next to her, it was like he’d done it five hundred times before, two best friends lying down next to each other like always. They’re so safe and comfortable around each other, more than they are around anyone else.

Elena always admires him for the small, beautiful notes of kindness that he does for other people, and Damon never opens up to anyone the way he does in the conversation on the bed, he never opens up to anyone like that except for Elena. And they’re friends again here, despite the fact that they’ve barely been talking to each other since Elena hurt Damon at the Originals’ ball and Damon slept with Rebekah in retaliation. They don’t need to apologize to each other; things are just automatically back to the way they were before. And the hand hold was so beautiful and Elena was so close to returning the gesture but it was clearly making her want him and she couldn’t deal with it.

And I love how there wasn’t even a conversation involved, it was just a few words that weren’t part of sentences, words that would have had no clarity if someone else had been listening. It’s just “Don’t.” “Why not? Elena,” like they have their own secret language, they’re communicating without words, reading each other like they always do, their own secret or wordless exchange, just like they had when they were watching each other in the motel. The actual conversation before the kiss was between their minds. And I still can’t get over the fact that Elena didn’t stop kissing Damon, didn’t pull away from him or push him away. She could have regretted it or ended it once she realized what she was doing, but she didn’t—she just held him tighter and kissed him harder when she came to her senses.

This is the most beautiful, brilliant, powerful, and perfect kiss I have ever seen. The writers are going to be hard-pressed to top this, although I have no doubt they will—at which point my heart will explode.

About Elena in 3x19

There’s no doubt that Elena’s lying to herself when she says she doesn’t know if she has feelings for Damon or not. She has loved him for a long time and she’s been struggling to convince herself that she doesn’t for just as long, partly because she’s scared and partly because she’s ashamed.

I understand why she keeps saying things like “I don’t know what I feel” and why she keeps being confused, and even if I’m frustrated, I do feel bad for her. She thinks that loving Damon—having feelings for someone she thought was her true love’s brother—means she’s a bad person. She thinks having these feelings are a crime. And she also doesn’t want to accept her love for Damon because if doesn’t know what to do if she did. She can’t go back to Stefan if she accepted the fact that she loved Damon, but she would feel bad if she started a relationship with Damon after being in one with his brother, and she doesn’t want to hurt either brother. She just wishes it wasn’t this complicated and wishes she wasn’t in love with two people, and the way she tries to deal with that is by denying her feelings for Damon. But that’s only making things worse.

She wishes it was still simple, that she could go back to being with Stefan and only loving Stefan and not loving both, not because she loves Stefan more but because it was easier when she only loved one, and we all wish we could have the easier path. But it’s more often than not the case that the hardest things are the best things for you.

Admitting to herself that she loves Damon would turn everything upside down inside of her and in the relationship she has with both of the brothers; it would turn things over that she’s not willing to see fall. So I understand completely why she’s been trying to hold on to everything, and why telling herself she doesn’t know if she has feelings for Damon is the way she’s going about doing that, keeping everything in place. It’s like she wants to keep everything the way it is, keep everything the same for as long as she can before the inevitable geyser stream comes bursting through the cracks. She wants to hold that geyser back, put off the explosion that will tear apart everything and change everything, until she can’t anymore. It’s kind of a beautifully tragic character trait.

This season has been about letting go of Elena’s old self, of moving on and letting go of the past, and that’s exactly what she is coming closer to doing. Accepting her love for Damon means letting go of the past and of her old self and the way things used to be and starting something new, something unpredictable and scary but exciting, something that will undo everything she’s ever known about her life. And that’s what growing up is. That’s what this show is about.

I think it’s also fascinating that Elena’s afraid of giving her feelings over to Damon entirely because of how unpredictable he is, because of how he lashes out so fiercely when he’s upset. It’s such a human, realistic, believable fear to have, especially with everything Elena’s been through. She wants to be with someone safe, someone she can always count on, someone who will never hurt her, and she’s not willing to give herself over to Damon if there’s the possibility that he might hurt her. What she doesn’t realize is that Damon, is the person she will be the safest with, the person she will be able to count on the most, the person that won’t do anything to hurt her, more than anyone else.

Elena’s comment to Damon about how he sabotages things also amazes me because up to this point, Elena’s been denying her feelings for Damon because she’s in love with Stefan. But now she’s focusing on Damon as a single entity without thinking about Stefan. She’s saying that she doesn’t know if she wants to be with Damon because she can’t be sure she’ll be okay with him, not because of Stefan at all. It has nothing to do with him. Her decision rests entirely on her guarantee of safety with Damon, not on her feelings for both brothers. It’s like she already subconsciously knows she loves Damon more.

I wrote in a different post that when Damon asks “What if there was no bump?”, her face is practically screaming, “Then we’d already be together.” And it’s incredible that Elena has now progressed to the point where she tells herself, “I need to make my decision now.” It’s about figuring out who she’s going to choose, not about figuring out if she loves Damon—because deep down, she already knows that is a sure thing. You can’t choose between two people if you aren’t certain that you love both of them. The fact that Elena is already trying to decide between them proves, more than anything, that she knows she loves Damon.

What I love about Elena and Damon’s argument in 3x19 is how it shows us that Elena is changing. Elena has always taken Damon’s impulsive, lashing-out side as a part of him. She’s used to it, and she knows it well; she has learnt to deal with it. The reason it’s different now—the reason she can’t accept it now—is because now she’s considering him as a lover, rather than just a friend. And that’s such a huge, beautiful change in Elena. She’s beginning to thaw. She’s beginning to move towards accepting her love for Damon with open arms.

In this episode, Elena’s barriers over her love for Damon and her denial of it began to break more than we’ve ever seen them break before. When Elena’s watching Damon from the bed in the motel as he comes out of the bathroom and sits by the window and drinks, there’s so much love and adoration and fascination on her face that it’s almost blinding. I’m amazed by the tenderness and admiration in the way she observes him every time I rewatch that scene. When she asks him about what he did for Rose and he tells her it wasn’t about her, she breaks out with such an admiring smile that it takes my breath away. She loves him so much and it’s written all over her, now more than ever.

And when Damon and Elena get into their fight in Mary’s house, the way she says “I don’t know” is so rushed and hurried, like she’s afraid both she and Damon will see what the real answer is underneath. She’s been coming close to cracking all throughout the last half of this season—she tells Matt she’s in love with vampires plural, and then later she tells Matt that Damon has gotten under her skin. There’s nothing platonic or ambiguous about that statement. She’s able to tell Matt that she loves Damon, but she still isn’t able to tell herself.

Whatever Elena believes, she didn’t kiss Damon just to test her feelings. She didn’t instigate the kiss so she could try to figure things out. There was this beautiful helpless look that came over her face when Damon said “Why not?” It was a look that showed for once, for one moment, she’s giving in to her feelings. She’s acknowledging them and she’s going to let herself act on them. It was a look of someone who was sinking under. This is yet another reason why Never Let Me Go was such a perfect song to play during this kiss.

Even if Elena wasn’t consciously aware that she was giving in to her feelings and accepting her love for him for just a moment, something still came over her. You can see it all in her face before she turns around, in the way she rushes toward him as if she can’t reach him fast enough—she desperately needed to kiss him in that moment no matter what that meant. She just needed to do it because she was overcome with an onslaught of emotion. And the way she reacted and responded to the kiss was not something you do with someone you have no feelings for, not something you do with a kiss that’s just a test of your feelings. She kissed him like she’d been hungry for him for years, like she wanted to eat him whole. I mean, her face practically collapsed when his mouth went down to her neck and her boob. And when she pushed him away for a second and stared at him, there was such a fierce passion in the way she looked at him. There was so much fire on her face. She needed him, wanted him more than she’d ever needed or wanted anyone else. She needed him so much she couldn’t breathe.

And my favorite moment in the entire kiss is when the camera zooms in to a close-up of her and Damon’s face, and they’re just staring at each other, and Damon looks blown away and awe-struck and Elena’s eyes are taking in Damon’s face as if he’s the most beautiful and fascinating thing she’s ever seen. It’s such a beautiful moment, and no uncertain words Elena says or denying thoughts she thinks can erase the love written all over her face in this moment.

And then after Never Let Me Go stops playing and they’re continuing to make out, Elena’s gasping and squeezing Damon to her as if she can make him a part of her, as if she wants them to mold together. There’s nothing platonic about that. There was nothing platonic or uncertain about the way she rushed toward him before, about the way she clasped him to her and held on to him. There was nothing platonic about the way she was gazing at him in bed before. If she didn’t have feelings for him, she wouldn’t have started breathing hard and gotten up when he held her hand. She wouldn’t have had to leave. She would have been fine with it and wouldn’t have gotten riled up over it. But just a simple, tiny, nearly insignificant touch from Damon made her feel so much, made her go into a frenzy, made her heart start hammering and her skin start to sweat. Just a tiny brush of skin made her want him, made her need to touch him, and she couldn’t let herself do that, so she had to leave.

I love the small, helpless shake of her head when Damon says “Why not?” That little head shake is saying “I don’t know why not, Damon, I really don’t know,” almost like she’s arguing with herself about why she’s fighting her feelings for him.

On the other hand, it’s almost like she kissed him as an answer to his question of “Why not,” of “Why can’t I hold your hand, why can’t I be close to you.” It’s like her kiss was saying “Because of this, Damon. Because I love you.”

I only now realize how perfect it is that “for a sinner like me” is a lyric that plays while Elena kisses Damon in 3x19. She really does think it’s a sin to love Stefan’s brother after being with Stefan for so long, and she feels that it’s wrong to love both of them. Elena is the kind of person who always wants to be good, to be moral, and she thinks that loving Damon takes that away from her and so of course she’s terrified of it and unwilling to face it or admit it. But this also shows how 3x19 was a huge, huge change in the path for Delena. It takes everything an entirely new course, and it brings in something we never had before. The fact that Elena was trying to figure out if she has feelings for Damon—or rather, trying to lower her denial about it—means she was willing to start thinking of her love for him as not a sin, but a possibility. Something okay. She’s never done that before this episode.

In 3x11, she told Damon “It’s not right,” but now in this episode she’s saying Maybe it could be right if you can be better, if I can get rid of my denial. Just the fact that she’s willing to question whether she loves him or not is such a huge improvement, such a change, when before she wouldn’t even consider the possibility that she loved him because she thought it was so wrong. It shows that Elena has changed so much.

I think the writers believe that when you love someone, you don’t need to apologize to them. It explains why Stefan never made it up to Elena or even apologized for the bridge incident, and why Elena never apologized to Damon for her “Maybe that’s the problem” comment. I don’t agree with this concept (that love means never having to say sorry—I think that no matter what, you still have to apologize for the things you’ve done wrong and earn your loved one’s forgiveness rather than just automatically getting it), but this could be why they haven’t made Damon, Elena, and Stefan apologize to each other lately. I can accept the fact that they’re trying to say That’s what love is, it’s bigger than apologies, you never stay mad at them no matter what they do and you forgive them without an apology no matter what they do, I can see that and it makes me less upset about both lack of apology instances.

Although I also think that the writers didn’t make Stefan earn Elena’s forgiveness for the bridge incident, and made Elena forgive him right away and way too quickly, because they wanted to show that for Elena, forgetting what Stefan did and forgiving him so she can go back to him is the safe and easy thing to do, and how with Damon, it matters more, so it always takes her much, much longer to forgive him, far after he earns it. You always stay mad at the people you care most about.

Things that still bother me about 3x19

  • Elena tells Alaric that they’re going to Denver because they want to pick Jeremy up and bring him back, but the first thing they talk to Jeremy about when they get there is how he needs to help them locate who sired Rose. Why did they never ask him if he wanted to come home, or why didn’t they bring up coming home at all? It was just generally assumed by all parties, including Jeremy, that he’d be coming home with them as if this wasn’t anything big or new and he hadn’t been living in Denver for however many weeks long.
  • Why are Elena and Damon sleeping in the same bed, rather than Elena and Jeremy sleeping in the same bed? It makes more sense for Elena to share a bed with her brother than with Damon.
  • Why wasn’t the cave the first place everyone looked for the stake that Alaric’s alter ego hid, before they tortured it out of Evilric? They know that it’s the one place that vampires can’t go. It’s a good hiding place and an extremely obvious one. Why didn’t they check? Especially since they themselves hid Ester’s coffin there when they didn’t want Klaus to be able to get it. You know for people who fight brilliant-minded vampires all the time, the gang in Mystic Falls ain’t all that smart.
  • Once Stefan got the location of the stake out of Evilric, why did he let Evilric go to the stake to get it himself? Obviously they can’t trust Evilric. Something was bound to go wrong. They should have sent Elena or someone else to get it so that there was a guarantee that they’d get the stake.
  • Are we ever going to find out why Alaric’s ring only half-worked for a while (it brought him back to life but didn’t heal the injuries that killed him) and then seemed to be perfectly fine and working back to normal after? Or is that an untied plot point that the writers forgot about? This really needs to be explained. They writers seem to be getting a bit careless.
  • Ester’s story about how she was there with Alaric every time he died would make sense if not for Samantha in 1912. Since Samantha has the same story as Alaric, and did the same things as him, then it should be that Ester came to her every time she died, too, and that’s why she developed a homicidal alternate personality just like Alaric. But this doesn’t fit, because back in the 1900s, the council was actually doing their job (we have no reason to assume otherwise, since in the 1860s they were still doing their job fiercely and none of their beliefs or policies changed until the present time). They killed vampires whenever they found out about them and they weren’t friends with vampires like the council members in present time are. So Samantha would have no reason to kill them and no reason to develop this alter ego in the first place. There are so many holes in her story and I really wish the writers would patch them up and explain a few things, like maybe give her a similar or different reason than Alaric for her to hate vampires and the council so strongly that she’d develop an alternate personality and kill them.
  • Where is Jeremy’s dog
  • No seriously but like why didn’t they take him home with them did Jeremy really abandon his pet which he just recently got
  • Like seriously Jeremy that’s being a bad pet owner Jeremy you can’t do that that’s just cruel
  • Like really what happened to Jeremy’s dog

It’s amazing that Delena has had four kisses and every single one of them has been like a first kiss. The first two (Damon force-kissing her in her room in 2x01 and Elena barely brushing his lips when he was dying in 2x22) don’t really count as real kisses, and then there was the first “real” kiss on the porch in 3x10. But then things went back to normal between them and they also got mad at each other and stayed that way for for the next quarter of the season, so the kiss on the motel balcony in 3x19 was also like a first kiss. Then they’re mad at each other again from their fight after and Elena thinks the kiss was nothing more than a test and is still in denial about how she feels about Damon, so the next kiss they have will be another first kiss. It’s genius the way the writers are doing this so that we get five or even more first kisses and we are just as excited with each one. The first kiss of OTPs that have good buildup is such a big thing in shows, and we’re so lucky that we get it five or more times. That’s amazing because you’re never as excited as with the first one. You never anticipate anything more than that—and we still have more first kisses to anticipate before they’re actually together. That’s one of the reasons I’m glad Delena has taken so absurdly long to even come close to getting together.　

Delena’s 3x19 fight breaks my heart every time, but the more I rewatch it, the more I see how incredible it is. It’s such a skillfully crafted, outstanding scene and there’s so much going on emotionally, so many different things at play under the surface, it’s amazing. How Damon figures out what she’s been doing during the trip without her needing to tell him, how he gets right under her skin and knows what she’s thinking like he always does, he can always read her, and the way he says “Am I wrong?” twice, and the way the second time it’s louder and angrier and fiercer, and how you can hear the pain laced around his words, the desperation at the edge of his voice, and Elena’s face is falling apart because she doesn’t want this, this is the last thing she wants but she doesn’t know how to stop it, and then the “What if I didn’t? What if there was no bump?” and you can see it all on Elena’s face, you can see her face practically scream that if there was no bump, if he never lashed out, they’d already be together, and then how Damon could have relented and given in and dropped the fight there, he could have gone soft and backed down, but instead he switches back to the offensive and tells her she needs to make the decision by herself without his help and the entire thing is so beautiful, it’s a fight and it’s beautiful and it really works, it works so well.

What TVD Says About the Power and Beauty of Humanity

It’s fascinating that in all the centuries of living that the Originals have had, it is humans above everything that have affected them the most. This is proven with every single Original vampire except for Kol; we don’t know enough about him to know if this also applies to him.

Let’s start with Klaus. We know that for centuries and centuries he’s been unwilling to let his humanity in, ignoring it completely, at least as far back as the late 1400s, when the ordeal with Katherine and the attempted sacrifice happened. Elijah tried to remind him how he used to care and that he could care again in one of the 1400s flashbacks, but Klaus waves him off and doesn’t budge. He’s been searching for a way to break his hybrid curse for so long that he hasn’t had time or interest to hang around humans.

And then he restores his house in Mystic Falls and decides to stay there a while. It’s the first time he’s making an attempt to settle down somewhere, even if he doesn’t plan to stay for long, and so it’s the first time he really has genuine interactions with humans, rather than the usual predator-prey interactions (Katherine doesn’t count as a genuine interaction, because he only saw her as his “prey,” his means for the sacrifice ritual, and didn’t consider her as anything more than that). So then he meets Caroline. Just another human being, another part of the group he lumps together as “prey.” And at first, that’s all he sees her as—just another part of the town that he might have to go on a killing spree through if that’s how he sees fit.

And then she’s bitten by one of his hybrids and he comes to her side, most likely to see how he can use her weakness for his gain. She’s still his prey, just a mere, pathetic human. But something changes when he sees her lying helpless in her bed, when he starts to talk to her. He sees her. He realizes that she’s more than just prey, more than a meaningless human. She’s very much as real and alive as he is. He sees himself in her in that conversation—he sees that she harbors fears that he has felt, and maybe still feels, about death and life and even being a vampire. He listens to her and in this beautiful moment something deep inside him goes My God, there’s someone like me, and it’s this huge startling rush of relief and awe. It’s his first real, genuine interaction with a human and it’s the first time his humanity, his real self, pokes its head out of the heavy black swamp of his vampire self that his insides have molded into. 

And then he starts falling for her, perhaps because of the pure and fascinating relation to someone else that he experienced in that moment, something he’s never felt in his vampire existence, or perhaps because he liked what he saw in her personality. And it’s not just that. Caroline actually listened to him, something that the only companion he has ever known—Rebekah—doesn’t do. Caroline gave Klaus her time even if she was annoyed during most of it, and she treated him like he was a real person despite that he’d killed so many people. She treated him like a human, and he’s never been treated like one since he was still human—and he fell for her. Klaus, the ruthless, unfeeling, cold-hearted, mindless killer, feels something for someone else. But not just someone. A human. A member of a species that he had generalized as inferior, a species he had deemed nothing more than playthings, or prey, or servants, or whatever else he wanted. For the first time since before he was a vampire, his humanity is coming back and he’s feeling things he was never able to feel. And it’s all because of Caroline, a single human.

Rebekah is another example. When we first meet her, she seems to be along the same wavelength as her brother—cold, heartless psychotic killer who has no humanity. At the beginning, Elena tries to talk reason into her, just as she tries with every single unreasonable villain in the show (hey, at least it worked with Damon in season one), and of course Rebekah laughs her attempts off. Then, slowly, we start to see the real Rebekah, the scared teenage girl beneath the hard ice of the cold, murderous surface, but she hasn’t emerged yet. The real Rebekah wants to go to high school dances (or rather, actually be conscious during one of them) and find love and be loved and maybe even have a human life, but she won’t let that piece of herself, that beautiful piece, show. Not until Matt comes into the picture. 

Just like Caroline, Matt is no extraordinary human (and when I say that, I am indicating their ordinary status in Rebekah’s and Klaus’s mind, as part of the group they generalize as weak and pathetic; I’m not saying anything about Caroline or Matt’s personalities). The only thing that made him different is that he reached out to Rebekah. He showed her that he cared, even if it was only a tiny, minuscule amount. He’s such a kind and generous person that he couldn’t help but give her a little bit of that kindness, and she lapped it up like it was her first sip of water at the end of a long desert journey, clung to it as though it were the first thing she’d received in centuries. And it was. Matt touched her, broke through all that ice, just by talking to her and by doing a nice gesture as simple as giving her his jacket when she was cold. The real Rebekah, her humanity, begins to come through in a way that we’ve never seen before, and again, it’s all due to a human.

Finn is less of an impressive example since we don’t know his full story or very much about his past, but he still fits into this pattern. We do know that he killed a lot in his years, most likely just as much as his siblings. And we know that he didn’t fall in love, at least not enough to want to stay with someone forever, until he met Sage. Another human. He considered her to be the love of his life, and he felt for her so much that he turned her so he’d never have to lose her. It was the impact of a human that finally got to him, that changed him when (I think it’s safe to assume that) nothing else did.

And Elijah. He is the greatest example of them all (or maybe he’s on an equal level with Klaus’s scenario). Even when we first saw him as an Original in the flashbacks from the late 1400s, he was struggling with the battle between his humanity and his vampire side. He was willing to do what Klaus wanted him to, willing to kill, and yet in an insane way, he still had morals. He didn’t want to kill Katherine when he found that there was another way for the sacrifice to happen with her life staying intact. And then there’s the whole event of Katherine.

Like all the other situations, it’s another human. A smart, inquisitive human with a lust for life and a wild side. She reaches out to him and touches him, connects with him, affects him. And Elijah, who not only has buried his humanity but also has developed a strong belief that he does not believe in love, falls for her. He cares for her and feels love. The impact of a human managed to find his buried self and chip away at an aversion to love in which he believed strongly.

But it doesn’t end there. Fast forward to the 21st century, and when we see Elijah again he has managed to shove his humanity back down, and he’s back to killing and threatening and helping Klaus. (Yes, he may be secretly planning to kill his brother, but he’s back to seeing humans as nothing but tools again, as the rest of his siblings do). At first, when he meets Elena, he sees her in the same generalized, inferior way he sees all humans. (Yes, technically she’s a doppelganger which is considered a supernatural being, but she’s still mostly human, and if we’ve dividing up specie like this then she definitely falls under the human category). But slowly, she begins to affect him. He sees more in her—he sees honor, and kindness, and compassion, and most importantly he sees himself, just like Klaus saw himself in Caroline. There are things in Elena that Elijah relates to and recognizes in himself, and I think that above all is what made Elijah care about her, however much or little he does, what made Elijah allow his humanity to float back up and reside with his thoughts and actions. It’s what made Elijah change, and care. It’s what made Elijah feel. A mere human brought Elijah back to himself, someone he hadn’t been in true contact with since before he became a vampire.

We’ve seen it again and again, and we continue to see it in every episode. With all the immense power and strength that the Originals have, with all the maliciousness that is supposed to inhabit every part of their personality, humans are constantly able to tear all of it down, either with love or by caring or just by reaching out, just by making them feel. Humans can cancel out the nature of the Original vampires’ very existence by making them care.

The story of the Originals and how they are so deeply and drastically affected by humans—along with how almost every single normal vampire on the show has been changed or brought back to their humanity by a human even when they were sure they had turned it off and would never come back to it again—shows what TVD is always saying: That nothing can rival the power and purity of humanity. That nothing compares to this species. That humans are the ones who have the most power, rather than vampires or any other supernatural creature. That to be human is a beautiful thing. And that’s why I will always love this show. That’s one of the biggest reasons why it will always remain on the subconscious list of my favorites, my subconscious tally of beautiful things.

Katherine said it all. Her quote from 3x09 holds a piece of the heart of the show, one of TVD’s purest and most resonant messages (alongside the selflessness, timelessness, and limitlessness of love): “Humanity is a vampire’s greatest weakness. No matter how easy it is to turn it off, it keeps trying to fight its way back in.”

I really want the writers to give Matt and Rebekah a shot at being a couple. When the possibility was first introduced, I didn’t think it would be a good idea, but after the scene they had in Matt’s car in 3x19, I think they would really work. Matt is such a good, kind, genuine person and that’s what Rebekah needs after everything she’s been through. And something comes out of Rebekah when she’s with Matt that doesn’t come out any other time (although a hint of it was there when she was talking with Elena in 3x09 while getting ready for homecoming, before Elena stabbed her). Underneath the psycho bitch that the vampire in her makes her (though it is a very awesome, badass psycho bitch), she’s just a girl who wants to be accepted and wants love, who never receives it. Underneath everything, she’s just as soft and gentle and warm-hearted as Matt, and that girl was starting to come out when she was with Matt after he drove her home. Even if they didn’t last for a long time, they’d be fascinating and interesting together. I mean, I think Stefan and Rebekah need to get back together at some point in a future season and have a relationship with both of their human sides this time, and I really want Stebekah to be endgame, but Matt and Rebekah should definitely get a chance because they could end up creating something beautiful.

The Phenomenal and Breathtaking Way Damon Salvatore Loves

“No matter what I go through to get her back—fighting my blood lust, trying to gain control of my life again—none of that matters if she has feelings for somebody else.” -Stefan, Heart of Darkness (3x19)

Here, Stefan is basically saying that he can’t be with Elena if she loves someone else. When he said this, I couldn’t help thinking of how Damon has been willing to be with Elena no matter if she has feelings for five thousand someone elses (aka Stefan). In 3x10 he kissed her, knowing full well that she was still in love with Stefan, and in 3x11 his “It’s right. Just not right now” shows that he’ll always be waiting for her, and that he’ll start a relationship with her whenever she’s ready, even if she still has feelings for Stefan.

That’s the difference between Stefan and Damon. Damon will love her unconditionally, while Stefan can’t handle being in a relationship with her if he knows she’s not entirely his. For Damon, even having a tiny piece of Elena would be enough. More than enough. That’s what’s so beautiful about the way Damon loves. He gives everything he has, every bit of himself—and then some—for even the slightest sliver of someone in return. His love is selfless; he gives, so much, without caring how much he receives, without taking or asking for anything at all. He knew that Katherine loved Stefan when he was with her in 1864, and of course he knew that she was sleeping with the both of them, but he didn’t care if he had to share her feelings and her attention—all that mattered was that he had a part of her.

It wasn’t the same for Stefan. He said it himself to Katherine: “I want you all to myself.” Just having a little bit of her wasn’t enough for him; he couldn’t stand not having her love wholly and solely for himself, and he’s the same way with Elena now. For Damon, it never matters if the women he loves love other people too, as long as they love him or even just care for him.

That’s one of the things I see as proof that when Damon loves, he loves so much more than his brother does. And this is also proven by the fact that Stefan freaked out when he discovered Katherine was a vampire and didn’t want anything to do with her, couldn’t see the person he had been in love with, and Katherine had to compel him to keep him with her—but Damon didn’t care when he found out and still saw the woman he loved underneath the vampire, even though this was a boy who was raised to believe that all vampires are demons and can’t be trusted. He stripped away his beliefs, tossed aside the prejudices and hatred for vampires that his father had been drilling into him because his love was so strong. It’s always so strong.

Stefan’squote at the beginning of this post also shows that Stefan thinks what he’s been going through for Elena—getting over his blood binge, making himself feel everything again, forgetting about his desire for revenge against Klaus—is a lot. But Damon has done so much more. Damon changed the entire personality he had constructed for himself (the Damon that was introduced to us in season one) for Elena, has fought against himself to find his humanity again for her—and it wasn’t even for a chance to be in a relationship with her, but for the chance to be her friend, for her to see him as a person. Damon went through so much more for three seasons just to develop a bond with Elena, not caring that (in his eyes) he probably has no chance to be with Elena in the way he wants.

He turned everything he knew upside down and changed who he was even though it seemed that being with Elena would never happen, even though it would probably be to no avail, because he loved her that much. Stefan didn’t go through as much and he knew he always had a chance with Elena, unlike Damon who did the things he did even though he knew it was most likely all for nothing. It isn’t fair for Damon, who does just as much—more—than Stefan for nothing, for no chances with Elena, but it also shows how beautiful and overwhelming and endless his love is.

When Damon Salvatore loves someone, he loves more strongly and passionately and fiercely and unconditionally and selflessly with more of himself and just more than anyone else has ever loved and ever will love. And that by itself is one of the things that makes his character—and this show—so breathtakingly beautiful.

Sometimes my breath is taken away when I think about how Damon could have any woman he wanted in the entire world and yet the woman he wants is Elena. It still astounds me and makes me feel giddy all over. And in the 3x19 kiss? The way he reacted and responded to it? She was doing all that to him. He’s kissed so many women and yet none of them made him feel what Elena made him feel in that kiss. I don’t think I’ll ever get over this, no matter how many more seasons in which we see Damon loving Elena. For me, Damon’s love for Elena will always be the greatest and most beautiful thing about the show.

Dear Adam Wright,

ezriasexonadesk:

Kay, before you read my “rant” you should read this article.

“For those keeping track, Ezra was just fired from his teaching job for sleeping with his 17-year-old student (Aria).” Not only is this completely inaccurate information, but it seems as if you haven’t been keeping track much yourself for someone who professionally writes articles about it. Firstly, Ezra did not get fired for sleeping with his student. a) Aria isn’t even his student anymore so their relationship is completely legal. (the age of consent in Pennsylvania is 16, Aria is 17.) b) He got fired before he slept with her, because his course was not being offered anymore.

“So what does he do? Joins her at a dance, and publicly kisses her. Meaning, no one is punching this guy in the face for banging the UNDERRAGED GIRL.” Yes, he joins her at a dance. They hug, they dance, they kiss. Just like any other normal legal couple. There is nothing legally, and for most people, not even morally wrong with this. Nobody feels the need to question this probably due to the fact that Ezra Fitz hasn’t taught at Rosewood high school for well over two months and when he did teach there he was only there for two months, not leaving much room for the students to really know him at all. Also, considering it was a dark room and Ezra does not look much older than Aria, most people wouldn’t care to make a glance. I’m sure that if they did, since their faces were pressed together (haha) nobody would have recognized them anyways. And for the most part, everyone important to Aria that could question this relationship already knows. Her friends and parents. The rest of them could probably care less if they saw anyways. And as for the punching, that has already happened once! (See Through Many Dangers, Toils, and Snares, 2x14) Ezra Fitz has in fact been punched for his inappropriate relationship.

“Since the series premiered, I’ve always been vocal about how damaging and wrong this storyline is. I think it glorifies a teacher/student relationship that’s borderline statutory rape.” It doesn’t glorify teacher/student relationships at all. Us, the viewers, have sat through every episode watching the consequences and dangers of the relationship. We’ve seen what she’s gone through telling her parents and friends, and the writer have fortunately kept us very well educated on the legal consequences as well. We know.

“The creator of the series has justified this by saying “they are soulmates” and “Aria is mature for her age”.  Seriously? I’m pretty sure child-rapists have used the same lines. But the most damning proof of how damaging this storyline is comes right out the mouths of PLL fans. How many young girls who have Tweeted “I wish I had a teacher like Ezra.” Good job!” I can’t argue against the unrealistic ways of the show, I do agree that Ezra and Aria are soul-mates. They care for each other deeply, have a lot in common and while their relationship is wrong in they eyes of most people, if you actually pay attention to the show, you see the struggles they go through to make their relationship work. Yes, it was a secret. Yes, it was illegal at one time, but you calling their relationship rape is beyond false. You can’t rape the willing. Also, I am young, I do support Ezra and Aria, and yes, I have probably tweeted that I wish I had a teacher like Ezra but I wouldn’t actually do anything about it, and I’m sure nobody else who has said that would. Women are suckers for romance and I’m sure that’s what draws us to Ezria, not the actual student/teacher aspect. Aria and Ezra did not meet in the classroom. It’s a rare relationship, and most teachers that would do that are perverts. But you can’t possibly argue that Ezra Fitz is a bad guy because he isn’t. He’s educated and a morally good human being. Throughout the course of Ezra and Aria’s relationship, Ezra has never forced her to stay. Leaving was always an option for her and she did leave a few times. She always came back because they love each other. Aria is very mature for her age and to quote Ezra “I invited you here because I don’t see you as a child.” When they met, Ezra genuinely thought that Aria was older than she is.

You should research your facts and pay attention to the show if you’re going to write articles about it. Thanks for making sure that 50% of the Pretty Little Liars portion of your article was dedicated to smashing the 4 minutes of Ezria instead of everything else wrong with that episode. It was entertaining and I applaud you (:

Oh my god. Thank you SO much. I was outraged when I read that article, partly at the inaccurate facts and partly at the ridiculous arguments, and you tackled both of those issues spot on. I agree with every word; you were able to articulate the exact thoughts I had while reading the article perfectly. Thank you for this. This post made my entire week.

Source: niceafro

Why Alaric Isn’t the Killer

They’re trying to make us believe he is, but it doesn’t make any sense. 

First of all, in one of the first scenes in Dangerous Liasons (3x14), when Elena and Matt were walking through the hospital talking about Alaric being stabbed, the camera showed a shot of someone watching them through the window of a hospital room. There’s no one else this mysterious figure could be besides the killer—the writers made that obvious with the creepy angle we were getting from that shot and from the eerie sound effect that accompanied it. And Alaric can’t be the figure in that shot. If Alaric was killing people because he was crazy, he wouldn’t stake out his victims like that; he’d have random attacks of insanity, random blackouts, and he’d strike that way. It would likely be impulsive and spur-of-the-moment.

Secondly, when Alaric was stabbed in the episode before Dangerous Liasons (Bringing Out the Dead, 3x13), there was a trail of blood all over the Gilbert house. If Alaric had stabbed himself, he wouldn’t have been able to drag himself that far when he was bleeding to death; he’d most likely collapse a few paces away from where he drove the knife into himself. And it wouldn’t make any sense for him to drag himself across the house instead of just going down once he was stabbed. There had to have been some kind of struggle with someone else. It only makes sense for him to have been attacked. 

Also, what reason would Alaric have for inflicting the knife on himself? He had no way of knowing that Elena would kill him so he could come back to life. If he stabbed himself, for all he knew he’d really be killing himself. What reason would he have for that? Alaric doesn’t remember who attacked him after—so if he did it himself, he’d have been out of his mind while doing it. Being crazy doesn’t make you suicidal.

Another piece that doesn’t fit in with Alaric being the killer is the fact that Elena’s fingerprints are on one of the murder weapons. If I remember correctly, that weapon was stolen from the Gilbert lake house. Yes, Elena came across the weapons in the lake house when she was staying there with Stefan in season two, but she never actually touched them, so it doesn’t explain her fingerprints. Even if I’m wrong in thinking that the weapon with her fingerprints was taken directly from the lake house, it doesn’t make sense for her fingerprints to be there anyway. The only reason they’d be there is if someone wanted to frame Elena for the murders. Alaric wouldn’t frame Elena.

I admit it’s a cool idea, that the people who wear the Gilbert rings for a long time and come back to life many times go insane from it and start killing people. The concept is really awesome—you can only cheat death for so long before you need to “pay him back,” or make up for the extra lives you had by taking someone else’s. Except the only way it would make sense for Alaric to be in this situation is if the killer was just killing anyone randomly. But specifically going after council members, and no one but council members? Alaric would have no reason to do that, especially since he’s on the council himself and thinks the council is important (Yes, he’s not himself if he’s insane, but a feeling like that—that the council matters—is not something that will ever leave your subconscious). That’s not the move of someone who is struggling with death; that’s the calculated, planned, premeditated killings of someone who has a reason to go after the council and particularly wants the members dead.

Yeah, I know that’s what Samantha Gilbert did the last time these type of killings happened in 1912, but it could have been a different case with her. Maybe she had a reason to go after the council members. Or maybe she was forced to do the murders by the person who wants the council gone, the same person who’s doing the killings now. Maybe they used Samantha’s insanity to their advantage and found a way to control it in their favor. It’s very possible.

Meredith’s story about why she shot Alaric doesn’t make sense, either. Why would she have the murder weapons and why would she shoot Alaric? She could just frame him instead without hurting him. And what she said when she found him in All My Children (3x15) was odd—why would she say “You weren’t supposed to see that” if she was good, if she had nothing to do with the murders? That doesn’t sound like something she’d say if she suspected Alaric was going crazy and killing people. There’s definitely something about Meredith and the murders that we don’t know yet.

I also think that having Alaric be the killer because he was insane and didn’t know what he was doing is too easy. It’s such an overused plot device (I can name five other instances in a book or film or show where a character was killing people because they were crazy and didn’t know they were killing people). It’s a cheap plot device, too—the viewers won’t expect it but Alaric wasn’t himself so it wasn’t actually any kind of betrayal. It’s an easy way out to get the shock factor without getting your hands dirty, if that even makes sense—and I trust the writers better than that. They’ve proven to be very clever and to use very good plot devices and I wouldn’t lose faith in them now. No, I’d be very disappointed if the killer was someone doing it by accident and not even knowing they’re doing it like Alaric would have then someone who was doing it for a legitimate motive, because that’s far too easy.

The writers want us to think we’ve finally found out who the killer is, but we haven’t. And besides, they wouldn’t end it that fast when they have the opportunity to drag out the mystery for longer and reveal it after several more episodes, or at the end of the season. Maybe in the season finale it’s revealed in the end as a cliffhanger—that seems like their style. They don’t end the season’s conflicts or allude to the closure of the season’s conflicts until the season finales. 

I just don’t believe they’d end the suspense of who the killer is so soon; it’s not like them. Maybe Katherine comes back in the finale, like some people have predicted (since Julie Plec said this finale will be a combination of first and second season finale, which is Katherine returning and Damon and Elena kissing), and she ends up being the killer, like I’ve been hoping for all along.

You know, I could be doing nothing in this post but coming up with useless, meaningless arguments against Alaric being the killer with no basis simply because I don’t want to destroy the beautiful family that Elena and Alaric have created. And because I don’t want the TVD writers to use cheap and overused plot devices like this one. But nevertheless, for all the reasons stated above and more, I sincerely believe Alaric didn’t do it.