#like the one scene where stefan says 'it's all ruined' because elena caught him drinking on a human/lying....

[blairwaldcrf]

i definitely need to make a Stefan Salvatore is a control freak gifset because i think people largely underestimate this side of him in favor of calling Caroline the only control freak on the show?

[thevampirediariesdiary]

[1/7] HELLO! so i just had to come here bc i found your blog through your 1x19/1x20 fic on ao3, and i've also been rewatching tvd (very slowly) lately, and trawling your tags to get a fix of delena lol, but there's something i've been thinking about for yearssss but your fic recently made me think of it differently as did your posts, so i would love to hear your opinion properly... so it is confirmed that damon fell in love with elena in 1x19 during the dance, but it was always MY opinion

[2/3] that he didn't KNOW-like, consciously-that he had fallen in love with her, and i’ve often debated with myself about when he could have realised it; i think the easiest answer is that isobel saying “because he’s in love with you” is when he was like Oh Shit because he after that moment DOES become a lot more flirty with her (and in the next episode kisses “her” cheek/lips lol, romantic feelings for sure)… but the way you wrote it in in the 1x19-1x21 posts and the last a/n on your fic makes [3/7] me think that you think he WAS aware he had fallen for her in 1x19? so he was what just not sure how to deal with it? i guess i just have always wondered about this because damon’s behaviour doesn’t seem to indicate he had fallen in love and Knew about it, 1x20 damon and elena are definitely a lot closer but they’re closer because they’re trying to help stefan together so it’s natural for them to be spending a lot more time together. and he goes with alaric with some hope that he can [4/7] find a clue about katherine/he still has katherine on the brain…?1x21 damon has some of the BEST moments imho that support both sides (he knew/he didn’t know yet); he is all Elena you don’t have to see isobel if you don’t want to, we should be in there; and then the threatening of isobel’s life to leave elena alone [5/7] this is so jumbled. i guess i just want to know how you feel about this Very Important question: did he know he had fallen in 1x19 and if so WHY (and if not, was it isobel saying it out loud for the first time that made him realise?). lmfao (also sorry about the many asks…blame tumblr for that.) [6/7] ooh also a follow-up question because i would love to hear it (and bc i just watched rose last night so it’s very fresh in my mind lol): why do you think damon chose to tell elena he loved her at that moment? is it just bc she didn’t have her necklace, so he had the opportunity to do it and then walk away? it’s so romantic to me that if this is true it seems like he was bursting to tell her “i just have to say it once” like it was always on the tip of his tongue??????? [7/7] would he have told her if she had never lost her necklace…probably not, he definitely needed to know he could erase her memory of it lol… ahhh yes would love ur thoughts… anyways, sorry for all these messages again... also just would love you to know how much i love your fic it brings me such joy, i did leave a message on there (most recent one lol) but may as well tell you again it is sooooo good!!! i love how you write them so in character!! 

THANK YOU for this message!!  I’m so glad you enjoyed You’re Still Here!!  and I definitely feel you on the whole “they confirmed that x moment was when so-and-so fell in love….but like…was it?” thing, because my kneejerk response to almost everything I learn from the commentaries is “yeah right”, haha.  BUT once I got over the initial resistance, the moments they name – the MMF dance for Damon and the birthday necklace for Elena – do have a kind of internal consistency, they work.  so yeah, I do think Damon knew he was in love with Elena in 1x19.  the big things for me are his face during the waltz (awed and affectionate), his face when he walks into the room after she drugs Stefan (oddly vulnerable almost), and the line “I’ve had a no good very bad day” (if he hadn’t just figured out that he was in love with a girl he could never have, I honestly don’t know why the day would be that bad haha).  plus, the way he reacts in 1x20 when she says that he’s been punishing Stefan for letting Katherine get caught – it’s really dramatic. it’s very important to Damon, suddenly, that Elena not be deceived about him.

on the other hand, though, the thing with Damon always is, what kind of love? throughout the show, I’m always pretty willing to give the answer, “yeah, Damon’s in love with her”.  but is he only in love with her, or is he also in love with Katherine at the same time?  does he truly love her, or is it a grasping, desperate, clingy love?  does he love her and think they could be together, or is he determined to love her from afar, for her own good?  and at the point of 1x19 I think the answers are still pretty mixed up: he knows he loves her but he also knows she loves Stefan, and so he clings to his love for Katherine as a kind of escape.  he thinks Elena might love him back when he kisses “her” in 1.22, but even then, that brief illusion isn’t enough to push out all of his old feelings for Katherine – Katherine has to totally reject him before he makes his feelings for Elena truly the guiding principle of his life.  finally, he has nothing else left, and so he can focus purely on keeping her safe and tending his love for her.

as for 2x08, I think it’s actually very intrinsically tied up with 1x19!!  before both episodes, Katherine’s been set aside in a significant way, taking her out of the picture.  in both episodes, Damon arrives at the bottom of a staircase to rescue Elena.  but where in 1x19 he knew she didn’t love him, but he still had a place in her life – her friend, her protector, her warrior – in 2x08 there’s no clear place for him.  Stefan’s drinking blood and in control, and Damon lost her trust; she runs down the stairs and into Stefan’s arms, and he’s left alone.  and Damon accepts it!  he feels all over again the devastation of losing Katherine and never having been loved by her or Elena, and still he loves Elena.  even though she hates him (she doesn’t) and he doesn’t deserve her, he finds that her “thank you” is enough for him.  compassion and gratitude from her is worth more than anything from someone else, it’s worth staying for.  he loves her, only her, without any hope of return, and he makes his peace with that.  and I think the only way he knew to let her go is tell her and then to very literally take it away, set her free even from the memory.  

I think he’d never said it before because on the one hand, she didn’t need to be told because she already knew, every villain of the week comments on it, but also because if he held back from saying it then maybe the perfect moment would come along and he’d tell her and it would mean something, she’d say it back.  he can say it now because he knows she’s not gonna say it back, and he’s okay with that. it’s still the deepest truth of his heart, and it deserves to be spoken and heard, even if it’s a hopeless truth.

it’s definitely a difficult scene to interpret, though, because he prefaces the whole thing by saying “this is maybe the most selfish thing I’ve ever said”, but then says that he doesn’t deserve her and erases her memory, which doesn’t seem selfish – and years after the fact when she recovers the memory he calls it selfish again??  which I don’t understand, unless he thought hearing it would cause her pain, which it…doesn’t seem to???  so I tend to just ignore that entire aspect of the scene.  I think this is Damon being unselfish, acknowledging his own capacity for selfishness which ruined everything in 2x01, and then rejecting it. 

this is quite a rambley answer haha.  I hope I answered everything adequately, and I hope it makes sense!