What are your opinions on Elena/Mikaelson ships (if you have any loll they could totally just not be your cup of tea)?
Personally, I think Elena and Elijah had an insane amount of chemistry on screen (DG even said that Elijah had feelings for Elena and wanted them to end up tgt). American Gothic and the letter he wrote her lives in my head rent-free.
I randomly stumbled upon a elena/klaus fic where Elena said something like "I gave you those golden eyes and I gave you those double fangs so don't think that they will scare me away" and that somehow just hit me so hard that I fell down the rabbit hole loll.
I also often daydream about the relationship Elena would have with Rebekah and Hayley if she ended up in TO and NOLA. No humanity elena could fit in with them as a badass trio.
Would love to hear your thoughts!
I personally don't prefer any of the TVD/TO cross over ships. Like I always say, this doesn't mean you can't ship them, they just aren't my preference.
I won't deny there was a lot of tension between Elijah and Elena. I have also seen the interview of DG talking about it and they honestly made me dislike him a little bit. I was not shocked when he announced his divorce given how he often spoke about the much younger women he worked with in interviews. He often projected his own thoughts on Elijah, even if it didn't fit the character.
EDIT: Clarifying what I mean about DG here. Not that he was disrespectful to his costars, rather I felt him speaking about being attracted to them as disrespectful to his wife.
I personally don't think Elijah was into Elena romantically, rather saw her as a doppelganger he could finally save. I don't particularly like the idea of a character being romantically invovled with ancestors. Elijah would have been around Tatia's child, and then romantically invovled with those children's descendants. It's just weird to me. At least with Elena, Stefan and Damon didn't even know Nadia existed until later. I know it's petty, but it's just weird to me. Maybe it's just because I've been writing about Elijah's involvement with Tatia's kid, but I can't shake it. Katherine was enough, Elijah being invovled with three doppelgangers is far too much for me.
I digress. I like to think Elijah isn't into "younger women." I know it's a joke, but Elena was an actual child when he met her, only 17 years old. Only a year or two older than Davina, who Elijah called a child. To me, Elijah saw her as a helpless teenager who's life was in jeopardy by his family. He had a third chance to save a doppelganger and he didn't want to let her down. But because of family, he did. Hence the letter. I won't deny the episode, American Gothic, and the letter could suggest more. But, on it's own, it also doesn't need to. I talk about Elena/Elijah more here.
I also just can't see Elena invovled with any of the Mikaelsons. Her Aunt died because of them. It may not have been Elijah, but any relationship with Elijah brings you into a relationship with Klaus. I get some people are into it, but it's just not my preference. Klaus tortured Elena. He killed her. He killed Jenna. He killed Bonnie. He nearly killed Caroline twice. He killed Tyler. He killed Carol. Etc. I don't see anyone moving on from that.
And then you have the whole, Elena helped kill Kol and Finn. That should have been a bigger deal. Elijah and Klaus wouldn't forgive that. But especially Rebekah. And lord only knows what Freya would do to Elena if she found out.
I also can't see Rebekah and Hayley in TO being friends with Elena. Humanity or not. With her humanity, Rebekah and Hayley would either be calling Elena out for judging them for their actions and call her a hypocrite. Or just be generally annoyed by her "good girl" act. Elena was not so different than Hayley or even Rebekah, willing to kill thousands of vampires through Kol, just to become human again. But she held herself out as if she was better than them. She could justify killing when it suited her just as the Mikaelsons did. No, they aren't exactly the same, but Rebekah and Hayley would call her out on that. Also, Rebekah killed her. Elena never really moved on from it.
Without her humanity, she may fit in. But the Mikaelsons would grow annoyed with her. Especially around Hope. Hayley would not let her anywhere near Hope without her humanity. The Mikaelsons were pretending to become better people, having a no humanity Elena around would almost be laughable because even actively trying to become a better person, they were still infinitely worse than Elena without her humanity.
The only person I would like to see Elena interact with would be Cami. Elena needs an incredible amount of therapy. Cami would have judged any of the Mikaelsons for what they did to the teenagers and would have encouraged Elena to run away from all of the vampires in her life.
This is why I just don't like TVD/TO ships. It requries the TVD character to become a much worse person. Like I said, I'll never tell people they can't ship it, but I just prefer my ships to bring out good aspects in each other.
Thanks for the ask!