sorry iām not done i just keep thinking of olivia growing up with that persistent, unshakable doubt that sheās not loved, not really, and how that feeling is born, at least in part, from the fear that sheās inherited some sort of sickness, and how that fear and that feeling is what shapes the trajectory of her life. it affects everything. itās the reason she ends up at svu and by virtue of that, the reason she meets elliot. it's what leads her to this man that will crawl under her skin and make a home for himself in the very core of her being. this man that knows her! that sees her! that gets her! and then loves her unconditionally, in a way sheās never been loved before. this man who takes everything about her as it is and rolls with it ā who loves her not in spite of it all but because of it. this man who looks after her and who does his best to show her that thereās no weight to those lingering doubts that have haunted her her whole life. this man who she'll grow to love back just as much.
everyone loves to talk about livās growth in the post-elliot years but the fact of the matter is that itās elliotās acceptance and support and stubborn, steadfast belief in her that helps her get over that first hurdle and start the journey of self-acceptance, without which a lot of the later developments could never have happened organically. i remember in april last year there was an article or interview where mariska said that elliot was the love of oliviaās life but then followed it by saying he was the āonly man she ever trustedā, and it was the second part that truly knocked me on my ass because, like. so much of why livās feelings for elliot are as intense as they are can be distilled down to that sentiment. sheās never let anyone in the same way she let elliot in and she never will; she doesnāt trust anyone else enough to, even if sheās come close. like they really nailed it with that brian quote. she was never going to bare her soul to him and it is, at least in part, because of the way her relationship with elliot has (canonically!) shaped her ability to be intimate with people. (and there is something to be said here about how the way he left + how he fractured that trust affects all of this as well, but iāve already written thousands of words of fic and meta on that, so iām not getting into it here.)
what i mean is like. itās no wonder he left such a big hole in her life when he vanished. sheās got all this love for him thatās intrinsically tied to her own self-image and thereās no way she can let it go. thereās no where she can put it. itās why i think livās defensiveness when it comes to elliot always hits so hard for me. itās like she takes (sometimes very valid) criticism of him as a personal affront, even if the criticism has nothing to do with her, and i mean. i get it. how can she explain to someone that itās not just that elliot was her partner, itās not just that they were best friends, itās not even that they were ālike a married coupleā, itās that for thirteen years they were quite literally two halves of the same whole. how do you explain that by the end of it everything was all so messy and intertwined and complicated and (disgustingly, gloriously) co-dependent that sometimes it was hard to discern where one person ended and the other one began?
