to me both damon's character and damon/elena were at their strongest when he was preying on her and her friends and fucking with her and stefan. the weird need to make him Boyfriend (see also: klaus getting the billionaire boss treatment with caroline) killed damn near all of the enjoyment to me – especially since there wasn't much of a journey to get there writing-wise?? like they just started doing the whole "stefan is just as bad... if not Worse..." thing and made elena more accepting and forgiving
oh absolutely agree. honestly there are still things i love with delena in early season 3 as well when he is very blatantly calling her out for trying to turn him into stefan and he's like "you know who the fuck i am, why do you think you're the exception just because i love you", THATTT was kinda buzzy i wish they'd kept that energy, but lowkey that's the last time they're ever that good. elena's devolution into just giving less and less of a shit about all the violence around her makes me so sad because i would LOVE a corruption arc if it was handled intentionally. once they had her forgive damon for killing her brother we all knew it was over.
lowkey the older i get the more i enjoy stefan though like that is my beloved fucked up neurotic control freak who's so so sooo desperate to be normal and never will be. i do also love damon but he is best when they let him be smart and conniving and selfish, he can be devotional and romantic in this as well (as the show goes on i think the bonnie/damon moments land this better than delena) but i hate when they make him act fucking stupid for the sake of being like, Mr. Elena Gilbert
season 2 klaus we still talk about you.... sorry but i cannot take him as caroline's billionaire boyfriend seriously, i miss my ruthless paranoid 1000yo man who was not content with mere regular degular vampire immortality and needed to be the one most unkillable creature on earth. the only thing klaroline really had going for them was that for klaus, caroline was a proxy for rebekah, because he could not fuck his sister and he so obviously wanted to. (like oh so you've murdered every man she's ever fallen in love with? and you cart her body around in a coffin and call her your favorite? okay) the rebekah/caroline parallels go crazy when you start noticing them which i doubt was intentional and probably came down more to the writers only knowing how to write one type of blonde female character but still.