So, I decided to change this story because I wasn't completely happy with it. This is somewhat an alternate version of my other story 'Misplaced', reason why the prologue of this story is basically the same as the prologue for 'Misplaced'.
This story is about a self-insert who makes a wish and becomes the doppelgänger, taking Elena's place and taking what should have been Elena's life. She's technically the twin sister of Elena Gilbert, but Elena was never born (she died in the womb and only Evelyn was born).
Basically, in this story, I'm going with the assumption that two human Petrova doppelgängers can't exist at the same time. Evie makes her wish, wishing she was the doppelgänger. She's therefore reborn as Evelyn Gilbert (she looks like Nina Dobrev, of course). But that's the thing, only Evelyn is born because, otherwise, both Elena and Evelyn would have being born as the doppelgängers. So, when Evelyn and Elena were still in the womb, nature intervened, allowing only one to be born and not both of them. So, Evelyn was born (due to her wish), instead of Elena. But the shadow of Elena is still very much present in Evelyn's life (and you'll know what I mean by that pretty much from next chapter). Hence the title 'The Other Gilbert Twin'.
Evelyn is therefore the one who meets Damon the night her parents die, and the one Stefan saves during the accident.
Evelyn won't remember who she used to be. As far as she knows, she's always been Evelyn Gilbert. Also, this story will be Stefan/Evelyn at the beginning but Evelyn will break up with him (as Elena should have done in canon in my opinion) when she finds out about Stefan lying to her about Katherine and stalking her for an entire summer. This story is about Damon/Evelyn, which is the endgame couple, but it will be slow-burn. It will take a while for them to get together, but once Evelyn breaks up with Stefan in the 1x11 episode, she won't go back to him.
Hope you like this new version, tell me what you think!
Prologue
November 23, 2022
Evelyn had just landed in Richmond and was now driving to Norfolk to visit her great-aunt as was tradition for them to spend Thanksgiving together. It was raining heavily that night and it was late, much later than she would have preferred. She had driven through this road many times so she wasn't extremely worried, but the weather and the late hour made her a little uneasy.
She had spent the entire flight watching old episodes of 'The Vampire Diaries' because, even if the show had been over for years, she would never be completely over how much she loved Damon Salvatore and Delena together.
It was ironic because, before the show was even on, she had read the first three books in the series, and she had not been a fan of Damon. She had loved Stefan instead, and she had been rooting for him and Elena. But the show had changed all that. Stelena in the books was so much better, there was no comparison. But that was because both Stefan and Elena in the books were very different people. And Damon as well.
In the books Damon was portrayed as selfish and cruel – which was the same as the show, in the beginning – but there wasn't enough dept in him to truly catch her attention. Maybe it was because she had stopped after the third book and the character would have been more flushed out the more the story would progress, but she didn't continue because, once the TV show started, she was hooked.
It took a few episodes for her to really get into it but once she did, she became obsessed. By the time the Georgia episode aired, she was firmly in the Team Damon category. Moreover, she was also of the idea that, because of the way in which they had been written, Stefan and Elena would have never lasted, Damon or no Damon.
Stefan would constantly lie to her, or omit the truth, and Elena would justify Stefan's behavior over and over and forgive him all the time, instead of calling him out on his crap like she did with Damon. Moreover, it seemed like they would both pretend to be what they were not, Stefan a human and Elena the sad little girl that lost her parents even when she had moved on from her parents' death and was ready to live again.
Stefan would have held Elena back from being who she really was even if she had never turned into a vampire. Even if Elena had chosen Stefan at the end of season 3, if she had stayed human she would still have come to regret her decision and left Stefan for Damon anyway. They just hadn't fit anymore, not since season 3, and to be honest they didn't really fit before then either.
The only reason Elena had fallen for Stefan was the fact that Stefan had appeared in a moment of her life when she needed someone, someone new and different, someone willing to love her and being there for her in her time of need. But it could have been anyone really. While Elena had fallen in love with Damon for Damon.
Elena Gilbert of the first two seasons was rather annoying, especially when it came to her relationship with Stefan. Evie still loved her, of course. But she definitely wished she had been written a little differently, especially her relationship with Stefan because she would find it more and more horrible, the more she would think about it.
Evie knew that Elena suffered from survivor guilt and was depressed – it was pretty obvious, enough to be suicidal to be honest – so she didn't consider Elena annoying for most of the reasons other people considered her annoying. Yes, she was rather passive in season2, pretty much ready to sacrifice herself without even trying to find another solution, but once again, that was her depression and survivor guilt making the decisions. It was understandable, at least. You could disagree with her actions and still understand where the character was coming from.
No, what Evie really couldn't stand about Elena in the first two seasons (and sometimes in season3 and 4, but those instances became rarer and rarer, thankfully) was how Elena would turn into a 'pick me' girl when it came to Stefan Salvatore, how she would ignore all the warning signs of how wrong and unhealthy was her relationship with Stefan and just kept being obsessed with the idea of him being the perfect boyfriend when he clearly wasn't, simply because she had met him so soon after her parents had died and he had been the reason why she didn't feel as depressed anymore (but her depression, as previously stated, hasn't just magically disappeared, only lessened). So much so, that she would take forever to admit her feelings for Damon, because she felt too guilty at the idea of hurting Stefan in any way – especially because she had also found out that Stefan had been the one who had saved her from the accident – and because she couldn't let go of the fantasy of Stefan being the one for her, even if all signs pointed to them being awful for each other.
Stefan in the first four seasons and partly in the 5th as well, sucked. A lot. He didn't suck as a character, in the sense that he was poorly written, he sucked because he was a horrible person that the show tried to portray as the perfect boyfriend everyone should aspire to have. And with that Evie didn't mean to say that Damon wasn't just as bad as Stefan, because he was. The problem was in how differently these two characters were portrayed even though they had both done terrible things.
Damon's bad actions were painted as bad, rightfully, and a lot of the time he had to try to make up for his mistakes and he would always be forced to deal with the consequences of his actions, even if those consequences came many years after his actions, and Elena herself never cut Damon any slack and she would always call him out on his crap, which was good. It was great, in fact. Damon would also not only say he was sorry – like Stefan – but he would actually show that he was sorry by trying to make up for what he did wrong. That was how Damon changed and evolved as a character and that was great.
The problem came with Stefan. Stefan remained the same character all throughout the seasons. He didn't change at all. He didn't learn from his mistakes. He didn't go through his own character arc like Damon did. He just died at the end without ever learning anything. Not truly. And that was because, instead of doing with him what they did with Damon, every time they had a chance for Stefan to learn something and evolve, they would sweep his bad actions under the rug and never acknowledge them again.
For example, when Elena confronted Stefan about his lies – about him not telling her that she looked like Katherine. Stefan told her about him saving her from the accident and that he had spent four months following her around because he needed to make sure Elena wasn't Katherine – as if Damon didn't manage to figure out that Elena wasn't Katherine with one conversation. And Elena had thanked him – ignoring the fact that Stefan had stalked her for months, and then she had even stopped being angry with him for lying to her, again. And Stefan had immediately taken advantage of the situation by shifting the attention away from his actions and towards the fact that Elena was adopted.
He also lied about him being a Ripper. He lied about Damon following him around and making his life miserable for a century and a half when all the flashbacks had shown that Stefan was actually the one who would seek Damon out and that Damon would actually mind his own business most of the time. Stefan was a compulsive liar, there was no other definition for it, so much so that he had actually started to believe his own lies. The lie about him being the 'good brother', the one about Damon 'trying to destroy his life for 145 years', ignoring the fact that Stefan had been the one who had forced Damon to turn.
Another great example of Stefan's horrible actions being completely ignored was literally the entirety of season 3. Stefan had spent an entire summer leaving a trail bodies all over the States with Klaus, – but that was okay because he did it to save his brother – then he went about treating Elena like crap – but that was okay because he had no humanity at the time.
Stefan did this horrible, unforgivable thing – trying to run Elena off Wickery Bridge where her parents died and she almost died – and then, two episodes later, they are going to a school dance together like nothing had happened, and they never talked about it again. When Damon did this horrible, unforgivable thing – killing Jeremy – Elena had spent basically the entirety of season 2 being angry with him (once again, rightfully so, because it had forced Damon to reevaluate his actions and then learn from his mistakes).
Then, after all this, Stefan returned to be bunny-diet!Stefan, and Elena chose him at the end of season 3, completely ignoring all the things Stefan did before, once again, like nothing ever happened, and she bet that, if Elena hadn't been turned into a vampire – by Stefan's inaction, this time and his 'respecting Elena's choices' thing, yes, her choice to die, and it wasn't even the first time – and being forced to face what was wrong between her and Stefan, – Stefan putting her on a pedestal, basically stopping her from being who she really was – Elena would have still kept being in denial land, not admitting to herself that she was madly and deeply in love with Damon because Stefan was too fragile to face rejection and poor, nice, good, Stefan didn't deserve to be dumped for his brother.
She would have still kept being with Stefan out of guilt and fear of what he would do if he were rejected – like in season 5 when he basically went on a killing spree when Elena told him she was with his brother – making herself, Damon and Stefan as well miserable. All because she was terrified of hurting poor Stefan, when she never had any qualms in breaking Damon's heart over and over again.
Stefan and Elena's relationship was the textbook definition of an emotionally abusive relationship and Stefan was literally the 'fake nice guy' women in real-life were finally protecting themselves from and rejecting as they should. In fact, she couldn't help but notice the similarities between Joe Goldberg from You and Stefan, and she was – unfortunately – not kidding.
And yet, the TV show had done everything they could to send the message that Stefan was absolutely the perfect boyfriend, every girl's dream, and that his and Elena's love was the definition of pure love. Bleah!
Evie couldn't help but think that Elena had fallen into a dangerous pattern when it came to Stefan, and that pattern had started in season 1. It was understandable and even forgivable for Elena to sleep with Stefan and tell him she loved him when Stefan basically manipulated her into it by saying he was leaving town. She was upset because she didn't want him to leave, she had realized she was in love with him, and she thought Stefan had finally decided to be completely honest with her.
But then, after the Georgia episode, and yet again more of Stefan's lies came to the surface, – always because Stefan had no choice but to fess up, not because he had decided on his own volition to be honest with her – Elena forgave him, again. That was the moment when the toxic pattern started. She should have left him right there, but she didn't.
That was what Evie would change about Elena. Her constant denial when it came to Stefan, something that she never went completely over even while she was with Damon. Even while she was with Damon, she still thought of Stefan as the better brother, the good one who didn't deserve to be hurt. How many times had Elena hurt Damon while trying to spare Stefan's feelings? Too many. In season 5 especially.
Evie sometimes wished she could have Elena's life. If she had been the doppelgänger of the story, she would have done things very differently when it came to Stefan and Damon, that was for sure. She would be Evelyn Gilbert. Didn't that sound nice?
Sure, Elena's life as the doppelgänger wasn't easy, far from it, she had died (twice), lost so many people along the way, but in the end, she had gained Damon's love and wasn't that worth everything else? Evie thought so. Though, of course, Evie wouldn't want to remember being anyone other than Evelyn Gilbert; she wouldn't want to remember that the life she would be living as Evelyn Gilbert was, in truth, a TV show. She wouldn't know what was going to happen before it happened. Otherwise, where would be the fun in that?
Evie sighed. If only…
All of a sudden, her thoughts were disturbed by a dog standing in the middle of the road – the poor thing was drenched and probably freezing. Evie swerved to avoid running it over, but it was raining and the asphalt was sleek and slippery from water so she lost control of the car. She screamed when the car ended up overturned in the middle of the road. Her whole body hurt, but the pain didn't last very long because in no time at all, she was losing consciousness.