suddenly had this pop up into my head but we could’ve gotten a very different Katherine. The doppelganger line is genetic, which means the moment she finds out about Elena is when she realizes her daughter survived. Like I can’t not imagine how conflicted she must feel because here is her chance at freedom from Klaus while also looking at the only proof she has of her daughter having grown up. It was probably easy in the beginning, seeing someone who looks just like her basically have the life she wanted made it easy to resent Elena. But I can imagine after a bit it chips away at Katherine, seeing her face caught in a tug of war between the shitty salvatores while Elena’s life falls apart. Katherine’s personality isn’t a drastic 180°, she’s not gonna be super motherly or anything. Maybe she toys with them but focuses on Stefen bc she still has feelings*, but imagine she finds out Damon killed Jeremy bc Elena rejected him and Katherine can’t stop the fury, remembering herself holding her dead little sister because she also told a vampire “no”. Katherine may not love or treat Elena like family but seeing another version of her go through it again might push her over the edge, a weird shift in their relationship as she either protects Elena and kills Damon (how would this affect Stefen and her??? the drama), or she makes it her new mission to shape Elena into a “real Petrova” to make sure she’ll survive and hold on to this tiny little nugget of what could have been with her own daughter Just....the potential *also consider: some dumb, cringey joke to Elena about how she has the same taste in men as her great great great (? more greats) grandma. Like look me in the eye and tell me shit like this wouldn’t happen as she awkwardly “bonds” with her descendant