For your Stelena masterlist, do you think the show was hinting at a Stelena getting back together plot line in Season 5, especially in the earlier episodes? Or were the writers just baiting to keep their audience? I say this as a Stelena fan and I go back and forth between the two.

I've spoken about this before and I'm pretty sure there are posts about this in the masterlist so this isn't going to be a post "for" the masterlist but I just see it as they never stopped writing for Stefan and Elena, which is also why in season 6, they don't spend much time together although I've also spoken about how season 6 weirdly becomes a season obsessed with Stelena.

Stelena is intrinsic to both characters on a narrative level, (that isn't hyperbole and I explain why in both the SE masterlist and the chemistry masterlist) and I don't think the writers knew how to stop writing for them on top of which they didn't know how to actually write for Delena, which is why we don't actually see Damon and Elena together and when season 6 comes around they have to retcon first dates and rain kisses and insert pictures of Nina and Ian together at a photo booth to give them some semblance of an actual relationship while also erasing Elena's memory and building that relationship back up because they don't know what Damon and Elena actually look like together.

I think what they did to keep audience attention was Steferine because it was seeing Paul and Nina together but as a different dynamic and one that Caroline Dries, who had taken the reins that season, liked more than Stelena

Another pairing that has sprung up is Katherine and Stefan. When did that become a reality?

We’ve known since season two since they were first onscreen together one she was established to him as a villain, that their chemistry sizzled. They just had a different feel than Elena and Stefan. There’s an element of danger to it. There’s intrigue. You know it’s a no-fly zone but that’s what makes you want it more. It finally felt earned in this moment because he needed someone and [even though] she’s such a villain, but she opened up and helped Stefan. Even though she has a clear agenda, which is “I want Stefan,” there’s something lovable about her too. I think the audience has embraced Katherine even more this season because she’s been so fun and fallible. It finally worked in this moment. This episode will be about the fallout of when you sleep with the woman who has been your enemy for 150 years.

Moving onto Katherine and Stefan, people seem to love them together. Dries:  I'm so pro-Stefan and Katherine too and I think it's because they have such deep dark history. I mean she really put him through the ringer and yet there is something about Stefan that softens Katherine. So to see a little shade of vulnerability with her, even just a peek, it feels like you're getting so much satisfaction out of it. He's her Achilles heel and that's what I like about the relationship. And they have such great chemistry between them.

it's the same way she describes Damon and Elena:

What is the overarching theme for the fifth season that has helped shape the arcs?

We knew that it would be a season of Elena dating Damon and what does it means to date the bad boy. And if you date Damon, you date all of his baggage too. You have to believe in him and be able to justify his backstory to even love him. A lot of it for Elena is meant to be this gray area: “Am I changing because of my boyfriend or can I find a way to bring the light out of him?” The gray area is what we were trying to go for thematically. We wanted to pay attention to Damon’s backstory and deepen his history on the show. That’s where we introduced Augustine. That also helps us connect him to Elena’s college world.