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Name: Zi
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ziriffic
E-Mail: symphony_chosen [at] yahoo.com
IM: aim: bengali sonata
Plurk: N/A
Other Characters: N/A
Character Name: Stefan Salvatore
Series: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Timeline: 5x05, "Monster Ball"
Canon Resource Link: canon | character
Character History: From the time he was born, Stefan had been marked for the supernatural. It didn't seem like it at first, either; as the youngest son of a wealthy, widowed estate owner in Civil War-era Virginia, he had a promising future ahead of him. He would marry a young girl from an upstanding family, study medicine, and assist his older brother Damon with the estate. He and Damon were thicker than thieves, spending hours together instead of fulfilling their duties - and along with their father, they helped found the town of Mystic Falls.
Except that year, in 1864, his family also welcomed an orphan girl, Katherine Pierce, into their home. They believed that Katherine was an innocent orphan girl from Atlanta, cast away in the aftermath of Sherman's March. Stefan and Damon, however, knew otherwise: Katherine was really the centuries-old vampire Katerina Petrova, entangling them both in a complicated relationship.
While Stefan was sympathetic to her plight, he didn't willingly agree with her demands, and he was often compelled (or coerced) into doing what she had asked of him. "It was always Stefan," Katherine might've said, but Stefan wouldn't agree with that assessment. (He didn't ask to fall madly in love with her the way his older brother had.)
As the anti-vampire frenzy grew, Stefan asked his father if vampires were truly as evil as they claimed. While his father had respectfully listened to Stefan, he had also given Stefan vervain (an herb that poisons vampires). When Katherine tried to feed on Stefan, she instead choked on his blood, and the Founders' Council of Mystic Falls punished her by tossing her and 27 other vampires into a burning church, while Stefan - and Damon - were shot to death for sympathizing with vampires.
Thanks to the interference of resident witch Emily Bennett, Stefan and Damon were able to transition into vampires. Returning to his father, Stefan learned that dear ol' Dad had been the one to kill Stefan. His father then attempted to kill him (for real), but Stefan - underestimating his own strength - wounded him instead. Giving into his bloodlust, Stefan accidentally drained his father of blood and life.
On that unhappy note, Stefan leaves Mystic Falls, returning every few decades to check up on his home and descendants. (For all that Stefan craved a "normal human life," he was never destined to obtain it: in 1919, Damon's presence reminds him of Father's death; in the 1970's, Sheila Bennett's presence reminds him of a woman he can never marry; and in 1994, his descendants almost die at Damon's hands.)
Stuck with immortality and powers he never wanted, Stefan's anguish manifests in his inability to control his bloodlust. Namely, he's a Ripper. His desire for human blood can consumes his entire being, and when he's succumbed to the temptation, he drains his prey of blood before dismembering them - and once the guilt overwhelms him, he tries to piece them back together.
In 1912, he switched on the Ripper after trying to feed off a human: instead of drinking blood, he loses control and kills the poor woman. The overwhelming frenzy and guilt would define him for a whole decade, not just with this woman, but with the numerous ones to come.
As he left a trail of bodies in his wake, he also encountered and befriended Klaus Mikaelson, one of the world's very first vampires (or an "Original"). Klaus encouraged Stefan's inner Ripper, watching as Stefan murdered an entire town and earned the nickname "the Ripper of Monterey." In turn, Stefan gained the trust and support of the Original family. They remained only until Klaus's father discovered him: that night, while Klaus fed with his younger sister, he locked Stefan's Ripper memories away, and Stefan's best friend Lexi was left to repair the broken, now-slightly-amnesiac Ripper.
Lexi, Stefan's "sober coach," pulled him back from the brink. Stefan would stick to a diet of woodland creatures, feeding off rabbits and deer to survive. He couldn't afford even a drop of human blood, not after the Ripper had painted an entire town red, and he would religiously adhere to this lifestyle for 80-something years. See, when Stefan was with Lexi, he would remember to lighten up and enjoy his immortality: they would attend Woodstock in the 70's and join Bon Jovi's entourage in the 80's, they would travel all around Europe, and they would remember to savor every moment. (Lexi would, unfortunately, later die at Damon's hands in 2009.)
His path would also intersect with Damon's every few decades, from bar encounters in the 40's to a fateful solar eclipse in 1994, and every time, their relationship would grow more strained. Damon had learned to embrace his inner vampire, while Stefan had learned to shun his inner monster and everything he stood for. They established strict black and white roles: if Damon was the "bad brother," then Stefan would reach for the light and become "the good brother."
By 2009, they had fallen into this comfortable dichotomy: Stefan watched over their family and atoned for his mistakes; Damon would skulk around and do as he pleased. See, Stefan had returned to Mystic Falls in May 2009 to visit his distant nephew, only to watch a car tragically fall over a bridge. He managed to save one of the passengers, a teenage girl who was identical to Katherine Pierce in appearance. Desperately wanting to know her, he returns to Mystic Falls on the first day of school and enrolls in the girl's high school.
Her name is Elena Gilbert, and as it turned out, she was Katherine's doppelganger. After a few mishaps - meeting her outside the men's room, for example - he finally decides to tell her that "[she] wouldn't be sad forever."
Their relationship might've been a normal, human one, had Damon also not returned to Mystic Falls at the same time. Damon wanted to free Katherine from that underground tomb, and Stefan (+ Elena) had reluctantly agreed. Enlisting Emily's descendants, Bonnie & Sheila Bennett, they manage to open the tomb - only to realize that Katherine had never been there.
She had bargained for her freedom, faking her death and ignoring Damon and Stefan for over 145 years. Instead, Sheila had died in vain, and Mystic Falls was now home to 27 other (hungry) vampires. To make matters worse, Mystic Falls' local government was on another anti-vampire frenzy, fully intending on killing every last vampire during a town celebration.
Out of necessity, Stefan feeds off Elena's blood after a particularly rough battle, and he starts hovering between himself and the Ripper. He lied about his cravings, he smuggled blood bags into his home, and he almost - almost! - fed on one of their classmates during a school event.
This is Stefan's struggle: he can't control his desire for human blood, but he also can't hide who he really is. He can't accept himself, either, leaving him at a crossroads - and once again, leaving Elena & Damon to detox him while he pulls himself together.
On Founders' Day, Damon accidentally outs himself as a vampire, and along with other supernaturals, gets trapped inside a burning building. Stefan doesn't hesitate to save him, rushing inside and pulling his brother out (even at a great personal cost). Around this time, he also learns that Katherine's returned to Mystic Falls and that Katherine killed Elena's best friend Caroline.
Stefan makes it a personal priority to walk Caroline through the ropes, teaching her everything he knows about vampirism - and as they bond, they start a lifelong friendship that also becomes Stefan's closest. After losing Lexi, he didn't think that he would find a solid, platonic relationship, and here it was, in the unlikely form of Caroline Forbes.
But back to Katherine: Stefan also finds out that Katherine wants a moonstone to earn her freedom from a centuries-old vampire that had been hunting her.
This centuries-old vampire, of course, turned out to be Klaus, and Klaus had greater plans than acquiring a moonstone: he wanted to unlock his werewolf gene and build a personal army of werewolf-vampire hybrids. Stefan and Damon worked together to save Elena (as Elena's blood proves invaluable to ancient magic and curses), and despite their opposite opinions, they succeeded with one small hitch.
Damon had been bitten by a werewolf, and the only cure was in Klaus's hands. Klaus promised to hand over the cure on one condition: Stefan would be his second-in-command and leave Elena and Damon behind. Stefan accepts, cutting off all contact with his loved ones as he completes Klaus's initiation rites and secretly works on an escape clause.
Of course, Klaus unravels Stefan's scheme and forces Stefan to switch his humanity off, for real this time. Turns out, a Stefan without humanity is the Ripper, and the Ripper will attack Elena if commanded, no matter how much he loves her. This, coupled with his new image of Elena as a giant blood bag to protect, distances himself even further from Elena and Damon.
This Stefan's far more focused on one thing: earning his freedom from Klaus, and maybe getting some revenge in the process. He's so obsessed that he even threatened to drive Elena off Wickery Bridge - after all, Klaus took everything from him. He has nothing left except a revenge scheme, and while Elena may think that he has her, Stefan knows better.
However, this attempt shakes Stefan up, and so he tries to pull himself back from the edge. Damon's interference, however, proves stronger than Elena's love. Stefan's "true love," for better or worse, is his older brother, and Damon's attempts at controlling Stefan's bloodlust worked as well as Lexi's "sober coach" method.
Between this, and Elena admitting that she wouldn't give up on either of them, Stefan comes to a final conclusion: he is the Ripper. It can't control him if he accepts himself, and when Klaus comes back for "his old friend," Stefan admits that now, Klaus can't control him either. He's found his humanity, and it's in the Magic of Friendship TM.
It's this same humanity that forces him to listen to Elena and rescue Matt, when they're both drowning under Wickery Bridge. He didn't agree with the choice (and in fact, he grows to regret it), but he respected Elena's decisions. ("[He was] the perfect boyfriend," Elena would say a whole year later.)
As Elena had Damon's blood in her system, she would transition into a vampire. Stefan does his best to help, and as she undergoes the process, they rekindle their relationship. Unfortunately, Elena was sired to Damon, and her affection grew even stronger for Damon.
Stefan, understandably, has had enough, and he breaks up with Elena. Channeling the grief into action, he focuses on vampire hunters that had rolled into town, as well as on the immortal Silas, who wants to break free from his prison. He also races against other vampires for the CureTM, which would turn any vampire back into a human. Stefan wants the cure for Elena, so that she can live as the mortal she'd always wanted to be (and okay, for himself so that he could be mortal alongside her).
Instead, Elena loses her humanity after Jeremy dies, and to make matters worse, once she's regained it (+ lost that sire bond), she chooses Damon over him. Stefan's legitimately had More than Enough at this point, and once all is said and done with Silas, he decides to take Silas's body to a lake in the quarry.
He'll dump Silas in a safe, toss him, and then drive onto Portland, as he's already had an epic love, but now he needs to let go and move on. One small problem: when the witch who turned Silas into stone died, Silas regained his freedom. Silas tells Stefan how he created the immortality spell - thus creating all vampires - and how nature thus found a balance by creating two doppelgangers. One with Elena's appearance (the Petrova line), and now, the Silas line, with Stefan's appearance. Stefan, like Elena, had been a doppelganger from birth, and Stefan had been doomed for a supernatural life from day one.
Seizing his chance, Silas stabs Stefan and shoves him into the safe, leaving Stefan underwater for a whole summer. During those three months, Stefan hovers precariously between sanity and madness: only visions of Elena (of reuniting with her) convince him to hold onto his humanity. When the safe is opened, neither Damon nor Elena welcome him, and he finds himself on unfamiliar ground without a daylight ring. As he struggles to regain normal ground, he meets an unfamiliar woman who says she'll make him a daylight ring.
She introduces herself as Qetsiyah, noting that Stefan is a doppelganger and re-telling the love story of Silas and Amara (the progenitor of the Petrova line). Silas had been her true love, and Silas had convinced her to make the elixir that granted him immortality. But he betrayed her trust: Silas never intended Qetsiyah to drink the potion with him, as he was madly in love with Amara. It was this betrayal that led Qetsiyah to create the Other Side, separating Silas & Amara for all of eternity (and thus trapping other supernaturals along with Amara).
As Stefan listens, he also notes that for all her talk, she's not actually making the ring. No matter how much he talks, she's made up her mind: she doesn't trust anyone, especially one with Silas's face. It gets worse: Qetsiyah wants to link Stefan's brain with Silas's, but that same spell also coincidentally unlinks Stefan's memories. When Damon and Elena come to greet Stefan, he has no clue who they are, or even why he's in this situation to begin with.
Elena, to her credit, tries to jog Stefan's memories by re-creating their first meeting and a few other firsts. "I'm an amnesiac, not an idiot," Stefan tells her, upon realizing that they had once been boyfriend and girlfriend, and that most of their memories bordered on the romantic.
But the more he learns, the more unimpressed he becomes; yet again, he learns that his girlfriend had chosen his older brother over him, and he learns that they hadn't thought twice about his sudden disappearance over the summer. ("What is the point in being good," he asks one of his victims, as he succumbs to his bloodlust and feeds on one of Caroline's classmates. Stefan sure can't see it, not when everything's been pulled from him.)
So he burns his journals, telling Damon and Elena that he refuses to be the sad, gloomy guy on those pages, and he'll have Caroline calling him every hour because he trusts her (and at this point? He sure doesn't trust Elena OR his brother). When he meets Caroline, right before Bonnie's funeral, he takes care to remind her that he's still around. He may not trust his brother, but he places all of his faith in his friend - and in turn, she's welcome to place hers in him.
In an attempt to move on with his life, Stefan attends a costume party with Caroline and Tyler. Dressing up as James Dean, he once again runs into Qetsiyah, only to not recognize her - and when he gets pulled aside by Damon, his older brother snaps his neck, fully intent on Silas taking his place.
Stefan's pulled at this exact moment, right as he finally recovers from a broken neck and without any real recollection of what happened at that costume party.
Abilities/Special Powers: Stefan is an immortal vampire and a member of Klaus Mikaelson's bloodline. As such, he can utilize the following:
His daylight ring - a large, gaudy lapis lazuli ring enchanted by witches - allows him (and him alone) to walk around in sunlight without burning to a crisp. However, it protects him from daylight alone: he's still vulnerable to fire and magically-charged sunlight.
Additionally, he's not bound by typical vampire weaknesses: he can cross running water; garlic does nothing to him; and he often wears crosses around his neck.
As a vegetarian vampire, Stefan is weaker than those who drink human blood. He heals slower from bruises and injuries; he runs slower; and most importantly, the lingering edge of hunger always remains. He uses caffeine and alcohol to take off the edge. Also, he is severely limited by vervain, a natural herb that poisons his system. (Werewolf bites and a wooden stake to the heart will kill him.)
Finally, Stefan cannot enter someone's home without an open invitation from the owner - and those invitations can only revoke themselves if the owner changes.
Third-Person Sample:
First-Person Sample:
DW username:
zirifficE-Mail: symphony_chosen [at] yahoo.com
IM: aim: bengali sonata
Plurk: N/A
Other Characters: N/A
Character Name: Stefan Salvatore
Series: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Timeline: 5x05, "Monster Ball"
Canon Resource Link: canon | character
Character History: From the time he was born, Stefan had been marked for the supernatural. It didn't seem like it at first, either; as the youngest son of a wealthy, widowed estate owner in Civil War-era Virginia, he had a promising future ahead of him. He would marry a young girl from an upstanding family, study medicine, and assist his older brother Damon with the estate. He and Damon were thicker than thieves, spending hours together instead of fulfilling their duties - and along with their father, they helped found the town of Mystic Falls.
Except that year, in 1864, his family also welcomed an orphan girl, Katherine Pierce, into their home. They believed that Katherine was an innocent orphan girl from Atlanta, cast away in the aftermath of Sherman's March. Stefan and Damon, however, knew otherwise: Katherine was really the centuries-old vampire Katerina Petrova, entangling them both in a complicated relationship.
While Stefan was sympathetic to her plight, he didn't willingly agree with her demands, and he was often compelled (or coerced) into doing what she had asked of him. "It was always Stefan," Katherine might've said, but Stefan wouldn't agree with that assessment. (He didn't ask to fall madly in love with her the way his older brother had.)
As the anti-vampire frenzy grew, Stefan asked his father if vampires were truly as evil as they claimed. While his father had respectfully listened to Stefan, he had also given Stefan vervain (an herb that poisons vampires). When Katherine tried to feed on Stefan, she instead choked on his blood, and the Founders' Council of Mystic Falls punished her by tossing her and 27 other vampires into a burning church, while Stefan - and Damon - were shot to death for sympathizing with vampires.
Thanks to the interference of resident witch Emily Bennett, Stefan and Damon were able to transition into vampires. Returning to his father, Stefan learned that dear ol' Dad had been the one to kill Stefan. His father then attempted to kill him (for real), but Stefan - underestimating his own strength - wounded him instead. Giving into his bloodlust, Stefan accidentally drained his father of blood and life.
On that unhappy note, Stefan leaves Mystic Falls, returning every few decades to check up on his home and descendants. (For all that Stefan craved a "normal human life," he was never destined to obtain it: in 1919, Damon's presence reminds him of Father's death; in the 1970's, Sheila Bennett's presence reminds him of a woman he can never marry; and in 1994, his descendants almost die at Damon's hands.)
Stuck with immortality and powers he never wanted, Stefan's anguish manifests in his inability to control his bloodlust. Namely, he's a Ripper. His desire for human blood can consumes his entire being, and when he's succumbed to the temptation, he drains his prey of blood before dismembering them - and once the guilt overwhelms him, he tries to piece them back together.
In 1912, he switched on the Ripper after trying to feed off a human: instead of drinking blood, he loses control and kills the poor woman. The overwhelming frenzy and guilt would define him for a whole decade, not just with this woman, but with the numerous ones to come.
As he left a trail of bodies in his wake, he also encountered and befriended Klaus Mikaelson, one of the world's very first vampires (or an "Original"). Klaus encouraged Stefan's inner Ripper, watching as Stefan murdered an entire town and earned the nickname "the Ripper of Monterey." In turn, Stefan gained the trust and support of the Original family. They remained only until Klaus's father discovered him: that night, while Klaus fed with his younger sister, he locked Stefan's Ripper memories away, and Stefan's best friend Lexi was left to repair the broken, now-slightly-amnesiac Ripper.
Lexi, Stefan's "sober coach," pulled him back from the brink. Stefan would stick to a diet of woodland creatures, feeding off rabbits and deer to survive. He couldn't afford even a drop of human blood, not after the Ripper had painted an entire town red, and he would religiously adhere to this lifestyle for 80-something years. See, when Stefan was with Lexi, he would remember to lighten up and enjoy his immortality: they would attend Woodstock in the 70's and join Bon Jovi's entourage in the 80's, they would travel all around Europe, and they would remember to savor every moment. (Lexi would, unfortunately, later die at Damon's hands in 2009.)
His path would also intersect with Damon's every few decades, from bar encounters in the 40's to a fateful solar eclipse in 1994, and every time, their relationship would grow more strained. Damon had learned to embrace his inner vampire, while Stefan had learned to shun his inner monster and everything he stood for. They established strict black and white roles: if Damon was the "bad brother," then Stefan would reach for the light and become "the good brother."
By 2009, they had fallen into this comfortable dichotomy: Stefan watched over their family and atoned for his mistakes; Damon would skulk around and do as he pleased. See, Stefan had returned to Mystic Falls in May 2009 to visit his distant nephew, only to watch a car tragically fall over a bridge. He managed to save one of the passengers, a teenage girl who was identical to Katherine Pierce in appearance. Desperately wanting to know her, he returns to Mystic Falls on the first day of school and enrolls in the girl's high school.
Her name is Elena Gilbert, and as it turned out, she was Katherine's doppelganger. After a few mishaps - meeting her outside the men's room, for example - he finally decides to tell her that "[she] wouldn't be sad forever."
Their relationship might've been a normal, human one, had Damon also not returned to Mystic Falls at the same time. Damon wanted to free Katherine from that underground tomb, and Stefan (+ Elena) had reluctantly agreed. Enlisting Emily's descendants, Bonnie & Sheila Bennett, they manage to open the tomb - only to realize that Katherine had never been there.
She had bargained for her freedom, faking her death and ignoring Damon and Stefan for over 145 years. Instead, Sheila had died in vain, and Mystic Falls was now home to 27 other (hungry) vampires. To make matters worse, Mystic Falls' local government was on another anti-vampire frenzy, fully intending on killing every last vampire during a town celebration.
Out of necessity, Stefan feeds off Elena's blood after a particularly rough battle, and he starts hovering between himself and the Ripper. He lied about his cravings, he smuggled blood bags into his home, and he almost - almost! - fed on one of their classmates during a school event.
Stefan: Oh, it was absolutely me. A monster. a predator. That's who I am, Elena.
Elena: That's what the blood makes you.
Stefan: The blood brings out what's inside of me and if you think any differently, then you're an idiot.
This is Stefan's struggle: he can't control his desire for human blood, but he also can't hide who he really is. He can't accept himself, either, leaving him at a crossroads - and once again, leaving Elena & Damon to detox him while he pulls himself together.
On Founders' Day, Damon accidentally outs himself as a vampire, and along with other supernaturals, gets trapped inside a burning building. Stefan doesn't hesitate to save him, rushing inside and pulling his brother out (even at a great personal cost). Around this time, he also learns that Katherine's returned to Mystic Falls and that Katherine killed Elena's best friend Caroline.
Stefan makes it a personal priority to walk Caroline through the ropes, teaching her everything he knows about vampirism - and as they bond, they start a lifelong friendship that also becomes Stefan's closest. After losing Lexi, he didn't think that he would find a solid, platonic relationship, and here it was, in the unlikely form of Caroline Forbes.
But back to Katherine: Stefan also finds out that Katherine wants a moonstone to earn her freedom from a centuries-old vampire that had been hunting her.
This centuries-old vampire, of course, turned out to be Klaus, and Klaus had greater plans than acquiring a moonstone: he wanted to unlock his werewolf gene and build a personal army of werewolf-vampire hybrids. Stefan and Damon worked together to save Elena (as Elena's blood proves invaluable to ancient magic and curses), and despite their opposite opinions, they succeeded with one small hitch.
Damon had been bitten by a werewolf, and the only cure was in Klaus's hands. Klaus promised to hand over the cure on one condition: Stefan would be his second-in-command and leave Elena and Damon behind. Stefan accepts, cutting off all contact with his loved ones as he completes Klaus's initiation rites and secretly works on an escape clause.
Of course, Klaus unravels Stefan's scheme and forces Stefan to switch his humanity off, for real this time. Turns out, a Stefan without humanity is the Ripper, and the Ripper will attack Elena if commanded, no matter how much he loves her. This, coupled with his new image of Elena as a giant blood bag to protect, distances himself even further from Elena and Damon.
This Stefan's far more focused on one thing: earning his freedom from Klaus, and maybe getting some revenge in the process. He's so obsessed that he even threatened to drive Elena off Wickery Bridge - after all, Klaus took everything from him. He has nothing left except a revenge scheme, and while Elena may think that he has her, Stefan knows better.
However, this attempt shakes Stefan up, and so he tries to pull himself back from the edge. Damon's interference, however, proves stronger than Elena's love. Stefan's "true love," for better or worse, is his older brother, and Damon's attempts at controlling Stefan's bloodlust worked as well as Lexi's "sober coach" method.
Between this, and Elena admitting that she wouldn't give up on either of them, Stefan comes to a final conclusion: he is the Ripper. It can't control him if he accepts himself, and when Klaus comes back for "his old friend," Stefan admits that now, Klaus can't control him either. He's found his humanity, and it's in the Magic of Friendship TM.
It's this same humanity that forces him to listen to Elena and rescue Matt, when they're both drowning under Wickery Bridge. He didn't agree with the choice (and in fact, he grows to regret it), but he respected Elena's decisions. ("[He was] the perfect boyfriend," Elena would say a whole year later.)
As Elena had Damon's blood in her system, she would transition into a vampire. Stefan does his best to help, and as she undergoes the process, they rekindle their relationship. Unfortunately, Elena was sired to Damon, and her affection grew even stronger for Damon.
Stefan, understandably, has had enough, and he breaks up with Elena. Channeling the grief into action, he focuses on vampire hunters that had rolled into town, as well as on the immortal Silas, who wants to break free from his prison. He also races against other vampires for the CureTM, which would turn any vampire back into a human. Stefan wants the cure for Elena, so that she can live as the mortal she'd always wanted to be (and okay, for himself so that he could be mortal alongside her).
Instead, Elena loses her humanity after Jeremy dies, and to make matters worse, once she's regained it (+ lost that sire bond), she chooses Damon over him. Stefan's legitimately had More than Enough at this point, and once all is said and done with Silas, he decides to take Silas's body to a lake in the quarry.
He'll dump Silas in a safe, toss him, and then drive onto Portland, as he's already had an epic love, but now he needs to let go and move on. One small problem: when the witch who turned Silas into stone died, Silas regained his freedom. Silas tells Stefan how he created the immortality spell - thus creating all vampires - and how nature thus found a balance by creating two doppelgangers. One with Elena's appearance (the Petrova line), and now, the Silas line, with Stefan's appearance. Stefan, like Elena, had been a doppelganger from birth, and Stefan had been doomed for a supernatural life from day one.
Seizing his chance, Silas stabs Stefan and shoves him into the safe, leaving Stefan underwater for a whole summer. During those three months, Stefan hovers precariously between sanity and madness: only visions of Elena (of reuniting with her) convince him to hold onto his humanity. When the safe is opened, neither Damon nor Elena welcome him, and he finds himself on unfamiliar ground without a daylight ring. As he struggles to regain normal ground, he meets an unfamiliar woman who says she'll make him a daylight ring.
She introduces herself as Qetsiyah, noting that Stefan is a doppelganger and re-telling the love story of Silas and Amara (the progenitor of the Petrova line). Silas had been her true love, and Silas had convinced her to make the elixir that granted him immortality. But he betrayed her trust: Silas never intended Qetsiyah to drink the potion with him, as he was madly in love with Amara. It was this betrayal that led Qetsiyah to create the Other Side, separating Silas & Amara for all of eternity (and thus trapping other supernaturals along with Amara).
As Stefan listens, he also notes that for all her talk, she's not actually making the ring. No matter how much he talks, she's made up her mind: she doesn't trust anyone, especially one with Silas's face. It gets worse: Qetsiyah wants to link Stefan's brain with Silas's, but that same spell also coincidentally unlinks Stefan's memories. When Damon and Elena come to greet Stefan, he has no clue who they are, or even why he's in this situation to begin with.
Elena, to her credit, tries to jog Stefan's memories by re-creating their first meeting and a few other firsts. "I'm an amnesiac, not an idiot," Stefan tells her, upon realizing that they had once been boyfriend and girlfriend, and that most of their memories bordered on the romantic.
But the more he learns, the more unimpressed he becomes; yet again, he learns that his girlfriend had chosen his older brother over him, and he learns that they hadn't thought twice about his sudden disappearance over the summer. ("What is the point in being good," he asks one of his victims, as he succumbs to his bloodlust and feeds on one of Caroline's classmates. Stefan sure can't see it, not when everything's been pulled from him.)
So he burns his journals, telling Damon and Elena that he refuses to be the sad, gloomy guy on those pages, and he'll have Caroline calling him every hour because he trusts her (and at this point? He sure doesn't trust Elena OR his brother). When he meets Caroline, right before Bonnie's funeral, he takes care to remind her that he's still around. He may not trust his brother, but he places all of his faith in his friend - and in turn, she's welcome to place hers in him.
In an attempt to move on with his life, Stefan attends a costume party with Caroline and Tyler. Dressing up as James Dean, he once again runs into Qetsiyah, only to not recognize her - and when he gets pulled aside by Damon, his older brother snaps his neck, fully intent on Silas taking his place.
Stefan's pulled at this exact moment, right as he finally recovers from a broken neck and without any real recollection of what happened at that costume party.
Abilities/Special Powers: Stefan is an immortal vampire and a member of Klaus Mikaelson's bloodline. As such, he can utilize the following:
- Enhanced super-strength [able to take out ten men without breaking a sweat]
- Enhanced super-speed [he's no speedster - the Flashes would easily outpace him - but he's faster than the human eye]
- Heightened Emotions [vampires FEEL more strongly than humans, experiencing every emotion as if it were occurring for the first time.]
- Humanity Switch [This ties into the heightened emotions thing: if Stefan's overwhelmed by his feelings, he can 'turn it' off, so to speak, and act without remorse or guilt. Stefan, however, refuses to use this ability.]
- Compulsion [Mind control, essentially. Unless the person is another supernatural creature or consumes vervain, Stefan can stare into their eyes and cause them to forget what they've just seen OR to act as he wishes.]
- Immortality [Stefan is unable to age, retaining the appearance of a 17-year old teenager for the rest of his existence.]
- Increased Healing Factor [Stefan can heal from wounds far more quickly than the average human. Additionally, Stefan's blood can be used to heal humans, provided that they consume it.]
- Dream Manipulation [Vampires have limited control over humans' dreams, appearing in them and even manipulating them to their whim. It's possible for him to be expelled from a dream, if the person has a strong enough will.]
His daylight ring - a large, gaudy lapis lazuli ring enchanted by witches - allows him (and him alone) to walk around in sunlight without burning to a crisp. However, it protects him from daylight alone: he's still vulnerable to fire and magically-charged sunlight.
Additionally, he's not bound by typical vampire weaknesses: he can cross running water; garlic does nothing to him; and he often wears crosses around his neck.
As a vegetarian vampire, Stefan is weaker than those who drink human blood. He heals slower from bruises and injuries; he runs slower; and most importantly, the lingering edge of hunger always remains. He uses caffeine and alcohol to take off the edge. Also, he is severely limited by vervain, a natural herb that poisons his system. (Werewolf bites and a wooden stake to the heart will kill him.)
Finally, Stefan cannot enter someone's home without an open invitation from the owner - and those invitations can only revoke themselves if the owner changes.
Third-Person Sample:
Stefan doesn't belong here.
The people here expect habits and customs that he can't live up to, he takes to social customs like a fish takes to oil (as in, it doesn't), and he can't find a good cup of tea at this late hour. Stefan's heart aches for the warm dinner parties of his imagination: his favorite novels spoke of beautiful, peaceful evenings with ornate dinners and perfectly-brewed cups of tea at the end.
But his heart aches more as he watches Damon and Elena glide along the dance floor. Now, more than ever, he knows that Damon was the reason he ended things with Elena - it's hard to mistake that kind of consuming love for something else. Elena had lied, too, when she had led him around Mystic Falls High with those doe eyes. He was an amnesiac, not an idiot. He had loved Elena with his entire heart, only for - only for his brother to waltz in like no tomorrow and pull her away without a care.
Stefan doesn't place much faith in a higher power, but for the first time, he finds himself drawing a cross across his chest as he turns towards the door. He's not even Elena's boyfriend anymore, for God's sake. He should be calmer, he should be above this, and he should be stronger. Except he reaches for a bottle of bourbon and gulps it whole before trying to sneak out the door. They're all engrossed in their own things. Surely they wouldn't mind if he sought an early bedtime.
He doesn't belong, and he's fooling himself if he stays any longer.
First-Person Sample:
[Stefan's been here for a couple of days now. He's fiddled with the communicator long enough to understand the basics: there's a network, like some social media app, and he can reply to people as if it were Facebook or MySpace or - what did kids use again? Twitter??
Either way, he's got questions at 3 AM, and he sure as hell isn't asking the Mystic Falls crowd, so he fires up a voice broadcast:]
If anyone else's up right now, I've got a couple of questions. Well, first: I'm sorry about your insomnia and/or impressed at your devotion to whatever's keeping you up at this hour.
See, I've been struggling with something decent to read before bed. I know the library's supposed to listen to my desires, but my former desires and my current desires really don't line up.
[He attaches a picture of the Great Gatsby.]
A library with the whole multiverse at its fingertips, and all it can give me is this??? Not even Amitabh Bacchan could save it, so tell me. What's your favorite book, and is it any better than this? Or, if you can't narrow it down, recommend me something good. I'm more than a little desperate here.