you are my accuser, now look in my face.
|| Player Information ||
Name: Kat
Personal Journal: randomcrimes
Time zone: PST
Contact: [EMAIL] katastrosity@gmail.com | [AIM] static haste
Current Characters: Percy Jackson ripstides
|| Character Information ||
Fandom: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Name: Damon Salvatore
Canon Point: During 2x20, after Stefan calls him.
Is this character dead? Yes! He’s been that way for almost a century and a half though, so he won’t be surprised. Undead and all.
History: A wiki on Damon here.
[Optional] Character Development and Relationship Transfer from previous RP:
Personality:
To understand Damon Salvatore, you have to know that everything he’s done in his life (everything), he believes he’s done for love.
Like most things, it began with a girl and it only got worse from there. Not much is canonly seen on the show of Damon’s human side but of the scenes and moments that have been revealed, it’s clear that when he comes home from the war he’s looking for some place he belongs. For a momentary lapse in time and space, he believes he finds it. The problem is: his brother finds it-her-too. Her name is Katherine Pierce and she’s the best and worst thing to ever happen to the Salvatore brothers (at that point in their lives.) It’s in their time together that bits and pieces of Damon are displayed; pieces nobody alive thinks still (or ever) thrived deep down in his withering black heart.
But it’s there in spite all of his efforts to disguise it. To quell it. To morph it into something indistinguishable.
Again and again, he claims he’d rather die or be killed than to betray Katherine by exposing her secret. He craves her in ways a teenager longs for leather jackets, biker boots, and a shiny new Harley motorcycle - in that it’s everything he knows he isn’t supposed to desire. To say his relationship with his family was/is tense would be an understatement. But there’s no doubt that part of the reason he’s drawn to Katherine (besides her indescribable good looks and charm) is because Stefan wants her. More than that, he desires her because his father despises everything she is (not that he knows a vampire happens to be right under his nose.)
Damon extends his leave and chooses to desert the Confederate army because he disagreed with them and while Stefan respects that and Katherine’s thrilled, his father displays disappointment - something that doesn’t carry across as a new tune. He speaks to Stefan with Damon present, regarding the elder son in third person. It’s evident whose opinion holds more weight and we are only given pause to wander if that has always been the case. Stefan the golden boy and Damon the black sheep.
He's practically infamous for being the other Salvatore brother. The impulsive one, the evil one. The crazy one. Basically? Everything Stefan is not.
He will never be his brother and it is both the most exhilarating thing he’ll ever feel and the most crippling.
Impulses and rebellions aside, his love and obsession for Katherine are not based on something so flimsy or irrelevant. What he feels for her is undeniably true. It becomes his mission to be hers, to have her - to share an undead endless life with her. While it is unclear who she began seeing first (if it hadn’t always been both of them), Damon later tells Stefan that it was only supposed to be him, just him. He and Katherine. And he would have given her everything, anything at all she asked for, because he idolized her. She was his world.
When the world shudders beneath them and tears the Salvatore brothers into two separate entities, rather than the united duo they once were, Damon promises Stefan an eternity of misery for his blatant betrayal. He rests all of the blame solely on Stefan’s shoulders, because he broke a promise by trusting their father instead of Damon’s assertion that if he told Katherine’s secret, she would die. Damon turned out to be right, and for that, he can’t forgive Stefan. He can’t forget; he refuses to. It only gets worse when they die that night, trying to save her as she goes to her death, leaving them to awaken together. To endure the transition from human to vampire as brothers, as she wanted.
The problem with that is that without Katherine, Damon has no desire to go on. If she is the sun and the moon and he is the earth, then he wishes only to cease to spin with both of those elements missing from the sky. He tells Stefan as much, of course, not in so many words. Not quite so romanticized. What he gets instead is a selfish decision made for him - Stefan kills and has himself turned and in fear of being alone, he forces Damon to accept that twist of fate with him. Ultimately, he blames Stefan for making him surrender his humanity.
That rage he holds so tight in steel fists eventually puts the final wedge in between them and sends him on his way out of Mystic Falls and out of Stefan’s life with claims that they’re done. It’s in that choice that he displays that whatever brotherly connection they had is now gone. It died when the love of his life became unattainable.
Only then without any more attachments to his humanity does he warp into the heartless and cold vampire that’s every bit the monster Katherine was. He becomes callous and ruthless; unimaginably cruel. The world is his for the taking. A playground, and everyone in it is a toy for him to mess with until it breaks or he gets bored. The way he views things is: what’s the point in living forever if you’re not going to make it interesting and take advantage of all the perks? He is gluttonous in how much he takes - taking and taking and taking usually until there’s nothing left to steal. At first, it appears to be something he thoroughly enjoys. When he returns to Mystic Falls, it’s everything he is, everything he knows, everything he wants.
He embraces what he is without apology. It defines him, in part. It’s amazing how easy it is to become everything you hate about the world when you haven’t gotten any ties to keep you in line. No friends, no family, and no lover to remind you of what it means to be the nice guy - except that being the nice guy with a subtle wild streak never really did wonders for him before.
Damon eventually returns to Mystic falls with ulterior motives, with something brilliant he’s discovered after searching for one hundred and forty-five years. Not that he shares. How could he? Damon hasn’t forgiven the past which means he hasn’t forgiven Stefan. They’re in the same place at the same time and what he tells Stefan is that he’s in town because he wants Stefan to remember who he was - who they were. It comes across as mocking and deceptive but what is scathing sarcasm if not a way to point out the truth without being belittled for it?
He knows exactly what Stefan has come to town for. Her name is Elena and she looks exactly like their (un)dead vampire girlfriend, to a T. She’s her doppelganger and while he holds great fascination for her in the beginning, he doesn’t actually care to know her. She isn’t Katherine and while that is a highly redeeming point to Stefan, it’s only resentment to him. Besides, he has bigger and better plans. Like say, carrying out what he rolled into town for. His top secret discovery is that all the vampires that died back in 1864 weren’t truly dead, they were simply sealed away, including Katherine. He plans to save her.
Stefan and Elena and the entire town be damned.
That’s the thing that drives him; his raison d'être - his purpose. Either because he truly believes he’s still in love with Katherine (after all these years) or because without that focal point, he has nothing. More frustrating than any of that is the realization that he’s forgotten how to need those things, and how terrible it feels to actually struggle with it. Ultimately, it’s Elena that opens his eyes to that little key detail. How he talks big and he acts big but he can’t fool her, that she sees through him and it’s a paralyzing and unwelcome feeling for someone to see him. Not just acknowledge him but to know him instead of the front. Most people are too lazy.
He’s spiteful and damaged, liable to trigger at the most inopportune of moments. Damon doesn’t hesitant to sink his fangs into skin or snap necks when he thinks he has something to gain out of it, regardless of who he harms in the process. Covering his own ass has always been his main priority and the more nagging buzzes he hears about how he can’t or he shouldn’t or he mustn’t only makes him want to do those things more. To prove he still can. That nobody controls him. He humors his brother with savage and snide taunts, about how they can live happily ever after and how he can try the human life, too, but he doesn’t mean it.
Because he knows (more than he recognizes anything else) he can never go back. Maybe that’s cynical but it beats pretending, through his eyes.
In the time it takes to prepare to get Katherine out of the tomb, he has more betrayals from Stefan but also redeeming qualities to add to the roster. And as for Elena? She warrants mentioning. She morphs into something resembling importance, someone he thinks needs protecting. Probably because in some cases, he owes her the same, for saving him. And because she does see him without illusions and listens and speaks with him. His trust for her stands on a constantly teetering scale but his drive to protect her and keep her around rivals that of the intensity he felt for Katherine.
His hugest turning point occurs when he can get into the tomb and he realizes after everything he’s done, Katherine isn’t there. That she never was. For all his existence, all his scavenging, she doesn’t need the rescue. It’s clear he thinks he worked to save her, so she’d come out, see he did it all for her and realize he was the right choice. But when she isn’t there he snaps. All of the invulnerability and bravado tears out of him like a tornado, shredding bone. He has nothing; he is nothing. He is purposeless once more. It drives his soul further into him, makes the lies more true - turns him into every bad thing he ever swore to be. This time for real.
When he finally thinks he has himself rebuilt enough to function, that he doesn’t need Katherine - that maybe he cares about Elena, the queen bitch herself drops in for a visit. What he learns from her makes him stronger, which might have been her goal all along. He spins his love into hatred, his longing into loathing, his laughter into menace and keeps the labels plastered on tight. In one evening, he learns both of the women he cares about chose Stefan over him. Yet again, he isn’t good enough. He can’t compare. He’ll never measure up.
That is his defining factor, beneath the sarcasm and the nonchalance he wears to guise it. It all ties back to that. He’s always put on a show to the world but both girls of the Petrova (Pierce) bloodline instill the reality in him. They remind him that when it comes down to it, all he has is himself to rely on. He builds on top of that. He tries and tries and tries to cover his emotions towards them for that, though, he is not without instance where they still shine through. The clinks in his armor are fewer than they have ever been. Damon goes so far as to imply that forever is a long time to be angry about something when he offhandedly is reminded about one particularly unforgivable act to Elena. He claims she’ll get over it, implying that maybe he has.
To the world, his soul has never been more repressed but to those who know him, it has also never been more visible (especially to Elena) and that’s what there is to be said about his new and improved self. He’s still ready to die for love if that is once again what it takes and he’s still stepping all over Stefan’s toes to say so.
Damon Salvatore is (for lack of any better way of phrasing it) a kamikaze shit storm. He will never not disregard the efforts and actions around him to change that, because in order for him to take a step forward he is constantly shown that he will take up to two or three steps back. Being inherently good doesn’t come naturally to him and he always gets spit on for trying his hand at it. He plans to be the hero time and time again but that isn’t a part in his script. Nowhere in his lines does it say: try to save the girl and succeed. To save one person, another always dies - this is painfully true with Damon.
Most people have little to no weight to him and he only gives pause to those that matter to Elena, even still, Damon will choose to kill them if it means she lives. Being the bad guy is predictable for him. It does come to him like breathing to a human and he’s stated he doesn’t mind the backlash that accompanies it. He doesn’t care who has to die in order to keep his most important people alive. Unlike Stefan, he doesn't require being seen as the hero. The glory would be nice but ultimately as long as he achieves the end goal, he will always be there to oversee who lives and dies around him.
For all his immaturity, when it matters, he comes through and unfailingly makes the tough calls. Typically on the spot.
Some things never change and some people never truly will.
Skills | Powers:
Well, to start things off and clear up any misunderstandings, he lives in the real world where vampires burn up in the sunlight instead of sparkling. A weakness that would get the best of him if not for the lapis lazuli family crest ring fixed on his left hand. It has a spell set on it that makes him capable of walking amongst humans without bursting into flames or smoking into ashes. It’s handy, to say at the least. Not only does it open a lot of doors to existing better in a modern world but it also keeps suspicion off of his back from those who know what vampires are. If he walks in the daylight, then he must be human. Fragile mentalities are easy to fool.
Onto the fun parts that come with being a vampire: everything is intensified, ranging from emotions to abilities. Flaws and attributes are magnified (and hard to control, especially at the beginning.) With Damon, he is suspicious and slightly paranoid - impulsive. When it benefits him, he does exemplify amazing examples of control but there are other times when he does things spur of the moment and comes to regret them. Even after nearly a century and a half, it’s a constant struggle. The same could be said for his brother. Even Katherine. They feel things more intensely than humans can grasp. Love does mean forever, rage is boiling hatred that will never stop increasing, sadness becomes bouts of depression a vampire may never recover from.
Physically, there are several things worth mentioning. Speed and strength stand at the very top of this. Yes, they can walk at normal pace to blend in with society but vampires can also move in a flash that is almost undetectable to the human eyes. It makes getting from one place to another in a short amount of time more convenient than oh say, driving. Unless it’s an extremely long distance. They may be immortal by definition but they are not invulnerable; stamina affects them, too. It just takes longer than it does with a mortal. Strength is increased, too. A hard enough throw and it could paralyze or kill a civilian. When vampires fight it’s always messy, because one shove and someone’s going through a wall or busting out a window or smashing the roof of a car. They obviously wouldn’t be able to topple skyscrapers or throw houses at each other but they can lift most things a person might need a forklift for.
And as long as they have a fresh source of blood or enough in their system, they can also heal themselves. It varies between instantly and gradual, it depends on how huge the wound is and how long it’ll take them to get more blood in their system. One thing that does agree in fiction is their vulnerability to wood (being staked in the heart, for example.) There is no recovering from that. Wooden bullets can slow them down. For that matter, so can a plant called Vervain. Without building an immunity to it by ingesting it in small doses, it can cripple them into paralysis for as long as it takes to pass through their system. It is most effective in taking them down if they drink it directly out of human’s bloodstream.
One other thing it prevents them from doing is compelling someone. Compulsion is a power they all have to control a human’s mind. They can make suggestions or tell someone to do something and without vervain somewhere on their body or in their blood, they are helpless to fighting the command. Being compelled is supposed to go without any recollection of the event but it depends on how strong the vampire is (how new they are) and if they have been drinking human blood or the sad excuse of animal blood. The exception to this is that if a person transitions into a vampire, they regain the true memories back and know every single compulsion that was put onto them.
As previously mentioned, Damon doesn’t resist his dark side. He embraces his powers and in turn he has more than your average undead joe. Something they show at the start of the series but gets swept into the background for one reason or another is the ability to tamper with the weather. For example, creating fog on a perfectly clear day. It’s unclear in the television show just how much control over the weather he is. That’s a different case for the books, but as that isn’t his medium, I’ll only bring up the fog. Another thing they imply in the show is the crow is him, because in the books he can also shape-shift into the bird. There are scenes with crows where he’s stalking Elena and there is another where it flashes between a crow on a window sill, to Stefan, and then to Damon standing right in front of him. It implicates that he also shape-shifts in the show as well. However, it isn’t something the show keeps up with for him.
The thankful restriction to all of this is that a vampire cannot enter a home uninvited. The outside world in any town is free reign but without being told to come into someone’s home, they are actually incapable. They cannot step through a threshold. Currently in canon, it has yet to be stated whether or not an invitation can be revoked. Two seasons in and it hasn’t happened yet, so I’m working with assumption that it cannot be removed.
First Person Sample: VIDEO.
[ a thump like a footstep next to the device and a thrash, then it’s sliding from the bottom of the boat - skirting between two figures. one rumbling growl later, deep and feral and frustrated and in comes a voice. ]
Turn this pathetic excuse of a doom machine around or so help me, I’ll - [ he doesn’t finish because he’s not getting leeway, so with one more rush and a harsh impact, snapping, and a sick pop-tear-pop, off comes the ferryman’s arm, ] I’ll make you do it myself.
[ a flash of teeth, an egotistical smirk and then just as he holds up the arm as if to say: you’re really boned now - get it? - they slide hastily into port, grinding against the dock.
he stumbles and the ferryman strikes. and, of course, Damon thinks - of course he’s prepared. he has no such plans to leave the vessel but he doesn’t get a choice when with the one good arm left, he gets sprayed in the face with a painful concoction and gets shoved heavily to the planks.
the cry wrenches from his throat with a hiss, palms shoving up towards his face. he sniffles into the air casually, turning away from the camera as he snaps, ]
And that, children, is why they tell you not to rock the boat.
[ but he’s already clambering to his feet; no harm, no foul. his immaturity shines through when he snatches the skeletal limb up and hurls it at the departing abductor, grimacing when it doesn’t smack him in the back of his hood. ]
Third Person Sample: ( an excerpt from an rp log - set in a dream. Used with permission from the other player! )
Were he of a more rational state of mind, he would have thrown in his two cents to say it was for worse. Sharing the same household had ended in tragedy before. Both Salvatore brothers met their gruesome ends and once upon a time, he believed Katherine had too. But he wasn't and she hadn't. That was the way the cookie crumbled. Or in the plainer and less sugar-coated speak that he preferred, that was they way the universe decided to take a shit on them.
But he wasn't thinking about that anymore. His mind was elsewhere and he couldn't recall for the (un)life of him where it had been before. It didn't matter, he realized, stepping out onto the porch of his childhood home. The place he and Stefan had grown up; the place he suspected he wasn't entirely welcome in anymore. Home sweet hell. That didn't matter either, he assessed with a casual air that came to him quickly.
Katherine was standing in the yard, enjoying herself, or maybe not since she was extending an all too mirthful invitation. She was sweet that way, in the light of day. Not to say he didn't know exactly how sinful she could be. She was positively wicked and he wondered why that left an impression on him, a taste he couldn't place in his mouth.
Damon descended the steps into the yard and approached, with the same practiced ease to his step he always had. He could deny her nothing; they both knew it. Still, something had him waiting until he was close enough to lean in (from where he claimed the spot beside her) to say, "Why, Miss Pierce, that sounds suspiciously like a rule."
Katherine turned slightly and ran a slender finger along Damon's jawline, giving a soft, "Hmm," like she was considering something when she clearly wasn't. "When you put it like that," she gave a playful tap on his shin with the mallet, "it just means we have to change the game." She gave him a quick peck on the cheek before she pulled away, purposely turning her back to him while she surveyed the yard.
"I was getting bored anyway. If I wanted to play with balls all day, I think I'd do it elsewhere." She glanced over her shoulder with a smirk on her lips, a sort of 'don't tell' expression gracing her features.
Katherine had proved to herself what she wanted, that no matter what, Damon did still have this in him. Call it egotistical, but she liked all of her the men wrapped around her finger. It helped that this dream could prove to be blackmail for later (though she didn't doubt that he would eventually catch onto her). Damon was a fool, but he wasn't stupid.
He did nothing to coax an actual response out of her, seemingly well-suited to the finger tracing his jaw. Feeling (for a moment) disorientated and he couldn't find all the bearings as to why. They were mismatched, mixed and hooked to different components they didn't belong on. Something was fuzzy. He accredited that to her presence. She was magnificent. That was it. It simply had to be.
There was nothing else it could be, except. . .
Except she was being coy again and giving him that look. The one that made him forget he was a Salvatore and there were expectations and even before that, he was a grown man and it was time to act like one. But Katherine reminded him of true youth, of fun, of being alive. She was the entity of grabbing life by the neck and forcing it to succumb to her. It felt like that should mean something but instead he was smiling and keeping her secret. One of many.
"Well, we can't have you bored now, can we? I dread the idea of a house guest of the Salvatores being restless, knowing I could have done something to change it." It was the kiss talking, wasn't it? "Tell me: what do you feel like getting up to?"
Name: Kat
Personal Journal: randomcrimes
Time zone: PST
Contact: [EMAIL] katastrosity@gmail.com | [AIM] static haste
Current Characters: Percy Jackson ripstides
|| Character Information ||
Fandom: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Name: Damon Salvatore
Canon Point: During 2x20, after Stefan calls him.
Is this character dead? Yes! He’s been that way for almost a century and a half though, so he won’t be surprised. Undead and all.
History: A wiki on Damon here.
[Optional] Character Development and Relationship Transfer from previous RP:
Personality:
To understand Damon Salvatore, you have to know that everything he’s done in his life (everything), he believes he’s done for love.
Like most things, it began with a girl and it only got worse from there. Not much is canonly seen on the show of Damon’s human side but of the scenes and moments that have been revealed, it’s clear that when he comes home from the war he’s looking for some place he belongs. For a momentary lapse in time and space, he believes he finds it. The problem is: his brother finds it-her-too. Her name is Katherine Pierce and she’s the best and worst thing to ever happen to the Salvatore brothers (at that point in their lives.) It’s in their time together that bits and pieces of Damon are displayed; pieces nobody alive thinks still (or ever) thrived deep down in his withering black heart.
But it’s there in spite all of his efforts to disguise it. To quell it. To morph it into something indistinguishable.
Again and again, he claims he’d rather die or be killed than to betray Katherine by exposing her secret. He craves her in ways a teenager longs for leather jackets, biker boots, and a shiny new Harley motorcycle - in that it’s everything he knows he isn’t supposed to desire. To say his relationship with his family was/is tense would be an understatement. But there’s no doubt that part of the reason he’s drawn to Katherine (besides her indescribable good looks and charm) is because Stefan wants her. More than that, he desires her because his father despises everything she is (not that he knows a vampire happens to be right under his nose.)
Damon extends his leave and chooses to desert the Confederate army because he disagreed with them and while Stefan respects that and Katherine’s thrilled, his father displays disappointment - something that doesn’t carry across as a new tune. He speaks to Stefan with Damon present, regarding the elder son in third person. It’s evident whose opinion holds more weight and we are only given pause to wander if that has always been the case. Stefan the golden boy and Damon the black sheep.
He's practically infamous for being the other Salvatore brother. The impulsive one, the evil one. The crazy one. Basically? Everything Stefan is not.
He will never be his brother and it is both the most exhilarating thing he’ll ever feel and the most crippling.
Impulses and rebellions aside, his love and obsession for Katherine are not based on something so flimsy or irrelevant. What he feels for her is undeniably true. It becomes his mission to be hers, to have her - to share an undead endless life with her. While it is unclear who she began seeing first (if it hadn’t always been both of them), Damon later tells Stefan that it was only supposed to be him, just him. He and Katherine. And he would have given her everything, anything at all she asked for, because he idolized her. She was his world.
When the world shudders beneath them and tears the Salvatore brothers into two separate entities, rather than the united duo they once were, Damon promises Stefan an eternity of misery for his blatant betrayal. He rests all of the blame solely on Stefan’s shoulders, because he broke a promise by trusting their father instead of Damon’s assertion that if he told Katherine’s secret, she would die. Damon turned out to be right, and for that, he can’t forgive Stefan. He can’t forget; he refuses to. It only gets worse when they die that night, trying to save her as she goes to her death, leaving them to awaken together. To endure the transition from human to vampire as brothers, as she wanted.
The problem with that is that without Katherine, Damon has no desire to go on. If she is the sun and the moon and he is the earth, then he wishes only to cease to spin with both of those elements missing from the sky. He tells Stefan as much, of course, not in so many words. Not quite so romanticized. What he gets instead is a selfish decision made for him - Stefan kills and has himself turned and in fear of being alone, he forces Damon to accept that twist of fate with him. Ultimately, he blames Stefan for making him surrender his humanity.
That rage he holds so tight in steel fists eventually puts the final wedge in between them and sends him on his way out of Mystic Falls and out of Stefan’s life with claims that they’re done. It’s in that choice that he displays that whatever brotherly connection they had is now gone. It died when the love of his life became unattainable.
Only then without any more attachments to his humanity does he warp into the heartless and cold vampire that’s every bit the monster Katherine was. He becomes callous and ruthless; unimaginably cruel. The world is his for the taking. A playground, and everyone in it is a toy for him to mess with until it breaks or he gets bored. The way he views things is: what’s the point in living forever if you’re not going to make it interesting and take advantage of all the perks? He is gluttonous in how much he takes - taking and taking and taking usually until there’s nothing left to steal. At first, it appears to be something he thoroughly enjoys. When he returns to Mystic Falls, it’s everything he is, everything he knows, everything he wants.
He embraces what he is without apology. It defines him, in part. It’s amazing how easy it is to become everything you hate about the world when you haven’t gotten any ties to keep you in line. No friends, no family, and no lover to remind you of what it means to be the nice guy - except that being the nice guy with a subtle wild streak never really did wonders for him before.
Damon eventually returns to Mystic falls with ulterior motives, with something brilliant he’s discovered after searching for one hundred and forty-five years. Not that he shares. How could he? Damon hasn’t forgiven the past which means he hasn’t forgiven Stefan. They’re in the same place at the same time and what he tells Stefan is that he’s in town because he wants Stefan to remember who he was - who they were. It comes across as mocking and deceptive but what is scathing sarcasm if not a way to point out the truth without being belittled for it?
He knows exactly what Stefan has come to town for. Her name is Elena and she looks exactly like their (un)dead vampire girlfriend, to a T. She’s her doppelganger and while he holds great fascination for her in the beginning, he doesn’t actually care to know her. She isn’t Katherine and while that is a highly redeeming point to Stefan, it’s only resentment to him. Besides, he has bigger and better plans. Like say, carrying out what he rolled into town for. His top secret discovery is that all the vampires that died back in 1864 weren’t truly dead, they were simply sealed away, including Katherine. He plans to save her.
Stefan and Elena and the entire town be damned.
That’s the thing that drives him; his raison d'être - his purpose. Either because he truly believes he’s still in love with Katherine (after all these years) or because without that focal point, he has nothing. More frustrating than any of that is the realization that he’s forgotten how to need those things, and how terrible it feels to actually struggle with it. Ultimately, it’s Elena that opens his eyes to that little key detail. How he talks big and he acts big but he can’t fool her, that she sees through him and it’s a paralyzing and unwelcome feeling for someone to see him. Not just acknowledge him but to know him instead of the front. Most people are too lazy.
He’s spiteful and damaged, liable to trigger at the most inopportune of moments. Damon doesn’t hesitant to sink his fangs into skin or snap necks when he thinks he has something to gain out of it, regardless of who he harms in the process. Covering his own ass has always been his main priority and the more nagging buzzes he hears about how he can’t or he shouldn’t or he mustn’t only makes him want to do those things more. To prove he still can. That nobody controls him. He humors his brother with savage and snide taunts, about how they can live happily ever after and how he can try the human life, too, but he doesn’t mean it.
Because he knows (more than he recognizes anything else) he can never go back. Maybe that’s cynical but it beats pretending, through his eyes.
In the time it takes to prepare to get Katherine out of the tomb, he has more betrayals from Stefan but also redeeming qualities to add to the roster. And as for Elena? She warrants mentioning. She morphs into something resembling importance, someone he thinks needs protecting. Probably because in some cases, he owes her the same, for saving him. And because she does see him without illusions and listens and speaks with him. His trust for her stands on a constantly teetering scale but his drive to protect her and keep her around rivals that of the intensity he felt for Katherine.
His hugest turning point occurs when he can get into the tomb and he realizes after everything he’s done, Katherine isn’t there. That she never was. For all his existence, all his scavenging, she doesn’t need the rescue. It’s clear he thinks he worked to save her, so she’d come out, see he did it all for her and realize he was the right choice. But when she isn’t there he snaps. All of the invulnerability and bravado tears out of him like a tornado, shredding bone. He has nothing; he is nothing. He is purposeless once more. It drives his soul further into him, makes the lies more true - turns him into every bad thing he ever swore to be. This time for real.
When he finally thinks he has himself rebuilt enough to function, that he doesn’t need Katherine - that maybe he cares about Elena, the queen bitch herself drops in for a visit. What he learns from her makes him stronger, which might have been her goal all along. He spins his love into hatred, his longing into loathing, his laughter into menace and keeps the labels plastered on tight. In one evening, he learns both of the women he cares about chose Stefan over him. Yet again, he isn’t good enough. He can’t compare. He’ll never measure up.
That is his defining factor, beneath the sarcasm and the nonchalance he wears to guise it. It all ties back to that. He’s always put on a show to the world but both girls of the Petrova (Pierce) bloodline instill the reality in him. They remind him that when it comes down to it, all he has is himself to rely on. He builds on top of that. He tries and tries and tries to cover his emotions towards them for that, though, he is not without instance where they still shine through. The clinks in his armor are fewer than they have ever been. Damon goes so far as to imply that forever is a long time to be angry about something when he offhandedly is reminded about one particularly unforgivable act to Elena. He claims she’ll get over it, implying that maybe he has.
To the world, his soul has never been more repressed but to those who know him, it has also never been more visible (especially to Elena) and that’s what there is to be said about his new and improved self. He’s still ready to die for love if that is once again what it takes and he’s still stepping all over Stefan’s toes to say so.
Damon Salvatore is (for lack of any better way of phrasing it) a kamikaze shit storm. He will never not disregard the efforts and actions around him to change that, because in order for him to take a step forward he is constantly shown that he will take up to two or three steps back. Being inherently good doesn’t come naturally to him and he always gets spit on for trying his hand at it. He plans to be the hero time and time again but that isn’t a part in his script. Nowhere in his lines does it say: try to save the girl and succeed. To save one person, another always dies - this is painfully true with Damon.
Most people have little to no weight to him and he only gives pause to those that matter to Elena, even still, Damon will choose to kill them if it means she lives. Being the bad guy is predictable for him. It does come to him like breathing to a human and he’s stated he doesn’t mind the backlash that accompanies it. He doesn’t care who has to die in order to keep his most important people alive. Unlike Stefan, he doesn't require being seen as the hero. The glory would be nice but ultimately as long as he achieves the end goal, he will always be there to oversee who lives and dies around him.
For all his immaturity, when it matters, he comes through and unfailingly makes the tough calls. Typically on the spot.
Some things never change and some people never truly will.
Skills | Powers:
Well, to start things off and clear up any misunderstandings, he lives in the real world where vampires burn up in the sunlight instead of sparkling. A weakness that would get the best of him if not for the lapis lazuli family crest ring fixed on his left hand. It has a spell set on it that makes him capable of walking amongst humans without bursting into flames or smoking into ashes. It’s handy, to say at the least. Not only does it open a lot of doors to existing better in a modern world but it also keeps suspicion off of his back from those who know what vampires are. If he walks in the daylight, then he must be human. Fragile mentalities are easy to fool.
Onto the fun parts that come with being a vampire: everything is intensified, ranging from emotions to abilities. Flaws and attributes are magnified (and hard to control, especially at the beginning.) With Damon, he is suspicious and slightly paranoid - impulsive. When it benefits him, he does exemplify amazing examples of control but there are other times when he does things spur of the moment and comes to regret them. Even after nearly a century and a half, it’s a constant struggle. The same could be said for his brother. Even Katherine. They feel things more intensely than humans can grasp. Love does mean forever, rage is boiling hatred that will never stop increasing, sadness becomes bouts of depression a vampire may never recover from.
Physically, there are several things worth mentioning. Speed and strength stand at the very top of this. Yes, they can walk at normal pace to blend in with society but vampires can also move in a flash that is almost undetectable to the human eyes. It makes getting from one place to another in a short amount of time more convenient than oh say, driving. Unless it’s an extremely long distance. They may be immortal by definition but they are not invulnerable; stamina affects them, too. It just takes longer than it does with a mortal. Strength is increased, too. A hard enough throw and it could paralyze or kill a civilian. When vampires fight it’s always messy, because one shove and someone’s going through a wall or busting out a window or smashing the roof of a car. They obviously wouldn’t be able to topple skyscrapers or throw houses at each other but they can lift most things a person might need a forklift for.
And as long as they have a fresh source of blood or enough in their system, they can also heal themselves. It varies between instantly and gradual, it depends on how huge the wound is and how long it’ll take them to get more blood in their system. One thing that does agree in fiction is their vulnerability to wood (being staked in the heart, for example.) There is no recovering from that. Wooden bullets can slow them down. For that matter, so can a plant called Vervain. Without building an immunity to it by ingesting it in small doses, it can cripple them into paralysis for as long as it takes to pass through their system. It is most effective in taking them down if they drink it directly out of human’s bloodstream.
One other thing it prevents them from doing is compelling someone. Compulsion is a power they all have to control a human’s mind. They can make suggestions or tell someone to do something and without vervain somewhere on their body or in their blood, they are helpless to fighting the command. Being compelled is supposed to go without any recollection of the event but it depends on how strong the vampire is (how new they are) and if they have been drinking human blood or the sad excuse of animal blood. The exception to this is that if a person transitions into a vampire, they regain the true memories back and know every single compulsion that was put onto them.
As previously mentioned, Damon doesn’t resist his dark side. He embraces his powers and in turn he has more than your average undead joe. Something they show at the start of the series but gets swept into the background for one reason or another is the ability to tamper with the weather. For example, creating fog on a perfectly clear day. It’s unclear in the television show just how much control over the weather he is. That’s a different case for the books, but as that isn’t his medium, I’ll only bring up the fog. Another thing they imply in the show is the crow is him, because in the books he can also shape-shift into the bird. There are scenes with crows where he’s stalking Elena and there is another where it flashes between a crow on a window sill, to Stefan, and then to Damon standing right in front of him. It implicates that he also shape-shifts in the show as well. However, it isn’t something the show keeps up with for him.
The thankful restriction to all of this is that a vampire cannot enter a home uninvited. The outside world in any town is free reign but without being told to come into someone’s home, they are actually incapable. They cannot step through a threshold. Currently in canon, it has yet to be stated whether or not an invitation can be revoked. Two seasons in and it hasn’t happened yet, so I’m working with assumption that it cannot be removed.
First Person Sample: VIDEO.
[ a thump like a footstep next to the device and a thrash, then it’s sliding from the bottom of the boat - skirting between two figures. one rumbling growl later, deep and feral and frustrated and in comes a voice. ]
Turn this pathetic excuse of a doom machine around or so help me, I’ll - [ he doesn’t finish because he’s not getting leeway, so with one more rush and a harsh impact, snapping, and a sick pop-tear-pop, off comes the ferryman’s arm, ] I’ll make you do it myself.
[ a flash of teeth, an egotistical smirk and then just as he holds up the arm as if to say: you’re really boned now - get it? - they slide hastily into port, grinding against the dock.
he stumbles and the ferryman strikes. and, of course, Damon thinks - of course he’s prepared. he has no such plans to leave the vessel but he doesn’t get a choice when with the one good arm left, he gets sprayed in the face with a painful concoction and gets shoved heavily to the planks.
the cry wrenches from his throat with a hiss, palms shoving up towards his face. he sniffles into the air casually, turning away from the camera as he snaps, ]
And that, children, is why they tell you not to rock the boat.
[ but he’s already clambering to his feet; no harm, no foul. his immaturity shines through when he snatches the skeletal limb up and hurls it at the departing abductor, grimacing when it doesn’t smack him in the back of his hood. ]
Third Person Sample: ( an excerpt from an rp log - set in a dream. Used with permission from the other player! )
Were he of a more rational state of mind, he would have thrown in his two cents to say it was for worse. Sharing the same household had ended in tragedy before. Both Salvatore brothers met their gruesome ends and once upon a time, he believed Katherine had too. But he wasn't and she hadn't. That was the way the cookie crumbled. Or in the plainer and less sugar-coated speak that he preferred, that was they way the universe decided to take a shit on them.
But he wasn't thinking about that anymore. His mind was elsewhere and he couldn't recall for the (un)life of him where it had been before. It didn't matter, he realized, stepping out onto the porch of his childhood home. The place he and Stefan had grown up; the place he suspected he wasn't entirely welcome in anymore. Home sweet hell. That didn't matter either, he assessed with a casual air that came to him quickly.
Katherine was standing in the yard, enjoying herself, or maybe not since she was extending an all too mirthful invitation. She was sweet that way, in the light of day. Not to say he didn't know exactly how sinful she could be. She was positively wicked and he wondered why that left an impression on him, a taste he couldn't place in his mouth.
Damon descended the steps into the yard and approached, with the same practiced ease to his step he always had. He could deny her nothing; they both knew it. Still, something had him waiting until he was close enough to lean in (from where he claimed the spot beside her) to say, "Why, Miss Pierce, that sounds suspiciously like a rule."
Katherine turned slightly and ran a slender finger along Damon's jawline, giving a soft, "Hmm," like she was considering something when she clearly wasn't. "When you put it like that," she gave a playful tap on his shin with the mallet, "it just means we have to change the game." She gave him a quick peck on the cheek before she pulled away, purposely turning her back to him while she surveyed the yard.
"I was getting bored anyway. If I wanted to play with balls all day, I think I'd do it elsewhere." She glanced over her shoulder with a smirk on her lips, a sort of 'don't tell' expression gracing her features.
Katherine had proved to herself what she wanted, that no matter what, Damon did still have this in him. Call it egotistical, but she liked all of her the men wrapped around her finger. It helped that this dream could prove to be blackmail for later (though she didn't doubt that he would eventually catch onto her). Damon was a fool, but he wasn't stupid.
He did nothing to coax an actual response out of her, seemingly well-suited to the finger tracing his jaw. Feeling (for a moment) disorientated and he couldn't find all the bearings as to why. They were mismatched, mixed and hooked to different components they didn't belong on. Something was fuzzy. He accredited that to her presence. She was magnificent. That was it. It simply had to be.
There was nothing else it could be, except. . .
Except she was being coy again and giving him that look. The one that made him forget he was a Salvatore and there were expectations and even before that, he was a grown man and it was time to act like one. But Katherine reminded him of true youth, of fun, of being alive. She was the entity of grabbing life by the neck and forcing it to succumb to her. It felt like that should mean something but instead he was smiling and keeping her secret. One of many.
"Well, we can't have you bored now, can we? I dread the idea of a house guest of the Salvatores being restless, knowing I could have done something to change it." It was the kiss talking, wasn't it? "Tell me: what do you feel like getting up to?"