Character Information
General
Canon Source: True Blood
Canon Format: TV show
Character's Name: Sam Merlotte
Character's Age: 36
Conditional: N/A
What form will your character's NV take? Cell phone, plain and black.
Abilities
Character's Canon Abilities: Shapeshifting: he can turn into any animal (but not humans: too complicated) that he sees after briefly concentrating on their form. He still retains human awareness in this form. There seems to be no time limit to how long he can stay in a morph, but he'll return to human if he falls asleep or is knocked unconscious. The full moon has an effect on him-- on such nights he has to shift.
Sam also has residual senses (and behaviors, to some extent) from his favorite morph as a dog, granting him higher-than-average smelling as a human (he was able to smell the scent of a murderer from sheets he'd been on, and identify him from the man's vest). His blood temperature also naturally rests somewhere around 99, 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
Sam also barks in his sleep (as part of the having-dog-traits thing) and his sense of smell allows him to differentiate between humans/shifters/weres/vampires, etc.
It has been revealed as of Season 3 that Sam does not have to turn into an animal the moment he sees it to imprint on it. If he's seen it, he can turn into it for the first time at a later date and be perfectly fine. He can also switch straight from one shift to another without having to first turn back into a human.
Conditional: N/A
Weapons: N/A
History/Personality/Plans/etc.
Character History: Sam was adopted as an infant and grew up the only child of Mr. and Mrs. Merlotte, but when he hit puberty, his shapeshifter blood emerged. When Sam's parents saw him turn into a dog before their eyes, they abandoned him. At fifteen Sam returned from school to find his parents had packed up everything but his room and moved without telling him. He was forced to live on his own, using shapeshifting to rob from homes to stay alive. This all took a turn for the worse when he entered the home of Maryann Forrester when seventeen. She could sense there was something strange about him and had plans for the boy, coercing him into her bed. Disturbed by the event, Sam was smart enough to run, stealing an enormous amount of cash she'd had in one of her drawers while she showered.
A few years down the line, a Sam in his early twenties has turned entirely to theft to survive. He appears to be in love with a woman named Charlene who knows about and encourages his thieving habits (although how he manages to do it still perplexes her), mostly because the things he steals are jewelery for her. Sam expresses a desire to one day settle down in a nice home and raise a family with her - lead a normal life.
But it's quickly revealed that this is not to be. One afternoon after a heist, Charlene's true lover emerges from their hotel bathroom, and holds Sam at gunpoint while the two scoop up all the money and jewels Sam has been holding. Sam's love for the woman iss thrown back in his face - it was always false, and she's always been planning to turn on him for this other man. The two leave him - taking his wealth along.
Sam, however, doesn't let it go at that. He tracks the two lovers on the lam down to their current campsite in the woods, and shifting back from a dog steals the man's gun. He demands his money back, which Charlene seemingly scrambles into their truck to get. The man makes the mistake of hurling insults at Sam, calling him weak and saying he's a freak, and Sam begins punching and pistol-whipping him. His former lover pulls out a gun from the vehicle and yells for him to stop, but Sam's too lost in his anger and sense of betrayal to listen. She shoots at him but misses, and on instinct Sam fires back - hitting her in the chest. He's horrified by what he's done, genuinely shaken as she dies in front of him. But when the injured man begins to try and crawl away to escape, Sam turns on him in cold, grieving anger and kills him.
After taking back his money and stolen goods, it's assumed this is the point where Sam decides to reform his ways and begin a new life somewhere else - choosing Bon Temps.
Moving into the small Louisiana town, Sam used Maryann's and his own stolen money to finance the construction of the bar/restaurant Merlotte's. Things were normal there for a number of years: the bar was successful, he made friends, became the landlord of a few rentals, and he nursed a crush on one of the waitresses, Sookie, all while keeping the secret of his race. Things changed about the time the vampire community "came out of the closet", revealing their presence to the world. A series of murders put Sookie in danger, over the course of which he revealed himself as a shifter to her. Her relationship with the vampire Bill and a drunk night with Tara (another waitress and friend) pushed him to enter a brief sexual relationship with Tara, before various complications caused them to part ways. He helped save Sookie from the murderer, and afterward began to grudgingly accept the vampire Bill (even carrying and burying the vampire's body to safety out of the sunlight), whom he had viewed (and perhaps still does, to some degree) as his romantic rival.
Then the maenad (a follower/supernatural of the Greek god Dionysus) Maryann came to town, having apparently tracked him down over the years. She began putting the town under a hedonist spell, planning to eventually use Sam as a sacrifice to call down her god. To that end she sent a shapeshifter girl named Daphne to win his heart, and Sam fell in love with her until Daphne's part in the scheme was revealed. Daphne was eventually killed by Maryann, and Sam was framed for her death. Before Maryann could arrive at his cell to kill him, however, he escaped by shifting into a fly, and he later used the same trick (with the help of Sookie's brother and the town sheriff) to escape the enchanted members of the town when they came after him. Sam protected the two children of one of his enchanted waitresses, staying hidden in the bar with them until he was eventually approached by Bill. Convinced by the vampire to participate in a plan in order to trick Maryann into her death (and assured he would be healed), the shifter allowed Bill to present him to Maryann for sacrifice; she then bound him to an altar and stabbed him in the heart. Sookie disrupted the ritual and Sam used the confusion to heal (drinking Bill's blood) and take on the form of a bull (the "horned god" Maryann was trying to summon). Using this form he was able to fool the maenad to lower her defenses, at which point he gored her and, after shifting back to human, crushed her heart.
After the town has been returned to normal and things had settled, Sam made the decision to leave and search for his real parents, as the recent events had reminded him of his troubled and unresolved past. Confronting the people who abandoned him, the season ended with his adopted father giving him the last known information on his real parents, though his adopted mother warned that they weren't good people.
Out in Arkansas, Sam finally found his true family, the Mickens. After a talk with his birth mother, Sam found out he was given up for adoption because his father - Joe Lee - was in prison at the time, and his mother couldn't deal with raising him as a poor, single mother. Both Sam's mother (and his younger brother, Tommy, who Sam had no idea about) are shapeshifters just as he is, but Joe Lee is human.
They ended up showing up in Bon Temps after Sam returned, much to the shifter's consternation, but feeling guilty he attempted to show them hospitality - but the Mickens soon proved themselves to be less than stellar not only in terms of finances, but in morality and manners. Joe Lee was a drunk and abusive, Tommy attempted to steal from his safe, and his mother just kept making excuses and begging for money. The final straw came when Sam realized that his birth parents were using Tommy to earn them money - by forcing him to compete in illegal dog fights as a pit bull, even knowing that dogs who lost in such fights were shot and killed. Sam rescued Tommy from one of the fights by sneaking in and breaking it up, and enraged by the abuses told his parents in no uncertain terms that they were to leave Bon Temps and not contact him again. As for Tommy, Sam extended to him the invitation to stay as a tenant, offering him a job as a bus boy at Merlotte's.
As caring for Tommy proved to be harder than he'd thought (the boy inviting girls over at all hours of the night, being disrespectful, mean to the customers, accused of stealing tips from the waitresses and acting like an all-around brat), and following a few comments about him being a doormat and weak, tensions mounted in Sam. On the night two weres came into his bar looking to start trouble, those tensions snapped. After one refused to leave and called Sam a pussy, Sam broke a bottle over his head and proceeded to beat the shit out of him - to the point that the man would have died, had he not later been given V by Lafayette.
Once unleashed, Sam's anger issues didn't abate. Flashbacks from his past returned to haunt him. He turned to whiskey, and stumbling into Merlotte's one night piss drunk, verbally lashed out at the customers and his staff. The worst he turned on Tommy when the boy mouthed off to him, declaring that he was no longer welcome to work at Merlotte's or live as Sam's tenant.
Tara - the only one unfazed by Sam acting like a drunk asshole - refused to leave when he closed the bar down for the night and kicked everyone out. The two had a heart-to-heart, with Sam revealing that he was tired of being taken advantage of for being a "nice guy" and that no one in Bon Temps truly knew him. The two returned to Sam's trailer for a night shared between the sheets.
Sobered up in the morning, Sam cooked Tara breakfast and seemed to have released a great deal of the tension that had been eating at him. He finally came clean to her about being a shifter - and was promptly met with Tara's bitterness and the sentiment that she "couldn't deal with supernaturals" right now. A little frustrated, but mostly tired, Sam let her leave.
After a visit to Terry to apologize for the things he'd said and make amends, Sam was heading for the rental to do the same with Tommy. However, upon entering Tommy's trailer he realized the boy had taken off and had broken into Sam's safe to take his brother's money with him. Sam went after him, and caught up with the younger shifter in the woods. He demanded his money back, holding the boy at gunpoint. Tommy refused.
[!!CANON UPDATE!!] Sam shoots Tommy in the leg to keep him from running. The two return to Bon Temps.
A year passes. Tommy still works at Merlotte's, but now lives with Mrs. Thortenberry, who has taken the boy in as her psuedo-son and is teaching him Christianity and how to read. Sam doesn't seem to mind the arrangement as it means he doesn't have to play father to the troublesome teen, and while the two still butt heads a lot they at least aren't at each other's throats.
Sam has found a local group of shapeshifters that he's taken to shifting and spending time with, using them as a sort of therapy circle. One in particular, Luna, catches his eye and as he gets to know her better he becomes more infatuated with her. He learns that Luna has a daughter and a werewolf ex-boyfriend she's trying to keep away from.
Unbeknownst to him, Tommy has been contacted by their mother. The boy goes out to meet her, and is ambushed by Joe Lee, who intends to get the boy back under their thumb so they can turn a profit. There's a struggle, and Tommy ends up killing Joe Lee, as well as his mother by accident.
Tommy comes to Sam and tells him what happens, and he agrees to help Tommy hide the bodies. He drives them out to the swamp and dumps them into the water, adding bait to attract alligators. He tells Tommy not to be too guilt ridden over what's happened - it was self-defense. He also tells Tommy that he's killed before, making his brother the first person to know Sam's secret.
Unbeknownst to Sam, Tommy's murder of their parents has granted him the ability to be a skinwalker - to take on the shape of other people. He turns into Sam at Merlotte's and ends up firing Sookie, and later pretends to be Sam to have sex with Luna, whom he kicks out in the morning when he starts becoming violently ill. Sam finds Tommy (looking like Tommy) on the floor of his trailer and takes him to the hospital.
Tommy gets better. Sam finally talks with Luna, who's been avoiding him, and figures out his brother's new ability. He also realizes Tommy used that ability to deceive him and to manipulate Luna. It's the ultimate betrayal. He disowns Tommy, and tells the boy to leave Bon Temps and never return.
Sam goes on to patch things up with Luna, and while in her home one night Luna's ex-boyfriend Marcus, leader of the werewolf pack in Bon Temps, shows up and threatens the shifter to stay away. When he leaves, Sam suggests to an unnerved Luna that he take her and her daughter camping until all this blows over. They spend time in the woods and finally consummate their relationship.
Back in Bon Temps, Tommy is gathering his things from Merlotte's when Marcus comes looking for Sam. He tells Tommy that he'll be expecting Sam to meet him that night. Instead, Tommy shows up in Sam's place, skinwalking as him. He's surrounded by Marcus' men, including Alicide. After a smart comment, the werewolves beat him up. Alicide puts a stop to it and carries Tommy - now shifted back - out to the truck and drives him to Sam's place at Tommy's request.
Sam is devestated to learn what's happened to his brother, and their fight is seemingly forgotten as he tries to convince the younger shifter to let him take him to a hospital. Tommy refuses. They lay him out, and Sam and Tommy share a final moment of apology and revelation before Tommy dies.
Sam vows vengeance.
Along with Alicide, he tracks Marcus down to Alicide's home and confronts him. Marcus eggs Sam on and demands they settle the score with their fists - no guns, no powers. Sam accepts, and the two brawl. Sam wins, and shows that he can kill Marcus if he wanted to. Instead, he backs off. Marcus attacks when Sam's back turns, and Alicide has to step in and kill him.
on Halloween, Sam hosts a small, private funeral for Tommy with Luna, then goes back to Merlotte's. He hires back Sookie, and the two share a tender moment. That night, he reaffirms that he still wants to try and have a relationship with Luna. She leaves, and when he turns back around he's confronted with a werewolf.
That's when the Pull takes him.
Point in Canon: The season four finale. Sam has just watched Luna drive home for the night (unaware that there's a werewolf behind him).
Conditional: N/A
Character Personality: First and most importantly, Sam is a good guy. Kind, friendly, loyal to a fault, brave when he needs to be and generally understanding. It's remarked on more than once by various characters in the series that Sam is a good man, and he's fought for his town and his friends when they were threatened. However, Sam is no warrior. Violence is never his first option, and the good-natured, laid-back shifter would much rather avoid direct conflict. He engages in it only when there's truly no other choice, or when one of his friends has been threatened [with some exceptions - see canon update]. As was once remarked, he's no Alpha. Never quite a leader, Sam is more the type to approach things sensibly and cautiously. One has to really make him feel threatened (or threaten people he cares for) to rile him.
At other times he's relaxed and easy going, chatting with people in the bar he manages when nights are slow, and going out and enjoying nature when he has some time to himself. Much like his favorite morph, Sam is a social creature. He says himself the dog form has always suited him best because "people like dogs". From someone whose real family is unknown and who was abandoned by his adopted family when he was young, family and friendship mean a great deal to him. Human connection does. Sam seeks warm companionship, but he's had a hard time with romantic relationships and is wary of revealing too much of himself (more specifically, revealing himself as a shifter) to those he's with, fearing rejection or other threats.
Adopted, and then left by his adopted parents at fifteen, Sam is a classic case of someone with Abandonment Issues. He can be overprotective of those he has affections for, and can jump into romantic relationships at the first signs of affection (as he did with Tara, although this has been tempered since Daphne's betrayal). His initially low feelings of self worth have been struggling to build back up again, helped along by assurances and praise from Sookie. Sam's confidence is growing, for all that he's still wary about being turned on.
A hard worker and a good manager, Sam cares a lot about his job and his bar, as a way of serving his town. He's fair to his waitresses and his cooks, although when in a bad mood or stressed it can bleed over to his interactions. While a supernatural being himself, and generally open-minded and tolerant (he employs and is friends with Merlotte's homosexual cook, Lafayette, for example) Sam does harbor some prejudices. He shows a clear detest for werewolves, which it's hinted at stems from a bad run-in with some when he was traveling. He also dislikes vampires (though is fine with serving them in the bar and seems to support their equal rights), viewing them as dangerous predators, but this bias has somewhat lessened since coming to know Bill (even drinking his blood to heal himself). He even sought a vampire's help when the town was in trouble, suggesting his biases can be toed aside for the sake of greater causes.
Oh, and did I mention the anger issues? Because anger issues. When Sam's temper gets going he lashes out - sometimes physically, especially if that person has hit an especially personal trigger. Sam has been in scraps before, and it seems he's generally pretty good at them.
As of Season 3 we learn that Sam's relationship issues (and specifically, issues surrounding betrayal and abandonment) go even deeper than previously shown. Even now he feels like no one in Bon Temps truly knows him, for all that they're pleasant with him.
Sam's also been shown to be a surprisingly smooth liar, such as he was when trying to sneak into the dog fighting ring. He's good about thinking on his feet. Lastly, the theme for Sam's appearances in Season 3 seem to be about him standing up for himself. The shapeshifter has grown to be more assertive, less willing to put up with slights or abuses against him.
[!!CANON UPDATE!!] Since Season 4, however, this assertiveness has mellowed out into something that comes from confidence, rather than aggression. Being able to talk with other shifters as well as form a healthy relationship with Luna has really helped his need for companionship and some of his abandonment issues. It's also tempered his anger. While it's still a heavy and present force in his life (as shown by his reaction to Tommy's betrayal), he's come to recognize that the passion isn't him, and he does have control over it. He can pull back, as he did when faced with the opportunity to kill Marcus.
Sam has also been humbled by the loss of Tommy and the regret that he wasn't a better brother to him, which may result in a more understanding shapeshifter.
Conditional: N/A
Character Plans: Sam's plans will be first and foremost to stay alive so he can find a way back to Bon Temps. If this means signing on with one of the sides to obtain work, he'll roll up his sleeves and do what he needs to. He'll likely end up supporting AGI simply because their message will sound the most reasonable to him, and will try to find work under them doing what he knows best: managing or bartending at a bar/diner. Sam is never eager to get into a fight, however, and even less eager to draw attention to himself, so he'll try his best to keep out of the politics and avoid too much notice.
As for the Darkness, you can bet this shifter will be retreating underground with the rest of the citizens every night, unless there's a great need, such as to protect someone. He's no risk taker unless he has to be.
Appearance/PB: Image here
Writing Samples:
First Person Sample: [the video clicks on. A haggard-looking man in a flannel shirt is frowning with concentration down at the camera, glancing briefly over his shoulder to address someone out of view] You said it was the green button, right? I'm on now?
[a muffled sound from a distance, the person off-camera replying] Alright. I'm usually not too bad with technology, but I've never had a phone that can do video and... and holograms, or whatever Star Wars special features you were talkin' about. Pretty sure the last time I bought myself a phone was five or six years ago and it couldn't even do that texting thing.
[the man focuses on the camera again, sighing and running a hand through his hair]
...Right. So, I'll try to make this short. I think I've been told all I can be from uh, [another brief glance behind him] from a "greeter". At least enough to know that I'm about up to my waist in shit right now and I ain't the only one. [he licks his lips, obviously uncomfortable. He scratches at his neck, touches his face-- nervous tics] Look, I'm just-- I'm not looking for anything too crazy, and I'm not lookin' for charity or for anyone to take me in or anything, so don't worry 'bout that. I'm just tryin' to reach out and get some stories from people in the same boat.
Because maybe if we start talkin' about it we can start figuring things out.
Third Person Sample: Sam Merlotte had experienced worse days. The time he was tied to a board and stabbed in the heart for some crazy cult ritual came to mind. But damned if he had experienced a more confusing day. Distorted thinking, maybe, but at least when he'd been stabbed in the heart he'd known where in the hell he was and what was going on. There was no such security now. His attempts to use his phone and get a hold of someone (he'd tried nearly every number by now, from the bar to Sookie's cell and even an attempt at Terry Bellefleur) had been about as fruitful as an orange tree on a glacier, and all the signs surrounding him were more boggling than helpful. One such sign had proclaimed the area as "Siren's Port", but who the hell knew what that meant? Sam sure didn't. "It would've been fuckin' helpful if you could've mentioned which state," the shifter had muttered upon seeing it.
Sam didn't usually curse (or at least he usually tried not to), but that particular filter had fizzled out with his phone service. The man could hardly be blamed, given the circumstances. The last thing he could remember was driving, clutching the poorly scrawled address he'd been given by the man he'd once called his father. Sure, his mind had been occupied at the time, and yeah, maybe he'd been a little distracted, but that was no explanation for waking up on his back in a dusty baseball diamond and feeling like he'd had the crap kicked out of him during a hangover. Sam didn't do drugs and he hadn't been drunk, so it didn't make sense that he'd wrecked. Where the hell was his truck, for that matter? That would have at least been nearby if he'd hit something and blacked out. He'd entertained a short-lived theory that he'd been kidnapped, but it was thrown out nearly immediately: whatever supernatural beings were out there, there was nothing that could jump a pick-up going seventy-five on a backwoods road.
"I am losing my mind," he said to no one in particular, blue eyes on the late afternoon sky. "I must be."
The scent caught his attention moments before the sound of tennis shoes on dirt did, and Sam turned his head to see someone jogging towards him from the dugout, waving and yelling out: "Welcome!"
Canon Source: True Blood
Canon Format: TV show
Character's Name: Sam Merlotte
Character's Age: 36
Conditional: N/A
What form will your character's NV take? Cell phone, plain and black.
Abilities
Character's Canon Abilities: Shapeshifting: he can turn into any animal (but not humans: too complicated) that he sees after briefly concentrating on their form. He still retains human awareness in this form. There seems to be no time limit to how long he can stay in a morph, but he'll return to human if he falls asleep or is knocked unconscious. The full moon has an effect on him-- on such nights he has to shift.
Sam also has residual senses (and behaviors, to some extent) from his favorite morph as a dog, granting him higher-than-average smelling as a human (he was able to smell the scent of a murderer from sheets he'd been on, and identify him from the man's vest). His blood temperature also naturally rests somewhere around 99, 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
Sam also barks in his sleep (as part of the having-dog-traits thing) and his sense of smell allows him to differentiate between humans/shifters/weres/vampires, etc.
It has been revealed as of Season 3 that Sam does not have to turn into an animal the moment he sees it to imprint on it. If he's seen it, he can turn into it for the first time at a later date and be perfectly fine. He can also switch straight from one shift to another without having to first turn back into a human.
Conditional: N/A
Weapons: N/A
History/Personality/Plans/etc.
Character History: Sam was adopted as an infant and grew up the only child of Mr. and Mrs. Merlotte, but when he hit puberty, his shapeshifter blood emerged. When Sam's parents saw him turn into a dog before their eyes, they abandoned him. At fifteen Sam returned from school to find his parents had packed up everything but his room and moved without telling him. He was forced to live on his own, using shapeshifting to rob from homes to stay alive. This all took a turn for the worse when he entered the home of Maryann Forrester when seventeen. She could sense there was something strange about him and had plans for the boy, coercing him into her bed. Disturbed by the event, Sam was smart enough to run, stealing an enormous amount of cash she'd had in one of her drawers while she showered.
A few years down the line, a Sam in his early twenties has turned entirely to theft to survive. He appears to be in love with a woman named Charlene who knows about and encourages his thieving habits (although how he manages to do it still perplexes her), mostly because the things he steals are jewelery for her. Sam expresses a desire to one day settle down in a nice home and raise a family with her - lead a normal life.
But it's quickly revealed that this is not to be. One afternoon after a heist, Charlene's true lover emerges from their hotel bathroom, and holds Sam at gunpoint while the two scoop up all the money and jewels Sam has been holding. Sam's love for the woman iss thrown back in his face - it was always false, and she's always been planning to turn on him for this other man. The two leave him - taking his wealth along.
Sam, however, doesn't let it go at that. He tracks the two lovers on the lam down to their current campsite in the woods, and shifting back from a dog steals the man's gun. He demands his money back, which Charlene seemingly scrambles into their truck to get. The man makes the mistake of hurling insults at Sam, calling him weak and saying he's a freak, and Sam begins punching and pistol-whipping him. His former lover pulls out a gun from the vehicle and yells for him to stop, but Sam's too lost in his anger and sense of betrayal to listen. She shoots at him but misses, and on instinct Sam fires back - hitting her in the chest. He's horrified by what he's done, genuinely shaken as she dies in front of him. But when the injured man begins to try and crawl away to escape, Sam turns on him in cold, grieving anger and kills him.
After taking back his money and stolen goods, it's assumed this is the point where Sam decides to reform his ways and begin a new life somewhere else - choosing Bon Temps.
Moving into the small Louisiana town, Sam used Maryann's and his own stolen money to finance the construction of the bar/restaurant Merlotte's. Things were normal there for a number of years: the bar was successful, he made friends, became the landlord of a few rentals, and he nursed a crush on one of the waitresses, Sookie, all while keeping the secret of his race. Things changed about the time the vampire community "came out of the closet", revealing their presence to the world. A series of murders put Sookie in danger, over the course of which he revealed himself as a shifter to her. Her relationship with the vampire Bill and a drunk night with Tara (another waitress and friend) pushed him to enter a brief sexual relationship with Tara, before various complications caused them to part ways. He helped save Sookie from the murderer, and afterward began to grudgingly accept the vampire Bill (even carrying and burying the vampire's body to safety out of the sunlight), whom he had viewed (and perhaps still does, to some degree) as his romantic rival.
Then the maenad (a follower/supernatural of the Greek god Dionysus) Maryann came to town, having apparently tracked him down over the years. She began putting the town under a hedonist spell, planning to eventually use Sam as a sacrifice to call down her god. To that end she sent a shapeshifter girl named Daphne to win his heart, and Sam fell in love with her until Daphne's part in the scheme was revealed. Daphne was eventually killed by Maryann, and Sam was framed for her death. Before Maryann could arrive at his cell to kill him, however, he escaped by shifting into a fly, and he later used the same trick (with the help of Sookie's brother and the town sheriff) to escape the enchanted members of the town when they came after him. Sam protected the two children of one of his enchanted waitresses, staying hidden in the bar with them until he was eventually approached by Bill. Convinced by the vampire to participate in a plan in order to trick Maryann into her death (and assured he would be healed), the shifter allowed Bill to present him to Maryann for sacrifice; she then bound him to an altar and stabbed him in the heart. Sookie disrupted the ritual and Sam used the confusion to heal (drinking Bill's blood) and take on the form of a bull (the "horned god" Maryann was trying to summon). Using this form he was able to fool the maenad to lower her defenses, at which point he gored her and, after shifting back to human, crushed her heart.
After the town has been returned to normal and things had settled, Sam made the decision to leave and search for his real parents, as the recent events had reminded him of his troubled and unresolved past. Confronting the people who abandoned him, the season ended with his adopted father giving him the last known information on his real parents, though his adopted mother warned that they weren't good people.
Out in Arkansas, Sam finally found his true family, the Mickens. After a talk with his birth mother, Sam found out he was given up for adoption because his father - Joe Lee - was in prison at the time, and his mother couldn't deal with raising him as a poor, single mother. Both Sam's mother (and his younger brother, Tommy, who Sam had no idea about) are shapeshifters just as he is, but Joe Lee is human.
They ended up showing up in Bon Temps after Sam returned, much to the shifter's consternation, but feeling guilty he attempted to show them hospitality - but the Mickens soon proved themselves to be less than stellar not only in terms of finances, but in morality and manners. Joe Lee was a drunk and abusive, Tommy attempted to steal from his safe, and his mother just kept making excuses and begging for money. The final straw came when Sam realized that his birth parents were using Tommy to earn them money - by forcing him to compete in illegal dog fights as a pit bull, even knowing that dogs who lost in such fights were shot and killed. Sam rescued Tommy from one of the fights by sneaking in and breaking it up, and enraged by the abuses told his parents in no uncertain terms that they were to leave Bon Temps and not contact him again. As for Tommy, Sam extended to him the invitation to stay as a tenant, offering him a job as a bus boy at Merlotte's.
As caring for Tommy proved to be harder than he'd thought (the boy inviting girls over at all hours of the night, being disrespectful, mean to the customers, accused of stealing tips from the waitresses and acting like an all-around brat), and following a few comments about him being a doormat and weak, tensions mounted in Sam. On the night two weres came into his bar looking to start trouble, those tensions snapped. After one refused to leave and called Sam a pussy, Sam broke a bottle over his head and proceeded to beat the shit out of him - to the point that the man would have died, had he not later been given V by Lafayette.
Once unleashed, Sam's anger issues didn't abate. Flashbacks from his past returned to haunt him. He turned to whiskey, and stumbling into Merlotte's one night piss drunk, verbally lashed out at the customers and his staff. The worst he turned on Tommy when the boy mouthed off to him, declaring that he was no longer welcome to work at Merlotte's or live as Sam's tenant.
Tara - the only one unfazed by Sam acting like a drunk asshole - refused to leave when he closed the bar down for the night and kicked everyone out. The two had a heart-to-heart, with Sam revealing that he was tired of being taken advantage of for being a "nice guy" and that no one in Bon Temps truly knew him. The two returned to Sam's trailer for a night shared between the sheets.
Sobered up in the morning, Sam cooked Tara breakfast and seemed to have released a great deal of the tension that had been eating at him. He finally came clean to her about being a shifter - and was promptly met with Tara's bitterness and the sentiment that she "couldn't deal with supernaturals" right now. A little frustrated, but mostly tired, Sam let her leave.
After a visit to Terry to apologize for the things he'd said and make amends, Sam was heading for the rental to do the same with Tommy. However, upon entering Tommy's trailer he realized the boy had taken off and had broken into Sam's safe to take his brother's money with him. Sam went after him, and caught up with the younger shifter in the woods. He demanded his money back, holding the boy at gunpoint. Tommy refused.
[!!CANON UPDATE!!] Sam shoots Tommy in the leg to keep him from running. The two return to Bon Temps.
A year passes. Tommy still works at Merlotte's, but now lives with Mrs. Thortenberry, who has taken the boy in as her psuedo-son and is teaching him Christianity and how to read. Sam doesn't seem to mind the arrangement as it means he doesn't have to play father to the troublesome teen, and while the two still butt heads a lot they at least aren't at each other's throats.
Sam has found a local group of shapeshifters that he's taken to shifting and spending time with, using them as a sort of therapy circle. One in particular, Luna, catches his eye and as he gets to know her better he becomes more infatuated with her. He learns that Luna has a daughter and a werewolf ex-boyfriend she's trying to keep away from.
Unbeknownst to him, Tommy has been contacted by their mother. The boy goes out to meet her, and is ambushed by Joe Lee, who intends to get the boy back under their thumb so they can turn a profit. There's a struggle, and Tommy ends up killing Joe Lee, as well as his mother by accident.
Tommy comes to Sam and tells him what happens, and he agrees to help Tommy hide the bodies. He drives them out to the swamp and dumps them into the water, adding bait to attract alligators. He tells Tommy not to be too guilt ridden over what's happened - it was self-defense. He also tells Tommy that he's killed before, making his brother the first person to know Sam's secret.
Unbeknownst to Sam, Tommy's murder of their parents has granted him the ability to be a skinwalker - to take on the shape of other people. He turns into Sam at Merlotte's and ends up firing Sookie, and later pretends to be Sam to have sex with Luna, whom he kicks out in the morning when he starts becoming violently ill. Sam finds Tommy (looking like Tommy) on the floor of his trailer and takes him to the hospital.
Tommy gets better. Sam finally talks with Luna, who's been avoiding him, and figures out his brother's new ability. He also realizes Tommy used that ability to deceive him and to manipulate Luna. It's the ultimate betrayal. He disowns Tommy, and tells the boy to leave Bon Temps and never return.
Sam goes on to patch things up with Luna, and while in her home one night Luna's ex-boyfriend Marcus, leader of the werewolf pack in Bon Temps, shows up and threatens the shifter to stay away. When he leaves, Sam suggests to an unnerved Luna that he take her and her daughter camping until all this blows over. They spend time in the woods and finally consummate their relationship.
Back in Bon Temps, Tommy is gathering his things from Merlotte's when Marcus comes looking for Sam. He tells Tommy that he'll be expecting Sam to meet him that night. Instead, Tommy shows up in Sam's place, skinwalking as him. He's surrounded by Marcus' men, including Alicide. After a smart comment, the werewolves beat him up. Alicide puts a stop to it and carries Tommy - now shifted back - out to the truck and drives him to Sam's place at Tommy's request.
Sam is devestated to learn what's happened to his brother, and their fight is seemingly forgotten as he tries to convince the younger shifter to let him take him to a hospital. Tommy refuses. They lay him out, and Sam and Tommy share a final moment of apology and revelation before Tommy dies.
Sam vows vengeance.
Along with Alicide, he tracks Marcus down to Alicide's home and confronts him. Marcus eggs Sam on and demands they settle the score with their fists - no guns, no powers. Sam accepts, and the two brawl. Sam wins, and shows that he can kill Marcus if he wanted to. Instead, he backs off. Marcus attacks when Sam's back turns, and Alicide has to step in and kill him.
on Halloween, Sam hosts a small, private funeral for Tommy with Luna, then goes back to Merlotte's. He hires back Sookie, and the two share a tender moment. That night, he reaffirms that he still wants to try and have a relationship with Luna. She leaves, and when he turns back around he's confronted with a werewolf.
That's when the Pull takes him.
Point in Canon: The season four finale. Sam has just watched Luna drive home for the night (unaware that there's a werewolf behind him).
Conditional: N/A
Character Personality: First and most importantly, Sam is a good guy. Kind, friendly, loyal to a fault, brave when he needs to be and generally understanding. It's remarked on more than once by various characters in the series that Sam is a good man, and he's fought for his town and his friends when they were threatened. However, Sam is no warrior. Violence is never his first option, and the good-natured, laid-back shifter would much rather avoid direct conflict. He engages in it only when there's truly no other choice, or when one of his friends has been threatened [with some exceptions - see canon update]. As was once remarked, he's no Alpha. Never quite a leader, Sam is more the type to approach things sensibly and cautiously. One has to really make him feel threatened (or threaten people he cares for) to rile him.
At other times he's relaxed and easy going, chatting with people in the bar he manages when nights are slow, and going out and enjoying nature when he has some time to himself. Much like his favorite morph, Sam is a social creature. He says himself the dog form has always suited him best because "people like dogs". From someone whose real family is unknown and who was abandoned by his adopted family when he was young, family and friendship mean a great deal to him. Human connection does. Sam seeks warm companionship, but he's had a hard time with romantic relationships and is wary of revealing too much of himself (more specifically, revealing himself as a shifter) to those he's with, fearing rejection or other threats.
Adopted, and then left by his adopted parents at fifteen, Sam is a classic case of someone with Abandonment Issues. He can be overprotective of those he has affections for, and can jump into romantic relationships at the first signs of affection (as he did with Tara, although this has been tempered since Daphne's betrayal). His initially low feelings of self worth have been struggling to build back up again, helped along by assurances and praise from Sookie. Sam's confidence is growing, for all that he's still wary about being turned on.
A hard worker and a good manager, Sam cares a lot about his job and his bar, as a way of serving his town. He's fair to his waitresses and his cooks, although when in a bad mood or stressed it can bleed over to his interactions. While a supernatural being himself, and generally open-minded and tolerant (he employs and is friends with Merlotte's homosexual cook, Lafayette, for example) Sam does harbor some prejudices. He shows a clear detest for werewolves, which it's hinted at stems from a bad run-in with some when he was traveling. He also dislikes vampires (though is fine with serving them in the bar and seems to support their equal rights), viewing them as dangerous predators, but this bias has somewhat lessened since coming to know Bill (even drinking his blood to heal himself). He even sought a vampire's help when the town was in trouble, suggesting his biases can be toed aside for the sake of greater causes.
Oh, and did I mention the anger issues? Because anger issues. When Sam's temper gets going he lashes out - sometimes physically, especially if that person has hit an especially personal trigger. Sam has been in scraps before, and it seems he's generally pretty good at them.
As of Season 3 we learn that Sam's relationship issues (and specifically, issues surrounding betrayal and abandonment) go even deeper than previously shown. Even now he feels like no one in Bon Temps truly knows him, for all that they're pleasant with him.
Sam's also been shown to be a surprisingly smooth liar, such as he was when trying to sneak into the dog fighting ring. He's good about thinking on his feet. Lastly, the theme for Sam's appearances in Season 3 seem to be about him standing up for himself. The shapeshifter has grown to be more assertive, less willing to put up with slights or abuses against him.
[!!CANON UPDATE!!] Since Season 4, however, this assertiveness has mellowed out into something that comes from confidence, rather than aggression. Being able to talk with other shifters as well as form a healthy relationship with Luna has really helped his need for companionship and some of his abandonment issues. It's also tempered his anger. While it's still a heavy and present force in his life (as shown by his reaction to Tommy's betrayal), he's come to recognize that the passion isn't him, and he does have control over it. He can pull back, as he did when faced with the opportunity to kill Marcus.
Sam has also been humbled by the loss of Tommy and the regret that he wasn't a better brother to him, which may result in a more understanding shapeshifter.
Conditional: N/A
Character Plans: Sam's plans will be first and foremost to stay alive so he can find a way back to Bon Temps. If this means signing on with one of the sides to obtain work, he'll roll up his sleeves and do what he needs to. He'll likely end up supporting AGI simply because their message will sound the most reasonable to him, and will try to find work under them doing what he knows best: managing or bartending at a bar/diner. Sam is never eager to get into a fight, however, and even less eager to draw attention to himself, so he'll try his best to keep out of the politics and avoid too much notice.
As for the Darkness, you can bet this shifter will be retreating underground with the rest of the citizens every night, unless there's a great need, such as to protect someone. He's no risk taker unless he has to be.
Appearance/PB: Image here
Writing Samples:
First Person Sample: [the video clicks on. A haggard-looking man in a flannel shirt is frowning with concentration down at the camera, glancing briefly over his shoulder to address someone out of view] You said it was the green button, right? I'm on now?
[a muffled sound from a distance, the person off-camera replying] Alright. I'm usually not too bad with technology, but I've never had a phone that can do video and... and holograms, or whatever Star Wars special features you were talkin' about. Pretty sure the last time I bought myself a phone was five or six years ago and it couldn't even do that texting thing.
[the man focuses on the camera again, sighing and running a hand through his hair]
...Right. So, I'll try to make this short. I think I've been told all I can be from uh, [another brief glance behind him] from a "greeter". At least enough to know that I'm about up to my waist in shit right now and I ain't the only one. [he licks his lips, obviously uncomfortable. He scratches at his neck, touches his face-- nervous tics] Look, I'm just-- I'm not looking for anything too crazy, and I'm not lookin' for charity or for anyone to take me in or anything, so don't worry 'bout that. I'm just tryin' to reach out and get some stories from people in the same boat.
Because maybe if we start talkin' about it we can start figuring things out.
Third Person Sample: Sam Merlotte had experienced worse days. The time he was tied to a board and stabbed in the heart for some crazy cult ritual came to mind. But damned if he had experienced a more confusing day. Distorted thinking, maybe, but at least when he'd been stabbed in the heart he'd known where in the hell he was and what was going on. There was no such security now. His attempts to use his phone and get a hold of someone (he'd tried nearly every number by now, from the bar to Sookie's cell and even an attempt at Terry Bellefleur) had been about as fruitful as an orange tree on a glacier, and all the signs surrounding him were more boggling than helpful. One such sign had proclaimed the area as "Siren's Port", but who the hell knew what that meant? Sam sure didn't. "It would've been fuckin' helpful if you could've mentioned which state," the shifter had muttered upon seeing it.
Sam didn't usually curse (or at least he usually tried not to), but that particular filter had fizzled out with his phone service. The man could hardly be blamed, given the circumstances. The last thing he could remember was driving, clutching the poorly scrawled address he'd been given by the man he'd once called his father. Sure, his mind had been occupied at the time, and yeah, maybe he'd been a little distracted, but that was no explanation for waking up on his back in a dusty baseball diamond and feeling like he'd had the crap kicked out of him during a hangover. Sam didn't do drugs and he hadn't been drunk, so it didn't make sense that he'd wrecked. Where the hell was his truck, for that matter? That would have at least been nearby if he'd hit something and blacked out. He'd entertained a short-lived theory that he'd been kidnapped, but it was thrown out nearly immediately: whatever supernatural beings were out there, there was nothing that could jump a pick-up going seventy-five on a backwoods road.
"I am losing my mind," he said to no one in particular, blue eyes on the late afternoon sky. "I must be."
The scent caught his attention moments before the sound of tennis shoes on dirt did, and Sam turned his head to see someone jogging towards him from the dugout, waving and yelling out: "Welcome!"