application ] [ paradisa
NAME: Christina
JOURNAL: lollobrigida
EMAIL: lollobrigida [gmail]
AIM: onlysayinghello
WIKI NAME: lollobrigida
CHARACTERS:
Jo Harvelle
Faith Lehane
Oliver Queen
Harmony Kendall
Mindy Macready “Hit Girl”
CHARACTER NAME: Katherine Pierce || Katerina Petrova
FANDOM: The Vampire Diaires - TV Canon
CANON: In the middle of dancing around Alaric’s apartment before Klaus (currently residing in Alaric) enters in the episode - Klaus - 2x19
WHAT THEY LOST: Katherine is losing her ability to go near Stefan Salvatore. Starting at 50 Feet Katherine will feel a mild electrical shock and that will only increase the closer she gets to Stefan. Think of it like an invisible dog fence and matching collar. Not being able to get up close and personal with Stefan to really get in his business will frustrate her completely. Also, Stefan will be able to hurt her - just by walking toward her. This will also make it more difficult for her to pretend to be Elena.
ABOUT THE CHARACTER:
Katherine Pierce, once upon a time, was Katerina Petrova. Her family cast her aside, due to her pregnancy, which she did carry to term and the child was taken away pretty much seconds after it was born, which left Katerina in a horrible state. Her emotions were all over the place and with her banishment to England she did what she could to survive. She learned English, made a few friends and it was one of her friends, Trevor, that introduced her to Elijah and Klaus. Trevor had given Katerina to Klaus as a “Birthday Present” knowing that she was the doppelganger that Elijah and Klaus had been looking for.
As a human, Katerina was very full of hope and love. She says to Elijah one day while waiting for Klaus to return to spend time with her that she doesn’t feel life is worth living without love. It’s those sentiments that she expresses to Elijah that endear her to him. When Elijah finds a way to keep the doppelganger alive after the ritual, he tries to get Klaus to agree to saving Katerina, but Klaus refuses. The feelings that Elijah has for Katerina come into play as he tries to explain why she has been the object of Klaus’ affection and how to keep her safe from death during the ritual.
I’m pretty sure the conversation she had with Elijah didn’t go so well, because she runs away. She stole the Moonstone - and sought shelter with her friend Trevor who had introduced her to Klaus in the first place.
While being kept hidden by Trevor and his friend Rose, Katerina tries to kill herself, preferring death over whatever Klaus would do - but Rose is worried for her own safety and what Klaus might do if they find Katerina dead with her. So she force feeds Katerina her blood, healing her injuries and ensuring that she stays alive. Once Katerina has that blood in her system, she knows that she has something to use to her advantage. Katerina finally succeeds at killing herself, seeking to remove the importance of herself to Klaus and his ritual. She assumed it was better to be a vampire than to be bled out and left to die. In a way, it’s a smart choice because she is no longer useful and therefore no longer something that Klaus should want. However, it’s still a huge catalyst in pushing Katerina to start running from this family because she stole something from them along with removing herself from their precious equation.
Katerina spends 372 years running from the original vampires, Klaus and Elijah, before she moves to America. Klaus being the main one that wants to break the “Sun and the Moon Curse” and the one that needs the Moonstone that Katerina had stolen. When she arrives in America she adopts the name Katherine Pierce, and tries to remain hidden from Klaus. She saves a witch, Emily Bennet, which benefits her greatly, and she is taken in by the Salvatore family to begin her attempt at living out her life away from the threat of Klaus finding her. Which naturally, doesn’t work forever.
Katherine, possibly in an effort to keep herself from being bored, sired countless vampires in Mystic Falls. It also has to do with her dislike for humans, something that came into play with her years of having to hide what she is, depending on them for her survival, and generally hating what she used to be. All of her actions would’ve been fine if she hadn’t been discovered by the Founding Families. Rather than flee from the town, she made a deal with George Lockwood. (Just one of her MANY deals to keep herself alive) He would help her fake her death and she would give him the Moonstone that she’d stolen from Klaus all those years ago. Being that the Lockwood family has the curse of the werewolf in their bloodline, George was aware of just how valuable the Moonstone would be for whichever side actually had the stone.
Her relationship with the Salvatores is a tangled web of lies, lust, obsession, and secrecy. Katherine was seeing both brothers, most of her affection being centered on Stefan as the object of her desire. Katherine, in an effort to ensure that she’d become the love interest for Stefan actually kills the woman he was engaged to. Even though she’d secured Stefan as her lover, it wasn’t enough and the interest that Damon showed in her was something she could easily use.
Katherine kept both brothers in tow, letting them both into her bedroom and allowing them to see the truth about what she was. Stefan was compelled so that she could regain what she had before of their relationship. The act of compelling being a very double-edged sword, since you have to wonder if the person would’ve stayed if they had been allowed to react naturally. Stefan though, because of Katherine’s compulsion, remains with her and continues to see her. Of course, Stefan’s love for her proves her undoing, by standing up against his father he unwittingly reveals that he knows a vampire and Stefan’s father figures out Katherine’s true identity.
Katherine is the sire of both brothers into the vampire state of being. The biggest thing to consider here when it comes to how this happened is that Katherine had to compel Stefan into being allowed to be turned, but Damon - still seeking out her approval and the spot of being the “first” love to her, didn’t need to be compelled. He wanted to be with her and to be a vampire like her. Not that he did so well accepting his new-found lifestyle, but that probably had more to do with the fact that he believed Katherine was now trapped in a tomb and that the final time she’d seen both the brothers, she had pretty much ignored Damon completely.
Her death “faked” successfully, Katherine goes into hiding (again) though after so many years of experience she’s quite good at it. She checks in on Stefan and Damon through out the years, always staying out of sight and keeping most of her focus on what Stefan is doing, once more putting the interest that Damon showed in her as “amusing” and “useful when needed”.
When it comes to realizing who Katherine is, the main thing to consider is that she is a liar. She is constantly seen in episodes of the show impersonating Elena, trying to improve her ability to pretend to be her human doppelganger. She’s done it in order to get close to Elena’s Aunt Jenna in order to compel her, to get close to both Salvatores and to just prove that she could do it. She lies to the Salvatores, to other people, to anyone that she needs to lie to. She has no problem doing this and because she’s skilled at it, it is very hard to discern when she isn’t being truthful.
She’s manipulative and self-centered. She does whatever she has to as long as it will benefit her own agenda in the end. When she is trapped in the tomb and compelled to stay there by Elijah, she knows the only way to get out is for either Elijah to break the compulsion or for Elijah to die. She wheels and deals and tries to buy her way out of the tomb with a deal with John Gilbert (Elena’s uncle) and when Damon confronts her about the plan, unaware that it was mostly Katherine’s plan, she manipulates Damon into following through with the plan. By telling Damon that she’ll be trapped in the tomb forever, she plays to his need to punish her and gets him to do the exact thing she needs him to.
When she’s trapped in the tomb with Stefan she tries to get under his skin more forcefully. She wanders around the tomb in her bra and panties trying to seduce him. She also plays to his jealousy and tries to imply that Damon won’t want to free them, since this would leave Elena to Damon. She easily recognizes that Elena has the same pull to the Salvatores that she once did and she uses that to her advantage not only in just her words and actions when referring to Elena, but also when she pretends to be Elena.
Katherine will kill without remorse or regard for whoever ends up hurt. When she wants something from Stefan she uses innocent people, bystanders, in order to make her point. During a Masquerade ball she wants to get the Moonstone back and she grabs a girl that is just passing by and breaks her back. She barely flinches, only remarking that the girl is paralyzed and then finishing the job by killing her and pushing her toward Stefan. Humans are objects to her in that regard, pieces to be used to her advantage to get what she wants. When Luca is seeking revenge for his son’s death, she pretends to be Elena and attacks Luca when he is found hiding in Elena’s bathroom. Bonnie insists that they didn’t have to kill them, while Katherine reasserts that, “Yes, they did.” She’s cold and calculated knowing that she is doing what needs to be done and has no real regard for whoever has to be left cleaning up her mess.
One of her biggest claims to fame in her recent return to Mystic Falls is siring Caroline just in order to relay a message to the Salvatores. Her jealousy had reared its ugly head (once again) and in being rejected by Stefan she lashed out by creating a problem for them in Caroline. It’s also Caroline that becomes her target, figuring out that she’s the weakest link and that she will be the easiest to manipulate out of the group closest to Stefan and Damon. She threatens the life of Matt to keep Caroline in line -- but at the same time is compelling Matt to do things for her. The main being to attack Tyler Lockwood (she needs a new werewolf, since Damon killed her lover Mason Lockwood) until Tyler kills him. It’s not keeping with her agreement with Caroline at all, and is just another way to show how manipulative and underhanded Katherine can be. She honestly does not care about anyone except herself.
She really doesn’t seem to care very much for humans and even the ones that she takes as lovers, like the Salvatore brothers, she sires and turns into vampires. She has a love affair with Mason Lockwood - a werewolf that through a very round-about way created. In order to trigger the curse that is set upon the Lockwood men, Katherine compelled a patron at the bar they were at to attack Mason and to not stop until Mason killed him.
She plays both sides whenever possible, sacrificing countless witches, people, and vampires to maintain her own safety. She makes deals with whoever will listen, with whoever has what she needs in order to keep ahead of the game. She ensures that Lockwood men will have their werewolf natures come out, she aligned herself with Isobel (Elena’s birth mother and another vampire) in order to try and keep ahead of Klaus and Elijah because she didn’t believe that the Salvatores could actually win, and she seems to mostly focus on whichever Salvatore brother will get her what she wants.
There isn’t much that scares Katherine either. She sleeps with a werewolf, a creature that with one bite could kill her. She builds up a tolerance to vervain over the years, a substance that can burn, weaken, and knock her out if used in a high enough dosage. She kills humans in public, dropping bodies without worry. She sired Caroline while she was still in the hospital.
Truthfully, Klaus is the one thing that scares Katherine. Running from him for 500 years (the initial 372 before she moved to America in 1864 and then the remaining years to present date), equates to 500 years of Klaus chasing her. The betrayal, the running, and her death -- all of those things add up to one very powerful vampire, an Original, who is very ticked off at her. In fact, once Klaus gets his hands on Katherine - he compels her and forces her to torture herself - telling her that she ran from him for 500 years and that he’s going to make sure her death lasts at least half that.
Katherine will always put herself first. While she is being held captive by Klaus, her compulsion stopping her from talking about Klaus and his plans, leaving Alaric’s apartment, or opening the door. She takes the vervain that Damon and Andie brought to her, which would have stopped any further compulsions that Klaus put to her. However, she still plays the part. Katherine is told to remove her bracelet and stand in the sunlight to prove she is still under compulsion, and she does that even if it will kill her. She even goes to the extent that when Klaus asks Katherine to pretend to be Elena and lure Jenna (Elena’s aunt) out of the Salvatore Boarding House, she does so. Even though she knows that this means that Jenna will be killed. This is key because she knows that this will only make her relationship with Stefan and Damon more complicated, and since arriving in Mystic Falls she’s realizing that she’s definitely going to be very alone, for a very long time.
This is a recent part of Katherine’s development and something that I really love about her character. The fact that she can run from someone for 500 years, shove away the very thing that saved her life (technically) in her emotions and open-heartedness, and that now she’s trying to figure out how to reclaim the things that could bring her closer to the man she loves. In fact, one of the main things that gets her to tell Damon Klaus’ plan about having a werewolf and a vampire locked away in a tomb is the fact that Damon tells Katherine that he fed Elena his blood. That if Klaus succeeds, Elena will die and become a vampire and that she’d have to compete for Stefan’s affections from Elena for all of eternity. This is a huge deal because giving away part of Klaus’ plan for the ritual means that she’ll upset Klaus and considering he’s the only person she is terrified of, risking ticking him off even more -- is huge.
If you think that it was Katerina’s outlook on love, on how life wasn’t worth living without it, that brought Elijah to tell her the truth about Klaus and his plans for her -- it’s as if she’s spent all 500 years running away from the weak girl that allowed her love for a man to trick her into a dangerous situation. Everything she’s done has been to prove that she’s strong, capable of surviving, and doing her best to not be dependent on anyone. (Even if she still loves and wants Stefan.)
ABILITIES:
Vampires in the canon for The Vampire Diaries have a plethora of abilities. Vampire Hearing, Strength, Speed, Agility, and Healing top the charts. Her movements can be quick as well as silent, sneaking up on her prey as if she had been there the whole time. Her hearing can extend to about 500 yards, since it’s shown in the show where vampires can eavesdrop on a conversation from a pretty great distance and hear where someone is in a forest (which has a lot of ambient sounds to go around).
There is also the ability to compel humans to follow their commands, which gets stronger when their own personal strength is on the high end of the scale. All they have to do is get direct eye contact and they can compel someone to do anything, all the way up to murder and self-harm. Katherine compelled Jenna to stab herself by setting up a series of commands and when her final one was followed, it was the “kill-switch” so to speak that was put into place. This compulsion is probably more magical than physiological since it can be prevented with an herb being present in the blood or around the subject and it is stronger when they have human blood running through their body.
My personal belief (since it hasn’t been stated in canon) is that having the human blood in their bodies, ties them to other humans and in a way it’s a very blurred ‘do what I say’ command as if they now have control over that person and their bloodflow. Which is the lifesource to the brain, limbs, and everything else that could make a person move/think/etc.
They feed off of human blood, which keeps their bodies actually “Living” so they still have all of the same human functions. They eat, breathe, drink, and have sex. Caffeine makes their body temp increase because it promotes blood flow, alcohol curbs their hunger for human blood, as does food (but not as much as the alcohol does), and they sleep in beds.
Weaknesses are some of the standard vampire repellents. Impaled by wood hurts like crazy, through the heart petrifies and kills them. Sunlight burns them (but there are magical ways around that, such as the spelled bracelet that Katherine wears), vervain (an herb) can be used to prevent their compulsion and also renders the blood they drink to poisonous levels which will render them into a state of non-responsive. The same can be said for water that has the actual vervain plant in it, causing their skin to boil and burn when exposed to it. Katherine has built up a tolerance to vervain over the years, so she can ingest it and not be affected by its negative aspects. When she drinks it, there is still the sense that it burns on the way down, but it’s more similar to the burn of a strong alcohol than something that is searing her esophagus.
She can survive for a long period of time on very little blood, but her body could begin to desiccate and ruin after a week. She can be mummified and stored, if the reason is there for that sort of harsh reaction.
She will need to be invited into any living space that is occupied by a resident. If she manages to get into a room, either through castle hijinks or plots, she will suffocate until she is out of the room and properly invited back in.
THIRD-PERSON WRITING SAMPLE:
Note: I would use this as her arrival post, placed into the log community (I would edit it to make sure that whoever’s room she ended up in was represented) and then use the secondary piece (the first person sample) for after she’d gotten the rundown of the castle and all that.
--
The vervain in her system was like a breath of fresh air. No longer having the weight of Klaus and his psychotic demands on her shoulders, Katherine felt like she could manage her situation once more. A tiny thanks were due to Damon, once more proving that his feelings were still useful to her. It really was something she needed to be grateful for, considering Klaus and his threat of making her death last as long as he wanted, she wasn’t looking forward to centuries of self-mutilation and being his walking-talking mannequin to do with as he pleased. Her tolerance for Klaus and his actions had expired when she learned just what he wanted to do with her.
For now, she had the loud music vibrating off of her body as she danced around Alaric’s apartment. The bottle of booze in her hand getting lighter as she continued to stave off her need for blood. It wasn’t as if Klaus needed to keep a stockpile in the fridge and Alaric certainly didn’t have a vampire-friendly freezer, so Katherine did what she had to do, making sacrifices until she could be rid of Klaus and his ridiculous need to keep her captive.
It irritated her that she was stuck, that she had to play these games with Klaus. As she danced around the apartment, the loud music serving as a distraction, she tried to consider what her life could be if they succeeded in stopping Klaus, in killing him. She’d leave this history teacher’s apartment, get a new change of clothing, find some co-ed at a bar and get something fresh in her system. Leave the body and move on.
Closing her eyes she felt the curls of her hair bouncing and then the music stopped. Her movements halted immediately, holding her breath for a moment. How had she missed someone coming in? How had she not noticed that she wasn’t alone anymore? The bottle dropped out of her hand, thunking to the floor. Turning around, she wasn’t sure what was going on, but something was different. When she let the breath she was holding go, her eyes went wide. Hands clutched to her throat as she realized she couldn’t actually get new air.
Gasping wildly, she tried to pull in air, tried to get her lungs to fill again, but nothing worked. Grasping wildly outwardly, she tried to find purchase on a nearby desk, but she missed it by a few inches. Dropping to the ground, she tried to crawl forward, tried to get out of the room. The fact being that this room was not one that she was allowed to be in.
She needed to be invited.
FIRST-PERSON WRITING SAMPLE:
[Over the journal, there’s the soft sound of fingernails tapping against the page briefly then it stops. The voice might sound familiar to anyone that has spoken with Elena, but there’s a less than enthused tone to her words. They’re flat, just like she’s reading off a list of things to do today.]
Castle. Wishes. Kidnapped. Losses. No escape. Random attempts to annoy and irritate everyone that lives here.
Kitchen. Clinic. Bars a plenty and a city.
Oh, and the added joy of timeline confusion and the possibility of sharing the face with someone else. [There’s a soft bit of amusement that comes through over the journal with that last remark.]
I think I’m properly introduced to this castle, I guess now I just have to wait for you all to be properly introduced to me.
I’m Katherine. [She says her name with a definite bit of weight to it, that it’s definitely your privilege to meet her.]
INTENT: I have been watching and interacting with the Vampire Diaries cast since it has started to grow and I continue to be more and more impressed with not only their characterization, but the way they have managed to build a lot of CR that is outside their canon cast. I have been trying to pick a character to apply into the cast for a while, but I didn’t want to pick up a character that was too similar to one that I already have. For a while I contemplated Caroline, but she is very similar to Harmony and I already have a blonde vampire in the castle. Recently, I started to write Katherine in memes and other things and I had such a good time delving into those layers that have been built up over those 500 years of her existence. She’s manipulative, but in a way that almost makes her seem vulnerable because she is putting most of her focus onto the Salvatore brothers and getting back with Stefan. I love playing that she has the ability to handle being a “face-twin” as we call it in Paradisa and that there is already an Elena in the castle.
I also miss having a true “evil” person in the castle. I had Callisto, but I will be the first to admit that she was difficult to build CR with because she doesn’t care, isn’t friendly, and was crazy. She was also in the castle for the third time most recently, which I am sure led people to be a bit shy when it came to building CR with her. Callisto was a good villain, but not a good fit for the castle - no matter how much I wanted her to be.
I really want to write this manipulative character, I want that evil aspect back in my fold of characters. I want to be able to align myself with the villains of the game if needed. I really want to hop right into the world of TVD characters that are in the game and throw them a huge curveball. By placing her pretty far into the canon of the series, she’ll be ahead of a lot of them and holding a lot of “truths” about what happens in their future. Nothing like blackmail to keep a person on your good side. I think, with the exception of being able to apply for Faith, I haven’t been this excited to write a character in Paradisa in a while. Katherine is also a fairly new character to me and I look forward to building her out and exploring all that her facets have to offer in a game this size and with this much variety of characters.
JOURNAL: lollobrigida
EMAIL: lollobrigida [gmail]
AIM: onlysayinghello
WIKI NAME: lollobrigida
CHARACTERS:
Jo Harvelle
Faith Lehane
Oliver Queen
Harmony Kendall
Mindy Macready “Hit Girl”
CHARACTER NAME: Katherine Pierce || Katerina Petrova
FANDOM: The Vampire Diaires - TV Canon
CANON: In the middle of dancing around Alaric’s apartment before Klaus (currently residing in Alaric) enters in the episode - Klaus - 2x19
WHAT THEY LOST: Katherine is losing her ability to go near Stefan Salvatore. Starting at 50 Feet Katherine will feel a mild electrical shock and that will only increase the closer she gets to Stefan. Think of it like an invisible dog fence and matching collar. Not being able to get up close and personal with Stefan to really get in his business will frustrate her completely. Also, Stefan will be able to hurt her - just by walking toward her. This will also make it more difficult for her to pretend to be Elena.
ABOUT THE CHARACTER:
Katherine Pierce, once upon a time, was Katerina Petrova. Her family cast her aside, due to her pregnancy, which she did carry to term and the child was taken away pretty much seconds after it was born, which left Katerina in a horrible state. Her emotions were all over the place and with her banishment to England she did what she could to survive. She learned English, made a few friends and it was one of her friends, Trevor, that introduced her to Elijah and Klaus. Trevor had given Katerina to Klaus as a “Birthday Present” knowing that she was the doppelganger that Elijah and Klaus had been looking for.
As a human, Katerina was very full of hope and love. She says to Elijah one day while waiting for Klaus to return to spend time with her that she doesn’t feel life is worth living without love. It’s those sentiments that she expresses to Elijah that endear her to him. When Elijah finds a way to keep the doppelganger alive after the ritual, he tries to get Klaus to agree to saving Katerina, but Klaus refuses. The feelings that Elijah has for Katerina come into play as he tries to explain why she has been the object of Klaus’ affection and how to keep her safe from death during the ritual.
I’m pretty sure the conversation she had with Elijah didn’t go so well, because she runs away. She stole the Moonstone - and sought shelter with her friend Trevor who had introduced her to Klaus in the first place.
While being kept hidden by Trevor and his friend Rose, Katerina tries to kill herself, preferring death over whatever Klaus would do - but Rose is worried for her own safety and what Klaus might do if they find Katerina dead with her. So she force feeds Katerina her blood, healing her injuries and ensuring that she stays alive. Once Katerina has that blood in her system, she knows that she has something to use to her advantage. Katerina finally succeeds at killing herself, seeking to remove the importance of herself to Klaus and his ritual. She assumed it was better to be a vampire than to be bled out and left to die. In a way, it’s a smart choice because she is no longer useful and therefore no longer something that Klaus should want. However, it’s still a huge catalyst in pushing Katerina to start running from this family because she stole something from them along with removing herself from their precious equation.
Katerina spends 372 years running from the original vampires, Klaus and Elijah, before she moves to America. Klaus being the main one that wants to break the “Sun and the Moon Curse” and the one that needs the Moonstone that Katerina had stolen. When she arrives in America she adopts the name Katherine Pierce, and tries to remain hidden from Klaus. She saves a witch, Emily Bennet, which benefits her greatly, and she is taken in by the Salvatore family to begin her attempt at living out her life away from the threat of Klaus finding her. Which naturally, doesn’t work forever.
Katherine, possibly in an effort to keep herself from being bored, sired countless vampires in Mystic Falls. It also has to do with her dislike for humans, something that came into play with her years of having to hide what she is, depending on them for her survival, and generally hating what she used to be. All of her actions would’ve been fine if she hadn’t been discovered by the Founding Families. Rather than flee from the town, she made a deal with George Lockwood. (Just one of her MANY deals to keep herself alive) He would help her fake her death and she would give him the Moonstone that she’d stolen from Klaus all those years ago. Being that the Lockwood family has the curse of the werewolf in their bloodline, George was aware of just how valuable the Moonstone would be for whichever side actually had the stone.
Her relationship with the Salvatores is a tangled web of lies, lust, obsession, and secrecy. Katherine was seeing both brothers, most of her affection being centered on Stefan as the object of her desire. Katherine, in an effort to ensure that she’d become the love interest for Stefan actually kills the woman he was engaged to. Even though she’d secured Stefan as her lover, it wasn’t enough and the interest that Damon showed in her was something she could easily use.
Katherine kept both brothers in tow, letting them both into her bedroom and allowing them to see the truth about what she was. Stefan was compelled so that she could regain what she had before of their relationship. The act of compelling being a very double-edged sword, since you have to wonder if the person would’ve stayed if they had been allowed to react naturally. Stefan though, because of Katherine’s compulsion, remains with her and continues to see her. Of course, Stefan’s love for her proves her undoing, by standing up against his father he unwittingly reveals that he knows a vampire and Stefan’s father figures out Katherine’s true identity.
Katherine is the sire of both brothers into the vampire state of being. The biggest thing to consider here when it comes to how this happened is that Katherine had to compel Stefan into being allowed to be turned, but Damon - still seeking out her approval and the spot of being the “first” love to her, didn’t need to be compelled. He wanted to be with her and to be a vampire like her. Not that he did so well accepting his new-found lifestyle, but that probably had more to do with the fact that he believed Katherine was now trapped in a tomb and that the final time she’d seen both the brothers, she had pretty much ignored Damon completely.
Her death “faked” successfully, Katherine goes into hiding (again) though after so many years of experience she’s quite good at it. She checks in on Stefan and Damon through out the years, always staying out of sight and keeping most of her focus on what Stefan is doing, once more putting the interest that Damon showed in her as “amusing” and “useful when needed”.
When it comes to realizing who Katherine is, the main thing to consider is that she is a liar. She is constantly seen in episodes of the show impersonating Elena, trying to improve her ability to pretend to be her human doppelganger. She’s done it in order to get close to Elena’s Aunt Jenna in order to compel her, to get close to both Salvatores and to just prove that she could do it. She lies to the Salvatores, to other people, to anyone that she needs to lie to. She has no problem doing this and because she’s skilled at it, it is very hard to discern when she isn’t being truthful.
She’s manipulative and self-centered. She does whatever she has to as long as it will benefit her own agenda in the end. When she is trapped in the tomb and compelled to stay there by Elijah, she knows the only way to get out is for either Elijah to break the compulsion or for Elijah to die. She wheels and deals and tries to buy her way out of the tomb with a deal with John Gilbert (Elena’s uncle) and when Damon confronts her about the plan, unaware that it was mostly Katherine’s plan, she manipulates Damon into following through with the plan. By telling Damon that she’ll be trapped in the tomb forever, she plays to his need to punish her and gets him to do the exact thing she needs him to.
When she’s trapped in the tomb with Stefan she tries to get under his skin more forcefully. She wanders around the tomb in her bra and panties trying to seduce him. She also plays to his jealousy and tries to imply that Damon won’t want to free them, since this would leave Elena to Damon. She easily recognizes that Elena has the same pull to the Salvatores that she once did and she uses that to her advantage not only in just her words and actions when referring to Elena, but also when she pretends to be Elena.
Katherine will kill without remorse or regard for whoever ends up hurt. When she wants something from Stefan she uses innocent people, bystanders, in order to make her point. During a Masquerade ball she wants to get the Moonstone back and she grabs a girl that is just passing by and breaks her back. She barely flinches, only remarking that the girl is paralyzed and then finishing the job by killing her and pushing her toward Stefan. Humans are objects to her in that regard, pieces to be used to her advantage to get what she wants. When Luca is seeking revenge for his son’s death, she pretends to be Elena and attacks Luca when he is found hiding in Elena’s bathroom. Bonnie insists that they didn’t have to kill them, while Katherine reasserts that, “Yes, they did.” She’s cold and calculated knowing that she is doing what needs to be done and has no real regard for whoever has to be left cleaning up her mess.
One of her biggest claims to fame in her recent return to Mystic Falls is siring Caroline just in order to relay a message to the Salvatores. Her jealousy had reared its ugly head (once again) and in being rejected by Stefan she lashed out by creating a problem for them in Caroline. It’s also Caroline that becomes her target, figuring out that she’s the weakest link and that she will be the easiest to manipulate out of the group closest to Stefan and Damon. She threatens the life of Matt to keep Caroline in line -- but at the same time is compelling Matt to do things for her. The main being to attack Tyler Lockwood (she needs a new werewolf, since Damon killed her lover Mason Lockwood) until Tyler kills him. It’s not keeping with her agreement with Caroline at all, and is just another way to show how manipulative and underhanded Katherine can be. She honestly does not care about anyone except herself.
She really doesn’t seem to care very much for humans and even the ones that she takes as lovers, like the Salvatore brothers, she sires and turns into vampires. She has a love affair with Mason Lockwood - a werewolf that through a very round-about way created. In order to trigger the curse that is set upon the Lockwood men, Katherine compelled a patron at the bar they were at to attack Mason and to not stop until Mason killed him.
She plays both sides whenever possible, sacrificing countless witches, people, and vampires to maintain her own safety. She makes deals with whoever will listen, with whoever has what she needs in order to keep ahead of the game. She ensures that Lockwood men will have their werewolf natures come out, she aligned herself with Isobel (Elena’s birth mother and another vampire) in order to try and keep ahead of Klaus and Elijah because she didn’t believe that the Salvatores could actually win, and she seems to mostly focus on whichever Salvatore brother will get her what she wants.
There isn’t much that scares Katherine either. She sleeps with a werewolf, a creature that with one bite could kill her. She builds up a tolerance to vervain over the years, a substance that can burn, weaken, and knock her out if used in a high enough dosage. She kills humans in public, dropping bodies without worry. She sired Caroline while she was still in the hospital.
Truthfully, Klaus is the one thing that scares Katherine. Running from him for 500 years (the initial 372 before she moved to America in 1864 and then the remaining years to present date), equates to 500 years of Klaus chasing her. The betrayal, the running, and her death -- all of those things add up to one very powerful vampire, an Original, who is very ticked off at her. In fact, once Klaus gets his hands on Katherine - he compels her and forces her to torture herself - telling her that she ran from him for 500 years and that he’s going to make sure her death lasts at least half that.
Katherine will always put herself first. While she is being held captive by Klaus, her compulsion stopping her from talking about Klaus and his plans, leaving Alaric’s apartment, or opening the door. She takes the vervain that Damon and Andie brought to her, which would have stopped any further compulsions that Klaus put to her. However, she still plays the part. Katherine is told to remove her bracelet and stand in the sunlight to prove she is still under compulsion, and she does that even if it will kill her. She even goes to the extent that when Klaus asks Katherine to pretend to be Elena and lure Jenna (Elena’s aunt) out of the Salvatore Boarding House, she does so. Even though she knows that this means that Jenna will be killed. This is key because she knows that this will only make her relationship with Stefan and Damon more complicated, and since arriving in Mystic Falls she’s realizing that she’s definitely going to be very alone, for a very long time.
This is a recent part of Katherine’s development and something that I really love about her character. The fact that she can run from someone for 500 years, shove away the very thing that saved her life (technically) in her emotions and open-heartedness, and that now she’s trying to figure out how to reclaim the things that could bring her closer to the man she loves. In fact, one of the main things that gets her to tell Damon Klaus’ plan about having a werewolf and a vampire locked away in a tomb is the fact that Damon tells Katherine that he fed Elena his blood. That if Klaus succeeds, Elena will die and become a vampire and that she’d have to compete for Stefan’s affections from Elena for all of eternity. This is a huge deal because giving away part of Klaus’ plan for the ritual means that she’ll upset Klaus and considering he’s the only person she is terrified of, risking ticking him off even more -- is huge.
If you think that it was Katerina’s outlook on love, on how life wasn’t worth living without it, that brought Elijah to tell her the truth about Klaus and his plans for her -- it’s as if she’s spent all 500 years running away from the weak girl that allowed her love for a man to trick her into a dangerous situation. Everything she’s done has been to prove that she’s strong, capable of surviving, and doing her best to not be dependent on anyone. (Even if she still loves and wants Stefan.)
ABILITIES:
Vampires in the canon for The Vampire Diaries have a plethora of abilities. Vampire Hearing, Strength, Speed, Agility, and Healing top the charts. Her movements can be quick as well as silent, sneaking up on her prey as if she had been there the whole time. Her hearing can extend to about 500 yards, since it’s shown in the show where vampires can eavesdrop on a conversation from a pretty great distance and hear where someone is in a forest (which has a lot of ambient sounds to go around).
There is also the ability to compel humans to follow their commands, which gets stronger when their own personal strength is on the high end of the scale. All they have to do is get direct eye contact and they can compel someone to do anything, all the way up to murder and self-harm. Katherine compelled Jenna to stab herself by setting up a series of commands and when her final one was followed, it was the “kill-switch” so to speak that was put into place. This compulsion is probably more magical than physiological since it can be prevented with an herb being present in the blood or around the subject and it is stronger when they have human blood running through their body.
My personal belief (since it hasn’t been stated in canon) is that having the human blood in their bodies, ties them to other humans and in a way it’s a very blurred ‘do what I say’ command as if they now have control over that person and their bloodflow. Which is the lifesource to the brain, limbs, and everything else that could make a person move/think/etc.
They feed off of human blood, which keeps their bodies actually “Living” so they still have all of the same human functions. They eat, breathe, drink, and have sex. Caffeine makes their body temp increase because it promotes blood flow, alcohol curbs their hunger for human blood, as does food (but not as much as the alcohol does), and they sleep in beds.
Weaknesses are some of the standard vampire repellents. Impaled by wood hurts like crazy, through the heart petrifies and kills them. Sunlight burns them (but there are magical ways around that, such as the spelled bracelet that Katherine wears), vervain (an herb) can be used to prevent their compulsion and also renders the blood they drink to poisonous levels which will render them into a state of non-responsive. The same can be said for water that has the actual vervain plant in it, causing their skin to boil and burn when exposed to it. Katherine has built up a tolerance to vervain over the years, so she can ingest it and not be affected by its negative aspects. When she drinks it, there is still the sense that it burns on the way down, but it’s more similar to the burn of a strong alcohol than something that is searing her esophagus.
She can survive for a long period of time on very little blood, but her body could begin to desiccate and ruin after a week. She can be mummified and stored, if the reason is there for that sort of harsh reaction.
She will need to be invited into any living space that is occupied by a resident. If she manages to get into a room, either through castle hijinks or plots, she will suffocate until she is out of the room and properly invited back in.
THIRD-PERSON WRITING SAMPLE:
Note: I would use this as her arrival post, placed into the log community (I would edit it to make sure that whoever’s room she ended up in was represented) and then use the secondary piece (the first person sample) for after she’d gotten the rundown of the castle and all that.
--
The vervain in her system was like a breath of fresh air. No longer having the weight of Klaus and his psychotic demands on her shoulders, Katherine felt like she could manage her situation once more. A tiny thanks were due to Damon, once more proving that his feelings were still useful to her. It really was something she needed to be grateful for, considering Klaus and his threat of making her death last as long as he wanted, she wasn’t looking forward to centuries of self-mutilation and being his walking-talking mannequin to do with as he pleased. Her tolerance for Klaus and his actions had expired when she learned just what he wanted to do with her.
For now, she had the loud music vibrating off of her body as she danced around Alaric’s apartment. The bottle of booze in her hand getting lighter as she continued to stave off her need for blood. It wasn’t as if Klaus needed to keep a stockpile in the fridge and Alaric certainly didn’t have a vampire-friendly freezer, so Katherine did what she had to do, making sacrifices until she could be rid of Klaus and his ridiculous need to keep her captive.
It irritated her that she was stuck, that she had to play these games with Klaus. As she danced around the apartment, the loud music serving as a distraction, she tried to consider what her life could be if they succeeded in stopping Klaus, in killing him. She’d leave this history teacher’s apartment, get a new change of clothing, find some co-ed at a bar and get something fresh in her system. Leave the body and move on.
Closing her eyes she felt the curls of her hair bouncing and then the music stopped. Her movements halted immediately, holding her breath for a moment. How had she missed someone coming in? How had she not noticed that she wasn’t alone anymore? The bottle dropped out of her hand, thunking to the floor. Turning around, she wasn’t sure what was going on, but something was different. When she let the breath she was holding go, her eyes went wide. Hands clutched to her throat as she realized she couldn’t actually get new air.
Gasping wildly, she tried to pull in air, tried to get her lungs to fill again, but nothing worked. Grasping wildly outwardly, she tried to find purchase on a nearby desk, but she missed it by a few inches. Dropping to the ground, she tried to crawl forward, tried to get out of the room. The fact being that this room was not one that she was allowed to be in.
She needed to be invited.
FIRST-PERSON WRITING SAMPLE:
[Over the journal, there’s the soft sound of fingernails tapping against the page briefly then it stops. The voice might sound familiar to anyone that has spoken with Elena, but there’s a less than enthused tone to her words. They’re flat, just like she’s reading off a list of things to do today.]
Castle. Wishes. Kidnapped. Losses. No escape. Random attempts to annoy and irritate everyone that lives here.
Kitchen. Clinic. Bars a plenty and a city.
Oh, and the added joy of timeline confusion and the possibility of sharing the face with someone else. [There’s a soft bit of amusement that comes through over the journal with that last remark.]
I think I’m properly introduced to this castle, I guess now I just have to wait for you all to be properly introduced to me.
I’m Katherine. [She says her name with a definite bit of weight to it, that it’s definitely your privilege to meet her.]
INTENT: I have been watching and interacting with the Vampire Diaries cast since it has started to grow and I continue to be more and more impressed with not only their characterization, but the way they have managed to build a lot of CR that is outside their canon cast. I have been trying to pick a character to apply into the cast for a while, but I didn’t want to pick up a character that was too similar to one that I already have. For a while I contemplated Caroline, but she is very similar to Harmony and I already have a blonde vampire in the castle. Recently, I started to write Katherine in memes and other things and I had such a good time delving into those layers that have been built up over those 500 years of her existence. She’s manipulative, but in a way that almost makes her seem vulnerable because she is putting most of her focus onto the Salvatore brothers and getting back with Stefan. I love playing that she has the ability to handle being a “face-twin” as we call it in Paradisa and that there is already an Elena in the castle.
I also miss having a true “evil” person in the castle. I had Callisto, but I will be the first to admit that she was difficult to build CR with because she doesn’t care, isn’t friendly, and was crazy. She was also in the castle for the third time most recently, which I am sure led people to be a bit shy when it came to building CR with her. Callisto was a good villain, but not a good fit for the castle - no matter how much I wanted her to be.
I really want to write this manipulative character, I want that evil aspect back in my fold of characters. I want to be able to align myself with the villains of the game if needed. I really want to hop right into the world of TVD characters that are in the game and throw them a huge curveball. By placing her pretty far into the canon of the series, she’ll be ahead of a lot of them and holding a lot of “truths” about what happens in their future. Nothing like blackmail to keep a person on your good side. I think, with the exception of being able to apply for Faith, I haven’t been this excited to write a character in Paradisa in a while. Katherine is also a fairly new character to me and I look forward to building her out and exploring all that her facets have to offer in a game this size and with this much variety of characters.