CHARACTER INFO

Character name: Damon Salvatore
Character Journal(s): saviored
Canon: The Vampire Diaries
Point of Origin: end of 4.02
Appearance: Damon is approx. 5'9 with a lean athletic build, dark sharply cut features, and blue eyes. His hair perpetually looks like he just finished having sex. On the middle finger of his left hand sits a very large, tacky-looking ring made from lapis lazuli which protects him from the sun. His initial, a D, is carved into the silver. He favors dark clothing and leather, like all respectable bad boy vampires.

As far as faces go, his tends to be a memorable one: [ x | x ]

When his fangs come out, the whites of his eyes flood red with blood and turns the veins beneath them black: [ x | x ]

Giant tacky ring: [ x ]

Personality:

Damon spends most of his life as a vampire shutting out his humanity and he puts even more effort into making sure that people know he's not human or a good guy or basically anything other than a cold-blooded monster who doesn't care about anyone or anything. Damon had wanted to turn only for Katherine and the reality is, he misses being human, though good luck getting him to say that out loud. It is significant, however, that Damon has, for most of his life, surrounded himself with humans, compelled or otherwise. It's true that they make a good snack, but even fake girlfriend Andie got invited on road trips and errands where she wasn't particularly needed -- he simply liked her company. When Damon compels another human, he keeps as much of their personality intact as he can without inconveniencing himself. It doesn't make it any less creepy and wrong, but it's a noticeable difference from the drones Isobel kept around.

Elena's the first to see through Damon's façade, but she's not the only one. It says a lot that by late S1 and beyond, people (Alaric, Isobel, Rose) who meet him only briefly recognize just how much he cares for Elena and his brother. It says even more that he spent 145 years devoted to rescuing Katherine. Damon is a creature consumed by love and he knows it. He was that way as a human; as a vampire, heightened emotions and senses dial everything up to eleven. He can be both at his best and his most destructive when he does something for love, but it's definitely not something he does in moderation. Damon in love is like Stefan on human blood—at his core, it's what drives him.

This is not to say, however, that his façade is only a front. He genuinely believes he's not a good person or capable of doing good things. It's a role he finds a twisted sense of comfort in because it's easier, familiar—there's no one to depend on him, no one disappoint, no one he'll fail. He can't when they don't expect anything from him. Even as late as mid-S3, Damon tells Stefan he's "better at being the bad guy," after deliberately making sure he's the one responsible for killing Bonnie's mother, effectively absolving Stefan of that and, in his mind, allowing Stefan and Elena to get back together. It's not as selfless as it sounds—Damon takes the fall because he'd rather ensure Elena hates him than to have her as a friend who might love him, but deep down he believes she never will. It's a screwed up kind of logic, but there it is and it's classic Damon behavior. He fucks things up, whether because he thinks it's inevitable or he's just throwing a tantrum, and then he goes around not being sorry except he obviously is and it obviously upsets him that he's lost a friend, he just refuses to say it (until he finally does).

Around the canon point he's coming from, Damon's sort of…mellowed out. Sort of. If it can be called that. Basically, he's just a bit less quick to lash out by killing everything in his way. It doesn't mean he isn't willing to do a lot of terrible things to save Elena's life (and he doesn't hesitate to try to kill Matt despite him being Elena's friend), but there's nevertheless some progress when, unlike the first time Elena rejects him, no one gets their neck broke (2.01) and Damon does not, in fact, lash out violently at all (3.19). He's trying, in other words. It's a slow road and he's not incapable of falling back into his old ways, but he's not the same person he was a year ago, either. He's spent most of the year being forced into a position where people are relying on him, especially Elena, after Stefan took off to eat people and look for werewolves with his BFF Klaus, leaving him as one of the few who could protect her. Besides, when hybrids and original vampires are trying to kill you left and right, there just isn't time to snack on strangers anymore. He's got better things to do and more important people to kill.

The truth is, Damon doesn't have much reason to stick around Mystic Falls anymore now that Elena has Stefan again, but as he admits to Alaric, he's hanging around to babysit the children. It's hard to say how he got himself in this situation; there is, however, undeniably some part of him that apparently cares -- that won't let him leave Elena and her friends unattended. It may or may not last; Damon snaps easy and his reaction can be vicious when he does, even to his loved ones (especially to his loved ones sometimes).

There are three significant people in Damon's life. The first is Elena. She's the last person who should've extended her hand to him—he's nearly killed her and her friends on multiple occasions—but she did and it means something to him. Damon doesn't exactly have a lot of people who would consider him worth saving. Along the way, he fell in love with her, but he also knows she loves Stefan. It results in a push and pull where he wants her, but he also continually pushes her away because it's easier when he knows she'll never go for him. There's nothing worse than hope. By the end, her final rejection is enough to give him a sort of death wish where he nearly lets Alaric kill him until a memory of his first meeting with Elena gets him back on his feet. More important than his love for her, though, is Elena’s friendship, and his love is pretty wrapped up in that as a whole. He couldn’t feel for her the way he does if she wasn’t the friend she is to him. He trusts her and he knows she trusts him now, too, and they’re both bound by how much they care about Stefan, by how much his going off the rails has affected them both. She’s the first person he ever trusted, in fact, and with the exception of Alaric, she’s the only one. Damon doesn’t trust easily (he definitely doesn't trust anyone who's betrayed him before, which Elena has) and he’s never had someone he could genuinely call a friend before her. He likes her. He makes her laugh, he enjoys her company, he recognizes that she can make really reckless decisions sometimes and he won't hesitate to call her out on that. She isn't just some girl who looks like Katherine to him; she's someone he cares for as a real person in her own right. Now that she's a vampire, he's determined to help her cope without living in a fluffy vampires-don't-eat-humans world, though he's equally trying to respect that decision as much as it frustrates him (key word: trying.) Deep down, he feels like he failed his brother who goes ripper-crazy around human blood. It's something that undeniably drives him further to make sure Elena doesn't go down that same road. Plus, he doesn't really hold Stefan's method of dealing in high regard; when it comes to controlling their bloodlust, Damon comes out miles ahead of Stefan and they both know it.

The second is Stefan, Damon's little brother. They used to be extremely close until Stefan’s blood high finally split them apart. Damon resents his brother greatly and there's nothing false about how much he enjoys messing with him, but as per his deathbed confession, he’s come to acknowledge that he’s blamed Stefan for events that weren’t necessarily Stefan’s fault. Even prior to that, he was willing to risk his life to save his brother, taking on a house full of vampires much older than him just to rescue his baby bro. He loves Stefan. It’s transparent as hell, though getting Damon to admit it is like wringing blood from a stone. This does not, however, make Damon any less exasperated with Stefan in general, whether Stefan is a self-loathing squirrel killer or a humanity-less dick, and he's happy to stab Stefan to make a point. They're slowly finding their way back to each other, though. Damon's openly acknowledged that Stefan is all he has and he's put in a lot of effort in trying to get Stefan back on track, helping him control his bloodlust.

Finally, there is Alaric, Damon's best and only friend. Initially in town to kill him, they developed an uneasy alliance that grew into a genuine friendship over time. Damon's killed him twice, turned his wife, and is a shameless dick, but somehow they like each other. Even Alaric can't explain why the hell he's friends with Damon. Alaric is a demonstration that Damon can care about someone without having to be desperately in love with them. His death hits Damon hard -- he won't even let anyone take the seat Alaric used to have at the bar.

These are all deeper issues, though. On general level, he is cynical and sarcastic with a tongue that cuts deep, though he can be charming when he wants to be. Plus, he's easy on the eyes and that hardly hurts his case. His mood can be unpredictable with a temper that manifests fast and cold so that by the time you've realized you've pissed him off, you're already dead. The only exceptions are when he's genuinely hurt—after Katherine left him, for example—in which case he just loses it and breaks things. He's also manipulative to the nth degree. It's telling that he manages to gain the trust of the very people who are specifically looking for a vampire. Damon is reckless, but he's not an idiot (for the most part.) He's a schemer and a tenacious one at that: if there's something he wants done or someone he wants dead, he will keep at it no matter how impossible or how many setbacks until he succeeds or he dies trying.

In short, Damon is the definition of morally ambiguous. Although he’s getting better about his disregard for collateral damage, when it comes down to it, he will let people die if he has to. "There's a small list," he says in regards to who he cares lives or dies. He won't hesitate to kill for and he won't hesitate to die for the few people he loves. Once he's decided someone's worth his loyalty, he's there to the end. Anyone outside that list? It's a coin toss whether he'll bother to rescue your ass because he happens to be feeling something that moment or kill you himself because you've just been unlucky enough to catch him in a bad mood.

ABILITIES

» production of fangs
» vampire blood (if ingested, capable of transforming someone into a vampire if a human dies with the blood in their system; also heals human injuries) > capable of healing only minor cuts and bruises in-game.
» enhanced speed/strength/reflexes. To the human eye, their movements register as a blur at best and they can jump pretty high. Capable of separating doors from a car like nothing. > slight noticeable difference in that he might have to exert more effort/feels tired a bit quicker, but i'd like to keep it mostly the same as a whole if that's okay. Normal people will also be able to track him when he moves as opposed to him popping around like Nightcrawler.
» heightened senses (sight (night vision)/smell/hearing) on par with a predatory animal. > keeping this as is if possible -- he's especially sensitive to blood.
» compulsion (form of mind control, requires eye contact and spoken orders. can be fought, but only in very extreme circumstances.) > will no longer work properly. I'll leave it up to players whether they want it to work or not at all and to what extent if/when he does use it. Damon probably will avoid using it since canonically when you're not drinking human blood it can go wrong easily (i.e. modified memories mix in with erased ones, etc) and he knows that. I'd like to keep it open as optional for those involved, though, rather than nerfing it entirely since it makes for great plotting opportunities.
» dream manipulation (can control others' dreams) > see above.
» accelerated healing (can recover from cuts, stabs, bullets and broken bones in seconds.) > cuts and bruises heal immediately; something like a broken bone will take maybe a day or two?
» cannot be killed, unless set on fire or staked through the heart.
» protection from the sun due to a magic daylight ring.

WEAKNESSES

» fire or sunlight if his ring is removed/de-spelled
» vervain (poisonous to vampires; also provides immunity to compulsion. not that important since i doubt anyone will show up with this stuff, but it's here just in case. Damon has built up a tolerance to it from regular consumption so it doesn't put him down for as long.)
» wood (extremely painful and will kill if stabbed through the heart)
» werewolf bites (lethal)
» invitations (the owner of a home must invite him in or he cannot enter) > in-game, if anyone sets up what could count as a long-term home (i.e. they're planning on staying there for at least a few months) in any abandoned house/building, he will need to be invited in.

Gear: Nothing special -- wallet, keys, cell phone, clothes, daylight ring. Half a bottle of bourbon which is gonna be empty pretty quick. He'll be wearing this at the time he's taken.

Why do you want to play this character in this particular setting?

As a vampire, Damon would fit well in survivor horror -- it'll give me a chance to really explore with creepy shit that you don't always see in a canon that's pretty love triangle based. Plus, I'm interested to see what he does with the rest of the cast of supernatural creatures (i.e. the teen wolf cast, since vampires and werewolves don't tend to get along in his canon.)

Writing Samples:

[ 1 | 2 | 3 ]

Prose:

His phone is in his hand. Normally, it's tucked into his pocket to keep his hands free, but he spent the past hour digging it out every five minutes. So now he's just holding onto it for the sake of convenience. Every time he glances at the screen, it's empty or full of messages he doesn't give a single crap about.

He hates this. Look, he's 170. That's over a century and a half, in case you need to hear the same information a different way. Technically speaking, that's not a long time for a vampire, but it's not nothing, either. The point is, he's seen a lot. He's watched the world become a lot of things.

A planet gone dead is still not something he ever figured he'd see. So much for that.

Even better news is, he has no idea what happened to him. He felt it when he came to, something that he can only describe as a dulling. Of everything. It's like putting the world on mute which, seriously? Not cool. He's gotten used to it, but it doesn't make it any less annoying, not least because all of those little bonuses that come with being undead would've really come in handy. The only thing that hits him as strong as ever is blood. It's everywhere. It soaks the air and clings to the back of his throat when he breaths, thick and black and entirely dead. Really not appetizing except he's hungry. These days, he can't not be hungry and even dead blood is starting to make his teeth itch.

Not that he's ever tried to drink it. Obviously. There's desperate and then there's suicidal. Damon knows the difference.

Whatever. Right now, it's not on his mind. Nothing's on his mind except one thing, and it keeps him moving forward. He steps over rusted blood stained onto the pavement, slips between the cars that clog up the highway like a frozen traffic jam. Everything's abandoned; everything's covered in blood. Your typical end-of-the-world flick. It's quiet. He knows he should be taking it a pace slower, a step more cautious. He doesn't care.

Because Elena's not answering. He never should've even let her out of his sight, but it happened and all he got from her was a location before she went radio silent.

There are plenty of scenarios. None of them are promising. Driving himself crazy over it isn't going to help, though, so he doesn't. Think about it, that is. It's not important. He's going to find her. The rest doesn't matter.