ᴡʜᴇɴ ᴘᴇᴏᴘʟᴇ sᴇᴇ ɢᴏᴏᴅ ᴛʜᴇʏ ᴇxᴘᴇᴄᴛ ɢᴏᴏᴅ ᴀɴᴅ ɪ ᴅᴏɴ'ᴛ ᴡᴀɴᴛ ᴛᴏ ʟɪᴠᴇ ᴜᴘ ᴛᴏ sᴏᴍᴇᴏɴᴇ's ᴇxᴘᴇᴄᴛᴀᴛɪᴏɴs.

[interpersonally]

WELCOME TO THE SALTBURNT NETWORK

USERNAME:
STEFAN

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Comments

[interpersonally]

I have two people I trust and I have a few people I can compare notes with.

To be honest, I'm staying quiet and reading everything. I can see how the case against August would be building and from what Ren said, about Shauna.

In our other Saltburnt she was basically running a cult. I suspect the same could be said for this. Our life imitated our lives to an extent. But, I have no evidence, not like what's been presented.

I know different people beheaded all the victims, but they were all cauterized, likely by the same individual or under that person's eye.

I wonder if the alpha isn't just pushing the wolves but influencing their minds. Or, if it's only the werewolf curse itself that does that.

Many of the players this round have been keeping things more insular, so I don't have as much insight as I thought I did in the first round. I also think a lot of misinformation was thrown during the first round.

[holyposition]

I want to be able to work with you. Call it leftover delusion from Italian month, but I trust you.

Some of the heads were ripped off. Koby’s was. It was all uneven, so if they were cauterized with a tool, there would be missed spots, or uneven burn marks. But there weren’t, it was clean and even. It had to be supernatural.

I think August is the alpha. He’s the one involved in magic and rituals, so they followed his lead. There’s sigils and whatnot all over the table they were posed at.

Misinformation and distractions. I understand why the vampires are insular, after last time. I think every single one of them had been accused at one point. That one of them really did do it seemed more like luck than anything else. But the fact that they were all compelled without a fight is concerning.

[interpersonally]

I think you might get yourself killed, but I trust you, too. We can lie to ourselves all we want, but that allegiance still sits inside us. I feel it too, as much as I told you otherwise.

If not the alpha, he's involved. I believe it, too. There's talk of someone finally making an accusation.

It is, and it could be the work of a vampire. But, a telepath could also be involved. I haven't ruled that out.

[holyposition]

Thank you. It means a lot.

We need to know who of yours can do that, Stefan. It sucks, but you know I'm right. If we know where to start, we can start knocking names off.

[interpersonally]

You're still not my son, I don't even know how to feel... that. But, part of what I lived through, when I was asleep, was learning I could have had one. I got a girl pregnant before being turned. I never knew, not for more than a hundred years. Maybe you could have been him.

I don't know any telepaths, Tim.

[holyposition]

And you're not my father. I know that. But I still remember the lifetime where you were, and the way I felt about it. I've always had a hard time compartmentalizing.

Maybe. In another life. You weren't as bad a father as I told people, you know.

Any vampires who can't compel anyone?

[interpersonally]

I haven't. One of us needs to.

I know, but I let you live with your truth.

I don't know any of the other vampires. Or, what they can do, or, if they're staked they turn to dust, according to Buffy.

[holyposition]

You all voted together for the obvious false flag, Stefan. You know Katherine, Klaus, Kai, and Caroline personally, you've already told me this.

If you don't trust me with the information, you can just say that.

[interpersonally]

We didn't vote together vote together.

Caroline didn't want to vote for Saber. I believed it could be Devon. Klaus went with me. Lestat gave me that information.

I don't vote with Kai or with Katherine.

[holyposition]

So if you trust me, why are we all learning about Klaus from a leak in the clubs chat?

[interpersonally]

Because Katherine is out for herself and always has been. And she holds a grudge.

[holyposition]

But is anything she said not true?

[interpersonally]

She did run for 500 years, because she didn't want to be included as a spell ingredient to free him from a curse. It's straight out of Beauty and the Beast.

I also never said one way or another what Klaus was because it wasn't mine to tell.

All of what she's said is true.

Can you blame me for not thinking of him, for looking in other directions. What if Hawk were who we were talking about? He's strong enough. He was a butcher. He's admitted to at least attacking and brutalizing Danny.

[holyposition]

Sixteen people are dead, Stefan. Under these circumstances, it is yours to tell. We have a responsibility to each other.

If I had good reason to believe it was Hawk, I would want to stop him from hurting any more people. I would be the first person at the podium. When he killed Danny, he strangled him with his bare hands. If any of the deaths were like that, I would have said so.

[interpersonally]

No, you believe we have a responsibility to each other. If either Caroline or I thought Klaus were a possibility, then we should have shared it. I know a thing or two about family and friends not doing right or good.

Because you've broken up? Again? Or because it's the right thing to do.

Vampires don't play by the same rules. We hurt other people, or we stop each other from hurting other people. Sometimes, it's because we want to, sometimes it's because we don't care. A lot of times, it's because it's necessary. Being in our world is dangerous. The same goes for all of these wolves, that house, and this game.

Everyone is in over their head. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you'll stop blaming me for holding back my own information. I never said Klaus wasn't anything.

[holyposition]

We do. That’s what it means to live together and have a community, Stefan. I don’t care about your vampire rules, because you’re stuck with all of us. There has to be some kind of standard.

Because it’s the right thing to do. I’m still with Harry, and if it were him, I’d say so too. I wouldn’t let him do this to people.

You think I don’t know I’m in over my head? Of course I am. My best friend in any world is dead. I measured the skin where his head was ripped from his body. Hawk has lost his mind completely. A girl I’ve practically adopted is probably a wolf too.

We still do what we have to do to end this as soon as possible. Come on, Stefan.

[interpersonally]

You decided Hawk lost his mind. Because you couldn't make sense of what he's done. There's a difference.

And welcome to it. In our worlds, being a wolf or a vampire or something else, it makes us a target. Don't blame us for keeping this under wraps and trusting one another.

It's your choice to run with what Katherine is saying. Your choice to accuse. I won't be making the accusation. If I believed it, I would.

[holyposition]

No, I know him. There's the regular Hawk bad decisions and messed up priorities, and then there's this...self-destructive spiral. Something is wrong with him, and I'm not letting it distract me from the goal.

I can empathize with having to hide. You know that. Pitchforks and torches against you and your friends isn't what I want. I think you know that, too.

But you asked me to keep the line open. That has to go both ways.

[interpersonally]

That, I actually admire.

I do.

On your terms, only? Caroline, Katherine, Klaus and I can all compel people. Katherine uses it the most, or did. I use it when necessary, but haven't used it here, and I know Caroline hasn't either. She doesn't like using it unless we have no other choice. Like compelling our town to leave so they were safe from a vampire gang.

Katherine, Klaus and Caroline can only compel humans. Klaus can also compel vampires.

[holyposition]

[ That's not his dad, and Tim's not his son, but the praise even when Tim's annoyed with him makes it feel like it did then. Another thing that he can't let distract him. ]

Yours too. I'll tell you whatever you want to know about me and mine - unfortunately, most of the people closest to me don't have any supernatural powers or abilities to point to.

Could he compel multiple people and/or vampires at once?

[interpersonally]

No. You have to look one person in the eye at a time. But, he could compel them to wait for his cue. But, he has no access to magic himself, wouldn't cauterize the wounds, wouldn't keep trophies like hair or dismembered parts, and wouldn't leave any witnesses. He'd also see to it that someone was his eyes and ears when he couldn't be.

But that's the Klaus I used to know and not the one I know now.

The one I know now has a sixteen year old daughter he'd do anything for.

[holyposition]

Thank you for being forthcoming.

[ The eventually is implied. ]

How long did you say you went back home, again?

[interpersonally]

Four or five years. A long time. And longer in a magic stone that trapped my soul in it.

[holyposition]

So you've been estranged from each other?

[interpersonally]

On and off. He wasn't dead, like I thought, and he came back to us. But, then we were each trapped in the Phoenix stone. And, after I got out, things escalated and I was marked by a vampire hunter and I had to go on the run for three years. Damon made a dumb and selfish decision on his end and then we reunited. After solving our latest problem, he disappeared, only to be enslaved by a siren who, before coming here, I'd just met. I'm not a fan.