so, i was working on another chapter about how to write someone from our universe in the TVDU, and as i was getting to how you shouldn't make your OC a vampire (especially a ripper) so quick and better to save it for a big reveal
as i was getting down to the facts about rippers and what they should represent was when i realized that rippers should have their own chapter
now, i'm going to talk about the rippers we know of in the TVDU, the ones that worked, the ones that flopped, and when to bring one in your story
i won't be talking about the absolute shit about the 'ripper virus' that maxfield created in s5, like what? and i won't be mentioning kol as a possible ripper seeing as he wasn't bad at control, he just simply didn't want to, he caused those bloodbaths because of the anger and loss of his witch side, when davina brought him back and he was having trouble with blood that was all due to the bonehead dickwad ancestors control over him
the whole ripper notion obviously came from Stefan (though he definitely isn't the first, just the one who originated the name whether in his own words or by his actions),
the thing about the whole ripper notion is that it is clearly a metaphor for addiction. we see it in stefan, as he starts off clean in S1 then falls down the wagon near the end when elena gives him her blood to save his life. afterwards his actions are clearly one from an addict jonesing. (in the episode of s1 where he gets really drunk at a party and almost eats matt's mom after she was bleeding, he was trying to keep it under-wraps by drinking all day. fast-forward to the 1912 ep of s3 where he's hanging out with damon and rebekah talking about 1912 murders at the grill, and damon often talks about stefan tapping his ring and leg bouncing and other jonesing habits he's been displaying all evening)
now, unfortunately, he can't go cold turkey from all blood, seeing as it's his food source, so animal blood is the only thing to keep him satiated but in control
we see him break even worse during the finale of S2 and then spends all of S3 either in binges, feats of depression, rage, and at the center of it is klaus whom he blames for breaking his sobriety and identity
when his mom came in midway S6 and it was revealed she was also a ripper, i was fine with it, it alluded even more to this metaphor, because the disease of addiction can run in the family and we see it with stefan and lily
we even see how differently the two worked at their diseases, with stefan on and off the wagon, but lily full off the wagon for the longest time, surrounded by people who let her keep it and even relished in it. when the heretics found themselves in the prison world and had the show restraint over the lack of blood source, lily was the one they choose to stay fed, and that alone was the motivation and the perseverance she needed to keep her word and her control. during s7 we see her fly off the handle a bit when surrounded by not just fresh blood but the people who encouraged her to partake in it, and we see how differently mother and son turned out to be, not just themselves but in the company they kept
now here's where the TVD flopped with the ripper status (specifically in Legacies):
when they gave it to MG
and
when they gave it to Jade (the vampire chick who kissed Kai when he came back for two episodes of LGS, to which she then had the smallest thing with Josie)
now, why was it wrong for them to give it to MG?
i'm not mad about him getting the ripper title, i'm mad about how there was no context, no time in between to show that he can't handle human blood. they gave him that title too early. it wasn't necessary at that time. the thing about MG is that from the start of his vampire life, he's been at the school and he's only fed from animals (not including when he first transitioned obviously) and he hasn't been around humans at all as evidenced by the fact that his mother doesn't allow him to return home so he obviously spends holidays in mystic falls. add all that up and no wonder he doesn't have good control around humans, especially their blood.
the only time he lost control to point of killing someone was when he killed landon; now the thing is that MG just got told point blank by his father that he wasn't his son, that he was a demon, he had to compel his own father to forget their interaction. it wasn't about how badly that moment ended. it was about before his father reacted badly, when they were talking on the church benches, laughing and grateful, it gave MG hope, and then it was taken away like nothing. and he's smart, he know that landon pushed for this to happen since the start of the episode, and when he finds landon again, he finds him bleeding, and he kills him. thing is, ripper or not, i probably would've snapped landon's neck for that anyway, the magnified emotions keep you from seeing a different path sometimes and im not surprised it happened. i dont think landon deserved it, but i'm also saying any vampire could've done that, not just a ripper.
what they should have done was have him and kaleb partake in the blood for a few episodes, and then he starts noticing difference from the blood bags filled with animal blood to blood from the vein, and he starts going back for humans until eventually someone (could be kaleb or could be more than just kaleb, but he should be part of catching him to know that MG does not have control) catches him in a blood binge surrounded by bodies or just one body dead if you wanna save the big pile of bodies for an episode where he flies off the handle in the future.
now, lets talk about Jade.
she's basically the same story as MG only chronologically earlier. she was exposed to human blood after having only fed on animals and not been around humans for as long as she was a vampire. obviously, she wasn't in a state of being in control, not to mention her negative emotions being highly magnified.
she calls herself a ripper, Dorian calls MG that as well, saying "And do you know what kind of vamps are susceptible to being Rippers? If I was taking bets, I'd say an impressionable, obsessive, clinically ADHD, horny little kid like Milton Greasley."
but the thing about Dorian is that he isn't exactly the right person to go to about rippers, he suffered greatly from Stefan and when MG went off in the woods alone and was found covered in blood, Dorian went straight to the worst possible outcome and was prepared to put MG down. if it weren't for Alaric's growing guilt of realizing his tendency for locking up or killing what he calls 'problem children' MG would've died or sent to some prison world or dungeon or whatever
Dorian is a human who suffered at the hands of supernatural, much like Alaric, but worse since Alaric hunted them. Dorian obviously still holds a grudge to certain supernaturals, and Alaric still doesn't fully trust them, so it kind of points to the obvious that if these headmasters and teachers aren't prepared to give these students the benefit of the doubt, students that they will never understand themselves but instead fear, then why the hell should they be in charge of them?
that's enough of my hatred towards how this school has gone off the rails, back to the rippers
now, as i said before the ripper title is a metaphor towards addiction, and it's something that should never be taken lightly
part of becoming a vampire means actually dying and being reborn as something that has an instinct to kill human beings. and then, with the addition of immortality, you live longer than your human life, and so you start to forget it, you live longer as a vampire and you become accustomed to it, and it gets easier once you outlive your family and loved ones. a lot of the time in stories you read, becoming a vampire isn't as big a deal as it should be. in some they are, when they write it correctly you'll know, but then those aren't the majority, now are they?
if becoming a vampire shouldn't be taken lightly, then being a ripper shouldn't be either.
you know the only other media i remember to take the 'blood to vampires is a metaphor for addiction' concept but actually say those words in an interview and confirm it was the creators of Being Human. i only watched the first season for the UK and binged the entire US version (because it was more accessible to me) and i actually really liked it, because each of the characters at one point were human, then became these creatures, and still their problems down to the core seemed like actual human problems.
sure twilight has that tacky line about 'my own personal brand of heroin' but Being Human and TVD make it less creepy and more about something the character goes through and fights through
so, when should you bring the ripper title and give it to a character?
if your character just turned into a vampire, you should make sure that you have a very fleshed out character, make sure we knew them as human, foreshadow it a bit if you can but don't make it obvious. go through it slow, have them be hungry more than usual. have whoever is showing them to feed, have to rip someone off of them because they can't stop feeding. blame it on how they're starting out, still a baby vampire, doesn't have control, it's to be expected. but then it keeps happening. have them try to keep it in control until they just cant and they do something unspeakable that finally addresses what they are. and then the choice is yours if whether they feel guilty about it and want to be better to keep it down or they don't care and they just want more. but the most important thing about this is time. a baby vampire takes maybe one or two years, maybe even five to fully gain control and get used to their new reality. the good thing about time is that for them, it's like nothing [refer to my 'vampire's humanity switch' chapter for more about how vampires perceive time differently]. the important thing about time is how it's the way we accurately deduce this character is a ripper. it will take between 2-5 years give or take for any regular vampire to gain control, by year 3 they should be normal relatively, so instead of making them normal, make them still have trouble with it, and then it just goes downhill from there.
if you have someone like stefan who already knows about their status, about rippers and has been labeled one for a while now (i'm talking more than decades) then i suggest to read up or watch the best films and series that correctly depict addiction and peoples struggles with it. get in their mind set and decide on your character; are they sober like stefan or have they just never gotten sober like rue from euphoria and are just now starting to? do they want to get better or have they buried their guilt so deep inside they're convinced it's not there anymore? or are they even guilty? do they relish in the mayhem, in scaring people and never once knowing a moment of self-control? do they loath the ones that do? do they loath the rippers that have managed to get a handle on it? are they trying to help rippers get better or worse?
i want to point out that i've been avoiding writing a presentation on socrates, plato, and aristotle for ten days (it's due in two) and yet i got the idea for this damn thing half an hour ago and finished it in an hour. this is over 2118 words, what the hell, caroline?
no mundanes allowed
- polaroized