placeformyluv:

…

“Fighting my bloodlust, trying to get control of my life, all of that doesn’t matter if she has feelings for someone else.”

and

“As long as I’ve accepted that, it can’t control me…and neither can you.”

In the first quote it’s like…why does it even matter to try to control it? Then the second quote is saying that he’s accepted it and thus can control it. I ask this because in my fic….the first quote is where he starts off in my story. That’s his attitude in the beginning…..and then as he grows, he eventually gets to the second quote. How did they do that journey in a matter of minutes????? Omg i’m so angry with how they sped through that. I dunno maybe I’m crazy or maybe only fellow Stefan fanatics will understand what I’m trying to say here, and why it upsets me so much. [read more]

I agree with the vast majority of your post (especially the point about Damon bringing out the worst in Elena – WOOOORD), but I wanted to comment on these two quotes in particular since they got me thinking, too.

They seem contradictory on the surface, but I don’t think they are in essence. When Stefan says he’s accepted the Ripper and it doesn’t control him, I don’t think he means that he’ll never struggle with it anymore. On the contrary, he goes on to acknowledge that the Ripper will never go away. He will always have the struggle. 

But he doesn’t seem afraid of it anymore, and that’s why its control over him has lost its grip.

When Alaric voices his own fear that his dark side is his true self, Stefan counters that with: “No, he’s not you. He’s the darkest parts of you. The parts we all have.” He’s making a distinction between someone’s true self – where good and bad co-exist, balancing each other out – and the darkness when it is separated from the good, in its concentrated form. That’s Alter-Ric and the Ripper: all of the bad in a person detached from the good, without balance, without a counteracting force. 

For a long time, I think Stefan was too afraid to acknowledge his dark side, because he believed it would totally undo the good person he has worked to become: he was afraid the Ripper was his true self. But now he’s finally learning that things aren’t that black-and-white. He’s a more complicated dude than he thought he was. And he’s accepting the complications.