Interesting thoughts (AB meta, my fic and DM spoilers)

[mhalachai]

In a comment on my recent AB fic, necromancer5 brought up the idea of Anita's evolution over time, from where she was at the end of Danse Macabre, to where I have her go in Family Hour

She got me to thinking. In FH, Anita is pretty secure in herself and her life. When I had Micah's parent basically call Anita a slut to her face, her first reaction was to get angry for what they said about Micah, not react to the slut comment. I had her do this because at that point in time, which is a few months after DM, she's secure in herself and her relationship with both Micah and Nathaniel, and in what she has become. She's not worried about Micah's dad calling her a whore because she knows that the people who count, Micah and Nathaniel, don't see her that way.

Most importantly, she knows she is neither slut nor whore.

However. At the end of DM, I don't consider Anita to be in that headspace. I'm thinking mainly of the revelation that the arduer made her love Micah and Nathaniel, as well as all the stuff she was going through, sleeping with everything around due to the arduer. Anita's way of dealing with things is usually to ignore them for a while, then have it all crash in. But I can't have her just be there, I have to have it happen because we're not talking about minor stuff. We're talking about how Anita sees herself and how she is becoming the monster she fears, and no one around her is willing to talk about it.

It comes down to something I have already touched upon in a drabble a few months ago, Cold.How much of what Anita feels, and others feel for her, is based on metaphysical powers? How can she deal if it's a lot?

Anyway, that's what I'm attempting to deal with in my in progress AB fic. It's set a month after DM, and for Anita, the walls are closing in.

I should have that up soon. I'm halfway through. Maybe then I can get back to writing Anita as the strong character I have made her in Inevitable and Balancing Act and Switchback.

Gotta bail, time for brunch. Thanks for reading my rambling.

Comments

[cissasghost.livejournal.com]

Interesting ramble. Agreed re: Anita's coping mechanisms. I also think it's worth noting - it's been noted by Anita herself - that with JC & crew, everything ends up being about sex. This isn't just that Anita catches the ardeur, that a lot of the metaphysical powers stuff ends up sexual, so on and so forth, but that most of the people around her look at the changes in her life and her coping issues and go, hey, this is about the scads of sex. And about you being repressed about sex (or at least having been raised that way). And . . you get the idea. It's not an unreasonable conclusion, really, 'cause it's the biggest and most obvious change, but . . I think it's a wrong conclusion.

IMO Anita's big issue . . which you've nailed . . is just how much of her life revolves around her power, her other-ness. That her other-ness has ended up manifesting in very sexual terms a lot of the time is just the proverbial icing on the cake, but it's just icing. She made a comment back in . . Killing Danse? . . when with Richard and JC, that she was the only one in the room who'd never been human. And that's her big old issue. Everything she does every minute of every day is her justifying to herself that she deserves to be breathing, and she can let herself get away with a hell of a lot because at the back of her brain she doesn't really think she's capable of being good. *Doing* good, being one of the good guys, yes - definitely - but she can't accept her inherent nature as a good thing. She doesn't believe she ought to exist. And some of that's survivor's guilt re: her mother's death, I'm sure, but a lot of it is how she was raised after that, too.

And that . . I don't think any of her guys can help her with that . . because I sort of think they've all got the same issue, to varying degrees.

. . so . . yes, I ramble muchly. Shutting up now. Going back to making Firefly vid and plotting SGA crossover . . . wanna pop online and talk Firefly/SGA crossover meta and pairings sometime? *bounces up and down with new-obsession glee*

-Sonya

[thymidinekinase.livejournal.com]

This analysis is intriguing; I look forward to reading this. I finally bit the bullet and put a hold on DM at the library. I'm 34th in the queue, though, so I will have time to steel myself for DM suckage.

[necromancer5.livejournal.com]

We're talking about how Anita sees herself and how she is becoming the monster she fears, and no one around her is willing to talk about it. Yes, that is it, exactly it.

I loved Cold for the fact that you brought this HUGE issue to the forefront. The feeling that we were left with in DM that everyone was just fine with the whole 'arduer made me love you' idea. That if this theme was indeed continued, then everyone would just move along as they had and encourage Anita to do the same.

So, who is listening to the screaming in her head? If no one will talk about it, and she is always the last to deal, then what would happen. I think she would snap. She would snap harder and worse then the little whiny breakdown we got in DM. For although I do think the break was realistic (in the reason it happened), the whole result of her attempt to deal=crap. Denial, moving on, let's go to yet another crises that will draw Anita's attention away from her own issues.

I was hoping you would take the whole idea from Cold further and expand upon it. Yay :)

[mhalachaiswords.livejournal.com]

I will deal with this issue, and then never mention it again. If you read my rant on DM a while back, you will know I loathed that part of the thing. Well, I loathed the follow-up, or the lack thereof.

I think that Anita is very close to snapping. She has had all this stuff happen to her, and she is not addressing the issues. She needs help before things go sidways. Anyway, wait to see how I finish off the story I'm planning and then we'll talk :D

[mhalachaiswords.livejournal.com]

DM isn't as long as the other books. If that's any help.

I just really don't like the ardeur as plot device. It take a strong female character to places I don't find necessary or at all positive. If anything, making the female character "driven by sex" sets the modern view of female sexuality back about 30 years.

Interesting insights

[(Anonymous)]

On the "Vampire magic enslaves Micah and Nathanial" scheme of things, I thought that Anita would be trying all methods of freeing Micah from the magic. A true love could free Micah from Ardeur and its side affects but how can Micah find true love if he isn't even looking? Or perhaps Micah isn't enslaved as the love-friendship-fondness-whatever that really exists between Micah and Anita is enough to break the vampire bounds.
Also how much of the comfort level between Micah and Anita is caused by the metaphysical link between their wereleopard selves? And how much by the vampire magic between a master vampire and its animal to call? Anita doesn't seem to use that magic, but it soothes her to be surrounded by the pard.
One of the nice things about Anita is that she will consult with experts and read books. She read about natural wolves and lions and leopards, and talked to Marianne and Verne about how to form a healthy pard. So who should she talk to about this mess?
Rafael would be the best consultant. He is powerful enough to see most lycanthropic magic, he understands the link between vampire and animal, and in NIC he understood what was happening with the pard binding itself into a single entity before Anita or Micah did.
How far would Anita go to see Micah free? Anita was willing to kill Aubrey to free Catherine in Guilty Pleasures, and willing to kill both Jean-Claude and Alejandro and Seraphina and Nikolaus to free herself, so logically to free Micah she should be willing to kill herself. Of course she might be trying to kill herself already, her willingness to participate in rough and dangerous sex might just be a method of committing suicide. But Anita doesn't want to see Damien or Nathaniel dead, or Richard and Jean-Claude for that matter, so she should be looking for some other method. Of course Anita could be looking at a non problem. The ardeur could have called Micah but the bonds between them could be only the wereleopard group mind that thinks an alpha pair should be living together.

[mhalachaiswords.livejournal.com]

I agree with your interpretation of the conclusion. It's not so much the sex, which Anita seems readily able to deal with, it's the change in herself, her powers, and if she is slowly becoming the monster she so fears.

Ramble away! I loves it. Sorry I wasn't on last night; I had dinner with my brother and was away. Life's very busy these days. Which I'm sure you can agree with.