Beth's Angel (Rated PG) - Meeting Moonlight Challenge

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allegrita
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Re: Beth's Angel (Rated PG) - Meeting Moonlight Challenge

Post by allegrita »

Wow, I'm really honored that you chose this as the very first story here to comment on. I'm glad you liked it. Beth is such an interesting character, so brave and gallant despite everything that happened to her. Knowing her angel was there must have helped her conquer her fear.
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Re: Beth's Angel (Rated PG) - Meeting Moonlight Challenge

Post by jen »

Fabulous reread.

Alle, this is such a wonderful look at Mick and Beth's first meeting through the eyes of a small child.

Thank you!
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allegrita
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Re: Beth's Angel (Rated PG) - Meeting Moonlight Challenge

Post by allegrita »

Thanks for stopping by again, Jenna. It's such a wonderful compliment. :hug: And thanks also to you, Carol. I neglected to thank you before for bumping this story when Fleur de Lis was on. :smooch:
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Luxe de Luxe
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Re: Beth's Angel (Rated PG) - Meeting Moonlight Challenge

Post by Luxe de Luxe »

I just have to start this by a compliment about the phrase 'house made of windows' or something to that effect. That stopped me in my tracks it was such a perfect description of Coraline's house.
This was a really thoughtful look at how the trauma of her kidnapping affected baby Beth, and it's certainly not a part of her that the show acknowledged openly at all. Beth worries about going to sleep and needs an army to provide extra back up to the man with the sharp teeth.
The soldiers around the bed was a really nice touch and is exactly the sort of thing a child would do. Normally I would have expected a child to be shut down by anxiety after something like that, but she's not, something I think that her faith in her angel still being around keeping watch might account for.
I really like the way you show us (in her child form) some of the characteristics we're so familiar with in adult Beth, her boldness, for example, going up those stairs to check the door in the dark in an unfamiliar house. What a brave and resourceful little girl!
Coraline, however, doesn't come out looking too good here. Twinkies and string cheese?! Even as a child Beth is grounded in pragmatic practicality, a start contrast with Mick's wife.
Reading this really made me wonder for the very first time why Coraline would move her from the princess/prison room she'd decked out so carefully to a dirty old warehouse. It doesn't make sense. I would have thought that a call to Mick to get him to come over and then presenting their new 'daughter' might have made more sense. Guess there's another story to tell, Alle. :winky:
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Re: Beth's Angel (Rated PG) - Meeting Moonlight Challenge

Post by Ella713 »

This was so good Alle! To see all the scary things that happened from a child's viewpoint and see how they shaped her into the strong woman she became!! Wonderful story!
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allegrita
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Re: Beth's Angel (Rated PG) - Meeting Moonlight Challenge

Post by allegrita »

Thank you so much, Luxe and Ella!

I think Beth's post-traumatic stress was mitigated by two factors: her ability to just shove things down, or close them up in a mental compartment when she couldn't deal with them (which may be why she forgot the details of her kidnapping and rescue); and her faith in her Guardian Angel. Remember when she talked with Audrey in "12:04AM" about the comfort and safety she felt, knowing her angel was out there keeping her from harm? Audrey never had that, and she never felt safe, even though her "monster" was behind bars. Somehow, Beth wasn't as afraid or anxious as you might think a child would be after such a horrific experience. But even with that reassurance, a child would have a sort of PTSD. Thus her cordon of army men. They were her last line of defense, in case her angel couldn't keep the scary lady away. But Beth only put them there as a sort of "carry an umbrella so it won't rain" type of sympathetic magic. Kids do that. Step on a crack, break your mother's back. Kids have rituals they follow to avert disaster, and Beth's ritual was her army men.

(That's my take, anyhow.)
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Re: Beth's Angel (Rated PG) - Meeting Moonlight Challenge

Post by MickLifeCrisis »

I didn't remember this at all from 2009 and read it now as if it were the first time. How powerful! You captured little Beth and showed us her beginnings. And oh, the part about the bear nearly had me tearing up! She chose the bear for comfort because it was actually brown and looked "natural" compared to the room full of pink frills. And then Coraline went and ruined the bear for her. :bmoon:

I agree with your assessment that Beth compartmentalized her trauma as a way of dealing with it. But when I read this post of yours from 2011...
allegrita wrote: I don't think Beth associated her angel with the scary lady, except as her rescuer. I don't think she even thought that the angel was the person the lady referred to as her "new daddy." She didn't have a clue about what the grownups were talking about before they started fighting. She just knew that the angel saved her and took her home. But then again, she might have realized it, and just shoved it into that place in her head where she puts things that are too bad to think about. She started that at a very early age, and as we saw, she was still doing it in her mid-20's.
... I think little Beth did associate Angel Mick with the scary lady and the "new daddy" she kept telling Beth about. In NSTAV flashbacks, just before the fight, Coraline is holding Beth in front of her and telling Mick how they'll be a family now, "you, me and baby." While Beth did shove a lot of that incident into internal boxes and locked them away, she was a smart kid and I believe she could put 2 and 2 together. She didn't realize exactly what Coraline meant, of course (becoming vampires), but I think she knew the scary lady meant for the man with the sharp teeth and her to be the new family. I can see though, how Beth might conveniently forget that part, and just think of Mick as the "angel with the sharp teeth" (love that description!) who rescued her. JMHO. :chin:

So glad this popped to the top and I had the chance to read it again. :reading:

:thanks:

ETA: I didn't find a challenge titled "Meeting Moonlight" in the Champagne Challenges list. Do you recall what the premise was?
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allegrita
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Re: Beth's Angel (Rated PG) - Meeting Moonlight Challenge

Post by allegrita »

MLC, thank you so much for your comment, and for your kind words! :hug: You've got a point about Coraline's "you, me and baby" comment, and I agree that Beth may have realized at the time that this was the guy who the scary lady said was going to be her new daddy. But I think she stuffed that knowledge into a box in her head, and by the time she was 6 (when this story takes place) she had forgotten it. Then again, the wonderful thing about Moonlight is that we can all interpret things in our own way, and there is no right or wrong way to do it! :teeth:

Here's a link to the "Meeting Moonlight" challenge, which wasn't one of our Champagne Challenges. It lives in the 100% Moonlight forum. I had to go looking for it, it was so long ago! http://www.moonlightaholics.com/viewtop ... 651&t=4583
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