Moonlightaholics

Moonlightsonata wrote:wpgrace - Thanks for the response. Makes a lot of sense. I didn't realize the Dr. episode was the one on today in Britain. I agree it wasn't one of the better episodes.

Edited to add - I just made Fledgling. Thank you. I realize that to those with thousands of posts, this isn't much but it is an improvement.

Firstly, belated congratulations on becoming a Fledgling. Every rank is important here at MLA; it's just that some of us talk more than others.

Regarding the vampires, I always thought that their basic personality would still "show" ... but that they would be deeply affected by the unique circumstances of their turning and/or their relationship with their sire.

I believe that their experience as humans greatly influences how the vampire behaves.

For example, it occurred to me (while butchering 6 pigeons) that Mick might drink bagged blood also because it's simply more convenient. Growing up in a U.S. city in the twenties, he probably grew up with store-bought food (in part canned or otherwise preserved). Does anybody know whether there were chickens and vegetables in these gardens? In any case, Mick probably had a fridge full of food for most of his life.

Whereas Josef would have grown up with having to kill or harvest (or having somebody else do it for him) to eat.

So it sounds logical to me that even today Mick would appreciate the convenience of not having to worry about where to find blood every time he's hungry, whereas Josef would prefer fresh food. Not to mention that Josef's place(s) have more space fore live-in freshies (another convenient solution)....

Bye, Kade

Bumping to make this thread easier to find as there has been some discussion on another thread that is relevant.

Red

Fascinating discussion!

I believe it was Josef who said that the blood lust is really heavy after one is just turned.

Seems to me (and this is just based on what I've seen) the blind intensity of the blood lust overrides all other impulses, at least initially. While a vampire still perceives the world around him or her in much the same way--albeit with heightened senses--the internal drive to survive and the overwhelmingly intense blood lust overrides all other impulses. Having a sire teach the newby the ropes mitigates the feeling that the new vampire is totally at the mercy of the hunger. Mick ran from Coraline and when she found him later, pleaded with her to kill him. I think he did this because at some level he understood the hunger and what would be required to satisfy it--and didn't want to go down that road.

I have a visual impression of a person going thru a horrible storm with wind and rain lashing at them, and clinging to something to anchor them from what would otherwise sweep them away.
Before the days of bagged blood and freshies, the vampire essentially had no choice. Either the sire controlled them or the blood lust did (as in the case of rouges).

For a while, Mick played the standard vamp==but in his own words, 'he grew out of that stage'

But he made a choice to reclaim his ability to choose. Little four year old Beth Turner was on the scene for Mick St. John choosing who he is going to be. He didn't become perfect, but he started on the road to becoming the Mick we saw in the series.

Tht's just my take on it.

jen

I've been thinking a lot about this subject lately, partly because of some stories I've written about Mick's brief experience with the Cure and his re-turning, and most recently as a result of reading PNWgal's "All the King's Men."

By the way, for those who haven't read it, "All the King's Men" is a brilliant and shattering story based on a terribly difficult premise - essentially, Mick goes rogue, with disastrous consequences. It's not for the faint of heart, on a whole lot of levels. But it is extraordinary, and thought provoking.

Based on the comment I left on the most recent chapter of ATKM, I'm positing a theory about re-turning, and I'd welcome others' thoughts on it. Note that these are my own musings, and heaven knows I don't claim that they are "correct." In fact, I kinda don't want to believe this is possible... but that's just how good ATKM was. It made me think hard about stuff I don't usually like to contemplate.

I'd love to have a good conversation about this stuff. Not just about whether "re-turning" can cause a vamp to go rogue, although obviously that's the subject of this particular post...

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Jeffrey Pollack in "Dr. Feelgood" was a good man. A loving husband, a dedicated physician. And then he had the misfortune to come to the aid of Gerald Stovsky, and he was stripped of the human, feeling, altruistic parts of himself. All of that humanity got swallowed up in the catastrophe of a violent turning without a sire's help - and this wonderful, kind, dedicated doctor turned into a heartless, utterly self-absorbed monster. He murdered (and ATE!) his wife. He considered the hospital to be a source of endless supplies of blood. He believed that the rules didn't apply to him, and he reveled in that power without a shred of remorse for the terrible things he'd done.

So, in that context, I thought about Mick, who was a "new turn" himself, even though Josef refused to consider himself Mick's sire. With no sire, Mick had no guidance in coping with all of the hormones released by his re-turning, all those violent urges. Josef -- and Mick himself -- expected him to just be able to handle it, because he was already a vampire. But what if they were wrong?

Could Mick go feral, if Josef didn't act as a sire after the re-turning? Is it possible that his raging hormones, high adrenaline, and all the other urges of a "new turn" would overwhelm Mick's self restraint? Is it possible that the good man, the man with a conscience, could be consumed the way Jeff Pollack was consumed by the vampire he became?

Fascinating discussion topic. I think Dr. Pollack suffered from being almost too good in his human life, meaning he might have been someone who wasn't used to strong dark emotions and when the base nature of being a vampire took over his mind couldn't process it. Think of turning Mother Teresa. If you consider a new turn like a newborn the world revolves around their needs and they can't comprehend anything else.

Sarah Whitley was a sweet girl and an unsuccessful turning. Mick, Coraline and Josef were certainly strong personalities with a dark side.

I actually think Mick could have been in some trouble if he had a "natural" returning. I think the longer the "Cure" surpresses vampire nature the more "human" you become. Coraline obviously had done some experiments for Mick to have an idea how long he might be human but I think the way they would have looked at the "Cure" would make different reactions.

I'm sure most times when Coraline used it that it was for a specific purpose to save her life. I imagine she viewed it as a cancer patient might think of radiation. It's awful but it will save my life. So if she turned with her mind always desiring the vampire I think she would be the vampire she always was.

If Mick had six months or a year as a human it would have broken his heart to turn back. To become the monster that he definitely could have gone feral. It could be the body's reaction or the mind's way of ending his torment. "I don't want to be a monster let my misery end."

Fascinating discussion and I'm thrilled to have found it again!

The new spin on the nature of vampirism (or at least, new to me) was one of many facets of this show that made it so fabulously special.

Jenna

Catmoon wrote:I think Mick is in many ways a better person now than he was as a human. Now that his wild days are behind him, and he's dedicated himself to using his special skills to help those who need him. Obviously change and growth (or the opposite) are possible for ML vamps so I'd tend to believe the circumstances of turning and personality would be the influencing factors. There are good vamps and bad vamps, just like humans. Dr. Feelgood turned rogue, but Emma apparently did okay on her own, at least until she lost her marbles after about a hundred years.

Also, in my own ML fanon a big factor is what you believe about vampires at the time of your turning. If you think vampires are inherently evil, you're probably going to behave based on what you believe. I have an OC vamp who believes vampirism is a gift from the Gods. Needless to say that's going to make him behave differently than someone who thinks they're damned. ML vamp mythos is quite different from the traditional, so you need a sire there to tell you things like, "no, you don't have to always kill those you feed on, you can learn control." In my universe, one of the first things Josef's sire told him was, "You can be any kind of vampire you choose to be."

Great timing for this thread, since I'm in the middle of writing Josef's turning story right now and it could help inspire me!

I agree about Mick....I think he was floundering when he met Coraline and it certainly grounded him to see he could be in a position to make a difference in things. As far as the bad Dr Feelgood.....he was like a child left and ignored and they just go off the rail.

Don't know if this will make much sense, but I think that if an individual had some sort of focus in their life when they became a vampire, and they were able to hold to that focus through the turmoil of a fledgling's bloodlust and thus will be able to come through the Turning better. As to why Emma didn't go rogue, I honestly don't know. She came over from Ireland during the potato famine and buried her family in Ireland. She came here to the U.S. seeking a better life and was Turned on the ship, never seeing who did it. She went to the docks seeking something familiar, to remind her of home (this is interesting, as a fledgling could not really hold onto much). Perhaps strong memories of her life before, combined with the desire to make a new life here enabled her to encorporate the enormous changes she endured and keep her sanity. When she and Jackson 'hooked up' she had something real to hold onto, and in helping him through the transition, she may have helped herself as well.

A Sire clearly provides the needed structure when the fires of the new vampiric state are too powerful for most new Turns to handle without them.

Emma made a bad decision, and she paid for it with her life. Very tragic and romantic, in that Jackson chose to share her fate rather than go on without her. That proves that vampires are absolutely capable of sacrificial love.

My guess - While turning will throw you for a loop, a person is who they are. Initially, there may be some (serious) adjusting, but folks true nature will return. Mick's turning was especially traumatic for him. He gave his heart to Coraline then found out he didn't even know her. Also, in his mind vampires were monsters. I believe the whole broody thing is how he dealt with such a traumatic loss. But even so, his sense of humor was still there, and once he met (or re-met... whatever) Beth and their relationship grew, his heart began healing.

Maybe the doctor had power issues. He seemed to get off on being at the top of the food chain.
Of course, this is IMHO.

Emma's story gave me a theory about female new turns as opposed to male new turns. I have no evidence on which to base this theory, except that Emma said she was turned on board ship, never knew her sire, and evidently she went undetected for the rest of the voyage.

So... we know from Mick, Guillermo, and Josef that men suffer from an feelings of rage and violence when they are turned. I wonder if women might perhaps become insatiable for sex (and blood) after being turned, and also incredibly alluring to men. If that's true, Emma could have spent the rest of her sea voyage seducing and snacking on her fellow passengers.

I can think of worse ways to spend a cruise....



Lucky