(no subject)
Hokay. There are lots of things that worry me about my portrayal of Anne--she's completely ordinary, very naive, and doesn't know about any of the stuff at camp, so I'm always concerned--but most of them can really be summed up by two words: Wes and Cal. Somehow, those two became the most important people in Anne's camp life. And each of those worries me in terms of characterization in its own way.
1. Wes
Wes is the easier to justify of these two relationships--the main problem with him is that Anne turns down a hell of a lot of suitors for not being her "ideal." So when someone who was obviously not what Anne had envisioned for herself ends up as her boyfriend, it's a little scary (because Wes is not big with the tall, dark, or handsome). But I did think about it, and eventually realized something very basic about Anne--in the first book she is, for all intents and purposes, completely and utterly socially retarded when it comes to boys. I'm pretty sure it doesn't even occur to her until her first proposal (some time in the second book) that a boy could actually like her. Sure, she has this imagined guy whom she wants to sweep her off her feet, but she doesn't think it'll happen. In the first book, romance isn't a concern for her at all. She doesn't even realize Gilbert totally likes her like that, even though everyone else ever does. She doesn't gain any awareness of herself as a desirable female until the second book, and then she starts turning down people for not being her ideal.
So at the point in canon when I brought Anne to camp, I honestly believe she's not concerned with romance except in an abstract sense. And then she meets Wesley and she thinks he's nice, and he falls for her, and she doesn't notice, except that he occasionally says things that make her blush. So when he tells her he loves her, she kinda goes wtf and tells him (truthfully) that she can't say the same, but that she thinks he's very nice and sweet and that she maybe could, but they haven't known each other for very long. All of which she sees as true. Canonically, Anne did not have male friends in the books at this point, and she has no experience with it whatsoever, but she does see a lot of things in Wesley she likes, and in many ways she's just flattered that he likes her, because she still kinda thought she was going to have to marry a foreign missionary or something. And over time, she thinks she falls in love with him back, because he's sweet and nice and protects her to the best of his ability. Does she think she's going to marry him? No, because she thinks they're going to go back to their own times. She'll miss him terribly, of course, and she probably thinks she'll never love again, but I think in her heart she knows she probably will.
To summarize? Anne basically didn't have the experience to figure out Wesley liked her and thus couldn't compare him to her ideal until he'd already said he loved her, and when he said that, she was flattered and she thought he was nice, so she asked for time. And in time, she found she liked him a lot, and bang, dating. Basically he blindsided her before she knew he was interested, so she couldn't talk herself out of it. Plus, she thinks it's quite romantic.
As a sort of side note to Wes, let's talk a little about Anne and premarital touching. Yes, she freaked out about it for a while. Yes, she stopped. She's justified it to herself in various ways that don't really hold much water--that it's okay here, that she can pray and get forgiveness, and that Marilla has to know--but really, she just likes physical affection. Anne's an orphan, and she never had anyone to give her hugs or any of that. And so, the basic deal with Anne and physical affection is that she likes having a concrete way of knowing people love her, and she finds hugging and kissing Wesley to be excellent ways to establish this. (Physical affection with Cal is similar to this, except that she uses it entirely for comfort, and she is also secretly amused at how uncomfortable he gets when she hugs him. She has no plans to ever kiss Cal again, because last time was a special exception. Additionally, for the most part, she doesn't worry about physical affection with anyone other than Wesley, because she thinks it isn't wrong unless she wants to kiss them. It totally isn't sinful unless she wants to do more even if she doesn't know entirely what that means.)
2. Cal
Anne adores Cal. Almost unconditionally. Which is one of the scariest things ever for me. She was really annoyed at his teasing while Wesley was injured by vicious rabbits, and if she hadn't been really worried she probably would have carried that grudge. Instead, when he helped her, she was grateful enough to not grudge against him, and instead be kind of wary but thankful for his help. And then she kind of started liking him even though he said very inappropriate things and teased her, because he always told her the truth, and he helped her when she needed it. And then she fell into a pattern of teasing him back, because she didn't want to be at a disadvantage.
And she loves him. I think the closest approximation of how she thinks of him is older sibling, but she doesn't really know either. It's the kind of thing that's kind of hard for me to justify because I think Anne would be at a loss herself. She knows that bringing Wesley home to Marilla to introduce would be fine, but that bringing home Cal would result in instant punishment unless he managed to behave himself to an incredible extent, and he probably wouldn't be bothered. She's somehow managed to stop caring that he killed people and concentrate on his being a good person now. I think probably if I'd taken her earlier in canon, she wouldn't be mature enough to, and if it had been the second book, she might have been too Christian to, but as it is, she's justifying it to herself because, well, she likes him. I assume she prays for his soul every night.
Beyond the issues of omgwtfwhyisAnnetalkingtohim, the other big thing that I feel the need to justify in terms of Anne is how she's changing based on being at camp. Since the world Anne comes from is so incredibly different from how it is here, she doesn't really know how to deal with it, so she's adapting. Cal is a TERRIBLE INFLUENCE D: and she's therefore learning to deal by being sarcastic at people she doesn't like (since she can't hit them) and getting all the physical comfort she can get, because Cal gave her various talks about that which actually made sense. She really enjoys mutual teasing with him, too, because it's comforting in its own way, and she can make light of the situations she's in that she doesn't understand. He's also the reason she has, to date, said "fucked up" and "gangbanging." She knows they're bad, but she doesn't know how, and she's not going to let him tell her so that she doesn't have to feel guilty. She just was hoping hearing her say inappropriate things would make him feel better.
And, finally, Anne has to date risked her life twice because of Cal. One of the big reasons she did this? I honestly don't think Anne can comprehend the idea that she could die. I think she knows that, in theory, death is a possible outcome, but I don't think Anne actually can conceive of her own death coming until some unidentified point in the future, so she's not actually capable of grasping the idea she's seriously in danger. Do I have canon to back this up? Not entirely. She's shocked in the third book when a friend of hers dies because she's so young, she's shocked in the first book when Matthew dies, and she never once considers the idea that she herself could die. I'm hoping the whole Cal thing with the knife got it into her head, but probably not. And as for why she wanted to stay with him (which was fucking nuts, yeah), she was kinda unhinged, partly because she saw the transformation and partly because, well, crazy Cal ouch Anne's brain. And she was scared, and add unhinged to scared and you get Anne wanting comfort. And Cal is the second most comforting person at camp. By the time Wesley got there, she was stubbornly opposed to leaving him on principle. Hey, I never said it wasn't idiotic, but she honestly thought she was doing the right thing. Now she honestly thinks it was a bad idea, but that nothing bad happened so no harm no foul. She's just really glad Cal's back and doesn't so much care about anything else.
Okay, now that we've gotten that out of the way, argue with me! Or not. I'm just tacking the anon meme on here because I might as well. So tell me what you think of Anne. I don't think anyone can change her affection for Wes and/or Cal at this point, but if you think it's completely off the wall, I wanna hear why so I can try to get better! Also think about my character more, cuz that amuses me.