day .03 - sienna lauren
day 3 and i'm still on schedule!
Caro/dreamywriter19 asked me to talk about Sienna Lauren, and since I made her read this series, after others made me read this series, I couldn't be more happy to talk about her. I will try to keep this post from devolving into a mass of incoherent feelings. But I make no promises.
It's hard to pick favorites out of this series. I think that's the general consensus amongst everyone. That we have rotating tops, but then hard to pin down a single fave. For me, that's true, except if we come down to singular characters Sienna will forever be my favorite out of this entire, so far, twelve book series. And really it shouldn't be a surprise given what I like (brats, child soldiers, sweet tooth lovers, those with an insatiable appetite and curiosity). Though I didn't start the series thinking I would, BUT THEN BAM.
And so I love her and adore her now and forever probably.
Sienna is one of those characters that I think the author went in planning to always give attention to. I don't mean to say that she doesn't love all her characters, BUT with some you can tell, especially when you look overhead at all of the books as a whole in the series, that are woven together and carried out throughout all twelve current books; actually Sienna and Kaleb are the two that stand out the most for that. Sienna is tightly woven for nine books until we ultimately get her book in Kiss of Snow, and it's just done so well.
There's a particular Margaret Atwood quote that so applies to her to me. That one about abstaining last year and then devouring this year without guilt.
When we're first introduced to her it's just after she's sixteen and a few months after her family has defected from the Net. As a family unit the Lauren's are fascinating to me. But even more so that from the get-go Sienna doesn't really act as a child. Despite being "young" when she's introduced and even in her own book, she's never set up that way. She sits at the table with her two Uncles, she takes charge of her brother and cousin, she interjects against the Alpha in front of a then somewhat rival Alpha, and later helps her Uncle in taking down a Counselor as they create a diversion in the Net. So right away it's like "hmmmm, what's going on here. something else is up."
As we progress to Judd's book we get more of her. We learn that there's something in Sienna that's far more dangerous than most Psy.
Leading up to her novel, we get to see a lot of how she interacts with her family and others in the den. She ultimately joins in as a novice solider and is taken under the wing leadership of Indigo. Which is a great dynamic for me and one I love a lot. Also it's really fascinating to me that Sienna takes on this role because prior to her defection, there's no doubt she's a prized commodity to Ming. As an X (an extreme rare ability) she would have been a prize for Ming. Not a particularly nice fate or life at all, but even amongst the rest of the Arrows she would have been above them as something more that they couldn't do. (We could get sidetracked a lot about talking about the AU I want/am writing where she doesn't defect along with her family and stays for their safety and becomes that ultimate weapon).
So it's interesting to me that she does throw herself into basically starting over in training and starting from the beginning. Which I think in part does have to do with wanting to belong. Regardless of her being Psy and "Silent" she is able to recognize feelings for what they are. She knows what family is. She knows what the den can bring. She admires Indigo. And Brenna. And Riley and Drew. And her friends that she makes as she becomes more and more a part of the den and Pack. She yearns for belonging and grounding, that in part is because she loses her identity and base when she defects. (Which by book 12, she still hasn't found again, even if she's working towards carving out an identity of her own choosing and making and what she WANTS and DESIRES).
Another part simply comes from the quote in Book Ten where she says "fire in a tiny box cannot live". She knows nothing else but a soldier's life. Her and Judd are quite similar in that respect. Both were trained young to be what they were, tools for the Council and weapons to kill people with. She's highly intelligent and being a solider in SnowDancer lets her utilize that; I love so much that she transfer her intelligence to a hunger for physics and her abilities and how bonds work between changelings and Psy, both mixed and not; it's a headcanon that she eventually puts together work on how she's been right on the Lauren Net and bonds and the Web and such.
Which leads me also to saying that I love how hungry Sienna is. For everything she comes across.
She defects from the Net and is instantly bombarded with sensation and THINGS and STUFF. When she's opened up to all this, she craves and it's almost childlike even when she never acts like a child. What she wants she wants and there's nothing wrong in that. Sienna realizes it's okay in some respects to be a young adult, to be snappish and bratty and sensitive. She loves sweets. She loves country music. She loves tall heeled boots. She loves physics. She loves picking out cushions with Marlee. She loves stirring up shit in the den with her friends for fun. She loves her family. She loves Hawke. She loves this extended family that she got, even if she's afraid that it'll disappear. It's that Atwood quote all over again. We hit prior to book ten, Sienna being very cautious, and then book ten is her saying NOPE FUCK IT. I WANT EVERYTHING.
AND SHE GETS IT.
She gets her friends and her family and her extended family and purpose and her lover. AND HOME.
Even if everything seems terrible and frightening and I'm certain parts of her think she doesn't deserve any of it or that she can't get it, she doesn't quit. She doesn't let Hawke say no. She doesn't let herself ultimately say no (her actions in saving the Pack). She wants it and she gets it and she and the wolf were always right in the end.
Then moving forward, it's okay, how do I go about living now. I think it's something that will take five and maybe even ten years, if not an entire lifetime for her to become comfortable with. It's something she'll have to work through over and over, and I like that. I like that she's so complex, and ultimately I want her to get everything she wants. I want Ming dead. I want her and Hawke doing silly dumb things like baking terrible cookies and sharing business reports about the Pack's dealings. I want them working through all their issues together and how he was a huge dumbass. It's a fairytale ending and not. Because it's lovely in that single moment, but it's reality that will last a long time.
But she'll get a lifetime for that. Decades and decades.
I tried to keep this coherent but whelp. As you can see I love talking about her.
Caro/dreamywriter19 asked me to talk about Sienna Lauren, and since I made her read this series, after others made me read this series, I couldn't be more happy to talk about her. I will try to keep this post from devolving into a mass of incoherent feelings. But I make no promises.
It's hard to pick favorites out of this series. I think that's the general consensus amongst everyone. That we have rotating tops, but then hard to pin down a single fave. For me, that's true, except if we come down to singular characters Sienna will forever be my favorite out of this entire, so far, twelve book series. And really it shouldn't be a surprise given what I like (brats, child soldiers, sweet tooth lovers, those with an insatiable appetite and curiosity). Though I didn't start the series thinking I would, BUT THEN BAM.
And so I love her and adore her now and forever probably.
Sienna is one of those characters that I think the author went in planning to always give attention to. I don't mean to say that she doesn't love all her characters, BUT with some you can tell, especially when you look overhead at all of the books as a whole in the series, that are woven together and carried out throughout all twelve current books; actually Sienna and Kaleb are the two that stand out the most for that. Sienna is tightly woven for nine books until we ultimately get her book in Kiss of Snow, and it's just done so well.
There's a particular Margaret Atwood quote that so applies to her to me. That one about abstaining last year and then devouring this year without guilt.
When we're first introduced to her it's just after she's sixteen and a few months after her family has defected from the Net. As a family unit the Lauren's are fascinating to me. But even more so that from the get-go Sienna doesn't really act as a child. Despite being "young" when she's introduced and even in her own book, she's never set up that way. She sits at the table with her two Uncles, she takes charge of her brother and cousin, she interjects against the Alpha in front of a then somewhat rival Alpha, and later helps her Uncle in taking down a Counselor as they create a diversion in the Net. So right away it's like "hmmmm, what's going on here. something else is up."
As we progress to Judd's book we get more of her. We learn that there's something in Sienna that's far more dangerous than most Psy.
Leading up to her novel, we get to see a lot of how she interacts with her family and others in the den. She ultimately joins in as a novice solider and is taken under the wing leadership of Indigo. Which is a great dynamic for me and one I love a lot. Also it's really fascinating to me that Sienna takes on this role because prior to her defection, there's no doubt she's a prized commodity to Ming. As an X (an extreme rare ability) she would have been a prize for Ming. Not a particularly nice fate or life at all, but even amongst the rest of the Arrows she would have been above them as something more that they couldn't do. (We could get sidetracked a lot about talking about the AU I want/am writing where she doesn't defect along with her family and stays for their safety and becomes that ultimate weapon).
So it's interesting to me that she does throw herself into basically starting over in training and starting from the beginning. Which I think in part does have to do with wanting to belong. Regardless of her being Psy and "Silent" she is able to recognize feelings for what they are. She knows what family is. She knows what the den can bring. She admires Indigo. And Brenna. And Riley and Drew. And her friends that she makes as she becomes more and more a part of the den and Pack. She yearns for belonging and grounding, that in part is because she loses her identity and base when she defects. (Which by book 12, she still hasn't found again, even if she's working towards carving out an identity of her own choosing and making and what she WANTS and DESIRES).
Another part simply comes from the quote in Book Ten where she says "fire in a tiny box cannot live". She knows nothing else but a soldier's life. Her and Judd are quite similar in that respect. Both were trained young to be what they were, tools for the Council and weapons to kill people with. She's highly intelligent and being a solider in SnowDancer lets her utilize that; I love so much that she transfer her intelligence to a hunger for physics and her abilities and how bonds work between changelings and Psy, both mixed and not; it's a headcanon that she eventually puts together work on how she's been right on the Lauren Net and bonds and the Web and such.
Which leads me also to saying that I love how hungry Sienna is. For everything she comes across.
She defects from the Net and is instantly bombarded with sensation and THINGS and STUFF. When she's opened up to all this, she craves and it's almost childlike even when she never acts like a child. What she wants she wants and there's nothing wrong in that. Sienna realizes it's okay in some respects to be a young adult, to be snappish and bratty and sensitive. She loves sweets. She loves country music. She loves tall heeled boots. She loves physics. She loves picking out cushions with Marlee. She loves stirring up shit in the den with her friends for fun. She loves her family. She loves Hawke. She loves this extended family that she got, even if she's afraid that it'll disappear. It's that Atwood quote all over again. We hit prior to book ten, Sienna being very cautious, and then book ten is her saying NOPE FUCK IT. I WANT EVERYTHING.
AND SHE GETS IT.
She gets her friends and her family and her extended family and purpose and her lover. AND HOME.
Even if everything seems terrible and frightening and I'm certain parts of her think she doesn't deserve any of it or that she can't get it, she doesn't quit. She doesn't let Hawke say no. She doesn't let herself ultimately say no (her actions in saving the Pack). She wants it and she gets it and she and the wolf were always right in the end.
Then moving forward, it's okay, how do I go about living now. I think it's something that will take five and maybe even ten years, if not an entire lifetime for her to become comfortable with. It's something she'll have to work through over and over, and I like that. I like that she's so complex, and ultimately I want her to get everything she wants. I want Ming dead. I want her and Hawke doing silly dumb things like baking terrible cookies and sharing business reports about the Pack's dealings. I want them working through all their issues together and how he was a huge dumbass. It's a fairytale ending and not. Because it's lovely in that single moment, but it's reality that will last a long time.
But she'll get a lifetime for that. Decades and decades.
I tried to keep this coherent but whelp. As you can see I love talking about her.