jomiddlemarch
Over Goldengrove unleaving
The Venn diagram of poetry and fan fiction, or a writer's therapy.
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My vegetable love should grow
“But Miss Cressida, it ain’t done!” exclaimed the red-headed housemaid Sally, who had an uncanny resemblance to a fox but without any of a vixen’s daring or speed. Her dark eyes were wet with tears of consternation and darted about anxiously.
“It can be as long as I bring a maid with me. You went along with everything else, you cannot draw some arbitrary line at coming on a call with me during calling hours,” Cressida said, striving to keep her tone even, because she had a positive horror of ranting at the servants the way her father ranted at them and anyone else he deemed beneath him, which was everyone other than Queen Charlotte and possibly the Archbishop of Canterbury. Still, Sally was being difficult and Cressida didn’t have enough pin money left to bribe her into compliance.
“If this works out as I hope, I’ll take you with me,” she said to the maid.
“You already asked me to go with you,” Sally replied. “Did Cook addle your brains when she shouted?”
“I meant, if I am successful and secure the affections of Lord Debling, I should ask Mama to allow me to bring you with me as a maid,” Cressida explained. A more clever maid would have grasped her intention, but a more clever maid would have found a way to refuse Cressida’s undeniably outré scheme.
“A lady’s maid?” Sally breathed, as this was evidently what she considered the absolute pinnacle of existence. She couldn’t do Cressida’s hair worth a toss, however, and her mending was only passable.
“We’ll see,” Cressida said.
“D’you mean to go now, my lady?” Sally asked.
Cressida almost sighed in relief. She’d have boxed the girl’s ears if she had to, but dragging a weeping maid behind her to Lord Debling’s townhouse what not what she’d planned.
“Yes. Fetch my blue pelisse and then we’ll be off,” Cressida said.
“It’s three years old and covered in braid,” Sally said doubtfully. “You don’t want something more fashionable?”
“Fashion isn’t my primary concern,” Cressida said. She suspected Lord Debling would not notice if she wore her grandmother’s hooded wool cloak, other than for its marten fur trim. The blue went with her eyes and she remembered being hopeful when she first put it on; it had been the Season she thought she might make a match with Viscount Aldertwyne and his five thousand pounds per annum and her recollections were all colored with her earlier rosy optimism.
“If you say so, my lady,” Sally said.
It was not good Ton to snap at one’s servants’ vapidity or that of anyone who wasn’t a Cit, so Cressida held her tongue.
It was a significant effort.
Twenty minutes later, Lady Cressida Cowper and her maid stood at Lord Debling’s front door. It was quite tall, but in need of a fresh coat of paint, but the dwelling’s bones, as the saying went, were good and it overlooked a park, which she supposed was some relief to a man who preferred to be out in nature. The park provided plenty of greenery, even if none of it were wild. Cressida imagined the street thronged with carriages as the members of the Ton jockeyed and jostled to get into her latest squeeze, the rooms packed, the ratafia nearly running dry, Lord Debling sequestered in his study or Patagonia.
“Lady Cressida Cowper, to call on Lord Debling,” she announced to his butler. The man did not even blink and she considered that Debling’s unorthodox approach to society would stand her in good stead in her mission. She was ushed down a gracefully proportioned hall that was gloomy due to the paper an earlier Debling had selected. She nodded to herself. She’d avoid all paintings of the hunt and any still-life with a dead fowl, that would satisfy him well enough, and she preferred landscapes anyway.
“The drawing room, my lady,” the butler announced, which was helpful, because it looked little like any drawing room she’d seen. Eloise had dragged her to the British Museum on a rainy afternoon and that was what she felt she’d entered, as the room was full of natural curiosities, some in glass cloches or cases, some merely arrayed on shelves or set down on tables as ornaments. Everything that was not an artifact appeared to be sepia.
The spiky, spiny, curved shell with its pink flared lip seeming vaguely obscene must be a trial for a housemaid to dust.
Lord Debling set down the book he’d been perusing and removed the spectacles which Cressida would have thought would suit him ill yet somehow contrived to make him more attractive. She didn’t need him to be very attractive and hadn’t anticipated how to respond to his appealing countenance and very broad shoulders in well-fitted superfine. She offered a polite smile, allowing her lips to curve slightly and showing a glimpse of her teeth, while she waited for him to approach her with a greeting.
“Lady Cressida, good afternoon,” he said. “It is good of you to call. I trust I find you well.”
He said all the necessities but as if he were bored by them. His eyes drifted down to her hands and when they returned to her face, there was an expression of interest she’d rarely evoked in a prospective suitor.
“The weather is very pleasant,” she replied.
“I must admit—”
“I expect you—”
They both stopped after speaking at the same time, Lord Debling startled into a laugh that was not one Society would approve, too unstudied, too spontaneous.
Cressida approved of it quite heartily.
“I’ve brought you something I hoped you might enjoy, but I’m afraid my aspiration may have exceeded my execution,” she said.
“You would have me set my standards low,” he said.
“It’s a vegetable tart, made from a receipt of the French,” Cressida said, using one hand to uncover the pie from its cloth where it sat perched on her knee. Uncloaked, there was no hiding the fact that some of the unevenly sliced vegetables were burnt and the pastry was sadly pale in places. Possibly raw. She hadn’t dared to poke at those spots and risk the entire collapse of the tart. “I know you eschew meat in your repasts and I thought to convey my…appreciation with a dish designed to suit your tastes.”
“I’m sure your Cook has done an admirable job,” Lord Debling said.
“Oh, no, she had nothing to do with it! If she heard you say that, she’d surely give her notice, to think I allowed anyone to believe this a measure of her culinary skill. I made this myself,” Cressida said.
It was the coup de grâce, or what she believed a coup de grâce was, given the limitations of her last governess whose French was markedly poor, the final blow that would deliver Debling to her or send him fleeing.
“You can cook?” he asked.
“Not very well,” she said, without false humility. “I did not think it would prove that difficult, if it was something a servant could do, but I’ve discovered my talents don’t lie in the realm of cookery.”
Sally, who was amusing herself looking at some pressed leaves or somesuch, made a sound like an incredulous guffaw and Cressida could tell that Lord Debling heard and had schooled his face to remain unaffected.
“I did not think any ladies of the Ton would ever venture to cook or bake or do anything domestic other than prepare a cup of tea with milk and sugar,” he said.
“They don’t,” Cressida said. “I wanted you to understand, I’m not like the rest of them.”
“Do I need to eat the tart to grasp that fact conclusively?” he said.
“Not really,” she said.
“Good. Then I will eat my portion purely for the enjoyment of it,” he replied.
“That will be little enough,” Cressida said. There’d been a savory custard to be poured over the vegetables that had looked curdled but she’d persevered; now she realized she risked maiming or killing him if he consumed much of her possibly poison pie.
“Allow me to decide, Lady Cressida,” he said and she did not think she mistook his intention. “I think I shall like it very well indeed and will owe you a debt of gratitude. You will need to tell me how I may repay you for your thoughtfulness.”
“You might begin with a waltz at Lady Thimbleberry-Fenwick’s ball tomorrow night,” she said.
“And perhaps the supper dance as well,” he replied. “Though she will not present a tart anything like this one.”
“Thank the good Lord for that,” muttered Sally in a carrying whisper.
Cressida did something she hadn’t for over a decade. She blushed to the roots of her hair and all the way down her decolletage. She gave thanks for her lace fichu.
“No one has given me anything that has pleased me so well since I was just out of dresses,” he said.
“Truly?” Cressida said, knowing she sounded for all the world like a miss fresh out of the schoolroom.
“Truly,” Lord Debling said. “I don’t bother with lies. Waste of time.”
#bridgerton#bridgerton season 3#cressida cowper#cressida x debling#lord debling#romance#humor#regency romance#evening reblog
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everyone living in EU - please support the citizens initiative for safe and accessible abortion!!
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Made up fic title: The aviator and the cunning fox
p.s: May write a Nikolai ww1 au where he's in the RFC for funsies.
The aviator and the cunning fox
This WWII reboot of Shogun would be a series of vignettes as British pilot John Blackthorne, having crash-landed on an island in Japanese possession, seeks to elude capture by Japanese senior officer Toranaga and is helped by Sister Maria Veronica, a nun whose loyalties are questioned by everyone—including herself.
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made up fic titles: the star to every wandering bark, and/or the darling buds of May? please and thank you!
the star to every wandering bark
A Dune AU where early in their marriage, when Jessica has not yet conceived Paul or even decided that she will not bear Leto the daughter the Reverend Mother has demand of her, Leto coaxes from her the origin of the Voice over a series of brutally cold and stormy nights, lying in front of the hearth in his chamber, Jessica seated in a chair as old as House Atreides. Jessica, feeling he has seduced the knowledge from her, begins to use the Voice during their love-making, expecting that he will be horrified and order her to stop. She finds Leto enjoys being commanded and she finds she enjoys a certain degree of command.
(Decent chance this fic would be NSFW but there would be NO use of the word member.)
the darling buds of May
A Bridgerton AU with the very botanical courtship of Lady Cressida Cowper by Lord Alfred Debling, in which there is nary a rose, lily, or violet to be seen. Lord Debling takes the language of flowers and raises it to a never before seen extreme, which has Cressida and Eloise scouring the bookstalls and libraries of London to decipher his messages. After she accepts his proposal, Cressida begs him to never gift her with a nosegay of any sort, as most flowers make her sneeze.
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My vegetable love should grow
“But Miss Cressida, it ain’t done!” exclaimed the red-headed housemaid Sally, who had an uncanny resemblance to a fox but without any of a vixen’s daring or speed. Her dark eyes were wet with tears of consternation and darted about anxiously.
“It can be as long as I bring a maid with me. You went along with everything else, you cannot draw some arbitrary line at coming on a call with me during calling hours,” Cressida said, striving to keep her tone even, because she had a positive horror of ranting at the servants the way her father ranted at them and anyone else he deemed beneath him, which was everyone other than Queen Charlotte and possibly the Archbishop of Canterbury. Still, Sally was being difficult and Cressida didn’t have enough pin money left to bribe her into compliance.
“If this works out as I hope, I’ll take you with me,” she said to the maid.
“You already asked me to go with you,” Sally replied. “Did Cook addle your brains when she shouted?”
“I meant, if I am successful and secure the affections of Lord Debling, I should ask Mama to allow me to bring you with me as a maid,” Cressida explained. A more clever maid would have grasped her intention, but a more clever maid would have found a way to refuse Cressida’s undeniably outré scheme.
“A lady’s maid?” Sally breathed, as this was evidently what she considered the absolute pinnacle of existence. She couldn’t do Cressida’s hair worth a toss, however, and her mending was only passable.
“We’ll see,” Cressida said.
“D’you mean to go now, my lady?” Sally asked.
Cressida almost sighed in relief. She’d have boxed the girl’s ears if she had to, but dragging a weeping maid behind her to Lord Debling’s townhouse what not what she’d planned.
“Yes. Fetch my blue pelisse and then we’ll be off,” Cressida said.
“It’s three years old and covered in braid,” Sally said doubtfully. “You don’t want something more fashionable?”
“Fashion isn’t my primary concern,” Cressida said. She suspected Lord Debling would not notice if she wore her grandmother’s hooded wool cloak, other than for its marten fur trim. The blue went with her eyes and she remembered being hopeful when she first put it on; it had been the Season she thought she might make a match with Viscount Aldertwyne and his five thousand pounds per annum and her recollections were all colored with her earlier rosy optimism.
“If you say so, my lady,” Sally said.
It was not good Ton to snap at one’s servants’ vapidity or that of anyone who wasn’t a Cit, so Cressida held her tongue.
It was a significant effort.
Twenty minutes later, Lady Cressida Cowper and her maid stood at Lord Debling’s front door. It was quite tall, but in need of a fresh coat of paint, but the dwelling’s bones, as the saying went, were good and it overlooked a park, which she supposed was some relief to a man who preferred to be out in nature. The park provided plenty of greenery, even if none of it were wild. Cressida imagined the street thronged with carriages as the members of the Ton jockeyed and jostled to get into her latest squeeze, the rooms packed, the ratafia nearly running dry, Lord Debling sequestered in his study or Patagonia.
“Lady Cressida Cowper, to call on Lord Debling,” she announced to his butler. The man did not even blink and she considered that Debling’s unorthodox approach to society would stand her in good stead in her mission. She was ushed down a gracefully proportioned hall that was gloomy due to the paper an earlier Debling had selected. She nodded to herself. She’d avoid all paintings of the hunt and any still-life with a dead fowl, that would satisfy him well enough, and she preferred landscapes anyway.
“The drawing room, my lady,” the butler announced, which was helpful, because it looked little like any drawing room she’d seen. Eloise had dragged her to the British Museum on a rainy afternoon and that was what she felt she’d entered, as the room was full of natural curiosities, some in glass cloches or cases, some merely arrayed on shelves or set down on tables as ornaments. Everything that was not an artifact appeared to be sepia.
The spiky, spiny, curved shell with its pink flared lip seeming vaguely obscene must be a trial for a housemaid to dust.
Lord Debling set down the book he’d been perusing and removed the spectacles which Cressida would have thought would suit him ill yet somehow contrived to make him more attractive. She didn’t need him to be very attractive and hadn’t anticipated how to respond to his appealing countenance and very broad shoulders in well-fitted superfine. She offered a polite smile, allowing her lips to curve slightly and showing a glimpse of her teeth, while she waited for him to approach her with a greeting.
“Lady Cressida, good afternoon,” he said. “It is good of you to call. I trust I find you well.”
He said all the necessities but as if he were bored by them. His eyes drifted down to her hands and when they returned to her face, there was an expression of interest she’d rarely evoked in a prospective suitor.
“The weather is very pleasant,” she replied.
“I must admit—”
“I expect you—”
They both stopped after speaking at the same time, Lord Debling startled into a laugh that was not one Society would approve, too unstudied, too spontaneous.
Cressida approved of it quite heartily.
“I’ve brought you something I hoped you might enjoy, but I’m afraid my aspiration may have exceeded my execution,” she said.
“You would have me set my standards low,” he said.
“It’s a vegetable tart, made from a receipt of the French,” Cressida said, using one hand to uncover the pie from its cloth where it sat perched on her knee. Uncloaked, there was no hiding the fact that some of the unevenly sliced vegetables were burnt and the pastry was sadly pale in places. Possibly raw. She hadn’t dared to poke at those spots and risk the entire collapse of the tart. “I know you eschew meat in your repasts and I thought to convey my…appreciation with a dish designed to suit your tastes.”
“I’m sure your Cook has done an admirable job,” Lord Debling said.
“Oh, no, she had nothing to do with it! If she heard you say that, she’d surely give her notice, to think I allowed anyone to believe this a measure of her culinary skill. I made this myself,” Cressida said.
It was the coup de grâce, or what she believed a coup de grâce was, given the limitations of her last governess whose French was markedly poor, the final blow that would deliver Debling to her or send him fleeing.
“You can cook?” he asked.
“Not very well,” she said, without false humility. “I did not think it would prove that difficult, if it was something a servant could do, but I’ve discovered my talents don’t lie in the realm of cookery.”
Sally, who was amusing herself looking at some pressed leaves or somesuch, made a sound like an incredulous guffaw and Cressida could tell that Lord Debling heard and had schooled his face to remain unaffected.
“I did not think any ladies of the Ton would ever venture to cook or bake or do anything domestic other than prepare a cup of tea with milk and sugar,” he said.
“They don’t,” Cressida said. “I wanted you to understand, I’m not like the rest of them.”
“Do I need to eat the tart to grasp that fact conclusively?” he said.
“Not really,” she said.
“Good. Then I will eat my portion purely for the enjoyment of it,” he replied.
“That will be little enough,” Cressida said. There’d been a savory custard to be poured over the vegetables that had looked curdled but she’d persevered; now she realized she risked maiming or killing him if he consumed much of her possibly poison pie.
“Allow me to decide, Lady Cressida,” he said and she did not think she mistook his intention. “I think I shall like it very well indeed and will owe you a debt of gratitude. You will need to tell me how I may repay you for your thoughtfulness.”
“You might begin with a waltz at Lady Thimbleberry-Fenwick’s ball tomorrow night,” she said.
“And perhaps the supper dance as well,” he replied. “Though she will not present a tart anything like this one.”
“Thank the good Lord for that,” muttered Sally in a carrying whisper.
Cressida did something she hadn’t for over a decade. She blushed to the roots of her hair and all the way down her decolletage. She gave thanks for her lace fichu.
“No one has given me anything that has pleased me so well since I was just out of dresses,” he said.
“Truly?” Cressida said, knowing she sounded for all the world like a miss fresh out of the schoolroom.
“Truly,” Lord Debling said. “I don’t bother with lies. Waste of time.”
#bridgerton season 3#bridgerton#cressida cowper#lord debling#cressida x debling#rarepair#lady cressida cowper#romance#regency romance tropes#humor#rebooting cressida#chasing lord debling#how to win a vegetarian's heart
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Each be other’s comfort kind
In some ways, Jem found being married to Mary née Vance was the easiest thing in the world.
To begin with, if he ever referred to her as Mary née Vance, she cuffed him lightly on the shoulder before she rolled her eyes and then drew him back down for a kiss.
He’d learned the only place to refer to her as Mary née Vance was their bed.
Which he must refer to simply as their bed, not their marriage-bed or anything of a similar high-falutin’ tone which she would accept from his mother and tolerate from Rilla and would otherwise laugh at almost merrily.
As someone not much given to flights of fancy well before the War had made him watch his friends and fellow soldiers gassed and killed, his brother gone without the chance of a farewell, his mind and body scarred in ways he knew as a physician would never fully heal, he found Mary’s unmitigated pragmatism as refreshing as water in the desert.
It also put his father at ease, as Dad said Mary reminded him not a little of his own mother, though Mary was notably less concerned with the vast quantity of pie the Doctors Blythe could consume of an evening, and her piecrust was arguably the equal of Susan Baker’s, though they’d all agreed not to utter such heresy at Ingleside.
In the privacy of their non-marriage, most ordinary bed, with its soft white linens and goose-feather pillows, Jem was free to tell Mary her pastry was actually better than Susan’s, as she had a lighter hand and her piecrust never once reflected any sense of consternation or outrage over some doings in Glen St. Mary, which could not be said of Susan’s best tarts.
Mary was practical and matter of fact. She had a good head for accounts and was far more intelligent that he, any of the Blythes or Merediths (with the exception of Carl) had ever given her credit for. It was easy to discuss the running of his practice and the economic advantages posed by a move to one of the larger towns, the intellectual stimulation offered by hospital work.
Mary did not worry about leaving Mrs. Marshall Elliott behind and she did listen when Jem spoke of his mother’s broken heart with oblique allusions to Walter’s death and more direct remarks about Shirley’s move to Montreal. Even more, she was willing to allow his mother precedence in ways Faith Meredith would never have countenanced.
(Who knew what Faith would truly have countenanced? She’d eloped with Bertie Shakespeare Drew shortly after their mutual return from England and had immediately bobbed the golden-brown hair Walter had once referred to as her crowning glory in a sonnet Jem was never meant to see.)
Mary was patient and funny, an impossibly good mimic. She had a seemingly infinite supply of riddles and could curse a blue streak with the fishermen down in the harbor, who respected Young Doctor Blythe all the more for his sharp-tongued wife.
She complained very little, never as much as she ought about what mattered most, and only to the degree she would amuse him about things that didn’t matter at all.
She was never troubled by his nightmares, by being woken by Jem clutching her tightly, his tears falling onto her neck, salt on his lips when he kissed her.
Mary liked to be read to of an evening, but not poetry. She liked Dickens, which didn’t surprise him, and Eliot, which did. She liked mysteries the best, pulp, which made him chuckle, and Lupin instead of Holmes, but she didn’t press him on nights when anything French was the door opened to memories he couldn’t bear.
She was warm, save for her cold feet. She’d tuck them against his shins and it wasn’t like anything else in the whole world.
She was reliable, steady, quick to take his side. Quick to see his side, even before he did.
She was pretty and she didn’t count it worth much, without any of the vanity of any of the Blythe women.
She was eminently, exceptionally lovable—except that she was difficult to love.
She shrugged off praise.
She didn’t care for ornaments or nosegays, perfume or sweets or what Rilla called a stunning new cloche just the exact color of blackberry fool.
She looked after him and their home so well, there was little left for him to do.
He was at a loss, one she was aware of and found entertaining, when Rilla remarked one day how much Rosemary Meredith’s new cat reminded her of Mary.
Then he knew.
Mary liked to have a cup of tea made just so, with plenty of milk.
She liked to end the day sitting with her stocking feet tucked up under her.
She liked to have her hair stroked, even if his hand trembled, which stopped much sooner when he was paying all his attention to the silkiness of her fair hair and the delicate skin at her temple, her throat.
She liked to sleep early on cold winter nights.
And sometimes, when they were together in the shadows, she liked to be called Puss. She liked it exceedingly well.
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I have to agree that in the first four episodes of Season 3, Colin just isn't very appealing as a romantic partner.
Or frankly, to me, as a character.
We keep getting told he is a good friend and sensitive and kind but there's little evidence of it and his brothel-trips don't exactly endear him to me.
I'm most interested in the relationship between Penelope and Eloise and Cressida, especially since Pen keeps writing as Lady Whistledown and Cressida is very willing to try and take on another persona to achieve a marriage.
I get this is Penelope's arc-- I just wished with the additional attention on her, I liked her more. Or found her more intriguing. It's been a lot of makeover stuff that has been all external. Lord Dealing says she knows who she is and also comments that there are many different versions of her. What if the Lady Whistledown papers had taken another direction?
Separately, I'd also appreciate it if this tight-knit family could at least refer to the missing members more often. I'm sure there are letters from Daphne and Kate and maybe even Edwina...
Still on my bridgerton soapbox but now that we've had the whole "Colin is pretending to be someone he's not" arc, I'm really hoping get a second half that leans on Colin's strengths, ie the sensitivity and kindness mentioned, and fleshes it out demonstrably; I think one big part that missing here is how other characters react to Colin.
Excluding Penelope, most characters just kinda seem irritated by him - not a reaction you'd get for someone who is apparently sensitive and kind. We know Anthony is uptight in part because of how he grates on the other characters like his siblings; we know Benedict is charming and perceptive in part because of how Eloise is more open with him and the line of ladies he flirts with; we know Colin is kind because...why? Has anyone besides Penelope shown themselves to be more comfortable when he is there? To seek him out to be cheered up? To feel safer around him? Marina perhaps, but Marina was looking for a one way ticket to anywhere-but-here. Most of the time, other characters get (understandably) impatient with his never ending travel stories, if not downright dismissive of him and his intelligence entirely. While that's a neat parallel to Pen's experiences, it's not enough to establish the character traits we have described to us on screen. The only moment I can think of is in season 1, when he's the one helping violet upstairs cheerfully after she's had too much to drink. Give me more of that Colin!
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I have literally written a fic where it is implied that Miss Sparrow and Miss Fowler are gay: https://archiveofourown.org/works/35959711
Honestly, the whole Deep Valley High School staff is unexplored in this Twitter thread.
Also, Joe? I do feel like he is straight, but curious and I wonder about that summer working the wheat fields...
Julia feels pan to me.
Tib, unmentioned, is an original chaotic bi.
Discuss.
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Each be other’s comfort kind
In some ways, Jem found being married to Mary née Vance was the easiest thing in the world.
To begin with, if he ever referred to her as Mary née Vance, she cuffed him lightly on the shoulder before she rolled her eyes and then drew him back down for a kiss.
He’d learned the only place to refer to her as Mary née Vance was their bed.
Which he must refer to simply as their bed, not their marriage-bed or anything of a similar high-falutin’ tone which she would accept from his mother and tolerate from Rilla and would otherwise laugh at almost merrily.
As someone not much given to flights of fancy well before the War had made him watch his friends and fellow soldiers gassed and killed, his brother gone without the chance of a farewell, his mind and body scarred in ways he knew as a physician would never fully heal, he found Mary’s unmitigated pragmatism as refreshing as water in the desert.
It also put his father at ease, as Dad said Mary reminded him not a little of his own mother, though Mary was notably less concerned with the vast quantity of pie the Doctors Blythe could consume of an evening, and her piecrust was arguably the equal of Susan Baker’s, though they’d all agreed not to utter such heresy at Ingleside.
In the privacy of their non-marriage, most ordinary bed, with its soft white linens and goose-feather pillows, Jem was free to tell Mary her pastry was actually better than Susan’s, as she had a lighter hand and her piecrust never once reflected any sense of consternation or outrage over some doings in Glen St. Mary, which could not be said of Susan’s best tarts.
Mary was practical and matter of fact. She had a good head for accounts and was far more intelligent that he, any of the Blythes or Merediths (with the exception of Carl) had ever given her credit for. It was easy to discuss the running of his practice and the economic advantages posed by a move to one of the larger towns, the intellectual stimulation offered by hospital work.
Mary did not worry about leaving Mrs. Marshall Elliott behind and she did listen when Jem spoke of his mother’s broken heart with oblique allusions to Walter’s death and more direct remarks about Shirley’s move to Montreal. Even more, she was willing to allow his mother precedence in ways Faith Meredith would never have countenanced.
(Who knew what Faith would truly have countenanced? She’d eloped with Bertie Shakespeare Drew shortly after their mutual return from England and had immediately bobbed the golden-brown hair Walter had once referred to as her crowning glory in a sonnet Jem was never meant to see.)
Mary was patient and funny, an impossibly good mimic. She had a seemingly infinite supply of riddles and could curse a blue streak with the fishermen down in the harbor, who respected Young Doctor Blythe all the more for his sharp-tongued wife.
She complained very little, never as much as she ought about what mattered most, and only to the degree she would amuse him about things that didn’t matter at all.
She was never troubled by his nightmares, by being woken by Jem clutching her tightly, his tears falling onto her neck, salt on his lips when he kissed her.
Mary liked to be read to of an evening, but not poetry. She liked Dickens, which didn’t surprise him, and Eliot, which did. She liked mysteries the best, pulp, which made him chuckle, and Lupin instead of Holmes, but she didn’t press him on nights when anything French was the door opened to memories he couldn’t bear.
She was warm, save for her cold feet. She’d tuck them against his shins and it wasn’t like anything else in the whole world.
She was reliable, steady, quick to take his side. Quick to see his side, even before he did.
She was pretty and she didn’t count it worth much, without any of the vanity of any of the Blythe women.
She was eminently, exceptionally lovable—except that she was difficult to love.
She shrugged off praise.
She didn’t care for ornaments or nosegays, perfume or sweets or what Rilla called a stunning new cloche just the exact color of blackberry fool.
She looked after him and their home so well, there was little left for him to do.
He was at a loss, one she was aware of and found entertaining, when Rilla remarked one day how much Rosemary Meredith’s new cat reminded her of Mary.
Then he knew.
Mary liked to have a cup of tea made just so, with plenty of milk.
She liked to end the day sitting with her stocking feet tucked up under her.
She liked to have her hair stroked, even if his hand trembled, which stopped much sooner when he was paying all his attention to the silkiness of her fair hair and the delicate skin at her temple, her throat.
She liked to sleep early on cold winter nights.
And sometimes, when they were together in the shadows, she liked to be called Puss. She liked it exceedingly well.
#aogg#anne of green gables#rarepair#mary vance/jem blythe#mary vance#jem blythe#romance#jem is a simp for his wife#team mary vance#evening reblog
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Fic title
By Yonder Shining Star
By Yonder Shining Star
Foyle’s War casefic where Christopher Foyle has to confront his own experiences in the trenches as somehow, the famous war-poem written by Private Walter Blythe, “The Piper,” whom Foyle met shortly before Courcelette, is the key to finding the murderer. Help comes in the unexpected form of Blythe’s sister Diana, now a middle-aged surgeon preparing to go to France within a fortnight. She was nothing at all like Rosalind, barely reminded him of Blythe, and yet there was something about her he could not resist.
#foyle's war x anne of green gables crossover au#christopher foyle/diana blythe#I would probably dance around the case like you wouldn't believe#foyle canonically served in wwi
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made up fic title: You're Not My Homeland Anymore
You're Not My Homeland Anymore
Very very AU Grishaverse x Frozen crossover where Arendelle is a breakaway city-state in Fjerda and the Grisha there are only recognized if they are Tidemakers, which poses a significant problem when Nina and Matthias arrive, on the run, seeking asylum in the court of Queen Anna I or safe passage to Elsa’s retreat in the Farthest North. Kristoff in particular believes they are spies for the Fjerdan government and wants them either locked up or placed under house arrest. Things come to a head when Queen Anna’s previous injury during her near-death can only be cured by Nina. Will Kristoff trust her to save Anna’s life?
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For the fic title asks:
- you're a lure to the shore, and the rocks, and the wreck
- follow your lodestar, starry eyes
you're a lure to the shore, and the rocks, and the wreck
This is a Persuasion AU where Frederick Wentworth returns fifteen years later, even richer, but having suffered injuries which leave him permanently disabled. He meets Anne in Bath, where she is living with her father, and their relationship is rekindled with her taking on the role of a nurse/companion, at first socially, and then when his sister Sophia convinces him to ask Anne to marry him, unaware of their past romance.
follow your lodestar, starry eyes
This is a Season 4 GLOW fic where Ruth has returned to work as a script doctor on the new wrestling show while also working on a screenplay of her own. Sam comes across a copy of the screenplay and leaves a lot of edits, without knowing it is Ruth’s work. This fic would be highly fragmented and interspersed with parts of Ruth’s screenplay and Sam’s comments.
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send me a made-up fic title and i'll tell you what i would write to go with it
#this feels like a nice Sunday thing to do#though depending on the way the day goes#and what I receive#it may go into the week
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