Arizona Poppy

Writing and fanfic stuff. Multifandom. 18+ only. About Me | M-List | Asks | Nets

[arizonapoppy]

Blue Castle Book Club: Chapter 8

So, this is one of my absolute favorite quotes in all of LMM's works:

she, who had been afraid of almost everything in life, was not afraid of death.

This is some existential adrenaline right here

I noticed (again?) that the family's imputed reaction to her illness would be to show off their solicitousness, and nobody actually would seem to care about her.

I have great sympathy for her and the raspberry jam incident. My mother tells stories on me ad nauseam.

And I learned a new word: jamfry. It is apparently a contraction of "clamjamfry," a Scots word meaning "a company, crowd of people, rabble; rubbish, junk". It makes sense in the setting.

Now I just need to use it in a sentence.

[ishowdespair-deactivated2026012]

[capablecapybara]

It was so easy to defy once you got started. The first step was the only ​one that really counted.

rip lucy maud montgomery you would have made bank writing inspirational quote-a-day desk calendars

[batrachised]

girlie you're in love

[macabrevampire]

i think avoiding everything is going to save me for real this time

[wildhoneyvalancy]

I would go if I lived in Canada!

[bewareofitalics]

On the one hand, this is exciting, but on the other hand, I've read a bit of the script and it's... not great. Here and here, for anyone interested - they start with the same scene, but they're for different cast sizes so the first has an ensemble song and the second skips that and goes into a scene and song with Barney and Roaring Abel. There's a bunch of dialogue taken directly from the book but also some wild changes - like, Valancy gets birthday cards??????????? And the family is going to come over to celebrate???????????????????? Also, this from the cast list of the "large cast version":

Edgar Wellington- her uncle on her mother's side. Mary Wellington- her mother's sister. Olive Wellington- their "beautiful" daughter.

Mr. Stinson did you completely misunderstand the book or did you do that on purpose and if the latter why.

And then there's Barney and Roaring Abel's song. Oof.

[deemoyza]

Also:

Barney Snaith- a mysterious roustabout, rumoured to be a gigolo and felon.

Barney, a gigolo? XDDDDDD I did not see that coming, nor can I picture it.

And so the wait continues for a decent English-language adaptation (I can't speak for the Polish stage musical; from the images I've seen, it at least seems to capture Barney and Valancy well).

[blekitnyzamek]

If it had only took place one week earlier I would somehow figured out how to teleport myself right after LMM conference to Toronto from PEI. But I don't have extra 1-2 thousand to just exist between this two events in Canada, boo! I hope some bootleg master will hear my prayers 👀 and record at least audio from it, I need to hear the songs!

Moving on:

Polish musical ✨

There are also some wild changes made there xD But I still enjoy it! It's really funny. Just not the closest adaptation you could imagine.

There is no Cissy. Or Mr. Frederick. Or looots of clan members.

Valancy (Polish name: Joanna) is an orphan. She's living with Cousin Stickles (here: Tekla) and Uncle Benjamin. They are married. Happily even.

The only other Stirlings are: Isabela. She is Olive's mother. Maybe someone didn't catch her name as Mary writing script and rolled with that. But there is also mention about her many chins. So maybe it's just frankenstein of Isabela and Mary I guess.

Olive. She is... herself. And Cousin Georgiana. She's also kinda herself.

Apart from that. Cecil exists. But his name is not Cecil. He is PARSIVAL. Why? I dunno.

There are also: Barney (Polish given name: Eddy), Abel, Redfern and (as I like to call him) Hot-Tap_Dancing-Postman!

There is whole tap dancing sequence when Hot-Tap_Dancing-Postman gives Joanna her letter from Dr. Trent (he exists as a recording) and they sing about what could be in this envelope and why wouldn't Joanna receive letters from some nice boy when she is so cool?? Delighful.

There is also no silver wedding dinner. All Stirlings gather to celebrate Joanna's birthday. Hurray! Tekla/Stickles guilt trip her about costs of a party. Boo.

Joanna just have enough of her family and go to work for Abel without any noble ideas for (absent here) Cissy. Just for money & freedom :D

There is no railway track scene, Trent just after year writes to Joanna another letter with something like "I was cleaning my desk and I saw I send you wrong letter before, Miss. But I saw you few days ago all so blooming near your husband and I believe you got to see another doctor and knew this for some time. Happy life! Sorry. XOXO"

Olive is (probably) ending as a Edward Beck's wife. Because all his storyline--

Because there is no Cissy there is no funeral. But writers wanted to somehow have proposal from Edward Beck (in Polish: freaking Rudolf Schulz). So at the very beggining of the show Cousin Georgiana just (as a birthday presents!) speak to all of the clan about how Rudolf Schulz would love to marry Doss! That he is proposing to her though her, as her relative. Joanna is like hell no, he's old and have gazillion children. Stirlings on the other hand: he has lots of money and tenement house in the market square!!! And not gazillion children, only a few. And three oldest daughters are in the marring age so they even don't count. You'll marry him, there's no other options for you, Doss! So Joanna escapes to work for Abel...

Before grande finale Olive is devastated. Parsivalis broke off their engagement. For who? For Beck/Schulz's eldest daughter! Because she has a larger dowry!

So what Cousin Georgiana propose after she can no longer tell Schulz about his and Doss' wedding? For Olive to catch him! Because he's now free! And rich! And she's also free! And poorer! Olive has objections about being mother-in-law to her ex-fiance but her mother is all in for this idea.

So even if we do not know how it ended per so. We know how Stirlings work. So please:

happy wishes to newlywed Mrs. Olive Schulz!

I still really love this show it's so camp please trust me! It only sounds like a hot mess!

All photos from here!

[arizonapoppy]

I’m sorry but I have been having a rotten morning but the thought of tap dances in the middle of the story makes my entire day.

Can there be a Bollywood dance number at the end too?

[willgrahamscock]

the generational gap between me and the chronic complainers in fandom tags for every little thing

[willgrahamscock]

“we need more fics where…” write it

“I don’t like…” no one asked go complain in dms

“he wouldn’t say…” to YOU maybe it’s just FUN

[six-demon-bag]

[wandereroftheocean]

*walks up to mic* Tony Stark should have never brought 15 year old Peter Parker into a battle field, Peter was a child and was in no place to be able to consent to help Tony in this, he couldn’t even go on a field trip without guardian consent. And Tony should be accurately judged and held accountable for this. *walks away from mic*

[nixscriptum]

[mzannthropy]

Has anyone noticed that. The family dinner is mostly middle aged to old people (from what we can gather). Valancy and Olive are the only young ones; there are no younger men, kids, teenagers. Aunt Mildred has kids but the way it's described, they haven't turned up. We don't know if Aunt Alberta and Uncle Herbert have children--or else they live away from home. Uncle James and Uncle Benjamin are both widowers but they seem to never have had any children.

In her Dark Night of the Soul chapter, Valancy remembered cousin Byron from Montreal (that little shit who pinched her), so there must be Stirlings in Montreal. I wonder. Could it be that the Deerwood and Port Lawrence Stirlings are the loser ones and the more successful ones are in Montreal? Or Toronto? Maybe they're also more bearable. And not as puffed up, bc in a big city, nobody gives a fuck whether you're a Stirling or a Twinklebottom. Just a thought.

[absolutelynotclassicusernam-blog]

I'm fascinated by this concept. Do you think cousin Byron grows up to be less of a little shit because he's not stuck in Deerwood...or more of a little shit because he has the Deerwood Stirlings to look down on?

[damazcuz]

Are you doing okay? We missed you at the devil's sacrament. He mentioned you by name. Everyone was looking around and cheering until we realized you weren't there. If you need to talk I'm always here. At the aforementioned devil's sacrament.

[willgrahamscock]

just saw a deactivated mutual's post on my dash. that's my dead wife's corpse you're all dragging around

[the44th]

I also reblog this guys dead wife.

[azaablue]

the best fanfiction you've ever read was written by a woman in her 40s before she made dinner for her kids. it was written by a teenager after school when they should've been studying for a history test. and a barista came up with the idea while they cleaned the espresso machine and busser fact-checked it on their break and the post-doc edited between writing grant proposals and the nurse apologized for typos in the notes after a long shift and behind every drabble and one-shot and multi-chapter fic there is a person with a wonderful and interesting and chaotic life and it is such a privilege that we get to be apart of it because they decided to do this thing we all share, for fun.

[katherinetheok]

Been doing another Jane Austen reread and apparently this time around I've got on my Chronic Illness goggles because I can't get it out of my brain that Fanny Price probably suffers from a mild case of rickets.

But, Kat, what the fuck are rickets? (infodump incoming)

So if you've never heard of rickets, congratulations on living in the 21st century. There's never been a healthier time to be alive 👍

So basically, rickets is more a set of symptoms than it is an actual disease, and those symptoms are caused when a growing body doesn't get enough vitamin D or calcium. That can be caused by either an underlying disease that messes with your body's ability to absorb vitamins and minerals, or by poor diet and lack of enough natural light.

In a culture where food isn't enriched with extra vitamins and minerals and adulteration of bread with things like alum is common, the Price family isn't going to have the most nutritious diet, and on top of that, poor Fanny as the eldest daughter would have been stuck inside all day every day helping out her mother. It's entirely possible that her sunday walk to church was the only time she got any direct sunlight.

And now that I've gotten all that out of the way, what are the actual symptoms of rickets? The main ones are stunted growth, bone and muscle pain, and weakness.

Fanny is noted in the first chapter to be very small for her age, and her fatigue and issues with things like short walks are noted repeatedly. Of course a lot of things can cause symptoms like that and that poor girl has Chronic Illness(tm) written all over her, but I really do think rickets makes sense for one reason. She gets better when she can spend a lot of time outside and worse when she's confined to the house. More than a few days without riding or otherwise being outside are shown to lead to worsening fatigue and weakness.

Why? Because time in the sun causes the body to produce more vitamin D than would be the case otherwise.

In the present day, rickets is a fully treatable condition, usually only requiring vitamins to reverse all the symptoms (sometimes surgery to correct bone deformities, but many of those will resolve themselves over time). But Fanny doesn't live in the present day and she doesn't have a doctor making sure she gets her 2,000 IU of D3 every day. So while moving to Mansfield (and getting a relatively healthy diet for a change) would absolutely have helped her symptoms, but she was probably always struggling with a chronic low-grade case of rickets that got better or worse depending on how much time she was able to spend in the sun. (Both the diet and sunlight things would also explain why going back to Portsmouth made her ill again.) Maybe Mr Crawford wasn't entirely full of shit when he noticed she had a growth spurt at some point after her cousin's marriage. Maybe that was her body beginning to self-correct after years of better nutrition and more frequent exposure to the sun.

Which probably means that when the duty of babysitting Lady Bertram was shifted to her sister and Fanny moved to the parsonage, she probably did experience a full recovery, or something very close to it.

[samcormac]

what’s the rush?

[thatlittleegyptologist]

"Using an Oxford comma is a sign of AI"

bestie boo, let me fill you in on something: if you're going to take any part of 'good grammar' and randomly assign it to She's A Witch! AI, you might as well give up. It's over. You're cooked. Anyone who has spent the last decade or more learning to type properly, anyone who has spent any time writing articles/papers/essays that require you to use 'good grammar' is going to fall into that 'oh no it might be AI' trap.

Stop hunting like it's 1692. You're not going to find Goody Proctor at the ChatGPT sacrament. What you're going to do is exactly what happened back then: harming people who've done nothing wrong.

[arviyya]

can I reblog this a million times

[beardedmrbean]