🪐

l m montgomery and kerry weaver fan club

[kerrymoncherrie]

i’ve made the blue castle playlist some time ago, here’s a link if you’re interested in listening 🩵

[dustpileofherown]

Happy Monday!

Now that Blue Castle Book Club is over we are excited to announce TWO upcoming fan challenges:

Fic challenge: @mollywog has set up a collection on Ao3. During the month of August interested authors can upload to the collection here. Deadline to submit is August 31st, 11pm, eastern time. Fics will become visible on Sept 1 and remain anonymous for 2 weeks. Read, comment, and try to guess who wrote each! Names will be revealed on Sept 14th.

100 Fanworks challenge: 2026 is the 100th anniversary of The Blue Castle and we want to see if we can get 100 new* fanworks! Send works or links to works via the ask box on this blog ( @dustpileofherown ).

(All fics submitted to the fic challenge automatically count towards the 100 count.)

We only have two “rules”:

Please no ai. Look we aren’t gonna enforce this but just don’t be a dick. It’s literally fandom - why feed that to AI? (I’ve never seen this community use ai for fanworks so this almost didn’t have to be said.)

*Fanwork must be newly shared to tumblr/ao3 in calendar year 2026. New additions to previously shared works DO count as well (ex: publishing an update to an old fic). You can also post something you made years ago but have never shared before with the Maudience. Please repost things you shared earlier this year too! We were not keeping count during book club.

What counts as fanwork? Almost anything! A playlist, a painting, a craft, a fic, a photo of a billboard that reminded you of the book, a recipe collection, a sewing project, etc.

Thanks for celebrating the CENTURY anniversary with us!!!! We can’t wait to see what you make!

[dustpileofherown]

Happy Monday!

Now that Blue Castle Book Club is over we are excited to announce TWO upcoming fan challenges:

Fic challenge: @mollywog has set up a collection on Ao3. During the month of August interested authors can upload to the collection here. Deadline to submit is August 31st, 11pm, eastern time. Fics will become visible on Sept 1 and remain anonymous for 2 weeks. Read, comment, and try to guess who wrote each! Names will be revealed on Sept 14th.

100 Fanworks challenge: 2026 is the 100th anniversary of The Blue Castle and we want to see if we can get 100 new* fanworks! Send works or links to works via the ask box on this blog ( @dustpileofherown ).

(All fics submitted to the fic challenge automatically count towards the 100 count.)

We only have two “rules”:

Please no ai. Look we aren’t gonna enforce this but just don’t be a dick. It’s literally fandom - why feed that to AI? (I’ve never seen this community use ai for fanworks so this almost didn’t have to be said.)

*Fanwork must be newly shared to tumblr/ao3 in calendar year 2026. New additions to previously shared works DO count as well (ex: publishing an update to an old fic). You can also post something you made years ago but have never shared before with the Maudience. Please repost things you shared earlier this year too! We were not keeping count during book club.

What counts as fanwork? Almost anything! A playlist, a painting, a craft, a fic, a photo of a billboard that reminded you of the book, a recipe collection, a sewing project, etc.

Thanks for celebrating the CENTURY anniversary with us!!!! We can’t wait to see what you make!

[dustpileofherown]

Happy Monday!

Now that Blue Castle Book Club is over we are excited to announce TWO upcoming fan challenges:

Fic challenge: @mollywog has set up a collection on Ao3. During the month of August interested authors can upload to the collection here. Deadline to submit is August 31st, 11pm, eastern time. Fics will become visible on Sept 1 and remain anonymous for 2 weeks. Read, comment, and try to guess who wrote each! Names will be revealed on Sept 14th.

100 Fanworks challenge: 2026 is the 100th anniversary of The Blue Castle and we want to see if we can get 100 new* fanworks! Send works or links to works via the ask box on this blog (@dustpilepfherown).

(All fics submitted to the fic challenge automatically count towards the 100 count.)

We only have two “rules”:

Please no ai. Look we aren’t gonna enforce this but just don’t be a dick. It’s literally fandom - why feed that to AI? (I’ve never seen this community use ai for fanworks so this almost didn’t have to be said.)

*Fanwork must be newly shared to tumblr/ao3 in calendar year 2026. New additions to previously shared works DO count as well (ex: publishing an update to an old fic). You can also post something you made years ago but have never shared before with the Maudience. Please repost things you shared earlier this year too! We were not keeping count during book club.

What counts as fanwork? Almost anything! A playlist, a painting, a craft, a fic, a photo of a billboard that reminded you of the book, a recipe collection, a sewing project, etc.

Thanks for celebrating the CENTURY anniversary with us!!!! We can’t wait to see what you make!

[absolutelynotclassicusernam-blog]

Blue Castle Book Club: Chapter 45

This is the last chapter and I want to cry. This has been my favorite book club yet and I'm so sad it's over.

I'm so glad that Cousin Georgiana gets to take care of the cats. She'll do a good job of it, and she has earned the trust that comes with them.

The last line is perfect. That's all I have to say about it.

[absolutelynotclassicusernam-blog]

Blue Castle Book Club: Chapter 45

This is the last chapter and I want to cry. This has been my favorite book club yet and I'm so sad it's over.

I'm so glad that Cousin Georgiana gets to take care of the cats. She'll do a good job of it, and she has earned the trust that comes with them.

The last line is perfect. That's all I have to say about it.

[thesweetnessofspring]

But I had one friend—or thought I had. A clever, bookish chap—a bit of a writer. That was a bond between us—I had some secret aspirations along that line. He was older than I was—I looked up to him and worshipped him. For a year I was happier than I’d ever been. Then—a burlesque sketch came out in the college magazine—a mordant thing, ridiculing Dad’s remedies. The names were changed, of course, but everybody knew what and who was meant. Oh, it was clever—damnably so—and witty. McGill rocked with laughter over it. I found out he had written it.

Not to put down platonic bonds and how those breakups can rock you as bad or worse than romantic ones, but the reading of Barney as queer and in love with this friend who betrayed him (maybe not realizing the kinds of feelings he had for the other man)...it definitely IS intriguing. Especially when contextualizing it with his anger when Valancy still can't believe that he's in love with her.

[ksfoxwald]

I think it's less "dude cares so much about a guy he must be gay" and more about the parallels between this relationship and Valancy's, where it's romance and friendship all wrapped together, that makes it really bisexual. It's in his relationships with women, too - like how he's platonic friends with Cissy (do we still remember Cissy?). For bi!Barney, relationships with women aren't automatically romantically charged any more than relationships with men are (though of course both have the potential to develop that way.)

(sorry if I'm sounding a bit like a bisexual anthropologist, I'm coming at this from more of a nonbinary angle than a bi/pan identity)

[kerrymoncherrie]

this is a genius take and i totally stand by this

[kasandraforever]

Bookclub?

So, what you guys wanna do after we finish?

[batrachised]

Lmaooo Jane “oh no my abused friend is forced to work all the time. Child labor is horrible!”

Also Jane “in my fantasy au all children have to polish the moon. The lazy shall be banished to perish in dark cold despair. Then they’ll be sorry and GLAD to get back to work.😈”

She’s such a mess. My poor broken helpful judgmental child with no tears. 😩

She really is raising her damn self.

HAHA that was so funny to me, and it touches on a couple of different points about Jane that I think are really interesting

First, here we see just how practical little Jane is. She dreams of CLEANING lol - she wants to be useful and tidy. Her Blue Castle is a supply closet full of cleaning supplies.

Second, you're so right about Jane metering out justice ruthlessly lol! In my opinion, her everyday life is so unfair that she incorporates a system of fairness into her daydreams. These kids are punished because they deserve it in her mind, rather than being punished for no reason. They're also given what Jane prizes most of all: an opportunity to help!

Third, I think you're touching on a theme that's subtle, but shows throughout the novel: in many ways, Jane is more similar to her grandmother than her mother. She has the same no nonsense approach and the same iron will, but Jane uses them for good. I think this is highlighted by Jane's very name: her name is Jane Victoria (named after her grandmother!), but she chooses to go by Jane.

and you're so right! Poor Jane, raising herself...she wants to take care of everyone, but WHO is going to take care of Jane?? (👀)

[giedd]

Jane of Lantern Hill

[batrachised]

Although it's not explicitly stated, something we're already learning from these first couple of chapters is that Jane's mother is someone with a delicate personality. All of the imagery associated with her is of beautiful, but flimsy and delicate things, right down to being named Robin!

...mother stepped so lightly and gaily yet that you thought her feet had wings.

...mother had said piteously, fluttering her hands in a way she had which always made Jane think of two little white butterflies

...her face like a rose in the light of the rose-shaded lamp.

Mother's mouth was like a rosebud, small and red

Mother's were just the colour of the sky on a summer morning between the great masses of white clouds.

...touching mother's cheek as mother bent down and kissed her. It was like touching a rose-leaf. And mother's lashes lay on her cheeks like silken fans.

This, combined with her repeatedly trying to keep the peace with the grandmother, shows a woman who is just as much a prisoner as Jane. In fact, the only time we see the mother sticking up to the grandmother in any small measure is for Jane. And often, it's something on this level:

Grandmother's voice implied that Victoria had low tastes and that kitchens were barely respectable. Jane wondered why mother's face flushed so suddenly and why a strange, rebellious look gleamed for a moment in her eyes.

Here begins a theme we see throughout the book: Jane's parents are very flawed people! Definitely not of the same ilk of the idealized Anne/Gilbert, for example. That, and imo, we're already seeing the peeks of that more adult novel hiding behind a child's viewpoint.

[dreamerwriternstargazer]

I really like Jane’s mother precisely because of this though, she’s very much brought to life as an abuse victim herself and yes she’s absolutely very flawed because she’s weak willed

But I respect the hell out of her because no matter how much Jane’s grandmother TRIES to turn her against her own daughter, she never does. She loves Jane dearly, and yes we do see her protective instincts flair up when her mother tries to degrade Jane.

Could she be a better mother if she had just tried harder, stuck up to her own mother a bit more? Try to find some real independence rather than just being a socialite as her mother wants? Yeah, sure. But she seems to suffer an arrested development as much as Jane is, in fact Jane kind of takes after her in that respect I would say and is only able to branch out more once she’s away from that toxic household, become more confident in herself and towards others, more talkative, more assertive, it’s wonderful to see, and it makes sense that her mother only managed to find that bravery once when she was far from home as well.

I don’t think the child’s perspective necessarily reduces it or makes it any less dark, if anything it amplifies it because it’s really quite heartbreaking a child can see the grief and loss her parents feel and the abuse her grandmother puts her through, as well as the condescension and manipulation of Aunt Irene. Jane of Lantern Hill is so close to a more tragic, darker book you’re right, but honestly because it has a child’s perspective framing it highlights the depressing nature of their situation, and it becomes more relatable and hopeful for kids who are stuck in toxic households or who deal with such darkness in their life, making the hopeful aspects of the story shine brighter for us too.

[theincorrigiblemagpie]

She had always hoped he did, but sometimes she had a little, disagreeable, haunting dread that he was just kind and nice and chummy out of pity; knowing that she hadn’t long to live and determined she should have a good time as long as she did live; but away back in his mind rather looking forward to freedom again, with no intrusive woman creature in his island fastness and no chattering thing beside him in his woodland prowls. She knew he could never love her.

Valancy on their 25th anniversary @ Barney: what are we

[taciturn-nerd]

Valancy is basically this comic by Sarah Andersen

[readingbooksinisrael]

The Blue Castle Chapter 38

So much happens in this chapter. No wonder Valancy was feeling overwhelmed by the end of it because I was as well.

It can basically be divided into two parts:

Valancy till reeling from Dr. Trent's diagnosis

The Redfern reveal

Valancy walked quickly through...Lover's Lane. She did not want to meet anyone she knew. She didn't even want to meet people she didn't know. She hated to be seen...The cars that fled by her with raucous shrieks were filled with strangers.

So we're back to the beginning in Valancy's mindset in many ways: not wanting to be seen or meet anyone, Lover's Lane again, cars being "raucous".

I especially want to point out that last sentence because Valancy has been driving through Deerwood raucously. It's with the Stirlings that she has to be demure and fear raucousness.

With life, fear had come back into her heart. Sickening fear. Fear of what Barney would think. Would say. Fear of the future that must be lived without him. Fear of her insulted, repudiated clan.

This is the paragraph that makes it most clear to us that we've returned to the beginning of the book in Valancy's mind. All throughout this book Valancy sees life as a set of chains and she's able to shake them off when she gets Dr. Trent's letter.

There parked by the side of the old, battered ragged Lady Jane, was another car. A wonderful car. A purple car. Not a dark, royal purple but a blatant screaming purple.

Love this description.

I'm also enjoying Valancy's "little imp". It's the same imp that spoke at the inner party. Again, we're back to the Doss-mindset. In the Valancy-mindset, with Barney, but also with Roaring Abel and to Uncle James and her mother, Valancy could say what she liked. I don't think she would've said any of these mean humorous thoughts out loud, but she could've said them later to Barney, who shares her sense of humor; now she's alone again.

Also, looking at this imp and at dinner party-Valancy, Valancy is more spiteful when she's in a Doss-mindset.

"Millions!" said Valancy faintly.

Looking back on the conversation Barney and Valancy had about the millionaire's house, I think Barney was reassuring himself about Valancy's feelings.

I like Dr. Redfern. He has absolutely no tact, but I do like him.

Valancy sat down. To be obliged to sit when mental agnoy urges us to stride up and down is the refinement of torture. Every nerve in her was crying out to be alone--to be hidden. But she had to sit and listen to Dr. Redfern, who didn't mind talking at all.

And she thinks that this is her last time in her Blue Castle. She thought she would have one last time to be alone in it and then Dr. Redfern comes.

It also made me realize (only now) that one of the appeals that Valancy and Barney have with each other is not just their sense of humor, their appreciation for nature or their ability to sit together quietly--it's also the ability to be alone, perfectly alone, and not have anyone bother you. This was stated quite explicitly earlier so I don't know why I only realized it now.

Valancy felt that she had done with laughter forever. And with tears, for that matter. She had no further use for either of them.

The Stirlings would approve.

Great last sentence for the chapter.

[thedogbard]

blue castle book notes

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

One of them was packed with young people who whirled past her singing uproariously:

“My wife has the fever, O then,

My wife has the fever, O then,

Oh, I hope it won’t leave her

For I want to be single again.”

Valancy flinched as if one of them had leaned from the car and cut her across the face with a whip.

She had made a covenant with death and death had cheated her.

Oh, poor Valancy. She needs Barney to pop out of the woods and see her and hug her or something. Also - the cruelty of the universe when those people go by singing that song.

With life, fear had come back into her heart.

And now we’ve come full-circle.

It had been beautiful because death waited. Now it was only sordid because death was gone.

Remember the whole ‘love had cast out her last fear’? But only because she was going to die, then…If she had never thought she only had a year left, I wonder if she would’ve let herself fall in love with Barney in the same way?

A wonderful car. A purple car. Not a dark, royal purple but a blatant, screaming purple.

Honestly? I’m imagining a Cadburys’ colour car.

…though an unparalysed imp at the back of Valancy’s paralysed mind suggested the thought, “Such a face should have a fringe of white whisker around it.”

LIVE FOREVER, LITTLE IMP IN VALANCY’S MIND.

…and in his hearty, unmodulated voice was a ring of something that attracted her.

An unconscious recognition that he resembles Barney?

“But old Doc Redfern can yell with the best of them yet, and ain’t above doing it.”

I’ve loved Doctor Redfern ever since this.

“When you left this morning? Do you live - over there?”

Dr Redfern’s mind: Barney has a mistress. Barney has a mistress. Do not panic. Do not freak out. It’s the 1920s and he lives on an island. It’s all fine. He has a mistress.

(Ironic that he then waves his diamond over at the island…)

“Of course,” said Valancy stupidly. “I’m his wife.”

It’s such a shame that she can’t say it with more pride, like she did in the beginning, because now she’s so ashamed of it and of ‘tricking’ Barney.

…and Valancy’s imp whispered, “Why be bald? Why lose your manly beauty? Try Redfern’s Hair Vigor. It keeps you young.”

This little imp deserves its own book.

“Shocks seem to be in the air this morning.” The imp said this out loud before Valancy could prevent it.

Two random lines from P!NK’s Never Gonna Not Dance Again and Sabrina Carpenter’s Espresso popped into my head now. ‘I’ve got all good luck and zero fucks, don’t care if I’m alone’…and, ‘My give-a-fucks are on vacation’. I mean, they’re way too cheery, as songs go, for this chapter, but still.

(Also currently listening to Love In The Dark by Adele and it is very fitting. ‘The longer we ignore it..’/’I can’t face your breaking heart’…/’Everything changed me’…)

“You didn’t ask him to marry you, I suppose,” twinkled Dr Redfern.

Oh Doc. *tuts*. Oh Doc. If you knew the whole story…

“The trail up from the road nearly gave him a conniption.”

I wish we’d seen more of Henry.

“It isn’t a Ford. It’s a Grey Slosson,” said Valancy spiritedly. For some occult reason, Dr Redfern’s good-humoured ridicule of dear old Lady Jane stung her to life.

Yes I also gave our car a name, yes I also am very fond of ‘her’, and yes I’ve also fended off ridicule about this car, so I fully understand Valancy’s feelings.

“Well, well, I like your face. No beauty - you don’t mind my saying that - you’ve sense enough to know it, I reckon. Sit down.”

I both like and dislike this simultaneously.

“What happened? Why did he leave his home? Tell me. Tell me.”

The urgency in that repeated ‘tell me’…

“Not till he fell in love with Ethel Traverse. Then he was happy for a little while.”

The cloud had reached the sun and a great, chill, purple shadow came swiftly over Mistawis. It touched the Blue Castle - rolled over it. Valancy shivered.

Great writing and timing and metaphor here.

Laughter? Valancy felt that she had done with laughter forever. And with tears, for that matter. She had no further use for either of them.

WHY DOES THIS BOOK HAVE TO ALWAYS BE SO. SO. RELATABLE?

“But I was mighty lonely. All I lived for was them little notes now and then from Bernie - Klondike, England - South Africa - China - everywhere.”

Dr Redfern needs a hug, and that needs to be an ao3 tag.

“The manager communicated with the Aynsleys - his wife was an Aynsley - and found out that Bernard Redfern had bought a pearl necklace there.”

*leaps up and down metaphorically because 13-year-old, sleep-deprived me was so shooketh at this*.

Valancy was fingering her necklace. She was wearing fifteen thousand dollars around her neck. And she had worried lest Barney had paid fifteen dollars for it and couldn’t afford it. Suddenly she laughed in Dr Redfern’s face.

“Excuse me. It’s so - amusing,” said poor Valancy.

“Isn’t it?” said Dr Redfern, seeing a joke - but not exactly hers.

Imagine if Barney had walked in on this moment.

“-Bernie’s wife - Bernie’s children.”

*looks around, wide-eyed*

“Bernie’s choice of a wife is good enough for me. It’s my boy I want.”

Doctor Redfern, you are one of the most under-appreciated father-in-laws/fathers in literature.

“Too damp. I’ll take no chances with rheumatism.”

“Why suffer that ceaseless anguish? Why not try Redfern’s liniment?” quoted the imp…

HA.

“Henry goes quite mad when he gets mud on the car.”

I like Henry.

She stood briefly like a faded flower bitten by frost, by the hearth, looking down on the white ashes of the last fire that had blazed in the Blue Castle.

EXTRAORDINARRYYYYYYY WRITING ALERT.

[deemoyza]

Spoilers for the rest of The Blue Castle, from Chapter 35 to the end.

I didn't want to derail this post, but the mention in the tags of Barney eventually becoming the pursuer in the relationship called to mind an essay about sex and gender in The Blue Castle (“Sex and the Revisionist Fairy Tale” by Catherine Clark, shared earlier in the book club) in which the author notes how the story and characters have played with gender conventions and expectations throughout the book (e.g., Valancy pursuing marriage with Barney), with Montgomery eventually settling back into a relative norm by the end of the book. I think we begin to see this shift in Chapter 35, in what Clark describes as “a reversal of the Cinderella story” when Barney tears the fancy little shoe off Valancy’s foot in order to save her life (well, he tore her free from it, but the separation of shoe and person still stands). The fairy tale they both have been living in has ended, and reality has crashed back in. In the coming chapters, they both will need to confront their fears and learn to take their places in the larger world.

While they still remain a fairly unconventional couple, what with Barney’s background and their plans for the future, their dynamic has shifted subtly to more closely align with heterosexual relationship norms of the time. Barney is now the active partner, making plans and reassuring Valancy, and while I’ve no doubt that Valancy is happy to go along with him and will eventually catch up in the future (their core personalities and dynamic have not changed, after all), for the moment, the “order” of the day has been restored. Whether to appease readers of the time or to reenter her comfort zone after a story of wild fancies, or both, Montgomery ends the book in a space of plausible reality. Conservative readers will find the reestablishment of a non-controversial hetero dynamic, while more adventurous or modern readers can imagine the characters sliding into different dynamics as the situation warrants. Though it comes at the expense of a grand, romantic ending, this was a pretty good compromise on Montgomery’s part to allow different kinds of readers to have their cake and eat it, too. Barney and Valancy are, ultimately, who we imagine them to be, left in a space between convention and subversion of those conventions, in which the reader is free to move them about to dream up their possible future in a way that brings them the most enjoyment.

[dandelionsandderivatives]

Thinking about the "the beams of our house are cedar and the rafters fir," and what I love about that line. I tend to read Barney as a bit less in love here; I think he likes Valancy very much, and is grateful to her for how she treated Cissy, but he wouldn't necessarily have proposed marriage to her if she hadn't asked him first.

But the talk on the trip back to the island shows that he's willing to go all-in for her; he's not just "being a brother," as she said. He's welcoming her into his life and home completely, and, having agreed to marry her, he's committing. I think it works as a nudge to the reader, but it's also a character moment for Barney; it tells us that he's taking Valancy's love for him seriously.

[thedogbard]

blue castle book club

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

To be painted by Allan Tierney was all the cachet of beauty a woman could desire. […] Allan Tierney’s eyes lighted up.

Hmm-mm.

“I’ve had a caller,” said Barney the next afternoon, when Valancy had returned from another flower quest.

Side-note - it’s nice that they’re not joined at the hip and go out for their separate tramps around the woods.

“Allan Tierney. He wants to paint you, Moonlight.”

“Me!” Valancy dropped her basket and her arbutus. “You’re laughing at me, Barney.”

“I’m not. That’s what Tierney came for. To ask my permission to paint my wife - as the Spirit of Muskoka, or something like that.”

How did Tierney even find out who Valancy was?? I mean, I know it would’ve been easy enough, but still, he must have had to do a bit of digging.

“Beautiful women,” finished Barney. “Q.E.D., Mistress Barney Snaith is a beautiful woman.”

There is so much triumph in this, like he’s finally managed to get a point across that he’s been trying to prove to her for months. (Another one of my headcanons. You’re welcome.)

“...Oh, I’ve seen her - she’s a stunner - but you’d never catch Allan Tierney wanting to paint her. In the horrible but expressive slang phrase, she keeps all her goods in the shop-window.”

I. LOVE. Barney. Ohmygod. It’s stuff like this that makes him real and not some sort of fictionalised perfect dream-mystery-rescuer-hero-husband thing.

“...Tierney said something about the curve of your cheek as you booked back over your shoulder. You know I’ve often told you it was distracting. And he’s quite batty about your eyes. If I wasn’t absolutely sure it was solely professional - he’s really a crabbed old bachelor, you know - I’d be jealous.”

Hmm, you’d be jealous, huh, Barney? And also hey, here’s another headcanon - Tierney is gay. Whatcha think?

“I couldn’t tell him that. I didn’t know what you wanted.”

Good, good.

“...So even if you had wanted to be painted, Moonlight, your tyrannous husband would not have permitted it.”

Bad, bad. But honestly I think that if Valancy had really really wanted to be painted, Barney would’ve let her.

“Tierney was a bit squiffy.”

Oh Barney, you priceless idiot. I think this was/is the first time I’ve ever seen the word ‘squiffy’ in a book.

Valancy never flinched from the plain word. No ‘passing away’ for her.

Personal anecdote time: I’ve spoken to at least two people who simply cannot understand the word ‘death’. Or ‘died’. I was trying to tell one old lady that my dog had died, and I had to repeat ‘no, she’s died’ six times before I gave up and said ‘she’s passed away’ and she heard me first time.

They didn’t talk much, but Valancy had a curious sense of oneness. She knew that she couldn’t have felt that if he hadn’t liked her.

I know that feeling. Sort of.

“You nice little thing,” said Barney suddenly. “Oh, you nice little thing! Sometimes I feel you’re too nice to be real - that I’m just dreaming you.”

I remember reading this for the first time and immediately picturing it and all the what-ifs-fanfic-potentials in my head.

“Why can’t I die now - this very minute - when I am so happy!” thought Valancy.

Okay, yeah, but girl, imagine if you had just pegged it right there and then. That might’ve really ruined Barney’s day.

But now, sitting here beside Barney, with her hand in his, a sudden realisation came to her.

They were DEFINITELY already holding hands before he said that. Which means they maybe walked through the woods hand-in-hand. Which is way too romantic for this early on a Sunday morning.

“I’d rather be miserable in heaven remembering him than happy forgetting him. And I’ll always remember through all eternity - that he really, really liked me.”

This is beautiful. By the way I’m currently listening to I Knew It I Knew You by TS and the lines ‘I remembered I loved you, came back when it mattered’ are fitting very well…

[kerrymoncherrie]

tierney is also gay in my headcanon since my first read…

listen he paints and is a fan of women with unique beauty

[mzannthropy]

The way Abel is described in Chapter 32 reminded me of this

It's the mention of tartan that made me think of Scots, also I totally see him saying something like this proverb.