to the dandelions

I'm a bitch, I'm a lover, I'm a cat churning butter. 30s, she/her/hers

[thesweetnessofspring]

I've made some things. You can see a lot of these through my ao3 profile. Or, if you don't have an ao3 account, my Ellipsus Masterlist. Here's a choice selection:

Current, actively(ish) updating WIPs:

Roses and Pearls (Everlark): Peeta Mellark is the sole victor of the Quarter Quell. With District 12 nothing but ash, he rebuilds his life by moving to the Capitol and falling in love with Rosalia Snow, granddaughter to Coriolanus Snow. Then people Peeta thought long dead kidnap him and Rosalia, including the one person he hates more than anyone: Katniss Everdeen. They say he's been hijacked. They say that he used to love her. Locked away in District 13, Peeta is determined to protect his mind and his fiancée from the rebels. But while imprisoned, videos disprove his memories and his feelings toward Katniss grow confusing. Who can he trust, and what really happened in his past?

Katniss Gets Kisses (Everlark): Three months left until the Quarter Quell, and Katniss wants to spend as much as she can of it with Peeta. With no expectations to live past the Quell, she can let herself explore intimacy she could never even contemplate before.

Completed Personal Favorites:

Sing You Back Home (Everlark): After the war, Katniss returns to Twelve with her family and Gale following close behind. When Haymitch tells her that Peeta plans to move to District Four after his therapy is complete in the Capitol, Katniss has to figure out how to rebuild her life without her dandelion in the spring.

The Huntress and the Beast (Everlark): Prim was never reaped and Peeta became the sole victor of the 74th Games, earning the nickname "the Beast." Ostracized by society after a horrifying incident at the end of the war solidified his nickname, Peeta retreats to live on the mountainside alone. Years later, Katniss takes a position to live with Peeta and eat dinner with him each night for one year, partly to make up for the bread that saved her family and partly to escape Gale's marriage proposal. Each chapter is one month of this year, as Everlark grow together and build a home.

Hungertown:

See my Hungertown tag for any and all Hunger Games/Hadestown crossovers.

a lover's desire is mutiny: Once upon a time there was a land scorched and scarred by war. A land of singing hills where a snake betrayed his songbird and a poor boy loved a hungry young girl. This is the tale of their song. A Hunger Games fanfiction inspired by the musical Hadestown.

Playlists:

salt water and promises (everlark): an Everlark post-war playlist made in collaboration with other tumblr users.

The Blue Castle playlist: A playlist for L.M. Montgomery's The Blue Castle.

pov: it's 2010 and you're waiting for mockingjay to be released: Pure nostalgia for 2010 Hunger Games fandom.

The Huntress and the Beast playlist: A playlist for my fanfic, The Huntress and the Beast.

[thesweetnessofspring]

One of the things that my mind just straight up rejects from THG canon is these supposed magic plants that can bring people out of a catatonic state. There is evidence of certain natural supplements treating mild to moderate depression, but when it comes to psychotic symptoms, there isn't a natural equivalent.

This was put in, I believe, to make it so that it wouldn't appear Katniss was leaving Prim to have to take care of a catatonic mother when she risked killing herself at various points in all three books (which is a cop-out for making Katniss decide between priorities in high-risk situations).

But to me, giving Mrs. Everdeen these magic plants that are meant to cure her catatonia (and without psychotherapy) is erasing the fact that despite all that healers who rely on natural remedies can do, there are still limitations to how much you can do without medical advancements. Limitations that Mrs. Everdeen and others in D12 who need it were not given access to because of the oppression they faced. SC does show the limits in physical medicine, but inventing these magic plants for psychiatric concerns minimizes the symptoms of severe mental illness and the complexity of these cases.

[no-where-new-hero]

this is so chaotic but it IS pride month so. i’m now going to incorporate it into my headcanon that A. Gay, Carpenter might actually be a little fruity. consider: he married late. he didn’t remarry despite having a daughter to raise. and cissy is childishly unaware of what heterosexual sex ends in, but she clearly has never seen her father worry about it either, if he had a fling here and there with a woman.

[theincorrigiblemagpie]

James Stirling going around bothering every professional in Deerwood...

I want to see Lawyer Ferguson's expression when James asks him what can be done legally about Valancy being rude to relatives and getting a job.

[moonlightredfern]

Wondering how big the fandom is.

For nuance if you started reading it but haven’t finished that counts.

Have you read The Blue Castle by L. M. Montgomery?

Yes

No

Remaining time: 6 days 16 minutes

[muttsandmustelidae]

From the Nashville Zoo’s fb page! Here’s the petition, please please please take a moment to add your name (even if you’re not from Nashville!). If you are from Tennessee, contact your representatives and make it clear that the people do not want this data center. This is an AZA accredited zoo which is home to several species of critically endangered animals, we NEED to protect it. Make your voice heard!

[sourdough-seal]

“how did you get into writing” girl nobody gets into writing. writing shows up one day at your door and gets into you

[orbitalmirror]

"how did you get into writing" girl i've been tormented by the visions since i was eight years old

[thesweetnessofspring]

The Sunset Castle by thesweetnessofspring

Rated T

If it had not stormed on a certain March morning, Peeta Mellark's whole life would have been entirely different. Peeta Mellark, twenty-nine and unwanted, lives under the control of his family: dependent on his oldest brother for his livelihood, in the shadow of his handsome older brother, and bearing the insults and hands of his mother. But then he learns that he has at most one year to live and he refuses to spend it like he has for the past twenty-nine. He begins keeping company with the drunken district handyman, his sick ward, and the mysterious forest woman, Katniss Everdeen, while he lives out his sunset in all the colors he can find. Based on L.M. Montgomery's The Blue Castle

Read Chapter One | Read Chapter Eleven

Chapter Eleven

Peeta couldn't drag himself away from Katniss or their cabin for several days after their marriage. During the day, he was cleaning up and fixing up the place to feel a bit more homey than Katniss had let it be when she lived alone. She'd also taken him around the woods and led him into the water of the lake. Then at night…it still marveled him that what happened on their wedding night wasn't a one-time thing, something she did just because he was dying and in love with her. At least, it didn't seem that way to him when she let their kisses grow deeper and she laid in his arms after. He understood that just because she was a woman didn't mean she was any less capable of getting pleasure herself, nor that it meant she was in love with him, too. But she'd enjoyed herself enough that at least for now, sex was part of their marriage.

Still, life had to continue and they couldn't remain isolated on the lake. They stopped by Haymitch's first to tell him about the marriage.

"Good," Haymitch said. "You two marrying each other means I don't have to pretend to like any other partners either of you might've found."

Continue reading on ao3

Continue reading on ellipsus

***gif of nicola coughlan by @sabrinarpt. gif of luke grimes by @stannyramirez

[thesweetnessofspring]

Putting this quote from Chapter 2 here:

She would cut such childish nonsense out of her life forever and face reality unflinchingly.

To talk more about this line on June 5 (Chapter 15)

[thesweetnessofspring]

Hey it's June 5!!

So this line stuck out to me in Chapter 2 because of this line:

She said, ‘I’ve been keeping up appearances all my life. Now I’m going in for realities. Appearances can go hang!’

From the beginning, Valancy wanted to start facing the reality of her life. In the quote from Chapter 2, it's about facing her own looks, which to her is very plain and unfashionable, and it's a moment where she is defeated.

But here in the moment she decides to work for Roaring Abel when she talks of facing realities, it is about her choices and what ought to be done on a human level rather than an appearance-level. The line in Chapter 2 is a first step, but it is centered on herself and still following the "appearance" she is meant to keep up. Here in Chapter 15 is when she actually faces reality by taking a step out of her childhood home and to a place where she can be in charge of her own reality, rather than following others' expectation of her appearance.

[thesweetnessofspring]

from:

afraid of not keeping up appearances

to:

Now I’m going in for realities. Appearances can go hang!

[thesweetnessofspring]

I'm going to nerd out about Chapter 15 and the way that Montgomery uses POV here. This is one of my favorite chapters in the book precisely because of how she uses POV so effectively. When writing 3rd person omniscient and deciding which character to write the POV from for a scene, the advice is to use the character who has the most to lose in the situation.

Here in Chapter 15, we've already seen through Valancy's eyes her revelation to no longer do what she doesn't want to do, the dinner scene with the family, and her decision to go work as Roaring Abel's housekeeper. Although leaving her mother's home may seem like she has a lot to lose, as readers on this journey with her, we've already been through the beats she's taken to get her independence.

Mrs. Frederick, then, is the character with the most to lose in this scene. Her only child has out of nowhere completely changed her behavior and is suddenly going to be working for a disreputable drunk and his bad daughter. Her reputation is on the brink of collapse unless she can convince Valancy to stay. That makes seeing it through her eyes (as much as we readers don't take her side on this matter) all the more compelling.

And then to save two scenes and put them in one, of telling how Valancy left by making it a family meeting and thus getting the rest of the family's POV about it and their scrambling to figure out what to do in this situation that they are losing on creates an incredibly dynamic chapter.

[bluecastlecomic]

Page 87

Right back to discussing her mental health in a way that is not helpful in the least. 

One thing that came to mind when I was reading this part in the book (and also rewriting it) was that at the time that this book was written and published, Ontario (where L M Montgomery lived while writing it) had a law that allowed women and girls to be declared “incorrigible” by their families and thereby imprisoned. I don’t think that there is any sort of connection there, and I didn’t go out of my way to research it any further, but it kept popping into my mind at certain points of this book. 

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[bluecastlecomic]

Page 88

Some more Very Reasonable Solutions from the fictional Stirling family. 

Previous - Next

[bluecastlecomic]

Page 89

I mean, I love this family’s priorities. Like, if they were actual people, they would be kind of the worst, but since they’re fictional, I kind of enjoy them. 

For anyone who is familiar with the source material, I had planned to do this project in four parts, and this is the end of Part One. Part Two will likely be the longest of all of them (and I’m still in the process of making pages for it), and Part Three and Four likely the shortest two. 

This is the last of the pages I had prepared in advance of beginning to post. I’m still making them, but I had to slow down and concentrate on other things in the fall (and will need to continue dividing my attention and time), so I can’t continue to post daily. So, I’m taking a quick break, and then, starting on February 1st, I’ll start posting a page once a week. I’ll try to keep that going until the project is finished.   

To keep track of what I’m doing (in this and other projects), I regularly post art and work in progress on my instagram and sometimes I even post on my (largely under-loved [by me]) personal tumblr account.

Previous - Next

[moonlightredfern]

Valancy had not, as yet, really done or said anything that could be construed as proof of lunacy—and without proof you cannot lock people up in this degenerate age.

Chapter 13 has a lot of excellent quotes but this is my favorite

[smallerplaces]

"She had been told that her maternal grandfather, old Amos Wansbarra, had chosen the name for her."

Let's pause ruminate over my theory for where the name Wansbarra comes from. As far as I can tell, it's entirely a made-up name for The Blue Castle. While it's possible to play around with etymologies, it's unlikely that LM Montgomery did, and the effort yields nothing fruitful.

So I believe that Wansbarra is a phonetic(ish) rendering of something more like Waynesboro, Wansborough, or Waynesbury. This kind of spelling shift happens when one generation (or more) is illiterate -- or at least blissfully unconcerned with spelling.

In that case, what is Valancy a phonetic(ish) rendering of?

Valencia. It's got to be Valencia. The "blue castle" that exists in her head is thus "a castle in Spain" (a fantasy, per Merriam-Webster) in the additional sense that it exists in the head of someone named after a place in Spain.

That's a laborious joke worthy of Uncle Benjamin.

[thesweetnessofspring]

So this is a theory that had crossed my mind as well, but in the Original Manuscript's introduction it theorizes that Montgomery got Valancy from the Canadian poet Isabella Valancy Crawford.

Perhaps it's a bit of a nod to Spain as well, but for myself I do buy the Isabella Valancy Crawford theory as the main inspiration for her name.

[kingedmundsroyalmurder]

Blue Castle Book Club: chapter 14

Roaring Abel has entered the chat!

Okay, technically he entered it a while ago, but now he appears as more than a bit character. And he brings with him our third murdered spouse of the book.

"He had been forty-five before he married—a pretty slip of a girl whom his goings-on killed in a few years."

Look, I love Abel. I wrote a whole novel-length story in which he was one of the main characters and had to really sit with his character and figure out a take on him. And that take ultimately was: Abel is genuinely caring and he loves deeply and also he has been a fairly destructive force in his loved ones' lives. He loved his wife (we assume) but couldn't change his behavior enough to save her. He loves Cissy but can't provide the kind of environment she needs.

In a way, he's a direct mirror to the Stirlings. Like them, he fundementally failed his daughter. *Unlike* them, he loved her the whole time. The love is not enough, but also it makes all the difference.

Anyway, we move on to Cissy and her tragedies and I want to set the whole town on fire. "But then liking and pity did not prevent them from tearing her in pieces like hungry cats when the catastrophe came." Love and acceptance in Deerwood's polite society is always conditional. Don't step out of line, or you too will be shunned and left for dead. Valancy says that people would tend to Cissy if Abel was more respectable, and that may be true, but I very much doubt they would do so without judgment.

(Then again, to be fair, Valancy's entire social circle up until now has been exclusively Stirling-approved. Perhaps there are people in greater Deerwood who would be more open to helping someone in need without needing to be congratulated for their charity. Valancy is just enough of an unreliable narrator to leave room for interpretation.)

Which opens the door for Valancy, who has shed her fear and no longer cares for the acceptance of Deerwood's polite society, to step in. We know that she likes to be useful, and here, at last, is a chance to really *help* someone.

Colors:

blue flannel shirt

flaming, untouched red

white as snow

firey, youthful blue

reddish-white eyebrows

cheeks were red

All Roaring Abel colors. Disreputable and unsteady he might be, a Stirling he is not.