Thread by @lainasparetime

Are you all ready to Anne? I am! #LainaReadsAnne

#LainaReadsAnne So, after the lead up to the Christmas concert of the last chapter, the youth of Avonlea, and especially Anne, is finding it a bit hard to settle down after the anticipation.

#LainaReadsAnne Anne supposes that's why Marilla disapproves of them as she's very sensible. Anne doesn't think it'd be very fun to be sensible as sensible people are so unromantic.

Mrs Rachel says there's no danger in that happening XD

#LainaReadsAnne It's an unusually mild winter and Anne are walking to school on Anne's birthday. (In March, because yes, March is winter in Canada. Yes, I'm getting cabin fever, thanks for asking.)

She's thirteen now!!

#LainaReadsAnne In "two more years I'll be really grown up". Ruby Gillis says by that age, she wants to have a beau. Apparently Ruby Gillis thinks of nothing but beaux.

Man poor Ruby Gillis doesn't get much characterization besides "really into boys" and "panic", does she?

#LainaReadsAnne Anne says that, and then says it was uncharitable and she's been trying not to say uncharitable things in an attempt to be more like Mrs Allan. Honestly, good for you, Anne. Never a bad thing to try not to speak badly of others.

#LainaReadsAnne In four years, Anne and Diana will be able to "put our hair up". Alice Bell is wearing hers up at only sixteen, but Diana doesn't approve of that.

It's still the Victorian era, right? So... wow these are some great pictures.

#LainaReadsAnne Girls would begin wearing their hair up as a sign they were adults in this time period. Apparently curly-haired girls were thought to have sweeter personalities. (Anne has curly hair, by the way.)

Seriously these pictures are great.

#LainaReadsAnne You might have heard about the Gibson Girls? There's a book that even claims Evelyn Nesbit inspired Montgomery to write Anne

#LainaReadsAnne I need something to drink so I'm gonna take a minute and just leave you with this picture because... gosh.

#LainaReadsAnne So after that interesting diversion, we're back to Anne and Diana, who are talking about all the things Miss Stacy is having them write. Diana doesn't like the idea of having to write an original fiction piece, but Anne has written hers a week early.

#LainaReadsAnne Oh, gosh, friends and unknown enemies, it's a tale. It's called "The Jealous Rival: or, In Death, not Divided". It stars two beautiful ladies named Cordelia Montmorency and Geraldine Seymour who "lived in the same village and were devotedly attached to each other"

#LainaReadsAnne Cordelia has black hair and "duskly flashing eyes" and Geraldine is a blonde with violet eyes. Anne's never seen anyone with violet eyes, but she thinks it sounds exciting.

...wow, young writers have not changed, have they? *shoves old WIPs under bed*

#LainaReadsAnne They grew up together until they're sixteen when Bertram De Vere showed up in their village and fell in love with Geraldine. He saved her life from a carriage accident, carried her home three miles when she fainted, and then apparently immediately proposed.

#LainaReadsAnne (I love this, also.)

Geraldine accepted with a "speech a page long" and Bertram gave her a diamong ring and a ruby necklace, and promised a honeymoon in Europe. Bertram was "immensely wealthy", of course.

#LainaReadsAnne HOWEVER, troubled loomed! Cordelia was secretly in love with Bertram herself (personally I thought she was in love with Geraldine, but you do you, Anne) and "all her affection for Geraldine turned to bitter hate".

#LainaReadsAnne So, Cordelia decided to shove Geraldine off a bridge. Bertram just happened to be there and jumped in to save her, but *forgot he couldn't swim* and they both drown. Apparently it is "much more romantic to end a story up with a funeral than a wedding".

#LainaReadsAnne Diana and Matthew are both fans, but Marilla said it was "stuff and nonsense" and honestly I'm just laughing my butt off XD It's so dramatic!

#LainaReadsAnne Diana especially wishes her imagination was as good as Anne's but Anne thinks it's only a matter of cultivating it. They decide to create the story club. Members are Anne and Diana, of course, and Jane Andrews, Ruby Gillis, and a few unnamed other girls.

#LainaReadsAnne The rules are no boys and everyone has to write one story a week. Then they read them out loud and talk them over. They all write under pen names and Anne's is "Rosamund Montmorency".

#LainaReadsAnne This... maybe has aged oddly? Anne says "Ruby Gillis is rather sentimental. She puts too much love-making into her stories and you know how too much is worse than too little."

That's... probably a linguistic change? I mean they are thirteen...

#LainaReadsAnne We'll just move on from that.

Marilla thinks it's all a waste of time, but Anne promises they put a moral in all of the stories, lol. Diana even wrote Aunt Josephine about the story club and she asked to read some. They sent her four of their very best stories.

#LainaReadsAnne Aunt Josephine "wrote back that she had never read anything so amusing in her life. That kind of puzzled us as the stories were all very pathetic and almost everybody died."

Aunt Josephine is the best, let's be real.

#LainaReadsAnne We also find out here that Mrs Allan was a "dreadful mischief" as a girl and always "getting into scrapes". Anne hopes to be like her when she's grown.

And that's about the end. Little bit of a rambly chapter, but a fun one, especially Anne's story!