Thread by @lainasparetime

Y'all ready for today's Anne thread? (Also omg I've done a ton today already, you have no idea.) It's a really fun one, I'll tell you that now. #LainaReadsAnne

#LainaReadsAnne Marilla is on her way home late one April evening and realizes winter is gone and spring has arrives. (Take me there, please.) The narration says Marilla pretends she's thinking about the Aid Society but underneath she's taking in the beautiful scenery around her

#LainaReadsAnne She's especially glad that she'll be coming home to a nice fire and the table set for tea by Anne. It's honestly a really sweet scene, and so lovely to see Marilla expressing gratitude for Anne's presence in her life.

#LainaReadsAnne When she gets inside and finds the kitchen fire out and no sign of Anne, obviously she's a bit miffed!

#LainaReadsAnne She complains about it fiercely to Matthew. Apparently at the Aid meeting, Mrs Rachel criticized Anne, saying her head was full of nonsense and that she gets into too much mischief. Marilla was grateful to have Mrs Allan speak up, as she'd've snapped at Mrs Rachel

#LainaReadsAnne Mrs Allan said Anne was the sweetest and brightest child she knew. Awwwww.

#LainaReadsAnne Marilla then immediately gets annoyed at herself for saying the same things as Mrs Rachel when it riled her up so much to hear them. She says Anne has plenty of faults but Mrs Rachel "would pick faults in the Angel Gabriel himself if he lived in Avonlea".

#LainaReadsAnne Then she swings right over to being annoyed that Anne apparently took off when Marilla asked her to stay and look after things. She says, "I never found her disobedient or untrustworthy before and I'm real sorry to find her so now."

#LainaReadsAnne Personally I think how annoyed Marilla is really is about a few different things. I think there's a level of just being annoyed that any parent would have at their thirteen year old blowing off her chores to hang out with her friends or goof off or whatever.

#LainaReadsAnne But I also think she's feeling a little hurt that it seems like Anne doesn't care about Marilla's feelings, that she got home to a dark empty house and has to do hard work after a long evening. Marilla's love language is definitely Acts of Service.

#LainaReadsAnne You see this when she's worried about Anne especially, how she makes sure that Anne is eating and physically well taken care of.

#LainaReadsAnne Lastly, I think she's frankly a little worried that Anne just isn't there when she's supposed to be. As she said, Anne doesn't get lost in her thoughts and not show up on time for things very much anymore. She's become a reliable girl - so why isn't she there?

#LainaReadsAnne Marilla may think Anne went to visit Diana or something, but it's not like there are cellphones or anything where she can just shoot her a text. She doesn't REALLY know.

...and I'll remind you it's not even been a year since the girl fell of a roof.

#LainaReadsAnne I think anyone would be worried at that point. Especially because by the time supper is ready, it's dark and Anne still hasn't shown up.

Marilla goes up to get Anne's candle from her room.

And she finds Anne, face down in her pillows.

#LainaReadsAnne She asks if Anne has been sleeping all day, and when told no, "anxiously" asks if Anne is sick.

Nope.

#LainaReadsAnne A little relieved to hear that, Marilla tells her to get up and tell her what happened. There are some great lines here, also:

"'There now, what is it?'
Anne had slid to the floor in despairing obedience."

Like how great is that turn of phrase?

#LainaReadsAnne I can just picture Anne kind of slithering to the floor in a lump XD

So Anne's hair is green. A "queer, dull, bronzy green, with streaks here and there of the original red to heighten the ghastly effect".

#LainaReadsAnne Apparently Marilla has been "expecting something queer for some time" as Anne hasn't gotten in any trouble for over two months. I love how predictable that is XD

#LainaReadsAnne So Anne has dyed her hair.

Marilla says if she decided to dye her hair, she would have chosen a decent colour, at least. (Honestly Marilla a little sarcastic and all like "child, wtf" is hilarious. Honestly, how else do you react when you come home to this??? XD)

#LainaReadsAnne Of course, Anne didn't MEAN to dye it green. She meant to dye it black. (We'll come back to that in a minute.) That's what the "pedlar" who she bought the dye from promised.

#LainaReadsAnne Marilla is dismayed at the idea of Anne letting "one of those Italians in the house". Anne promises she went out onto the step to look at his wares, and anyway "he was a German Jew".

#LainaReadsAnne He said "he was working to make enough money to bring his wife and children out from Germany." That's... an interesting look at attitudes towards certain populations in the late 19th century, to say the least.

#LainaReadsAnne He promised the dye would dye any hair a raven black and wouldn't wash off.

Now, Anne says she applied it using an old hair brush and combing it through, so we can figure out that it's not a dye that uses peroxide to lift the colour before depositing pigment.

#LainaReadsAnne Now, that means this is probably a direct dye, where it basically stains your hair with really strong pigment. I suspect, based on a little bit of research and a tumblr comment, that the dye was a form of indigo. Indigo, if you're unaware, is like henna.

#LainaReadsAnne It's what you use to dye jeans and stuff, and you can use it to dye hair black - but your hair needs to be pretty brown already. If you dye your hair with henna first, you can get a really dark brown or black, but over naturally... well, orange hair?

#LainaReadsAnne Well, picture orange combined with one these. Colour theory. You're gonna get a muddy, brownish green.

(If you googl, you'll find a decent amount of people who have tried to put indigo over blonde hair and turned their hair green.)

#LainaReadsAnne And henna and indigo are pretty much considered permanent dyes. You can fade them, somewhat, over time and with a lot of washing but you're pretty much going to be cutting them out. This plus some of the ingredients are why henna + bleaching can be a huge disaster

#LainaReadsAnne So when the peddler promises the dye wouldn't wash out... boy was he right. Anne spends a week at home and washes her hair every day, which was like never done in that time period.

#LainaReadsAnne Should we talk a moment about historical hair watching? I think we should for a minute. (Note: I'm going to talk about this from a largely European view with mostly a few on straight to wavy hair/white people hair.)

#LainaReadsAnne (I am VERY not qualified to talk about natural hair care at all, let alone historically, lol. Knowing my limitations here.)

#LainaReadsAnne So, historical soap was made of animal fat boiled with ashes? Eventually you start adding lye, and eventually around the 1500s you get to Castille soap which is a thing people still use today. Castille soap is pretty alkaline, like baking soda or dish soap.

#LainaReadsAnne It's used in the same way too, now, as a general cleaner around the house, and sometimes people still use it as a shampoo, but more as a cleansing shampoo. It can really strip the hair. I believe it's meant to be diluted, too? (You may know Dr. Bronner's.)

#LainaReadsAnne A lot of people swear by it being more "natural" but I'm always skeptical of that.

Back in that time, people would shave flakes of it into boiling water and add herbs for shine and fragrance, but they often left the hair dull due to the film they left.

#LainaReadsAnne If your hair was in good condition, it was recommended to wash it about every 4-6 weeks. You'd use a brush to apply the castile soap, then rinse it several times.

Or you would use a lye-based soap which was even harsher. Either way, you weren't washing it often.

#LainaReadsAnne And the opinion even seems that the water was bad for your hair - plus think how long it would take to dry that super long hair!! Like if your hair was almost to your knees, that would take forever to dry.

#LainaReadsAnne So Anne washes her hair probably more than she would in almost a year, with incredibly harsh soap... and nothing changes. Poor thing is a mess, honestly. Only Diana knew what happened, and she swore never to tell anyone - and didn't, ever.

#LainaReadsAnne After the week is up, Marilla says they'll have to cut Anne's hair.

Anne cries while Marilla is cutting, but after she decides that she'll learn a lesson about being vain from this, and look in the mirror every day until it grows out.

#LainaReadsAnne Note that Anne's hair in addition to being red was "long and thick and curly". Wonder how many adaptations will get that? :P

And they had to cut it super short, like almost to the scalp.

#LainaReadsAnne At school on Monday, Josie Pye says Anne "looked like a perfect scarecrow" and it causes some talk among in general, but no one guesses the true reason for the haircut, to Anne's relief.

#LainaReadsAnne Anne tells Marilla this and more as Marilla's lying on the couch after another one of her headaches, then asks if she's talking to much and hurting Marilla's head.

Poor Marilla's headaches have been getting worse and worse and she plans to see the doctor soon.

#LainaReadsAnne She also says, "As for your your chapter, I don't know that I mind it - I've got so used to it."

The narrative adds, "Which was Marilla's way of saying that she liked to hear it."

#LainaReadsAnne This thread became a lot longer than I expected, but this is the end of the chapter! This chapter was a lot of fun. Not gonna lie, I'm kind of excited to see this one in adaptations and see how much they run with it. (No spoilers.)