#Deirdre Young

[enbymurderhusbands]

THE LICENSE PLACE ON THE YOUNG’S CAR IS SID RAT HAHDHHAD TARDIS BACKWARDS dying thats very funny

[ngkiscool]

Happy end of the year, and welcome to the new one, with an even longer list than usual!

This time is also the last weekly edition, as I'm running out of ideas for themes. Thanks a million for the people who helped along the way, this could have not have happen without their support.

Appropriately, the theme this week all about soft and happy endings. SFW, the description includes rating, word count and main characters.

Tracy's Thursdays by @edosianorchids901 - rated G, 2.5K - focusing on Sergeant Shadwell and Madame Tracy. Summary: Tracy enjoys having a break from seances every Thursday, but that’s not why it’s her favorite day. The real reason involves her sworn enemy and a little weekly meet up. And maybe in the future, every day will feel like Thursday.

He's Not What He Says He Is by 221b_ee - rated G, 1K - focusing on Anathema Device and Newton Pulsifer. Summary: they're royalty from opposite warring kingdoms who are doing the whole treaty signed with marriage thing. also they're lesbians and newt is trans. nuff said.

Wants by @fenrislorsrai - rated G, 495 words - focusing on Anathema Device and Newton Pulsifer. Summary: Staying up late and calling her mother instead of sleeping is a good way for Anathema to give herself an existential crises. Can tea possibly fix this?

Zen and the art of making pasta by ngk_is_cool - rated G, 2.8K - focusing on Anathema Device and Newton Pulsifer. Summary: With the first anniversary of the almost apocalypse fast approaching, Newt is trying to impress Anathema. Will making a homemade meal, using the machine her ancestor Pasta invented, be as successful as he hopes?

Don't Eat the Kids by dreamsofspike - rated G, 1.7K - focusing on Anathema Device, Newton Pulsifer and Gabriel. Summary: Descent Into Perdition universe. Anathema and Newt take Gabriel on an outing. Nothing to see here but sweetness and fluff <3 ;) For Ace who wanted Newt/Gabe friendship and ... goats <3 :)

Pillows by @brokencasbutt67-writer​ - rated G, 500 words - focusing on Gabriel and Beelzebub. Summary: number 32 of the fluff dialogue prompts: i got us new pillows.

Small by Phoenix_of_Athena - rated G, 496 words - focusing on Adam Young, Sarah Young and Deirdre Young. Summary: There's a nest of baby birds in Adam Young's back garden.

Swap by ChokolatteJedi - rated G, 446 words - focusing on Adam Young, Pepper and Dog. Summary Pepper is upset about her bike. Adam thinks he has an obvious solution.

Theological Botany: A Study of a Fallen Houseplant by chlodobird - rated G, 1.4K - focusing on Crowley and Crowley’s plants. Summary: We've all seen the headcanon that Crowley simply makes Scary Noises to assert dominance and them takes his spotted, imperfect plants to another room where they're his "Fallen". Anyway, I noodled on that concept a bit. It's pretty much what it says on the tin. What would one of Crowley's houseplants think of him?

The Creation of the Earth… (and balloons) by Zab43 - rated G, 2.5K - focusing on Gabriel, Uriel, Michael, Sandalphon, Ligur, Hastur, Beelzebub, Crowley and Aziraphale. Summary: In the beginning God started the creation… Six days is a pretty tight work-schedule for creating the whole earth…How did they manage it?

Hell's Kitchen by Shae_C - rated T, 347 words - focusing on Hastur and Ligur (plus art!) Summary: When your husband makes a new poison for humanity Just Right!!

Strange and Perfect by Vecieminde - N/R, 12K - focsuing on Beelzebub,  Gabriel, Aziraphale, Crowley, Adam Young, Pepper, Anathema Device, Newton Pulsifer, Madame Tracy, Sergeant Shadwell, Wensleydale and Brian. Summary: Love always has had a place in Tadfield. 15 years after the apocalypse, Adam and Pepper are getting married. Heaven and Hell meet up once again, but perhaps this time Tadfield can work its magic and things don’t go pear shaped. It is mid-July and the moon will shine brightly on those in love.

So Damn Beautiful by crystallØnyx (dremma) - N/R, 554 words - focusing on Pollution and War. Summary: Some romantic hand-holding by the river. :)

Too Sad for Pants by Libbyfay - rated T, 4.2K - focusing on Warlock Dowling, Thaddeus J. Dowling, Aziraphale and Crowley. Summary:  “Hey, you wanna go out in the garden and see Brother Francis?” Warlock peeked above his arms, and Crowley held up the trousers, temptingly. On sudden impulse, Warlock kicked at his Nanny, catching the offending clothing around one leg and flailing till the trousers were whipped from her hands. “Impressive,” Crowley admitted. “Too sad!”  The boy said, despairingly. “You’re too sad? Too sad for what, Hellspawn?”

Bonus - master list with all past recommendations!    

Ideas, suggestions, requests and feedback on how to proceed next year are more than welcome, feel free to DM me here or on discord (ngk#1140).

Thanks for reading, and remember - sharing is caring!

[bestmothertournament]

[rurpleplayssims]

[grokebaby]

"We make magnificent offspring my love."

Grandefel proclaimed, her eyes closed in pride, chest puffed. Deirdre snorted out a little laugh, wrapping her tail under the lion's jawline affectionately. "We do." her smile faded away quickly as she rest her chin on her partner's side. "It's a shame not many people agree.."

Grandefel huffed pensively, yellow swirls bubbling on her crown. "If it were up to me.."

"Yes, when you rule the Ether, my monarch, but alas.." Deirdre quipped, smiling against her fur. "Laugh along demon, but must I remind you The Throne has the form of a lion!" she huffed, setting her head atop her tucked paws. A still silence fell between the two for a moment.

"My point is.."

Deirdre glanced to her partner's direction as she continued her train of thought. "I'd wish we could have more of them.. I used to think maybe someday I'd train an heir, as is customary, but I didn't think I'd be so fond of.. Having a.. Family.." the angel mused softly, her eyes to the ground. Deirdre hummed. "Like your own little Pride.."

Grandefel lifted her head. "Pride..?"

"Yeah, like.. A pack of lions with the parents as the leaders. A Pride." Deirdre replied, lifting her head in turn, her eyes warm. Grandefel scoffed in awe. "A Pride! How genius of those mortals to think of such a term! Let's form our own Pride together, you and me!" her paws knead the ground with excitement, melting a little bit of Deirdre's heart. "I would really like that too.." her voice had a hint of melancholic resignation, and she lowered her head on the warm flank of her beloved.

"I could carry this time." Grandefel suggested, brushing her wispy tail across Deirdre's back bristle, leaving tiny glimmers along the black and white hair. "You could focus on the ones we already have, they're not grown up yet.." Deirdre closed her eyes.

"Focus?"

"Ykno, raise them first, then we'll see.." Deirdre said serenely, only half minding the topic. The angel's longer silence after that however made her doubtful and she half turned to face her, meeting a faceful of deeply thoughtful eyes. "Grande..?"

"It.. Occurs to me, that.. Angels, as opposed to.. Everyone else, have different concepts of raising young.." The angel's eyes half lidded wistfully. Deirdre continued to look at her, now becoming a slight bit concerned. "Only when becoming a sire myself I realised what mortals talk of in regards to parenting. It truly is.. A process, not entirely unlike mentoring, but so much more than i could've imagined. Angels are considered youth so briefly, afterall. Why pamper them beyond that? Or.. Even during.." she closed her lemon colored eyes, voice losing steam towards the end. Deirdre curled up closer, brushing her cheek bristles against the lion's crown softly. "Octurnius was a formidable mentor, but.. A subpar father. It seems that I personally, was never truly parented by him, as it were.." Grandefel hummed, not necessarily melancholic, but her voice carried some sense of loss and otherness that she'd only begun to untangle recently. Deirdre stalled her voice, looking for the words.

"You angels are weird."

Grandefel blew out a scoff, nudging her half grinning girlfriend. Deirdre nudged her back, chittering. "No but, I guess I wasn't much better off.. You could say my sister raised me, since our mother had something better to be doing than carrying two grubs all day. Ykno, like a guardian usually would.." she rolled her top pair of eyes. "And don't get me wrong, from what I've met others of our species, that's not, like, the default. Our kind of demons live in colonies or groups, not.. Duos.. Especially not from infanthood.." Deirdre reminisced, tucking her chin atop her hands. She didn't sound gravely saddened either, but the whole sentence sounded like one long sigh.

"Hmp.. I guess we're both a bit in over our heads.." Grandefel half yawned, squinting at her partner calmly. Deirdre hummed, not finding anything but an agreeing tone to reply with.

[fabledenigma]

In the Source Link, you will find a gif pack of Cameron Inman in Anne Rice's Mayfair Witches.

Cameron plays the role of the young Deirdre Mayfair, one night changes the young woman's life forever.

Please use on a Desktop view for the best version.

Source - FabledEnigma

[milfheim]

young ma mary & young aunt sarah oh mt god i’m living

[itgetsbetterproject]

🍎✏️ Back to school advice for queer students, from queer people! 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈

We asked, y'all answered. Some back to school advice for LGBTQ+ students:

❤️ "Learn Queer history. Learn Black history. Learn Native American history. Learn what has gone into making it possible for you to be who you are, with the amount of safety and support you have — even if it doesn't feel like much." -Brandyn

🧡 "Autistic queer here. Always being buried in a book saved me from a lot. And find your tribe." -queerintech_

💛 "Find your people for support - whether at school or outside of school. You are loved and appreciated for who you are. Anyone that says otherwise doesn't deserve to know you or your story. Our community is sending all the love and support to you everyday!" -Amy

💚 "To my young black feminine boy: be your authentic self, people will judge you, call you slurs, but don't suppress your beauty. To my beautiful black bisexual boy: you don't have to try so hard to suppress what you like, it's okay to like boys." -Tyreece

💙 "Find at least one safe teacher you can go to. You can do this by finding the rainbow sticker on their door or by finding a sign in their room!" -Sonia

💜 "Don’t think for one minute that being bullied should be tolerated. Find help, talk to friends about it. You have the right to be yourself. I also noticed that when I stood up for myself, I was respected more." -Jason

❤️ "Befriend the other little weirdos, they’re going to be the coolest adults (and so are you). Keep your eyes on the horizon, but also know for better or worse you’re never going to experience this time again, so try to make the most of it." -Patrick

🧡 "You don't owe anyone anything. If you don't feel safe to come out, that doesn't make you any less queer." -Kayenta

💛 "Something that three people told me that I now truly believe: 'There is nothing wrong with you. You don't have to change who you are to be loved and respected.' They were right. You will figure things out!" -Bert

💚 "So many people love you. Your teachers want to help - find the good ones. We are out there." -Deirdre

[earthphoenixstories]

White tears, brown scars and the internet jumping on a black trans person hate campaign.

I realise that a lot of the OL fandom are under 25 and are still at an age where y’all are learning and maturing and that’s great. However as someone who is close to being 40 I need y’all to do some reading for me.

White Tears, Brown Scars: How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color by Ruby Hand.

The black person at the centre of all this is a trans person that doesn’t identify as a woman. Yet all I see is blatant misgendering. This black person upset you, therefore their gender identity becomes meaningless.

Sadly, this behaviour isn’t new to me. I’ve watched it happen for too long many times over the years.

So of course what is the next step when white people get in their feelings? They hit the pockets of creators. Demanding refunds, getting them demonetised, trying to silence them by any means necessary.

The most recent example of this that I can think off is White Woman Whisper on TikTok. During the man vs bear debate, she pointed out that black women generally, would feel safer in a board room setting with a white man than a white woman. Oh boy did the white women get all up in their feelings about that. Within hours, White Woman Whisper had been removed from the TikTok creators program and hate white women making endless think pieces about how upset they were.

Y’know what? Tough. Sometimes y’all need to ti be told the truth even if it upsets you. I don’t trust white people, and I’m half white myself.

When a white person makes a mistake it’s “they’re young, they’ll learn. Everyone needs grace to grow and become better.”

When a black person makes a mistake it’s, “wow, that’s so disrespectful how can you think that? I hope you get fired. I’m reporting your comments to your boss, your school, I’m going to blast you on the internet.”

We don’t get “grace”, we aren’t allowed to learn and grow. There’s immediately “discourse” and the need to hold that black person “accountable.”

Where is this smoke for 99% of white folks who use their privilege as a shield.

It’s not until a whole person does something that crosses a line and stars upsetting white women that they start to get called out.

See JK Rowling and Elon Musk as examples. Queen Terfette literally named the only black adult in the series “Shacklebolt” and no one batted an eye. Her name choices were praised for being “clever” and “imaginative.”

She even did an interview where she called her fans “delusional” and no one spoke up against her. Even when she started saying openly transphobic things, she was protected. Until the dam burst and the tables turned.

And yet all that time black folks and other people of colour were calling her out and pointing out the lazy and offensive ways she talks and writes about non white people.

Which brings me to this morning, and I wake up to y’all dog piling on a black trans person for … saying that the way black trans men are portrayed made them uncomfortable.

Y’all are exhausting.

No, we don’t have to sugar coat our feelings to protect yours. No, we aren’t responsible for your actions and reactions to us. No, we aren’t being “aggressive” or “mean” or “confrontational” when we speak up for ourselves.

I’ve read some comments about disliking the discord profile pic. Okay. I mean, I personally snorted at it when I saw it. But y’know what? Y’all need to ask yourselves why you don’t like it. Is it because a black person is holding a whip? Is it because some white dudes are working the fields?

Here’s a story from the book Medical Bondage: Race, Gender, and the origins of American Gynaecology by Deirdre Cooper Owens.

When white slave owners wanted to punish pregnant black slaves (who were forced to work even when they were heavily pregnant), they would get a slave to dig a hole large enough for the woman’s pregnant stomach, then have the woman lie face down - her stomach in the newly dug hole.

The slave master would then proceed to whip the pregnant woman with the hopes that the unborn baby would feel the mother’s pain and behave better when they born.

Did that upset you? Did it make you disgusted and angry? I felt that way. I was so horrified I had to walk away from the book and calm down.

Black people still feel that generational trauma. We still have to live with the knowledge that is it what was recorded. Who knows what else happened to our enslaved ancestors that never got recorded? We’ll never know. That will always haunt us.

And y’all are upset over a picture that never actually happened.

Stop.

When Kendrick said “they not like us” he was talking about y’all.

[sunshinemarauder]

Hogsmeade 1979

In January 1979, Deirdre Clarke embarks on her last Hogsmeade trip. She goes with thoughts of backstabbing friends and doomed infatuations; after an unexpected attack and an overheard exchange, she leaves with fresh perspective and purpose. A Jily Outsider POV. Thank you to @aidanchaser for beta reading! 💙

Trudging through the wet and muddy streets of Hogsmeade in her wide-brimmed hat and blue-and-bronze scarf, Deirdre Clarke can’t help but stare miserably in the direction of Madame Puddifoot’s, where she knows very well that Barry Brown is on a date with Persephone Vane. 

Deirdre has never quite dreaded a Hogsmeade trip this much before. While her fellow Ravenclaws were usually content to hole up in the Common Room or the dim library, studying for N.E.W.T.s that were months away, Deirdre was always the one excited to get out of the castle. This year, however, the Ravenclaw seventh-years, who had always been a tight-knit group, seemed to have fractured, and it was only due to her friend Eloise’s insistent nagging that Deirdre was willing to venture out of bed today.

“Let’s go to Scrivenshaft’s, Dee, they released a new quill set last month,” says Eloise, tugging her along by the elbow. “And the weather is foul, Christ.”

“I doubt Scrivenshaft’s will bring me any joy,” replies Deirdre morosely, tucking a brown curl behind her ear. “I don’t think I’ll ever feel joy again.”

“You’re so dramatic,” Eloise sighs. “There are worse things to happen than Barry Brown going on a date.” 

She tugs Deirdre along until they arrive at the entrance to the Three Broomsticks, which is predictably packed with Hogsmeade students. 

“Since you’re so averse to Scrivenshaft’s, let’s get a drink.” 

A drink wouldn’t be too bad. Deirdre could drown away her sorrows in firewhisky. It sounds romantic, at least, even though she knows the hangover will be killer and McGonagall's announced a Transfiguration practical first thing tomorrow... 

“I could go for a drink,” she says, mentally patting herself on the back for her rebellion. What’s youth without a few ill-advised alcoholic drinks, anyway? 

They shoulder their way into the noisy pub. The bartenders, Rosmerta and Marian, weave through the gaggles of Hogwarts students and Hogsmeade residents, balancing trays of mulled mead and gillywater. A table of young adults whispers in hushed tones to each other; recent Hogwarts graduates, maybe.  

Deirdre spots a few of her Prefect friends crowded over their glasses of butterbeer. They call out to her, but she waves them away with a strained smile. She knows what they’ll be discussing, and it’s exactly what she’s been avoiding all day. 

The Head Boy on a date with the Head Girl. How very classic. Longbottom and Fawley, Potter and Evans, now Brown and Vane. Anyone could have predicted it. Anyone but Deirdre, clearly, who’s really far too idiotic to be a Ravenclaw or a Prefect. God. Why did Flitwick pick Deirdre to be the new Ravenclaw Prefect, anyway? It was hardly an honour to be second-best to Persephone Vane.

read more

[stormydark13]

So I can’t draw. Just not one of my skills. That being said, I always see others share their young wizard OCs and I wanted to try something. So… I recreated them in Hero Forge. All 7 of them. Enjoy!

Storm Wizard: Cassandra WitchBlade

Death Wizard: Sarai WitherHeart

Life Wizard: Elizabeth Stone

Balance Wizard: Alexandria Bane

Myth Wizard: Deirdre StorySinger

Fire Wizard: Vanessa AshCaller

Ice Wizard: Willow SnowWarden

[ngkiscool]

The Spooky Ones!

This week - Halloween Stories. As always, the stories are SFW, and the description includes rating, word count and main characters. Many thanks to @small-cog who offered the brilliant name 🧡

Next week will be about the period before the Fall and about the rebellion, thanks to the anon with the great theme!

My inbox is open for suggestions, ideas and recs for stories that focus on supporting characters (as in, Aziraphale and Crowley are not the main ones). Self recs are encouraged!

Spooky Shenanigans by DarknessAndFyre - 666 words, rated G. Focusing on The Them, Crowley and Aziraphale. Summary: Adam finds a strange cottage just on the edge of his village, Tadfield. It’s just some spooky shenanigans by our ineffable duo.

No Magic Words Necessary by Phoenix_of_Athena - 500 words, rated G. Focusing on Warlock and Crowley. Summary: The bedroom looked like a scene out of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, with candles arrayed on the floor around a pentagram, and Warlock told them so.

Unlocked by HopeCoppice - 657 words, rated G. Focusing on Anathema and Newt. Summary: Something spooky is going on in the heart of Tadfield.

Nanny has taught him well by @verywrongeverything - 500 words, rated G. Focusing on Warlock and The Them. Summary: Who's better to join the Them on a Halloween night than Warlock Dowling?

Just a Bit of Fun by sosser86 - 497 words, rated T. Focusing on Madame Tracy and Sergeant Shadwell.  Summary: "It's the spirits!" Tracy exclaimed. "They've come to haunt me for all those years I mucked about with that crystal ball!" She sounded more excited than disturbed by the prospect. "Dinnae be daft! There has to be a logical explanation," he retorted gruffly, but there was a shakiness to his voice. He reminded himself that it was probably in his head, and not the spinster daughter of the neighbours. Spooky happenings are afoot in the new home of Madame Tracy (ret.) and Sergeant Shadwell (also ret.).

A Halloween torment by doomed_spectacles - 484 words, rated G. Focusing on Dog, Adam YOung and Deidre Young. Summary: Dog experiences his first Halloween on earth.  The hellhound thought he knew torture in Hell. This was worse.

halloween treats by lockiesaurus - 2K, rated G. Focusing on Anathema, Newt and The Them. Summary: The Them stop by to visit Anathema and Newt before trick-or-treating.

Trick Or Treat by @copperplatebeech - 3K, rated T. Focusing on Beelzebub, Hastur, Ligur, OC and Crowley. Summary:  A while before the birth of the Antichrist, Crowley discovers the nobility of Hell is unfamiliar with Earth's favorite spooky celebration. Ligur was accustomed to lurking, not stepping forthrightly up to knock on front doors, even doors festooned with yarn cobwebs and cutout paper bats. It was fair to say he’d had a moment of stage fright when the first door swung open, and a rude surprise when it slammed in his face again. “Yeh, but it’s trick or treat, not dick or feet,” said Hastur. “No one wants t’see either’ve yours. ”“Was nat’ral mistake,” groused Ligur. “Sounds ‘bout th’same.”

Party by Deadlydollies13 - 1.6K, rated T. Focusing on Beelzebub, Gabriel, OC. Summary: With no date to a Halloween party at a club, Eve turns to her only other friend to go with her in a couple's costume.

All Hallow's Eve by @hsavinien - 1.6K, rated T. Focusing on The them. Summary: In which there are endings, as befits the time, and beginnings, as befits our theme.

Bonus - master list with all past recommendations!  

Authors - if you wish that your Tumblr account will be tagged, instead of the AO3, please comment or DM me the handle. Thanks :)

Thanks for reading, and remember - sharing is caring!

[cyclic-laughter]

bloodborne oc i've been obsessed with lately -- ephraim , tamer of beasts. more info on him below the cut !!!

[ tried to do an actual image description for these, suggestions would be appreciated , just be courteous =) ]

he's a vileblood of pthumerian descent, orphaned at a young age as his parents were captured by the church and dishonorably killed as per their bigoted agenda—in his later years, he was adopted by queen annalise & her king to be part of her personal knightly entourage, and to defend her in the event of mishaps that happened within cainhurst castle within this same entourage he met one of his closest friends, a man by the name of deirdre—he was not naturally a vileblood, and instead, came from yharnam and swore oath to the cainhurst vilebloods, later being adopted into this personal entourage that ephraim met him in however, being that he was closer to that of yharnam than the vilebloods, deirdre's ability to withstand the old blood was futile compared to the vilebloods (i have a little headcanon that because of the vileblood's blood potency they have a higher tolerance to beasthood than yharnamites do) and, of course, deirdre gave into the call of beasthood, transforming into an unsightly, leucistic beast of bird/canine-like complexion

naturally, the knights of cainhurst believed the only way to save him was to euthanize him. he'd lost his conscience and sanity, had he not? what more would there be to do with him? but ephraim sought differently ephraim used his status and power to prevent the other cainhurst knights from slaughtering him in the belief that he could at least try to return conscienceness to deirdre's beastly form—which, ended up being successful, using bribes of ephraims own potent blood. inevitably, the executioners of the church arrived and the massive vileblood massacre happened. bloodlickers showed up to feed on the corpses and the vilebloods swiftly died out in number just over the course of a few days—however, before the collapse of the bridge from cainhurst to hemwick charnel lane, ephraim and deirdre were able to successfully escape the executioners with their lives, later ending up in yharnam

ephraim is now recognized as the tamer of beasts by the little hunters who recognize his name, especially being identifiable by his albino complexion and the gigantic beast he rides on horseback where-ever necessary

ephraim has corruption rune patterns all around his uniform ! the ribbon around his waist, on his arm guards, and on the guards covering his eyes. theyre a symbol of his faith to cainhurst despite his circumstance.

the white feathered fluff upon his cape is fur he cut off of deirdre to sharpen him up.

his cape is one sided and stays to his left, just like the sets that vileblood descendants and knights wear in the canon (cainhurst set, knights set, maria set)

the flames that burn on some parts of his clothes are representations of his 'flame of ambition' if you would, how he is incredibly durable and persistant, the same qualities that allowed him to save deirdre's life

being a pthumerian, ephraim's eyes are pitch black, and so is the inside of his mouth. his cheek bones are incredibly defined and some parts of his skin are darker than the others, like his cheeks and lips

he wears some laced accessories because that was another large part of cainhurst fashion

the spurs on his boots are to kick deirdre to make him go faster — basically they serve the same function that spurs do with horses, except his are a lot sharper because they gotta get through deirdre's thick fur

[batrachised]

"I first read Anne of Green Gables to my grade 3 class in Vernon River. When we got to the chapter in which Matthew dies, we all sat still and quiet until one student said, “I didn’t know a teacher could cry.”'

-Deirdre Kessler, a former Poet Laureate of P.E.I. 

"I recall reading Montgomery at specific times and in particular places. I remember reading Anne of Avonlea with my best friend in her back yard after our grade 5 teacher had read Anne of Green Gables aloud to the class. We were hooked. I reread Anne of Green Gables and Anne’s House of Dreams in a residence room at Carleton University when I was preparing to go to Nigeria as a CUSO teacher. I read Volume I of The Selected Journals of L.M. Montgomery while watching my young daughter play at a park. In more recent years I have gone directly to those passages that sustain me. I marvel at how deeply the words on the page connect writer and reader."

-Margaret Steffler, Professor Emerita at Trent University

"I grew up 27 kilometres and 98 years from Lucy Maud Montgomery: nearer in space than in time to her life and her creations. Growing up a writer within that circumference, it was hard to say if Maud cast a shadow or a gleam across the literary landscape and Island imagination. In the shadow of saccharine oversimplifications and commercialization, the writer was tempted always to challenge, to write against her legacy. But on an August day by a brook or on a December evening meeting a sharp-tongued character with a sharp eye on Island cultural characteristics, the writer is required to recalibrate: to recognize that we write, here, in her gleam. Happy 150 years since that first glimmer."

-Jane Ledwell, PEI writer

"For the past ten years I have lived in a small town in central Pennsylvania. (You can’t buy twenty pounds of brown sugar at the hardware store, but it’s that kind of place.) It’s nice enough, but it isn’t home. As someone who grew up in Toronto – attended a girls’ school – and then went east, I was probably fated to identify with Jane Stuart, Jane of Lantern Hill. I wasn’t born on the Island; I can’t make jam; and I was born decades too late to take the train from Union Station across on the Tormentine ferry. But I thrill to mornings on the Island and long for its sea winds, and just like Jane, I live through being away by never really being away: “Because in a very real sense Jane was still living on the Island.” I may live here, but I am there.

I’m glad that L.M. Montgomery understood how that feels."

-Claire Campbell is a double expatriate, a Canadian living in the United States and an Upper Canadian-born who misses the Maritimes.

"To me, teaching Anne of Green Gables in Iran was an unexpected journey that brought profound inspiration and hope. Little did I know that this classic tale of Anne Shirley’s resilience and feisty spirit would become a beacon of empowerment for my predominantly female students. Their connection with Anne's unwavering determination and her strong character ignited a spark within them that eventually helped spark an uprising against a relentless dictatorship. Witnessing these remarkable young women, who had once found solace in Anne's story, rise up against four decades of draconian rule in Iran has been nothing short of awe-inspiring. The Iranian women have taken the lessons of Anne’s perseverance to heart and channeled that spirit into a courageous struggle for justice and freedom. This is a testament to the enduring power of literature and the indomitable spirit of those who dare to dream of a better world."

-Sam Roodi, professor of Global Citizenship at Fanshawe College in London, Ontario, Canada

"Recollections of childhood reading experiences tend to blur repetitively, but, for me, one memory is categorically singular. I was nine years old, home from school sick. My dad, on his way to work, stuck his head inside my bedroom door and said, “Here, try this.” He handed me a blue hardback of Anne of Green Gables. When he returned that night, I had finished it. For that whole day, I lived inside the skin of a different person. In a blur of astonishment and devastation, I learned that it was possible for a beloved fictional character to die. And I explicitly knew I was a different Margaret from the one who had woken up that morning. I remember my startled recognition, in so many words, that Thornton Burgess’s animal stories – hitherto completely satisfying – would never be quite the same again.  My life as a reader had suddenly and irrevocably expanded."

-Margaret Mackey is Professor Emerita in the School of Library and Information Studies at the University of Alberta

"You inspired my mother to be a writer, when she was a little girl in Texas; you inspired my father, in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, to see beauty all around. My little sister is named for your Anne. Every day I think about or read your work and try to imagine who you were within and between the lines. Thank you, thank you for giving me so many reasons and ways to read, to write, to connect with others, and to be."

-Elizabeth Rollins Epperly

"Maud’s writing first spoke to me when my own world had gone very quiet. I dwelt in a small town in regional Australia and was rarely able to leave my home due to chronic illness. Instead, I lived vicariously through her tales of girls and young women on an equally small island, about as far away from my own as it was possible to be. She showed me that life lived on a domestic scale could be just as vivid as that on the wider horizon. Unable to travel elsewhere, I gained strength from Pat’s decision to remain in a home to which she was so powerfully attached. Later, as a young teacher in a rural boarding school, I found comfort in my isolated state from Emily’s example of writing through her difficult feelings. Later still, when I reached Oxford, it was Anne’s experiences at university and her rich relationships with the kindred spirits she found there that resonated with special force. Maud’s words have been inscribed on each stage of my life, a tapestry of experiences that I have shared with her remarkable heroines, and which I will continue to weave in the decades yet to come."

-Chelsea Wallis

"My Maud testimonial begins with Brenda K Weber's testimonial. At an LMMI conference decades ago, she recalled a stuffy academic party during which a graduate student had approached her to make small talk. The student had a shaved head and a well-known enthusiasm for science fiction, and he wore black sneakers to this department party. When she told him she was about to attend a conference on Montgomery, his eyes lit up. "I love Emily of New Moon!" he exclaimed, and went on to babble about it for the next ten minutes. I love Weber's story as a reminder that we will find kindred spirits in the most unexpected places. I also love it because the graduate student in that story...was me. I discovered Weber's paper years later, and I think it captures me perfectly: a little too extraverted, a little fashion-ignorant, and still completely in love with Emily."

-Joe Sutliff Sanders is a specialist in children’s media in the Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge

"I open the cocoa-splattered, tatty book. Hand-written – hand-scrawled – memories of sensory pleasure: spicy, sugary, crunchy, hearty, homey. I open my mother’s falling-apart recipe book. In it are generations of recipes, passed on from great-grandmothers, grandmothers, sisters, aunts, friends, daughters, and daughters-in-law. A whole museum of feminine companionship.

You, too, held such a collection – a testimony to your own experiences of motherhood, of sisterhood, of friendship, of love. And when I open Anne of Green Gables, The Anne of Green Gables Cookbook, and then also Aunt Maud's Recipe Book, I share in these experiences. I find recipes to add to my own cocoa-splattered, tatty, hand-written recipe book. Liniment cake (with vanilla this time) made for birthdays, raspberry tarts for Sunday afternoon fun, ice cream that tastes of clouds … I open these books and I find comfort; I find love; I find motherhood."

-Daniella Dedekind is currently completing her MA at the University of Pretoria, South Africa

"On a recent spring day, I glanced out the window of my fourth-floor apartment and saw a flurry of white crab apple blossoms fluttering gracefully through the air, dancing upward on the wind. The whole urban landscape was transformed, and in that moment, I felt so thankful, not only for this glimpse of the wild nature of my city, but also for Montgomery and her nature-loving heroines, who taught me about Snow Queens and Wind Women and Flashes and how to live each day with eyes and heart and mind open to the beautiful surprises of the world around me. "

-Tara Parmiter is a Clinical Professor of Expository Writing at New York University.

"When I was in the third grade, my mother bought me Anne of Green Gables as a birthday present. I kept asking for sequels every year, and when I was in junior high, I learned that Prince Edward Island was a real place. During my university years, I visited the Island for the first time and stayed for three weeks. After several trips and working with a travel agency, I landed a job as a tour guide on PEI.

At first, I just liked to see the various seasons described in Montgomery’s books; then I wanted to feel the joy of spring after a long winter. Before I knew it, it had been 28 years in PEI.  Again, this spring, I'll go into the woods looking for mayflowers. Gilbert's love, expressed through gathering these small flowers for Anne, still touches my heart after all these years."

-Katsue Masuda 

"Like so many of us, my introduction to L.M. Montgomery came in childhood, at a time when I read voraciously, so hungry for departure. Back then, I had no clear sense of myself as a lesbian, but I knew intuitively that something about me was strange and “different” – or, as Montgomery herself might have put it, “queer.”

Because, at the time, there were so few novels for young readers with LGBTQ+ characters, I learned to find myself in other, less overt mirrors. It was in Montgomery’s books that I saw the clearest echoes of my own unarticulated desires. Emily Byrd Starr’s world is populated by older, unmarried female characters who show no interest in finding male partners. Valancy Stirling casts off the constraints of her disapproving family to pursue the existence she wants for herself. And Montgomery gave me Katherine Brooke in Anne of Windy Poplars, arguably her most overtly queer character.

I know, of course, that Montgomery wasn’t writing for readers who were gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender – and I know her opinions on lesbianism, expressed with such vehemence in her diaries – but she was writing for those of us who were “queer,” in the broader sense of the term. I’d like to think that she’d be able to understand my deep gratitude for the ways her work has always made me feel seen."

-Katharine Slater is an associate professor of children’s and young adult literature at Rowan University

"When my fifth-grade teacher read Anne of Green Gables to my class in the sixties, it was the comedic episodes of Anne dying her hair green and getting Diana drunk that made the book enticing. Throughout the decades since, as I aged and my interests changed, there was something new that appealed to me with each reading: a description of a beautiful garden as I planted one of my own, a reference to a special type of needlework as I learned to quilt, a humorous episode about Anne’s attempts in the kitchen as I also struggled in this regard, the love and bond between Anne and Marilla as I experienced those same emotions with my children and grandchild."

-Joanne Lebold

"L.M. Montgomery has not just inspired my family; she has shaped it. My great-grandma Cora first read the books aloud to her students in a one-room schoolhouse. Her daughter, my grandma Penny, and her daughter, my mother Christy, spent countless family vacations tracking down old copies of Montgomery’s books. It is pretty easy to figure out where my name and my sister’s came from (Emily and Anne, naturally). Montgomery has inspired our travel, showed us the joy in unraveling historical puzzles, supplied countless treasured memories, and connected us to friends all over the world. We have studied, collected, honoured, researched, discussed, savoured and loved Montgomery’s works. And we’ve done it all together. We have learned that Montgomery’s legacy is not just literary; it is intergenerational and personal."

-Emily Woster

#maud150 is a collection of tributes for Maud's 150th birthday. the above are a handful of my favorites.

[juliaanoia]

Okay so in Derry Girls they got the casting of the young versions of the mums so incredibly perfectly right it's insane. Also I might have a crush on 70s Deirdre

[wolfavens]

ghost car of barna road

track 3 - liberty belle 1/2

my manager greeted me in irish.

i blinked at the screen in mute panic. i couldn’t remember how to reply. words and languages collided in my brain. it was a car crash, baby, and in the end all that came out of my mouth was a prolonged aaah with no end in sight. a perfect visual representation would be a multilanguage tsunami, pouring out of my ears and pooling around my slippers on the dusty rug of my childhood bedroom.

i used to write those words down into a black notebook, watching you mock me from that dusty rug. you and your smug gaeltacht born grin. who would’ve thought i will forget them all by the time i’m 30.

“how did the move go?”

move. to galway. my hometown. i found my voice again and rushed out: “oh yeah! the move went okay. got here late last night. drive was smooth. not many cars around after midnight.”

“hehe, don’t get used to it. it’s a totally different story after 8am.”

we chatted for a while, arranging to meet in dublin next month when i was all settled in. won’t take long. all i needed was to get a flat, a car - did i need help with the flat? there are probably relocation programmes for employees available. no. i think i got it. did i tho?

we finished the call twenty minutes later. the fact i managed to scrape by enough words to at least tell him goodbye in irish seemed to cheer him up a bit.

i finished up some minor work tasks, sipping at the remainder of my mother’s disgusting herbal tea and took a short break to open the dusty unused storage areas of my childhood bedroom. i needed to clean up the old junk before moving in the new junk. i had to give one thing to my mother; she did an excellent job of preserving this place. if ever i managed to do something worthwhile with my life she could start charging fucking entry for this museum of fiadh kavanagh.

shaking my head i started pulling out old clothes and creating a pile on the floor. if she believed i still fit into these jeans i should be worried about early onset neurodegenerative diseases.

i was done with the columns and moving on to the hangers by the time she stuck her head in and quirked her dark eyebrows at me. “need any help?”

“mom, why the fuck did you keep all this?” i asked, showcasing fist-full of short gothic dresses. “aren’t you worried about clothes moths?”

ignoring my point she sat down on the bed, smiling. “oh, i though you might still like to keep some of it. it’s not like we need extra storage.”

“mom, look at me!” i threw another armful onto the pile, lifting my arms to indicate my age ravaged body. “how could i possibly fit into size four?! some of these are from the children’s section!”

“you look like a string, you could easily fit. it’s the cigarettes. they are not good for ya.”

i rolled my eyes. “i’m not even fucki…”

the feel of a familiar soft fabric beneath my fingertips made me stop midsentence. i pulled it out into the light with shaking fingers, heart racing against my ribcage. it looked huge in my palms. the faded graphics were barely visible in the shadowy light of my room. if you tried hard enough you could just barely make out the name of the band. distantly i heard my mom echo my name but i was stuck in the past, standing in the cold autumn rain by the open driver’s side window of your car.

“ooooh, i remember this one,” my mother said with a nostalgic smile.

i made a small sound at the back of my throat.

“it’s the donovan boy’s, isn’t it? i remember teasing him about it. i told him: young man, this is not a free laundry i run here! you know what he said to me?”

i nodded, whispering, “it’s not my fault yer daughter is a stinkin’ thief.”

she laughed. “little bastard. he was the worst influence on you. funny how he turned out. would never expect a son of deirdre donovan to make something of himself. i guess we owe it all to the wife. she…”

my body snapped back to action. i was moving away before she could say her name. putting the sweater on the bed next to her, i brushed my hands against my sweatpants and mumbled: “right, look we need to get rid of all this before i can unpack. do you know someone with skinny teenage children? ideally with a questionable fashion sense?”

“we can drive to the clothes recycling point.”

“grand! let’s do that after work.” i told her, kicking my way through the discarted clothes toward the closet and dumping whatever was left on top of the rest. “i need to get back to work now. i have a meeting in 20.”

“oh, ok. sorry.” she chuckled, standing up. “i will bring some bags to put all of this in.” she reached for the sweater on her way out and i jumped in to block her path on impulse.

“uh… where are you taking that?”

she blinked up at me, brown eyes surprised. “downstairs. i figured i could return it to the rightful owner rather than donate it to charity. although,” she giggled, pulling it apart for scale, “i doubt it will still fit him.”

she was gone before i could open my mouth, taking the sweater with her. my clenched fists unclenched with effort as i pushed the door closed and leaned my back against it. i was breathing too hard. the way you handed me that sweater through the driver’s side window on that rainy, a blast from the past; a ghostly memory. just enough to make me shudder.