Dirtbag Anne of Green Gables
MATTHEW
: Well now, I don’t mean to seem uncharitable-like, but you see as how Marilla and me was expecting a boy.
ANNE
: yeah well
i expected to have an alabaster brow and raven tresses down to my tits by the time i turned fifteen
but we don’t always get what we want, do we
old man
[MARILLA’s neighbor RACHEL LYNDE comes to call]
RACHEL
: Well, Marilla
I can’t say I think she looks like much, but you always did know your own mind
ANNE
[lights a cigarette]
: funny
i don’t recall asking you what you thought about a fucking thing
[ANNE meets DIANA BARRY for the first time. The ADULTS leave the parlor to gossip in the kitchen.]
DIANA
: It’s awfully nice to meet you
ANNE
: wanna get drunk
i know where Marilla keeps the good stuff
GILBERT
: psst
psst
[Anne does not turn]
Hey. Hey, Carrots. Carrots.
[ANNE smashes her slate against the edge of the desk and holds a jagged edge to GILBERT’s neck]
ANNE
: say carrots again
go on
say carrots again
[GILBERT shakes his head ferociously, wide-eyed and silent]
ANNE
[presses the tip of the shard into his throat]
: no, come on
do it
GILBERT
[whispered]
: I don’t want to
ANNE
: My hair’s red. You notice that?
[Gilbert nods carefully]
ANNE
: ‘Course you did. You’re a smart guy. You know what else is red, smart guy?
[GILBERT is silent. ANNE twirls the tip of her slate until a single drop of blood appears at the pressure point]
you wanna tell me what else is red
DIANA
: oh Anne you’ve got to come right away
Minnie May is sick and I think it might be the croup and Mother and Father are in Charlottetown and I don’t know what to do
ANNE
: get me some cough syrup
DIANA
: all right
ANNE
[takes a swig]: all right let’s do this
[MARILLA stands outside the bathroom door and knocks nervously]
MARILLA
: Anne, are you all right? You’ve been in there for an hour. What are you doing in there?
ANNE
[o/s]
: i told you
don’t ask questions you don’t want the answer to
[MATTHEW collapses in the field]
MATTHEW
: Anne, you’ve got to call for a doctor — it’s my heart — call for Dr. Meadowes —
[ANNE lights a cigarette and leans against the fence post]
ANNE
: sorry what was that
MATTHEW
: [gurgling]
ANNE
: you’re gonna have to speak up
MATTHEW
: please
ANNE
: i want the dress
MATTHEW
: what
ANNE
: you know what dress i mean
the big sleeves
MATTHEW
: Anything — anything —
ANNE
: I want two.
MATTHEW
: All of them, you can have all of them.
ANNE
[runs towards the house]: Oh, Dr. Meadowes!
MATTHEW
: Christ.
[The schoolhouse burns in the distance. Anne stands on the porch, face flushed and streaked with ash]
ANNE
: IT’S ANNE WITH A GODDAMN “E”
A GODDAMN “E”
[The CUTHBERT’s kitchen. Anne sits at the table with a pair of oversized headphones covering her ears, eating a raw carrot, and carving a circle-A into her forearm.]
MARILLA
: Anne?
ANNE
[yanks off her headphones]
: what
MARILLA
: Anne, Ms. Perkins just ‘rang — that schoolmate of yours, the Blythe boy? Gilbert? He’s gone missing since the picnic last Saturday.
[ANNE does not respond]
They were just wondering if anyone had seen him since then.
[ANNE takes a slow bite out of her carrot without breaking eye contact]
MARILLA
: I’ll…tell them you haven’t seen anything.
ANNE
: you do that
YOU WANNA TELL ME WHAT ELSE IS RED
This isn't Dirtbag Anne so much as Psychopath Anne. I can dig it.
That's almost word for word what I was going to say (only maybe I'd have said "Badass Anne of Green Gables").
ANNE: [spits] It's Badasse, with an E. [re-racks shotgun]
Yeah, it's like a dirtbag/children's stories made horrific crossover. Which I want more of.
Sorry, Mallory, but Anne of Green Gables is too sacred for the dirtbag treatment.
*slowly crosses out this entire post with shiv-sharp carrots, glaring, whispering bosom friend …*
right?
I really want to love this, but a voice keeps saying in my head, "Kindred spirits don't do this sort of thing."
Brilliant.
OOOOOOOMMMMMMMGGGGGGG. No good Madam! NO!
MARILLA: anne you must apologize to mrs. lynde
anne
anne
anne this shit is serious
ANNE: no
MARILLA: no tv for a week
ANNE: mrs. lynde
i am sorry
about how fat you are
MARILLA:
ANNE: i'm sorry youre a bitch
MRS. LYNDE:
ANNE: i'm sorry you had to learn this way
Dirtbag Marilla is queen of my heart
I don't even know anything about Anne of Green Gables except what I've read on The Toast but I'm into this.
I know! I think I've seen bits of clips and read enough references to know that there is a girl named Anne, she is a redheaded orphan(?) sent to live in .. rural Canada (Nova Scotia? Newfoundland?), she has a bestie who has black hair, and she ends up with this guy who basically teases/negs his way into her heart.
Basically, I know just enough to smirk at this and think of this as "Badass Anne."
Prince Edward Island!
I will refrain from giving you the entire plot because I'm sure you could have read it if you wanted to, but, you know, Psychopath Anne in PEI.
I'M GOING TO PEI IN AUGUST AND I HAVEN'T BEEN SINCE MY HONEYMOON AND I CAN HARDLY WAIT and I'll stop shouting now.
He negs her once and she doesn't speak to him for YEARS, even though he saves her life a little and grovels most abjectly. Eventually, she consents to them being friends when he gives up a good teaching position so that she can comfort her bereaved guardian.
They do eventually marry, but the later books aren't canon anyway.
The latter books aren't canon?? YOU SAY THAT TO MY FACE!
#anneoftheisland4ever
Exactly
"ANNE: IT’S ANNE WITH A GODDAMN “E”
A GODDAMN “E”"
…
this one is my friend
This is the story of my LIFE.
this anne would never have crumpled into a Mrs. Gilbert Blythe that's for sure
Wasted, just wasted!
But then, writing isn't like the Olympics, you can write at any age. My head-cannon was that Anne became a critically recognized author after her children grew up.
This Anne ends up writing a searing and ground-breaking work of literature, and spends her leisure time hanging out with criminals in a cool city miles away from Gilbert.
She and Jo March run a radical women writer's colony where marriage is forbidden
JOSIE PYE: Anne I dare you to walk the ridgepole of the Barry's roof
ANNE: I walked your dads ridgepole last night
Perfection.
should not have read this while drinking anything, bad idea, do not attempt
DUDE! My MOM is IN THE ROOM here!
SCREAM
Have not laughed that hard in a looooong time – at work no less!!
As I get older, I think I might enjoy Dirtbag Anne more than Lake of Shining Waters Anne. I mean, you know Dirtbag Anne would slip you the currant wine and shittalk Mrs. Lynde on purpose.
In that case, I highly suggest that you pick up the Emily of New Moon books, also by Montgomery. All the same dreaminess, but in a natural-born dirtbag.
I like this Anne a lot more. She is akin to my inner self.
If the books were like this I might have read them.
(as opposed to the books as they are, which I did not read).
Agreed.
Thirded.
I drop my cigarette to the floor, look hard at Dirtbag Anne through a curtain of hair, and mutter "Kindred spirits are not so scarce as I used to think." We climb onto my dirtbike and take off, VROOOOOM, to go get some beer. Fuck a lotta linament cake.
I ship it.
i was with you up until the "Matthew collapses in a field" bit. Even dirtbags love Matthew.
MATTHEW WAS TOO FAR. TOO FAR.
I let him live in this version! I was kinder than LMM ever was.
So I'm guessing Dirtbag Anne puts strychnine in the well, too, right?
Yeah, that's what happens when you adopt girl orphans.
DIANA: Anne, Gilbert picked up the rose you dropped and put it in his buttonhole!
ANNE: what a tool.
Anne: *makes j/o motion* gayyyyyyyyy
This is totally the orphan everyone was expecting to arrive at the Cuthberts’, so I’m not traumatized by the reimagining of naive, malingned Anne as Dirtbag Anne.
This is like basically Megan Follows' character in Reign, so everyone should probably watch that crazy diamond of a show.
REIGN!! It's horrible and wonderful and I love it.
Megan Follows is on Reign?!? That makes me actually want to check it out.
Yeah, she's Catherine De Medici. Just, don't go into expecting historical accuracy, because there is approximately NONE. I cannot stress how little historical accuracy there is in this show.
No historical accuracy, crazeballs costuming, and sociopath Anne/Queen Catherine. it's sublime.
Are they still running the wardrobe department out of an H&M?
They sure are.
A space just opened up in my "ridiculous shows" spreadsheet now that HIMYM is over.
SOLD to Reign for the price of that one H&M sweater I bought back in the day that fell apart in 2 weeks.
Oooh, I like this version much better.
Sometimes a girl needs Anne and sometimes a girl needs Dirtbag Anne. Glad I ran into DA today.
This is basically the child Mrs. Lynde thought they'd adopt, right?
Exactly, you know, the kind that puts strychnine in the well.
This is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.
I think this Anne is MY bosom friend.
Just read all these out loud in my throatiest Megan Follows voice
What…a whole day, more than 50 comments and I'm the first in with the original dirtbag A of GG: Codco's "Anne of Green Gut? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZ02LLz6DYs
These are hilarious. Highly suggest, Dear Readers, that you pick up Montgomery's novel "The Blue Castle", which is precisely about a submissive, haggard old maid (ie, Valancy on her 29th birthday) who goes full dirtbag on her family and races away with the mysterious woodsman. It goes deep.
Valancy really does wake up one day and realize that she can spend the rest of her short life in a sad, gray haze under the thumb of her overbearing mother and nosy, priggish family, or she can basically say the polite early 20th century version of "Fuck it!" to them all and propose marriage to a Thoreau-ish guy she barely knows (who isn't even Anglican!) and run off to live in the woods. Guess which she picks?
(I just wish so hard that her guy's name was something even marginally sexier than "Barney Snaith", because it is the worst possible name imaginable)
"Was it a vulnerable spot?"
"She…she…she…she said…*sob*…'Oh darn!'"
This is like The Assassination of Anne of Green Gables by the Coward Gilbert Blythe. I love sociopath Anne!
Diana: Oh Anne you do get into scrapes!
Anne: E'rrryday I'm Scrapin
bahahahaha
IT’S ANNE WITH A GODDAMN “E”
This is irreverent.