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thebirdandhersong · 3 years

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The Penderwicks on Gardam Street……… was so good. It’s as good as (if not even better) than the first book. It was so heartwarming (All the sister scenes) (Batty being very excited when Jane asks for her help with reading lines for the play, because no one asks her for help, since she’s still young enough to be attending daycare) (all of Batty and Hound and Ben’s pretend games) (also you know that scene where Mr. Penderwick goes on his ‘date’ and Batty is in the car with him and he pretends that he doesn’t know she’s there? and he parks in front of a pizza place and rolls down the window so that the smell wafts in and says very loudly If Only I Had Someone Here To Eat Pizza With and Batty can’t help herself and says Daddy It’s Me! and then they have pizza together and go on an adventure, just the two of them? Beautiful) and SO funny (the whole Bug Man thing) (Batty wearing sunglasses and putting swimming goggles on Ben while they’re on the lookout for Bug Man) (Ben’s second word is Pretty because he sees Skye and thinks she’s pretty and decides on the spot to tell her she’s pretty) (Skye being very embarrassed by this) (Skye and Jane’s homework switch) (Nick Geiger and his Oliver Wood-level love for football) (Nick’s idea of persuading Rosalind to do something is having each tall, intimidating high school sportsman on the football team come and recite the exact same plea to her) (the fact that they actually DO this) (the fact that it takes two tries and Rosalind immediately caves) (that line about Nick not believing in romance during the football season) (Tommy’s very blatant crush on Rosalind) (the idea that ANYONE would believe that Skye wrote the Aztec play. I mean, they didn’t buy the poem, so why (HOW???) did they believe she wrote all those romantic parts??) (Skye telling Pearson to go and soak his head when he tries to ask her out) (Bug Man being restrained with Mrs. Tifton’s neckties) (the fact that Mrs. Tifton SENDS JEFFREY NECKTIES from her honeymoon locations and the fact that he GIVES THEM ALL to Batty) (Batty being Right all along….. Iantha WAS the best option) (the girls taking out the car battery so that Mr. Penderwick is forced to drive with Iantha to that university function) (Mr. Penderwick pretending to go on dates with a mysterious Marianne Dashwood and then everyone learning at the end that all he was doing was hiding somewhere reading Jane Austen to avoid going on actual dates) (this whole book was SUCH a delight)

#you can tell why i was up late last night #of course i'm regretting it slightly now because i really should've been doing homework #but anyways. would totally recommend this series. it's so good #and it ticks most of the jellicoe lodger boxes #or at least a number of things our jellicoe lodgers seem to enjoy seeing in stories #it has that touch of whimsicality but also practicality and a lot of Capitals for emphasis and a lot about love #in this particular book: love shown through sacrifice and acts of service and also food #their love for each other is shown in abundance #i was quite struck actually when aunt claire can't attend one of skye's events #and she apologizes over the phone and SENDS FLOWERS to show support #not to mention every single thing rosalind does for her siblings #and jane deciding to give up her visit to jeffrey because she knows skye needs it more #anyway i went to bed rather fatigued but feeling happy and warm and quite content #reading adventures #the penderwicks

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a-hundred-jewels · 2 years

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Tales of the Vampiric, Ghostly, or Otherwise Unholy Residents of the Penderwick House - ch 1: Sleepless Nights

Ao3

Words: 1630

Summary: "What if the Penderwicks were a bunch of trans ace vampires who lived together in a big strange house a la What We Do In The Shadows?" said me at 2am.

Tags: Rosalind Penderwick/Tommy Geiger, Martin Penderwick/Elizabeth Penderwick Sr./Iantha Penderwick, Skye Penderwick, Jane Penderwick, Jeffrey Tifton, Rosalind Penderwick, Elizabeth "Batty" Penderwick, Lydia Penderwick, Ben Aaronson-Penderwick, Iantha Aaronson-Penderwick, Elizabeth Penderwick Sr., Martin Penderwick, Tommy Geiger, Hound Penderwick, Feldspar (Penderwicks), Sonata (Penderwicks), Yaz (Penderwicks), Carla (Penderwicks), Original Snake Character, Original Ferret Character, Cagney Pelletier, Mrs. Tifton (Penderwicks), Non-Binary Skye Penderwick, Non-Binary Jane Penderwick, Trans Penderwicks, Trans Rosalind Penderwick, ok theyre all trans im just leaving it at that bc that would be a lot of tags, Trans Characters, Miscillaneous Townspeople, Vampires, What We Do In The Shadows AU, Sort Of, like it could very much be considered that, The Penderwicks Are Vampires, Mrs. Tifton is Cisgender, Mrs. Tifton is a Ghost, Mrs. Tifton is a Cat, Jeffrey is a Ghost, Cagney is a Mysterious Growth, They/Them Pronouns For Skye Penderwick, She/Her Pronouns For Jane Penderwick

notes and fic under the cut

Welcome to my self-indulgent therapy fic! Hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoy writing it. Chapters will probably come out within the vague month of october. If not, then whoops. Anyway.

This first chapter is dedicated to me, without whom this fic would not have been possible.

Disclaimer: Clearly, these are not my characters. However I like to think that Jeanne Birdsall is an all knowing immortal being who can see what I am writing and knows in her heart that it's all canon. Thanks, Jeanne.

Enjoy!

There was something special about that house on Gardam street. “Vampires live there,” a teenager said, not looking up from his copy of Breaking Dawn. “Like the Cullens, except they’re all trans.”

“That’s why the house is painted red!” his friend added. “The vampire thing, I mean. One of the people who lives there--you know, the young one with pretty hair who danced at the community center last winter--said it’s symbolic of the blood they’ve spilled and a reminder of who they are.”

Most of these statements were, in fact, incorrect. The bright red exterior of the house was because it had been Elizabeth Penderwick’s favourite color at the time they repainted, and because the paint store was having an oddly specific sale. (Footnote: Let's just say a new hire had made some mistakes with the monthly supply order. End of footnote). And not all of them were trans. One of the cats was cis.

However, it was true that vampires resided at the Penderwick House on Gardam street. Nine of them, to be exact. There was Elizabeth, who’d changed her name at least three times and was originally some early century English noble; her husband Martin, who would be a lot better at botany if he acknowledged that technology had indeed progressed in the past fifty years; and her wife Iantha, who could name any star visible from Earth from memory, but needed a cookbook to make rice without burning it.

Rosalind had been with them the longest, (though they’d only been able to legally adopt her some time in the twentieth century) and she was the only one of the children to be originally from England, as after she got Turned and joined up with Penderwicks, the family had begun to travel. Skye and Jane were the next to join, from Scandinavia and France respectively. They looked nothing alike and bickered constantly, but were secretly each other’s favourite people on the planet. (Footnote: Jane called it nonbinary solidarity. Skye called chance and proximity. Either way they were Siblings. End of footnote). Batty was next, as well as her ever growing litter of carefully Turned animal children. Then Ben, who thought movies were the greatest thing ever invented, and finally, Lydia, Turned at the ager of fifteen while being an overworked Vaudeville performer who’d run away from home. (She was also “the one with the pretty hair who danced at the community center” mentioned earlier). (Footnote: And these are just the vampires. There were also three dogs, two rabbits, a ferret (all Batty's), a cat (Iantha's), a snake (Rosalind's), two ghosts, and a mysterious growth named Cagney with 702 genders who'd lived in a room on the third floor since before any of them had been born, and only ate red shoes. Needless to say, it was a full house. End of footnote).

The family was big and strange and had been living in Cameron for longer than the collective memories of the townspeople could recall. They’d been friendly neighbors, reclusive weirdos (whatever suited them best at the time), had gone to school, gone to work, ate people, for hundreds of years. Now, though, it was daytime and they were all in their rooms.

At one pm, Skye felt a rustle on their bed. They stirred, slightly, then fell straight back to sleep. The alarm wouldn’t go off for hours and they would need to be well rested for the night’s hunt.

There was another rustle. Skye could have sworn someone poked their foot. They kicked in the general direction of the affront, grinning into the black silk pillow when they heard a yelp and someone mutter “little shit.”

“Go haunt someone else. I need sleep,” Skye mumbled. As they said it, though, they slid over to one side of the bed and pulled back the covers, letting Jeffrey crawl in beside them. He was trying hard to be corporeal right now, and not fall right through the bed or accidentally inhabit Skye’s body. Even after being a ghost for hundreds of years, though, it was difficult for him. Before the Penderwicks had moved into the ancient Penderwick House (previously known as “Arundel”), Jeffrey had floated aimlessly around the grounds, with only a highly judgemental cat for company. It had taken him a while to warm up to the family and to see the point of things like being visible and occasionally even tangible. They hadn’t pushed him, but it was nice to have a friend

“Mmph,” Jeffrey said, burrowing closer to Skye.

“Not fair, you’re melding partially with the mattress!”

He flicked Skye on the nose, semi-successful in keeping his fingers separate from their flesh. “I do what I like, you blood-sucking fiend. Also, it’f more comfy this way.”

Skye rolled their eyes behind closed eyelids. “Spoiled. You didn’t wake Jane when you came in, did you?” They inclined their head slightly to see Jane’s bed across the room, which was outfitted with eggplant colored sheets and matching canopy that she’d made herself.

Jeffrey snorted. “The French Revolution couldn’t wake Jane.”

At that moment, Jane began to rise from her sheets in the creepy stiff-as-a-board way she preferred, speaking in her low, resonant, “drama” voice that was usually reserved for victims, or royalty, or both.

“To the surprise of all but herself, the vampiress reveals that she has been awake for three and a quarter hours, using the guise of sleep to avoid socializing.”

Skye sighed. “Of course you did. Now come over here.” The rest of the house was still asleep and neither Skye nor Jane had ever succeeded at Sound Barrier charms, so it was best to not be shouting across their shared bedroom.

Jane wrapped herself in her purple quilt and levitated across the room in a tangled mess of limbs, plopping dowm beside Skye. For a moment, the three lay in comfortable silence. Then, Jane reached cross her sibling and mussed Jeffrey’s hair (or rather, she would have, had Jeffrey made his head a consistency other than “slightly condensed cloud,” but Jane decided not to mention that.)

“I had been deep in imagining I was dining with Oscar Wilde when you came in, Jeffrey. For a moment, I thought it was that horrid cat--back to bite off another of my toes! Imagine my relief to find it was just a ghost!”

Jeffrey laughed, grinning up at the ceiling. “From what I could tell, Mrs. Tifton seemed to heartily dislike the toe of yours she did eat, so I wouldn’t worry too much.”

“She may be a monster, but she’s not a self-destructive monster,” Skye chimed in, frowning when they saw Jeffrey wince. “Sorry, too far?”

“A little,” Jeffrey replied.

“Noted. Won’t happen again.”

Jeffrey smiled, his usual self again, and they resumed their conversation.

Now, while Skye and Jane were atrocious at casting sound barriers (and, if we’re being honest, pretty much every other form of magic), Batty Penderwick was the best in the house. She had to be, for her room was shared with three dogs, two rabbits, and a ferret--all of them immortal--who she’d acquired over decades of her life. At the moment, in a room on the third floor of the house, Batty was hovering in the darkness. On one side of the room, Hound, Sonata, and Feldspar (the dogs) were sleeping in a den of pillows, while Yaz and Carla (the rabbits) munched on dandelions in their crate. Queen Latifah (the ferret, and a new family member as well) reclined around Batty’s neck, utterly undisturbed by her mother’s floating.

On a table in the corner, Batty’s record player was set up, the needle carefully situated on a groove of The White Album, softly playing “Everybody’s Got Something To Hide Except For Me And My Monkey.”

Batty was meditating. As one of the younger vampires--not even 200 years old!--and one who’d had sensory issues even before she was Turned, Batty still found her highly tuned immortal senses annoying from time to time, when they would crowd and overwhelm her brain. Thus, she and her animal children had become accustomed to having a peaceful float in the dark several times a week, while the record player softly serenaded them with whatever Batty was currently obsessed with, even when the music was, objectively, not even remotely relaxing.

The song ended and the record went on to the opening chords of “Sexy Sadie.” Batty sighed (she didn’t like this song), and opened her eyes, floating over to stop the music. She should get some sleep. Her head was mostly soothed, at least enough so that she felt content to turn on her fairy lights (one oof humanity’s greatest inventions as far as Batty was concerned), and crawl under her covers, settling Queen Latifah in her own bed under the nightstand.

But, just as Batty was drifting off, there was a soft knock on the door.

Batty waved her hand to dispel the sound barrier, and called out “come in.” The door clicked open, and her oldest sister padded in on bare feet.

Rosalind’s room was right next to Batty’s and, when the latter had first been Turned (after nearly dying of influenza in 1870), she’d spent many a sleepless day curled up next to Rosalind, being regaled with tales of 14th century England, where Rosalind had grown up. Now, Rosalind crawled into Batty’s bed.

“Why’s your room always warmer than mine?” she muttered by way of explanation, then promptly fell asleep. One or the other of them did this at least once a week. It was nice.

Batty smiled, her head now full warm and happy without the buzz of extra noise or sensation or too-bright colors, and curled up beside her sister, asleep at last.

#the penderwicks #this was posted on ao3 like two weeks ago #i just kept forgetting to put it on tumblr #penderwicks #tumblr penderwicks fandom is the best #penderwicks fanfiction #vampires #ghosts #this has footnotes #self indulgent fanfiction #cameron writes

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madamescarlette · 3 years

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something is SUPREMELY funny to me about the fact that Mrs. Tifton took basically one look at the youngest, cheeriest, reddest-headed of the Penderwicks, I-Am-Fond-Of-Many-People-Unless-Otherwise-Convinced Lydia, and went “hmmm, yes, I like this one, I choose her as my Penderwick delegate (and also want to steal her hair color).”

#the penderwicks #reading tag #it's the eternally pleasant gene.....they can really SMELL it on you #it's due to the draw of the smiley beluga whale face :3 #at least in my life there have been multiple stern profs who have eventually become fond of me #so it's like. grouchy people (deep down i am one when forced) will meet you and slowly unwind #because they can smell the affection for all (most) people rolling off of you in waves #poor brenda doesn't have a lot going for her but this truly.....tickled me

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francesderwent · 3 years

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“For a long time after that summer, the four Penderwick sisters still talked of Arundel. Fate drove us there, Jane would say. No, it was the greedy landlord who sold our vacation home, someone else would say, probably Skye. Who knew who was right? But it was true that the beach house they usually rented had been sold at the last minute, and the Penderwicks were suddenly without summer plans. Mr. Penderwick called everywhere, but Cape Cod was booked solid, and his daughters were starting to think they would be spending their whole vacation at home in Cameron, Massachusetts. Not that they didn’t love Cameron, but what is summer without a trip to somewhere special? Then, out of the blue, Mr. Penderwick heard through a friend of a friend about a cottage in the Berkshire Mountains. It had plenty of bedrooms and a big fenced-in pen for a dog—perfect for big, black, clumsy, lovable Hound Penderwick—and it was available to be rented for three weeks in August. Mr. Penderwick snatched it up, sight unseen. He didn’t know what he was getting us into, Batty would say. Rosalind always said, It’s too bad Mommy never saw Arundel—she would have loved the gardens. And Jane would say, There are much better gardens in heaven. And Mommy will never have to bump into Mrs. Tifton in heaven, Skye added to make her sisters laugh. And laugh they would, and the talk would move on to other things, until the next time someone remembered Arundel. But all that is in the future. When our story begins, Batty is still only four years old. Rosalind is twelve, Skye is eleven, and Jane ten. They’re in their car with Mr. Penderwick and Hound. The family is on their way to Arundel and, unfortunately, they’re lost.”

#cate rereads #the Penderwicks #I WAS REMINISCING JUST THE OTHER DAY WHILE HAVING COFFEE ALL ALONE AND LORD IT TOOK ME AWAY #AND THAT WAS THE FIRST DAY!!#AND DARLING IT WAS GOOD NEVER LOOKING DOWN AND RIGHT THERE WHERE WE STOOD WAS HOLY GROUND #it is the perfect opening to a story!!#and it is even better when you can read it looking back like the sisters are looking back in the opening!#it wAS fate #(providence)#and mr Penderwick DIDNT know what he was getting them all into #(do you ever stop and clutch your heart because it was batty who said that)#(she has only faint memories of that first time at arundel and still it changes her whole life)

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the-gardam-street-blog · 3 years

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Hello again, this is me actually asking a question: how did you come to ship Jeffrey and Marlene Robinette? I'm genuinely curious.

Honestly it came from the fact that mrs tifton always said they had been "promised" to each other. I like to imagine that they were the real best friends while their parents thought it was jeffrey and teddy (his name? Idk, check me in this). So they bonded over the fact that their parents were idiots and then eventually in college realized they were actually compatible. Leading of course to the angst of doing as their mothers wished but eventually just wanting to he happy and know that they were happy with each other!

#jeffrey tifton #jeffrey tifton mcgrath #marlene robinette

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janesramblings · 3 years

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I’ve been scrolling though the Penderwicks posts (which are amazing by the way, I love this incredibly small fandom), and I love the parallels between Little Women and the Penderwicks, which lead to me think about the OG sisters and the LW parallels because I can’t help but talk about my favorite books all the time:

Rosalind:

Rosy, is, very obviously, Meg. She loves fine things and falls in love first and cares for all of her sisters. She’s smart and beautiful and ends up with the love of her life. She’s very family oriented and wants her own family, which is hinted by her looking at her ring finger when talking about Tommy to Batty in TPINS. She cares a lot about her family image as well, since she reminded Jane and Skye that they’d be representing their family in a new state in the third book. I can’t find anything to disagree with that comparison.

Skye:

Skye is again, very obviously, Joe. She loves a particular thing (science) that she devotes her life to. She also gets into arguments with basically… everyone, and she is brash and opinionated. She hates love, but she’s fiercely devoted to her sisters. She is the one who moves farthest away from the family, just like Joe. She has a male best friend that the doesn’t want to fall in love with (just like Joe and Laurie). She also goes from hating to adoring her youngest sister (like Joe and Amy), and I absolutely loved that parallel. So if Skye is a parallel to Joe, it makes sense that she marries someone other than Jeffery (although I’ve always thought of Skye as Aro)

Jane:

Based on the previous two, it’s very easy to think of Jane as Beth, but I never did. I’ve always thought of Jane as Amy. She can be immature (she thought Mrs. Tifton’s first husband was good and bad), like Amy. She also is also obsessed with romance (see: Dominic and the weird motorcycle gang guy from high school) and with being famous (she constantly dreams about having her name on a popular book). Amy is really misunderstood in my mind, she really just wants to be famous and fall in love, and for the first few books, that was Jane through and through (I understand her dislike of marriage in the fifth book but I still disagree with it). Again, if you consider this comparison, Jane and Jeffery would have been a couple, in parallel to Amy and Laurie, and I kind of really like this idea. Jane and Jeffery would be very compatible and they’d get along. They have similar temperaments and dreams and opinions. I also got a Jane-likes-Jeffery vibe from the second and third books, and of course, Jeffery wrote music for Jane. (Also, a musician and an artist!!! That’s Amy and Laurie through and through!!!) (and yes writing is an art).

Batty:

Thanks to process of elimination, Batty is Beth. This makes sense. Batty and Beth both love animals and are shy and love the piano. They also love their sisters a lot and prefer home to anywhere else. They have very few friends, but love them dearly and they are both closest with their parents. Of course, Batty doesn’t die (thank goodness) but she still gives strong Beth vibes (also TPIS had very dramatic Batty related plots). I never liked the fifth book suggesting that Batty and Jeffery would be a couple, especially since I created the idea of Batty and Keiko in my mind, so having Batty be single like Beth makes me happy.

#the penderwicks #random ramblings #rosalind penderwick #skye penderwick #jane penderwick #batty penderwick #parallels #lw

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