Okay so my first ask about the 1940s Anne/James agenda is your personal opinion on how it was for both of them respectively to truly notice each other romantically for the first time, like just really getting hit with all those feelings for the first time and secondly, how much time passed between revelation and actually doing something about it? π
Woohoo thank you for the ask π So Anne was the first of them to properly notice the other, which was in 1945 at the start of her first year of high school at age 14. They both grew up in LH but only had the vaguest awareness of each other's existence, so basically when she got to high school she got a good look at this random 16-year-old from afar and was all "well that's my type exactly π," but she just continued to look disrespectfully from a distance because she was used to being entirely private about such things and was quite comfortable with it staying that way.
Meanwhile James was just out here casting his net wide with very little success, like this boy was a terror to the local female population in the way he systematically barked up every tree like it was his calling in life whether he actively liked the girl or not, and needless to say very few of them were impressed, he landed very few dates, and the already romantically unpopular specimen he was did not get any more popular in their eyes. So at the start of the school year Anne just happened to be part of a fresh crop of potential girlfriends who hadn't yet rejected him.
And then yadda yadda events conspired and the rumor that Anne had the hots for James hit the grapevine before long (that girl Ruth had been sworn to secrecy and why did she even believe it anyway...) so he took proper notice of her when he got the tip, and he'll tell you he fell in love right then and there because seriously, the new girl with movie star hair and merciless wit who had already made a positive impression around school actually liked him?? Yeah he wasn't letting that opportunity pass by, so when she coolly accepted his advances he pretty much considered the two of them as good as an old married couple already and the real kind of love didn't take long to catch up.
As for her, she was just like "mine now π" when she finally got up close and personal but the actual important parts of him took more time to grow on her when they started dating. While he took himself right off the market by their second date (to the disappointment of none of the other girls in town), Anne continued dating around throughout high school in the old-fashioned noncommittal pastime sort of way (it was a good thing for her impulse to play around that he was both very stubborn and more secure in himself than the average teenager). Two years into that he graduated high school and went to work to very seriously build their future with stars in his eyes, and with him not at school anymore to represent his interests she finally advertised that he was her proper boyfriend and that she wasn't in the dating game for anything more than fun anymore, because she still didn't stop toying with all the boys' affections until she and James got engaged in the spring of 1948.
Anyway DO YOU LIKE IT?? I have copious thoughts about them π This will pair well with the other ask I got so I'm looking forward to answering that too as well as any others folks might be inspired to send β¨
