#ANY mansfield park adaptation??

[whenthegoldrays]

I don’t know what it is about the Jane Austen adaptations I’ve seen recently, but they just have so much trouble sticking the landing.

#i mean #ANY mansfield park adaptation?? #especially 1999 but that one has a whole bunch of other stuff wrong with it too #and I almost GET IT because in the book the conclusion *is* very quick #but isn’t the point of an adaptation to expand on what is missing in the book? #also Emma and p&p #both of those books have such good rich things happen after the accepted proposals but the major adaptations just totally gloss over that?? #Harriet and Robert meeting again in London! where’s my Emma adaptation that gives me that?! #Lizzy and Darcy being all cute after she accepts him!!! #I really feel like #in a miniseries ideally Darcy’s proposal and knightley’s proposal would both be at the *beginning* of the last episode #not almost at the end of it #because let! the other! things! happen! #let Austen’s storytelling shine!!! #can’t speak for the book in s&s discourse because I never finished it but like. 1995 and 2008 both had lovely endings #it’s not too hard in that sense #but it also is??? apparently? if we’re going by the 1981 #need to watch the 70s one too #AND D O N ‘ T get me started on mansfield park #where ?! WHERE?!?! is my adaptation where we actually get to see Edmund slowly falling for Fanny at the end???? #(I do not see 1999 it doesn’t exist) #like no. because in that one they paint Edmund like he’s been in love with Fanny forever and. no???? #and then 2007 with him just having this random epiphany- what? two weeks after he breaks up with Mary? #and then he just runs out and kdrama-arm-grabs Fanny in the garden and kisses her??? HATE IT THANKS #at least when kdramas do it it’s kind of romantic #this Edmund was just creepy #and since we’re back on this discussion PLEASE I’VE BEEN ON MY KNEES give us a likeable Edmund!!!!! #I just used up my tag limit so I’m gonna tag this for my files and shut up and go to bed :) <3 #elly's posts #jane austen

[thisbluespirit]

Jane Austen, Missing Presumed Lost, Most Wanted edition

I was intrigued by the other poll, because surely there were some other feature films (as opposed to TV versions) released prior to the 90s, aside from Pride and Prejudice (1940), but there really don't seem to be. Even the BBC seem to have been slow to adapt some of them at all.

Anyway, to use my brief and dodgy wikipedia-based research for something, which lost Austen TV adaptation would you most like to see if someone could just find it stashed in their attic?

#jane austen #book adaptations #burninated telly #period drama #pride and prejudice #emma #persuasion #1950s #1960s #this is all that wiki has at any rate #the 1948 appears to be a tv film rather than a mini-series #the 1967 is apparently available online #but never released officially in any way #(as a dw fan i'm having a hard time envisaging tryst as darcy but one-off dodgy guest appearances in who are often highly unreliable #as to actorly quality) #i'm a bit outraged at the lack of cinema adaptations now #where is my great but highly dodgy 1970s brit film austen adaptation of at least one of them? #why isn't there an overwrought 1930s or 40 northanger abbey? #why did it take so long to adapt na or mansfield park anyway? #polls #ahem.

[thatscarletflycatcher]

The @hotjaneaustenmenpoll tournament has inspired me to finally write this post, this more than a post, this bit of FUNDAMENTAL Austen adaptation research.

It is well known that there was a Mansfield Park adaptation in 2007, for which the reception went from "eh?" to "huh?", but what most people around here probably don't know, is that this was the cover for the DVD release in Spain:

And you'll naturally ask, who is that handsome blonde man on the right? He definitely isn't Michelle Ryan, we know what she looks like.

He's Baddeley. The butler. The butler at Mansfield Park. Emma's 2020 class commentary this, and Emma 1996 (ITV) social commentary that, but has any of them put a servant on the cover? Thought so. And people have the gall of calling this a bad, unfaithful adaptation :P

So, in honor of Baddeley and his being the only servant I can think of in the Austen canon of whom we have some pov writing, and what is better, that pov is inner snarky thoughts about Mrs Norris, let's have every time Baddeley shows up in MP 2007, witnesses iconic events, and wins his spot on the DVD cover.

Here we have Baddeley serving some refreshments during Henry and Mary's first visit to Mansfield:

Here we have him also serving some wine to sir Thomas during the very awkward dinner that followed his return from Antigua:

Here we have Baddeley making sure Fanny's special picnic goes perfect:

That includes making sure nobody is dying of thirst (dancing is a very taxing activity!):

Here we have him at the zenith moment of his telling Mrs Norris that she's not wanted:

Evil never rests, and neither does Baddeley's commitment to keeping people hydrated, in this case, during a mouth-drying reading of Shakespeare by Henry:

Sometimes Baddeley's work involves improvising, and taking on jobs others would have considered beneath their title, such as carrying Edmund's bags:

Or helping sir Thomas get out of his traveling coat:

But this also has its rewards, as door watch duty allows him to witness the moment sir Thomas yeets Mrs Norris out of Mansfield:

Alas, in a clear commentary on the class issues of the regency era, despite his relevance to the plot and constant presence at life turning moments of the family, he was not invited and nowhere to be seen at Edmund and Fanny's wedding, while absolute strangers got to witness the momentous occasion instead.

Baddeley, friend, don't be sad. You were there, in our hearts.

#Jane Austen #Mansfield Park #Mansfield Park 2007 #Baddeley #humor #long post

[warrioreowynofrohan]

Mansfield Park - Henry Crawford and Fanny Price

I want to lay out how I see these characters and their relationship, because to me they seem to be set up as a deliberate contrast to Pride and Prejudice. At the tine of Henry’s first proposal, they are in a similar place to Elizabeth and Darcy at the time of Darcy’s first proposal, albeit with extremely different personalities than those characters: Fanny refuses him despite his wealth and her economic precarity because she cannot like or even respect him. However, Fanny, who is far shyer than Elizabeth, cannot lay out in direct and specific terms the foundation of her disapprobation of him.

From there, Henry sets out to win her regard in ways that very closely recall some of the events between Elizabeth and Darcy.

1) He does a great favour for a relative of hers. In his case, it is getting his uncle the admiral to have Fanny’s brother William promoted to lieutenant; in Darcy’s, it is saving the Bennets from disgrace by getting Wickham to marry Lydia. Darcy’s favour is far greater, and much more personally unpleasant for him, and he keeps it intentionally secret; he does it out of love of Elizabeth, but not to make her feel obligated. Henry’s takes only a few days of his time, its goal is get to Fanny to like him better, and he leverages it both at first and later to make her feel obliged to him.

2) He changes his manners to suit her. In Darcy’s case this means being polite rather than rude and haughty; in the case of Henry, who has always been charming and gregarious, it involves softening his manners to suit Fanny’s shy and quiet personality and engaging in more serious talk. In Darcy’s case this is a fundamental change in response to Elizabeth’s reproof; in Henry’s, it’s a simple adaptation to one person’s taste rather than another. He’s intelligent and able to engage in serious conversation when he wants to, but that’s not indicative of any fundamental change in his thinking.

3) He is polite to her family (the Prices, in Portsmouth) even when they are embarrassing.

4) He speaks with Fanny about reforms he is making on his estates to make sure his tenants are being treated fairly. These feels like a parallel to Elizabeth’s improved opinion of Darcy upon visiting Pemberley and hearing how well his servants speak of him. The difference is that Darcy has always been like that, whereas we are told early in Mansfield Park that Henry has been little on his estates during his adulthood: “To any thing like a permanence of abode, Henry Crawford had…a great dislike”. Darcy is acting in line with deep-seated principles; Henry is doing it as part of his courtship of Fanny, so he can bring it up to her and look good. He also tries to get her to counsel him to continue in this current vein, to engage her in a desire to fix/improve him, which Fanny shuts down laudably: “I advise! - you know very well what is right,” and when he reples that he always knows what is right when she tells him: “We all have a better guide in ourselves, if we would attend to it, than any other person could be.” The weakness of Henry’s motivation is seen in the ending, where he puts off a visit to his estates to set matters right there in order to flirt with the now-married Maria Rushworth.

In short, Darcy is already good in many concrete ways, and sincerely improves in the ways where he is faulty, not in order to get Elizabeth to love him but because he thinks about her criticisms, agrees with them, and wants to be better for its own sake; and he helps her family solely out of love for her and deliberately hides it. Henry changes his manner and talk as part of his courtship, but his deeper values and attitudes do not change, and everything is directed at getting Fanny to fall for him.

The second area of contrast is in what the heroines object to. Elizabeth’s aspersions on Darcy’s character, regarding his interactions with Wickham, are found to be mistaken; her legitimate objections are to his attitude and arrogance, and he amends this. Henry’s manners are impeccable and his company charming; Fanny’s objections are to his character. She sees him deliberately flirt with both her cousins at once to a degree that implies an intent to propose, and play them off against one another; she sees him make some very deliberate and mutually-understood innuendo towards Maria, signifying that she should break off her engagement and be with him instead, all with zero intention of actually proposing if she did do so; she sees him use the theatricals to continue this pursuit of Maria. And this is very usual behaviour for Henry; his sister says he has broken many hearts, and when he starts courting Fanny his goal is to make her fall in love with him and then leave her “feeling she will never be happy again”.

This is what makes me judge Henry much more harshly than his sister Mary. Mary can be selfish, but she is not malicious or cruel, and she can be kind when it doesn’t inconvenience her (and one of her better traits is that even when she is unhappy or disappointed she never takes it out on other people). In contrast, Henry’s principal diversion and entertainment for years has been deliberately making young women miserable, leading them on, getting them to reject other suitors in hopes of him, and then departing without a care, to please his own vanity. He is, in truth, doing not once but habitually, what Willoughby did to Marianne: always implying enough to seem on the edge of an engagement but never following through, and then pretending it was all nothing. It’s a casual cruelty he finds amusing as a proof of his skills. In short, he’s a deceptive playboy. Even after Maria is married, he can’t resist flirting with her, which is what leads to her disgrace and social destruction.

Even though Austen lays out an alternative scenario where Henry might have married Fanny if not for that final flirtation with Maria Rushworth, all of the above does not lead me to believe she find that scenario desirable. She’s painstakingly laid out all the contrasts with her previous novel that make this scenario a very different one from Pride and Prejudice.

In addition to Henry’s serial seductions, one of the biggest red flags is his attempt to make Fanny responsible for his character, with an attitude of ‘you’re such an angel, you can make me do whatever you want’. This gives me Tenant of Wildfell Hall vibes, where Helen’s aunt tries to warn her off thinking that an older man of the world will let himself be guided and led by a younger woman who is in his power. Fanny rejects this idea: Henry knows what is right, can make his own choice to do it, and she will not let herself be appropriated as his conscience. Henry isn’t debauched like Huntington, but if Fanny married him the chances of him feeling bored after some years - when he no longer has the thrill of the pursuit to keep him interested - and pursuing other flirtations and affairs to Fanny’s misery, seems pretty high based on his character; and he’s skilled enough at skirting the line that he could easily brush away any objections from her as “oh, it’s nothing, just being sociable.”

On top of all the faults of character - even if Henry did reform, I have trouble seeing Fanny and Henry being happy together. At the core of his personality is a need for change, for stimulus, for challenge (the latter, rather than sexual desire, is the main thing driving his string of conquests), and for company. Fanny, in contrast, very much prefers quiet and the company of a few people she is close to, and I think this is her genuine personality, not something that needs to be overcome by “bringing her out of her shell”. Henry would be bored to misery living the kind of lifestyle that Fanny is comfortable with, and Fanny would be deeply unhappy living in the social whirl and flurry of activity that Henry prefers. In contrast, Fanny and Edmund are both “me after a quiet day in: time for a quiet night in” people.

So, with all this, why is Henry/Fanny a popular AU? Apart from fannish dislike of Edmund (which I don’t share), I think part of it is that we don’t get an open confrontation between Fanny and Henry, the way we do between Elizabeth and Darcy, where she lays out her objections to him: I saw you flirting with both my cousins at once, I saw you making them both unhappy for your own amusement, I saw you repeatedly tempting Maria to break her engagement with no intention of following through if she did, just because you liked the challenge of winning an engaged woman. And the lack of this naturally raises the question of: how would Henry react if this confrontation happened? Which provides fertile soil for AUs.

#jane austen #mansfield park #fanny price #henry crawford #mary crawford

[lady-arryn]

#polls #i'm really curious!! #i tried putting the most popular ones as options #my personal favorite is persuasion 1995 ❤️ #jane austen

[hotjaneaustenmenpoll]

Welcome to the HOT JANE AUSTEN MEN bracket! We have just finished voting on all the HOTTEST Jane Austen Gentlemen and Rakes from all the many TV and Film Jane Austen Adaptations.

After nearly two months of voting we have our Winner! Thank you everyone for taking part and all your propaganda I will be taking a little break for a while but look out for more polls in the future...

All polls—including ongoing polls, previous rounds,mini ask polls—can be found in the #hotjaneaustenmenpoll tag. Every poll in the Hot Jane Austen Men Tournament is tagged with the hot regency man and the year his adaptation was made if you need to search for a hot man in particular.

FAQs:

“Where is [my favorite Jane Austen man]?” Have you checked all the polls in the tag? Have you done a tag search for him? Only some of the actors are tagged but if you search for his adaptation and the year he was in it you should find him! If you still haven’t found him, he probably isn't in this poll.

“WHERE ARE THE HOT JANE AUSTEN MEN. I want to see all the hot men competing in one place! -

The Final

Third Place Poll

Semi-Finals Master List!

Quarter-Finals Master List!

Round Three Master List!

Round Two Master List!

Round One Master List!

“Who is included on this list?” We started with 64 opponents readied their duelling pistols to defend their own hotness but only 8 remain! I included men from Pride and Prejudice 1940/1995/2005, Sense and Sensibility 1971/1995/2008, Emma 1996/1996/2009/2020, Northanger Abbey 2007, Persuasion 1995/2007/2022 and Mansfield Park 1983/ 1999/2007 as well as a couple from Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, one from Sanditon and one from Love and Friendship/Lady Susan. Most are the main hero/anti-heroes but there are a few others scattered in too.

Have you included Spin Offs ?”  The only strictly none Jane Austen adaptation I've included men from is Pride and Prejudice and Zombies because it is set in the correct time period, the characters are basically the same in terms of personality and I thought the casting was great! In terms of Sandition, Sidney Parker is the only man I have entered as he is mentioned in the book as well as the TV so sadly as much as I love the other Sanditon Men they aren't included!

"Can I submit hot Jane Austen men?”  Submissions are now closed! But my ask is still open for propaganda...

“I have additional propaganda for the hot men!” Great! Send me an ask, tag me in gifsets, fancams etc or reblog the poll and add your propaganda to it. Also feel free to send in any book propaganda!! I'll try to boost as much propaganda as possible

WHy is the propaganda so uneven on this poll? To stay impartial I only add propaganda to the main poll that has been sent in before each round's polls open. If you submit any after then I will reblog or post and add to the winner's propaganda in the next poll. If it's uneven it's because you never sent any in, not because I'm being biased.

"How have you paired up the men ?" I did start to try and vaguely seed the men but I will be honest I did get a bit slap dash towards the end which means a couple of the match-ups are maybe a bit too even but fun I hope!

If you’re submitting propaganda for your hot man, I don’t accept propaganda that is of the actor outside of their Specific Jane Austen Adaptation but I do accept propaganda from them in their respective books. I would love to be tagged in gifsets and fancams, and I'd like to boost propaganda that tells us why your Jane Austen man is your favourite :)

I won’t post or boost negative propaganda. If you really hate that a certain hot man is winning, send me positive propaganda for their hot opponent. I may make exceptions if your propaganda is of another Austen character bad mouthing him though...

If I see repetitive, trolling, and/or bigoted remarks in the comments, I may block you from this bracket. If you want to point out a hot man’s flaws or misdemeanors, that’s fine, but if I see consistent bad-faith trolling, you will be blocked.

On that note—if you have an issue with a poll, offer a solution! I'll do my best to keep the poll happy and fun, and I'll block people being dicks. If you don’t like a poll photo or a description, offer one I can use instead.

“My FAQ isn’t on here :(” send me an ask! I'd love to hear from you guys—just please check these basics first.

Thank you for being here! Enjoy the tournament.

And Thank You @hotvintagepoll for the inspiration!

#hotjaneaustenmenpoll #jane austen #pride and prejudice #sense and sensibility #persuasion #emma #northanger abbey #mansfield park

[cottagecore-raccoon]

Any reblogs with ideas for your ideal adaptations highly encouraged :)

#I’ll be honest #we don’t need more pride and prejudice or Emma #and I’m reasonably satisfied with 1996 sense and sensibility #pride and prejudice #jane austen #sense and sensibility #Emma #mansfield park #sanditon #lady Susan #persuasion #cottagecore-raccoon

[bethanydelleman]

Mary Bennet: Is it Canon?

Mary wears glasses

Fanon (I’m using this term to cover adaptations and JAFF), not canon. Never mentioned.

Mary wears dark colours/dresses like a nun/she is secretly Jane Eyre

Fanon, not canon. Never mentioned in the book and unlikely since Mrs. Bennet is trying to get them all married. She probably wears similar things to the rest of her sisters, though she may trim her gowns and hats less.

Mary styles her hair differently

Fanon, not canon. Never mentioned. Their hair is probably all done by the same upper housemaid whom Mrs. Bennet tells to focus on Jane instead of Kitty on one occasion.

Mary loves Fordyce’s sermons

Fanon, not canon. Mr. Collins chose what book to read and we are never specifically told any books that Mary reads. According to David Shapard, Mary quotes the novel Evelina by Frances Burney either Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Letters by Hugh Blair or Letters on the Improvement of the Mind by Hester Chapone. It is reasonable to assume she may have read Fordyce since it is in the house, but we don’t know if she liked it. If she was obsessed with it, she’d probably quote it more often.

Mary is intelligent

Mary wants to be seen as intelligent, but she mostly just parrots things she has read without actually integrating the knowledge. This is why Mr. Bennet says she makes “extracts”, which would be a collection of quotes. She has a very shallow understanding of what she reads and therefore cannot use her knowledge without preparation, as we see in Ch 2.

“What can be the meaning of that emphatic exclamation?” cried he. “Do you consider the forms of introduction, and the stress that is laid on them, as nonsense? I cannot quite agree with you there. What say you, Mary? For you are a young lady of deep reflection, I know, and read great books, and make extracts.”

Mary wished to say something very sensible, but knew not how.

Mr. Bennet is actually mocking Mary there (father of the year). 

Being smart is Mary’s personal expression of vanity. Today you would think of her as a know-it-all, but one who spouts trivia instead of actually thinking about deep topics.

Mary is a wallflower/shy

Mary is very eager to put herself on display and be the centre of attention:

Mary, after very little entreaty, preparing to oblige the company. By many significant looks and silent entreaties did she endeavour to prevent such a proof of complaisance,—but in vain; Mary would not understand them; such an opportunity of exhibiting was delightful to her, and she began her song. (Ch 18)

Fanny Price (Mansfield Park), who wants to be a wallflower and is shy, refuses to learn how to play at all, probably because she doesn’t want this sort of attention. Mary’s speeches are another example of her displaying herself. She is drawing attention, not trying to hide. 

Mary sings/plays terribly

Fanon, not canon. Mary plays pedantically. It’s not fun to listen to her because she plays technically difficult pieces when you just want some nice music. As a modern example, she plays classical music when you want a pop song.

At the Netherfield ball we hear, “Mary’s powers were by no means fitted for such a display; her voice was weak, and her manner affected.” According to David Shapard, the voice being weak means that Mary gets worse over time, so the fact that she is doing a second son is the real problem. She’s not off-key. And her manner is affected, as in she’s showing off and that is easy to perceive. So while Mary plays better than Elizabeth, she plays for her own vanity instead of for other’s pleasure.

Mary doesn’t dance

Fanon, not canon. We never hear of Mary dancing, but she does attend balls and if someone asks her, she assumably would dance. We know Mr. Collins intended to dance with all his cousins in chronological order, except for Elizabeth being first. It’s probably not mentioned because Mary isn’t a main character or having a romance during the novel.

Mary spends all her time studying

True. While she does go to evening engagements, Mary declines every time her sisters invite her to go somewhere during the day and Jane says she is reading instead of attending to her grief-stricken mother.

So what is Mary? She knows she isn’t beautiful, so instead she shows off her accomplishments and memorized quotations. She has a pretty bad relationship with her sisters. While her behaviour seems better to us than Lydia and Kitty’s, she is vulgar because she puts herself forward for praise and display. Fortunately, she is only nineteen years old so hopefully she will improve over time.

Reference: David Shapard’s The Annotated Pride and Prejudice

The Mary Map (a collection of every reference to Mary Bennet in P&P)

#mary bennet #pride and prejudice #fanon or canon #public service announcement #glasses = bookish trope #jane austen #JAFF

[hildyj]

Podcast Recs: Jane Austen

These are my two fav podcasts dealing with Jane Austen.

The Thing About Austen offers up light-hearted historical perspectives on details in Austen's work, dealing with everything from a pug called Pug in Mansfield Park to how much it would cost a gentlewoman to send out her clothes to be washed a year. It's hosted by two women, both of them with an academic background in literature and culture, and they often have interesting guests who have specialized in the subject of the episode.

Reading Jane Austen is how I would imagine being in the perfect book club to be. Ellen and Harriet are mother and daughter who read through Austen's books, doing about 10 episodes a book and publishing one episode a month. They've already gone through Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and Mansfield Park and are currently working their way through Emma. They're both extremely knowledgable and able to dig down into the text, finding connections and character motivations that still surprise a seasoned lover of Jane Austen like myself. And on top of that, they also offer up mini-lectures on historical subjects related to the books every episode and reviews of movie and tv adaptations. And their love of Austen just shine through every part of this podcast.

If you know of any other Jane Austen podcasts, I'd love to hear about them!

#jane austen #the thing about austen #reading jane austen #podcast

[thatchronicfeeling]

It has come to my attention that it's Period Drama Appreciation Week 2023. I love period dramas and grew up watching them. They have been a formative part of my life and I'm now too disabled to watch video. Even gifs are too difficult for my brain to process. It is also Bi Visibility Week and I'm posting this on Bisexual Visibility Day. Since I can't safely post a pile of gifs, here is a list celebrating actors/characters/moments from period dramas that have been significant to my bisexuality. [Yes, this is a big list. I am missing out on watching and re-watching A Lot of awesome period dramas and I hate it. This list is helping me reclaim a bit of joy. Also I've probably forgotten some favourites and may update this.]

Lori Petty in A League of Their Own

Jodhi May in any period drama

Mary Wickes in any period drama

Freddy Honeychurch in A Room with a View

Anne Hathaway playing cricket in that rust-coloured dress in Becoming Jane

Esther Summerson (disabled heroine!) & Allan Woodcourt in Bleak House

the freshly-painted yellow cabin door swinging shut with the names 'Calam & Katie' painted on it in Calamity Jane

the sequence where Doris Day sings 'Secret Love' in Calamity Jane

Michelle in Derry Girls (and James too, a wee bit)

George Eliot & Lenore in Edgar Allan Poe's Murder Mystery Dinner Party

the moment where Emma and Mr Knightley start dancing together and it feels like you're inside the music in Emma

Polly Waker's haircut in The Enchanted April

Matthias Schoenaerts in Far From the Madding Crowd

Idgie & Ruth in Fried Green Tomatoes

Suranne Jones in Gentleman Jack

recognising Marian Lister as a bisexual who hasn't realised it yet in Gentleman Jack

Mary Agnes McNue in Godless

Bel & Freddie in The Hour

June Allyson leaping over a hedge (or is it a fence?) as Jo March in Little Women

the Patricia Rozema adaptation of Mansfield Park

the whole sequence where Judy Garland strides onto the neighbours' porch to sock The Boy Next Door in the jaw in Meet Me in St Louis

Katie the cook in Meet Me in St Louis

the moment where Benedick braces his arm against a doorframe in a desperate panic to stop Beatrice from going to eat Claudio's heart in the marketplace in Much Ado About Nothing

Denzel Washington in Much Ado About Nothing

Mr Thornton's hands (ok, and also his face) in North & South

tomboy Doris Day in On Moonlight Bay

Valentine in Parade's End

all of Portrait of a Lady on Fire

Papi in Pose

Lizzy Bennet declaring that she would never marry someone she did not love in Pride & Prejudice

Mr Darcy diving into a pond in Pride & Prejudice

both Angel and Joanne in Rent (the 2008 broadway version)

Martha the maid in The Secret Garden

Lelia Walker in Self-Made

swashbuckling Margaret Dashwood in Sense & Sensibility

the dance sequences in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers

the whole Thomas Kent situation in Shakespeare in Love

Maria (when she is not a nun) in The Sound of Music

Kitty Butler onstage in Tipping the Velvet

Annie and Janette and Jacques and Linh in Treme

Audra McDonald and Anne Hathaway and Raúl Esparza in that promotional photo for Twelfth Night

Julie Andrews and her male co-star singing a version of 'Home on the Range' with the line 'and the deer and the antelope are gay' in Victor/Victoria

Justine Waddell in Wives & Daughters

#perioddramaweek2023 #bi visibility week #bisexual visibility day #bi visibility day

[theladyragnell]

Do you mind if I ask your top 10 favorite characters (can be male or female) from all of the media that you loved (can be anime/manga, books, movies or tv series)? And why do you love them? Sorry if you've answered this question before.....Thanks....

I don't mind at all! This is an absolutely HUGE question, though, so I am going to adapt it into a meme that goes around sometimes and just do ten favorite characters from ten different media properties I love, because otherwise I am going to sit here all day frozen with indecision wondering if I'm forgetting someone, or if each character is REALLY worthy of being top ten out of all the media I've consumed in my life.

This got long, so it's under a cut!

Murderbot (The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells): One of my favorite book series! And I love Murderbot so deeply for so many reasons. It's funny! It's being adopted into everyone's found family and doing so kicking and screaming! It cares deeply about people once it allows itself too! Runner-up in this property is ART, who I love dearly, but really, it couldn't be anyone else but Murderbot itself.

Keladry of Mindelan (The Tortall series by Tamora Pierce): Kel is so stubborn and kind and very subtly funny in a lot of ways, and she's my favorite of the Pierce heroines. She jousts! She adopts everyone and every beast that crosses her path! She gets up to shenanigans with her friends! Just a joy of a character.

Johnny Jaqobis (Killjoys (TV)): I love everyone in this wildly underrated show, but Johnny especially. I've got a weakness for the quippy best-friend-of-the-badass/support character type (see also: Foggy Nelson from Daredevil), and Johnny is such a perfect one. He's funny, he's badass, he pretends to be married to two separate people in the course of the show. What's not to love?

Maia Drazhar (The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison): This book is so good, and Maia is such a good central character of it. He's so kind, so determined to be good in a position that makes it hard to be good or kind, to build connections when he's been denied them his whole life and change things nobody thinks it's possible to change. I love him!

Xena (Xena Warrior Princess): With my love for quippy best friends, you might think Gabrielle would be my favorite, but no, Xena is a competent badass searching for (and, as she goes along, finding) redemption, which is another favorite character type. She's also a badass warrior who's not at all afraid or self-conscious of being emotional and expressing affection, which is a rare and wonderful thing.

Leia Organa (Star Wars): The original trilogy trio are all close to my heart, but Leia just edges the other two out. I've just always loved her banter, how she refuses to be cowed by any situation, and her super cool hairstyles. Very much a I-want-to-be-like-her-when-I-grow-up character since childhood.

Harriet Morton (A Company of Swans by Eva Ibbotson): One of my formative romantic books. Harriet's not too different from Maia, actually, only Maia before becoming emperor and thus not having much power to effect change! She's kind and brave about loving and quietly stubborn, and she's very much in the same type as

Fanny Price (Mansfield Park by Jane Austen): Mansfield Park is nobody's favorite Austen, and Fanny is nobody's favorite Austen heroine, and yet! (I do technically love Persuasion, and probably Anne, more, but I'm not nearly as defensive of either of them, so Fanny's the one I thought of first for this list). She's very much that same character type as Harriet, and I seem to love characters who are clinging to goodness when they don't have much else to cling to.

Alec Hardison (Leverage (TV)): He's so smart and so full of fun quips! And also hot, look, I can be allowed to be a little shallow here. Anyway, I love all the characters in this show, but Hardison absolutely wins out.

Danielle de Barbarac (Ever After): This movie is full of great characters, but I adore Danielle. Determined, good-hearted, willing to carry a prince out of a forest, reader of dense tomes, what's not to love?

#dnana 2809 blog #answered asks

[whenthegoldrays]

3,8,12 and 23 (for the book ask game)

3. Any new genres you want to explore this year?

I’d like to read some good light fantasy if I can find it! I’d love to get lost in a new world but not one that’s particularly heavy on magic.

8. If you could reread a book without remembering anything about it this year, which book would it be?

Oh my gosh, I’d have to say Emma because I wish I could’ve read it with no spoilers. Imagine one shock after the next after the next! The proposals, the secrets, the mystery of who loves who!

12. The artist(s) who made your favorite album of all time is releasing a book as an accompanying piece for said album. What is the book about, and which album did you pick?

It’s the story of a woman who abandons everything and moves out to a small town after her marriage falls apart. There she finds a collection of locals going through all sorts of grief and experiences that mirror and contrast her own. She slowly heals and eventually finds love as well. The album is evermore by Taylor Swift, of course :)

23. Books you hope get adapted into a TV series/ film this year?

The Blue Castle is at the top of my list! I’d also want Farmer Boy and a good adaptation of Mansfield Park (in k-drama format, perhaps?) Ideally they’d all be miniseries, but if I had to choose, then Mansfield as a 150-minute movie and the other two as series with lots and lots of focus on nature and scenery and the changing of the seasons.

Book ask game

#ask elly #inardentdaylight #elly reads

[smallcatsims]

I'm tentatively tinkering around with an Austen uberhood, where I put all the characters from the books (the ones that I like, rather) and put them in a big sims neighborhood, play wants based and see what happens.

Right now I'm rereading Mansfield Park, and I think that one is my favorite anyway. Especially to make in the sims, since I don't like any movie adaptions of it.

Dr and Mrs Grant have moved into the Mansfield Parsonage. Dr Grant is a pleasure/grilled cheese sim who spends all day thinking about cheese in between his jobs as the local surgeon. Mrs Grant is a family sim who has no children and not much to do except make grilled cheese for her husband. So she is very happy when her brother and sister come to visit, and makes them some delicious sandwiches for their welcome breakfast.

Mrs Grant is particularly excited to try and arrange marriages for her siblings with the children of a wealthy Baronet who lives nearby. Henry is a notoroious romance sim, but Mary is quite interested in marrying well, and is a charming harp player.

#sims 2 #ts2 #ts2 historical #austenland

[thatscarletflycatcher]

This is mostly about just knowing who has seen ANY of them XD

#Jane Austen #Jane Eyre #Wuthering Heights

[triviareads]

i just finished a novel you recommended (bed me duke! excellent!) and moved on to my usual annual re-read of northanger abbey and do you have any recommendations for romance novels for each austen couple? i think that would be pretty cool!

I love that! the Bed Me series has never failed me so far, and I'm very excited for book 4, Bed Me, Baronet (the hero's a blond and possibly a virgin based on ALL his friends speculating about him in each of their books lol). As for romance novels based on Austen couples, I'm gonna be a little selective here because I haven't actually read Sense and Sensibility (but I vaguely remember watching the movie) or Mansfield Park:

Pride and Prejudice

There are lots of romance novel adaptations of Pride and Prejudice, and there are even more claiming to be inspired by the "enemies to lovers" aspect of P&P EVEN IF IT'S NOT AN ENEMIES TO LOVERS ROMANCE. So my best recommendation would be Pride and Protest by Nikki Payne; it's a modern adaptation set in Washington D.C.; Liza is a local radio DJ and activist who meets Dorsey (a Filipino adoptee) and realizes they're on opposite sides of the gentrification situation occurring in DC. I loved how the book dealt with the class difference along with the added layer of race. It also modernized the "proposal" aspect really well imo because randomly asking a gal to marry you without even dating wouldn't necessarily work in the modern era BUT the proposal Dorsey put out there still felt inherently degrading to Liza even if she'd hooked up with him already (another change from the original, and an appreciated one).

Persuasion

Again the Magic by Lisa Kleypas: I'll forever recommend this; McKenna and Aline were childhood sweethearts before they were separated by her father the earl, because McKenna was a stableboy. Now he's uber-wealthy and resentful about what happened all those years ago BACK for REVENGE and by revenge I mean he's going to seduce Aline and... that's about it lol. Never has a man come back with more loathing/self-loathing with a plan that's so half-baked even his drunk friend is like "but are you sure buddy".

Full Moon Over Freedom by Angelina M. Lopez: Another second-chance romance; Gillian asked Nicky to take her virginity when they were teenagers and teach her about sex stuff before leaving for college. Now she's back and divorced, and they're skirting around each other and having multiple clandestine encounters even though they think it's all temporary. While there's not much of a class difference, you get the sense Nicky thought of himself as her bit o'rough and she was an unattainable princess-type to him.

The Legend of Lyon Redmond by Julie Anne Long: Second chance romance with love at first sight; There were a couple aspects that really reminded me of Persuasion; there's very similar language to Anne where Olivia is described as having "withered away" since Lyon left, and she refuses all other suitors. And! Lyon is a sailor like Wentworth except, well, not on the legal side of things lol. It's also just super romantic when they do reunite years later.

Emma

Bed Me, Baron by Felicity Niven: George and Phoebe are long-time friends who've known each other since she was a baby. She asks him for sex lessons so she can help her please her future husband who she's engaged to (not George lol). While there's not much of an age gap in this one (4 years), George Danforth is daddy so that should square you away there.

Olivia and the Masked Duke by Grace Callaway: Here's an Emma/Knightley-ish age gap, plus, Ben and Livy were family friends/friends since she was a kid. Later on, she sees him having sex with another woman in the stables and it's basically her sexual and romantic awakening, so she spends a lot of the book chasing after him while he's running for his life.... until he isn't. Sex-wise the vibes are daddy dom/mildly bratty.

Sense and Sensibility

The closest I could think of in terms of Marianne/Col. Brandon was Rosalind and Torrington from A Recipe for a Rogue by Kathleen Ayers. Like Marianne, Rosalind is initially horrified that an *older man* like Torrington might want to marry her (the number of old man-girdle and secretly balding hair jokes.... hilarious) and Rosalind avoids every attempt her mother makes to match them. Torrington is attracted to her from the get-go and slowly woos her by way of exchanging recipes, baked goods, and licking food off her thighs.

tbh I have no idea who'd fit Elinor/Edward's vibe.

Northanger Abbey

It's actually very hard to find heroes who have Henry Tilney's playful irreverence paired with Catherine's sweet naivete so I'm holding off on this one for now!

#book recs #kathleen ayers #angelina m lopez #grace callaway #felicity niven #julie anne long #lisa kleypas #nikki payne #historical romance #romance novels #contemporary romance #ask #jane austen #pride and prejudice

[wah-pah]

3, 4, 12, 13, 14, 17, and 22 for the book asks :)

Thank you for asking, @eroticfriendfictions

:)

3.What were your top five books of the year?

In order of when they were read:

Swan Song by Kelleigh Greenberg-Jephcott

Kaikeyi by Vaishnava Patel

Summer Crossing by Truman Capote

Killers of The Flower Moon by David Grahn

Under The Net by Iris Murdoch (a new ever favourite tbh)

Honorable Mention to Three Daughters of Eve by Elif Shafsk, Excellent Women by Barbara Pym and my re-reads of Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, and Persuasion, all by Jane Austen.

4.Did you discover any new authors that you love this year?

I'd say new to me as they are mid-century classics but Iris Murdoch and Barbara Pym. As for contemporary writers, I add Elif Shafak.

12. Any books that disappointed you?

As I had told you, Daisy Jones & The Six is one of them for me. I had heard so much about it and then found it somewhat blah most of the time and that ending wasn't exactly to my liking.

Maybe Taylor Jenkins Reid's books simply aren't for me? I also read The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo last year and was underwhelmed.

Then there's 'So Much Life Left Over' by Louis de Bernieres. A kind of family saga taking place in the time between the two world wars? Yes, please. Even before finishing reading it? No, please and I don't care about the other volumes. Which segues nicely to the next question...

13.What were your least favorite books of the year?

Definitely 'So Much Life Left Over' by Louis de Bernieres. "all women just want babies", is a very strong thesis in this one. I even wrote a long rant in the wee small hours of the morning but can't seem to be able to find it now.

I may not have liked all the books I read this year (even if they weren't many) this this one made me actually angry.

14.What books do you want to finish before the year is over?

I would love to finish The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe, that I started reading after my Northanger Abbey re-read but I doubt I'll know what's behind that damn veil before the year is out.

17.Did any books surprise you with how good they were?

Of the top of my head, I'd say Swan Song and The Three Daughters of Eve, both mentioned upwards.

It didn't exactly surprised me by its quality (gah, this sounds so cruel said like this) but I would totally watch a TV series adaptation of The Other's Gold by Elizabeth Ames.

22. What’s the longest book you read?

I think it probably is The Mysteries of Udolpho, which I am still reading.

Thank you again, dear Michelle.

#Eroticfriendfictions #My reading stats this year were utter rubbish #I had never read so little in the past years #My fault I guess #Answer #Books #Personal