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didanagy

PETER PAN (1953)

dir. clyde geronimi, wilfred jackson, hamilton luske

#film #animation #disney #peter pan 1953 #book to film #queue

angstystoryteller

RONALD COLMAN as SYDNEY CARTON in A TALE OF TWO CITIES (1935)

#that's my man #ronald colman #sydney carton #the man of no discretion <3 <3 <3 #a tale of two cities #old hollywood #queue

Hello! I really enjoyed (re-)reading your Persuasion story, For Those In Peril On The Sea. I have a bit of an oddly specific question that's also slightly NSFW (so please feel free to delete this ask if it's a discomfiting one) but there was a part that stood out to me:

“I know,” says Anne into his shoulder, “that we were not expecting — that is, that we had not thought of a third child, but — ” She feels him stiffen, and looks up to meet his eyes. “I thought we might ask Sophia and the Admiral to be godparents? If all goes well, that is, if…”

Firstly, I love how sweet this discussion and frankly all these two's communication is, and Frederick's certainty that if there was something even slightly off with his wife, 1) he would've instinctively understood 2) she would've found some way to communicate that to him even without words. Makes me think of homophrosyne!

But I was wondering, does "we had not thought of a third child" imply that there was some attempt(s) made at family planning by the Wentworths? I've read a couple Regency marital hygiene manuals (thanks archive.org) that alluded to husbandly "consideration," i.e., men taking measures to prevent one's wife from going through frequent pregnancies, with all the "modern" sense of men's sexual selfishness as a vice that this implies(!); I was wondering if your Frederick did indeed have that sense of "consideration" which Anne knows about and discussed with him, and what that might've entailed. Thanks and hope you have a good day!

Hi! I'm gratified that you enjoyed it! (Fic here for the curious.)

To your first point, the ways we see Anne and her Frederick attuned to each other even when they think everything between them is hopelessly consigned to the past really do drive me wild. I love them.

To your question: it's been a long time since I thought about this, but I'm going to say yes. I read Anne as genuinely devout, and therefore very likely to assent to the proposition in the Book of Common Prayer that marriage is ordained for (among other things) the procreation of children. But also, as you observe, the medical/social advice enabling and encouraging couples to take a degree of control over reproductive sex, largely as a consideration for the woman's physical and mental health.

Also, for the record, I'm not discomfited by sex being a fact of life.

#persuasion #fanfiction #asks and answers

sociedadnoticiasmx

“Un hijo propio”, documental de Maite Alberdi sobre el caso real de una mujer que fingió un embarazo, llega a Netflix este 13 de agosto tras su recorrido por festivales internacionales. #Netflix

oldshrewsburyian

I watched this and found it to be compelling and moving. As with her previous documentaries, Alberdi combines compassion and creative filming, and gets really impressive results.

#un hijo proprio #maite alberdi #a child of my own #i was particularly impressed by #armando espitia #documentary #film #queue

Undertake what's easy as if it were hard, and what's hard as if it were easy. In the first case, so that confidence does not make you careless; in the second, so that lack of confidence does not make you discouraged.

Balthasar Gracián, The Pocket Oracle and Art of Prudence, 1647

#balthasar gracián #book quotes #adultbooklr #17th century #queue

if-one-of-us-falls

The Song of Songs is the original "she is beauty, she is grace, she will punch you in the face"

#true #judaism #queue

nkp1981

Sylvester McCoy in Glasgow, Scotland, July 2026

#delightful #sylvester mccoy #doctor who #scotland #queue

yuniper

my specialty is liking the same movies that 50-year-old dads like but in a way that would instantly send those dads into cardiac arrest if they heard me talk about them

#also about me #film #queue

rachels-memories

Gregory Peck, ph. by Alfred Eisenstaedt, 1949, for LIFE magazine

#alfred eisenstaedt #gregory peck #wow ok #black and white photography #1940s #queue

snoopyoftheday

snoopy of the day

#so true #peanuts #chopin #schroeder #snoopy #queue

didanagy

SENSE AND SENSIBILITY (1995) dir. ang lee

#sense and sensibility #sense and sensibility 1995 #cinematography #ang lee #queue

Knowledge and courage contribute in turn to greatness. Since they are immortal, they immortalize. You are as much as you know, and a wise person can do anything. A person without knowledge is a world in darkness. Judgement and strength, eyes and hands; without courage, wisdom is sterile.

Balthasar Gracián, The Pocket Oracle and Art of Prudence, 1647

#penguin classics #balthasar gracián #book quotes #currently reading #adultbooklr

Set on August 14, this book, through the reunion of two old friends in the midst of a war, explores the complex ties of loyalty and love, and the question of what makes a tragedy.

#historical fiction #sándor márai #embers #this book is so good #i describe it as historical fiction because so much of it is preoccupied with a world vanished at the time of writing #queue

wearethekat

July Book Reviews: The Witch Below the Dreaming Wood by HG Parry

I felt meh about Parry's The Magician's Daughter, but A Far Better Thing absolutely blew me away last year, so her latest book was one of my most anticipated titles of the summer. In The Witch Below the Dreaming Wood, Elaine is sent away to an isolated manor house in Wales after her job at the British Museum is bombed in the Blitz. As she catalogues the library alone, she begins to have increasingly intrusive dreams of Nimue and the fall of Arthur...

Although the book opens with the World War II setting, the Blitz is more scene dressing to emphasize the themes of the Arthurian retelling than anything else. The real plot and most of the action is with Nimue, not museum employee Elaine. The Witch Below the Dreaming Wood is definitely not a story about King Arthur running around smiting German pilots or something. The influence of Elaine's modern setting on the Arthurian plot is much more subtle. I hadn't realized that the agonizing over the inevitability of war in TH White's retelling was so closely inspired by World War II, and Parry is clearly paying homage to that link. And even as a standalone narrative, the Nimue chapters are an excellent interpretation of the character in their own right. There's a strong sense of the inevitability of story capturing people in its wake, and a certain melancholy lent by Nimue entering the story so late, only a year or two before Arthur's fall. While I'm a little disappointed that Parry didn't have much to say about the modern timeline other aside from in reflection, I've always been a sucker for yet another good Arthurian retelling, and the book delivers on that front. Recommended, if not as much as the glorious tragedy of A Far Better Thing.

#fantasy #arthuriana #booklr #queue