Productivity is back down to about 10%
Feb. 6th, 2019 07:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chocolatepotBut I've written three treats for Chocolate Box, and I'm working on a pitch for Contingent, a new history mag aimed at a general audience that especially wants to publish people with a postgraduate degree in non-tenure-track/non-academic jobs. (Attacking the idea that flappers are equivalent to Millennials.) I really need to get back to my bib-front gown but as usual I'm afraid of cutting out more fabric and ruining it.
Watching DS9's "Far Beyond the Stars" this evening. I so appreciate it when shows do episodes that are AU fanfiction.
Would like to buy myself a new lipstick or two because I wear Tango Red almost every day, Carmine on occasion, and Victory Red once in a great while, but I get exhausted looking at the options and then trying to figure out how it will look on me ... I feel like I want a more medium pink for variety, but I don't know if a pink will suit me at all. Wish Besame did sample lipsticks!
I never know what exactly I think about the new Les Mis, so a few disjointed points.
- THOSE TITLES. It looks like they just typed "LES MISERABLES" in bold Times New Roman in MS Paint. You can even see the stepping in the curves of the Ses because it's so shitty and low-res(?). I really, really do not understand this decision.
- At first I really liked this adaptation for slowing down in comparison to the musical - showing the progression of Fantine's life, all the stuff with Marius's father, Cosette at the convent. But then all of a sudden it kind of seemed to speed up in ... ep 4, I think? Pas bon, messieurs. I am liking the battle scenes in ep 6 that are more gritty and dirty than the musical, though.
- Altogether I don't recall the book well enough to tell exactly where it's being unfaithful. I'm pretty sure Cosette doesn't remember where she came from, though? But I suppose it does give her a lot more agency and character to have her remember and not just pass from Valjean's shelter to Marius's.
- Costuming is overall very good, but the hair. As far as I can remember there is only one bit with good hair - when Cosette gets dolled up and is walking with Valjean and meets Marius, and even then it's more like the impression of good 1830s hair rather than actual good 1830s hair.
- I also give it two thumbs up for diverse casting, but the downside is that you end up with biracial Eponine dying to further the love between two white people, and she is specifically the opposite of the beautiful innocent blonde girl. And I mean, the two men best classified as villains (or at least antagonists) are both black, and one is part of the only interracial relationship shown. And then the Valjeans have a black servant. This all feels very :/.
- Enjolras should be about 4000% more charismatic. And it was super brave of the producers to cast both him and Grantaire so unattractively. (Do you think it was intentional, or were they completely unaware of the fact that there's a huge following around them? Even beyond fandom, Enjolras always seems to be cast as a blond god.) They should have given more screentime to Les Amis in general, because there just wasn't enough of them to make you really care about them personally, which was disappointing as I was hoping to finally learn which is which. All I know is that Bossuet is bald. I think.
- Dominic West and David Oyelowo are powerhouses and we are so lucky to get to see them play against each other. Also, Cosette is gorge
- "Cosette thought the prisoners in a chain gang must be very wicked, so instead of explaining to her about structural inequalities and the fact that they may have committed very minor crimes to end up there, I'm never going to see her again." Um, okay, weird reaction.
I also never know what I think about Victoria. I do know that I'm mad as heck about Skerrit!! I was so happy that we were going to get a married woman who continued to work, and except when Francatelli was being super dickish I was pleased about him (you have to understand, in historical fiction there almost never are any characters with Italian last names unless they're in the mafia (and there weren't any other people with them where I grew up, either), so I root for Italian characters when they come up), so I'm not! happy! that she died of cholera to make Victoria sad.
Watching DS9's "Far Beyond the Stars" this evening. I so appreciate it when shows do episodes that are AU fanfiction.
Would like to buy myself a new lipstick or two because I wear Tango Red almost every day, Carmine on occasion, and Victory Red once in a great while, but I get exhausted looking at the options and then trying to figure out how it will look on me ... I feel like I want a more medium pink for variety, but I don't know if a pink will suit me at all. Wish Besame did sample lipsticks!
I never know what exactly I think about the new Les Mis, so a few disjointed points.
- THOSE TITLES. It looks like they just typed "LES MISERABLES" in bold Times New Roman in MS Paint. You can even see the stepping in the curves of the Ses because it's so shitty and low-res(?). I really, really do not understand this decision.
- At first I really liked this adaptation for slowing down in comparison to the musical - showing the progression of Fantine's life, all the stuff with Marius's father, Cosette at the convent. But then all of a sudden it kind of seemed to speed up in ... ep 4, I think? Pas bon, messieurs. I am liking the battle scenes in ep 6 that are more gritty and dirty than the musical, though.
- Altogether I don't recall the book well enough to tell exactly where it's being unfaithful. I'm pretty sure Cosette doesn't remember where she came from, though? But I suppose it does give her a lot more agency and character to have her remember and not just pass from Valjean's shelter to Marius's.
- Costuming is overall very good, but the hair. As far as I can remember there is only one bit with good hair - when Cosette gets dolled up and is walking with Valjean and meets Marius, and even then it's more like the impression of good 1830s hair rather than actual good 1830s hair.
- I also give it two thumbs up for diverse casting, but the downside is that you end up with biracial Eponine dying to further the love between two white people, and she is specifically the opposite of the beautiful innocent blonde girl. And I mean, the two men best classified as villains (or at least antagonists) are both black, and one is part of the only interracial relationship shown. And then the Valjeans have a black servant. This all feels very :/.
- Enjolras should be about 4000% more charismatic. And it was super brave of the producers to cast both him and Grantaire so unattractively. (Do you think it was intentional, or were they completely unaware of the fact that there's a huge following around them? Even beyond fandom, Enjolras always seems to be cast as a blond god.) They should have given more screentime to Les Amis in general, because there just wasn't enough of them to make you really care about them personally, which was disappointing as I was hoping to finally learn which is which. All I know is that Bossuet is bald. I think.
- Dominic West and David Oyelowo are powerhouses and we are so lucky to get to see them play against each other. Also, Cosette is gorge
- "Cosette thought the prisoners in a chain gang must be very wicked, so instead of explaining to her about structural inequalities and the fact that they may have committed very minor crimes to end up there, I'm never going to see her again." Um, okay, weird reaction.
I also never know what I think about Victoria. I do know that I'm mad as heck about Skerrit!! I was so happy that we were going to get a married woman who continued to work, and except when Francatelli was being super dickish I was pleased about him (you have to understand, in historical fiction there almost never are any characters with Italian last names unless they're in the mafia (and there weren't any other people with them where I grew up, either), so I root for Italian characters when they come up), so I'm not! happy! that she died of cholera to make Victoria sad.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-07 06:03 am (UTC)I 100% agree about Victoria. That made me so angry and annoyed. Like I spend all this time getting attached to Skerrit and her journey and then suddenly she is just yanked away so that Victoria can have some feels.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-09 03:19 am (UTC)I always thought they were doing a deliberate parallel kind of thing by having Skerrit have her own proper plotlines, basically the only person other than Victoria who does ... maybe they saw that as a flaw, though? Like "we can't have the downstairs plotline move out of the palace, it's too much attention not on Victoria," so they killed her off and replaced her as the dresser. Stupid, stupid. Well, I know what I'm requesting in the next multifandom exchange I do.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-09 05:42 am (UTC)Yeah, that makes sense. Like it was looking dodgy when they moved out of the palace, but I kind of don't want to follow this new Abigail person. I also don't get why she'd be qualified to replace Skerrit. That just doesn't make sense to me. I mean, she just does some fancy sewing.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-11 01:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-02-11 03:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-02-07 02:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-02-09 12:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-02-09 01:11 am (UTC)They aren't large containers, but that is the point of samples :D
no subject
Date: 2019-02-09 03:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-02-09 03:49 pm (UTC)https://danabren.dreamwidth.org/1208457.html