Since Mother Eve in the Garden long ago

I started watching this show, Kaos, which is a show retelling Orpheus and Eurydice/general Greek myths/the Iliad and Odyssey. I picked it up because it stars Jeff Goldblum as Zeus, which struck me as bizarre and interesting, but it's actually brilliant. Well, I mean, the show is brilliant. (Goldblum might also be brilliant! Did he just force an eyebrow twitch?!)

There's a lot of fiction based on Greek myths, where the gods are real and the hero has to interact with them and all that. They never feel quite right to me - a lot of the time the conflicts between the gods are treated as very serious wars, and the gods themselves are pretty serious individuals. Or else they're Just Dudes. You either get the sense of their power, or you get the humanity. In Kaos, you get the sense of these very human foibles and weaknesses but also the power, both in terms of what they can magically do (Hera makes Zeus' lover's pregnancy fully develop in seconds and pop out a kid, then she turns the woman into a bee to add to her hives) and their aesthetic similarity to the ultra-rich.

It's also set in a modern fantasy world, rather than either here'n'now or ancient Greece; it reminds me of Kings in that way, if you remember that show? This is a highly believable and recognizable world where people worship the Greek pantheon with tongue-cutting-out and human sacrifice.

(Now I want something that goes in the other direction and acknowledges that the modern conception of Greek religion as a unified set of myths and a belief in The Pantheon is anachronistic in order to complete the spectrum.)

Yearly check up yesterday, clean bill of health. Seems likely my "appendicitis" was ovarian cysts, and the doctor thinks PCOS seems plausible, but the weird nerve thing I have going on in my left leg/foot is more of a "huh, keep an eye on that" issue. Nobody called me fat, which I'm always worried about! I don't know if I've been lucky in the specific GPs I've had or if the hospital has some kind of really progressive policies or seminars on the topic ... but I've never gotten a talk about diabetes or anything, and they always acknowledge how healthy I am (blood pressure of 110/72!).

Started watching Hazbin Hotel, mainly because I heard there was discourse about it being Problematic for having dark stuff. It makes me feel very nostalgic, in a way, because the art style reminds me so much of 2005-era DeviantArt posters who were strongly influenced by Jhonen Vasquez and stuff at Hot Topic. And it's a musical show, and the voice talent is A+++ (Christian Borle! Daphne Rubin-Vega! Jeremy Jordan in a role I DON'T HATE!). It's on Amazon Prime and I recommend it if you like edgy cartoons with heart. And musical numbers. And a powerful demon who talks like an old-timey radio guy complete with fuzzy filter to make his voice sound like it's literally coming out of a radio.

Also watching the new Belgravia series. I was leery of it at first because the original Belgravia was, well, Julian Fellowes semi-trash, and Fellowes has only gotten worse (see: The Gilded Age) ... But I started it and was surprised at the level of quality in the writing and directing. Turns out it has nothing to do with Fellowes, which is probably why. I mean, much will depend on how the plotlines turn out - I'm only on the first ep - but it seems like decent period television. A bit gothic, even! The main guy is so fucked up from his father, it's delicious.

Finished writing my 1920s queer Cinderella retelling! I've found a few possible markets on Submission Grinder and I'm very excited to submit, although I'm also getting anxious along the lines of "I think this story is fantastic so it has be published in the most perfect outlet."

Put all my skirt panels together, leaving an opening at CB and tops open in two places for pockets. Then I made a little plackety thing to go behind the opening because I want the historical fastening rather than a zipper.

I'm thinking of doing soutache around the hem in some kind of historical pattern - where do people get good soutache?

Rewatching Gentleman Jack. I can't decide whether Marion is really well-written or if it mostly comes down to the acting - the way every interaction with Anne becomes a battle over who's in charge of Shibden even though she has absolutely no standing to assert her mistresshood (and knows it)? The way she's constantly vibrating with barely-suppressed, sometimes unsuppressed, rage at the fact that Anne lives her life without asking for anyone's permission? I don't like her but I'm sympathetic to her.

In no particular order ...

( cut for spoilers )

I'm finding Queen Charlotte surprisingly good ... I'm on ep 4 and the only real issues I've had are that for some reason Shonda Rhimes decided to have the princesses be unmarried by choice and to have Charlotte disparage them for it - it just strikes me as not quite fair given that IRL they were constrained by their parents and largely not allowed to get married despite wanting to - they even had affairs with equerries and such because they wanted love and connection! (And on that note, even in-universe Charlotte and the camera are such bitches to the grieving Prince Regent after Charlotte dies! wtf!)

There's historical accuracy stuff to discuss - yeah, that one bit about "the bones of whales," plus she says the whalebone in her stays is "delicate" and could break if she moves too much, very silly - but it's all more along the lines of "Hey, interested in the history behind Queen Charlotte? Blah blah blah." Like, when Augusta and George discuss his marriage he assumes she's offering him a bride from the English nobility, and then when she says she's found him a German princess, he says, "A German? How exotic" - a subject bride wasn't against the rules but it was seriously problematic (Augusta and Lord Bute persuaded the real George III against doing just that), and George himself was so freaking German: Augusta (his mother) was a German princess, his father had been born and raised in Germany, George I was indisputably German and George II was a German adult when his father inherited the crown. It's not bad-bad, I just would like to see an 18th or 19th century royal drama that really engages with how German the family was. IIRC, even Victoria grew up speaking German at home and did the same with her children? And there's also some of that "you MUST get an heir soon or our family's position is precarious" stuff that is in every royal drama but is pretty silly here when George had three younger brothers (but I think they don't exist in this universe).

Somewhere in the middle is the fact that IRL, George did not admire Charlotte for her brains and fierceness - he very much expected her to stay in her place, submissive and quiet. He was kind of a domestic tyrant. I can't reasonably object to this because, eh, well, see icon, but it's one of those things that people should probably be aware of re: that Julie Andrews disclaimer at the beginning of the show. (I will, however, bring it up whenever anyone criticizes OFMD for the same thing.)

However, I really like that George and Charlotte each have a gay butler and the first ep has a totally unnecessary but actually very well-done sexposition scene between them. Equal rights! I'm also loving that they didn't go the Marie Antoinette route of having Charlotte unready for queenship in order to make her more ~relatable~ - the day after her wedding, she's prepared to be dressed by other people and then have a social schedule. She's confident and clever. Even though it's a spinoff of Bridgerton, it doesn't feel like a show About Romance in the same way as that - it feels like a historical drama that centers on two people who are married and falling in love. They seem to be handling George's mental health issues well, too.

Taking a brief break from writing (27k! final chapter!) to rant about how bad Sanditon s2 was.

( terrible )

Second seasons are typically meh, so it's not a big surprise to me that it's not even crazy like the first season but "crappy Regency romance" bad, but it certainly was a hatewatch and I can't wait to hatewatch the next season.

It's an interesting show. (Amazon Prime.) The basic premise is that humans and the fae - represented in two varieties, one with ram's horns, one with wings - coexist in a secondary world setting; some humans have been killing the fae and chasing them out of their lands, which leads them to flee to The Burgue, a human city somewhere, where in many ways it's a basic immigrants vs. natives story. Which does lead me to wonder, why bother making it secondary world fantasy? As someone who routinely makes up non-magical secondary worlds just for the purpose of writing alternate history without the pressure to make everything but the one changed thing the same, I shouldn't be so judgy, but there's a part of me that wonders, "If you want to make a show about prejudice, nativism, classism, deportation, and so on, why not just make it about our world instead of fantastic racism?" But then, the main mystery did rely on magic. (The fae themselves don't seem particularly magical. The ones with wings fly. I'm not sure if they're legit called pixies and the ones with horns are calls pucks, or if those are supposed to be racial slurs.)

The costuming of the wealthier characters is very interesting. At first I didn't like it: it's 1890s but with bustles, and there's one outfit I really hated with an Edwardian shirtwaist and one of those pointed belts with a smoothly-cut Edwardian skirt ... but it's also cut to smoothly fit over the bustle. It was ugly. But as the show went on, I found myself wanting to actually make some of the gowns, particularly Indira Varma's kind of vampy, bold princess-line gowns with 1890s sleeves, very reminiscent of that one Worth teagown. Tamzin Merchant also has some fantastic ones.

The patterns are almost ready! I wrote the instructions tonight, and I just need to update a couple of words on the pattern itself to reflect changes I made doing the previous - I'll be printing them out tomorrow at OfficeMax, but I probably won't be able to put them in the mail until next weekend. robinsnest and atherleisure, can you PM me your addresses?

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I don't think Lucifer is a particularly good show, but every so often it delivers well on the emotional iddy stuff and it does make me understand the appeal of wingfic, I guess. Also, Tom Welling got OLD and tbh I think he's hotter as a salt-and-peppery beefsteak than he was as a really old "teenager". After Tom Ellis played an amazingly sucky Claudio in the ShakespeaReTold version of Much Ado About Nothing (with Billie Piper), I didn't think I could find him sympathetic ever again, but he's good. So, grudging single thumb up.

Finally started watching this season of Outlander. It seems WAY better than the first few seasons. Like they've started producing it more like prestige television instead of "look at this sexy costume drama". I don't ... hate it?

IMO the costuming is better as well, even if it still hews to some of the annoying things (knit shawls/cuffs, that really abrupt RenFaire hip roll, etc.). Roger and Brianna dress in exactly the kind of hideousness people from 1971 would think was appropriate to wear to go back to the 18th century, which I appreciate.

Tired: Claire and Jamie 4ever

Wired: Bree and Roger 5ever

... about whether I like it or I don't. (The second season is up on Netflix.) I honestly think we do need more adaptations of classic lit, particularly rosy kidlit, that explores characters that are marginalized in the original - like Jerry - and adds characters of other marginalized identities, whether the marginalization is added to an existing character, like Miss Barry being a lesbian, or new characters are added, like Bash and Cole. To that end, new storylines of course have to be added and old ones changed. And in general, I love getting to look at canonical characters from new perspectives, like the more internal looks at Matthew and Marilla.

But I just don't understand why this show is pretty good at dealing with these other marginalizations (the episode with Miss Barry's party was FABULOUS, and just about everything with Bash is great) and so incredibly clunky when it comes to feminism. Like ... there is a black community in Charlottetown, and they are treated poorly by many white locals, but we get to see that they are real people with their own lives despite that. Cole is a sensitive gay artist who's terribly uncomfortable with almost every aspect of his life, and gets bullied for being different, but the show never has to explicitly say what's up. But then when it's time to deal with sexism, it's like "Miss Stacy wears pants and no corset and rides a motorbike!" "Anne complains that trousseaux contain linens instead of only books!" "Various adult women make awkward statements about gender relations that would not have to be explained to anyone born before 1930!" "Mrs. Andrews wants Priscilla to go to college and Prissy runs away from her wedding!" It's like the other issues are in first gear along with the plot, but every time feminism comes into it we suddenly shift into third.

(And also, I'm cool with changes from canon, but Gilbert and Anne's relationship just comes off very oddly.)

When I think about it, they probably would have done better to adapt Emily of New Moon. For one thing, it just is a bit grittier than AoGG - Ilse's backstory? Perry being from Stovepipe Town? Mrs. Kent and her issues? DEAN?? - and then you have Ilse to make any political statements you want. But it's not well-known so you don't get that "this is Canadian Heritage" flavor.