#WHO likes poirot more than marple?!?!

[greatwesternrailway]

these results make me genuinely sad

[gwynever]

something I love about Benoit Blanc is that we actually get a genuinely new character. like yes he's inspired by classic detective tropes and I'm sure people who know much more about Poirot and Sherlock and Marple can deconstruct that far better than I could. but he's his own character with a clear personality that actually makes sense (looking at you Moffat with your 'collection of things that seem like they should be cool but aren't coherent' Sherlock) and we've been given some nice bits and pieces to play with for potential backstory (husband, friends, interests)

what makes me happy is that he's not a reboot or a remake or an adaptation, he's Benoit Blanc and he's awesome

[anghraine]

I'm not sure why, but I've been thinking lately of how much I loved Poirot and Miss Marple novels and short stories in high school, and specifically loved the "psychology" concept that drives them.

I mean, it's definitely not actual psychology, but I really enjoyed the whole shtick of "this person may well have committed a crime, or even be capable of Crime, but they wouldn't have committed this crime in this way because of their quirks as a human being." Or the reverse, where the crime turns out to be difficult because someone who wouldn't ordinarily commit crime did it for reasons that make sense if you understand them as a person but otherwise it's confusing.

(Of course, you also get murderers who try to exploit this approach but are, in reality, pretty run-of-the-mill murderous assholes. But even in those cases, really understanding who people truly are and what they're capable of in different circumstances proves essential to the broader solution.)

I'm really used to the assumption, or insistence, that a person or character having done any crime means they are somehow likely to commit any other crime, something which is patently untrue. And although the precision and assurance of the Poirot/Marple approach has about as much to do with psychology as a discipline as psychohistory does, I do appreciate it when a story leans on the finer points of who people are—even in the short whodunnit version of "finer points"—more than Bad People Do Bad Things.

(Obviously these books had many flaws, and can be super uneven; Christie was a near contemporary of my actual 20th-century fave, JRR Tolkien, and it's clear that their politics were not always very different, but I have a lot more respect for the reflections and re-considerations in later Tolkien writings than later Christie. But I do like the basic concept underlying so many of her whodunnits.)

[freezing-kaiju]

THE BIG POLL, ROUND ZERO, REPLACE BLADE BRAVE!!!!!

Beautiful show it is, Kamen Rider Blade must come to an end soon. I will cry. But the world must move on.

And I decided to make this one an anime poll, since some of the legacy options from the very first poll ended up being much longer than the rest. SO! This is all shows between 20-50 episodes, around the same length as a Rider show!

You must choose at least one; if u want more, leave it in the comments or tags or replies pls and i'll count your additional votes at the end!

Agatha Christie’s Great Detectives Poirot and Marple - A young detective related to famous detective Miss Marple joins other famous detective Hercule Poirot as his assistant and learns from these two legendry mentors to solve murders. I love detective shows but I'm not too familiar with Poirot and Miss Marple so maybe the show could serve as an introduction to them. It seems cozy but compelling! The lead writer worked on a bunch of the big popular serieses (Pokemon Sun & Moon, Fairy Tail, Death Note, and Anpanman). This one's a legacy inclusion!

Blue Gender - A man from the modern day with a strange illness goes into cryosleep and wakes up in a destroed earth where mechs and aliens fight and there is a cool tall woman who has a mech. It has gore, mechs which I do need to see more of, but it's a military series. Space's also listed in the genre stuff which...is that a spoiler, do they go to space? 26 episodes, so it's on the longer side, less diligence may apply. This one's a legacy inclusion!

Dirty Pair - 80s anime, two Hotted Boobhaving space agents fight and bicker their way through the galaxy in a distinctly 'two bi women constantly getting divorced' vibe. I don't remember if this one is a legacy inclusion, but it's a famous show!

Scrapped Princess - Fantasy setting, A local white girl doomed to destroy the world and her adoptive siblings travel the world to avoid her devastating fate. also... There's mechs?? Wikipedia tells me it’s a lighthearted but mournful show that uses Clarke’s third law to bridge the gap between scifi and high fantasy. This one was handpicked by a dear friend!

Texhnolyze - by the creators of Serial Experiments Lain, it’s a show that seems similarly angsty and cerebral but much grimier. A boxer gets dismembered, cyborgized, and possibly radicalized deep in the bowels of a city that never sees the sun. ALSO GACKT IS THERE?

R.O.D. READ OR DIE -THE TV- - a potentially jojoish, gay little show about a novelist with a heady mix of hubris and self-loathing and three bibliophile sisters with Paper Abilities fighting various goons and also Britain. It seems like a romp!

Captain Earth - In the vein of Super Sentai (sadly without the precious masks), a color coded group of teens that seems to include a Yaoibait Kaworu fight aliens on behalf of NASA, with a robot that has a REALLY big hat. Supposedly it’s got a lot of intellectual depth!

RahXephon - the second name on everyone’s lips when someone says Evangelion Rip-off, after Darling in the Franxx. Mechs that are blatantly angels, a JSDF, and blue-blooded men in black. I tried a bit, and it’s got a great capture of humanity in times of crisis and such a beautifully 2000s aesthetic.

Devilman Lady - what if you were Devilman and a Lady??? What if there was a blond woman and you were a beast and there was all this blood and violence. Psychological, grungy, and gorgeously 90s. And it's a yuri!!!

Chrno Crusade - Cisgender Bridget and a devilboy (no relation to devilman or devilmanlady) do exorcisms for an order of nuns in 1929 New Yawk Citay. It's a het romance, full of bumbling and comedy and period era ghostbustiness. Also for some reason in a lot of the art (like this one) Chrno is whitewashed?

ITS NOT LETTING ME PUT AN ELEVENTH VIDEO TAKE THIS AND SOME POSTERS

A Precure - I've seen Kamen Riders, Super Sentais, an Ultraman, but I've not seen the sister show to them all; Pretty Cure! SO clearly I need to, and if this one doesn't win it'll flood the poll to replace Ryuki. These options are suggestions; might be others.

[original image sources: agatha's is from the op but can be found screencapped here, gender, dirty, scrapped, texhnolyze, die, earth, rahxephon, lady, crusade (official magazine art findable here), pre tty cure (official posters findable in those places). i replaced them with trailers tho lol. but check the ones that are oroginal anime wallpapers out theyre very nice]

[kattahj]

My Agatha Christie Re-Reading Project, #49: 4.50 from Paddington

Full disclosure: I actually re-read this back in spring, but never got around to writing a review, and then I stalled on Ordeal by Innocence and got swamped by other things and... well. Here we are, half a year later.

It's not because I don't like this book, either. On the contrary, it's one of my favourites, largely due to the presence of Lucy Eylesbarrow. Out of all of Christie's one-book heroines, she's probably my favourite (though Frankie Derwent is a strong contender).

Lucy's of course a bit too good to be true. She's such an efficient housekeeper families fall over themselves to employ her, she's a gifted mathematician, and she charms every man in the house – but she also charms the reader so thoroughly that you accept it all.

Well. I'm not entirely sure that housekeepers made more money than mathematicians even in Christie's time, but I take it as Christie's continued grumping that help is too expensive and hard to get. :-)

The rest of the cast are Christie's standard well-off and quarrelsome family. Perhaps the closest comparison is Hercule Poirot's Christmas, and I would say on the whole, 4.50 does a bit better with similar character types. It's fun to see them interact, and the two men who are the most romantically interested in Lucy are both rather appealing in different way. (The book is never clear on who she chooses, though TV's Marple went with the – also possible and quite appealing – third option.)

As for Miss Marple herself, she takes a bit of a backseat role in this one, but as always, she's a delight when she appears.

But of course, the center of any Christie (under that name) is the mystery. The concept of the murder seen on a passing train is inventive and engaging, and Mrs. McGillicuddy makes for a fun POV character for that bit. The story as it progresses works pretty well too, but it should be noted that this book is pretty light on clues. All About Agatha claimed there were hardly any, but I don't think that's quite true. They're just hard to pick up on, and even a seasoned Christie probably won't figure this one out on the first try.

Still, consider the following:

Who is a suspect?

Who is not treated as a suspect, but is also heavily involved in the case and has a potential opportunity to commit the murder?

What is actually going on, rather than what seems like it should be going on?

Is there anything that's treated as fact even though only one person said it?

How are the following murders committed? Who would have the opportunity?

And a bit of a spoiler: What is the significance of Anna Stravinska's old colleague mentioning that she claimed to be married to an Englishman?

That gives you a sporting chance, though by no means any guarantees!

So on the whole (and admitting that I'm rating with a fair bit of nostalgia), my verdict is 4/5.

[mabith]

I also love Sister Boniface Mysteries, series 3 was fantastic and I'm rewatching the entire show all over again and MFMM is one of my top shows as well! I actually haven't watched Father Brown, but I was considering it because I'm looking for more shows like Sister Boniface - what other detective/mystery shows would you recommend? :D

Father Brown was never amazing, but I think after Sister Boniface it just feels even worse, so I kind of wouldn't recommend it unless you have it on as background maybe (there are some fun side characters and Mark Williams is perfect in the role). In particular the moralizing is meh (Father Brown is all about letting the murderer go to the police themselves and repent and YAWN). The earlier seasons were better, I think, but now my mind is so taken up with Sister Boniface it's hard to remember.

The first seven or eight seasons of Murdoch Mysteries were quite fun (starts out in 1895). It features a lot of actual historical figures in random episodes, and the side characters are just so great. Good bit of humor, Murdoch is always inventing modern things decades ahead of schedule. There is also an annoying recurring pseudo villain and it seems to be a prerequisite that Murdoch is accused of murder most seasons.

There's a not-quite spin off related to it, Frankie Drake Mysteries, more in the vein of Miss Fisher and also set in Toronto but in the 1920s. Definitely nowhere near the same quality as Miss Fisher but some fun stuff especially in the first couple seasons.

Miss Fisher's Modern Murder Mysteries was fairly fun as well. The mysteries were incredibly easy to solve, but it was a neat set up and I enjoyed the main character a lot.

The Mrs. Bradley Mysteries was a short-lived late-1990s show set in the 1920s, which I really liked. Only five episodes, but quality. Plus it's Diana Rigg.

Poirot is the classic, of course, and always a comfort watch for me. I mention out of acknowledgement that I am older than a lot of Tumblr. Of the newer Marple series, the first three seasons with Geraldine McEwan were good but if you're very familiar with Christie's works the cannibalizing of other stories and turning them into Marple stories can be annoying. The actress who succeeded McEwan just wasn't right for Marple at all and I stopped watching it (Miss Marple is a curious and vaguely menacing heron, the second actress was a field hockey coach).

If you're up for something in Chinese (with English subtitles) and not picky about historical accuracy in clothing, vehicles, etc..., Detective L is stupid fun (it's on free on WeTV and also Youtube but I think the Youtube one will have areas where the sound is cut). 1930s Shanghai, eccentric brilliant detective (and devastatingly handsome if you're into that), slightly dopier sidekicks, lots of humor. I honestly can't remember how the actual mysteries hold up, but every three episodes is one mystery arc and after ignoring the opening, previously on, etc... they're quite short episodes. You want to only watch up to episode 21 because they were banking on a second season which they did not get so the last three episodes are a cliffhanger and related to a wider mystery and who needs that. I'm a little biased because the lead actor is one of my favorite Guys, but I loved it.

The 2001 Nero Wolfe series was fun (another 1920s-30s), but I've also read all the original books so I'm not sure how much that makes a difference. No idea how it would feel to someone going in without knowledge of the books.

Bletchley Circle was an interesting one, far more harrowing than any of these others, and as you may gather I'm mostly into Fun Times.

For modern-set mysteries I'm quite devoted to Jonathan Creek.

[therealvinelle]

As a casual Agatha Christie fan, I am delighted by that recommendation. Do you have any other favorite books from her?

Sure!

And Then There Were None Ten people go to an island, it does not go well. This one stands out in that it has a good adaptation!

Appointment with Death The murder is ingenius and all in this one, but what I particularly enjoy is how well Christie captures the power an abusive mother can have over her adult children, it's a dynamic you don't often see in fiction (at least not played out this way).

Cards on the Table M. Shaitana has a fantastic idea: he's going to invite four murderers and four law enforcers to his house for a night of bridge, and he's going to stir up as much drama as possible. Things do not go well for M. Shaitana. (Stay miles away from the Suchet adaptation)

Crooked House The patriarch of an affluent family dies, and his twelve-year-old granddaughter decides to investigate. I was the same age when I first read it, which made the ending uh interesting.

Curtain Poirot finds the perfect murderer.

Death on the Nile Makes the list for many reasons, it's such a classical Christie but also because nobody agrees with Jackie's life choices, not even Jackie.

Hallowe'en Party A child claims to have witnessed a murder, no one believes her. A few hours later she's found murdered. I mostly like this one for the utterly insane murderer. What a champ.

Murder on the Orient Express There's a murder on the Orient Express. (If you want a film version, the 1974 version is the best. Suchet's version is... melodramatic, I don't like its ending but it had a fantastic opening scene, while the Branagh version is an atrocity, do not watch.)

Ordeal by Innocence Five years ago Arthur Calgary nerded about penguins to some random guy then left for Antarctica the next day. It was great. Now he returns to England only to find that the man was Jacob Argyle, and he was accused of murdering his mother that night. He kept claiming his alibi was some penguin guy and could give very specific, identifying details that five years later make Arthur Calgary "yup, that's me!", but Calgary was in Antarctica at the time so he never came forward. And uh Jacob died in prison in the meantime. But, Calgary tells himself, the important thing is that Jacob was innocent, right? Right? The Argyle family, who had finally put this behind them only to learn that their brother was innocent and one of the remaining members did it, don't agree.

Sad Cypress Elinor Carlisle is sad. She's about to hang for a double homicide she might not have committed, but even without that she'd still be pretty miserable.

The Secret Adversary I felt I had to recommend a Tommy and Tuppence, and while I don't remember much of any of them I'll just recommend the first one in the series. Tommy and Tuppence books are more political thriller than the usual fare, great fun if you want to switch things up during your Christie binge. (Do not touch ITV's By the Pricking of My Thumbs, though.)

The Mirror Crack'd One of my all-time favorites and weirdly formative. Miss Marple is grappling with the realities of old age, and solves a murder along the way. It's more character heavy than many of Christie's books, people do the things they do because it is in their nature and they can't escape it.

The Mysterious Affair at Styles The very first one! It makes the list for that. And because if you plan to read Curtain, you should read this one first as it references this one a lot.

Towards Zero Following the logic that the murder isn't the beginning of the story, but rather the culmination of one, this story is building towards the zero point - the moment the murder will occur.

Honestly, anon, I'm just listing Christies I fondly remember, I can keep going but the post will just get unreasonably long. Go read Agatha Christie, she's great.

Hercule Poirot's Christmas and A Pocketful of Rye get special shoutouts because while I haven't read the books, the ITV adaptations were really good, the former particularly with the casting and the latter particularly with the way the reveal was done. Same goes for One, Two, Buckle My Shoe, haven't read it but the adaptation was great.

(Overall I'm ambivalent about ITV's adaptations, the Poirot series wanted to be a fairly light, feelgood show the whole family could watch after dinner, and while both series liked to change things from the books and overall make them more daytime television, the Miss Marple series changed a lot more than the Poirot series did. They both have a nasty habit of putting Poirot and Marple in stories they weren't originally, usually to the story's detriment (passive aggressive shoutout to By the Pricking of My Thumbs). It's annoying, though does make it hilarious that they couldn't put Poirot in Crooked House.

They're still entertaining and I don't turn off the TV when an episode is on unless it's one of the bad ones, but... well it's daytime television-ified Christie.)

[dreamingdormouse]

Context!

Hey, other parents! PSA: Many works of pop culture derive significant portions of their humor and/or meaning from familiarity with cultural touchstones. Monty Python and the Holy Grail, for instance, assumes you know who King Arthur is! Children are not born familiar with these stories. Educating your kids does not JUST mean teaching them to read and write and do math and why they have to wear a seatbelt. Familiarize them with your culture's lexicon of mythology and references, both modern and ancient, and ideally some of those of other cultures!

I read the first few pages of Howl's Moving Castle to my kids a few days ago, and on the very first page it said "In the land of Ingary, where such things as seven-league boots and cloaks of invisibility really exist, it is quite a misfortune to be born the eldest of three. Everyone knows you are the one who will fail first, and worst, if the three of you set out to seek your fortunes." And I had to stop and give context - I summarized the fairy tale trope "Youngest Child Wins," seen in such stories as "Diamonds and Toads," "Ivan and the Firebird," most of the "Askeladd" stories, "The Princess on the Glass Hill," and non-Disney "Beauty and the Beast." I didn't tell them all of these stories, just explained that there were a lot of old fairy tales where the youngest of three siblings does much better than their older siblings, and that, at the time, that was a subversion of assumptions because the eldest was expected to inherit and to do well.

You don't have to start with the full (adult, graphic, tragic) version. Think about what references people are likely to make in person or in the media your kid consumes, and go from that. I do think my kids should know who Hercule Poirot is, but he can be on my "for later" list - partly because he's a more obscure reference, and partly because he largely figures in murder mysteries, which are less appropriate for 7-12 year olds. If my kids want old mysteries, we can go with Encyclopedia Brown instead. (Side note, recently ran into those again, shocked but not actually surprised to find out they were published in, like, the 1970s.)

And when you encounter problematic things, like period-typical bigotry of various kinds, you can discuss why those things existed and why we don't think like that, but knowing they did exist is also context.

For our family, we're working on the Grimm fairy tales, the Olympians, the Asgardians (not because of Marvel, because of Grandma), and based on their blank looks when I talked about Merlin the other day, I need to add the Arthurian mythos.

Later additions can include Anansi, Osiris and Ra, Coyote and/or Raven, Star Wars, Peter Pan, Sherlock Holmes, Shahrazad, Lang's Blue Fairy Book and some of the sequels, Robin Hood, Shakespeare, Llyr of the Long Hand, Amaterasu, Paul Bunyan (especially because great-great-uncle Paul was a logger), Bilbo Baggins, Narnia, Poirot and Miss Marple... whoo boy.

Yes I'm aware there's an English bias in what I've just listed, and that some of those are problematic in certain ways. I'm not listing everything they should eventually read, or trying to build up role models here. This is just me trying to cover the things that will form a basis for references in other stories and general conversation; "Elementary, my dear Watson" (which Homes never said, but is often quoted) means nothing without context.

[kiaroscuro]

I know that when people make new persona OCs they usually focus on the humans first and the persona second,, but,, I Am Not Like That, so have a bunch of Detective!Persona to foil the Thief!Persona

(Aka LunaChi uses any excuse to draw cool inhuman designs)

A little background info (because not everyone is as famous as Holmes) can be found under the cut.

Sherlock: part-time navigator until Poirot joins the team. His element is psi and he's got a tv for a face/robot body because Sherlock Holmes has been portrayed by the media and on television so many times that he keeps living on through those mediums.

Maud West: a real person born in 1880 who was known as 'London's Lady Detective'. She mostly investigated divorces and missing person cases and had many disguises. Her element is fire.

Peabody: star of a series of historical mystery novels. She has a quick mind and sharp tongue but is a romantic at heart. She's married to an equal egyptilogist husband, and they live in Egypt and London both. Her element is nuclear and she's a sphinx with wings because of her love of Egypt.

Poirot: one of Agatha Christie's many beloved characters, Poirot is a detective with a magnificent mustache who travels across Europe to solve cases, most famously the Murder on the Orient Express. He abhorrs violence, but his (probable) ocd is a great aid in his case-solving abilities which is why I chose him as a navigator. This Poirot is mostly based on the one in the movies by Branagh because I love those.

Dupin: a character by Edgar Allan Poe. Featured in what is considered the first detective fiction story, before the term 'detective' was coined. He relies on his intellect to solve crimes that interest him, and his appearance as a persona is heavily inspired by Poe's ravens from the poem Nevermore. His element is curse.

Miss Marple: another beloved character of Agatha Christie, an elderly lady who's a detective consultant. Her element is wind, and her design is inspired by the idioms "a sheep in wolf's clothing" and "silk hiding steel" as well as a book I've once read where sheep try to uncover the murder of their farmer, where the main sheep was a homage to Miss Marple

Ganimarde: a police detective often opposing Lupin, so I had to. Though Ganimarde doesn't appear in many of the novels, he's still one of the more recognizable recurring characters, if only because Lupin always outsmarts him in the end. His design is kept similar to Arsene's on purpose, and his element is ice.

Closeau: the detective featured in the Pink Panther franchise, an inept french policeman. Because the eponymous diamond (and later animated pink panther from the series) is more well-known than Closeau, he is a half-panther. His design mostly incorporates elements from the cartoon series, and his element is electro.

[spaceorphanssecondbreakfastclub]

Reading Agatha Christie: A Murder is Announced

Lesbians!

Okay, now that I have your attention...

Miss Marple is back! In a book that I liked but didn't love. We're now in the 50s, and Christie is turning the corner into her later writings where Miss Marple is going to show up a whole lot more of her books as Poirot is slowly phased out.

The books premise is a good one -- there's a newspaper announcement that a murder is going to happen and the people of a small town gather at the time and place to see if it really happens. And it does! And of course the mystery unravels from there - as Miss Marple helps figure it all out.

The set up is intriguing and back are the plethora of side plots and web of characters and it is all kind of fun as Christie uses a lot of her old tricks in a new and interesting way. I think what brings this one down a little is that it does feel a little bloated at times, therefor feeling a little draggy. But it is rewarding to people who pay close attention as there are a lot of little details that really point you in the right direction if you're paying close enough attention.

The character work is a little thinner than it has been in the previous few novels, and some of the plot elements do strain a bit of credulity, but I feel like if you go with it and enjoy Miss Marple being at her best then it is a bit of fun. And the whole second half picks up a lot of speed -- making it an easy read once you really get into it.

I think what really stood out to me more than anything was the context the book kept itself in? There's definitely some post-war related things going on, and, as Christie was getting older at the time, some lamenting at the way things use to be -- as well as general grumbling about the youth of the day (which is funny now - but I know Christie is going to get even more grumbly as we go on). It's definitely a snapshot of what an older woman in England during the early 50s would be going through.

Which brings me to the whole lesbian thing -- something this book is known for is the fact that it does feature a pair of unmmaried women with a close relationship, living together, and subtly hinting at the fact that they are, indeed, in a romantic relationship. They aren't the main characters - but it's interesting that its here -- as Christie doesn't really do LGBT characters very often, and unfortunately, they're often villainized when she does.

It's also worth noting that there's a lot of conversations about what it is to be a woman -- and the expectations and realities of being one. It's an interesting commentary that I think wasn't necessarily Christie's intention but a byproduct of Christie seemingly using these books as a way to explore the female character.

Anyway - this is one that I'd recommend. There is a bit of humor and a lot of twist and turns and I ended up liking it more than I thought I would when it started. It's a solid Miss Marple book and a good examination of what life was like at that point in time.

[twistedtummies2]

Gathering of the Greatest Gumshoes - Number 11

Welcome to A Gathering of the Greatest Gumshoes! During this month-long event, I’ll be counting my Top 31 Favorite Fictional Detectives, from movies, television, literature, video games, and more!

SLEUTH-OF-THE-DAY’S QUOTE: “It really is very dangerous to believe people. I never have for years.”

Number 11 is…Miss Marple.

Miss Marple is one of the most popular characters created by Agatha Christie: a woman whom many consider to be the single greatest mystery writer in the history of English literature. (Yes, even more than Conan Doyle.) While Christie wrote many marvelous books, and created a number of equally marvelous characters, only two have managed to make this list. On the bright side, however, one will be in my oncoming Top 10 (I won’t say who, nor where they rank exactly), and Miss Marple herself only JUST misses out on making the same, which I’d say is pretty good.

I mentioned with Ellery Queen and Father Brown the idea of the “Accidental Detective” or “Busybody Detective.” I think many would argue that, at least in the world of literature, Miss Marple – while not the first of this kind (the aforementioned Father Brown predates her by about twenty years) – might have been the most popular and influential. Miss Marple is not a detective by profession in any regard; she’s not even a priest or an author. She is, in fact, a rather prim, elderly spinster lady, who lives largely alone in a fine old house, living a life of sublime comfort and seeming tranquility and peace. She is, some would argue, the single least likely of all unlikely detectives there have ever been. She’s old, she’s petite, she’s mild-mannered, has a few eccentricities…in short, she seems more like that kind, well-off grandmother or aunt down the road than a super sleuth.

Of course, a super sleuth is what Miss Marple is. Miss Marple doesn’t go out of her way to find crimes and solve them, but whenever a murder or some other injustice effectively falls into her lap, and she feels the police aren’t doing well enough to figure it out, she takes it upon herself to lend her assistance in solving the crime. Her age, her experience, and – much like with Father Brown – her plain common sense are her greatest assets. While Miss Marple is not typically harsh or unkind, it’s indicated that – even before taking up her "hobby" of solving befuddling crimes – she’s seen a lot of human injustices and cruelties. Under her gentle-hearted surface, she’s privately a bit jaded. She’s not grouchy or overtly cynical, but she's also never remotely shocked or startled when terrible things happen, nor particularly upset by any motive for them, because she’s seen it all. She understands human nature and its capacity for evil, so she trusts no one completely and sees no great surprises.

Once again, the character of Miss Marple is one who has been adapted many, MANY times over the years. The first highly popular interpretation onscreen was Margaret Rutherford: her somewhat comedic film takes on the Miss Marple stories actually reinvented the detective somewhat, accentuating her eccentricities and making her a more zany character than usual. While not really what Christie imagined, this version is still popular today. Other actresses who played the character in movies include Angela Lansbury and Helen Hayes. She’s also starred in a couple of TV shows; the most recent featured first Geraldine McEwan in the role, then later Julia McKenzie, after McEwan decided to retire from the series. Arguably the strangest interpretation was an anime with the very long title of “Agatha Christie’s Great Detectives Poirot & Marple.” This series adapted various tales of Christie’s, including not only the Miss Marple books, but also several tales featuring her other most famous creation, Hercule Poirot. The two detectives were connected by an original character named Maybelle: a relative of Miss Marple who works for Poirot.

Most fans of Miss Marple seem to agree that the definitive screen portrayal of the character was Joan Hickson, who played the part in a TV series that ran from the mid-80s all the way into the early 90s. (She is the fine lady pictured here.) Hickson also narrated several audiobooks of the Marple stories, only adding to her legacy. To say she was right for the role is an understatement: long before being cast in the TV program, Hickson had appeared in a play based on Christie’s story “Appointment With Death.” The author was so taken with her performance, she later told Hickson that she felt, one day, the actress could be a perfect Miss Marple. As evident from critical reception since, this was a case of excellent judgment. No matter who you prefer in the role, considering that as recently as 2022 there were new Marple stories still being printed (obviously by contemporary authors; Christie’s work, in general, has many contemporary treatments to uncover, some better than others), it’s safe to say this grand old lady is still in the prime of her crime-solving life.

Tomorrow, the countdown enters the Top 10!

CLUE: “The enemy of my enemy is my enemy.”

[bropunzeling]

Mm top 5 comfort/vacation reads?

Top five tropes (to write or to read or both!)

comfort reads:

the brothers sinister series by courtney milan! great little romance series, solid sex scenes (the one in the governess affair novella is actually literally to die for), a delightful cast of characters. courtney's books are always solidly rooted in a mix of period detail and thoughtful politics, and i like how everyone likes each other!

kj charles generally but probably specifically think of england and proper english. i love very few things more in life than murder mysteries. i especially love when people initially at odds fall in love during mystery solving. it warms the cockles of my heart.

protector of the small quartet by tamora pierce - all the tortall books are comfort reads to me but this is THEE comfort read for me. i love kel with my entire body! she is precious to me! tall and buff and even-tempered but as stubborn as a mule. she and dom should have kissed!!!

agatha christie - i powered through every single one of her books available at the start of the plague times. i love the poirot books but i think for general consistency miss marple ones are almost always more solid. miss marple herself is a great outsider detective and i think there's few enough books that agatha couldn't grow to be tired of her lmao

i just powered through the goblin emperor books by katherine addison (had read the first but not the next two) and those are great fantasy books! the lingo is admittedly a bit opaque and hard to parse at first, but once you're in you're in, and the stories are really about human decency and kindness (while also providing political machinations (book 1) and murder (2 and 3), which as we all know are very comforting to me lmao)

tropes (this was really hard lmao and is for sure not definitive):

soulbond/mark/etc aus - a well done soulbond au is my jam. my artisanal preserves. the questions it raises about free will and fate? about someone being meant for you? i think there's really fun angles about like, how even relationships with this extra something still aren't going to be easy and smooth. there's also the aspect of like, strong or weak bonds? romantic or platonic (lol)? can you hear inside someone's head? or do you just feel better around them? or do you just have their name or first words to you sitting on your skin? what happens if it's one sided? what happens if it's unrequited? what happens if you're not ready? what happens if one of you wants it more than the other? what if you fall for someone you're not meant to fall for? these themes are SO fun and i love to explore them.

historical or period aus - i love aus, so jot that down, but when an author clearly loves the historical period and has taken time and care? i am there with my spoon. ALSO codes of conduct and manners just create such fun restraints to force characters who would just fuck it out to do other things because they CAN'T just fuck it out due to SCANDAL

slow burn - none of that 7k shit. but like a proper slow burn? a "takes 10k before they physically touch" slow burn? a "we're 50k in and they might actually kiss oh god please let them kiss" slow burn? mmm!!!! mmmMMMMMMMMMM

break up/make up - the thing is. the thing is!!!!! i like when characters have a history. a past. when they were something really important to each other and then that was ruined and now due to fate and or author contrivance they have been tossed together once more. like a salad. and then! the airing of grievances! the bad decision sex! (oh, the bad decision sex). the realization that there are things you know about them that they haven't told anyone else. you were the one who was there. you're the one who knows!!! in some ways you still might know them best! but right now you are worse than strangers because you may never become acquainted! until suddenly perhaps??? unless??????

arranged marriage / woke up married / marriage of convenience - i am combining all of these because the fact is i love when people get married for stupid reasons (or reasons that are not because of their ~heartfelt feelings~) and then they fall in love with the person they married and have big ol' feelings about it. i'm sure this comes as a shock.

[saintsenara]

one year in every ten - the masterpost

harry potter/tom riddle explicit | no major warnings apply

a decade on from the battle of hogwarts, after ten years of the wizarding world thinking it's safe, a serial killer emerges, leaving a trail of dead women in his wake. each of the bodies bears a gruesome, encoded message for the aurors... a message which - once unscrambled - claims the dark lord has risen again. in the face of the mystery, the order of the phoenix is hastily reformed, ron is stoic, hermione is scared, ginny is getting very good at putting on a brave face, death eaters who were never caught are getting ready to crawl out of the woodwork, and the ministry of magic has plenty of secrets of its own for kingsley to worry about... all harry wants is to distract himself from a marriage falling apart at the seams. all lord voldemort wants is to get out of the horrible place between life and death. so much so that he's willing to agree to help his old enemy solve the case. or so he claims.

read from the beginning here

chapter summaries: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 author's notes: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 moodboards: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 playlist | reading | answered asks

this is a detective story.

and it is, like all detective stories, about the investigation of a crime. but, like all detective stories, this is not the only thing it's about... one year in every ten is an homage to - in my humble opinion - one of the greatest forms of literature: golden age detective fiction. think sherlock holmes, hercule poirot, peter wimsey, miss marple and so on... this sort of crime fiction often seems - on the surface - to be quite light-hearted, and to focus on a sort of whimsical, eccentric crime [aristocrats glamorously poisoning each other, and so on] which is far removed from the reality of violence. but behind the eccentric investigators, scheming criminals, dissolute toffs in their secret-filled houses, clues, and red herrings, the detective fiction written in the first half of the twentieth century - especially that written by women - has a great deal more to say about topics such as gender, class, politics, the police, journalism, grief, anger, remorse, and the weight of history than it's often given credit for. and this story attempts to do the same.

it's a story about how the wizarding world has recovered from the war. and how it hasn't.

one year in every ten takes place a decade after the battle of hogwarts, in a world which thinks that it's moved on from the horrors of voldemort's second war and that all is well. if the daily prophet is to be believed, the sun hasn't stopped shining since the day the dark lord dropped dead: the economy is booming; prejudice has been eradicated; the grieving have been comforted by seeing justice done, and harry potter is perfectly content to live happily ever after. but maybe the truth behind the fairytale ending is a little more complicated...

it's a story about how getting the future you actually want requires dealing with the weight of the past.

one year in every ten is a story about the fact that the war had complex causes which can't be easily eradicated, and a ministry which pretends that they have been is doomed to continue in the mire of institutional corruption, even with a good man in the minister's office. it's a story about the people who have been left behind by justice, and about the problems with vengeance, the exhaustion of anger, and the trouble with forgiveness. it's a story about interrogating the decisions and regrets of the past, and about coming to learn that your enemies are real people, capable - even if only occasionally - of goodness. it's a story about being honest about who you really are and who you'd really like to be, and about what it takes to change yourself. it's a story about families, blood or otherwise. it's a story about death, and about life.

it is also a love story.

[chrissmou]

My October- November Reads

Hi! I know that some of these books should have come to you Last month but I also read only 4 books so I thought that I would show my 11 books for this month. These books as you see are mostly three series of books, All Souls Trilogy, The Selection, and the Jane Ladling Mysteries. There are other books from facts to romance and mysteries but those are the most of them. I would have the name of the month I read them at the Top of its books and I will also provide you with their Good Reads Links so you can go check them out:

October

Shadow of Night (All Souls Trilogy #2) (Deborah Harkness): A book with historical and fantastic elements that made me want to think about this trilogy which I loved in a very different way. Even if I loved the book the part in Woodstock in the beginning was boring to me but all the others had a very good pace and plots in them. It is a book written by a historian who knows how to make you travel in the past.

Art that Changed the World (DK Publications): A book with facts about paintings mostly from the Western world especially after the Renaissance it is very well written but, in my opinion, we would have to see more global exhibits and more in other forms like sculpture or architecture. I liked it as my first read in the art world and am excited to read more about it.

The World of All Souls (Deborah Harkness): Before I started reading the last book of the Trilogy, I decided to read this one. It is about the trilogy with character descriptions and descriptions of Lifestyle and art in the books and how the author came up with the main ideas of science and magic.

The Books of Life (All Souls Trilogy #3) (Deborah Harkness): This book is very different from the first two books in the trilogy it is not romance like the first or historical like the second. It is more of a drama, thriller, and suspense with plot twists that make it very thrilling and exciting to read. I like the character development of the two protagonists and how we learn more about them in the process too.

November

Romancing the Gravestone (Jane Ladling Mysteries #1) (Gena Showalter): This is a very fun read and the mystery is very intriguing but not the most difficult to solve. I loved the main character, Jane Ladling, and her method of solving crime and her quirky output of life and fashion too. She tends to wear hats.

No Gravestone Left Unturned (Jane Ladling Mysteries #2) (Gena Showalter): The Second book is good in how the protagonist solves another murder but also has the quirky elements of the first. I liked the development between the protagonists.

Game of Gravestones (Jane Ladling Mysteries #3) (Gena Showalter): I loved this book as it has both the first date and the first kiss of the protagonists but also a really fun murder game in the beginning and a good plot twist in the end.

Twelve Graves of Christmas (Jane Ladling Mysteries #3.5) (Gena Showalter): This is the only book in the series that doesn’t have a murder but it is mostly filled with a romantic holiday atmosphere yes in the graveyard and all the good plots of a close-proximity romance. It has a mystery though about cults and revenge.

Conrad: Falling for the Gravekeeper (Jane Ladling Mysteries #4) (Gena Showalter): This is the first book from a different perspective than Conrad’s, Jane’s boyfriend in the other books. It is the same mystery but Conrad’s first perception of Jane is hilarious, he reminds him of a human cupcake and how in all of the mystery can’t stop thinking about her.

Crooked House (Agatha Cristie): I loved this small Cristie despite not having Poirot or Miss Marple. It has all the amazing attributes of a Christie novel, complex characters, and plots but also the romance in it and the mystery of it. Of course, it is also a big house divided into parts but it also has a close circle of suspects something that I love in a Christie mystery.

Grave Wars (Jane Ladling Mysteries #5) (Gena Showalter): This is the last of the written books in the series and the most intriguing as it is the first that Conrad and Jane work with the real police as Conrad tries to become the new sheriff of the town of Aurelian Hills but there is a new murder that needs solving. There will be another book in 2024.

Can I tell you Something? (Holly June Smith): This spicy and romantic set in an Alpine resort and Cabin with descriptive Christmas traditions makes you want to jump into it and in the place of the female protagonist. She is witty and sweet and the sister of the best friend of the protagonist. But she also knows the second part of his second job as an erotica audio actor.

The Selection (Selection #1) (Kiera Cass): I liked the first installment of this series. I don’t read many dystopian novels but I liked that one. The style of writing was good and the main characters were complex. I would love to know about some side characters and that is why we have the novellas to complete series.

 The Queen (Selection #0.4) (Kiera Cass): I liked this one about the Selection before and the parents of the current prince. I liked how sweet and innocent the queen was but the character of the king was a little bit aggressive and egoistical in my opinion.

The Prince (Selection #0.5) (Kiera Cass): I liked this one about Prince Maxon in the days before the start of the Selection to the second with America. I liked how he thought about how to win her over from the beginning. I liked their hilarious from his point of view too.

[therealvinelle]

Wait this is super late and already February BUUt

what was your tumblr blog wrapped? Favorite ask of 2023? Most thought provoking?? Strangest ask of 2023?

Better late than never! Although we have an immediate problem: I have absolutely no recollection of which asks I received in 2023, so we'll have to dig through my drafts for this one (as interesting questions are the ones I start answering only to be overwhelmed by, and then shove into drafts where they are forgotten).

So, looking through my 2023 drafts we have:

Most thought provoking

Which Agatha Christie plot would Carlisle actually stand a chance of solving? Like he wakes up human and is told he's the famous Hercule Poirot, what's the best case scenario there?

Anon has no idea how much joy they bring me when they ask me to think about murder mysteries, my only gripe is that anon is clearly not a Christie veteran because while Poirot was her most famous detective, the woman had lots of detectives. Poirot, Miss Marple, Tommy and Tuppence, Superintendent Battle, or one-off characters such as Calgary in Ordeal by Innocence. The one-off characters are typically ordinary people who suddenly find themselves in the middle of some insane plot unfolding (see: Calgary finding out that he was supposed to be a hanged man's alibi, now he wants to set things right, or the narrator of Crooked House who got engaged to a nice girl only to find out her family is insane).

All of this to say: Carlisle doesn't wake up as Poirot, he is the Poirot, our Christie hero of the day who gets entangled in a conspiracy of some kind.

Which means I'd have to think of an Agatha Christie-esque plot of my own to fit Carlisle into it, and then explain how he solves it and this frankly is a fic, not a tumblr post.

Kudos also go to the person who very stupidly asked me why I'm so obsessed with Alphard Black recently when he's a non-character in the Harry Potter franchise, they got this reply. (TLDR: I squinted at the Black family tree until I'd gone insane.)

Favorite ask

Somebody asked me about the RMS Titanic :')

Also this one: Voldie metamorphosis anon here, I can't believe someone already asked you that lol. Weird! Now that you're a wizard terrorist with mind control spells, what terrible Oslo city planning decisions would you interfere with?

Splendid question, anon, but I was overwhelmed and just wanted to type "Barcode. Barcode!! THE PLANS FOR GAUSTAD SYKEHUS" and attach lots of pictures of Ullevål hospital, my beloved, and ended up stepping away from the keyboard with my hands in the air.

Strangest asks

I'll just list a few as I scroll down my inbox.

You have purgatory, where there are Tom Riddles from different "universes". What would Edward Cullen's purgatory look like? Are they all sad because they're in hell? Do they have complex polycules? They don't talk to each other at all? I want to know your thought What gets me about this one is the first sentence, where we take a Purgatory of Tom Riddles for an established fact. I feel @thecarnivorousmuffinmeta probably made a post about it at some point except neither of us have any recollection of such a post actually existing.

Do you think the cullen would like you Never have I felt more like Regina George walked into my inbox than when I received this one. No, anon, and I know you know it too.

klaus wants to date rebekah & elijah ?? would you please explain I've never been more flabbergasted than by anon watching one of the CW Incest Shows and being shocked, just shocked, by the idea there might have been hints there. I wonder what anon made of Wincest, I really really do.

[spaceorphanssecondbreakfastclub]

Reading Agatha Christie: A Pocket Full of Rye

We are back to a Miss Marple mystery! We're going to get a bunch more of her as we head into the last portion of Christie's life. Miss Marple has grown on me over the years - even if I still am more a fan of the Poirot novels. I did like this book, but it is unfortunate that Miss Marple isn't in it all that much. At least how she pops up at least makes sense -- as Christie doesn't want to set all of the Marples in St. Mary Mead.

This time - we have a wealthy businessman who is murder, followed soon by his wife and maid. And so it seems that it's all tied to the nursey rhyme 'a pocketful of rye'. Most of the time, the nursery rhyme stuff is a little eye roll-y, and Christie struggles to make it work, but it actually works really well here, as it, for once, makes sense with the story.

As usual, there's a close-knit group of suspects that revolve around the family. Yes, it does feel like we've been here and done that -- especially recently with all of the family dramas. But the story is simple enough and the characters engaging enough that I think it works. And the resolution is decent enough, even if it isn't Christie at the top of her game.

One aspect I do like is Inspector Neele, the head of the case. Usually with the non-Poirot/Marple detectives, I kind of don't think much of them, as they don't make that much of an impression on the story. But Neele is decently drawn, and it kind of is his story as he wants to figure out all of this for himself. His inner monologue is interesting, and he might be the most developed character outside of Miss Marple.

Like I said - Miss Marple doesn't show up until half way through the novel, but when she does, it's in an organic way. She kind of fades away, then pops back in at the end to tie everything together. It does work, and she does sparkle in this one, but it's a shame we don't get more of her.

Also interesting, I don't think there's as heavily a conversation about the 'life and times' of the 1950s as there has been in her past couple (though there's always little bits here and there). The one thing that did stand out is how -- office culture-y -- the beginning felt when the businessman was at his office. It feels like that sliding into modern day that always comes with the 1950s. We also get some upper middle class suburbia feels to this novel, which also kind of sets a tone and atmosphere more than its commentary on the times. Idk - I always find this angle interesting.

Anyway - it's a solid book, a quick read, and a fun Marple. I liked it.