#poirot like You are a good boy

[rain-shoshana]

“I advise you, Hastings, to go to bed.”

“No,” I said. “Not unless you do. I’m not going to leave you.”

“Most faithful of dogs! But see you, Hastings, you cannot assist me to think. That is all I am going to do-to think.”

I still shook my head.

“You might want to discuss some point with me.”

“Well-well-you are a loyal friend. Take at least, I beg of you, the easy chair.”

-Peril at End House, Agatha Christie

I will never be over this book. I will never be over this exchange. I will never be over these two.

[coffeeviolinist]

One of the most fascinating things about Furuya Rei is how deeply unsettling his Amuro persona actually is, at least to anyone who truly knows him. I would argue that Amuro is even creepier than Bourbon because while Bourbon is a cold-blooded killer, at least with him, what you see is what you get. There's no darker side hiding behind Bourbon's mask because Bourbon is supposed to be evil.

But Amuro Tooru is meant to come off as (at least mostly) harmless. To anyone who only knows Amuro, it's easy to like him. He's friendly, charming, handsome, smart, maybe a bit dorky, and he's good with kids. Add the fact that he's also a customer service worker, and you've got yourself a man that most people would be completely fine with letting their guard down around - which is precisely what makes him so dangerous.

Because at the end of the day, Amuro is just a mask that Rei created to help further his mission. And Rei, as we all know, is the very opposite of harmless. We've seen time and time again that he has no problem with potentially destroying innocent lives if it benefits him in some way. None of the charming friendliness that Amuro Tooru displays is sincere because Furuya Rei has almost no one left alive in the world that he genuinely cares about. Arguably, the only people left alive that Rei cares about are Akai, Conan, Kazami, and maybe the Detective Boys (granted, Akai is more in the sense that it's impossible to hate someone and not care about them). And even then, Rei would have no problem with screwing them over for the sake of his mission and letting them get themselves out of trouble. Sure, he might hesitate a little if it was the DB since they're children, but he would ultimately still be able to do it, and he would leave it up to Conan (and Haibara) to save them.

I mean, he would fuck Akai's life up for a Klondike bar, but that's beside the point.

When it comes to everyone else, though, Rei couldn't care less about any of them. He would kill or at least majorly fuck them over for his own benefit in a heartbeat, and more to the point, he would care very little about ensuring that they had a way to save themselves or had someone that could save them. If they do, great, if not, well, sucks to be them, but it was for the greater good. At any given time, anyone who knows him as the cheerful, dorky, nice guy (no, not that type of nice guy) Amuro - Ran, Sonoko, Azusa, Hattori, the Poirot customers who keep fawning over him, anyone - could find themselves on the wrong end of one of his schemes, and the odds of him feeling any remorse if they die or have their lives permanently ruined in some way are slim to none.

TL;DR: Amuro Tooru is the type of guy who pretends to be a friend and lures people into a false sense of security while holding a knife to their back, and that, at least to me, is far more disturbing than a man who's just an outright ruthless criminal.

[beaniegaebie]

i don't really have any solid conclusions about this yet but i noticed A Thing in a rewatch and i haven't found it mentioned elsewhere yet so here we go

(apologies for the appalling image quality you're about to see, i can't screenshot easily rn pls bear with)

OKAY so in the scene where crowley confronts gabriel about "shut up and die", something about the arrangement of book stacks caught my eye a little

the majority of the books are angled so that we mostly just see the page edges and not the spines clearly, EXCEPT for a particularly shiny and familiar colour combo right here-

but nothing too weird going on there, i thought, crowley coloured books in a bookshop so what? right up until i registered crowley's line when we get a closer look-

hhhhmmmmMMmmmm yes yes "everything just the way you wanted" huh, very interesting considering that we know how much thought goes into props huh

and for most of the shots we get of crowley in this position those freaking books are just quietly nestled right there in the corner-

look at that god damn framing i fuckin see you, you glorious bastards

so i paused to see if i could figure out what the hell was up with those fuckers and this is when i absolutely lost my mind, your honour

A and C you say?? in crowley colours???? framed like this?????? localised entirely within your kitchen???

anyway long story short they're two books from an Agatha Christie Crime Collection set (24 volumes, three stories per volume) and guess whats on the mfing front covers I'm-

(its a rant for another post but when paired with this other set of initials spotted in s2 i want to scream actually)

ANYWAY back to the books, through an absolutely unhinged comparison of the formatting of gold text blobs i reckon the two we have here are:

(on top) The Pale Horse; The Big Four, The Secret Adversary

(on bottom) 4:50 From Paddington, Lord Edgeware Dies, Murder in Mesopotamia

(I'm fairly confident but if anyone has a better image to confirm/correct this pls do)

now here is where I'll need a bunch of help from some Christie-heads out there bc I haven't read any of these and I've only seen the tv adaptation of one of them, so i dont know for sure if these are like A Clue, or A Cool Thing, or if I've just fully brainrotted myself into a fun lil corner here? wa-hoo

but here's some initial stuff that jumped out at me after skimming the basics:

(some of) the titles: Pale Horse/Big Four - death's horse ofc, the four horsemen mayb? the them+adam?? ; Mesopotamia is a very biblical choice bbz ; 4:50 From Paddington- azi likes trains i guess? idk that one's tenuous lmao ; honestly no idea with the other two but Secret Adversary feels a tad ominous

iirc Big Four just has kind of an unusual history, it was initially twelve short stories that she later compiled into one, and it was published fairly soon after christie's mysterious disappearance/reappearance

in Big Four, poirot fakes his death at one point and doesnt even let hastings in on it and I'm hoping sure its totally irrelevant to the ineffable bois

part of the Pale Horse story is a group of assassins that basically try to pass off all their murders as being actually caused by like ✨satanic powers✨ which is interesting

christie knew a fUCkton about poisonings thats why she wrote so many into her work and, while i don't believe the poison coffee theory myself, it sure is an interesting link with how cyanide is associated with almond smell/flavour and that metatron chooses almond syrup in particular

(ALSO random side note that is mostly meaningless but I've worked in a good few uk coffee shops and have never worked anywhere that stocks almond syrup; almond milk yes, hazelnut syrup yes, but never almond syrup...? prob just the places i worked though lmao)

EDIT forgotten point: I've seen some speculation that the bently's plate reading "CURTAIN" could be a reference to poirot's last story, along side that alternate scene of crowley ordering the sherry for "miss marple", its just one too many agatha christie references for my melted brain to handle and I'm SUS

so this is where i run out of idea steam and hand it over to you lot because i have no clue what this could mean, if it even means anything other than a cool set feature

is there something here actually or am i yelling into the void just for fun?

who knows, who cares!

[runawaymun]

Hey! Any advice on writing multi chaptered fics or just longer stories?

I feel like I'm okay for like snippets but have no idea how to write the middle of a story or move a character or story from point a to point b.

And asking you because you're writing is phenomenal and I'd love some advice.

(But if no brain space for advice I totally get that too and feel free to hide this ask or something)

(Anyway great updates on boundless and the one shot Brimbrond)

Sorry for taking so long to respond to this! I just wanted to take some good time to gather my thoughts because oh man oh boy I am a bit of a nerd about plot structure, even if I pants it a lot of the time -- because middles and structure absolutely plagued me when I was a beginner and so I spent a long, long time studying it and breaking it down.

I'm going to start with some very, very basic advice and then get into some more specific stuff. So let's talk first about how to structure a long-form plot first.

DISCLAIMER: this is how I personally structure plots. More often than not I veer off my own track. And this is a very western way of structuring a plot. It's well worth looking into how storytellers from around the world structure their work because it can vary wildly (Miyazaki is a great example of this). Take this with a grain of salt. It's a guideline which I find helpful. This is going to get very, very long. Bear with me:

When I'm first thinking about how to create a plot around a story I want to tell, this is the process I walk myself through, and it tends to work about 75% of the time for the stories I like to tell (I'm not much of a thriller or mystery writer and those tend to have different kinds of structure). Main recipe is as follows:

Status quo - establish the setting and the character. Do this by the middle-to-end of chapter one, preferably. You can get away with drawing it out a bit in sci-fi or fantasy works that require more worldbuilding, but try not to.

Inciting incident - I won't tell you to start in media res, as that varies from writer to writer and story to story. Generally you want to have this somewhere in chapters 1-3. Say we're talking about LOTR - I'd say the inciting incident is when Bilbo goes invisible at his birthday party and leaves for retirement. Everything sort of snowballs from there (Gandalf confirming this is The One Ring, the Ring being passed to Frodo, the adventure beginning, etc. etc). This is where your character can lose something, or be confronted with a huge problem, or gain some new information. This is the point where your story really picks up.

Point of no return - your character has been presented with a problem or is put in a situation and now they have to decide what to do about it. Sometimes characters choose to run away, or choose inaction. It's up to you and your character as to what they do next.

The annoying part - the most helpful way I've ever found to think about middles is in terms of a series of decisions and consequences. Your character must decide what to do (or try to get what they want), and this will then come with consequences to those decisions. I ignore a lot of writing advice because writers seem to be very cagey about how they compose middles and plots for some reason, but the one piece I heard that helped me was: "What does my character want, and what stops them from getting it?" -- and this can be anything, right? Frodo wants (has to) take the Ring to Mordor. Luke wants to learn to be a Jedi like his father. Inspector Poirot needs to catch the murderer. Odysseus wants to return home. Each of these characters are going to make a series of decisions toward their goal, and they may be working from incomplete information, or bad paradigms, or racing against the clock, or against impossible odds. They're going to make mistakes. Over and over and over again. The middle is a series of decisions, consequences for those decisions, and obstacles (more on that later).

Point of no return 2, electric boogaloo (i.e. the actual midpoint to the story) - the part right before the climax -- the climax IS NOT the midpoint of your story, nor is it the end. This is your midpoint where Everything Fucking Sucks. Your character's back is against the wall. They have to change, or fail.

Paradigm shift: your character learns something new, or develops in some crucial way that leads to:

The climax/confrontation: 3/4 - 7/8th of the way through your plot. Frodo decides to keep the ring. Luke uses the force to blow up the death star. Anakin's fear and the manipulation from Palpatine overtakes him and he turns to the dark side. Inspector Poirot gets his last crucial piece of information and gathers everybody together for the Big Reveal. Odysseus gets home and chases the suitors out of his house. Etc. Etc. This is that Big Point in the story we all think as the most important or crucial point (but it's not. That's the key here. THE most important point is the whole middle of how we got here).

Consequences and paradigm shift 2 electric boogaloo: varies from story to story, but this is the fallout of the last decision or confrontation. Your character may reflect on what they've learned. The killer goes to jail. Frodo returns to the Shire and it's saved, but not for him. The journey your character has been on has irreparably altered them, or the world around them -- for better or for worse.

Resolution: the place where you land the story ;) what is the final impression you want your readers to have of your character, or this world?

Alright so that's all kind of nebulous. Let me give you a slightly more specific form of this plot structure that I use pretty often, because I almost exclusively write character and relationship-driven stories since that's what interests me most:

So most of this looks much the same (the inciting incident is some kind of meetcute. The characters then have to decide if they want to have some kind of relationship -- I like to name this part the callback). Then we have a whole weird squishy section of building interest and tension, before once again we have The Big Fight (darkest before the dawn or what have you), before one or both characters have some kind of paradigm shift, they confess their feelings (or resolve the fight or whatever), and the security of the relationship is established -- happy go lucky times, everything is beautiful and nothing hurts.

So the middle here is of course still squishy and nebulous, but the focus here is still on "What decisions are the characters making? What are the consequences of those decisions? What are they learning, and how do they respond to it?" Maybe the tension is in one character being more reticent, while the other is more open. Maybe the tension is a sexual tension (will they, won't they?). Maybe a character is working off of incomplete information, or a misunderstanding, and that needs to be cleared up before the relationship (or even their own personal growth) can progress (both Elrian and Thalionel in Stars and Boundless Sky follow this pattern). The middle is a push-pull between your character's desires and outside forces that are stopping them from getting what they want, or achieving what they want to achieve.

So okay, that's all well and good. That's basic plot structure. Let me get into my thought process about middles specifically:

Begin with your ending in mind. I do not mean that you need to have like the whole resolution to your story fleshed out. If you're that kind of writer, great! But if you're more of a pantser like me, then that can be a big ask. Instead, ask yourself: what do I want my character to have learned by the end of the story? How do I want them to have changed, or grown? Do I want it to be for better, or for worse? Is there a specific plot goal you have in mind? (saving the world, or catching the murderer, solving the mystery, exorcizing the ghost, the couple getting together at the end, the found family finally gelling with each other, or whatever).

Once you have that thought in mind, now start to think about what your character might need to get from their starting point to their ending point. If it's a murder mystery, this is your information gathering section. You can lead your character to wrong or right conclusions. Have them make mistakes. Etc. etc. If it's a romance, this is where you create a string of scenes where the characters have opportunities to interact and learn more about each other (works for platonic slowburns, too). If this is a traditional hero's journey, this is where you plop in your actual journey.

Not to repeat this ad nauseum, but your middle is all about getting your character to your end goal, but in the most difficult way possible lmao. Let them make mistakes. Let them make bad decisions -- and then follow through with the consequences of those bad decisions. Give them bad information. This is where understanding your character's fundamental flaws becomes extremely important. Your entire plot, imo, stems from your character's fundamental flaws -- because ultimately that is what is going to slow them down the most from reaching their goal. Sure, you may have the big bad evil guy (bbeg), but we're not worried about him. That's an external factor and that's easy to drop in when you need a quick problem to place in front of your protagonist -- but that problem needs to be in service to your character or your worldbuilding. Teach them something. Give them an opportunity for growth. Aragorn needs to lead at Helm's Deep so he can inhabit his leadership role. The mountain pass of Caradhras needs to force the Fellowship through the mines so that Gandalf falls fighting the Balrog and comes back leveled up and ready to fight, and other characters in the fellowship have a chance to grow into their roles without relying on Gandalf for leadership. Your middle is all about crafting little opportunities for character growth, always while moving toward your end goal -- whatever that may be.

The paradigm shifts are crucial, and they can shift for better or for worse. It's up to you and your characters and the story you want to tell as to which it'll be.

If you're bored, your reader is bored. Only write what excites you, skip all the rest, and make it make sense at the end -- I'm so serious. Yes you need to add in breaks for pacing (like the whole Rivendell section in LOTR), but in those breaks still make sure that you're either expanding your worldbuilding, or giving your characters and opportunity for growth.

If you want to tell a really long (novel length) type of story, sideplots and alternate POVs are your best friend. They are structured exactly the same as a regular plot, they're just simpler or smaller and generally work in service to the main plot. Maybe there are side characters or side relationships you'd like to develop. Maybe there's a smaller mystery or a part of your worldbuilding you'd like to explore. Action plots can be side plots to romantic or platonic slowburn plots, just as much as it can be the other way around. And this is not something you need to structure out the gate. Just be curious and playful. Find points in your story that interest you, and explore them a bit. You'll find that they expand the story.

Biggest and best tip I can give you, when all is said and done, is to decide what kind of story you want to tell and then examine how other people are doing it. If you want to write a superhero story, pick out your favorites and look at how they're structured. If you want to write a mystery, same thing. If you're writing a romance or a drama, again -- same thing. Look at the pieces of fiction that you like, figure out what you like about it, and then apply it to your own work.

That's all the general advice off the top of my head. IDK how helpful this was lol. If you want more tips on middles I can try to look at it a bit more in depth, but to be quite honest middles are really what defines a genre. Romances have different middles to thrillers. Thrillers have different middles to mysteries. Mysteries have different middles to dystopian sci-fis. Etc. Etc. So take the general advice with a grain of salt and look more specifically at the genre of story that you're looking to tell.

Thanks for coming to my tedtalk <3

[welcometothejianghu]

Welcome to another round of W2 Tells You What You Should See, where W2 (me) tries to sell you (you) on something you should be watching. Today's choice: 民国奇探/My Roommate is a Detective.

My Roommate is a Detective is a 2020 drama about the Jazz Age shenanigans of a terrible OT3: a useless noodle boy, a spoiled journalist girl, and a handsome thug-turned-cop, who together solve Agatha Christie mysteries in 1920s Shanghai.

I mean, seriously, have you ever wondered what Hercule Poirot would be like if he were a 6'2" Chinese rubber man? If he had a long-suffering sugar daddy from the wrong side of the tracks and a spunky sugar mommy who owned their shared apartment? The answer is, it would be a laugh-out-loud-funny series about a ridiculous and charming assortment of weirdos solving only slightly believable murder mysteries in charming period clothing.

This is another one of those shows where I'm kind of shocked at how not well-known it is, except I'm not, because I can see exactly the problems that keep fandom from descending on it like horny little vultures. Nonetheless, I think it's a good time that more people would enjoy if they gave it the chance. Here's five reasons why you should:

1. Equal parts smart as heck and dumb as butts

On the one hand, especially given its tone and tenor, this show has many surprisingly clever turns and thoughtful moments, carried along by some talented actors. On the other hand, [.gif of a guinea pig in a rollerskate being pushed merrily down a hallway]

This show is not a complicated intellectual exercise. It's an action comedy about a goofy sleuth, a rich-girl reporter, and the cop who should be the straight man in this trio, except he's as much of a goober as the other two are. If the promotional tableaus are giving you real "cover of a Clue box" vibes, you've understood the kind of pastiche it's pulling off.

The mysteries are preposterous. They're all the kind of thing that exemplify the Doyle line about how, when you've eliminated the impossible, whatever's left has got to be the answer, no matter how ding-dang improbable it may be. You know the type: tons of overly elaborate setups, unbelievably perfect timing, coincidental long-lost relatives, people hallucinating right and left. They're also very short -- most full cases take only 2-3 episodes to introduce, investigate, and resolve, even when interspersed with the larger goings-on in these weirdos' lives. The DramaWiki page for the show lists 23 separate arcs over 36 episodes, so you do the math.

And yet, it's way more thoughtful and clever than its doofy little setup would indicate. Its attention to detail surprised me on more than one occasion. Add to that a bunch of solid performances from an ensemble of real characters, and what you get is definitely more substantive than a junk-food waste of time. You can't turn your brain off while watching it, but you sure can turn it down, and that's great.

It also doesn't hurt that everyone is super attractive and wearing great outfits. The whole show's worth it for the wardrobes.

2. THE GIRL

Fuck the haters, fuck everyone, I am going to climb right up on my little soapbox and tell you all why Bai Youning is awesome.

She is insane. She's a troll. She's a clever little monster. Every other character's response to her is, oh my god, you are literally the worst. And she is! She has been spoiled beyond belief by her incredibly rich Crime Dad, and she has learned to leverage her uwu just a widdle girl status to get her whatever the hell she wants. She simply cannot hear it when someone says the word "no." She will look her future sister-in-law in the eye and point a loaded gun at her own head without blinking. Every ball she has is made of brass.

She's hardly perfect. During the course of the show, there are some times where her entitlement runs face-first into the brick wall of reality. She's not nearly as good at her chosen career path as she's been told (mostly by the people who get paid to tell her she's good). She's rarely prepared to deal with the consequences of her actions, especially when she can't just throw money at the problem.

So she learns, and grows, and changes. She's always going to be a stubborn bitch, but she can become a stubborn bitch with a more accurate conception of her relationship to the world around her.

She's actually a really good romantic foil for Lu Yao, who is equally stubborn and spoiled and obnoxious as hell. It is a pure brat4brat relationship, where each one thrives on comically enraging the other. What this means, though, is that when they actually start showing one another some vulnerability, it's really sweet.

Now: I'm pretty sure that you could not have made a female character in her position that everyone did not hate, no matter how cool you made her, because that is the fate of all girls who theoretically keep the two boys from kissing. (More on that next point.) If she were less outgoing and friendly, she would've been hated for being too cold. If she were less headstrong, she would've been hated for being a pushover. If she weren't as into the boy, she would've been hated for being frigid. I know the "god forbid a woman do anything" meme is a joke, but ... man, god forbid this girl do anything. She gets a level of hate entirely disproportionate to what she's actually like. As I said with Eom Dada, it's not always sexism, but sometimes, yeah, it's sexism.

(Real talk: Her character is also fighting both how she's definitely not written as well as the boys are and how the plot sometimes needs her to be artificially stupid and jealous for Straightness Drama Reasons, so that's a legit problem on a structural level. Also, she's dubbed by someone else and the boys aren't, which gives her voice an annoying not-quite-there quality that's hard to ignore. The deck is stacked against her real hard even before she steps onscreen.)

So here's my advice: Go into this show wanting to like her. Embrace her terribleness as a positive, intentional quality. Don't be mad at her for straightening up an endgame that was never going to be gay, even without her. Welcome her contributions to the chaos. Realize that she is exactly as entertainingly irritating as her boys are.

Truly, this is a story of three terrible people in love. They're all just awful, and you wouldn't want to be in a room with any of them for longer than you had to. Left to right up there, Bai Youning is spoiled and self-absorbed, Lu Yao is arrogant and lazy, and Qiao Chusheng is suuuuuch a fucking cop. If you're into the kind of dynamic that can only be described OT3: You All Deserve One Another, then this one's perfect for you.

3. Do you really miss '00s queerbaiting?

Like, really? Are you just super-nostalgic for being able to see the showrunners go, ha ha, girls, we know you're watching and we know you want these cute boys to kiss, which they never will -- but what if we pretended for just this one scene??? Do you just carnally ache for that with every fiber of your being?

Yep.

Now, why am I calling the occasional really gay moments between these two gentlemen "queerbaiting" and not "bromance"? Because these moments are a) obviously intentional, b) completely sporadic, and c) never spoken of again.

For example: There's a scene (which you can see a gifset of here) where the two of them are at a restaurant frequented by the cop, who brings a lot of ladies there on dates. When the waiter points this out, useless noodle boy says, I'm his date. The waiter looks mildly surprised by this, the cop says not to listen to his bullshit, and that's the end of it. The scene moves on. There is no further discussion of this comment. It does not affect their relationship.

That's the essence of queerbaiting: that little on-purpose nod to the homoerotic tension between the two, in a way that isn't a joke but also isn't not a joke, and either way is never going to happen. (In fact, the show is going to go out of its way to make sure that ship gets sunk, so, uh, get your fanfiction lifeboats ready for that.)

A true queerbaiting move is something that should make a difference in a relationship, but doesn't. It should make a difference that our cop is so comfortable in the noodle boy's personal space that he invades it at will. It doesn't. It should make a difference that noodle boy keeps getting real weird every time the cop has a date with a girl. It doesn't. Those are some real romantic moves the two of them keep pulling, and then nothing comes of them.

I had this show sold to me as being incredibly shippy, to the point of being even more so than its censored-BL contemporaries. And ... well, it is and it isn't. It has textually gayer individual moments, but it is much less pervasively gay. It's clear from the start that it's going to throw all its actual relationship points into its canon het romance. When it comes to these boys, the show is toying with you. It knows you want to see those boys smooch, just as much as it knows (and it knows you know) they're never gonna.

How you feel about this is entirely up to you -- and indeed, it may be a dealbreaker on the whole drama for you. If you are inclined to pitch a fit when your ship does not become canon, you'll be happier somewhere else. If, however, you see this as a delightful opportunity to do whatever the hell you want with the situation as it is presented, all the while enjoying little moments of startlingly blatant homoeroticism between two handsome dudes, well, here you are!

(I mean, if you want my take on it, what needs to happen is that the cop and the girl need to fuck while the useless noodle boy watches with asexual bisexual interest, and then they all need to snuggle with the noodle boy in the middle so they can both annoy him appropriately, but your mileage may vary.)

4. The multicultural extravaganza!

1920s Shanghai had a lot going on in terms of cultures and languages, and this show actually does a fair job of representing that.

By now, I've seen a number of shows set during this era, and they all at least acknowledge the international nature of the city -- usually by mentioning the French Concession and having a handful of evil Japanese characters. However, this is the first time I've seen a show go to such lengths to actually show so many non-Chinese characters onscreen, even to the point of making one a recurring character supporting the main squad.

Salim is the best. Whatever he is being paid, it's not enough. He's Qiao Chusheng's right-hand man, which means he is also the dude who most often has to put up the main trio's bullshit. (The actor himself is also a dude with a pretty cool backstory, which is another great layer.) He's sharp, he's loyal, he's patient, and he looks great with his shirt off. He's got it all!

Other non-Chinese characters include a white Jewish art collector (I'd issue a warning for period-typical antisemitism, except … honestly, it's mostly just confused), a sadistic priest who maybe is supposed to be Italian, a completely different priest who [last episode spoiler], and three whole sinister white dudes behind it all.

It's not just the world coming to China, though! A large number of the Chinese characters are said to have spent significant time outside of China, whether for business or for schooling. Near the end, when some characters are discussing moving away from Shanghai, they consider a number of foreign cities as potential destinations.

Here's a delightful detail: When Lu Yao and his sister speak English, they're dubbed by actors with posh British accents who sound like native (or near-native) English-speakers. This makes perfect sense, because both of the siblings did a lot of their schooling in the UK. When Bai Youning speaks English, she's dubbed by someone who speaks English very well but also has a noticeable Chinese accent, which makes perfect sense for her character's background. And Qiao Chusheng never speaks English at all, because he's a street tough who has no reason to know more than three words.

...This is also kind of weird to say about something literally made in China, but go with me on it: Everything's kind of got that Art Deco Orientalist vibe to it. It looks like China's idea of what Britain's idea of China during that period would have looked like. The result comes across less like what 1920s Shanghai would actually have looked like, and more what an ad for 1920s Shanghai would have looked like. It's a fascinating aesthetic, and more so for how it's mostly pretty subtle. The show isn't some visual extravaganza, but it's always very nice to look at, and I appreciate that in a show.

5. A wonderful horrible protagonist

A lot of mystery-themed prestige television involves an asshole genius detective who gets away with being a dick to everyone because he's sooooo smart, while all his long-suffering friends and colleagues spend a lot of time doing damage control for him because, sigh, he's an asshole but we need him, genius excuses all dickhead behavior, we'll always make exceptions for him because he's just ever so special. (Watch histrionic sage hbomberguy's video on Sherlock if you're unfamiliar with the trope.)

Lu Yao is an asshole genius detective, but one who winds up spending most of his time being an asshole to a) people who deserve it, or b) his horrible friends who will be assholes right back at him. When he is awful to the people who don't deserve it, the show smacks him pretty hard on the nose for it and makes him apologize.

This is a show where you'll figure out pretty quckly if you'll love it or hate it, because if you love Lu Yao, you'll love it, and vice versa. He carries most of the show himself, with his goofy charm and his incredibly bendy slenderman body and his ability to make the one competent person he knows both protect him and give him money.

Like so.

For my own part, I find him intensely charming, and I think a lot of this has to do with Hu Yitian's ability to play him as an affectionately bullyable weenie who needs to get shoved in a locker for his own good. He's the worst, and it's comically endearing instead of offputting because at the end of the day, he really does have a good heart. He's just also lazy as heck and disinclined to do anything that he does not want to be doing, and really, aren't we all?

As I alluded to in point 3, he comes across as real asexual. He's just not that interested in sex, and he is in fact pretty uncomfortable in situations where he finds himself the subject of someone else's sexual desires. He's perfectly capable of romantic feelings! I mean, not only does he get Bai Youning as a love interest, we actually meet one of his ex-girlfriends. He's just not partciularly horny about them -- which is even more noticeable as a sharp contrast to how extremely horny Qiao Chusheng is for just about everyone, but this exasperating little dork in particular.

(Like seriously, 90% of the time, Chusheng is about to explode with sexual frustration at Lu Yao's skinny oblivious ass.)

This isn't to say you couldn't get Lu Yao into bed, because you absolutely could, and he'd probably have a good time. You'd just have to remove all distractions from the room, lest his ADHD ass wind up running off to solve a crime mid-coitus.

Twiggy little nightmare man. Garbage-animal boy. Love him.

sidebar: A word about the ending

I'm going to be vague and talk about general vibes instead of specific events, but you should still skip this section if you want to remain completely unspoiled. Jump to the picture of Chusheng holding the sledgehammer.

Okay, so, a lot of people do not like the ending, and I'm including myself in that number. I honestly don't know if they got rushed and had to wrap everything pretty last-minute, or if they thought they might get a second season out of it and were leaving things open-ended accordingly. Either way, it's incredibly unsatisfying.

I think there's a clue that the show didn't actually want to end this way, and it's not actually in the text of the show itself. Every episode, between the last scene and the start of the credits, you get to see a couple still frames from the episode (usually some of the queerbaity ones). After the very final shot of the series, you get two images: the boys hugging goodbye, and Chusheng's upset face. That's not a resolution! That is at best a "to be continued..." ending!

But no, that's it. That's all, folks.

It's not quite an ending so bad it ruins the rest of the show, mostly because it doesn't feel finished, so it's less like you're watching a car being deliberately driven into a wall because someone thought that was the best route to take, and more like you're watching someone leave a car on the railroad tracks because they figured they'd have time to move it later.

As far as I know, there has been no noise made about a second season. These 36 episodes are the entirety of the narrative. It had the distinct misfortune to start airing in March 2020, which wasn't exactly prime time for planning sequels, and that seems to have been that. (There is a 2022 show called Checkmate that stars the two main guys in extremely similar roles, also adapting Agatha Christie stories, but it's apparently pretty meh? Somebody else who's actually seen it, go ahead and weigh in here.)

I'll say that if you turn off the episode right after Lu Yao gets out the handcuffs, you'll save yourself the worst of it the awkward and unsatisfying moments (though I'm impressed at your willpower to stop watching something five minutes from the end). That's not all of it, though. Structurally, there are several situations rushed to a resolution and loose threads left flapping untied in the breeze. I guess stopping before the last five minutes simply saves you the hope that it'll pull a good ending out of the fire, because it won't.

And let's be real: The more you hate Bai Youning and her romance with Lu Yao, the more you'll hate the ending. (Not that liking those elements will necessarily make you like the ending, of course, because I'm a fan of hers and I still think the ending is butts.) The ending is already like a pair of uncomfortable shoes; if the het romance especially makes you grind your teeth, the ending becomes a pair of uncomfortable shoes that also have a rock in them. A lot of the comments online indicate plenty of people dropped the show when they learned the het romance would be endgame. It's a pretty common dealbreaker.

Oh well. Bring on the fanfic, I say! Those of us who are used to taking a sledgehammer to canon are unafraid.

Smash it, baby.

Still want to see some of these mysteries?

Both iQiyi and Viki have the answer to your sleuthing!

It's not a perfect show -- as evidenced by my digression about the ending -- but it's a lot of fun. If you can handle the occasional foible and some eyebrow-raising moments, you're in for a good time with some attractive people that occasionally tastes very gay.

Every roommate crazy 'bout a sharp-dressed man

[johannadc]

Gregory, are you ill?

Didn't realize quite how much loo roll I'd used for my costume. And unwinding made me dizzy.

I suppose you're too tired, then, for some of those thrillers you enjoy that I have recently acquired.

Nah, I'm fine! See, I'm up!

Good, then you'll have no issue tidying up my office. I can't have all this paper left around, tripping us up.

Alright, alright, since you were willing to try something I liked.

Why am I rewinding all this? Need some extra paper in the toilets?

Gregory, that has touched your person. It will be disposed of appropriately. The rolls keep things tidy. And raise fewer questions.

Read to me? My hands are busy.

If you keep rolling. Oh, this Poirot person is about to realise something significant.

This is Yarn Boys Halloween part 2. Part 1 was Greg in costume.

[illegally-blind-and-deaf]

Ok, but hear me out

Tintin and Poirot.

Two Belgians set around the same time, both fighting and solving crimes and going to ridiculous places to do it

But think of how hilarious the dynamic would be

You have Poirot, who takes careful precision and time and perfection in everything, who thinks and uses those little grey cells of his to figure out every detail, every possible error

And then you have Tintin, the teenager with the dog who will spontaneously decide to fly a plane to goodness knows where chasing after rumours and barely thinking before running into danger head-on and somehow still wins a gunfight with no gun while still being a completely logical person who completely baffles literally everyone

It would be hilarious and iconic

"Now, Monsieur Tintin, if you are going to sleuth about, please take the utmost care and use those very intelligent grey cells of yours that you often forget you have and please, mon cher ami, leave the dog. He will make noise."

"The dog's name is Milou, and he goes everywhere with me."

"He will ruin our plans. You cannot tame a wild animal; they get in the way and get you in trouble."

"... well, if I am to be honest I get myself in trouble and Milou is the one who gets me out of it-"

"Good gracious boy, remind me why I decided to work with you again?"

"Because I'm Belgian and I've never failed a case?"

"How you have not I still do not know."

"I beg your pardon I handle myself absolutely fine!"

"You go into gun fights without a gun."

"And? I'm still alive to tell the tale, aren't I?"

"Miraculously."

Of course the cases always go mostly smoothly (though there are several times Tintin is accused because he was, as usual, in the wrong place at the wrong time and when Poirot isn't stressing over Tintin's childish yet effective recklessness, they have a nice cup of tea and talk about human psyche and behaviour while eating cake.

Also, Poirot is very happy because Tintin is one of the few people who says his name correctly

The joy is reciprocal when Poirot calls him with the Belgian pronunciation of Tintin (it sounds more like a nasal tantahn, it's hard to explain) and they have great fun discussing in French about their adventures

It would be so fun honestly

[indelen]

This is my reread of the Lockwood and Co. Books, organized by @blue-boxes-magic-and-tea , I'll make a general summary of several chapters and then post bits and pieces that jumped out at me.

Part IV, Chapters 17-18

I am in full fall mode and made cinnamon buns:

There is a lot of murder mystery, detective Sherlock Holmes/Poirot tropes in this section of the book which I really enjoyed since I love murder mysteries. These fun moments where Lockwood is clearly thinking on a different level than the other two arguing with him about taking the Combe Carey job and giving enigmatic answers or stating “oh of course i was so blind not to see it!” at a pivotal moments in the plot are all classic mystery stuff and done for the benefit of the audience. We, like Lockwood, suspect Fairfax is up to no good. Not just because of all the in-universe issues with the story he gives to Lockwood & Co. but because we as the audience realize on some level the Fairfax and Annie Ward plotlines must be connected and Hugo Blake is a classic red herring. We are aware we are reading a book and know the conventions of a murder mystery. So we build a camaraderie with Lockwood which is essential to liking him. Prior to this we actually see very little of him being competent. The book starts with Lucy and Lockwood burning down a client’s house. We feel bad for their situation in the world and the shittiness of the universe they’re in but they’re not at their most competent there. And with Lockwood, because he’s so distant and remote you start wondering well, should he be running an agency? Morally he displays a lot of good qualities - he’s kind, he’s brave, the archives scene shows off how good he is with a rapier, but this part of the book specifically highlights that Lockwood is clever and is very much capable of thinking ahead. And this, in turn, makes us believe in his dreams and aspirations for the agency more, afterall he is actually quite good at planning ahead. So maybe, for all his flaws, his plans for the agency are not all hot air. 

Miscellaneous:

Love the running gag that Lucy just has murder eyes and both boys are low key scared of her but she doesn't realize it. 

This is fun because at first glance it just seems that Lockwood is agreeing to this whole thing because of his ego and desire for the agency to get publicity. His answers can be taken two ways in that classic detective way that’s very satisfying for the reader to catch on to. 

When I was first reading it I thought it was just Stroud dipping into a known and well recognized detective genre tropes audiences will recognize and have fun with. And I still think it’s true. But I think specifically Lockwood’s love of disguises and accents (which always always go badly) is him actively trying to cosplay Sherlock Holmes since this sort of stuff is exactly what a kid reads and loves to act out in Doyle’s stories. This whole running bit is very childlike - Lockwood is doing too much, he’s too theatrical, it’s too noticeable. This is his one very very “kid” quality and it diminishes as the books go as a subtle indication for him maturing. 

Ok, on re-read, I think this is not Annie. Annie rarely spoke to Lucy and her connection with Lucy was mostly emotional. I think this is Skull literally one room over yelling extremely colorful expletives at her for behaving so dumb and she can once again almost hear it just like during the interview, even through the silver glass.

I know this bit with bad taxi driving would have been too Looney Tunes goofy to include in the adaptation but it was great fun to read. The later part of the book, where Lucy and George settle their differences and bond over being pissed at Lockwood for agreeing to go to Combe Carey Hall, has a lot of these great moments where they snipe at each other in a more fond and friendly way and it’s really fun to see that evolution.

I love this little bit because it means Lockwood didn't lie that he “mislay” his wallet because he's a dick or because he's cheap or irresponsible but because he needed all his available cash to pay extra to the taxi driver so that he would post the message to Barnes. This is important because it proves Lockwood pretty much planned to sick DEPRAC on Fairfax from the start, well before he even learned details of Fairfax’s youth and other stuff on the train ride there. He only had them cone solo first to make sure they got the 60k from Fairfax first.

Given that Othello is canonically a POC character and the only Shakespeare lead role for POC actors for a very long time (unless colorblind casting is used, but that is a very recent thing), this bit implies we can add “blackface” to Fairfax's many crimes.  Get his ass Annie.

[bibliophile-in-training]

A Plebian's Review of the Last Voyage of the Demeter

I don't do reviews normally but I have many thoughts I wanted to share after recently watching this movie. In general, I did enjoy this movie and I thought it was a fun watch. As someone who read Dracula and enjoys most modern Dracula stories I would watch it again if it came on. (6/10)

Non-spoilers:

It took some liberties with the source material. Combine the recent Poirot movies with modern vampire lore and that's what you should expect, not something strictly adhering to the novel. Not necessarily a bad thing, but if you're enjoying dracula daily just know this isn't really that.

On that note, Dracula bibliophiles aside, it's a pretty good movie on its own. It's suited for modern audiences and won't confuse them with Stoker's vampire lore (ex. what can and can't kill a vampire, what powers Dracula has).

It had pretty gory moments that you may not be prepared for if slasher movies aren't something you watch. Also, check out doesthedogdie bc there are a lot of potential triggers.

The lighting for this movie was really good imo. There was a strong contrast between day and night which awesome, but you could also still actually see what was going on in the dark. There were a couple times when Dracula was in a shadow and you couldn't really see him but it was for effect as opposed to trying to be "realistic" (looking at you, GOT).

The design for Dracula was cool and they do play into him getting stronger and scarier as he continuously feeds.

The Captain is not the main character (in contrast to the source material's Captain's log). Here, it's Dr Clemens we follow and we get an occasional Caltain's narration from the log.

If you like Until Dawn and other titles from Supermassive Games, you'd probably enjoy it. Dracula's design, the kills, and character choices feel like you're watching a playthrough. Not to mention there are a lot of close-up shots of characters in the same way Supermassive Games does.

Spoilers under the cut:

The Good:

The cinematography was pretty good. I particularly liked shots that followed through the ship to the cargo hold where count bat boi was sleeping.

They also filmed the gory scenes really well, and one scene that stood out was when one person who's become a thrall bashes his head through a door and then slides his nose along the splintered panels as he looks up. Impactful to say the least. They didn't pan away and leave it up to our imaginations but went all in and I applaud it.

Things were recognizable from the novel (names, events, some vampire mythos). I was genuinely surprised that they marked Dracula's coffins with dragons and kept that he slept in dirt, since modern audiences probably wouldn't have known about these things. When we (modern audiences) hear "Dracula" we think it means "vampire" as opposed to "dragon", and we would likely expect Dracula's cargo to be velvet-lined coffins.

The opening scene (finding the ship at Whitby & the wagon train of the coffins) had me immediately invested and excited, and I was already looking forward to this movie (I chose it over Barbie lol).

The Captain's actor was phenomenal. He went all out when he was grieving Toby's death and he really didn't have to but I'm so glad he did. While the character itself wasn't consistent, the actor made it believable. He was strict and kind when he was sane, he was frantic and distraught when he was insane, and his moments of grief and hope were all palpable. Good choice.

"Oh my God it has wings" When I say I LAUGHED SO HARD

Honestly there were a lot of funny moments. Some were genuine to cut the tension and help build characters but being ND and desensitized to horror I don't know if I was supposed to laugh at some of them, like when the cook's dingy knocked against the side of the hull. And when vampire Toby jumped up.

The use of knocking was a cool addition. I enjoyed when they used it like when Toby was in trouble and when Dracula was messing with the two dudes on deck.

One of the key things of Dracula's personality is that yes - he can kill you in 10s - but he won't because he's a sadistic bastard that enjoys drawing it out and playing the wager to see if you'll die of fear before he can bite you. They absolutely captured it. Homie is purposeful in how he terrifies his victims before giving them a gruesome death.

I think the model ship they showed at the end was the original model ship for the Demeter in the 90's Dracula movie (or at least a nod to it), which is how this movie was started apparently. Nice touch.

The Grievances:

Dr Clemens was a mary sue. I'm sorry, there's no way around this. Man has bad main character syndrome. I can accept a black man fighting tooth and nail to graduate Cambridge top of his class and struggle in a world that won't see his abilities because they won't look past his skin color, but on top of that he's an astronomer, a sailer, a strategist, a detective, and everyone immediately falls in love with him? Hell, he cured Toby's [1] grief over losing his lifelong friend (Huck, the dog, who was MUTILATED) and [2] guilt for all the animals dying because it was his responsibility to take care of him, and [3] fear for whatever unknown thing did this, with a headpat and "sometimes shit happens and you can't do anything about it".

He took one look at Anna, Dracula's beef jerky ration, and immediately went "she has an infection, she needs a blood transfusion", then proceeded to give her repeated transfusions over several days and he was totally fine. Up running around and fighting vampires meanwhile in reality he would have been bedridden from lack of blood and possible complications from the procedures.

Also, why is he the only clean person? Everyone's covered in grime and blood and dude looks like he just walked out of a proactive commercial. Even when he's floating in the middle of the ocean for days with an open neck wound he looks like he was just in the shower. Compare it with the Captain's burns and the first thrall's face after banging the through a door and the dissonance just pulls me out of the movie.

Keeping him alive just to sequel bait. Just. Why. Hollywood, it's okay to kill your protagonist. 1912 did it really well. Plus, I personally wasn't invested enough in this character to want to see a sequel following his vendetta with Dracula. We already know about Jonathan and Van Helsing. You can make movies that stand alone. It's okay.

If you want to sequel bait why don't you have him delirious from being lost at sea for several days and end up at the asylum with Dr Seward and Renfield? That would actually be cool and you could still have Dracula show up to taunt him.

Also, in regards to Anna, while I think it was a cool idea to use her for lore dumping and as a surprise for the audience, I was disappointed with her. She had the potential to provide a lot of info and help fight Dracula but instead she had to be the "strong independent woman". I don't hate this trope (think about Ripley in Alien, or any of the women in the original novel) but it wasn't done well here. While it's cool to see her gain confidence and wield a gun against count bat boi I was really hoping she would provide more info like his weaknesses. She says "he ran out of food in my country" but we know this isn't *literally* true because we see people at the beginning. It's the fact her people knew how to keep Dracula away that he ran out of food and he decided to try greener pastures. You could bring up HOW they did that (religious tokens, garlic, silver, etc.).

Also when she does try to give info about Dracula it's still vague and meant to be mysterious. Bruh, you are locked on a boat with this monster and you know your only hope for survival is to flee or work together to get rid of him. Why are you not giving as much info and details as possible? Because that's what the script said bc the writers wanted to make dracula look cool by relying on the characters to say it? Okay.

This movie relies on a lot of telling instead of showing. It's like they don't trust their audience to pay attention or understand what's going on. The only time I legit felt they showed and not told (lol) was when the Captain asked if what happened to the animals could be transmitted to humans and Dr Clemens lied and said no. You could see in the actor's face the inner monologue of telling the truth vs preventing chaos. It was nice and gave more info about the character than him actually yelling his life history at the first mate.

It also suffers from the writers trying to make every scene be memorable. There are too many times characters say things because it sounds cool or would be good in the trailer rather than because it makes sense for the character to say that.

Honestly all the characters fall flat for me (besides the captain who's character is treated like a pinball). They're all archetypes rather than people. The protagonist. The independent woman. The racist drunkard. The child. The religious guy. The guy that makes obscene jokes. The only names I know are Toby, Dr Clemens, and Anna. Bc they get said a lot as opposed to me actually caring about them.

On that note, I am definitely biased because I loved the Captain's log from the novel, but I wish that this was from the Captain's pov, culminating in him tying himself to the wheel and dying from shock or exposure like in the book. Then Whitby.

On that note, I am still upset that they used modern vampire mythos yet again for Dracula. In the book the Captain dies after being taunted for days by Dracula after tying himself to the wheel, only possible because the rosary in his hand protects him. It's a noble but horrific sacrifice made of fear and a duty to not let the evil on the ship reach land. In this movie, however, he reaches the wheel and dies because the rosary has no power over Dracula (it's also how Toby dies).

Oh, also the sun kills vampires. How do we know? Because occasionally some people turn into vampires, but only when it's convenient for the plot (looking at you, Anna). Why don't they use this against Dracula and dump the dirt box they know he's sleeping in during the day? Who knows. But they wasted a lot of potential to play on the audience's expectations (rather than giving into them) by using Dracula during the day. Y'know what's scarier than a vampire picking off your crew at night? A vampire picking off your crew at ANY time when you only expect it at night because SURPRISE sunlight just doesn't let him crawl in lizard fashion.

Are you seriously telling me Dracula sustained himself off of Anna for several weeks, and then decided to slaughter the crew mere days before the boat docked? Yes, he was weak bc of it but I don't think the director knows how blood works (see Dr Clemens's transfusion issue). Also, if that's the case, how did Anna not suffocate in her dirt box for hours on end for weeks? Just fill the other 48 crates with dead people and say Anna was the last caprisun in the box and it would make more sense.

Also, why have their last hurrah be the day before they reach Whitby? It made the movie seem too fast; it felt like it only took a week to get from Transylvania to England. Why not find Anna early on, then disperse the crew member deaths across a couple weeks like in the novel? It would help with the suspense and you could have the Captain tie himself to the wheel then let us experience the time passing after he dies so the audience has a moment to sit with the deaths and feel hopeless. Bc that's what the role of the Demeter is, story-wise. It's supposed to make us afraid of Dracula and feel hopeless in his presence. Not give us hope and make him into our rival we have the possibility to get revenge on. That's what our dear friend Jonathan is for.

Dracula never takes human form. Why do all adaptations refuse to give him his bushy mustache? COWARDS.

Okay, he *sort of* takes human form. But they really just put him in a waistcoat and top hat then expected us to believe that showed he was cunning. You literally said he's both man and beast then only show the beast. One of Dracula's main appeal is that he's clever and his sadistically human traits are the only thing preventing him from immediately ripping you to shreds. And he can pass as human, so he could be anyone. Yet we only see the beast part.

While this movie was fun to watch, it comes off more as a gruesome drama or action movie than a horror. I never really feel any suspense or dread. Compare it to Alien which had the same situation. Alien did such a good job of making you feel scared and claustrophobic when you're surrounded by the vastness of space (in this case, the ocean) and being hunted down by an intelligent monster. I was watching this to see how Dracula killed people rather than seeing how they struggled to survive.

I can believe this movie was in production hell not just because of the writing but some errors. In one scene, the Captain's burn is on the right side of his face but there's a close-up cut and suddenly it's on the left side like someone flipped the screen. And this is just one error out of a couple. No Starbucks cups tho.

It sounds like I don't like this movie because of all of my nit-picking grievances, but I really did like it. I think my issues are just because my expectations were too high going in. I was expecting a loyal expansion of an underappreciated segment of a classic novel, which is really rare these days. And a *suspenseful* horror.

I see why Guillermo del Toro and Stephen King suggested it. It's pretty similar to their stuff, just more fast-paced. So if you like that stuff and Until Dawn I think you'll really enjoy it.

[warthogreporter]

Made a new alignment chart thing based on Dracula, inspired by the chart of fictional detectives vs Kira. Feel free to add or do your own take. Explanations for my placements under the read more.

Jesus, Tezcatlipoca, Pazuzu: Literal deities.

Mickey Mouse: Transforms the work into a comedy and thus saves the day with slapstick.

Code Name Steam! Queequeg: Exploding robot penguins go brrrr.

Odysseus: Makes a perfect plan to save Lucy, other people fuck it up, but he's able to avenge her.

Poirot: Look, people just die around him. He'd be okay with killing Dracula because for an undead it's the only way to offer salvation to the soul, and Drac is not winning a battle of wits against Poirot.

Ash: Could have saved Lucy, but is a sleepy boy and so was unable to respond to the Drac attack. However, good luck surviving a Volt Tackle to the face Dracula you fucking idiot.

Anakin: Beat one of the few assassins more absurd than Dracula, but would likely fall to the dark side while chasing Dracula.

Speedwagon: Takes Lucy and fucking runs while the nearest Joestar kills Dracula.

Date: If it was just Dracula he'd win, but he is too horny to resist the vampire women if they appear.

Dan Hibiki: It's Dan.

Dojima: Helpless normie that refuses to accept the supernatural until it's too late at best.

Father Ardelian: Is very bad at resisting vampires. Could not protect Lucy or himself.

[eveepe]

Please tell me more about your WIP "frills"?! 👀 Thank you!

Oooh thank you Crepe (and @fkajohnlennon who also asked about this one!) - I was hoping someone would choose this. I'm struggling to describe it succinctly, but the basic premise is John/Ringo panty kink? With a deeper vein of John enjoying dressing femme and being called "pretty".

It's stalled because it's kind of two separate fics at the moment that need mashing together and I haven't figured out how.

Snippet under the cut!

“Well well well, mees-yoors,” he said, hamming it up with his best Poirot. “It seems we have quite ze mystery on our hands!”

It was Paul that found them. He let out a hoot of laughter, then grabbed one of Richie’s sticks and fished out, from under a stack of amps, a pair of very floral, very frilly ladies’ knickers. 

He pinched the knickers between his thumb and forefinger and squinted at them, flipping the drumstick around so it resembled a cane. 

“Good old Marks and Spencers, eh? Sensible girl, this one. That rules out John.”

“Oi!” John aimed a half-hearted swipe at his shins, but Paul danced nimbly out of his reach, waving the knickers around like a flag above his head.  

"Barely been worn, these 'ave!" he crowed. "Still creased from the packet. You dog, you." He spun on the spot, his accusatory, pointing finger travelling over all of them til it landed on George. 

"You're in trouble, Georgie-boy!" John said, sing-song. George crossed one leg primly over his knee and glowered as Paul edged towards him, and, with utter predictability, tried to wrestle the knickers onto George's head.

[the-obnoxious-sibling]

As a writer you probably read a lot. Do you have book recommendations?

oh, absolutely!

i usually like to know what genres you’re interested in before i start reccing, but it’s hard to ask follow-up questions to anonymous asks, so i’ll try to offer a variety. (all fiction, mostly sci-fi but a few other genres, and all books/series i’ve read in the last three or four years, so there shouldn’t be any nostalgia coloring my recommendation.) some of these are going to be very obvious, popular answers, but sometimes things that are popular are actually good.

the murderbot diaries. martha wells is very good at distinct protagonist voices, and murderbot is no exception. a megacorp brand security guard cyborg that broke the slave module on its brain and would really prefer to be watching its shows instead of guarding naive space scientists makes friends and influences people. each successive story is my new favorite.

the vorkosigan saga. lois mcmaster bujold’s decades-long genre mash-up of a space opera, wandering through territory belonging to political thrillers, historical romances, rom-coms, murder mysteries, and more! broadly dealing with themes of disability, identity, and duty, a poisoned-in-the-womb noble son of an old-fashioned military space empire tries to live up to his admiral/imperial regent father’s legacy. (in his first attempt at this he establishes an illegal militia and is nearly executed for treason.) the series covers the majority of his life, childhood to fatherhood, though my favorite books in the series are two that take place before he’s born, about how his mother and father met & had him.

ancillary justice. just one more space opera and i’m done, i promise! ann leckie does some interesting stuff with gender in her prose while not writing a story that’s all that much about gender. (the narrator thinks and speaks in a language with a single pronoun, and the english text uses “she” for that pronoun.) a betrayed, traumatized spaceship brain trapped in a flesh body seeks revenge on the imperial leadership she holds responsible for all she’s lost. there are two follow-up books, but i don’t enjoy them as much as the first book on her own.

the scholomance trilogy. if you have enjoyed critique of a certain magic school heptalogy, you will recognize elements of that critique in how naomi novik writes the world and characters of her horror-adjacent magic school trilogy. if you’ve enjoyed a certain bnf’s philosophical transformers erotica, you will recognize elements of that philosophy in here too. el, a very angry teenage girl who is vividly aware of her Wicked Queen/Evil Sorceress coding, does her best to graduate from magic boarding school without being distracted from her studies by friendship or boys or dying. this is harder than it sounds.

parker pyne investigates or the thirteen problems. nothing against poirot, but i prefer agatha christie’s short stories over her novels, and my favorites are in the style of either of these collections, where the whodunnit mystery is set up over 7/8ths of the story and on the last page parker pyne or miss marple makes you feel a bit foolish for not figuring it out by yourself much earlier. marple’s are pretty classic murdercrime whodunnits, while pyne’s are sometimes more like spywork.

[bookgeekgrrl]

My media this week (29 Dec 2024-4 Jan 2025)

this show is so good y'all

📚 STUFF I READ 📚

😐 A Right To Die (Nero Wolfe #40) (Rex Stout, author; Michael Prichard, narrator)

😐 The Mysterious Affair at Styles (Hercule Poirot #1) (Agatha Christie, adapted by Anna Lea; full voice cast) - this interpolation certainly made some choices (they really leaned in to Hastings as a tormented Sad War Boy™) but short & entertaining enough to finish, largely due to the cast which features: Peter Dinklage as Poirot, Himesh Patel as Hastings, plus Jessica Gunning, Harriet Walter, Rob Delaney, Phil Dunster, Patsy Ferran, John Bradley, Vivian Oparah with a score composed by Johnny Flynn in collaboration with cellist and composer Joe Zeitlin

😍 if I'm gonna get back to you someday (napricot) - 46K, forever fave post-Endgame fix-it with "a clusterfuck of Steves" from different multiverses - reread before starting mistaken for strangers, a new side story following modern Steve's return to his timeline and his quest to find his own Bucky

😍 And like the cat I have nine times to die (treefrogie84) - really fantastic TOG/Leverage fusion

💖💖 +224K of shorter fic so shout out to these I really loved 💖💖

Small Talk (GoldStarGrl) - Justified: Boyd/Raylan, 16K - fantastic AU where Boyd escapes Harlan & works for NASA but ends up tangled up in Raylan's shit anyway. Fantastic characterizations!!!

North (masterassassin) - HP: Drarry, 25K - "A story about unlikely friendships, novelty mugs, expensive wood, a Vietnamese snake with an Irish name, Indian food, and things taking a turn for the better."

Unmapped (Jerakeen) - TW: Sterek, 11K - Sterek sentinel AU

Pineapples Are Not The Only Fruit (alassenya) - H50: McDanno, 28K - H50 sentinel AU

No Sign of (Goddamn, Motherfucking) Soulmates series (thisapplepielife) - Stranger Things: Steddie, 5K - short, funny soulmates series - one fic from each POV, truly charming

If our two loves be one (phoenixflight) - Wimseyverse: Harriet/Peter/Bunter V polycule, 10K - absolutely fantastic, really nailed the character voices

📺 STUFF I WATCHED 📺

Nobody Asked - s1, e3

The Sam Sanders Show - Rachel Bloom Confronts Grief with a Heckler Named Death

Handsome - Pretty Little Episode #20

Handsome - Ego Nwodim asks about doing bad things

Dirty Laundry - s4, e11

Elementary - s7, e3-13

D20: Adventuring Party - s9, e5-6

D20: Coffin Run - s14, e5-6

Doctor Who: Joy To The World (2024 Christmas special)

⭐ A Man on the Inside - s1, e1-8

🎧 PODCASTS 🎧

Pop Culture Happy Hour - 2025 Pop Culture Predictions

Pop Culture Happy Hour - 2025 Pop Culture Resolutions And What's Making Us Happy

⭐ One Song - Heart's "Barracuda"

The Curious History of Your Home - Carpets

Vibe Check - Alive in 2025

Pop Culture Happy Hour - Squid Game

It's Been a Minute - 2025 Predictions: social media is OUT & food politics are IN

It's Been a Minute - All hail the queen of rom-coms

🎶 MUSIC 🎶

The Hits: '50s

The Greatest Hits Album (The Best Of) [The Everly Brothers]

Ultimate Star Collection [Gene Vincent]

[kattahj]

My Agatha Christie re-reading project, #57: Third Girl

I didn't remember very much of this book, and had a vague notion I hadn't liked it much, so I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it this time around!

We get plenty of Poirot right from the start, and also Ariadne Oliver  and as is so often the case, they're a lot of fun together. (Sidenote: I reread Dorothy Sayers' Strong Poison inbetween the Christies, and it amuses me that Sayers' alter ego is an interesting looking young woman who Lord Peter saves and falls madly in love with,  while Christie's is a chatty and somewhat scatterbrained old woman whose friendship with Poirot is based on mutual exasperation.)

This time they're faced with the youth culture of 60s London, and I adore their bewilderment at a world where the girls have unwashed hair and giant woolly sweaters, while the boys have embroidered waistcoats and flowing auburn locks.

The plot is solid too. Sure, there are a few details one could quibble with (such as Christie not knowing recreational drugs half as well as she knows poisons), but altogether, it's a fairly believable mystery, if rather mean-spirited even for a ruthless murderer!

You also stand a pretty good chance at figuring things out, without it being too simple.

While not one of the absolute Christie classics, it is a very solid 3/5.

[bluelolblue]

Who do you think is Riccardo’s most bbg/cute character?

Ohh interesting :3!

That's a tough question, they are all babygirls in their own ways ahah >:]

I wanna say Santino so badly because he really gives off the spicy kitten who will hiss at you but eventually will calm down after a few pets on the head and will follow you around purring vibe. I think he's babygirl who just needs to heal from everything he went through and he chose to protect himself in a way that he puts on that "tough, bitchy and snappy" act. But he also wants to have control and be seen for who he is. He is also a D'Antonio, and I'm guessing not a lot of people really respect him. Respect Santino. They can respect D'Antonio name but not him. I mean, whoever interacted with him wasn't very fond of him (Winston and Aurelio). My guess for Santino is that he was born to be a male heir but just wasn't good enough, and Gianna got his place. I think he deserved better since he knew what he was doing and was playing with fire all the time, and in my opinion, he had a lot of potential.

In reality, he needs a hug and someone to tell him he's doing good. Riccardo said it himself that he played Santino so that you could feel his suffering, to feel empathy for him, and he managed to do it. Like, me and a few others can definitely agree that you can feel his suffering and have empathy for him. So, Riccardo did it amazingly and gave us babygirl Santino <3

Okay, but also, apparently, Cosimo from "Cosimo and Nicole" is sweet, a good boy. I'm working on getting the stuff to be able to watch it, but I want to include him here as well since from the things I've managed to see and from what I've heard, he's very adorable and babygirl ^ ^

OKAY TIME TO INCLUDE VITALE BECAUSE VITALE DESERVES BETTER 😭 bro got punched two times and he was just being a very good bodyguard to Poirot. And I think he was so sweet, since he didn't talk much, didn't get into anyone's way, was just being a little guy :].

There are a lot more of his babygirl/cute characters, I already listed three and you asked for one so I have to stop myself LMAO sorry I got carried away :P. It's a hard question, but thank you so much! >:]

But from these three that I listed, I have to choose my favorite babygirl Santino 💙

That's a babygirl right there, pathetic wet cat, meow meow, little guy :]

[heavenangelblog]

as promised, according to the past post, movie list:

my favorite action movies:

Straż nocna and Straż dzienna

Skyscraper

Die hard

two old Hellboys

Ice road

Monster hunter

Priest

Unleashed

The darkest hour

Maze runner

Kick ass (only the first one actually and it's my guilty pleasure, don't judge me)

Valerian

Duel 1971

Watchmen and bunch of Marvel movies

Rollerball

Hunger games

Returner

Independence day (sentiment)

Ghostbusters

Tim Burton's Batman

Demolition man

Red

Wild wild west

Tank girl

old Twister (new one is a disgrace)

Free guy

Charlie's angels

Operation dumbo drop

Arsene Lupin

The silent hour

Jurassic park/world

Uncharted

Indiana Jones

The rocketeer

Robin Hood 2018 (it's a secret why)

Salt

Mad Max

Speed

Blue thunder

old Judge Dredd

Equilibrium

The fugitive

The purge?

biography or document:

Napoleon (even tho it was disturbing, it's worth watching for few scenes)

Extremely wicked, shockingly evil and vile

Iris

Frida

Marina Abramovic

Sayat nova

Grey gardens

Dangerous minds

Bright Lights: Starring Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds

Purple rain

Girl interrupted

The Ron Clark story

Advanced style

Queen: days of our lives

Królik po berlińsku

Cleveland abduction

comedies:

Addams Family

Elvira

What we do in the shadows

Buster Keaton movies

3 men and a baby/little lady

My big fat greek wedding (last one wasn't the best tbh)

Les nouvelles aventures d'Aladin

The first wives club

Freaky friday

Mean girls

Maverick

Galaxy quest

Ciacho (sorry not sorry)

Sydney White

Sahara

*wondering what it all means about me, probably nothing good but paints a pretty good picture of my humor

dramas:

The last legion

Marrowbone

Alice, darling

Klass

Shutter island

Judex 1963

Secretary

Cloud Atlas

A patch of blue

Truman show

Times square

The monuments men

The fall 2006

Robinson Crusoe 2003 (the french version)

Renaissance man

Race the sun

Frantic

Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind

Breakfast club

Hello my name is Doris

Little miss sunshine

En Duva satt på en gren och funderade på tillvaron

The beniker gang (if someone has a link where I can watch it - I beg you)

Click

To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar

Under the Tuscan sun

Flight of the phoenix

Christmas movies:

Santa and Pete

It's a wonderful life

Grinch

Elf

fantasy movies:

Hobbit and LOTR (including animated one)

Krull

The watchers

Red riding hood 2011

Dungeons and dragons

Gods of Egypt

Kate & Leopold

Paradise Hills

The princess bride

Warcraft

Fire and ice

The scorpion king and all Mummies

League of extraordinary gentlemen

The shadow 1994

Night at the museum

The 10th kingdom

surreal movies:

Blood tea and red strings

Meshes of the afternoon

Paprika

Destiny to order (also looking for a link)

This is me... now

The cell

Twin peaks: firewalk with me

romantic movies:

Red white and royal blue

Penelope

On - drakon

Stranger than fiction

A lot like love

Ode to joy

My policeman (but it's complicated)

Byoo-tee In-sai-deu

Five feet apart

Me before you

My monster

horrors and thrillers:

A quiet place

Bird box

Priest

Van Helsing

Last night in Soho

The lost boys

The village 2004

sci fi:

Star wars

John Carter

Atlas

Mortal engines

favorite shows:

High potential

From

Grotesquerie

Fallout

Heartstopper

Gen V

The crowded room

Into the night

Czterej pancerni i pies

Don Matteo

Call the midwife

first series of Stranger things and Orphan black

Buffy

My mad fat diary

Poirot

OITNB (but not to the very end)

TBBT

The Simpsons

United states of Tara

AHS Freak show

few episodes of Black mirror

The last of us

LOTR (mixed feelings about it)