I was just thinking that it's been a year since the last BBC Agatha Christie adaptation (Towards Zero) so I looked up if there's going to be a new one and there is! Endless Night is next, and although it's not one of my favourite books I do like the characters and slow dread of the story, so hopefully that'll be fun and not too twisty different from the book. No release date yet, as far as I can tell.

Netflix had their own adaptation recently-ish too, that was The Seven Dials Mystery which I did watch and it had some actors I really liked, and a Bundle I liked, but overall I was mostly meh about it. Didn't care about secret societies when I read the book, and I still don't care about secret societies now, though I do know a little more about their proliferation during that time and during the colonial era, and its use as a social bonding mechanism and creation of a sense of elitism in the same lines as a religion (us vs. them), which clarified quite a few things to me as someone who lives in a part of the world where such societies are so alien as to be scary and malignant, but it's in believing they're scary and malignant that gives them undue power. Anyway the adaptation was fine, it had some changes, I don't have strong feelings either way.

In reading, I have just finished Death Comes at the End, which I knew was set in Ancient Egypt which is why I didn't pick it up for a while. I think the setting allows the story to be simpler, as in Christie puts more effort in describing the world and the way its people think than in creating an elaborate mystery. But I did enjoy it, and I did have fun that I figured it out early based on the actual clues and psychology of the characters, and it does not detract enjoyment of the book at all.

I also read two Poirot mysteries, one being The Murder on the Links, which was fun! A clue-heavy mystery, and Poirot butts heads with another detective who is more clue-focused. There are two layers to the murder, and I figured out the first one based on the clues, and the layer itself is similar to what went on in Body in the Library. The structure is a little different in a good way, in how Poirot breaks down the logic of the mystery halfway through the book (yay!) to Hastings. The second layer was more opaque but I got enough of a vague picture that the final resolution made me nod like, yes, I buy that. Only for the book to throw ONE MORE dramatic left curve our way, dang. Also, although I was vaguely aware in later books that Hastings is married, I was not prepared for this to be the story where he meets the woman who'll be his wife, and all the shenanigans that happen in that subplot.

The other is Dead Man's Folly, and I enjoy so much when characters spell out midway through the book certain fact-connecting revelations that usually come towards the end. That said, the final reveal kind of pissed me off, and after sleeping on it, I think it's because there was no way for us the reader to make the necessary leaps of logic based on the info we were given. Specifically, that there were two murders instead of three, and that two characters have been lying about their identities through the book, and a third character knew about the lying but kept quiet. Basically I think there were too many moving parts to get some sort of handle on what was going on.

Someone pointed out that the Crocker-McMillin Mansion in New Jersey might be a good model for Wayne Manor. There aren't many good pictures of it that don't come from real estate listings, but I really like what we see and the mix of "classic Edwardian Mansion Stately Home" and also "modernized for current living". So here it is.


Details: built between 1903 and 1907. Three stories, 75 rooms, 50k square feet, on 12.5 acres. Of those 75 rooms, 21 are bedrooms, and 29 are bathrooms. When it was built, there were a lot of other buildings on the estate: greenhouses, barns, stables, a dairy, gatehouse, garage, workshops, and bathhouses on the river. There were nine single houses and four duplexes for employees, and a two-story house for the head gardener. I think most of those other buildings have either been torn down or sold off--the estate was originally around 1k acres, and now you can tell there are a lot of other buildings around.

( Pics of the interior )

(placeholder for unsent_letters_exchange)

I am 114 episodes into 189, and as a twist in this exercise, I found out that the previous playlist I thought was deleted, is back up! Since all the stats are there I would I guess it was set to private and then un-privated. Whatever the case, it is back, and I have those lovely stats and lovely English summaries and all the comments, but on that last one, it turns out I no longer have the patience to go through the comments, because...

I hate Adrian. As a character, as a love interest. Since I hate him, I feel like I'm tripping balls when I read the comments and they're full of Adrian love, of how Adrian is the best, of how Aryana and Adrian are so sweet together. Fiction is subjective and this is far from the first time I've bounced off a character I've seen so much love for, so what can you do. One consequence of this is that I don't read the comments as I did before, and another consequence is that my interest in Aryana's storyline is dipping. Not all the storylines, mind! Just Aryana's.

Because now Aryana has legs again we're back to mostly-mundane school shenanigans but with a third love interest in the mix, and I think it's a problem when a female character who's the lead of a show, has significantly more male love interests than female friends. It didn't feel as obvious when there were just Marlon and Hubert, but now Adrian is there, Aryana's social interactions are overwhelmingly with boys. And she doesn't even hang out with the one female friend she does have! Bebet is only Aryana's friend at school! And then Aryana's family, i.e. her mother, grandmother and uncle, haven't had much to do with her in this arc beyond listening to her boy woes (I was also startled when I realized hadn't seen Ofelia in any significant way for a few episodes in there).

Did viewers not like Marlon because he's too whiny and not like Hubert because he's a pushover? And so they created an assertive third love interest who physically grabs Aryana's arm when she tries to get away from him, and doesn't listen when Aryana begs him to stop, and doesn't believe Aryana when she says she's not interested, because we're apparently doing the thing where no means yes and Aryana is into it actually and all her yelling at Adrian is flirting actually? Shut up!! I do not like this!! I can acknowledge romantic comedy tropes and telenovela tropes and still not like it!!!!

I thought I understood the reason for Adrian, in that Hubert and Marlon both know Aryana's secret, so adding a boy who is NOT in the know shakes things up. BUT THEN Adrian learns Aryana's secret like five episodes after he first meets her, and what are we doing, show. Why are you suddenly going breakneck speed when you teased Marlon finding out and Hubert revealing HIS secret for dozens of episodes, but it takes two episodes for Adrian to find out Aryana saved him and another three to find out she's a mermaid. What the heck. The intensity of the show's interest in Adrian, and giving him top billing of the three love interests despite being a new addition, it feels like they shoved in a hail mary character to revitalize the show, which may indeed be the case and I simply do not know the dynamics of the viewing audience at the time to understand.

Anyway I'm more invested in Megan's storyline now.

+ Very much had a plan to tidy my bedroom 100%, but then my dryer was like, "nah I'm not going to function" and I derailed completely. There's a couple more things I want to try to see if I can get it sorted, but if not I'll have to call for a repairperson ugh.

...so today I'm focused on cleaning the visible parts of my apartment instead lol.

+ Actually had lunch with a few of my friends today. It's been a while. Like, I didn't manage to meet a single one of them properly before Christmas even. How they all put up with a shut in like myself all these years, I just couldn't tell you. We tried a new noodle place, the food was excellent, I tried a marinated egg for the first time, and we were all laughing and enjoying ourselves.

One of my friends had helped clear out an apartment a couple of days ago, and when she saw the official and un-official guides for The X-Files in the donations box, she decided to grab them for me instead. Very sweet of her, and funny considering she did not know I'd just started watching s1 again.

+ Since AO3 seems to be fairly unstable atm I got some requests to do a new round of ao3_isdown, so come on over.

+ I've been fiddling with the idea for fannishtarot and running a Make Your Own Fandom Tarot event for a good long while now, gathering some quotes and such here and there. I think it would be such a rewarding way to deep dive into the tarot and also your own fandom(s) and fannish inclinations. Like, who or what would The Fool be to you in your chosen fandom? I think it'd be an excellent way to internalize a bunch of significators, etc. But I am not getting that started until I have a bunch more prep under my belt lol. I'd basically have to amass six months of posts beforehand, to make room for work schedules, travel, the occasional downtime/brain crash.

But it would be SO cool. I just hope some people will join in.

+ My Dune tarot will be arriving tomorrow, and I'd love to play with it a bunch. Let me know in the comments if you want me to do one of the book's spreads for you.

+ I may be somewhat trying to cope with the Horrors by making a big purchase, but I done did it: I ordered those oracles and the workbook I was eying + a tarot deck that spoke to me very loudly and was limited in quantities. Hopefully it doesn't take too long before it arrives so I can dip in before it's back off to work. Tomorrow's big plan is tidying and washing my entire bedroom, laundring the curtains, and set up a nice altar space on the top of my dressing commode.

+ Finished Fallout s2 and I'm happy with how their storylines turned out.( spoilery comment ) There was a small cut scene at the end in case anybody missed that.

+ Steam NEXT Fest is happening, and as usual I've managed to try next to nothing. Two big recommends: Esoteric Ebb and All Will Rise. They're both text-heavy, your choices matter kind of games. I'm gonna try to get a game in of Battlestar Galactica: Scattered Hopes, Wax Heads, Above The Snow, WOODROT, I'm Making A Monster, Dosa Divas, Bookbinding, Twilight Imperium, and the new Moomintroll entry before the time runs out (in that order). 100% I'm going to fail at that.

btw how I loathe having to keep my enthusiasm in check until I've had a scroll to look for AI usage.

+ Why all science fiction and fantasy writers are historians by Ada Palmer.

+ The SEA Is Whose?, Ethnic Entanglements in Southeast Asian SFF, an essay.

+ European bison arrive in the Iberian Highlands for the first time.

+ Botswana shows how smarter cattle herding can save lions, reopen ancient wildlife pathways.

+ youtuberecs is a fun community I just became aware of!

+ Soda Blonde released a new song/video, Suit & Tie, and I dig em both. Weird women in suits on the moors. Mud. Pretty horsie. What's not to like.

+ Forbrukerrådet is a Norwegian consumer council that's focused on making sure customers are treated fairly and not scammed, etc. Big big fan. And they've just released an ad on enshittifaction that is top notch.

I got the chance to muck around with a D+ account for a bit and although I struggled with the UI, I can't tell if it's because I'm so used to Netflix and youtube, or if it really is as finnicky as it seems to be. That aside, some actual disappointments about the service for me:

I put on the 1989 The Little Mermaid movie because I wanted to see which version they had up, because there's been multiple restorations over the years. Good news: the picture is clean, with none of those uneven lines and truncated transitions, so I assume it's from the latest Blu-Ray release about... six years ago? Definitely not the one before that. Bad news: the audio mix is terrible!

This is a movie I know SO well, so I could tell pretty quick there's something very strange going on with the audio balance between dialogue, music and sounds effects (eg. water sounds, background noises). Some noises are too loud, some are too soft, and the worst is when the music is not on the same level as the singing. It's almost a Christopher Nolan movie here! I wanted to double-check that it's not my device or speakers, so I put on my personal DVD of the movie, and that sounds perfectly fine on my PC speakers. I poked around a bit online and it's not really clear what the problem is. One possibility is that the version on D+ is optimized for TV with surround sound, so it sounds weird on a PC. I can't double-check this, though.

Then I checked out the Little Mermaid TV series and, oh boy. Some episodes are in the wrong order, despite the platform listing each episode's original release date right there. The video has been cropped from the original 4:3 to 16:9, losing that extra detail (and making it feel squished, as this is also media I know very well). Best yet, the pilot episode is missing entirely, and the only thing I could find about it is some speculation that it's too scary for children, as it does open with a group of whalers attacking an orca pod. (Which is totally something they would do, considering the edits that D+ has done to other movies like A Parent Trap and Splash.)

I guess all of this just serves to remind that streaming is not owning, and to keep your own copies before they become lost media. :/

For those unfamiliar, fandomtrumpshate is a fandom charity auction that supports nonprofits working to counteract some of the harms of the current presidential administration. Supported causes include trans rights, disability rights, immigrant rights, voting rights, libraries, Gaza, and more. (Please see the complete list of supported organizations, including which nonprofits accept international donations.)

I'm offering fic! In three fandoms:

• D.K. Broster novels (Jacobite Trilogy, Wounded Name, "Mr. Rowl", or a novel of your choice)
  
• Hornblower -- any of the various media, from novels to movies to radio
  
• Vorkosigan Saga
  

For the details of each fandom (characters, ships, etc.), please see my auction listing! The listing includes my email for questions, but I'm also happy to discuss any questions here in comments or private messages. Please do reach out if you're curious about anything, or whether I'm up for a particular kind of story.

Sanguinity's auction listing

$15 minimum bid for 2K words
$50 minimum bid for 7K words

Bidding opens Tuesday March 3rd, and closes Saturday March 7th. (I'll post again when bidding opens.)

And of course I'm not the only one auctioning fanworks! If you feel moved, please do have a browse of foth2026offerings (check out the sticky post for the best ways to search the offerings) to see if there's something that interests you.

I never actually posted my Yuletide fic here, and it's almost March. Way behind. But anyway, I had fun with it, so enjoy!

Title: What Abigail And Ione Did That January
Author: beatrice_otter 
Fandom: Rivers of London
Characters: Abigail Kamara/Ione Seaton, Thomas Nightingale, Peter Grant
Written For: Chrome in Yuletide 2025
Summary: Ione comes down for a visit after Christmas. But a quiet visit is not in the cards when there is a missing persons case to be solved.


I am standing in Euston Station, and it's even worse of a madhouse than I expected it to be. But I'm so excited I'm not even bothered by the crush of tourists with roller bags who seem determined to run me over as they dash to catch their trains. Ione is coming, and though we've talked on the phone almost every day, it's been months since we said goodbye in Scotland.

I want to know if she smells as good as I remember. I want to know if her skin feels as good as I remember. I'm almost afraid I've built her up, in my head, to such a peak of perfection, that I'll be disappointed to see her again and find she's just a girl.

( But if I were going to let my fear control me, I wouldn't be a wizard now. I'd never have survived the house on Hampstead Heath, or the Robinette kidnapping, or the wyvern up in Glasgow. And I'd never have gotten to kiss Ione. )

+ Now there's daylight again and I've riffled through it plenty, here's my favorite cards from the Curious Travels Tarot.


You can't at all see the pearlescent shimmer the cardstock is infused with, but it is beautiful. Also this is a Claudia deck to me (I am not responsible for the connections my blender brain makes when I have a hyper fixation).

Spent last night going through my decks and if I see the opportunity to do so locally, there's a bunch of oracles and one tarot that just didn't work for me and I'd love to rehome. Very grumpy the one alternative shop that opened in town barely lasted a few months. Flip side my wish list has grown massive, and with some very much not mass market wants. Especially the Motherwitch Oracle, and both Wisdom of the Divine Feminine/Wisdom of the Shadow + workbook, and the Reclaim Oracle seems to align strongly with the kind of work I'd like to do.

For tarot decks there's less than a handful of strong wants, but it's not like my current decks can't cover that need. I'm really just being greedy there. (gotta keep reminding myself of that: girl your needs are MET). But also, so many fandom decks are happening. The Dune one already ambushed me.

Anyways, linkspam of Ew Gross/Boo Hiss? Yes?

+ AIs can’t stop recommending nuclear strikes in war game simulations. (this is paywalled)
Leading AIs from OpenAI, Anthropic and Google opted to use nuclear weapons in simulated war games in 95 per cent of cases.

+ AI data centre growth could put UK net zero targets under fresh pressure.
...how 140 data centres are currently seeking grid connections with a combined peak demand of 50GW. That figure is striking because it is higher than Britain’s recent peak electricity demand of 45GW.

I know there's a very big queue of centres wanting to get built here as well. As if electricity isn't extravagantly expensive as is.

+ Oh hey, a somewhat cheerful one! 'Breweries using AI could put artists out of work'.
Following conversations with the Free Trade Inn, in Ouseburn, the two venues came together to announce on social media they would no longer be accepting AI art, including on bottles and pump clips, in order to try to protect local artists from losing out on work.

I really do need 2026 to be the year the bubble goes POP.

It's interesting to read a book that is, topic-wise, so of interest to me, but I have to battle the writing almost every step of the way. Murray Pittock's writing for an audience that already knows Scotland somewhat, and knows various terms related to Scottish life and/or politics without explanation (this is fine, I can look them up), but he has a tendency for putting too much info into sentences that are grammatically correct but perhaps could have been simplified, eg.:

Colonel Andrew Hamilton (d.1703), governor of East and West New Jersey in 1692-97 was (though later reinstated) deposed from office under an English act (c.22) of William III and II (r.1688-1702 in England, from 1689 in Scotland and 1691 in Ireland) which declared that 'no public post of trust or profit in the colonies could be held by any other than a natural born subject of England'.

The information is there, but it's presented in such a way it takes me a moment to have to parse the point of the sentence. And having to pause often through the book instead of letting the words flow over me, makes it a harder read, if only for that.

( Cut for length. )

It's also funny that towards the end Pittock mentions that the younger generation is getting hungrier to learn about their own country (as opposed to overall British history) and that has only recently been gaining traction with the relatively new availability of exclusively Scottish history books. And that's why it was so hard to find Scottish history books when I was looking for them a while back!

I use the same name everywhere so I am beatrice_otter on AO3. Treats are awesome.

I would rather get a story you were happy with than "well, she said she liked x, so I guess I have to do x even though I don't like x and/or am not inspired that way." This letter is long with lots of suggestions and preferences if you find it helpful, but feel free to ignore it if it is not helpful. I'm fairly easy to please; I've been doing ficathons for a long time and am usually very happy with my gifts.

The most important thing for me in a fic is that the characters are well-written and recognizably themselves. Even when I don't like a character, I don't go in for character-bashing. If nothing else, if the rest of this letter is too much or my kinks don't fit yours, just concentrate on writing a story with everyone in character and good spelling and grammar and I will almost certainly love what you come up with.

I have an embarrassment squick, which makes humor kind of hit-or-miss sometimes. The kind of humor where someone does something embarrassing and the audience is laughing at them makes me uncomfortable. On the other hand, the kind of humor where the audience is laughing with the characters I really enjoy.

( General Likes and Dislikes )

( The Swan )

( Random Harvest )

( Hobson's Choice )

( Guess Who's Coming to Dinner )

( Voyager )

( Crossovers )

( DS9 )

( Star Wars OT )

( Fandom for Robots )

( Babylon 5 )

+ There's a fun YouTube telethon/donation drive beginning in 4 and a half hours I'm strongly considering staying up for.

Why watch the State of the Union, when you could watch your favorite unhinged Bluesky posters share their weird hobbies, niche obsessions, and scorching hot takes?
(streamed here and I'm assuming directly on yt but couldn't find the link)

It's at 2.30 for me, but my sleep schedule is kind of fucked atm anyways. If I watch this and then just get up early, there's a chance I can flip it.

+ Curious Travels Tarot arrived today, and I don't think I've ever handled a deck that felt this good. I'm astounded this is mass market, it's so buttery smooth but textured at the same time; a joy to hold. I just keep fondling the cards lol.

+ In other things that bring joy: I started watching Starfleet Academy and it is full of precious characters whose faces I'd like to smoosh and keep safe forever. A bit heavy on the For Teens stuff, and sadly one character has been heavily relegated to The Girl category which I am extremely bored by, but otherwise excellent faces and much invading of personal space yay.

+ Posted some icons, yes I did!

01-04 the x-files
05-12 starfleet academy
13-16 st voyager + discovery
17-20 sw prequel movies + mandalorian
21-26 fallout
27-31 comics
32-36 misc tv
37-40 movies (eileen, inside out, batman returns)




H E R E

I wrote two works for candyheartsex!

During the anon period, there was a tumblr post going around about how you should follow your heart and write fic for that 300-year-old novel! Write fic for that 70-year-old movie! And I had to laugh, because...

Renewed Liaison for parnassus
Les liaisons dangereuses | Dangerous Liaisons - Choderlos de Laclos
Marquise de Merteuil/Vicomte de Valmont
Canon Divergence, Fix-it, Parley

I sue for two items only: peace, and a renewal of the true amity that once existed between us.

This was a pinch-hit I picked up early. I've long hated the resolution of the novel, where Merteuil is cast low while Valmont is nearly valorized in death. (God forbid a woman be evil!!) So I wrote a new ending for them, one that is more symmetric in consequence, leaving them both war-ravaged, but with a path to become allies again.

Will they ride again, leaving ruin behind them? We can only hope. ;-)

There My Heart Forever Lies for Luzula
The Flight of the Heron
Ewen/Keith, Ewen/Alison, Keith & Francis
Brigadoon AU

After Culloden, word reaches the British garrison that Ewen Cameron is skulking at Ardroy. As a test of his loyalty, Keith Windham is sent with a company of men to arrest him. Keith goes, but is determined to protect Ewen however he can.

Ewen, however, has been granted a miracle: for Ardroy and all its people to vanish into the Highland mist, reappearing only one day in a century. Life will go on just as before, no longer touched by wars, armies, or time…

So, last year I watched the Gene Kelly version of the musical Brigadoon, which for those who don't know, is about a Highland village that gets snatched out of time in the mid-eighteenth century, only returning to Earth for one day every hundred years.

And on hearing this, I was like, "Oh, that was obviously to protect the village from the fallout of the '45..." And then it turned out the whole backstory for the miracle was to protect the village from witches. Witches!

And I thought "Well, that's stupid. Obviously a fix-it is required!" Quickly followed by, "You know, I have a handy '45 fandom right here..." And "Not only do I have a handy '45 fandom, there is an EMPTY SPOT ON THE MAP where Ardroy should be... just as if Ardroy had once upon a time been snatched away into the clouds!"

So I wrote a couple thousand words right then, wrote a couple thousand more while I was in Japan, and... then got inextricably tangled up in plot difficulties and let the whole thing languish, neglected.

But then I got assigned to luzula in candyheartsex! Luzula likes AUs that have a supernatural element, and she's actually been to that empty glen where Ardroy should be, and it was all too perfect an opportunity to pass up. So on a weekend visit to my mom, I spent the entire four-hour drive blocking out my proposed plot to grrlpup, and satisfied that it was doable if I wrote fast, I wrote some 2K words that day. And then... kept doing that.

So. Um. Is this an absurdly long story for an exchange with a 300-word minimum? Yes. Sorry. (I hope I didn't cut too much into your free time last week, Luzula!) But it was a beautiful excuse to finish a story that might not have gotten finished otherwise, and the oppty to gift it to someone who has actually seen that empty glen.

Anyway, 16.7K, eventual happy ending, and no knowledge whatsoever of the musical is required.

 

So in fact it was only a 250-year-old novel and a 70-year-old movie, but still pretty close to the mark!