scripsi

This journal is mostly about fanfiction. And about fandom and fanart and books. There may be a few more personal posts, but they are always f-locked. This journal is where I post my fanfic first, elsewhere you may found them under the nick Dancingsalome on AO3 and Teaspoon. I love talking about fanfiction, or fandom in general and I always enjoy finding friends who likes that too. If you friend me, you will be friended back.

On a more personal note, I'm Swedish, works on a railway, married, owned by both cats and dogs.

Please note that many of my fics are darkfics, angsty and often with potential triggering subjects. Pay attention to the warnings. I talk a bit more about why I write what I write about in this post. I also talk about my writing in an interview for The Doctor Who Fanfic Review, part 1 and part 2.

I mostly write het, but there quite a bit gen, and some slash too. I’m multi-fannsih and write in several fandoms. So far I have written in, for now, are Doctor Who (classic & new), Peter Pan, Harry Potter, Versailles, Penny Dreadful, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, The Historian - Elizabeth Kostova, Sleepy Hollow (1999), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Mummy, Victoria, Angel, Timeless, Pirates of the Caribbean, Agent Carter, Labyrinth, Emily of New Moon, Ivanhoe, All About Eve, Once Upon a Time in Wonderland, The Borgias, The Man in the High Castle and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (TV) (1)

A Masterlist is under construction, but here are all my fics on AO3

Ever since the TACO acronym hit the news, I've had this Modern Talking parody running rent free in my head. So I will be genereous and share it...

Watch on YouTube

I just realized I haven’t mentioned DW yet, but I have of course watched it. In general I think it’s better than the last season. I adore this Doctor! And though I like Ruby, she sometimes felt like a rerun of Rose. I love Belinda, though. She’s a great character and I hope she will stick around for more than one season.

And now Mrs. Flood’s secret is revealed!

Spoilers and a prediction musing under the cut.
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I loved fairy tales as a small child, and I continued to read and love them long after my friend outgrew them. My parents had a book on Vietnamese tales, and one with Swedish ones, and later I found Andrew Lang’s Fairy books with tales collected all over the world. I was fascinated that tales like the Cinderella story had many different versions. In the Swedish one, for example, Cinderella went to three balls, dressed first in silver, then gold, then in a bejewelled gown, and though she dropped the shoes, it wasn’t made of glass. She also only had one stepsister, and the story didn’t end with the wedding. No, the stepsister pushed Cinderella into the sea, where she was going to be forced to marry a sea monster, while the stepsister made herself look like Cinderella. Luckily the prince noticed, and managed to save his bride, though not before she was turned into a serpent that he had to dip into three baths, winter, milk and water, to save.

When I was around 10, my mother took a university course on children’s books, and read Bruno Bettelheim’s The Uses of Enchantment, which I picked up and which had a profound impact on my ability to comprehend and analyze my reading. I’se been a long time since I read it, so I’m quoting Wikipedia on it.

Bettelheim analyzed fairy tales in terms of Freudian psychology in “The Uses of Enchantment” (1976). He discussed the emotional and symbolic importance of fairy tales for children, including traditional tales once considered too dark, such as those collected and published by the Brothers Grimm. Bettelheim suggested that traditional fairy tales, with the darkness of abandonment, death, witches, and injuries, allowed children to grapple with their fears in remote, symbolic terms. If they could read and interpret these fairy tales in their own way, he believed, they would get a greater sense of meaning and purpose.

I’ve also realized I missed a book in my list on books which impacted me, namely One Thousand and One Nights. My father’s parents has a lovely edition in a set of 6 books, which I used to read every time I visited. I was very happy when they gifted the set to me when I turned 16. It’s a 1920s edition with gorgeous illustration by Gudmund Hentze. Also abridged- too racy sequences are edited out, though the book helpful points out that even if the edited text is “very amusing,it doesn’t conform to our time’s view on morality”. It’s also not all of the stories, though I’m unsure how many there should be.

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I haven’t done this in four years, so it will be interesting to see the changes.

I currently have 123 fics on AO3 divided between 27 fandoms. There are only four more in each category, compared to four years ago. But then I haven't been writing much, so not surprising. Also, nothing new since The Queen's Gambit has sparked my inspiration.

My top five fandoms
1.Doctor Who, 32 fics
2.Peter Pan, 17 fics
3. Versailles 8 fics
4.Harry Potter, 8 fics
5. The Queen’s Gambit, 6 fics

Number 5 is new, removing the fandoms Penny Dreadful and Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell.

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Not very surprising, the earlier books that made an impact on me were picture books. Historien om någon (The Story About Someone) written by Åke Löfgren and illustrated by Egon Møller-Nielsen. And The Book About Moomin, Mymble and Little My by Tove Jansson. They were both published in the 50s, 1951 and 1952, and haven been out of print since then. Funnily enough they are both mysteries, and both have very interactive layouts, which excited and intrigued me as a small child. Reading the books now still makes me relive those feelings.

In Historien om någon we get to follow the mysterious Someone, who has taken grandmother’s ball of yarn, and leaves a yarn thread through the house. On the way someone drinks all the milk, and does other kinds of mischief, and finally, in the attic, it’s revealed to be a kitten called Nisse.

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I was a little surprised that four books on my influential book list are books with a horse focus. The Horse and His Boy by C. S Lewin, Melka by Joan Penney, Dick och Dalli, which i now realize has been translated to English, it’s called The Snow Ponies by Ursula Bruns, and Flambards by K. M. Peyton. And they weren’t the only horse books I loved as a child, I was also an avid fan of Walter Farley’s Black Stallion-books, and My Friend Flicka by Mary O’Hara. I’m surprised because I never was horse-mad as a girl. In fact I am afraid of them, and though I find them beautiful to look at, being near one makes my heart beat very fast, and my mouth runs dry.

The Horse and His Boy is of course part of the Narnia Chronicles, though it’s quite different from the others as it’s completely set in the world of Narnia, though actually not in that particular country. I really loved Bree teaching Shasta to ride, and I also like Aravis a lot, and her journey. Their adventures in Tashban and the ride through the desert was something I read with the same excitement, every time I reread it- and I’ve probably reread this Narnia-book the most. Also, Bree is a great flawed character and drama queen.

Melka and The Snow Ponies were books my father had as a child, and I first came to them because he read them for me. Melka was written in the 1930s, and is about a horse, Melka, born in a Sudanese village, where she has some foalhood adventures before she is sold to an English family and is brought to a city. She gets a close friend in a donkey called telephone, and grows close to the boy who rides her. As she is found to be very good at jumping, she is stolen and dyed brown (she’s a white horse), but is eventually reunited with her huma. In the end the family goes back to England, and Melka ends up living in a manor stable in the countryside. I haven’t read this book since I was a child, and I’m not sure I dare to read it again. I’m not sure how well the depiction of Sudanese natives has stood the test of time…

It's been a very long time since I read The Snow Ponies as well, but I remember it as a very funny book. It's about two teenage girls who live with their grandmother and aunt on a stud farm where they raise Icelandic horses and Shetland ponies. They are mad about Vikings and get very excited when their cousin Ethelbert is coming for an extended stay, as they think having a Viking name must make him like one. But Ethelbert is a spoiled hypochondriac and his presence a nuisance more than anything else. I guess it comes as no surprise that Ethelbert, who is pretty much a soulmate to Eustace in the Narnia books, will be forced to do a hard look at his own actions, and change. But with horses, instead of dragons.

Flambards is really the first part of what I read as a trilogy as a child, because those were the only ones translated to Swedish but it’s actually a series of four books. I read the last one as an adult, and didn’t care for it much. Anyway, it’s set before, during and after WWI, and is about rich orphan Christina who is sent to her uncle in the British countryside. He is very posh, and also impoverished, and Christina eventually realizes the hope is that she will marry her cousin Mark, to get the manor house Flambards back to its glory days. Everyone there is horsemad, except her cousin Will, and Christina soon grows to love horses and Flambards as much as Mark does. Pity Mark is such a bastard. I regularly return to the three first books in this series, and there was also a television series I remember liking.

I’m always so late with these posts…

I have been better at concentrating on my reading lately, even if I’m still far from my usual pace. And I only managed to finish two books, namely part 1 and 2 of Shadow of the Leviathan-series, The Tainted Cup and A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett. Several people on my f-list had read and liked them, and so did I. Basically they are crime novels in a fantasy setting, with the main character, Dinios Kol, being the Watson to the very strange, but brilliant detective Ana Dolabra. I guessed who the villain really was early on in both books, but I usually do, so that didn’t diminish my enjoyment of the mystery.

I also liked the fantasy setting, which I found original, and a bit unsettling. In this world the country is invaded by gigantic sea monsters once every year, wrecking havoc until they are killed. And their dead carcasses are used to help enhance humans in various ways. Kol, for example, has perfect recall, others have their sense of smell or sight improved, and so on. I found Kol a likeable protagonist, and I very much look forward to part 3.

It says something about my stress levels that I can’t finish the books I start. My usual pace are one or two books finished weekly. This month I have finished three… Agatha Christie's The Hollow that will get its own post.

The Tomb of Dragons by Katerina Addison. I liked it, but I’m glad I re-read the previous books in the series, as there are a lot of references to the previous books. Actually, all the books in The Cemeteries of Amalo trilogy follow so closely to each other that they could be read as one book in three parts. It feels like it came to a natural conclusion, but I still want more. I like Tara and would love to read more about him, but I also feel that the stories of his friend the opera director and his colleagues still have stories that need to be told.

Dorothy Gilman The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax. I read one Mrs. Pollifax book in my early teens, but had no idea it was a series until someone here on DJ mentioned it. They are Cold War thrillers, with this the first book published in the late 1960s. Mrs. Pollifax is a widow who is rather bored, and decides to do something about her childhood dream of becoming a spy. And so she finds herself in Mexico to pick up a secret package for the CIA. And everything promptly goes wrong. This was not the Polifax book I have read, and I enjoyed it, though it’s very much a product of its time. Americans are heroes and Communists are baddies. But Mrs. Pplifax is a charming and resourceful character and I enjoyed the book..

I’m currently reading, on and off in all too short snatches; France Hardinge’s Fly By Night, Ben Aaronovitch The masquerades of Spring, Dorothy Gilman The Amazing Mrs. Pollifax, Louise Penny’s The Kingdom of the Blind, Jenny Kiefer’s This Wretched Valley and Donyae Coles’ Midnight Rooms.

After watching, and not liking, the new adaptation of Towards Zero, I have been thinking a lot about Agatha Christie’s books. And I think I’m going to embark on a re-read. I have read all her novels written under her own name, some multiple times, but not for the last decade, or so. I have been thinking of doing a reread before, but always felt I ought to start with her first one. The problem is that I don’t like The Mystery at Styles much, so I never felt the urge to get started. But really, why should I read them in publishing order? Only the Tommy and Tuppence books have an inner chronology anyway. So instead I’m going to read them roughly in the order of how much I like them. And I may not reread some I don’t care for much.

I read my first Christie when I was 10. It was Death in the Clouds, and I got interested because the cover showed a giant wasp in front of a plane. I was definitely too young for it. I remember enjoying the beginning when they were in the plane, and I really enjoyed the description of what the passengers had in their handbags and pockets. But the rest when Poirot interviews the suspects, I found it very boring. But a few years later I saw the 70s version of Murder on the Orient Express, loved it and promptly found it in my parents bookshelves, and was hooked. I quickly went through the Christie’s we had, The ABC Murders, Sad Cypress, Cyankalium and Champagne and Hickory Dickory Dock. I don’t usually remember where I find the books I read, but somehow remember my first Christie's. I found Nemesis, Sleeping Murder, Three Little Piggies, 4.50 From Paddington, Appointment With Death, Posterns of Fate and Mrs. McGinty Is Dead at our local library. From both sets of grandparents I found At Bertram’s Hotel, A Caribbean Mystery, Death On the Nile, Evil Under the Sun, A Murder Is Announced, Lord Edgware Dies and A Pocket Full of Rye. I also started to collect titles from used book stores. In my late teens I started to read books in English and switched to buying the titles in English instead of Swedish. The last Christie I read was The Hollow.

Over the years Christie has got a lot of slack for being a bad writer, but I think she is the opposite. She’s an extremely economical writer, basically everything that happens in her books is relevant to the mystery. But it takes real skill to be able to pare down your writing to the bare essentials and still be able to write a compelling story. And her writing is compelling. She wouldn’t still sell, if people found her books dull. Many of the Golden Age writers are forgotten today, but there is a timeless quality over her books that makes them easy to access. She’s not perfect, of course. Many of her books show the prejudices of her time, which can certainly be galling. And though I don’t think her characters are the cardboards they are sometimes accused of, she does use stock characters over and over again. The grumpy patriarch/matriarch, the vamp, the downtrodden spinster, the never-do-well, and so on. But just when you think you have her pegged, she turns round her narratives and surprises you.

I think reading Christie in my teens was good insofar as all the detective tropes she uses were new and exciting to me. Which they were for her readers when the books were first published. Because very, very often, Christie was the one who invented them in the first place. So I look forward to this reread, starting with my all time favourite; the Hollow.

If you enjoy podcasts, I can really recommend All About Agatha (can be found on Spotify too). It goes through every single Christie novel in depth, and most of the short stories as well. They also include discussions on the various adaptations. A word of warning, though. One of the hosts died very suddenly a few seasons in, and I found it a bit shocking to hear.

Not really everything I have watched, just what has stayed in my memory a bit more.

Season 2 of The Law According to Lidia Poët. An Italian show on Netflix about Italy’s first female lawyer in the 19th century. In real life she was barred from officially being a practicing lawyer, though she still worked as one in her brother’s legal office. In the show she also solves crimes with the reluctant help of her brother, and the more enthusiastic help of her brother in law. I find it a charming show, even if Lidia is a thoroughly modern woman in a 19th century world. The costumes are pretty good, though better in season 1. On the other hand I like the love interest of season 2 better. But the relationship I enjoy the most is the one between Lidia and her brother who constantly exasperate each other, but they still love each other and are always there to help. Though I can’t sew while watching this show as I need to read the subtitles.

Inspired by this I went on to re-watch Il Commissario Ricciardi, another Italian show. Set in the 1930s, Ricciardi solves crimes somewhat helped by the fact that he sees ghosts. I really like this show despite having a triangle drama, something that usually bores me. It’s saved here because both women who are in love with Ricciardi are so decent, as is he. The adorable introverted girl next door and the rich and famous opera singer are both really nice women, instead of the usual when one has to be a backstabbing bitch. The costumes are excellent too, and I really like the supporting cast. If you can find the show, I highly recommend it.

We finished season 2 of The Night Agent. From a slow start it got a lot better, though I found the hero with the troubled backstory pretty boring. But Rose is a lovely character and I also liked Noor enormously. Both season 1 and 2 have a lot of good female characters.

Also finished the last season of Father Brown, which was pretty boring. I know it isn’t meant to be a deep show in any way, but the original sidekicks were much better than the current ones. They had defined characters, while the current housekeeper is constantly changing to suit the plot. In one episode she is a talented ballroom dancer, in another a talented writer, and so on.

These questions were written by ange420.

1. How far back can you trace your family tree?
Well, I’m Swedish, and ever since Sweden became a Protestant country in the early 16th century, records have been very good. So I can trace back to that time in all the branches of my family tree. But I have an aristocratic branch, and there I can trace it all the way back to Charlemange and beyond to the 7th century. (It’s not very unique to descend from Charlemange. About 25% of people with European descent do.)

2. What is the most interesting (or strange) thing you've heard about one of your relatives?
One of my ancestors was a POW in Russia after the Battle of Poltava in 1709. When he returned home, he painted two maps over Moscow and it’s surrounding, which I found online a couple of years ago.

3. How do you feel about legacy names like John Henry Smith IV or naming children after other relatives?
Legacy names aren’t a thing in Sweden, and to my eyes they feel a bit cumbersome and clunky. But I like naming after relatives. Probably because I am myself. My first name is the same as my paternal grandfather’s mother. And in my mother’s family the eldest daughter is given the same second name, and I’m the gift generation carrying that tradition. If I had had a daughter I would have continued that tradition, as it is now, my niece got that name.

4. Would you consider yourself and/or your family to be traditional?
Not really. A traditional family structure, for sure. My parents married young and are still married. I’m a cis het woman and married to a man, but I don’t think of myself as traditional beyond that.

5. What is one tradition you have passed on to your children and/or plan to pass on to them?
My sister and I always made gingerbread cookies with our mother before Christmas, and though my son is an adult now, he always comes around to do the same with me.

A bit belated as a good chunk of March has gone by. I don’t seem to be able to concentrate when reading right now, so I have jumped around between books more than usual, and finished fewer.

New books
The Frozen People by Elly Griffiths. This is the first book in a new series. Ali is a police officer in her 50s who works for a cold case unit in London. Only they actually go back in time to solve the crimes. A high-ranking politician pulls strings for the unit to look into his great-great-grandfather who was rumored to have killed several women in the 1850s But instead of an hour in the past, Ali gets stuck in time, and while she is, the politician is murdered and her son gets accused of the crime. I always enjoy Griffiths books, and I liked this one too. Historical mysteries are always my cup of tea, and despite the fantastical premise, the book still felt grounded. Ali is a likeable character, and I always like it when middle-aged women get to be the hero. I also appreciate that Griffith clearly does her research. The description of 1850s clothes was very accurate, which pleased me. I look forward to continuing the series.

Open Season by Jonathan Kellerman. It’s been a long time since Kellerman’s Alex Delaware-books have been anything formulaic, so sometimes I wonder why I still read them. Perhaps because it’s nice to read things that don't surprise you at all. This one was entirely as expected. An oddish kind of murder that makes Alex's police friend Milo call him in. Interviews with surrounding people, broken up with eating. Alex spending time with girlfriend and adorable dog. The murder being a psychopath serial killer, though no one, before Alex, realized there was serial killing going on.

Rereads
The Brimstone Wedding by Barbara Vine. I never liked any of Ruth Rendell’s novels written under her name, but even if I don’t like all of her Barabara Vine novels, those I like I really like. The Brimstone Wedding is one of those I like, but I haven’t reread it for many years. Last time I was the same age as Jenny, in my early 30s, and now I’m a generation older. Makes my perspective a bit different. Anyway, the Vne-books aren’t typical crime novels, even if many of them contain a murder. This book certainly has a mýstery, but it’s also a book about friendship. Jenny works as a nursing assistant at a home for old people, where she befriends Stella, who is 70 and dying from cancer. Initially Stella is very reserved, but eventually she starts talking about her life, and Jenny gets the feeling there is something she really wants to tell her. One says Stella asks Jenny to check out a house she owns. A house, Jenny soon realizes, has stood empty for many years, showing signs of having been abandoned very quickly.

The House of Lost Shadow by F. G. Cottam. As a young man in the 80s, Paul offers to help his girlfriend out with a paper. While researching Pandora, a socialite and photographer active in the 1920s, Paul gets a number of spooky encounters, culminating in a horrific visit to an abandoned house, which shatters his life completely. Fifteen years later he learns that a group of students have visited the same house, leaving one of them dead, and the rest psychotic. And, of course, Paul is the only one who can help.

Cottam is a good horror writer, very atmospheric, and he is often even good at endings, which is often the weakest point in horrors. He also makes heavy use of one of my favourite plot devices where an old mystery is slowly revealed through archive materials. I’m a sucker for that. I don’t think The House of Lost Shadow one of his better books though, possibly because it’s one of his earlier works. The 1980s sequence works well with Paul researching and obsessing over Pandora, but the present day parts feel a bit disjointed. And the ending is rather Deus Ex Machina. I also feel weirded out by Cottam using real life persons as the bad guy. I guess Alisatir Crowley is pretty mythologized by now, but he also elevates an author, Dennis Wheatley into a supernatural villain. Wheatley, who wrote many books with occult themes isn’t very well-known today, and Cottam might as easily have made up a fictive character. In later books Cottam makes up a fictitious occult cult, The Jericho Society, which works much better as villains, and The House of Lost Shadow is part of that canon, even if the cult isn’t mentioned in it. Which is why I re-read it, as I recently read Dark Echo which partly ties in to this one.

I watched the new Agatha Christie adaptation of Towards Zero. It’s one of my favourite Christie books, so I really wanted to like it. Well, the settings and costumes are beautiful. I didn’t mind any of the casting. But it suffered from extensive changes of the basic plot, and I don’t understand why so many modern adaptations of Christie do this. It wasn’t as bad as The Pale Horse, but it sure didn’t work well. I think it’s because Christie’s plots are very tight, basically everything you ever learn about a character, or the things that happen, are essential to it. Even clothes descriptions are either clues, or points to essential characteristics. So if you change something in the plot, then you have to do a lot of additional changes to make the plot work, and in the end you are juggling a lot of eggs, and more often than not, it all ends in a mess. And often not necessary, because there is so much unsaid in a Christie novel that you can add a lot of stuff without changing the basic plot. Like making Mark black in the recent adaption of Murder Is Easy, or moving the timeframe to the 50s instead of 30s. The first change works because Mark is already an outsider in the little English village, so that change basically just underlines that. And the second change doesn't matter much as the original novel has few markers that says it’s set in the 30s anyway.
Spoilers below the cut.
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So all in all I was underwhelmed. I’m well aware that things that work in books may not work in screen adaptations, but I found most of the changes here just weird, and not well grounded into the story.

Borrowed from thisbluespirit

Rules: give us the links to your fics with the most hits, second most kudos, third most comments, fourth most bookmarks, fifth most words, and fic with the fewest words.

Most hits and second most kudos: The Might of his Strength with 12751 hits and 354 kudos. (The Mummy-fic, Imhotep/Evy Carnahan O'Connell, Evy Carnahan O'Connell/Rick O'Connell, Imhotep/Evy Carnahan O'Connell/Ardeth Bay)

Third most comment; The Number of Vices with 45 comments. (The Queen’s Gambit-fic, Beth Harmon/Vasily Borgov)

Fourth most bookmarks: Ghosts has 73 bookmarks. (The Mummy-fic, Imhotep/Evy Carnahan O'Connell, Evy Carnahan O'Connell/Rick O'Connell, Evy Carnahan O'Connell/Ardeth Bay)

Fifth most words: Man’s Greatest Joy has 14348 words. (Peter Pan, Captain Hook/Wendy Darling)

The fewest words: Warnings For Curious Children with 98 of them. (A Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Gen)

And here is the state of my fic-writing in general. I’m currently working on two WIP’s. Passions of Some Difference (The Queen’s Gambit, Beth Harmon/Vasily Borgov) and Sable Coats and Razorblades (All About Eve, Karen Rickards/Addison DeWitt). Both are completely mapped out and have large chunks already written. I hope to finish them soon-ish.

The Might of His Strength is still a WIP, but I’m struggling to finish it. My original ending didn’t work out and I haven’t been able to knit it together in a way that feels right. Most annoying, but hopefully I’ll get there eventually.

And while rewatching Grimm I have got a fic-idea I don’t think anyone would read, but is very persistent, so I might write it down anyway. It’s Rosalie Calvert/Sean Renard which is A. Not a pairing anyone writes, and B. I would need to get rid of Monroe, which no one would want to read.

I have several other ideas for fics that are all mapped out, but need to be written.

Death In Paradise: Camille Bordey/Richard Poole
Dracula/The Historian: A sequel to Clara and Sophie.
The Borgias: Cesare Borgia/Lucrezia Borgia/Micheletto Corella
The Mummy: A sequel to Ghosts. Evy Carnahan O'Connell/Rick O'Connell. Evy Carnahan O'Connell/Ardeth Bay
The Queen’s Gambit: A prequel to Paris Redux, Beth Harmon/Vasily Borgov

So if I can only keep my writing mojo going, I will have plenty to write about.

I want to gush a little about an art exhibition I saw yesterday. The Swedish artist Tyra Kleen died in 1951, leaving her artwork to the Swedish House of Nobility on the condition no one was to look at them for 50 years. So even if she was an important artist in her time, she was basically forgotten. There have been smaller exhibitions since then, but the one I saw yesterday is the most comprehensive. She was born in 1874 and lived in both Paris and Rome, as well as travelled extensively. She was a feminist and never married. Apart from her art, she also wrote books, and was an independent ethnographic researcher. She was also interested in the occult. I really love her art, and the exhibition was amazing.

It’s very picture heavy under the cut, with art related nudity and some horror motifs. The slightly wonky pictures are one I took myself yesterday.

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A somewhat belated January-edition. This isn’t everything I watched, but not everything stays in my mind enough to warrant talking about.

I’m currently re-watching Grimm and find I like it better this time, even if I enjoyed it back then too. It’s not perfect, and it seems to me that the showrunner didn’t have a clear picture of some of the character arcs. Like poor Juliet’s. And Nick and Adelin’s relationship by the end always felt very weird to me. But I like all the characters. Monroe is the best side-kick ever, and I adore Rosalee so much! And with my love for morally grey characters, Sean renard is pretty much perfect. Of course it helps that I find Sasha Roiz very easy on the eyes.

I also love the premise of fairy tales creatures being real, and living along us, and I love the world building, though I feel the viewers were a bit short-changed. Perhaps because we didn’t get a full season. I’m a bit miffed that the key-plot with parts of a map slowly being revealed wasn’t used up, but suddenly they could guess whee the treasure was? And I still want to know what was so special with the Royals. It’s pretty clear they are different from ordinary humans, but how? Are they a kind of Wesen too? And are Grimms really a sub-species of Wesen as well. I wanna know!

Apparently a Grimm movie is planned, with some of the same characters, and if it is well received, there may be a new show. I imagine they may take up the ball a few years later, with all the children grown. I hope it will happen. I’d enjoy the Grimm fandom.

Also re-watching White Collar which is fun as I don’t remember a single episode when it comes to the plots. I remember the character’s well enough, as I always liked them, so it’s partly like watching a new show, even if I know all the people in it. My only beef is that I know too much about art to realize that Neil simply can’t make those perfect copies in his loft with such short time frames.

I’m currently watching the second season of The Night Agent. I liked the first season, but found the current season very slow in the beginning. A lot of chasing and shooting, but not much else. It feels they should have aimed for an 8 episode season, not a 10. But it’s growing on me, and I really like Noor. She’s a wonderful character, and I hope she makes it through.

I just finished Missing You and Fool Me Once, which are both adaptations from Harley Coben novels. I haven’t read him, so I’ve no idea how faithful the shows are to the books. But stars Richard Armitage who I low-key fancy, so that was nice. I liked Missing You best. True, the plot was basically two utterly improbable things accidentally overlapping, but the acting was solid throughout, and I really liked Rosalind Eleazar as Detective Inspector Kat Donovan. She was a great character, and I also liked the depiction of friendship in the show. I liked Fool Me Once less. Another improbable plot, but with a lot less likeable main character. Though Joanna Lumely is always fun. And Richard Armitage was nice to look at in both shows.

I just realized that now that Neil Gaiman can no longer be in the running, all my favourite authors are women. It’s not that I don't like some books written by men, and I certainly haven't been conscious of how female oriented my favourite list is, until very recently. In no particular order, here are the authors I return to again and again, and whose books have had a great impact on me.

Jane Austen
Charlotte Brontë
Dorothy L. Sayers
Selma Lagerlöf
Anna-Karin Palm
Diana Wynne Jones
Barbara Vine
Lois McMaster Bujold
Ursula K. LeGuin
Frances Hardinge
Elizabeth Kostova

As you can see, these authors span over 200 years, and that made me think that even though female authors always have been fewer than men, they seem to survive much better. And I’m tentatively coming to the conclusion that one of the reasons they do, is because they write both women and men as full human beings. Lizzie Bennet, Jane Eyre and Hariet Vane are certainly women of their time, living within the boundaries their society gives them. But they also maintain that they are full human beings, worthy of respect and consideration. Men so often describe women in misogynic terms, but women rarely return the favor. So my idea is that female authors survive through time because the human beings in them are all human, women are never described as the lesser sex, Which makes them more readable for the modern reader. What do you think?

I’m desperately trying to remember which book this is, and I thought I would ask you if you recognize it. It annoys me no end that I can't come up with the title! I’m sorry for being fuzzy on the details. It's been more than 10 years since I read it. It’s definitely a crime novel.

The male protagonist comes into contact with a young woman and her small son. I’m pretty sure it’s through his work. The father of the child is no longer around, it’s possible that he is dead. The woman is murdered and the child disappears. The protagonist finds out that the paternal grandfather is famous. Either he used to be a movie star, or he is a cult leader. (Or he might have been both). He and his family live on some sort of compound that the protagonist sneaks into. He finds the little boy, who sleeps in a vintage bed shaped like a car, likely the bed his father once used. He is not, however, treated well. The protagonist hears a woman (the child’s grandmother?) berate him for crying. The protagonist is captured, but before he is killed the police arrive. In the aftermath they find at least one murder victim buried in the grounds.

I was sure this book was actually one of the Alex Delawere books by Jonathan Kellerman. But I have re-read them now, and this book never came up. Granted, there are so many of them, so it may be a Kellerman book that I have somehow missed. I’d be so grateful if anyone knows which book this is!

Title: Sable Coats and Razorblades
Fandom: All About Eve
Rating: Explicit
Chapters: 6/?
Characters: Addison DeWitt, Karen Richards, Eve Harrington
Pairings: Addison DeWitt/ Karen Richards, Addison DeWitt/Eve Harrington
Warnings: Blackmail, Non-consensual kissing, Dubious consent, Coercion, Dominance/submission, Forced marriage, Marriage of Convenience
Summary: To try to fight Addison DeWitt is doomed to failure, but what if one folds?

The fic on AO3

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Sable Coats and Razorblades, chapter 6