Something has to be lovely...

I'm Pen, she/they, 28, living in the EST/EDT timezone. 🔎 A fanblog dedicated to my favorite detective stories: Shakespeare & Hathaway, Sister Boniface, Benoit Blanc, Endeavor, Poirot, Miss Marple, and pretty much all things Agatha Christie. The cozier the better. 🔎

[blackramhall]

The White House: 3D Cluedo board mode from The Residence ep01.

The Residence in The Residence

----------------------------------------------------------- Whodunit fan? Find more mysteries on Blackram Hall. Avatar pic by Mitchell Turek

[detective-cozy]

I platonically ship Keeler with the Dream Team aka Lu-Frank-Sebastian-Fam

will they ever be buddies? probably not. does that deter me? absolutely not.

[detective-cozy]

So pumped to watch the Keeler episode of the new Shakespeare & Hathaway season 😁

[arsenicflame]

can i present you the bi icon Spider scene in this trying time?

[hentaitiddy666]

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Spider is easily one of my favorite side characters in this show. He’s a bisexual hacker/gamer that lives in a riverboat, stole bitcoins from the Russian mob (for fun!), AND is a short king. 12/10 peak character design. Unparalleled.

[i-dreamed-of-paraparaparamore]

The great thing about Shakespeare and Hathaway is the fact that the three of them get to just so unapologetically love each other platonically. And in a world obsessed with romance, it's such a comforting experience to see platonic relationships be so celebrated. Adds to the cozy vibes.

[wornoutspines]

I didn’t expect Down Cemetery Road to be this good. It’s about a cozy British suburb hiding a full-on conspiracy thriller? Emma Thompson and Ruth Wilson are so good together. #DownCemeteryRoad #EmmaThompson #RuthWilson #MikeHerron #TVReview #BritishCrimeDrama Read my full review:

Down Cemetery Road (Premiere review) | A Sharp, Offbeat Mystery That Sneaks Up on You

[libraford]

Hulu keeps suggesting true crime series to me because I watch murder mystery shows and it's like...

....no? A murder mystery is the opposite of true crime.

It's untrue crime-solving.

[libraford]

When we are watching Only Murders in the Building, or Death and Other Details, or Knives Out, or the various interpretations of Sherlock Holmes-

The mystery comes SECOND in interest to how they are telling the story.

Only Murders is a murder mystery about intergenerational friendships and developing a community of previously lonely people uniting under a shared experience.

Death and Other Details (so far) is about the manipulation of memory, about shouldering the responsibility of other people's secrets.

Knives Out (and Glass Onion) are about wealthy abusers getting whats coming to them, but SPECIFICALLY it's doing so in a tactile, textural way.

And the current set of Agatha Cristie films, which have an underlying theme of class disparities and how post war economics affect the well to do vs the well to don't.

And what makes or breaks a murder mystery for me is-

-is this a story? Or is this an excuse to show our protagonist being extraordinarily smart?

Not to STILL be taking pot shots at BBC Sherlock in 2024, but what made that show uninteresting to me is that it was more about the murder than it was about the way the story was told. Vs Elementary, which was a lot about addiction, vs Enola Holmes which was much more about putting you in a setting, vs the RDJ Sherlock films which don't hit 'mystery' to me so much as 'swash swash buckle buckle.'

Mysteries are a medium with which we paint a whole picture out of a series of seemingly unconnected vignettes. Connecting those vignettes is an immersive experience.

True crime is a narration of events that often does not serve that purpose- much of the intrigue comes from the open-ended nature of 'what if this happened to me?' Which may be interesting for some, but it is not how I prefer stories to be told.

But I am LIVING for this kind of mystery renaissance we're going through because I feel like the genre is really hitting in terms of storytelling, in aesthetics, and frankly just... mood.

Also I'm glad Steve Martin is having fun.

[libraford]

I like it when I'm looking at a painting and when the light hits it right I can see the artists sketch underneath. I like looking at the sheet music to songs I know even though I can't read the clef. I like looking at the floor plans of a building I've been in and maps to trails I walk often.

Storytelling is a raw material like clay.

I wanna see the fingerprints of the sculptor.

[wellshitcaitlin]

You may like Shakespeare and Hathaway, it's a British whodunnit but very fun and the mysteries are interesting and you can tell the actors are having a good time with it too.

Also Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries. It's historical, set in 1920s Australia, and does a pretty good job of being historically accurate without being a slog, with the added bonus of a older female main character (the actress herself is currently in her 50s) still very obviously seen as desirable to others and gets to be a nuisance (affectionate) to cops as she does their job for them.