#Hard-boiled Private Investigator | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

goosedoes-fics · 1 year

Text

Missing

Spiderman Noir x Reader

Content warnings: alcohol mention, no use of y/n, first person (reader pov)

Notes: if you look closely you can see the exact moment that I lost all inspiration to actually finish this oneshot!! anyways yea I was gonna have it from Noir's POV but it would be harder for the reader to be gender neutral if that was the case

~~~~~

The young shamus' office was colder than a summer night in Antarctica. A single light dangled overhead, dimly illuminating the room just enough that the corners were pitch black, but everything else was a bit visible. I had heard tales of the hard-boiled gumshoe, the only private eye in New York to wear a mask. It was pretty dang smart, really. Protecting his identity and all that jazz.

His feet were propped up on his desk, clad in worn leather boots that seemed to have dirt caked in from his many adventures. His fedora covered where his eyes would have been, had he not been wearing a mask that already concealed them.

I took notice of the bottle of moonshine on his desk, picking it up and inspecting the label. "Bit ironic for a detective to be drinkin' hooch, ain't it?"

For a moment, I thought he wouldn't respond, as he didn't look up nor tilt up his hat, but he leaned forward slightly as he addressed me. "Don't blow your wig, pal. You can't convince me ya haven't stepped into a speakeasy a few times."

His retort earned a quiet laugh out of me as I placed the bottle back in its original spot.

The private investigator finally took his feet off the desk and looked up at me. I could only imagine his piercing gray eyes inspecting me. The thought somehow got me flustered, subtle heat rising to my cheeks.

"You got somethin' to say, or are you just gonna stand there gawkin'?" He eventually asked, snapping me out of my stupor.

He reached into a drawer on his desk and took out a cigar, lighting it and putting it up to the fabric of his mask where his mouth would be. "Usually people come in here for me to solve a mystery."

"Oh!" I laughed nervously. Had I been staring at him? Idiot. "Right. Yeah."

Reaching into my back pocket, I retrieved a small photograph, sliding it across the table like an 8 ball in a game of pool.

"My grandma." I tapped the photo. "Y'see the necklace? It's been in my family for decades. And today, it wasn't in the safe."

The detective's interest seemed piqued, at least from what little I could deduce from his body language. "Touched it lately?"

"Not since two months ago. It's only for VERY special occasions." I shrugged, taking a glance at the nameplate on his desk. "Mr. Noir... can you find it?"

The silence was thicker than 5 year old expired eggnog. Golly, how I wished I knew what he was thinking. The only thing I could decipher was a bit of curiosity from the slight tilt of his head.

I hadn't even realized I was holding my breath until I started getting dizzy.

Eventually, he spoke up. "The question ain't can I, toots. It's will I. And the answer is yes."

A small smile spread across my lips as he stood up, handing me back the photograph with a slight tilt of his head.

"Thank you, sir."

The apartment I lived in was quite small, and hardly luxurious. Despite our family heirloom being one of such high worth, we weren't a wealthy family. But I managed to get by. Even if it wasn't large, it was cozy.

"This is your place?" His body language betrayed no thoughts. It was really quite frustrating how little I could infer from him, with only his voice and movements to determine what he was feeling.

"...it's not much," I admitted carefully, "But I do like it."

"And you never thought to sell the necklace?"

"No, sir. It's too important to our family."

Noir hummed softly, inspecting the safe when I pointed it out. He dragged a gloved finger over the surface, a thin layer of dust now coating his fingertip like ash from a fireplace. The motion somehow made me nervous, as if he was convincing me I had something to hide.

Noir looked up at me after a moment's pause. "...Listen, if you can't pay, I can-"

"No." I cut him off. "I can pay. I wouldn't have hired you if I didn't set aside some money."

The vigilante didn't respond. He merely turned back to the safe, closing the door of it before standing up straight again. He looked down at me, and I could practically feel his eyes burning into me.

"...I can't take your money, darlin'."

Frustration boiled inside of me as I took a step forward. "Yes you can. I don't need pity, detective."

A small sigh could be heard through the fabric of Noir's mask. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep myself from having an outburst.

In a swift, almost imperceptible movement, Noir took one of my hands in both of his. The investigator's huge gloved hands dwarfed my own. "You don't understand. I know what happened with yer necklace, I can't ask you to pay me for such a quick job."

It was hard for me to choke out any words. "But-"

"No buts."

"I have to pay you. This is your job," I protested.

Noir was quiet for a moment before cupping my face in his hands. I was aware of heat rising to my cheeks. If he noticed how flustered he was making me, he didn't say anything. "You really wanna pay? I'm not gonna bump gums with you about this."

I nodded stubbornly. Perhaps I didn't quite understand the implications of his words, because after lifting up his mask just above his nose, he kissed me square on the lips.

The light pink on my cheeks doubled, turning my face red as I slowly began kissing back. My mind clouded, halting any racing thoughts and focusing only on the gentleness of his lips.

When he finally pulled away, it felt too soon. I couldn't squeak out any words as he took a step back from me, tilting his hat by the brim with a small nod.

My mind was still in a bit of a daze when he started to leave. "By the way, darlin'." I looked up at him as he spoke to me. "Check the coffee table."

And sure enough, there was the necklace, hidden from view next to a stack of magazines.

#spiderman noir #spiderman #spiderman noir x reader #spider noir #spider noir x reader #noir #noir x reader #into the spider verse #itsv #x reader #itsv x reader #into the spider verse x reader

474 notes · View notes

baronessofmischief · 10 months

Text

“Word on the street says Red’s called in her guard dog for the job— Don’t mess with her and he won’t mess with you. Man’s got more bite than bark.”

@miranhas-art continues to amaze me with her work. She’s indulged me this time by taking my prompt for an alternate universe idea I’ve had for The Last of Us, this one being that of hard-boiled detectives.

Joel Miller, a former detective from Austin, Texas, once uncovered a ring of crooked cops and his unwillingness to back down inevitably resulted in him and his daughter being caught in the crossfire. Now a jaded private investigator he partners with Tess Servopoulos, taking jobs that keep their pockets and guns filled. Whether they walk on the other side of the law is their business.

#miranhas-art #The Last of Us #TLOU au #art #Joel Miller #Tess Servopoulos

69 notes · View notes

bayernteen · 3 months

Text

I’m shocked, but I’m not surprised. 🙁

I have no words when I read the verdict earlier today. And to be honest with you, this investigation has disappointed me on so many levels. I don’t have an issue with Red Bull winning all the time, nor the drivers. The only issue I have is definitely the team principal himself. (In order to avoid being cooked on social media I have decided not to say his name.) This is not the first time that we have seen him do this before. As a Formula 1 fan who has followed the sport since 2020, I knew something was odd (sus 😐) with RB, especially with the team boss. He has said mean words about Nicholas Latifi after the 2021 finale, he has said mean words about Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton, and like Helmut Marko who said racist words about Sergio Perez, both of them will never get caught when it comes to politics in F1. This just shows the amount of racism and sexism as the major issue in RB. And don’t forget the issue when it comes to second drivers in comparison to Max.

But you know what the worst part about this is? It’s the fact that the parent company from Austria will never let him go. They literally did this as a formality, and there could be a hint of blackmail, but I will not get into that either. But with the female employee showing 100 pages of evidence, and the company stating that there is zero evidence in this investigation, has definitely made my blood boil. This is an example of poor treatment by the team, especially for women working there. This is contrasting to Susie Wolff when the FIA decided to open an investigation against her for her position at F1 Academy (managing director) with ZERO evidence and then deciding to drop the investigation, and it really shows the disappointment I have for the FIA. Therefore, if you are a female RB supporter regardless of which driver you support, you know this is bad for the world of motorsport.

So I wanna send a message to all the women in motorsport, and to all the female F1 fans out there. The reason why I always say ‘Representation matters’, is the mere fact that F1 is NOT a safe space for women. With Mercedes, they are trying their best to bring women in the workplace, but when it comes to RB, it’s always a disaster. Even when the team boss is caught, they don’t care. They just let it go, which is really disappointing even when working with the FIA. I hope and pray that the female employee is alright at the moment, and is supported by her family and female fans around the world. Please just remember to not ask for the name of the employee due to privacy. We all have private lives for a reason. I also hope that she can appeal this and drag this whole investigation to court.

So one important thing here is this: REPRESENTATION MATTERS!!!! And I will not stop posting female drivers when it comes to motorsport or F1 in general. I hope that this investigation is a HUGE wake up call to F1 that women in motorsport is happening now and more than ever. This is the reason why I’ll never stop supporting Mercedes and I want to applaud them for all the hard work and dedication in bringing diversity to motorsport. I hope that they keep this going, and especially for Lewis Hamilton to bring it to Ferrari.

Lastly, to all the women and F1 girls who are reading this and have followed the investigation, you are not alone. This has been a very difficult time for us in the sport, and no matter what happens this season, we are in this together till the very end. Thank you so much for all the support so far, and just remember:

You are not alone, and representation matters! ✨

Take care! 😊

#formula one #f1 2024 #christian horner #anti christian horner #anti rbr

12 notes · View notes

kadytimberfox · 6 months

Text

Kady's Expanse (Re)Watch Blog

Episode 1.01 - "Dulcinea" (Pilot)

And here we go for my...fourth time I've watched this episode I think? It's a really wonderful pilot that does so much work with introducing you to the world, our cast of characters, and setting up the threads of the main plot and does it all perfectly in a very tight 45 minutes. It reminds me a lot of Deep Space Nine's pilot "The Emissary" which is similarly a masterclass in tight storytelling and how to properly kick off a new series.

And speaking of kicking off a new series, hey! I'm watching this show that I absolutely adore again and I'm going to take the time to spout my thoughts about it on the internet because that seems like a fun idea! I really enjoy thinking about media critically but I've never taken the time to write down my thoughts before. It's a style of writing I've always wanted to try so where better to do that than a Tumblr blog? I'll try to keep these Brief and Not Boring but no guarantees on either. Especially on this one. It's the pilot, after all.

I also want to keep this as light on spoilers as possible; again though, no guarantees. Also if you haven't seen this show yet just go fucking watch it it's so good.

Later in this post is a description of torture that happens in the episode. I marked it with a TW and formatted the text to make it distinct from the rest of the post.

With that out of the way, there's nothing left to do except pick apart this pilot!

---------------------------------------

Summary

We kick off with a bang (and then some more banging) as we see a young woman named "Julie" fight her way out of a locked compartment, explore the darkened hallways of her Completely Fucked Spaceship, and watch her friends get eaten alive by some evil blue space goop. Surely none of that will be important later.

Cut to the adventures of hard-boiled Belter detective Joe Miller and his new Earthling partner Dimitri Havelock. They're private cops for an Earth corporation who theoretically maintain order on Ceres Station in the Asteroid Belt, the biggest shithole this side of pretty much anywhere. They go to a murder scene and do basically nothing, antagonize and then arrest people minding their own business at a bar, and take a bribe to half-ass a health inspection. Y'know, classic cop stuff.

Back at the precinct, Miller gets an off-the-books job from his boss to find one Juliette Andromeda Mao, daughter of megacorp magnate Jules-Pierre Mao and coincidentally the spitting image of "Julie" from our opening scene. Apparently, her pro-Belter activism is starting to piss off dear old dad and they want her to come home before she embarrasses the family any further.

In the middle of his investigation, he finds out that those air filters he "inspected" earlier crapped out and poisoned some children. Instead of taking accountability for not doing his job, he decides to throw the sleazy air filter guy into an airlock and only lets him out after he promises not to fuck it up next time. And also to pay Miller double. I'll let it slide though because Sleazy Air Filter Guy is an asshole.

Back on Earth, United Nations Undersecretary Chrisjen Avasarala shows up for about five minutes in this episode. The only thing she does is torture a guy. End scene.

Meanwhile, the good ship Canterbury is on its way to Ceres with a big haul of space ice that the station needs to turn into water. Second Officer James Holden gets immediately promoted, much to his dismay, because his previous boss Mike Ehrmantraut went insane from being out in space too long.

Mystery strikes when the gang gets a weird distress signal from a ship called the Scopuli. Captain McDowell, probably having watched enough Star Trek episodes to know that this can't be anything good, decides to ignore it. Holden just can't stop himself from doing a good thing, though, and secretly reports the signal, officially making the Canterbury Legally Obligated™ to investigate.

He picks his away team (unknowingly also picking the people he's going to spend the rest of this show with) and takes a shuttle to investigate the drifting Scopuli, where they find everything shut down except for the beacon that brought them here. "Pirate bait", or so it seems.

Suddenly, McDowell advises the away team that a very scary ship has appeared out of nowhere and that they need to get the hell out of there. The gang gets back on the shuttle just in time for the mystery ship to fire not just regular torpedoes, but nuclear torpedoes at them. The torpedoes close to zero...and then continue streaking towards the Canterbury.

Holden tells McDowell to eject the space ice to form a protective barrier, but he refuses, apparently willing to die rather than lose his payday. The payday (and everything else aboard) is lost anyway, however, as the Canterbury erupts into the most beautiful supernova I've ever seen.

"She's gone. They nuked her. She's gone."

-----------------------------------

My thoughts

So this is where I actually have to do the analysis thing. Since the beginning of this show is split into three primary subplots that all deal with a different piece of the Julie puzzle (a narrative device that I fucking love, by the way), I'll divide things up by talking about each one individually because that just makes sense.

Before I do that though, I just want to briefly say that that opening scene with Julie on the Scopuli is just the perfect opening to this show. It immediately gives us a very brief glimpse inside the puzzle box that our main cast is going to spend all of this season (and most of this show) trying to open. It's quick, it's tense, it's completely terrifying, and it's unforgettable if you've seen it.

------------------------------------

Miller on Ceres:

And we follow up that perfect opening scene with a perfect choice for which of these three main threads to start with. The thing that's great about dividing up the characters like this is that each of them only has a piece of what's going on with Julie and the Scopuli, but no one has the full picture. Miller, though, gets the most information off the bat and is the only person in the main cast who's looking for Julie specifically, so it's only natural that we should start with him.

His story is also the inspiration for the title of this episode, "Dulcinea". For those of you who aren't big Don Quixote fans, it's a reference to Quixote's fantasy lover that he invents because he styles himself as a knight and, of course, every knight needs his damsel. He describes her in excruciating detail; she's royalty in a far-off land who is the epitome of feminine beauty, the ideal of Womanhood Incarnate--or his vision of it at least.

And the deeper Miller goes in his investigation, the more quixotic he gets with his idea of who Julie is. He's never met or spoken to Julie, but as he unravels her activities prior to departing on the Scopuli, he becomes increasingly obsessed with her, imagining what kind of a person she must be, picking apart every little detail and transposing it onto his vision of what her life must be like. I'm sure he would call it "being a good detective", but it's much more than that to him.

Throughout Miller's jaunt around town with Havelock, they banter back and forth, and through their conversations, we get a great sense of their personalities. Whereas Miller is the grizzled veteran who's had his morality thoroughly beaten out of him, Havelock is a by-the-book rookie cop who seems genuinely interested in learning about Belters, if only so that he can police them more effectively.

It's a very tried-and-true buddy cop pairing, but it works really well here. Havelock gets to be our audience surrogate for this story as we learn more about how Ceres and Belters operate.

This thread has the biggest worldbuilding burden out of the three and it pulls it off so well. We get so much about life in the Belt, the politics of the Solar System, the Outer Planets Alliance, or OPA (who will definitely be showing up later), and the logistics of maintaining a huge population of humans on a space station. And none of it feels clunky or awkward in the slightest. It's exactly the style of worldbuilding I loved in "The Emissary" from Deep Space Nine.

Ceres itself also has huge DS9 vibes, and not in a good way. The set design team did such a good job making this place look old, weathered, and completely falling apart. Except, of course, for the nice apartment buildings where the cops, off-worlders, and everyone else rich enough to ignore the seedy underbelly get to live.

There are a ton of fantastic, evocative lines in this arc, but I think my favorite is Miller's deadpan proclamation that "There are no laws on Ceres, just cops." A perfect summary of everything we see on screen about how power is wielded in this place.

-------------------------------------

Chrisjen on Earth:

This is the shortest thread where the least happens, but it will grow into one of my favorites. We don't get too much additional insight into what's going on, but we do get two important things: 1) Chrisjen Avasarala is a stone-cold bitch who thinks the OPA are terrorists, and 2) the OPA are apparently trying to get their hands on illegal stealth technology, which doesn't help with the whole "terrorism" thing.

This links up to both Miller's and Holden's subplots: we know about the OPA from Miller, and the ship that eventually blows up the Cant was using Martian stealth tech. Of course, since Holden and crew have no idea about the OPA, they immediately start thinking that Mars is out to get them, which will continue to play into the story going forward.

!-- TW: DESCRIPTION OF TORTURE --!

Also important to note is that Chrisjen is getting this information through the most brutal torture I've seen on TV in a long time: forcing a Belter whose body can't handle Earth's gravity to stand for hours on end by holding him up with hooks under his arms. After Chrisjen goes on and on about his "weak Belter lungs and brittle Belter bones", she coldly turns around and tells them to hold him up for another 10 hours. "If he survives, call me."

!-- TW ENDS --!

Fucking ghoulish, and definitely not a good look for Madam Undersecretary's first appearance. You're gonna have to trust me now when I say that she becomes one of my favorite characters in the main cast. This is about as bad as she gets, but she continues being manipulative and cold-blooded for most of this show. That's just who she is. To me, it's part of what makes this subplot of scheming at the UN so engaging.

We'll be seeing a lot more of Chrisjen going forward, and she'll get much better. At the very least, she will stop torturing this guy. But only because someone will tell her not to.

-----------------------------------

Holden on the Canterbury:

If Miller's story shows us life in the Belt and Chrisjen's shows us the politics of the Solar System, Holden's thread is all about life onboard a spaceship, which is important because we're going to be spending a lot of time on spaceships. This is also the part of the episode that has the most CG and honestly it holds up really really well. I know it's less than a decade old and they probably got a lot of money for the pilot but still! It looks great!

I'll drop a brief shoutout here as well for the ship designs in this show. They knocked it out of the goddamn park with the Cant's design: it's a big, boxy, dull gray, ugly thing that looks designed to haul ice and do literally nothing else. Everything is so practical and, above all else, plausible. They look like humans from the near future built them and that's the highest compliment I can give them.

There are shades of the first act of "Alien" here as we are essentially dropped into the Cant in the middle of its mission and get to see the camaraderie and hierarchy between all the members of the crew. We also get to know more about Holden, and immediately he begins showing us his defining character trait: he wields a lot of authority and respect, but he hates being in charge.

We see this in the very first scene onboard the Cant when one of the ice haulers, Paj, gets his arm severed while working outside the ship. He seems completely unfazed by this, though, since the company will send him a prosthetic and he's been working for them long enough to get a really good one.

Not only does this happen often enough that the company just buys prosthetics as a cost of doing business, there are literally tiers of coverage depending on years of service. What an optimistic future this is turning out to be.

Paj pleads with Holden to make sure the company doesn't send him a "used" arm (a frightening thought), to which Holden replies with something that he will continue to say, in so many words, over and over: "I'm just another clock-puncher like you." Holden knows he has authority on the Cant, but all he wants to be is a clock-puncher, which he makes very clear to pretty much everyone he talks to, including Captain McDowell when he essentially forces the XO job onto him.

Later on, we get our first glimpse at Holden's other primary personality trait, that being that he is The Main Character and therefore the most kind-hearted soul that can exist in this cold, selfish world. He logs the distress signal they received from the Scopuli, thereby ensuring that they'll have to divert from Ceres (and lose their on-time bonus) in order to investigate.

He shares this privately with Chief Engineer Naomi Nagata before the shuttle mission, to which her only reply is to tell him to keep that to himself. Fair play, considering she was just talking about how she wanted to strangle the little fucking do-gooder before she realized it was her new XO. Excuse me, Acting XO.

Before the shuttle launch, we're briefly introduced to the rest of the away team: the aforementioned Naomi; her mechanic Amos Burton, whose defining character trait is doing whatever Naomi tells him to do; ship's pilot Alex Kamal, who we previously saw being an annoying blabbermouth on the Cant; and Med-Tech Shed Garvey, who sewed up Paj's arm and wants everyone to know that he does not want to be here. Yes, his first name really is Shed.

Most of this part of the episode is setting up what'll happen next so we don't get a lot of time with any of these guys, but we'll have time for some great character work in the coming episodes.

----------------------------------

And that said, what a great setup for what comes next! Nearly all of the people we just got to know on the Cant are vaporized by a mysterious ship, there's a cloud of space debris hurtling toward Holden's little shuttle, and we have a hell of a puzzle box to dig into. Did Mars blow up the Cant? Did the OPA? Why would either of them want to? What does it all have to do with Julie and the Scopuli? And what the hell was that fucking space goo??

Despite covering so much ground in this pilot, The Expanse makes it very clear that we've barely scratched the surface. And even though I've already seen this whole show and know where it's going, it took everything I had to not hit the "next episode" button.

I will be doing that very soon though because I had a blast writing this up and I definitely want to keep doing it! Apologies that this one ran so long -- I assumed I was going to write a lot with this being the first episode and everything but I had so many thoughts that didn't make it into this post. I'm sure I'll be refining the format as we go along as well.

If you read all the way to here, I'm genuinely flattered and I hope you have a wonderful day.

~ Kady <3

#the expanse #media analysis #sci fi #kady's expanse rewatch blog #<- whenever I write more of these they'll be in this tag #tw torture #torture mention #random tags of things I didn't mention:#fucking LOVE this show's intro sequence. absolutely fantastic and I loved hearing it again #the little bird that only has to flap its wings a little bit because of the low gravity!!!#I love Miller's absolutely rancid vibes with his ex-partner-girlfriend

11 notes · View notes

nfcomics · 9 months

Text

GOTHAM CITY YEAR ONE no.1 • cover art • Ryan Sook [Oct 2022]

There once was a shining city on the water, a home for families, hope, and prosperity. It was Gotham and it was glorious. The story of its fall from grace, the legend that would birth the Bat, has remained untold for 80 years. That’s about to change. Superstar creators Tom King and Phil Hester team up for the first time to tell the definitive origin of Gotham City: how it became the cesspool of violence and corruption it is today, and how it harbored and then unleashed the sin that led to the rise of the Dark Knight. Two generations before Batman, private investigator Slam Bradley gets tangled in the "kidnapping of the century" as the infant Wayne heir disappears in the night...and so begins a brutal, hard-boiled, epic tale of a man living on the edge and a city about to burn.

(W) Tom King (A) Phil Hester, Eric Gapstur (CA) Ryan Sook

#Gotham City Year One no.1 #Ryan Sook #Tom King #Phil Hester #Eric Gapstur #Slam Bradley #Batman #Bruce Wayne #Wayne Family #Gotham #Gotham City #Gotham City Year One

16 notes · View notes

beardedmrbean · 9 months

Text

A Texas police officer was fired after police body camera footage of a traffic stop was publicly released, police say.

Officer Scott Harrell was sitting in his cruiser in the parking lot of Buc-ee’s in Texas City, about 40 miles southeast of Houston, on April 19 when Christopher Shull pulled in, body camera video posted on Youtube by Shull shows.

Video shows Harrell pull behind Shull at the gas pump and get out of his cruiser. He tells Shull in the video the reason he pulled him over is because he was speeding through the parking lot and cut through parking spaces.

“I didn’t think I did anything wrong, I just came over to get gas,” Shull says to Harrell in the video.

In a police report obtained by KPRC, Harrell said Shull was “argumentative and confrontational” and said he “continued to argue the facts of the case.”

Shull told the news outlet he didn’t agree with that, and the officer just wanted him to agree.

“Everything he said was a lie and it really just boils down to, he wanted to use his police powers to bash me over the head,” Shull told KPRC.

Harrell could not be reached by McClatchy News for comment.

About four minutes into the traffic stop, video shows Shull asking what type of citation the officer could give him on private property. Harrell tells him he could get a citation for disregarding a traffic control device, video shows.

Shull said he understood, but Harrell said he had an “attitude,” according to the video.

”I get you’re upset,” Harrell says in the video. “No one likes the cops pulling up on them, but you know you did wrong.”

Harrell then threatens to arrest Shull, video shows.

“You wanna go to jail? You can go to jail for this… I don’t wanna take you to jail, that is definitely a waste of my time. But the attitude is not necessary,” he is heard telling Shull in the video.

Harrell also accused Shull of nearly hitting a truck in the parking lot, according to KPRC.

Shull posted surveillance footage to his YouTube page showing when he passed the truck in the parking lot.

Harrell tells Shull he believes he will “continue to commit these behaviors,” KPRC reported.

Shortly after, Harrell places Shull in handcuffs and puts him in the back seat of his cruiser, the video shows. For several minutes, Shull asks if they “really have to do this” and if they can “cool off,” according to the video.

“You have forced my hand at this point,” Harrell said in the video. “Because if I don’t go and see this through to its conclusion, I know you’re going to go to the police department and file a complaint on me.”

About eight minutes later, another officer arrives. Harrell is heard telling the officer he was going to let Shull go with a warning, but Shull wanted to “argue” and “go back and forth.”

Eventually, Shull is given a citation and let go.

However, Harrell was initially placed “on inside administrative duties” while the department investigated, according to a May 24 news release from the Texas City Police Department.

“The Texas City Police Department has strict policies prohibiting officers from violating individuals’ rights with whom the officers’ encounter,” Joe Stanton, the police chief at the time, wrote in the release.

Since then, a new police chief at the department fired Harrell, the police department said in a Sept. 8 news release.

“This decision was made after a thorough review of the circumstances and is in line with our commitment to maintaining the highest standards of professionalism, ethics, and community service,” Police Chief Landis Cravens said in the news release. “We want to be clear that the actions of this individual do not represent the hard work and dedication of the men and women who proudly wear the uniform of the Texas City Police Department.”

Shull’s citation was dismissed, according to KPRC.

#nunyas news

15 notes · View notes

tarakaybee · 11 months

Text

Just had a dream about a really good idea for an Unsleeping City spinoff or just fanfiction. The party work for a private investigator’s firm in the waking world and lately they’ve been getting a lot of missing persons reports from members of the Unsleeping City, and as a result a lot of the infrastructure has stopped functioning, causing progressively more disruptions to the city. Eventually, a part of the dream I remember vividly is a hard boiled detective played by Lou Wilson looks at the list of all the workers missing, the tooth fairy’s pixies have stopped collecting teeth, the servants of the god Apollo are no longer pushing the sun across the sky every day, the clock gnomes of Grand Central Station aren’t maintaining their usual operations, this isn’t a conspiracy this is a strike! And from then on the focus of the investigation shifts into aiding the strike by investigating the corporate benefactors to acquire enough leverage for the strikers to get the conditions and pay that they want. I think this is such a Brennan Lee Mulligan story to do.

#dimension 20 #unsleeping city #fanfiction

17 notes · View notes

canonical-transformation · 1 year

Text

5.6K words. Murder mystery, Noir, Fluff, Humour. (All of them, somehow.)

Summary: Diluc finds himself under investigation for murder. Adelinde finds the situation hilarious. And Detective Fischl “Fi” V.L. Narfidort, Hard-Boiled Private Investigator, knows this is no laughing matter.

Crimes solved: 0.9, but let's round it up to 1.

#genshin fic #noir!fischl #fischl von luftschloss narfidort #diluc ragnvindr #adelinde #ozvaldo von hrafnavins #reblogs appreciated!#my writing #my fic

36 notes · View notes

comicsart3 · 1 year

Text

Ms Tree (get it?) is private investigator Michael (not Michelle) Tree who features in her own title, first published in 1981, making her the longest continually running female detective character ever. Created by Max Allan Collins and Terence Beatty as a version of Mike Hammer’s six foot female assistant, Velda, Ms Tree is a tall, black coated and high heeled bad ass. Her career as an investigator commenced following the murder of her husband, also called Michael Tree, by the Muerta mob, and his widow took over his business to bring the perpetrators to her own vengeful version of justice. Unlike other heroines, Ms Tree does not hesitate to use lethal violence when dealing with her enemies and with her attitude, fighting skills and handiness with a gun, the detective is a wholly intimidating presence.

Her stories are adult themed and unlike many other spies and PIs (Modesty Blaise for example), Michael does suffer the consequences of her actions, being prosecuted and jailed on more than one occasion. She even has a baby and continues her daredevil career as a mother. Her look is distinctly 1940s/50s noir retro (she usually wears dresses and stockings for instance) but her adventures are always set in the present. She is undoubtedly a dominant female character but personally I feel she too often exemplifies “hard boiled” characteristics typical of the male detective genre, which makes her a somewhat unrealistic female hero and less subtle for that reason.

The title was originally published by Eclipse Comics before moving to a long run with Renegade Press and more recently, to DC. Her most recent appearance was in the graphic novel Deadly Beloved published by Hard Case Crime in 2007.

With thanks to Wikipedia for much of the detail cited above.

12 notes · View notes

thexfridax · 1 year

Text

'Perry Mason' reboot's leading ladies discuss the show's fan-favorite lesbian romance

Actors Juliet Rylance and Jen Tullock discuss their characters’ sweet 1930s love story and the HBO reboot’s gritty noir appeal.

Juliet Rylance and Jen Tullock in "Perry Mason."

Merrick Morton / HBO

April 26, 2023, 6:55 PM CEST

By Elaina Patton

After their clandestine meeting in a restaurant powder room at the beginning of season two, “Perry Mason” protagonists Della Street and Anita St. Pierre, played by Juliet Rylance and Jen Tullock, became television’s favorite well-tailored sapphic duo. And from then on, fans tuned in to see the whip-smart aspiring lawyer and free-spirited Hollywood screenwriter try to beat the odds to find love in 1930s Los Angeles. That’s until the sophomore season of HBO’s gritty adaptation of Erle Stanley Gardner’s Perry Mason crime novels came to a quiet close Monday, leaving more questions than answers — as perhaps is always the fate of romance in noir.

“I love that first meeting in the powder room between us, because Della doesn’t come across that many women that are as quick-witted, if not more quick-witted, than she is. And Anita is so feisty and exciting and liberated,” Rylance told NBC News on a video call with Tullock before the season finale.

Juliet Rylance and Jen Tullock in "Perry Mason."

Merrick Morton / HBO

Della, who evolves from Perry Mason’s secretary in season one to his right-hand woman in season two, has had to “hide huge aspects of who she is to carve out a role in her chosen profession,” Rylance added.

“She’s been fighting to be seen and heard, but also trying desperately to hide. She’s created a world that is safe, dependable, reliable,” Rylance said, referring to her character’s season one arc. “Anita just comes in and changes everything for her.”

The electric encounter, which disarms Rylance’s perpetually composed Della, gave an early indication that the new season, helmed by showrunners Jack Amiel and Michael Begler, was going to give more time to what happened behind closed doors than the grittier, more crime-focused first chapter. And that’s partially because Rylance and her character didn’t have much time for romance when the new take on “Perry Mason” debuted in 2020.

The show — which is a reboot of the TV classic that ran from the late-1950s to the mid-‘60s and starred Raymond Burr — framed its first season as an origin story, via an infanticide case that transforms its eponymous hero from low-rent private eye into a quick-study criminal defense lawyer. So alongside Matthew Rhys, who plays the hard-boiled protagonist, Rylance spent most of that first chapter reintroducing audiences to her character, a reinvention of Mason’s secretary made famous in the original by Barbara Hale.

Matthew Rhys in "Perry Mason."

Merrick Morton / HBO

Despite having more scenes in law offices than not, Rylance brought to life the series creators Rolin Jones and Ron Fitzgerald’s reimagining of Della as a card-carrying, if rather careful, lesbian. And with the help of her season one love interest, a much-younger boarding housemate named Hazel, played by Molly Ephraim, she delivered a fitting tribute to the original show and its star’s place in queer history.

The popularity of the series’ debut season then opened the door for an even bigger love story in the latest one, which sees a more established Della building her courtroom career in partnership op-turned-investigator Paul Drake, played by Chris Chalk. In season two, the trio take on a challenging case defending two Mexican American men — Mateo (Peter Mendoza) and Rafael (Fabrizio Guido) Gallardo — who are accused of murdering a Los Angeles golden boy. And an over-burdened Della finds herself increasingly craving the company of Anita, who then sweeps her off her feet.

“I got a couple of hate messages on Instagram, regarding Della and Hazel,” Tullock said with mock seriousness, referring to fans who were upset about Anita coming between the season one couple.

“I appreciated that, because I think it was just evidence that people were already invested in Della’s personal life from the first season,” she added, jokingly warning Rylance not to check her messages. “Watching that season, I remember feeling like you wanted more for them. There was such a sadness about these two women having to find private spaces in which to even communicate romantically, let alone be intimate.”

While Anita’s quick dispatching of Della and Hazel’s romance may have disgruntled a few fans, Tullock’s character faced her own hurdles to happily ever after in season two. Not least of all, there’s Della’s public, lavender relationship with her old friend, the closeted district attorney, Hamilton Burger, played by Justin Kirk, which gets even more complicated when he’s blackmailed while prosecuting the Gallardo case.

Between Della, Anita, Hazel and Hamilton, the second season ended up being a cornucopia of complicated queer storylines, which Tullock said is thanks to her co-stars’ pushing for the portrayal of different types of people’s experiences in the era and for storytelling that wasn’t exploitative or cliched.

“Chris and Juliet advocated for those storylines, consistently and with such love and care,” Tullock said, referring to Rylance and Chalk, whose character, in particular, deals with police corruption, racism and classism.

Tullock and Rylance — who said they immediately hit it off when they first met over martinis and whose chemistry is apparent even over a video call — said they were committed to portraying their onscreen relationship in a way that felt both historically accurate and true to their characters’ formative personalities. That meant researching the difficulties of having a queer relationship in the 1930s and adopting the coded body language people used to communicate in public. But it also meant thinking about how their connection would play out in more intimate moments.

When the women share their first kiss in episode three, for example, the bohemian Anita seems caught off guard by the sincerity of the moment. And yet, she’s totally at ease when introducing Della to novel experiences, from a boxing match to a packed evening at an underground lesbian bar, or whisking her off to a romantic Palm Springs escape.

youtube

Notably, the season ends with a moment in which neither Della nor Anita seem fully in control of their faculties. Having secured a courtroom win, Della celebrates with an evening out, flanked on either side by Anita and Hamilton. And, in a moment that Rylance said left both her and her character feeling conflicted, a photographer offering to take a picture “of the happy couple” prompts the deep-in-the-closet district attorney to cuddle up to Della and land an intimate kiss on her shoulder for effect. The look of foreboding on each woman’s face that follows says it all.

“There’s so much that’s unanswered — the idea that Della might, in the future, have to make a choice about whether she publicly says that she’s marrying Burger, for instance. If that’s where it’s heading, what does that mean, and does Anita have to do something like that, too? And is that a betrayal or is that survival?” Rylance said. “They’re such big questions — questions that people ask today on a regular basis, too.”

To Rylance’s point, while much has changed in the United States for gay couples since the 1930s, homosexuality is still illegal in nearly 70 countries. And even in countries where it is legal, many people fear the repercussions of coming out.

If there’s a next chapter, Rylance said, she’d like to explore more about the world Anita — who was modeled after the real-life writer of “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” Anita Loos — inhabits and how liberated Hollywood truly was in the ‘30s.

“How hard is it being a queer woman writer in that world?” Rylance said, referring to a time when most queer creatives and stars, like Burr, needed to stay in the closet to protect their careers. “Della’s thinking all the time, ‘Oh, she’s from this liberated strata of society that I have no access to.’ And, actually, it’s not.”

Although a third season hasn’t yet been confirmed, based on calls on social media to renew the show after the finale aired on Monday, fans agree that there’s much more to see from the series. That could mean even more fervor around Della and Anita’s relationship, which inspired all kinds of internet tributes throughout the season.

“I did say to Juliet, like, ‘Watch, they’re going to put our character names together’ — because I have been on the generating end of that before,” Tullock said, joking that the most popular, “Dellita,” sounds like an erectile dysfunction medication.

The series newcomer, who describes herself as a “gay nerd,” also foresaw the two being featured in perhaps the most coveted of tributes to an onscreen sapphic romance: the compilation video.

“Unfortunately, I think this is a product of queer people being starved for representation. But, oftentimes, when there are sapphic storylines, you will end up getting these really amazing fan videos on YouTube, where people will cut all of their scenes together to, like, a Robin song,” Tullock said.

After Rylance inquired about whether their characters have any fan videos, Tullock enthusiastically replied, “Oh, we have many.”

“There have been several that people have sent me that were in other languages,” Tullock added. “There was one from Brazil, where people had cut our scenes together to a Brazilian love song. That part is really special and satisfying, because we love them so much, these characters.”

For Rylance, who tends to avoid reading much about herself and the show, the highlight of Dellita’s fame came in the form of a text message from her married aunts.

“I got a text in March saying, ‘Oh, my God, you’ve made Les Video Channel. Just give up now. You’ve peaked!’” Rylance said, referring to a popular YouTube channel that posts about onscreen sapphic romances. “That was my favorite thing all year.”

#Perry Mason #Perry Mason spoilers #Della x Anita #Juliet Rylance #Jen Tullock #Interview #I don't think #I'm in favour of #Dellita #It really sounds like Grannie's coffee or so #😜#Youtube

11 notes · View notes

moonluringfrost · 9 months

Note

🎂🍹🍕 Happy birthday!!!

Aw, thank you!!

Edit: i'm back from the dentist and have been told that these emojis were in fact for the oc ask game. Silly me,,,

So here we go:

🎂: Has your OC have any contradictory interests or traits to the first preception people have of the? How do they surprise people? - Pat might seem like a hard boiled private investigator when people first meet them, but. You know. They're a total softie, big on expressing emotions healthily (or at least Trying). Also people don't assume they're a nerd at first glance but they are, in fact, a Huge Nerd.

🍹: Does your OC have any funny anecdotes told about them? - I imagine Simon will be telling the story of how he and Trilline met as a funny anecdote for quite some time. She will of course, loudly protest this because it's embarrassing. accidentally mistaking your future best friend for the fantasy equivalent of a really gross bug and trying to kill him... does make a person look a little silly.

🍕: How does an OC spend a lazy day?- Pat orders food in instead of cooking and plays one person ttrpgs. or two person if sylv is around. that or watch interesting Fantasy shows/movies.

thank you for the asks @superflytrap!

5 notes · View notes

depizan · 1 year

Text

I've encountered at least three books in the recent(ish) past where the premise was more interesting than the plot. In fact, in two of them, the book got significantly less interesting when the plot showed up. I've been trying to work out exactly what's going on there, because my instinctive explanation doesn't make any goddamn sense.

See, what I want to say is that the reason the books got less interesting when the plot showed up is because it was imposed from the outside. But plots almost always are. Like they say: villains act and heroes react. Which holds true whether we're talking villains and heroes or natural disasters and hapless survivors or antagonists and main characters or whatever else. It's very rare for the main characters to actually instigate the plot.

(In fact, outside of treasure hunting/macguffen plots, I can't think of any examples at all. And it's far from 100% even in those kinds of plots. It's roughly as common for the antagonist/villain to instigate by hunting the doohicky or hiring the protagonists to hunt the doohicky.)

Perhaps it's that the plots are somehow the wrong plot. (Which would actually include the third book, as well.) The plot the book actually has is less interesting than a plot that might have organically grown out of the premise. We could have had something slightly different, but, instead, the author opted for a well trod path. A bland, well trod path.

Hell, in one of the books, the main characters don't even seem interested in the plot. It just keeps poking at them until they're finally forced to interact with it. If the characters in the book aren't interested in the plot, why should the audience be?

(Mind, you could probably write a hilarious small town murder mystery where the only person who cares about the plot is the detective, and everyone else in the village is far more interested in the fete, or Colonel Suchandsuch's roses. But even there, it only works if the detective does care.)

Of course, you can have very entertaining fiction in which the main character(s) are annoyed by the plot. Both The Rockford Files and (original flavor) MacGyver made good use of ye old "god damn it, my idiot friend has dragged me into some kind of ridiculous trouble again" plot. But, again, the characters in question do still care either because they care about their idiot friend or because they're in the soup now, too. Or both.

It's also very hard to successfully not care when the plot kicks down your door and waves weaponry at you. One could argue that large portions of the hard boiled detective genre are entirely made of that. (Which would also explain it's presence on The Rockford Files.)

And that might be the issue with the book where the protagonists didn't care. The plot let them not care right up until near the end, and by that time, I was very much bored with the plot's ineffectual efforts to make them (and/or me) care.

It's not just that, though, since that doesn't apply to the other two books. It's like the plot and the characters have to... I don't know... be right for each other? Or the plot needs to be the most interesting thing you could with these characters in this world? (Or at least not the least interesting thing you could do with these characters in this world.)

When I was trying to be a mystery writer, one of the things that frustrated me was the insistence that the detective have a personal stake in the mystery. But if you have the right character, that's not necessary. Or, rather, they will see to it that they have a personal stake. It's like Doctor Who; the Doctor (especially some regenerations) just can't resist poking about, and he invariably pokes his way right into trouble. Now the plot has a personal stake in him.

Hell, there's an episode of Simon & Simon ('80s private detective show) where they investigate a letter that shows up like 30 years late, addressed to the person who had (what is now) their office then. Some people would toss it in recycling, or send it back to the post office, but they (like the Doctor) just couldn't resist poking about. That's why they're the protagonists of a detective show.

... It is about the plot matching the protagonists. If you give the protagonists a plot that they can't resist, it all feels natural. If you give them a plot that they can/could resist, the hand of the author is impossible to ignore. If there are other plots that feel more right for the characters or setting, the audience will notice, and notice that the one that's happening feels forced.

The plot can come from outside in a Watsonian sense, but it cannot come from outside in a Doyalistic sense. The audience will notice.

#Mac vs fiction #whew that got long #Mac rambles about fiction

12 notes · View notes

awindinthelantern · 1 year

Text

Campaign idea: instead of a 1920s/30s inspired setting based around the mafia and crime, run a 1920s/30s campaign where your players are detectives solving mysteries both mundane and otherworldly. Works with both Roaring 20s and Great Depression type settings. Have them team up with a hard-boiled private eye (film noir style) or a foppish dandy detective (Poirot style) who takes them under his wing and teaches them the ropes of sleuthing, the tricks criminals use to commit crimes, and how to outwit them. Have your players make a name for themselves solving crimes and get invited by a rich newspaper magnate to become journalists for his paper, which allows for trips around the country, continent, or world, exposing them to new locales and plot developments. This can also tie into a Cthulhu type campaign, which could start off mundane and slowly get creepier.

Ideas:

Have your players travel to a dust bowl-type setting and investigate the environment, find out what they can, and then return to the capital to print a story about what needs to change.

Have them travel to a frontier town which is besieged by masses of wild animals, and try to find a way to exterminate or route the attacks.

Have them travel to some exotic foreign land where an eccentric archaeologist (either Indiana Jones or eccentric professor style) has gone missing deep in the jungle or desert. Their exploring of the area reveals the ancient temple complex the archaeologist was exploring, complete with many booby traps.

Have them investigate the young son/daughter of a wealthy tycoon who has suddenly gone crazy (tinges of madness? possessed by the Great Old Ones?), and may need to be institutionalized.

Have your players be invited via personal connections to be journalists on the maiden around-the-world flight of the world’s newest and largest rigid airship. Dangers can include a sudden ocean storm that threatens to down the airship, and patches of its fabric skin ripping away and having to be repaired while in flight. (look of the LZ-127 Graf Zeppelin for more details on this)

have your players investigate a suspiciously wealthy small-town politician who has secret connections to organized crime, and have them try to expose and thwart his and his partners’ businesses.

have them invited to a fancy soiree hosted by a famous matron of society. But at the party someone is murdered, and everyone else is a suspect.

have them investigate various murders and robberies with their detective guardians, who give hints to make it easier. Don’t be afraid to have the detectives occasionally be wrong and unintentionally lead them astray, though. Even great detectives have their off days!

Crimes to be investigated can take place in many different places. Great cities like NYC or LA, movie meccas like Hollywood, foreign countries with more rudimentary governing bodies who don’t have modern forensics or psychology, countries with rightwing ruling bodies who regularly use propaganda and don’t allow anything to cast them in a bad light, and more all make for great settings

throw in a World’s Fair or two, where the latest in technology and architectural and artistic movements are on display. Perhaps a state-of-the-art technology can be stolen from under people’s noses, another crime to investigate.

don’t be afraid to throw in a wide variety of supporting NPCs, such as tycoons and their heirs, artists, bohemians, gangsters and goons, genius architects (Frank Lloyd Wright?), doctors, nurses, morticians, society matrons, debutantes, annoying yet endearing daft playboys, prostitutes, fishermen, sailors, retired colonels, hotel staff, maids, femme fatales, jazz musicians, histrionic opera singers, movie directors, train conductors, children’s book authors, tin pan alley songwriters, torch singers, circus runners, hobos, elderly spinsters who never married, hardworking farmers, cowboys, sleazy politicians, factory workers, seamstresses, laundromat men/women, eccentric professors of dangerous animals, snake oil salesmen, and more!

Also, in the spirit of the campaign, try to broaden your horizons and listen to actual jazz and swing, not electroswing. there are some really good channels for vintage music on youtube. I also recommend the “Baccano!”, “Boardwalk Empire” and “Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day” soundtracks.

#campaign ideas #dnd #rpg #dnd ideas #rpg ideas #roaring 20s #jazz age

18 notes · View notes

southeastasiadiary · 8 months

Text

Day Twenty-Five: A Day in the Life of the Other Jim Thompson

There are those who say I lack the ability to be spontaneous. Or perhaps they'll admit that I can be spontaneous as long as every detail of my spontaneity is carefully planned and approved at least three months in advance. But to these naysayers, I say, “Ha! Let today be proof you couldn’t be more wrong.”

I awoke in Chiang Mai with every intention of calling today’s entry “Repositioning #5” because that was the agenda set for the day: “Transfer by private car without guide from your hotel to the Airport to take a flight to Bangkok (10h10-11h35). Upon arrival at the Airport, please head to the exit gate and look for your driver who will be waiting for you, holding a welcome signboard with your name on it. Then, you will be transferred to your hotel in town by a private vehicle.”

The transfer to the airport and then the flight to Bangkok went according to plan. But then I met my local guide, Rich (or maybe Mr. Rich; I’m not sure whether “Rich” is a personal name, a family name, or merely a pseudonym; I expect the latter), a really friendly young man with an almost Cambodian permanent smile and a love of laughter. While we were waiting for the car, he said, “I have a suggestion. Your hotel room won’t be ready for several hours yet. You are scheduled to visit the Jim Thompson House on your last day. Why not visit it today instead? Then we’ll go get lunch. By that time you could check in.”

That idea sounded terrific to me, so off we set in a midday Bangkok traffic jam to reach the Jim Thompson House.

Now, I have wanted to see this house since long before I ever thought I’d actually travel to Thailand, and I wanted to do so for the silliest possible reason. Back when I was a graduate student and a newly-minted college professor, one of my preferred means of relaxation were to read “noir,” hard-boiled mystery novels like The Killer Inside Me, The Getaway, A Hell of a Woman, and The Criminal. The author of all these novels was Jim Thompson. So, when I discovered that Jim Thompson lived much of his life in Bangkok, disappeared under unusual circumstances, and lived in a place sometimes referred to as The Jim Thompson Mystery House … well, that was a place that intrigued me.

There was only one problem, however.

The Jim Thompson who wrote the novels and the Jim Thompson whose house is in Bangkok were two entirely different people.

The owner of the house was an architect who worked for the OSS (the predecessor of the CIA) during World War II. One of his last intelligence assignments was in Bangkok, and he fell in love with the city. He decided to live here permanently. Then, discovering that the cottage industry of making Thai silk was about to die out, he became fascinated with the fabric and the designs often printed on it. He took samples to New York and showed them to friends of his who edited fashion magazines, and they began to feature Thai silk in some of their designs.

Thompson’s big break came when “The King and I” was first a hit on Broadway and then made into a movie. All of Yul Brynner’s elaborate costumes were made of “Jim Thompson silk,” and the former architect/former spy now had a third career: fabric merchant. As his wealth increased, he bought six houses (four from Ayutthaya, the former capital of Siam/Thailand, and two from the Muslim community of weavers just across the river in Bangkok who wove his cloth) and joined them together into an East-meets-West mansion on the banks of one of the klongs (canals) of the Chao Phraya River.

All was well and good until Thompson took a vacation to the Cameron Highlands of Malaysia in 1967. Then, on March 26, he went out for a short walk … and was never seen again. The cause of his disappearance (and presumed death) remains a mystery. Some say he was kidnapped and then murdered, a random victim of a random crime. Others say he was still doing espionage work and was investigating something to do with the war in Vietnam, causing himself to be killed by an enemy agent.

And that, you have to admit, is a far more mysterious ending than that of the author Jim Thompson who simply died of a stroke at the age of 70 in 1977 after a lifetime of alcoholism.

The architect/spy/fabric exporter Jim Thompson, on the other hand, had filled him home with Thai art, such as this rare wooden Buddha (most Thai Buddhas are bronze)

and this sandstone Buddha.

He also collected ceramic works, like these pots that have no lid:

They are actually filled through a hole at the bottom.

Like the Confucius Cup in Hoi An, it's the level of the liquid itself that keeps it from running back out through the bottom. The claim is that, without a lid, the contents don’t oxidize as quickly and thus remain fresher longer.

Thompson’s dining room table consisted of two Chinese gaming tables set side by side.

His living room is open and spacious, looking like the perfect place to relax and read a novel by the other Jim Thompson.

His bedroom is set off from the rest of the house by a set of doors that once led into a pawnbroker’s shop.

In his bedroom are two horoscopes. The one on the left is his birth horoscope. The one on the right is (reportedly) a prediction that something sinister would occur when he was 61 years old. He was born in 1906 and disappeared in 1967, so …

His bedroom was simple and elegant.

Traditional Thai houses are built on stilts to protect the furnishings from flooding. Today the area beneath the house, which would have been plain in Thompson’s time, is decorated for visitors like me.

At the end of the tour, Rich suggested that we get sandwiches in the Jim Thompson Cafe. There were four sandwiches on the menu, and I ordered the ham and cheese. Unfortunately, the cafe was out of everything except tuna salad, so Rich said, “How about a tuna salad sandwich?”

You would think that, with all the plays I acted in earlier in my life, I could better conceal my emotions. But frankly, my face is often a dead giveaway for whatever I’m thinking even when I believe I’m being perfectly composed. So, less than a second after asking this question, Rich said, “Okay. We can find another place.”

Apparently, Rich can be spontaneous, too.

#thailand #bangkok #jim thompson

3 notes · View notes