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

Aerial photograph of a mansion and its grounds

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

( Pics of the interior )

tielan

I'm just not managing to stay on top of any of the fandom trends.

Still haven't watched K-Pop Demon Hunters, or Heated Rivalry, or even Bridgerton S4...

I'm not bothering with Marvel (they're dead to me, like all the best characters in the franchise) and there's not much else that particularly interests me.

As usual, I mostly lack someone to watch things with. I'll watch movies that I'm only marginally interested in with friends, but I've never been a 'rewatch' kind of person - even in the background. Too many things to do.

--

Actually, I'm just not managing to stay on top of ANYTHING right now.

maevedarcy

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goddess47

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maevedarcy

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goddess47

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aurorabright

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dannye_chase

Happy Endings for an Immortal-Mortal Romance

Doomed love stories are a staple of romance, and one of the greatest is the tragedy of an immortal being in love with someone whose lifespan is finite. But of course, romance fans don’t always want the tragic ending. So here are three ways to take your doomed immortal/mortal romance and give it a happy ending.

1. Change the rules

Your human becomes a vampire, or your vampire becomes human. An angel falls to earth to be with their human lover or a human is elevated to angel status. In other words, solve the problem by avoiding it altogether. For a twist, you could have your mortal become some other brand of immortal than their lover: a psychopomp (I love that word), demon, ghost, god, etc. Either way, your lovers spend the rest of their lifetime (of whatever length) together.

2. End of story

You can always end a story by killing off your couple. Your mortal comes to the end of their lifespan, and your immortal also kicks the bucket: a stake through the heart, magical weapon, or holy war. Then maybe they get to be together in the afterlife. After all, if Swan Lake did it, why not you?

3. Reincarnation

Or you can tell your love story over and over again. Your mortal character dies and is reborn, while your immortal waits and pines. The possibilities for romance are delicious: does your reincarnated human remember their lover every time? Maybe at a certain cue (like a kiss), or just on meeting them? Or do they have to fall in love anew every time? Maybe your immortal has to search the world over for their reborn lover, or maybe they know where to look. Throw in a soul bond if you like. Either way, the story could involve tropes like pining, meet-cutes, and strangers to lovers.

In sum, immortal/mortal love stories are great for high-stakes happy endings. Have fun writing!

Check out other articles on romance between ghosts and humans and vampires and humans

This article was first published on my writing blog

DannyeChase.com ~ AO3 ~ Linktree ~ The Vampire Haven erotic romance series ~ Weird Wednesday writing prompts blog ~ Resources for Writers

maevedarcy

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tielan

Day 1 of the new contract.

I do wish the agent had negotiated a day or two off. I could do with a break. Everything is mad crazy busy around here.

And we're trying to acclimatise the Tweety Sweeties right now, but don't really have anywhere to put them right now, so they're in a cage on the front porch during the day (with water, food, dustbath, and perch) and get brought in at night to sleep safely.

That should be Nien-go on the left, and Jima-wu on the right. They are, once again, named after food: nien go is the palm sugar and glutinous rice new year cake, and jima-wu is black sesame.

The sole exception to this chicken naming standard has been the 'Lockdown Ladies', Gladys Berechicklian (named after the NSW Premier - like a US state governor - during the early part of the pandemic) and Dr Kerry Chant (named after the NSW Health Minister at the time). I don't know why we landed on those, but it seemed funny at the time, and Gladys Berechicklian always gets a good laugh out of people!

I have political thoughts about Australia and everything that's going on in the world, but will post them another time. *sigh*

sheliak

Separated these from the Arcee & Carly batch because, um, it seemed kind of silly to do a post where more than two-thirds of the icons were from the same image.

( 10 icons )

sheliak

This week, I spent probably too much time making probably too many icons of the same image. These are the ones I ended up thinking were good enough to post.

The icons

[1-5]

[6-10]

[11-15]

[16-20]

[21-25]

Textures: bombay101, bourniio, colette, elwyn, jeanna-davis, kaelien, lookslikerain, shiruji, unreported, vitriolicism, youcallitwinter

Blather

Okay. I really, really like the cover to Transformers Skybound #10—Carly and Arcee stargazing together while Carly is sitting on the roof of her van. It's a pretty image, and I really love vengeful human teenager Carly and her quasi-familial relationships with giant robots from outer space.

It turns out it is really hard to icon that image. A simple wide crop (#1) works, but you lose the details and especially the expressions. A close crop is tough because getting both characters will also get awkward parts of Carly's car (#2 was the best I got in terms of a close crop).

So I thought of circular crops! (#11-15, #24) Which did work better... but I have very few circular frame textures, and some of those had a pretty small "frame". (One also has part of the circle spilling off of the icon, which was useful for hiding inconvenient lone headlights and things like that—#11—pity I didn't like the flame border that much.)

So I used those few (some with significant color manipulation, and with different circle crops because I wasn't sure how much to prioritize getting Arcee's hand in the frame—I do like the neon effect I ended up with in #12-13), and then it occurred to me I could make my own frames by just resizing circles of different colors, and set those on other backgrounds. More flexible! (#15-20, #24-25). For a most of these I just used a plain circle crop, but in a few I used the circle as a flat colored background, or a transparent one (#20 is my favorite of these).

Then it occurred to me that I didn't actually need to keep the whole background–I could just cut the characters out! This led to #5 and #10, where Carly is "sitting" on the frame. Then I wanted the starry sky back so I did some with the background in frames, and then I started playing with text (#6-10, #22-23). I like how some of these turned out a lot! Some of them do basically use the text as unreadable texture, though.

(Around here I forgot my original objective and made icon #3, which is actually a narrower version of the wide crop, using a recolored texture as a border.)

Then it occurred to me I could crop two separate circles, one for each character, and get some flexibility that way. Thus #16-20 and #25.

... And then I realized I'd done a solo icon of Arcee and not one of Carly, so I did #21 to make things even.

Anyway, I'm planning on inflicting it on

ic_animated for the Screencap Pool round, to see if anyone else has ideas about what to do with it.

sheliak

Didn't manage to post February's icons before the month was up, so here's some catch-up.

Mostly Percy, with some of Leeds and Cecelia and one Cameron.

1-5 were made for

ic_animated's Crayola round—can't resist the color yellow.

( 30 icons )

crantz

Placeholder for my prompts. I'll have a proper social post up soon too if you see this before then.

bemused_writer

I didn't make a whole lot of progress yesterday thanks to being extremely stuck in the initial chase scene with The Girl (which is what the monster I referenced in my last post is called). I think I might have encountered some kind of glitch since the sequence of events didn't match up with what articles were describing, so I'll describe what I did in case it's helpful.

I was at the section where Grace needed to get the screwdriver. I will note, I was pretty low on health at this point, and things weren't going great. XD Now, I had already moved the cart in and been chased around by The Girl twice, and apparently that meant the little hideaway structure was supposed to have disappeared. It hadn't, though, so I think that's where things were getting confused.

( Instructions on the puzzle... )

( Level discussion and spoilers... )

( Grace theory, continued... )

Current Mood: tired

maevedarcy

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bemused_writer

I'm having so many conflicting emotions about this game, and I'm only an hour in. I am fascinated, irritated, confused, and I must finish it stat. So, I figured I would write up some of my thoughts as I make my way through it.

( Lots of thoughts and spoilers below... )

Current Mood: amused

beatrice_otter

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

Title: What Abigail And Ione Did That January
Author:

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

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

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

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

goddess47

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tielan

So, I was reading a Thread where a guy was warning about old drives, and how they might not last very long anymore because of degradation of the components used in them.

So, while looking for a mouse this morning, I dug up 2 old HDs (circa 2010?) and two external HDs and figured I'd kick them started and see if they worked.

And I just found the MOTHERLODE of photos!

Dating back to 2011! Including ones of my old cat, and the parentals' old cat, and friends' children as babies! WOW.

And old trips! Including a few that I thought I'd lost forever!

(Apparently, I have always taken lots of photos of builidngs!.)

Also, boy was I skinny!! Either that, or the camera made me look skinny. Oh, younger me, why did you not realise? XD

Profile

Alternate Universe Exchange!

Alternate Universe Exchange on AO3

September 2023

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Page Summary

beatrice_otter - Inspiration for Wayne Manor
tielan - passing me by
maevedarcy - Make him submit: A sub!Derek Hale Fest
goddess47 - Escape to the Beta Site - Stargate Atlantis (PG)
maevedarcy - Multiamory March - Day 01: Home
goddess47 - Fandom Trumps Hate Bidding Open NOW!
aurorabright - mcytbattleship dear creator
dannye_chase - Happy Endings for an Immortal-Mortal Romance
maevedarcy - Fannish Updates Meme - February 2026 (Fannish 50 #8)
tielan - monday morning
sheliak - Icons — Transformers Skybound
sheliak - Icons — Transformers Skybound #10
sheliak - Icons — Barbarous
crantz - Unsent letters letter
bemused_writer - Resident Evil: Requiem Thoughts Part 2
maevedarcy - FTH 2026
bemused_writer - Resident Evil: Requiem Thoughts Part 1
beatrice_otter - Fic: What Abigail And Ione Did That January
goddess47 - Going to Visit Uncle Mer - Stargate SG1. Stargate Atlantis (PG)
tielan - old HD

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Alternate Universe Exchange!

Member Posts

Inspiration for Wayne Manor

passing me by

Make him submit: A sub!Derek Hale Fest

Escape to the Beta Site - Stargate Atlantis (PG)

Multiamory March - Day 01: Home

Fandom Trumps Hate Bidding Open NOW!

mcytbattleship dear creator