#rip my Nancy set nearly done LOL

[machneherald]

my toxic gifmaker trait is starting big project after big project without finishing the last and it rots in my drafts <3

[nxncydrews]

midnight in salem: a review

Your girl finally beat Midnight in Salem last night and...I have thoughts. Feelings. Concerns. But also hope? This review is like a year late but whatever. Overall, I didn’t hate the game nearly as much as I thought I would, and I was fully prepared to loathe it. Spoilers are under the cut for anyone who hasn’t played it yet! (also...it’s long lol)

The general gist of it is this: Midnight in Salem is an okay game. There are some glaring issues that I’ll talk about in more detail, but there is a foundation that I feel is strong for the future. Even with the problems I saw I don’t think MID is the weakest in the series (MED and RAN still claim those spots). Let’s break it down.

Good: the mystery. Although I guessed Teegan’s role in the fire early on, I thought the overall storyline was compelling and that they did a good job of intertwining the characters and motivations in ways that wasn’t super obvious. The one problem I did have with the story is I felt like I couldn’t follow up with characters as much as I wanted to. For example, you can go upstairs in the museum and discover pretty early on that the Parry family changed their name from Parris but you can’t ask Teegan about it until she brings it up much later in the game—and even then it’s not something you prompt, it’s something she just gives up.  I also think I found out about things in dialogue before I was supposed to as though branches of the dialogue tree were incorrectly crossed. Despite that, I think the mystery was good...just needed a little more refining to pull it all together. There were also a few threads that didn’t get tied up (do we just assume that Jason mimicked Olivia’s smoke bombs because he watched her in the square?). 

Bad: the linearity. The thing that I loved (and hated) about past games was that you could hit moments where it wasn’t always clear where you were supposed to go next. With MID, however, you were led from location to location with little reason to return to other places when you finished the single task you needed to do. You would start at the Parry’s house, go to town square, make one trip out to Hathorne House, go back to the town square and repeat the next with a random trip to Lauren’s shop instead of Hathorne. And with the lack of locations to begin with...it just felt like it was a small game without much to do. That said, some of my favorite games have had a much smaller setting (TRT, for example) and did it well. So perhaps this issue could’ve been fixed with more complexity added to the puzzles and additional side quests.

Good: the voice acting and characters. Look, I loved Lani as Nancy Drew and she will always have a special place in my heart, but the new voice of Nancy has won me over. She’s got the exact type of energy I imagine and had a more modern voice. I do think she was one of the weakest voice actors in the game (random lines seemed to feel out of place emotionally, but that could just as much be on the editing team as the voice actor), but I still liked her overall. The rest of the voice cast was also great, which helped to carry a script that I felt was weak at moments—there were times when the dialogue was just...bad. The characters as a whole felt unique and fun, and I really loved the interactions between Deirdre and the Hardy Boys. I would argue that the strongest part of the game is the characters, even if I do think they could’ve gone further with some of the friendships and relationships that were hinted throughout the game (Judge Danforth and Jason, Mei and Jason, Teegan/Olivia/Lauren, etc). I also liked that the characters felt more alive...moving around, in multiple places, etc. The positioning of characters when they followed you was...unfortunate at times. Deirdre scared me every time I turned around and navigating the tunnels at the end of the game was nearly impossible with how characters constantly blocked your view. 

Bad: the graphics. This is obviously something that has been complained about since the beginning, and it’s for good reason: the graphics were lackluster. I have a pretty good laptop so I was able to play on high settings, but even then they weren’t nearly as good as I was expecting for how long they worked on the game. The character models are one of the most glaring issues: choppy and awkward animations, a lack of texture and shadows, and those really freaky eyes. The environments, though slightly better, still felt as though they were built from unity assets that the developers picked up off online stores and threw together. I couldn’t stand looking at the leaf piles on the ground or the street outside the Parry house because they were so incredibly flat. The final puzzle scenes felt better to me, as did Olivia’s shop and even the graveyard, so it’s clear that they can do better, but that level (or even higher level) of detail needs to be present in everything. The lighting is another huge issue—it was extremely flat in most parts of the game and took away a lot of the mood that could’ve been set. That said, I think graphics can be improved....if they put in the money and resources.

Good: the puzzles and interact-able objects. The puzzles that we did have in the game were fun and varying, which I think is important in mystery games. Some of the controls in the puzzles were really frustrating (more on the controls later), but there wasn’t a puzzle that I flat-out couldn’t solve. I also liked the way we could rotate objects and see all sides of them but again, the controls were a little frustrating. 

Bad: the number of puzzles. There just wasn’t enough puzzles for me, particularly puzzles that directly affected the storyline. For example, you can find a ripped-up note in the trash can in the Parry house but it’s never referenced again and you don’t actually need to do it to solve the mystery. Same with the piece of the flyer you find in the scarecrow. I think I saw a reddit thread or a post here that suggested things with book sorting or doing stuff with displays in the museum as additional puzzles and I 100% agree that they’d be great (and easy) additions to the storyline. Or maybe even helping Olivia with doing her store inventory (as we see on her list that she clearly doesn’t want to do it). 

Good: the mini-games. I loved the pumpkin quest and making johnny cakes (though I wish we could’ve actually made the various recipes and not have done the flipping part 6 times). I also loved making the herb mixtures! I honestly don’t have any complaints here. I think there was a good amount of them and they were fun to come back to.

Bad: the controls. While I appreciate what HER was trying to do with the controls, I really don’t think they worked. The “looking around” in a scene is cool in theory, but the actual act of dragging around an object was tedious and frustrating. The movement through the town square was really annoying, too—it took me forever to get from one side to the other. I think the yellow glow around the cursor when you found something to interact with could be a little more prominent, too. I think if HER wants to continue using this setup then they need to fix the cursor sensitivity to deal with how slow looking around a scene can be when dragging. I think we also could’ve done with a way to read the logs of conversations because I definitely missed a few things when I looked away for a second. 

Good: Deirdre. Shannon. I love her. So much. She’s absolutely fantastic. Her snark was great and I really appreciated how they gave her autonomy and actively contribute to the case. I would’ve loved for her to be playable (like maybe we follow her to do research on the town or search for the will), but I can’t complain about the amount we saw her. Her scenes with the Hardy Boys were some of my favorite in game....and I really hope we continue to have her as a phone contact in future games (if not see her in person again!). 

Bad: no charm. Despite some high points with characters and the mystery, overall this game just lacked the charm of the past. I know some of this stems from moving to Unity and the subsequent changes to graphics and models, but I really feel like so much of the uniqueness to the games was stripped away as well. There are some easy changes that I think could fix this, starting with the UI and dialogue display and working to improve the lighting and character models. Nancy Drew needs a small amount of grittiness, I think, and a clean, modern look just doesn’t feel right. 

Good: throwbacks to old games. I appreciated that there were some throwbacks to old games mixed in as you went and that some of our old familiar easter eggs popped up (Koko Kringle candy, for one!). I like to think that the black cats in Olivia’s shop were throwbacks to Suki from SAW (though that one is unlikely) and there was also a mention of a Waverly Academy, though I think this was either a mistake or unintentional because the letter is for an art school and Waverly was a boarding school. I was hoping for a Kate Drew reference when on the phone with Carson, but alas. Here’s hoping they continue to bring past games into new ones. 

Bad: the lack of depth. I felt like overall the game only scratched the surface of what it could’ve in terms of bringing in more history and complexity. The lack of puzzles and overly-linear story made it a pretty quick solve and the characters, though interesting, could’ve done with more interaction with each other. More puzzles, more history, and more side quests could’ve helped with this immensely. (Oh, and get rid of the ridiculous side love triangle and manufactured drama with Ned and Nancy. That’s something worth it’s own post, however.)

tl;dr I wouldn’t go so far to say that MID was a roaring success or met the expectations I had for the game, but I do think there is hope for the future if we get more games. The mystery was solid and there are some good things that came from it, but they’ve got a lot of work to do to bring the next game back to the quality level that we saw in past eras. If anything, this did make me want to play through all the old games in order again, which I haven’t wanted to do in years. 

Time to go open photoshop and make all the Mei/Jason and Frank/Deirdre graphics and get back in the edit game!  

[wily-one24]

I hope there's not a question limit per ask lol... Paint it Black: 3, 4, 5, 11, 12, 14 and 15 (or as many of those as you feel like answering lol)

Okay, two things.

A. Of *course* there’s no ask limit. I am an attention whore and will talk all day if you encourage me. Ask away!!

B. WTF tumblr? When I reposted that, it was a paragraph basically saying “ask about my fic!”, but now there are NUMBERED QUESTIONS? What? Where was the second half of that post when I came across it in my dash? 

ANSWERS

3. What’s your favourite line of narration?

Oh geez. How the hell am I going to answer that? I have favourite lines per chapter, I have favourite lines per scene! Each part I’m reading at any given moment happens to be my favourite. Every time I reread it, I find something new... and... maybe I suck for saying this... but I think “you’re a fucking genius”, then I get all sad, because I think that was probably one of the last great things I’ll write. I’ve been going downhill ever since... but anyways, to seriously answer your question, I’ll give a few examples... 

 - That face off scene between Regina and Snow, where Snow claims her father was a good man and Regina answers “To you!”, the entire scene is charged and emotional and brings up so much shit between them that was never explored in canon. 

- The flashback of Emma’s tenth birthday (technically collectively, all of the flashbacks, really. They’re angsty as fuck, but so formative in their characterisation that sometimes I forget they’re not actually canon). I have this habit of tearing Emma down to her bare bones and then trying to build her up again. I actually do this with most of my main female characters, and I do apologise for that Buffy, Kaylee, Veronica, Emma, and Alex. You all deserve so much better than me. 

- The scene where Regina is alone in the castle and revisits the old chamber of Leopold’s. It’s hard to read but that is some weird little cathartic release right there. There is some great imagery that I don’t think many people allow Regina when it comes to her healing. Everybody tends to go the “being married to Leopold was a BAD THING” route, without ever really exploring the day to day soul destroying aspect of it. The reality of being the King’s prisoner wife. But giving her the ability and strength to revisit it, so she can finally acknowledge to herself how damaging it was, to close herself off from it both literally and figuratively, and then to be self aware enough to compare that situation to the one she has Emma in. That is empowerment. 

- The parallel scenes of Emma and Henry at the start and the end of the fic. The first being when Henry is so adamant to rescue Emma and curse everyone again just to take them back... and the last where you can see how much indoctrinated he is into the fairy tale land, how much he is drifting from “our world” being the real one, to the fairy tale land being his reality, and how his morality has shifted... but then... he also brings it back by getting vulnerable and shows his concern not just for Emma but for Regina... which also shows great advancement from the child like black/white morality of good vs evil he begins with to an acceptance of a more adult grey-area morality, his willingness to examine the facts and the truth to make up his mind. 

All the minor characters... Nancy (sweet, voiced Nancy), and Miss Edith (poor Miss Edith), Rachel, all the little characters that had such minor parts, but had such great effects in the lives of our main characters. 

Oooh, writing Rumple was fun. I got to write him as nobody really does. As that creepy reptilian imp from the first few flashbacks in S1. Before they really woobified him. The hysteric giggling, maniacal creature who smelled the air and exuded pure malice. It was really enjoyable writing him like that. 

Well, this went terribly off topic... anyway, yes, flashback scenes and confrontation scenes, be they between Snow and Regina, Emma and Regina, Regina and Maleficent, Emma and Snow, Emma and Henry... it’s in emotion that the true power of the fic lives. 

4. What’s your favourite line of dialogue?

oh, this is harder than the first. It would take me ages to reread this fic (and now I most likely am, thanks) to really go through it and cherry pick my favourites. But, if a line has happened to truly hit home and resonate with you as a reader, it most likely did the same for me. I remember quite a few times writing this fic, thinking “holy fuck!” and knowing, just knowing, that it was definitely the line to write. 

5. What part was the hardest to write?

The first two chapters. Up until the pivotal moment where Regina heals Emma, those were difficult to write and definitely difficult to read. I’ve had many readers tell me they were about to give up, bc it was too much torture porn to enjoy, but that moment specifically was a turning point for them because it built up the trust that I could and would reign Regina in beyond the point of no forgiveness or return. 

11. What do you like best about this fic?

I liked writing it. 

It took me to some pretty intense places. Fic writing, for me, has always been a form of therapy. I work through to some pretty intense fucking emotions through the angst of it all. Like, no, I have never been magically transported to a fairy tale land, collared, enslaved, and held against my will for the sake of my family and community’s lives... but if you look deeper in my life at the time, I had just been through a pretty horrific pregnancy that nearly killed me, my spouse and I separated, and I was left ill, recovering, and a single mother of a toddler and infant. I felt like I was being ripped apart from all angles, forced into a live of servitude for the betterment of everyone around me at the cost of myself. Even, though, like Emma, I didn’t blame them, it was still a period of mourning and loss.

I didn’t realise it at the time. This revelation happened years later when rereading the fic and trying to see where all the emotions had been coming from. It happens a lot with some of my more intense, dramatic, and (strangely enough) most popular fics. I don’t always see the correlation to my life at the time, but if I look back I can generally trace the rationality behind what my muse was trying to work through. 

12. What do you like least about this fic?

The polarisation. The controversy. That fucking chapter fucking four. I still cannot reread that chapter without having to take a step back and breathe. That scene has some good imagery, but even now sometimes I just skip it. It’s not worth the shakes or unease or... ugh, just thinking about it upsets me. 

I made a mistake in the tagging and I learned from it, but holy fuck was I attacked at the time and used as a sacrifical cow to the radfems. It was, honestly, surprising to me. Not only the reaction, but the harshness of it, all the accusation and personal attacks aimed at me.  

I mean, I knew the fic was always going to be confronting to some. It dealt with some pretty hard issues and subject matter. I had warned for all the violence and non/dub con. But... I didn’t expect or prepare for the backlash in including a male, even if the male used was... just used... and never actually amounted to anything more than a tool for Regina to control/bind/further entrench Emma to her own will in one scene. 

I, very naively, went into it thinking “surprise!”, and that an almost canon past pairing that was heavily explored in the actual show would not be controversial in the least. More fool me, I suppose. I definitely went back to re-tag it, I apologised. I am not sure what else I could have done, but to this day this fic is held up as an example of queer baiting and everything wrong with false lesbianism. And it is definitely used as an example by biphobic people as to why bisexual women cannot be trusted as we’re all “really straight women at heart”.

To be fair, I never explicitly labelled the fic as “lesbian”. I begin all my fics (no matter how AU or ‘out there’) from a canon stand point. Meaning, everything that happened in the show up to that point counts. Which includes every prior relationship both Emma and Regina had been in up to the Season One finale. Which, surprise, were with men!! 

14. Is there anything you wanted readers to learn from reading this fic?

I don’t know if there’s anything they should ‘learn’, but I definitely hope readers realise that this is in NO WAY AN EXAMPLE OF A HEALTHY BDSM RELATIONSHIP. It is not meant to be a guide, a ‘how to’, or a ‘goal’. This is an incredibly fucked up way for two already fucked up characters, to find some kind of semblance of existence in a world/s stacked up against them from the very start. I didn’t think I needed to state that out loud, but apparently I had to. Many times.  

If not that... then definitely I hope perhaps some of the writing made people think about the characters more in depth, or differently, that it gave the reader a new way of thinking about the show and the storylines/characters in it.  

15. What did you learn from writing this fic?

Tagging. Tagging fucking matters. Tag properly. Like, just do it. 

In all seriousness, though... I think I learned a lot about my own trauma. 

I also think my writing developed throughout the fic. There is a definite shift from the first two chapters... you can definitely see where it became less of a short one off smutty fic set up and more of an in depth angsty character exploration of the soul kinda thing. 

I learned about set up and development and bringing in stray bits of plot development later in the story to tie up loose ends.