#the explanations are vague because if i go into detail i would be spoiling things

[chuluoyi]

𝐂𝐀𝐓𝐂𝐇 𝐌𝐄 𝐈𝐅 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐂𝐀𝐍

- sylus x reader

when your husband went away without so much as a proper notice, you thought you wouldn't forgive him so easily. but he tries everything to capture your heart back: spoiling and indulging you… little do you know that he expects a reward in return

genre/warnings: 18+ suggestive content—minors do not interact!—rotten fluff, domestic bliss, explicit smut, cunnilingus, fingering, mating press, taking elements from sylus' card night of secrecy, secret times approaching dusk and spoilers! from myth beyond cloudfall

note: my first sylus x mc fic! with this i'm spreading the soft!sylus agenda and that spicy 4-star approaching dusk has destroyed me :') loosely based on this post

Sometimes, you do wonder... does Sylus really think you're that easy to placate?

On one chilly morning, you woke up only to discover your hunk of a husband gone... and in his side of the bed, a sticky note.

Your eyebrow twitched as you read the audacious message scrawled on it:

Hey, kitten. I need to leave for a few days. There are things I have to handle on my own. Take care of yourself while I’m away. I’ll come back soon.

That was it. No clear explanation, no further details. Just those vague words in such short notice. The day before, he’d seemed like his usual self, not a hint of this sudden departure in sight.

It irked you. It made your heart clench at the same time. Because even after marrying you, Sylus remained elusive, playing his cryptic games. It was beyond you how he didn't even stop to consider how you were left worrying about him while he drifted in and out of his dangerous world without a second thought.

You understood the reality of your lives—that you were a hunter and he was the Onychinus leader, and that to be with him meant you had to walk that fine gray line between light and dark.

And you'd already made your choice. You had accepted it—accepted him—wholly. Even when your marriage had been a rushed affair and registered under false names to protect both your identities.

Things couldn't go on like this. You had to teach him a lesson too.

As your irritation simmered into determination, a devious plan began to take shape in your mind—a way to spite him just enough to make your point crystal clear.

Two days later

Sylus was done with his dirty business faster than he thought, and to appease you, he had come bearing gifts.

The precious little thing that is now his wife, of course he missed you too. But your safety was a price he wasn’t willing to gamble. If going away to take care of those pests meant your peace would be unperturbed, then he would leave without hesitation.

However, as he stepped inside the base, his relief quickly turned to unease. The space was eerily empty, the usual hum of activity conspicuously absent.

Normally, you’d be at the center of some commotion, locked in a spat with either Mephisto, or Luke and Kieran. But now—

“What do we do?! She’s gone!”

Sylus immediately rushed to the source of the ruckus, thinking something bad had happened to you. He found his henchmen standing in a tight, anxious circle around the coffee table.

“What happened?” he demanded.

Without a word, they stepped aside, revealing the object of their concern: a single note lying on the table.

He snatched it up, scanning the words. Then, he let out a sharp exhale of relief, a smirk began tugging at the corners of his lips.

Catch me if you can.

Typical. Absolutely typical. And maddeningly you.

. . .

That night, you had a very strange dream, it felt almost felt like stepping into the pages of an ancient tale.

You were a fallen princess wrongfully accused as a sorceress, who began consorting with the fearsome fiend from the Abyss.

The sorceress and her dragon. Together, you were an infamous pair, a dark legend whispered across generations. Your union had ignited Doomsday itself... and yet, amidst the turmoil and destruction, the sorceress fell in love with the dragon... deeply and irrevocably.

The dragon, in turn, was utterly bewitched by his little witch. He indulged your every whim, no matter how mischievous or perilous, and though he rarely spoke of his true feelings, he always found ways to show his affection.

The lucid dream felt as though it might go on forever, but you were pulled from it by the soft brush of lips against your forehead. The warmth lingered, blurring the lines between dream and reality, until your eyes fluttered open.

“Sylus...?” His features, fresh from your dream, now materialized in your reality. It took you a few seconds to realize that he had come here—

“Morning, sweetie.” His voice was rich and smooth, with that familiar, mischievous edge. A smirk curled on his devilishly handsome face as he leaned in, garnet eyes gleaming with playful intent. “Caught you now, hmm?”

The haze of sleep vanished in an instant, and you were suddenly wide awake. In a flurry, you shoved him away and turned your back on him, trying to regain some semblance of control.

You’d left the N109 Zone for one of his safehouses in suburban Chansia City, thinking it would take him some effort to track you down. Clearly, you’d underestimated him.

“Oh. The kitten is in a bad mood, it seems.” Sylus’ gaze lingered on you, amusement flickering in his eyes. “Well, what do I owe the ire for?”

“...”

“Silent treatment, huh? The lady of the house is getting better at our little games while I was away.”

“...”

“Remember, sweetie, there’s no divorce in our relationship, hmm? If you’re tired of me, keep taking naps.”

You felt the weight shift as he rose from the bed and stalked away. The door clicked shut, leaving you in the silence of the room.

You wanted to resent him for coming and going on his terms, for never offering even an apology. Yet, no matter how much you tried, a part of you remained hopelessly tethered to him. The part that couldn’t ignore the reminder of the dragon from your dream—captivating, powerful, and infuriatingly hard to resist.

You love him, really you do.

. . .

When you didn’t come down for breakfast some time later, Sylus barged into the room once again, and this time he came up with a different approach.

“My lady,” he began, his voice sickeningly low and sweet, but his eyes gleamed with a touch of mischief. “You haven’t had breakfast yet. Please come down.”

You shot him a look, unamused, and decided to play his game as you crossed your arms together. “What if I don't want to?”

His smirk only grew, his tone dripping with mock formality. “And what must I do to change your mind?”

Despite yourself, you couldn’t help but notice his persistence. He had chased you here, given you more time to sleep in, and now stood before you to get you to eat. You felt your resolve beginning to soften—maybe just a little.

“Carry me there,” you said with a hint of defiance, lifting your chin high, daring him to follow through.

Sylus tilted his head, failing to restrain his snort. “As you wish, my lady.”

He placed his arms around you effortlessly, one hand beneath your knees and the other supporting your back, lifting you into a flawless princess carry. You instinctively put your arms around his neck, and he turned to you.

You opened your mouth, ready to fire off a sharp retort, but before you could, he dived in—

Smooch!

—and planted a bold, wet kiss on your lips. You, wide-eyed, punched his chest in retaliation. “Sylus!”

He chuckled, entirely unfazed. “Careful now, sweetie. Wiggle too much, and you’ll fall.”

He carried you downstairs, effortlessly navigating each step with you still in his arms. Once there, he gently set you down onto the dining chair, and that was when you noticed the table.

Salad, slightly burnt toast, scrambled eggs, milk—simple dishes by all means, but the thought the big, bad Sylus making them?

Wait. When you arrived last night, this place was a dusty shell, and the refrigerator had practically nothing—

“You cleaned the place?” you asked, your tone laced with surprise as your turned from the spotless room to him.

He shrugged nonchalantly. “Why is that so surprising? I can cook and clean just like everyone else.”

It sent a wave of warmth through your chest. He’d prepared food and cleaned the place knowing you’d be hungry and uncomfortable with dust all around.

You huffed, trying to hide how your heart fluttered. “No, your cooking skills are questionable at best.”

As if to prove you wrong, Sylus disappeared into the pantry and reemerged with a tray of warm, freshly baked dough that filled the room with a heavenly aroma.

“You are... baking?” You approached him, mystified at the sight of your husband, who usually at the scene of crime, behind the counter and started frosting the cupcakes.

He set the frosting bag down and picked up a cupcake, holding it to your lips with a teasing smile. “Here. Open up.”

Dutifully, you nibbled on the cupcake, and the sweetness immediately spread into your mouth. “It's tasty,” you mumbled, blinking at him. His eyes crinkled with satisfaction as he gestured toward the tray.

“Go have some more.”

Grinning, you grabbed another cupcake and eagerly took a bite. Munching away, you missed how Sylus’ gaze softened, his bright red eyes focused solely on you.

He couldn't resist pinching your full cheeks at that moment.

“Sy-wus!” you protested, glaring at him. His laughter broke free that instant, warm and unrestrained.

Utterly funny, utterly precious—that’s what you were to him.

Indignant, you scooped up some icing from the cupcake and smeared it right across his face. The stunned look he gave you was priceless, and before he could react, you burst into a fit of giggles and bolted out of the kitchen.

But as you reached the base of the stairs, a strong arm caught your waist from behind, halting your escape. You squealed in surprise, “Noooo!”

Sylus leaned closer and pressed you to his chest, his voice rumbling in your ear. “Ha. Did you really think you could get away that easily?”

He lifted you up with one arm and brought you back to the kitchen, setting you down on the counter and trapping you in place with his arms braced on either side. His eyes sparkled with mirth as he leaned in, and with a grin, he bumped his frosting-smeared nose against yours, leaving a sticky smudge.

“This is unfair!” you protested, still caught in a fit of giggles as you looped your arms around his neck for balance. Sylus chuckled along with you, his gaze steady and warm, never leaving yours.

Being with Sylus in the kitchen like this, savoring simple meals and smearing each other with frosting, it made you realize that you craved this domestic bliss more than you thought.

As the laughter subsided and you both settled into the quiet, your expression softened, all your previous grievances forgotten. The tenderness in your eyes said everything you didn’t need words for, and Sylus could see it clearly—you adored him, just as much as he adored you.

The one who gazed into his jewel-like eyes, embraced his burning soul and sang to him in the night wind... is once again in his arms. A part of him was almost sentimental at the thought.

Instinctively, he closed the distance between you, his lips hovering just a breath away from yours. But as they were about to meet, he paused, as if hesitating, leaving you puzzled.

Then, without a second thought—

To hell with it.

You chose to abandon all senses. You seized the moment—yanking him to you and capturing his lips, claiming him for yourself.

“…!” Suck, suck, bite, suck— You were relentless, and you didn't really know why. At first, even he was taken aback, but then his hand slipped behind your head, fingers threading through your hair as he deepened the kiss, his tongue tangling with yours in an intoxicating rhythm.

“Mmm...” You sneakily began to undo the buttons of his shirt one by one, your fingertips grazing his warm skin with each deliberate motion. Feeling it, Sylus broke the kiss just enough to smirk, his voice husky. “Getting bold, aren’t we?”

But before you could respond, his hands trailed down your sides, firmly pulling you closer, leaving no space between the two of you. His gaze burned with desire, as if daring you to keep going.

Then, without warning, his lips began their descent, grazing your jaw softly before trailing down to your neck and chest, leaving a trail of warmth and shivers across your skin. The feeling was intoxicating, even as his hair tickled you, making it hard to focus on anything but him.

“Ahh,” you couldn’t help but sigh, pressing him closer.

His lips left wet marks on your neck, and he whispered, “Now tell me... what made you so upset that you left home?”

When you didn't answer right away, one of his hand slid beneath your blouse, unhooking your bra and grazed your skin—

“You... keep coming and going as you please...” you stammered, feeling him begin to cup and squeeze your breasts, your breath growing erratic.

Sylus bit down on the skin at the nape of your neck, and you almost gasped.

“It's almost as if— Mmm—” The way he fondled your chest made the space between your legs grow warmer. “—you wouldn’t... miss m-me at all...”

How untrue. He stopped his ministrations, and the steel behind those eyes you loved so much met your gaze once again.

His wife was a mess of sweat already. He swiftly hooked your thighs around his waist and claimed your lips once more. With effortless movement, Sylus guided you to the long recliner in the room, laying you down there, still lost in the heat of the kiss. His hand intertwined with yours, pinning you to the soft surface.

“So...” he rasped, breathless against your lips, “You’re upset that I didn't miss you when I was away...”

His other hand worked to unzip your skirt. “But don’t you know? I... was worried about my wife getting into trouble when I wasn’t with her too... That’s why I was in a hurry to go home...”

Sylus pulled away, both of you panting for air, and he took a moment to savor the sight of your glazed eyes.

“But then I couldn't find her anywhere.” His voice was low and taunting, trailing his fingers on your belly. “I made it back as soon as I could, just like I told you and you are the one who misbehaved... Don’t you think I deserve something as a compensation?”

It took you three solid seconds to realize that the lower half of your body was now exposed. Your husband parted your legs and settled his face between them, pressing a kiss on your knee.

“So I believe at the very least... I deserve this.”

He dived straight for your clit then and you let out a loud gasp.

“Ngh! Aaah...!” You let out incoherent moans as he devoured your folds, lost in the cloudy haze of pleasure. It didn’t take long to unravel you at all.

“Mmnh—!” Your eyes almost rolled to the back of your head. Ticklish, hot, wet— all in all, it felt like a sin, but you just had to get this heavenly taste. “…a-ah!”

Sylus felt how you were this close to get your orgasm, so he moved faster, licking and sucking your clit, while adding a couple of fingers to bring you to the peak faster. You unconsciously moved your hips against his face— too far gone to be thinking anything else, grasping the leather of the sofa and pulling his hair—

“Ahh— S-Sylus!” And then you came hard, screaming his name, feeling how much it was— were you squirting?

You didn't know, didn't care either, as it was the sight of his ruby eyes that grounded you. You were spent, spread on the sofa (most probably ruined it, even), your chest heaving to catch your breath.

Sylus let out a low rumble as he wiped your juices off his lips with a thumb and tasted it, looking so sinfully sexy like a forbidden fruit while at it.

“You said... I wouldn't miss you.” He traced one finger on your face with such tenderness. “Now, I'm going to show you, and you'll be judge of it. Are you sure you don't want me to stop?”

If you said no, he would comply. That was the kind of person he was and you knew it. Sylus had always looked out for you since the very beginning, no matter how nonchalant he made himself to be.

“No.” You met his eyes, your voice steady. “Show me.”

It was the only affirmation he needed. He began unbuckling his belt and pants, keeping his unclouded gaze on yours, and soon he too was bare before you.

He was thick and long, and while you had taken him many times, it was never fully easy to ease the intrusion. His tip was already slick with precum, and he spread it along his length.

“You know the rule,” he murmured with a meaningful smile. “If it becomes too much, you scream, and I'll stop.”

He positioned himself at your entrance, sliding in slowly. The sharpness of the stretch seeped into you bit by bit, and you couldn't help but groan.

“—!” A sharp hiss escaped you as he fully sheathed himself inside, hitting that sensitive spot. Had your eyes deceived you, or was there a slightly noticeable bulge in your belly from where he was?

Sylus seemed to notice it too, but he folded your knees, spreading you further. His gaze intense and filled with something deep, something possessive. The room seemed to narrow, your entire focus consumed by him as he settled in close.

“Eyes on me, kitten.” He gave you a smile, and with that, he started pounding you—

“Ah, hah, ahhh!” You couldn't stop moaning beneath him as he thrusted into you. The feeling of him so deep inside, coupled with the way you tightened around him, sent waves of blind pleasure through you.

Sylus’ eyes darkened, his jaw clenched as he watched you squirm under him. Your skin glistened with the heat of the moment, and the sound of your breaths, frantic and needy, filled the room. His control slipped, just a little, as he pushed deeper, his movements faster, chasing the release that quickly building within both of you.

A pretty mess, his wife is. Your face contorted in a mix of pleasure and pain as he bred you, and he swore, of everything he had gone through, this look in your face was always worth it.

“Sylus—!” you almost wailed, nails digging into his back, and he growled, knowing full-well that he was finally losing it.

Just like that he shot his cum straight to your womb, his own body shuddering, thoroughly rutting into you. You cried, tears falling from your lashes as you too reached your climax.

Full, too full... Yet you knew that you wouldn't have it another way.

. . .

It felt warm and comforting.

Your eyes fluttered open hours later, and the first thing you noticed was Sylus' sleeping face, and that you were now in the bedroom.

He looked so vulnerable like this. You couldn’t help but be drawn to how serene and unguarded he was, a side of him that only you got to see. Even in his sleep, his arms were wrapped around your waist, as if to protect you from anything that might disturb your rest.

Your lover... and then husband. He was rough around the edges, sometimes didn't make any sense at all, and often reckless enough to burn himself playing with fire.

“You sly crow…” You gazed at his profile, still in awe that this elusive man was your husband.

Sylus was easy to read sometimes, and you couldn’t help but smile at your earlier doubts about him. How could you not see just how deeply he was attached to you?

Just like the inseparable pair of dragon and sorceress in your dream, you knew you’d stay by his side until the very end.

Out of a playful surge of affection, you tapped his nose, and he grunted softly but didn’t wake, instead nuzzling his face into the crook of your neck, seeking more of your warmth. It was cute, how he was so worn out that he sought comfort in your embrace.

You pressed a soft kiss to his forehead then, vowing with everything you had that you’d never let him go, and that with him by your side, you would definitely made this life you shared a happy one.

Several weeks later...

“Thank you, miss!”

The boy bowed his head with a wide grin as soon as you handed him the red pocket money for Linkon New Year. You waved at him, smiling warmly as he skipped away, clutching the envelope in his hands.

The festive occasion inspired you to pay a visit to a nearby orphanage, driven by a desire to share more of the joy and blessings. You brought small gifts and red envelopes, hoping to bring a little light to the children’s lives and make the celebration even more meaningful for them.

Of course, Sylus tagged along too. He was the benefactor, after all.

“Sir, thank you for your generosity.” The headmistress approached Sylus, who looked effortlessly sharp in his red suit, and gave his hand a shake. “The children are really happy with the cupcakes and pocket money.”

He merely chuckled and pointed at you with his chin. “Thank her, my wife is the one with the idea.”

You joined the conversation shortly after, and it didn’t take long for the topic to shift from the orphanage to your personal lives.

“So, do the two of you have plans to start a family soon?” the headmistress asked, her tone warm and curious. “Both of you are still young, and you're so good with kids. Having children of your own might bring even more joy into your lives.”

You mustered a polite laugh, the words to gracefully deflect her comment forming on your lips, when—

“Soon,” Sylus interjected smoothly, his arm slipping around your waist, pulling you closer. “Very soon, in fact.”

You blinked at him, startled by his bold declaration, while the headmistress’s face lit up with approval. You nudged him discreetly.

As soon as the headmistress went on her way, you turned to him with a frown. “Why would you tell her that?”

Your gaze met his, clear and utterly clueless. Sylus snorted, so tempted to pinch your cheeks, but settling instead for a tender pat on your head.

“You'll see soon enough, sweetie,” he replied, his tone laced with playful mystery.

Epilogue

It was the dead of night when a sudden wave of nausea overtook you. Stumbling out of bed, you rushed to the bathroom, barely making it to the toilet before retching up the contents of your stomach.

Your body trembled as you stood, dizziness threatening to topple you. Leaning heavily on the sink for support, you rinsed your mouth, trying to steady yourself. The effort left you shivering, your legs almost buckling beneath you.

Before you could even comprehend the blur in your vision, a pair of strong arms got a hold over you. “S-Sylus...?” you murmured faintly.

Without hesitation, he lifted you into his arms securely as he carried you back to the bedroom, his expression shadowed with concern.

As he settled you onto the bed, he held you close, pressing your face against his bare chest that peeked from his unbuttoned shirt. “Take deep breaths,” he urged softly, his voice grounding you.

You inhaled shakily, letting the familiar warmth of his scent calm your frayed nerves. Slowly, your breathing steadied, though the nausea still lingered in the back of your throat.

“Is it the first time?” he questioned, smoothing your hair. “Have you thrown up before?”

You shook your head. “No... I get dizzy spells but that's it... This is the first time.”

Nausea, dizziness, vomiting. It wasn't hard to piece together what it was. Amidst your dazed thoughts, the realization hit you, and you turned to your husband almost in wonder. “Sylus... a-am I...?”

Sylus broke into a smirk, ruffling your hair. “Told you. I know your period is late.”

Your heart skipped a beat—and it was the only thing you could hear in that moment. The thought that a baby would enter your lives left you briefly speechless.

“Yeah, at the rate we're going, it’s like we’re bunnies,” you quipped sullenly, trying to regain a sense of control as you leaned into his broad chest.

You really thought he would poke fun at you for your highly possible pregnancy, but instead you were taken aback when he pressed a fond, lingering kiss to the side of your head. His arms tightened around you, his soft chuckle reverberating through his chest.

And when you found his gaze again, his jewel-like eyes softened into such an extent that made your heart soar.

“Well, aren’t I the luckiest man— having this fair lady be the mother of my child?”

[mustachiosareswaggers]

So… Jönssonligan kommer Tillbaka, is the greatest remake of Jönssonligan ever so far. And yall I am not even exaggerating!

I am not gonna describe the whole movie, so this I generally free of spoilers, but if you want not context before you see the film, then skip out on this one.

So first of all, the casting is amazing! Especially for the context oh when and where this movie is taking place. Basically this is a follow-up to all the OG movies from the 80s. Ignoring all of that “Den perfekta Stöten” (thank fucking goodness) and “Se up för Jönssonligan” mumbo jumbo. And basically vaguely describing how the gang has been seperated for many years up until 2024, but not elaborating any further on exactly *how long* that actually was. Which I think is good! Jönssonligan does not need any detailed explanations to fix their plot. It can be the stupidest plot ever, and it works, because it’s goddamn Jönssonligan! So back to casting; Robert Gustafson as always his acting is good! And finally… SICKAN HAS FUCKING GLASSES AND A BERET. IT TOOK LITERALLY ALMOST 10 YEARS YALL. HOW HARD IS IT TO GIVE AN ACTOR A CIGAR, NORMAL ASS GLASSES AND A BERET!? YOU KNOW THE *ICONIC* THING THE CHARACTER IS KNOWN FOR. I SHOULD KNOW; I COSPLAYED SICKAN AT NÄRCON THIS YEAR. Jesus. Anyway, rant out of the way— My favourite performance was definitely by Jonas Karlsson as Vanheden and Jennie Silfverhjelm as Doris. I love the lil small habits that Karlsson gave Vanheden such as picking his teeth with a toothpick and rolling it around in his mouth as he was thinking. It’s a nice lil callback to 80s Vanhedens habit of sniffing those nasal inhaler sticks. And Doris was ya know, just fucking cool! She was so badass and the one who basically finished the whole thing at the end! Yaaaay we love important female characters!

I liked the simple plot as well, it fit so perfectly with the universe of Jönssonligan. Stealing a dino skeleton, that’s totally something Sickan would do! It’s cartoony and it’s simple and it can turn into a fun heist plot! (I know that I seem overly positive about this movie, but GUYS I thought we never would���ve had a good remake)

And of course… we gotta talk about the giant elephant in the room….. We all know that this is tumblr. And both Knight and I are queer af:

AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO THOUGHT THAT THE NEW CHARACTER DINO AND RAGNAR HAD SO MUCH GAY TENSION??? AM I GOING INSANE!?!?

Okay for a bit of context, Dino is a new character in the movie, and I won’t spoil anything other than that he had an important role in the heist. And he and Ragnar developed a really nice friendship, even calling each other best friends at the end of the movie.

So what’s the big deal then? How tf are they even remotely gay?

Well it was clear by the movie, that the two characters were obviously not going to end up with each other. But the moments they had together felt so much like the movie was winking and hinting at something to the audience that wanted to see it. In some of the first scenes between the two, Ragnar basically becomes Dinos semi-therapist and has to hug the poor man for an extended amount of time before the poor sap finally calms down. (And obviously causing a bit of a interruption in the ongoing current heist that are waiting for Ragnars arrival, and shenanigans ensue) They had a very awkward moment where they basically spoke to each other nose to nose in the back of a car. Which was most likely a joke. But I take the content that I can get. (If I can headcanon 80s Sickan as AroAce from a comment of how beautiful he found a car, I can definitely make this queer.)

After this there’s eventually (slight spoilers) an accidental kidnapping of Dino. And this just snowballs their awkward interactions even more. And I will just say that it’s a damn blast to watch.

“I may have pretended to be someone else Dino, but I never pretended to be your friend.” -Ragnar

THAT���S SUCH A ROMANCE CODED QOUTE LIKE WHAT WHAT WHAT???

Anyway if I were to continue on this point, I would basically spoil the whole movie. But let’s just say that I adore this new character that they’ve added to the gang and I really hope they make him return to the next movie.

Speaking of Romance!

I never properly mentioned that Harry was in this movie as well, played by none other than Anders Jansson. And he is just a delight. Making this version of Harry a recovering alcoholic and a guy freshly out of his served sentence. Trying to just because a better person tho clearly still “haunted” (it’s not that dark but I have no better word for it) by his past. And also as well trying his best to move on from Doris. Basically implying and explaining in a good way that sometime in the past the two of them had broken up for some reason or another. But clearly when meeting again after not having seen each other for years, still has a thing for one another. Doris tho in this future has a husband, that we just get a few glimpses at. But that she clearly doesn’t quite have feelings for anymore.

But the thing that I appreciate a lot in this movie is that there’s no cheating involved. Doris clearly says to Harry that she wants things to be professional between them and Harry (despite dying on the inside) respects her request. And the tension between them as they talk and meet after obviously grows and grows the farther into the movie we go. But it isn’t until she has clearly broken up with her husband (it’s a show don’t tell kind of explanation) that she actually gets together with Harry in the end.

And I thought that was adorable!

There’s probably a lot and lot more I can speak of with this movie. Like— there was this police woman that was obsessed with catching Sickan. Her new assistant that helped her track him. Wallenberg was there. (And most likely the villain of the potential next movie) And so much more!

But I’m prepared sure that’s a blog for when Knight has gotten to see this movie as well. So for now:

Soldier, signing out!

Today is the day folks, Soldier is gonna go watch the new Jönssonligan film: Jönssonligan kommer tillbaka!

Really excited today!

[hb-writes]

The Devil’s Footsteps

1913

It was Ada's day to pick up the kids, but seeing as Tommy was heading back to the house anyway, he figured there was no harm in taking the route that passed by the school. It was a few minutes past the end of the school day, but Tommy knew the kids liked to dawdle, stretching out the walk home with leisurely steps and strategic pauses throughout, so he had a good chance of catching them.

When strolled up to the school, he found Ada alone though, leaning against a brick pillar and picking at her cuticles.

"What are you doing, Ada?"

Ada recognized her brother’s voice and slowly glanced up to him, a pouting lip already plastered on when she met his eye. "I thought it was my day to get the kids."

"Right." Tommy blinked a few times, long and hard as if he was summoning some sort of ancient patience.

Smart as their Ada was, Tommy often found himself wondering where her head was at. On a boy, he supposed, though he hadn't a clue which boy. There was just something about that quixotic look in her eye. That and the new attention to her dresses and shoes and hair.

"So where are the kids, then, Ada?"

Ada shrugged. "They haven't come out yet."

"It's quarter past," Tommy said.

Ada wasn't paying attention though, her eyes drawn across the street. Tommy snapped his fingers in his sister's face when her response didn't come quick enough. "Ada!"

"What?" she shouted as she turned back to him. “Why are you shouting?”

"Don't you think you should've gone to look for them?"

"No?" Ada offered. "They'll come out when they're ready."

Tommy shook his head at her and stepped away. By the time he passed through the gates of the schoolyard, Ada was on his heels, crashing into him when he suddenly stopped short.

Clara and Finn were on the far side of the school building, the pair of them spotting their older brother and sister at the same moment he spotted them. A great flurry of excitement seemed to pass between them, lips and limbs moving quickly as words Ada and Tommy couldn't hear passed between the kids.

By the time Tommy and Ada reached the twins, Clara had tugged Finn by the arm so they stood side to side and as the boy opened his mouth to say something, Clara shoved her elbow into him. Finn was about to do it back when Clara cleared her throat.

"Hi, Tommy."

Tommy glanced between the twin's forced smiles. "Ada's been waiting on you two." 

He waited a long moment to see if the kids filled the silence with an explanation but their lips stayed quiet other than Finn offering a hello to Ada when she pulled up beside Tommy.

"What do you have there, Clara?"

Clara's hands were clasped behind her back and at his words, she started rocking back and forth on her feet, her face twisted up in thought before her gaze found the forgotten pile of dusty erasers Tommy had already spotted.

"An eraser," she offered. "The teacher asked me to—"

Finn's mouth dropped open for a moment, a small sound coming out of him before he offered his own explanation. "Clara got in troub—"

His words came just a few seconds after Clara's started, but Finn had to stop before finishing his sentence, raising his arms to take cover from the eraser Clara brought down upon him. It sent a cloud of chalk dust into the air between them and she got in a few solid hits, stamping Finn's head and back with white rectangles before Tommy tugged her to his side.

"You're not supposed to tattle!" Clara shouted, pulling at Tommy's hold.

"You're not supposed to lie!" Finn shouted back, turning and twisting away as Ada tried to pat the chalk dust off his clothes and hair.

"I didn't lie."

"You were gonna."

Clara tried to lift her arm to launch the eraser at Finn, but Tommy's grip was too tight. "No, I wasn't!"

Tommy tried to turn his sister towards him and was unsuccessful for several moments while she continued trying to work out a way to free herself. Defeated, she turned to him with her features softened, all big sad eyes and frowning lips.

"I wasn't gonna lie, Tommy," she said. "The teacher asked me to clean the erasers. That's what I was gonna say." Clara turned back to Finn. "And that's not a lie."

"Why did she ask you to clean the erasers?"

Clara shrugged and Tommy had a feeling he'd found what she intended on lying about, or as was more likely, leaving out completely. Finn had just been trying to keep her from doing it, tattling on Clara in the name of preservation rather than malice. Finn was trying to save her from herself.

It made sense considering Finn had just gotten in trouble for the very same thing—a bit of lying. He'd lied about going off to play by the Cut when he'd been told to stay on the lane, and the boy found he'd have fared far better by just telling the truth and admitting his wrongdoing.

Clara rarely lied outright, and never for anything too serious, but when she did lie, she always told the vague truth, hoping they could skirt past the incriminating details. Clara would tell him the teacher had asked for her to clean the erasers, which was likely true, and leave the reasoning out of it.

That's what the kids had been fighting about, which is what Tommy decided they had been doing when he spotted them across the schoolyard.

"Was Finn telling the truth? You've gotten yourself in some trouble?"

It wasn't a frequent occurrence. Clara tended to stay out of trouble, both in and out of the house, and when all Clara did by way of a response was shrug, Tommy repeated himself.

"Was Finn telling the—"

"Yes!" Finn shouted, the little boy's raised voice startling them all a bit.

Tommy's distraction allowed Clara to get enough leverage to launch the eraser, which missed Finn's head and left a white mark on Ada's dress instead.

"Clara!" Ada let out a scream and stopped troubling herself to clean off Finn's clothes and began working on her own dress. "Tom, aren't you going to do something about her?"

“What would you have me do, Ada?” 

“I don’t know!” Ada shouted. “Do something to control her.” 

“Me? Control a little sister?” Tommy asked. “I never had much luck with you. Can’t imagine I’ll have any luck with this one.”

Ada rolled her eyes. “Well, stop her from throwing things, then.” 

Tommy smirked at Ada's theatrics before glancing down at his sister. “Clara, can I hold your hand, eh?" 

"Why?" she asked, hesitantly conceding as his grip slid down from her arm to her hand.

"To appease our dramatic sister."

"What's appease?"

Tommy had a definition ready for Clara, something that would be informational while also likening Ada to a belligerent royal, but Ada's mouth flew open first.

"Aunt Pol's right. You spoil her too much. Let her get away with everything. She'll be a right devil when she's older."

The way Tommy saw it, everyone spoiled the babies, which was why Ada was coddling Finn, hugging him to her side when he was no worse for the wear at being stamped over with a chunk of felt.  

Tommy raised an eyebrow. "If our Clara goes that way, it'll only be because she's following in another Shelby's footsteps, eh?"

"Yeah, yours," Ada answered.

Tommy was having fun with Ada, but there was more fight in her today, her bite a bit sharper than normal and he assumed she was mad at him about something he had yet to figure out, so he let her have the last word.

Tommy pulled a coin from his pocket and flicked it to Finn who caught it in his hands. "Right, Finn. Why don't you take our Ada for a treat on the way home? Sweeten her up a bit."

Ada glared at him before grabbing the boy's hand. "Come on, Finn."  

“What about me?” Clara asked.

“I’ll walk you home,” Tommy answered. “I assume you’re still responsible for finishing the rest of those?”

Clara glanced at the small pile of erasers Tommy nodded towards and huffed.

“Best get to work then, eh?”

Clara picked up two from the pile and got to work banging them together while Tommy leaned back against the side of the building. She was quiet for several moments, the only sound the clapping of felt.

"I'm not a devil," she said.

“So, what’s all this about, then?” 

Clara shrugged mid-clap. She wasn't a devil, but she was a Shelby and she'd watched her brothers and sister and aunt never allowing a bit of disrespect to come their way without addressing it.

 “Come here," he said, lowering himself as she walked to him. Tommy settled his hands on her arms. "And don’t tell me it’s nothing. Kids like you don’t get sent out to clap erasers for nothing.”

Clara glanced up at him. “Are you going to be mad?”

“Depends on what it is.”

Clara sighed, holding her hands out between them, palms up and waiting. “Can I hold your hand?”

“What for?” Tommy asked though he'd already moved his hands from her arms to rest on top of her outstretched palms.

“So you don’t throw anything.” 

“That bad, eh?” Tommy said.

Clara had a grave and serious look on her face before she shook her head. "No, it's just…I already took care of it."

Tommy's head tilted. "You took care of it?"

"Wally kept whispering about how Finn can't read, but I took care of it," she said. "That's why I threw the eraser at his head."

Tommy snorted. "You know you can't go throwing erasers at other people, eh Clara?"

"Should I have punched him instead?"

Tommy shook his head and pulled a hand away from hers, hiding his smirk by rubbing his hand over the bottom half of his face.  

"But John showed me how," Clara said, reaching forward to place her fist against Tommy's jaw. "If I hit someone right here, I can knock him out."

"Don't listen to John."

"Why?"

"Because John was out here clapping erasers every afternoon, so I can't imagine you want to follow in those footsteps."

But Clara thought she might. A lot of people picked one person to look up to, taking step after step in their wake, but Clara hopped around, fitting her small shoe into the mess of muddy footsteps left behind by the Shelby’s that came before her. She wasn’t much fussed with who the treads belonged to so long as the person who made them belonged to her. 

[notallthosewho-wanderarelost]

Quick non-spoilery Multiverse of Madness review

Only gonna talk about things that aren’t spoilery, so a lot of my thoughts/things I liked or didn’t like/plot holes are not in here.

Does include some very very vague spoilers I guess, I warn right before where they are and don’t name any names, but putting this here just to be courteous.

Edit: added something to the fourth bullet.

Still processing, but so far I feel like overall it was kind of disjointed, I guess I would say? I’m not sure Raimi’s style of cheesiness works well in the 2020s. I kept getting pulled out of the movie by the dramatic zoom-ins to people’s faces and and the parts where it was so obvious a jump scare was coming. It also felt like there was something missing in between the movie’s ending and the first credit scene and I’m confused.

The story was also kind of disjointed as well, though I can’t quite articulate exactly how or why yet. It just didn’t quite feel coherent. If you asked me to give you a one sentence summary of what this movie was about I would really struggle. Might be a product of this being more of an event movie than a solo, similar to Civil War. I wish they hadn’t done that, Doctor Strange deserves a good trilogy of movies and comics show that it’s perfectly possible to write a good story about Stephen with other magic users as a solo.

I liked the first Doctor Strange movie much better, it’s actually one of my unsung favorite MCU movies. I can’t decide if I like MoM or not. I guess right now I don’t hate it, but I don’t really like it either.

As I’m sure anyone could guess, I’m not at all happy they did that Thing that I reeeeeaaaally didn’t want them to do. I knew it was coming because I got spoiled for it, though I admit it happened even faster than I expected. (Which I have to say didn’t make any sense to me at all. Marvel what on earth??) I’m not sure how I would have handled this without having been spoiled for it, I think I would’ve been super emotional about it and it was easier on me emotionally because I was expecting it. I do wish I hadn’t seen quite the level of detailed spoilers that I did, though. Won’t say anything else because, obviously, spoilers, but BOY DO I HAVE THOUGHTS.

I wasn’t a big fan of how America was written- she wasn’t badass enough imo, and she felt like more of a MacGuffin than a character most of the time, so that was a letdown. She’s so cool and kickass in comics and I was excited to see that onscreen. They also downgraded her powers, which is a major bummer. (Maybe she’ll get her comic powerset in the future?) Can’t say any more about this either because spoilers.

The other thing that bugged me that I can talk about without spoiling anything much was the marketing- why give Rintrah and Sara Funko Pops when they’re each in the movie for like 1 minute and neither really does anything? What a waste of cool characters. Sara is Wong’s love interest in comics, and Rintrah has what seems like a really nice friendship with Strange in comics. (They also appear to have racebent Sara from Cheyenne Native American to Black and I wonder why?) And there was no explanation of who Rintrah was or why he was in Kamar-Taj, there’s just a green Minotaur suddenly. The other marketing thing they did that didn’t match with the movie I guess I understand, but those two characters I’m pretty annoyed about.

I enjoyed Stephen’s character arc a lot! VERY well done. Can’t go into more detail because spoilers, but it was really good and I feel like it suited him very well.

Some very, very vague spoilers in the next bullet, I guess:

Loved getting to see a certain character who was previously in a tv show and way underpowered get to actually use their multiple powers on the correct level, because unlike said show this movie had a solid budget that wasn’t 3 dollars and a tissue. (Kidding, obviously, and there are things I really liked about the show, to the point where I think I’m one of the few people to find things I liked in it, but the lack of money for effects was a big factor in sinking it.) I’m very glad they kept the same actor though, because that whole cast was extremely on point and deserved better. I do feel like the show costume was better in at least one respect, because the mask in this movie didn’t look great on the actor, and I like how the show didn’t do a mask but still worked in the important element that had to be on the character’s head via a crown-thing.

Last but not least, THE CREDITS SCENE, HECK YEAH, FINALLY!!! And absolutely A+ casting choice on multiple levels, I’m SO excited to see more! Though bummed it’s going to be a long wait.

[blackjack-15]

Two Can Keep a Secret (if the Family Tree is Dead) — Thoughts on: Ghost of Thornton Hall (GTH)

Previous Metas: SCK/SCK2, STFD, MHM, TRT, FIN, SSH, DOG, CAR, DDI, SHA, CUR, CLK, TRN, DAN, CRE, ICE, CRY, VEN, HAU, RAN, WAC, TOT, SAW, CAP, ASH, TMB, DED

Hello and welcome to a Nancy Drew meta series! 30 metas, 30 Nancy Drew Games that I’m comfortable with doing meta about. Hot takes, cold takes, and just Takes will abound, but one thing’s for sure: they’ll all be longer than I mean them to be.

Each meta will have different distinct sections: an Introduction, an exploration of the Title, an explanation of the Mystery, a run-through of the Suspects. Then, I’ll tackle some of my favorite and least favorite things about the game, and finish it off with ideas on how to improve it.

If any game requires an extra section or two, they’ll be listed in the paragraph above, along with my list of previous metas.

These metas are not spoiler free, though I’ll list any games/media that they might spoil here: GTH; SPY; mention of ASH (and the ASH meta); mention of Nik/HER’s spoilery hints about GTH.

 NOTE: THIS META CONTAINS DISCUSSION OF AND REFERENCE TO SEXUAL ASSAULT. MORE DETAILED SECTIONS ARE MARKED, BUT THIS WARNING STANDS FOR THE WHOLE META.

 The Intro:

It’s time to get our Spooky on, lads. And we’re gonna do it in a meta of truly staggering length, so maybe go to the bathroom and get a snack before you start. My apologies.

Due to the (to be quite frank) absence of nostalgia surrounding them, there’s not really many games that are post 2010 that the fandom tends to agree on, but Ghost of Thornton Hall happens to be a standout in that pretty much everyone has found something to like about it. It often tops the charts of “best newer game” polls, and puts in a valiant effort against the more nostalgic mainstays.

There are a lot of reasons for this, in my mind – the quality of the writing, the choices that Nancy can make that actually affect the outcome of the game and especially affect Nancy, the fabulous voice work, the purposely-unanswered questions that give a deeper sense of horror — but if you ask me, the love for GTH really boils down to one thing:

Atmosphere.

Nancy Drew game fans (and I’m including myself in this) tend to prioritize atmosphere in the games, probably because without good and proper atmosphere it’s easier to pick apart the formula as you’re playing and to avoid being immersed in the game’s story, and GTH has it thick on the ground (figuratively and literally). The fear, unease, and overall sense of being an Intruder in this story comes from the overwhelming atmosphere provided by the grief of the characters, the time-sensitive nature of the crime, the secrets of the house and family, and, of course, the rather stellar visuals and locations.

The Thornton’s house and grounds really feel alive, but dead — in fact, they almost feel alive in the way that a zombie is, where they function and feed but have no heart. The gloriously (and meticulously) decorated walls are cast in shadow and grime; the portraits feel ominous and disapproving rather than lifelike and nostalgic; even the graveyard, as spread out and opulent as it is, feels claustrophobic and unwelcoming.

In a word, the game is – visually, thematically, story-wise, and atmospherically — haunting. And I think that overwhelming feeling of being haunted is, in large part, what draws fans back to this game again and again.

It should come as no surprise, then, that the scariest parts of this game are the things that you, as the player, do not see. Sure, the apparitions of Charlotte, the ghostly figures, the appearance of Harper — these are all scary, but the fear is gone after a moment, leaving the player unsettled but not running to hide under a blanket. The deaths of the fifty-four souls, the secret behind Clara’s birth, Harper’s breakdown — all these things that you don’t see, that you can only hear about or have hinted at are where the fear of the game kicks in, especially for older players.

It’s no secret that, despite the games being labeled for ages 10 and up, that the actual age of the Nancy Drew games fandom hasn’t been around 10 for some time — most people playing these games are in their 20s or 30s, or have siblings who are in their 20s and 30s and got into the games through them. Sure, there are some outliers, but the Clue Crew is much closer in general to the ages of the River Heights crew than they are to the age that that box says.

Because of this, the writers (and I’m going to especially hat-tip Nik here) behind the games have been able to slowly graduate the topics of the games to be a little bit older, hiding the true horror behind things that younger kids just won’t think about. This is especially the case with GTH and SPY, but you see it in a lot of the newer games, where the implications of events are normally scarier than the events themselves.

GTH takes that and runs with it, choosing to hint at and dance around truly upsetting — for any age — topics, presenting a mystery and a story that only get scarier once you’ve finished staring at the screen. The characters’ emotional problems and issues — loss, abandonment, anxiety, guilt — are like this too; while they’re present in the game itself, when you take a step back after finishing the game you realize just how badly scarred everyone is in the story.

Because answers were purposely left vague in order to 1) make the player work for it and 2) keep the 10+ rating, pretty much everyone who plays GTH has a slightly different opinion on what went down at Charlotte’s party, who the Thorntons really are, the circumstances of Clara’s birth, why the children of a female Thornton take their mother’s name — you name it, and there’s around 10 distinct opinions on it, and many more offshoots of those opinions besides.

I’m going to talk a little bit here about a couple of the “biggies”, since I don’t want it cluttering up the Suspect portion of this meta, so bear with me. I’m not so much interested in “this is the Correct answer” as much as just presenting the information from the game and wondering about its conclusions…but I (like everyone else) have my little pet theories, so what follows will be a little bit of reporting, a little bit of inference, and a little bit of supposition.

What follows is a frank discussion of topics such as rape and incest as they apply to GTH. If this is something you’d rather not consume, skip down to the next bolded line.

The most talked-about question left hanging in the game is, of course, who Clara’s father was. I think this question is best addressed from a two-pronged approach, however, because to figure out who Clara’s father could have been is a question that requires another question to be answered: why would Clara’s mother not tell her, even on her deathbed.

The most popular — and horrifying — answer to this is that Clara’s father is Jackson, and that she was a product of rape and incest. Now, just looking at the timeline, this theory adds up; Rosalie (Clara’s mum) would have been 25 when her father was 51 and would have raped her — young enough (especially in relation to her father, a middle-aged man of a lot of power in and out of the family) that she would have been scared to tell anyone anything, but old enough to not have it be super out of the ordinary that she got pregnant and had a baby — especially in 1968.

To add to this theory, there’s the note in the cellar that asks “who was this Jackson?...what’s he hiding, and who put it there? Was it Charlotte?”. If you’re looking for clues with the incest theory in mind, this seems to point directly to it — “who was this Jackson”? both Rosalie and Clara’s father. “What’s he hiding”? his crime of raping his daughter and impregnating her. The mention of Charlotte alludes to the supposition that Charlotte found proof of this crime — tangible proof — and put it somewhere; this pretty much supposes that there’s a document somewhere that names Jackson as Clara’s biological father, such as an admission of guilt or a paternity test.

The final “proof-positive” to this theory is that Rosalie refused to tell Clara who her father was even on her deathbed. We know from the family tree and Wade that Clara was between 5-10 when her mother died (I’m inclined to believe the family tree, and chalk the discrepancy up to either the writers not being concerned with math or, more likely and more charitably, to show that Wade isn’t a Perfectly Reliable source, just like everyone else), and Rosalie’s protection of Clara from the truth makes sense with a child in that age span. It’s one (horrible, horrible) thing to be forcibly impregnated by your father, but to have to say it out loud, and to say it to your child — that’s something that no one can even remotely blame Rosalie for not being up to, especially when weakened by sickness.

There are smaller points — like pointing out that this might be why Virginia (Wade’s mum) was skipped over in inheritance — but these small points have dozens of explanations, so they’re not really good for bolstering a theory unless you’re already dedicated to it and are looking for crumbs to shore it up.

End of frank discussion. The previous topics may be alluded to and/or mentioned, but not discussed in detail from this point on.

Now, let’s talk about another explanation. I think there’s a tendency to jump on the “Jackson Theory” because 1) there are clues that support it, but more importantly 2) because it’s horrifying, and it’s natural to leap to the scariest thing you can think of when considering a game that relies on fridge horror in the first place.

In the “Jackson Theory”, Rosalie would have hidden Clara’s parentage because of shame, horror, and trauma, and probably to (at least momentarily) spare Clara’s feelings — but Jackson isn’t the only explanation for her reticence.

Generally, we can break apart the reasons for Rosalie’s silence into three distinct emotions or emotional states: shame (supports the Jackson Theory), trauma (supports an assault by a known wolf), or, often overlooked, ignorance.

Clara is mentioned repeatedly as being outwardly and obviously scared about her place in the family — a fear borne from and exacerbated in her childhood, as Nik plainly states (“her insecurity wasn’t just a personal flaw, it was a response to her uneven upbringing,” emphasis mine).

An easy way for Rosalie, worried as she must have been about leaving her daughter alone, to fix this if Clara really was a product of incest, is to name a distant Thornton cousin, preferably one who was already dead or out of the picture, as the father, which would assure Clara’s place in the Thornton line by both blood and her future adoption. This way, if Clara’s parentage was tested, she’d show up as a Thornton from both sides in a way that wouldn’t be suspicious, and her daughter would have an easier life.

But Rosalie didn’t do this — she never even hinted at the identity of Clara’s father. As a woman known primarily for secret keeping — not just about Clara, but about everything (“She loved her secrets,” Wade says), Rosalie would have been adept at hiding things through various means, including through lies and subterfuge, not simply staying silent. Given the little we know of Rosalie’s character, then, let’s consider why she wouldn’t have said anything — even something false — to ensure her daughter’s safety when she died.

Looking outside of Jackson (and with any other known Thornton being quite unlikely), the vast majority of assaults are committed by those known to their victim — friends, acquaintances, classmates, etc.

The Thorntons were — and are — an incredibly powerful family, both monetarily and socially. Having dealt with families such as the Thorntons before in matters like this one, it is frankly incredibly unlikely that, had Rosalie been assaulted by someone she knew, that the truth wouldn’t have come to light through another source, and that the perpetrator would have been punished in every way possible.

BRIEF DISCUSSION OF ASSAULT STATISTICS AS THEY RELATE TO ROSALIE’S POSSIBLE CASE.

Some people familiar with only the post-20th-century world as “the modern age” and with a less stellar grasp of the pre-tech-boom world might raise an eyebrow at this supposition of punishment, but this is Exactly what would have happened — and did happen with regularity — even as “far back” as ’68 — especially when the crime was committed against a young, privileged, wealthy woman of the community.

Note, this is after the USMPC adjustment to the definition of rape in ’62, but before the adjustments in the early 70s; in 9 years, forcible rape rates (this number includes only female victims, so the true number of victims is indisputably higher, given the enormous jump in rape statistics in 2016-present as male cases have been included) had soared in the United States from around 17,000 per year in 1960 to, in the year Clara was born, 31,000 reported cases (source: DisasterCenter). With these soaring numbers came soaring awareness, and combined with Rosalie’s identity as a rich, powerful young woman in a rich, powerful family, it’s on the outside of belief that, had her attacker’s identity been known or suspected, that it could have remained a secret and gone unpunished.

END OF BRIEF DISCUSSION OF ASSAULT STATISTICS AS THEY RELATE TO ROSALIE’S POSSIBLE CASE.

Given this historical and social backing, the simplest and unavoidable potential answer to why Rosalie wouldn’t have either told Clara who her father was or made up a “brief love” who abandoned her Dishonorably, is this: she didn’t know.

(I’ll spare a mention here to say that, ignorance because of being a “wild child” in the 60s and having had multiple partners would be a possible theory, but it disregards everything else we know about Rosalie and her behavior, and that her reputation as a party girl would have been common knowledge, unable to be hidden from those who were alive at the time. So let’s move on to what else would cause ignorance.)

Though attacks by a person unknown to the victim are, in relation to known assailants, rare, in the absence of other evidence, the simplest answer to Clara’s parentage was that Rosalie was assaulted by someone that she did not know and had no way of knowing — and who had no idea of the social power of his victim.

Rosalie truly left nothing behind that points to her daughter’s parentage, even for later discovery or for Clara’s private eyes in a bank lockbox when she came of an Age that Rosalie deemed appropriate — so the conclusion to be drawn is, in the absence of evidence, that Rosalie didn’t answer Clara’s question because she simply couldn’t.

This ties into the other theory/mystery I want to cover here — that of what happened the night Charlotte died, and how (and in what way) Clara was culpable and responsible for Charlotte’s death. We know that, according to her, Clara went there simply to “scare” Charlotte — and given the circumstances that Clara gives this confession in, I’m inclined to believe her — and it’s my opinion that the reason didn’t have anything to do with the truth of the identity of Clara’s father.

My stance here — and it’s here that I take a solid stance, rather than presenting options — with Charlotte (and I’ll talk more about her general character in the Suspects section) is that Charlotte found the same breadcrumbs as the players did and came to the same conclusion — that Jackson was Clara’s biological father. The difference, however, is that I believe Charlotte’s conclusion to be understandable, but ultimately incorrect, and that Rosalie’s assaulter was a stranger.

Horrified, this is where Charlotte’s “cryptic obsession with Jackson” (mentioned in the note in the cellar) began, and what led to her changing the beneficiary of her will from Clara — poor, pitiable Clara, already a victim of so much, whose insecurities would be compounded by this truth — to Harper.

An important part of this theory — and of really any theory — is the consideration that Clara was pregnant with Jessalyn at the time. Not only does this partially explain why Clara’s thought was to save herself (and her baby) rather than dragging Charlotte out with her (regardless of any other factor), but it also brings a potential answer as to why Charlotte would change her will to favor Harper, rather than Clara. Just as the cellar note asks “Who was this Jackson?”, I find myself asking a similar, but no less important question:

“Who was this Austin Neely?”

Listed as Jessalyn’s (still living) father on the family tree, Austin Neely isn’t present anywhere else in the game — not by name and not through mentions of “Jessalyn’s father” or “Clara’s ex-husband/ex-boyfriend” or anything like that. There’s not even a mention of Clara contacting him as a guest for the wedding or to help search for their daughter. His absence is glaring, especially in a game so focused around family — so the question of who is Austin Neely is a question that seems incredibly important to me, given that Clara was pregnant at the time of Charlotte’s death.

In mentioning this theory, I do fully acknowledge that I have only some circumstantial evidence — mostly emotional, and based off of who the characters are/were — to support it, but given the total lack of information on Austin Neely, my guess is as good as anything else.

So here’s my theory: Austin Neely is not Jessalyn’s father, and Clara, like her mother, became pregnant via some type of assault (and given that this was the late 80s and given Clara’s age at the time, I would say the most likely culprit is date rape). When Clara became aware that she was pregnant, given her insecurities about her place in the Thornton clan and her lack of knowledge of her own father, would have come to this conclusion: she was not going to let her baby go through what she herself went through. So she did what her mother could have — and honestly speaking, probably should have — done, and lied.

Austin Neely was probably a friend or an acquaintance of Clara’s — someone her family didn’t really know, but that she could make up a story about dating/being engaged to and became pregnant by before it all fell apart. He would have likely received a payout (probably a rather large payout, given the Thornton’s money and influence) and disappeared from the area and the Thornton’s lives, signing off any responsibility or claim to “their” child before he left.

As a result of this, her child now has a father and doesn’t have to grow up wondering, and Clara avoids the stigma, court case, and general Uproar that would come with attempting to find her attacker. She also, importantly for her, avoids that mess for her child, who will grow up in a semi-normal atmosphere, surrounded by family, not doubting her place in the world — and no one has to know.

Except, of course, one person would know. The head of the family: Charlotte Thornton. From then on, based on this series of events, the story behind Charlotte’s death becomes quite straightforward.

Clara’s paranoia and general cleverness clue her in to the fact that Charlotte has changed her will in Harper’s favor, and is scared out of her mind; having recently experienced a trauma and being pregnant with a child, she’s afraid that she will be left with absolutely nothing, that her machinations with Austin Neely and all her striving will have been for nothing, and she will be cast off, unable to give her child the life she wants to give her.

Compounded by her ground-in fear that she does not belong, she decides to try to settle it with Charlotte — she’s going to scare her, to punish her, and make Charlotte rethink the changed will.

And Charlotte, bearing the weight of the family name and business, not to mention its continued propagation on her shoulders, sees a woman who has been — like her mother — assaulted and left pregnant, whose mental state is already fragile, and who the “revelation” of who Charlotte thinks her true father is would topple her completely — sees poor, pitiable, emotional, suspicious Clara, and refuses.

I think that, more than anything else, would have set Clara off. Remember what she yells at Charlotte’s ghost?

“You had so much, so much, and I had nothing.”

In answering some of the questions about the game, Nik/HER’s response is to say that Clara did not literally light the match that burned Charlotte alive — but we know that Charlotte burned all the same. In the video of her birthday, there are candles; in the dust and soot on the floor where Charlotte died, we see candlesticks. And in the response, again, we know that Charlotte lit the candles for the celebration.

In my ASH meta, I discussed the many meanings of the word “fire” and the term “setting the fire” — and that’s important here too. In this case, the fire was set by Charlotte refusing to reconsider the terms of her will; in her refusal, she probably touched on the same point that she makes in the note in her room — that Clara isn’t stable enough to take over the company. Now, I doubt she would have said that straight to Clara’s face, but even framed as a “you have enough to be going on with and I don’t want to burden you” sort of thing, that just would have reaffirmed all of Clara’s fears — that she was unwanted by the Thornton clan, that her child would be unwanted as a matter of course, and that she would truly have nothing.

And so my guess would be that Clara shoved her. Not hard enough to break anything, not even into a direct flame, but shoved her, and Charlotte jostled the table, and a candelabra fell to the floor, where we see it still in the modern day.

When Nancy sees Charlotte’s ghost out in that house — and yes, I’m firm on that being Charlotte’s actual ghost, as she’s out in the open air so carbon monoxide doesn’t figure in, and there’s no way for that to be Harper/Jessalyn — she burns from the skirt up, which follows with a candle falling to the floor and lighting that incredibly flammable dress on fire.

The last thing to note from HER/Nik’s response is that at the end of the game, Nancy faces the exact same choice that the Thorntons have: to help, or to save herself. In this, we have to look back to Clara and Charlotte, and conclude this: Clara chose not to help. It’s debatable how much help she could have really been — we’re not sure how pregnant she was at the time — or if it even occurred to her until she was already out and chose not to go back in — but at the very least, Clara’s guilt comes not only from the fact that she quarreled with Charlotte right before her death, but that she could have tried to prevent it, and didn’t.

Given the supposition that Charlotte was literally on fire, I really do doubt that getting her out or finding water to throw on her would have been successful, but it doesn’t matter — because Clara looks at it as a choice, and Clara (more importantly) looks at it as the wrong choice, and a choice that she’s been punished for since the day it happened. That’s why, when speaking to Charlotte’s ghost, she says this:

“Haven’t I suffered enough for you?”

The last point I want to make in this OBSCENELY long introduction is about GTH’s place in the pantheon of “Haunting Games”. When you look at the bare-bones (heh) circumstances that make up GTH, you’ll start to see shades of other games.

A relationship/marriage gone a bit wrong, a family secret, an ancestral home, a relative/ancestor whose spectre looms over the story, mysterious apparitions and appearances, and Nancy’s status as an outsider and a skeptic — yeah, both CUR and HAU should come to mind immediately.

Having said my piece about, well, the badness of CUR and HAU and their unsuccessful approach to their basic plot points, it delights me that GTH takes a good hard look at them and says “well, what if we did this well this time? What if we gave our characters the complexity, the emotional resonance, the secrets and lies that we should have the first time?”

Like CUR and HAU, the Family is at the center of the game — except this time we believe in this family, in their relationships to one another, and we feel the effects of the family and their choices, not just hear about it from a diffident 9-year-old or a cranky caretaker. The history of the Thornton clan comes alive through the house, the graveyard, the books and journals that we have of them. We understand what this family is and the choices that they make — even if we don’t approve of them — and they feel real, not just like a background chucked in to Make The Spooky Things Happen.

Also like CUR and HAU, we deal with a central relationship and the complexities that come over two people deciding to get married. Happily, this game (unlike CUR and HAU) treats the central relationship as a thing of Import, and comes to the conclusion that it’s the happiness and well-suitedness of the couple that matters, not the family that surrounds them or anything else. It asks the question “what happens if one person runs away from the relationship?” and answers it, quite satisfactorily, with “there are probably some issues that need ironed out before anything else should happen”.

Interestingly, GTH also takes the good points of CUR and HAU – especially HAU’s atmosphere and CUR’s love of family tidbits — and improves upon them as well. Instead of Jane showing off her studies so that Nancy can solve a few puzzles, Wade walks her through the Thorntons were (at least in his eyes) and helps her get to know the people she’s helping. Instead of being duly impressed at the atmosphere in a bombed-out castle, everywhere on the island is teeming with fog — literal and figurative — as Nancy tries to decode the past to help the future.

Now then, let’s leave the general behind, and focus on the specifics of GTH.

The Title:

Ghost of Thornton Hall is a great title in the way that Secret of the Scarlet Hand is a great title – moody, evocative, gives us our location/focus right away, but not in a way that spoils anything, etc. If anything, it’s a little more flexible – are we dealing with The Ghost of Thornton Hall (Charlotte), the ghost(s) of the Thornton family, the ghosts of those who died on the island, or — in a very fun way — are we talking about the ghost of Thornton Hall — the spirit of the building where so much life and death has happened?

As a title for a Haunting game, you really don’t get much better than GTH, and it centers the player’s attention right where it should be — on the messed up family that the game centers around, and how their past impacts their future.

The Mystery:

Nancy’s phone rings in the middle of the night, with Savannah Woodham’s drawl on the other end, informing her of a kidnapping that’s taken place. She’d go herself, but believes wholeheartedly – and is frightened by — the ghost that’s taken up residence on Blackrock Island, Georgia, and doesn’t believe she’d be enough help.

Of course, this isn’t the whole truth, but we’ll get into that later.

Armed with both her detective skills and her inherent skepticism, Nancy sets off for Georgia to find the missing bride-to-be. Of course, when she gets there, she quickly discovers that the family — and family history — is even murkier and laced with tragedy than the presence of a ghost would suggest, and that, even with everyone searching for Jessalyn Thornton, she is nowhere to be found.

To find her, Nancy has to delve deep into the Thornton family lore, Jessalyn’s relationships with her family and friends – not to mention her preoccupied fiancé — and figure out what really did happen to dear, sweet Charlotte Thornton nearly two decades ago…

GTH, as a mystery, is chock-full of hints, clues, red herrings, and background facts that make figuring out the truth behind everything a joy and a delight — not to mention a task that will take more than one playthrough. GTH is also unique in that its mystery can end in more than one way, and that Nancy’s choices actually have more of an impact than just what souvenir she sends home to her erstwhile boyfriend. Choosing to save herself, to save just the “innocent” (for a certain value of innocence), or to save everyone leads to different endings not just for Nancy but for everyone involved with the Thornton Clan, from its matriarch all the way down to a certain spook-hunting ex-girlfriend.

Underpinning the mystery is this question: did Charlotte really come back as a ghost to haunt Blackrock and the Thorntons, or are her appearances just the result of sneaky relatives and atmospheric maleficence? Can all of the sightings be explained by a mixture of carbon monoxide poisoning, a few relatives playing dress-up, and huge amounts of suggestion and guilt? Is it the case, as Rentaro posited a few games earlier, that a ghost doesn’t have to be real to haunt you?

In a word, no. In a few more words, of course not.

Tying the whole of the ‘haunting’ mysteries together is this (previously mentioned) fact: Nancy is not remarkable for being a Skeptic, she is remarkable for being a Skeptic in a world where ghosts exist. The moving wood (and possibly the silhouette) in MHM, Camille’s ghost dancing along in TRN, the reflection of Kasumi in the water in SAW, the ghost of the Willow in GTH — these are all real, unexplainable-by-tech-or-imagination ghost sightings, and the fact that Nancy doesn’t believe in them doesn’t change their reality one bit.

In the house, you can cite carbon monoxide and Jessalyn/Harper running around in a costume for at least some of them — though not all. But the sightings outside — carbon monoxide does not stay in the system for very long in clear air, blessedly — of Charlotte? The consistency of the spectre? The apparition of her burning up at the site of her birthday party? These aren’t things that you can explain by costume theater — especially since these sightings have been happening for over a decade by people who haven’t stepped foot in Thornton Hall.

When they say that Blackrock belongs to Charlotte and has since the fire, it’s not a literary turn of phrase — Charlotte is there, and refuses to be forgotten. Nancy’s status as a Skeptic prevents her from hysteria, but it does not stop her from being haunted by the Ghost of Thornton Hall.

Now, let’s talk about the players — dead and alive — that make this mystery as complicated and dark as it is.

The Suspects:

Beginning with the matriarch of the Thorntons seems as good a place to start as any, so let’s talk about Clara Thornton. Cousin to Charlotte and Harper, Clara was taken in after her mother’s untimely death (but before her aunt and uncle’s equally untimely deaths) and became the equivalent of a sister in at least Charlotte and Harper’s eyes — though Clara herself was always unsettled and wary about her place in the family.

After the events of Charlotte’s tragic birthday (covered above), Clara visited Charlotte’s grave every night for a year, and was hospitalized after being pushed off of the widow’s walk (more on this later). Whether due to her upbringing or her Thornton blood – or, most likely, both — Clara is secretive, paranoid, wracked with guilt…and a loving mother and extremely capable businesswoman.

Though GTH doesn’t actually have a culprit —Jessalyn wasn’t kidnapped and Charlotte wasn’t murdered — Clara is, as the resident secret keeper and witness to Charlotte’s death, the closest thing that we’ve got. Clara’s sense of guilt is far beyond anything that she could have done, and is haunted so completely as to turn her rather cold.

I have a lot of sympathy for Clara, who made a mistake in a fit of anger (whether that’s pushing Charlotte or just not helping her when she started to burn) at the age of 21 and has been wracked with guilt and haunted by the spectre — real and imagined — of her ‘sister’ ever since (not to mention knowing that her other ‘sister’ blamed and hated her for it). Charlotte died before she had the time to make too many mistakes, but Clara had the entirety of the estate and the business — thousands of people’s livelihoods — thrust into her hand when she was a single mother of 21 years of age. Even had Clara been completely stable, it would have been a lot, and it’s no wonder that she rules the company with an iron fist.

I also want to point out that, due to Harper’s breakdown at the funeral and her afterwards, that even had Charlotte’s second will been found right then, Clara still would have inherited until at least Harper received her bill of mental health, as the closest heir to Charlotte of (legally) sound mind and body.

Let’s talk then about the other heir, Harper Thornton. A fan favorite for a myriad of reasons — her Helena-Bonham-Carter-esque design, her wonderful VA (props to Keri Healey, voice of Hotchkiss, Sally, Paula, Simone, and Madeline!) knocking her lines out of the park, and her dark sense of humor, Harper is, like most of the Thorntons, incredibly unstable, paranoid, violent…an affectionate aunt, and a pretty darn good detective in her own right.

Since GTH doesn’t have a ‘culprit’, Harper stands in her own guilty/not guilty paradigm along with Clara. She had nothing to do with Charlotte’s death personally, but was the one who caused assorted injuries and thousands of dollars in property damage at the funeral, and the one who pushed Clara off the widow’s walk and hospitalized her. Yes, Harper was young — 18 when Charlotte died, but pushing your cousin/sister off of a balcony is wrong at any age.

It’s worth noting that of the three Thornton ‘sisters’, one is guilty of some degree of manslaughter/criminal negligence, and the other of attempted murder. When Charlotte notes that she herself has a dose of the “Thornton paranoia”, she’s not just whistling Dixie.

The biggest problem the Thorntons have, honestly speaking, is that all of them are way too emotional and react without thinking. Clara confronting Charlotte, Charlotte not taking Clara aside to talk about the will, Harper’s injuring of others and blaming/pushing Clara, Wade destroying machinery, Jessalyn disappearing rather than talking things out…none of the Thorntons, past or present, have seemed to think with their brains since the woman who received the land on Blackrock Island after the Civil War in the first place.

In keeping with the theme, I want to talk about Charlotte Thornton next. A girl who inherited the Thornton land and business at way too young an age — I don’t even wanna know why Jackson hated his adult daughter Virginia (and yes, I know that there’s a supposition to this in the “Jackson Theory”, but it’s pure supposition) so much that he would stake the family future on a 20-year-old, no matter how much everyone liked her — after the death of her parents four years prior, Charlotte was the darling of the Thornton family.

Well-liked by everyone with a beautiful singing voice, Charlotte was nonetheless every inch a Thornton; she outright acknowledged her own paranoia, kept secrets and locked rooms closer to her than her family, and had a flair for the dramatic and emotional. After considering her cousin/sister Clara too unstable for the task of inheriting the family Business, Charlotte, rather than turning to her older aunt or naming multiple beneficiaries to ease the load, instead leaves 100% of it to her younger sister Harper.

I do want to point out the irony here in leaving the business to Harper over Clara on the grounds of mental stability. Whatever else Charlotte was good at, she was not a good judge of character, even giving leeway for her being 21.

After her death, Charlotte haunts the family home, unable to leave the place that was, for a year, hers to inherit. But why would ‘dear, sweet’ Charlotte haunt, frighten, and otherwise unsettle those around her — from family to neighbors to curious kids — especially to the extent that she does?

To answer that question, we need to talk about the family member that everyone says is incredibly close to Charlotte in personality — our missing bride, Jessalyn Thornton.

Clara’s daughter, Jessalyn is painted as being a sort of return of Charlotte; everyone loves her (all Thornton employees are combing the island looking for her, for heaven’s sake), everyone agrees on her, and she’s next in line to inherit the Thornton family business. She’s even around Charlotte’s age (24, rather than 21, but close enough) during the game, for heaven’s sake — the comparisons are not subtle, nor are they meant to be.

Since it’s more than halfway through the game that Nancy meets Jessalyn, the things that people say about her are the best clues to her personality that we have…right?

Everyone agrees that Jessalyn would never run off and make people worry like this, that even if she was scared or had second thoughts about the wedding or even just needed to be alone, that she would never do this to her family. And, as it turns out, everyone — her mother, her uncle, her best-friend-cum-fiancé — everyone is wrong. Jessalyn did exactly that — she ran off, made everyone worry, and didn’t think about her family, friends, fiancé, or employees one bit.

It also takes her no effort at all to fully believe a woman she’s never met that her mom is a vicious, cackling murderer just because her (single, incredibly busy) mother is a bit emotionally cold, so she’s also not a great judge of character.

And remember, we’re told over and over again — Jessalyn is just like Charlotte. Sure, Jessalyn is also our Nancy foil in this game — a young woman who needs to learn the truth about her mother, coerced/guided by a quasi-unreliable source, worrying her family by running off — and that’s important for Nancy’s character, but Jessalyn is first and foremost our Charlotte analogue. Jessalyn’s family and friends don’t understand who Jessalyn is…so I think it’s fair to say that Charlotte’s family and friends didn’t understand who Charlotte was, either.

We see Charlotte, through her writings and actions, could be thoughtless, was a poor judge of character, was secretive and paranoid — all things that no one even alludes to when speaking of her. Sure, there’s the idea of not speaking ill of the dead, but someone would have noted these things, even fondly or mildly.

So why would Charlotte haunt this place, haunt these people, when she was so good and kind and loved everyone? The simplest answer, the least convoluted explanation, is just that she wasn’t. That the Thorntons didn’t understand Charlotte, as much as they loved her, just like they didn’t understand Jessalyn.

Speaking of Thorntons who may be misunderstood, we’ll focus on Wade Thornton next. A little more rough-and-tumble and a little less refined than his relatives seem to be, Wade is introspective, superstitious, hard-working, and a bit gloomy…along with having some anger issues, vast amounts of distrust, and a bit of egotism.

Wade’s (at least legally) guilty of a few things in the past, but since he won’t even go into Thornton Hall, he’s a pretty easy cross-off of our list of suspects. Wade’s there to give Nancy information on the Thornton Clan, to provide the explanation as for (partially) why Savannah isn’t there herself, and to show another facet of the Thorntons — their anger.

Whether or not you agree with Wade’s actions that led to Clara pressing charges — though I think everyone can agree it’s pretty stupid to destroy your own family’s machinery, especially when the only danger to the employees was caused by him scaring them half to death — and it highlights that Wade, philosophical though he is, is just as much a Thornton as those he despises. He even calls himself out on it – that while he used to think he was on the side of “Good Thorntons”, he’s not so sure anymore.

The best (serious) line in the game does come from Wade — I will be in love with his description of dating Savannah as “[falling] for her like a Black Tuesday banker” until I die. It’s a perfect metaphor without sounding pretentious, and shows just how bleak his own worldview really is.

Next is The Fiancé, Colton Birchfield, who has the most hilariously WASP-y name to ever come out of a Nancy Drew game. A man who’s struggled with depression and anxiety all his life, Colton was born to two politicians and has lived in the spotlight — and his marriage to Jessalyn is getting just as show-stopper-y as a campaign trail before she disappeared.

I mentioned above that the resolution to Colton and Jessalyn’s relationship is the healthy, sane version of what should have happened in CUR and HAU, and I stand by that. While I don’t necessarily like him going back to Lexi after the game is over — a relationship interrupted by one party being paid off is not the healthy, loving, loyal relationship that Colton needs — it’s clear that he and Jessalyn would have made each other content, but never fulfilled romantically.

Colton’s guilty of nothing more than not being in love with his best friend, and he’s a refreshing breath of air as someone related tangentially to, but not cast down by, the Thornton family drama. He may get less sympathy than our other cast members, but he’s no less deserving of it, and I’m really rooting for him to find someone that will give him the same amount of love and loyalty that he’ll give them.

We’ll journey outside the Thornton family and their (almost) relations for our next ‘suspect’. Addison Hammond, Jessalyn’s friend and bridesmaid, makes a cameo phone appearance here to tell us that Thornton Hall is Totes Spooky, and that Jessalyn vanished not once, but twice in the night.

I quite enjoy Addison, not because she plays a big part or because she’s an exceptional character — she’s as bare-bones as we get in the later games (ignoring MED/SEA/MID), honestly — but because she’s simply a girl in her 20s reacting the way that most of us would if our unnecessarily spooky friend dragged us to an old haunted house and then vanished twice. Good for you, girl.

Coming in for a wonderful appearance is Savannah Woodham, ex-ghost hunter, ex-girlfriend of Wade Thornton, and the detective who was supposed to be on the case. Savannah’s too scared of the Ghost (and too reticent to talk to Wade face-to-face) to risk stepping foot on Blackrock Island herself, but she’s more than willing to send the biggest skeptic she knows, hoping that Nancy’s skepticism will keep her safe.

As lovely as Savannah is in SAW — and I adore her in that game — she really shines in GTH. Probably the biggest moment she gets in the game — and probably my second favorite moment in the game period — is her tale of tracing the shape of the old willow tree on her wall, only to have a body discovered under that exact willow tree after a storm. It’s a delightfully creepy — and most importantly, completely inexplicable by any means other than accepting that the supernatural exists — moment, and I think it’s key to understanding Savannah as a character in GTH.

Savannah suffers under the weight of knowing that there truly are Things that Go Bump in the Night, that can’t be arrested or captured or gotten rid of by normal, legal means. Her background knowledge of the Thorntons helps Nancy to get an initial feel for the family, and it helps to not have an ex-girlfriend wandering around that the Thorntons might have a grudge against or dislike for.

She is, in effect, the mirror image of Nancy — what Nancy might have become without her inborn skepticism — and that alone, even ignoring everything else about her, is fascinating to me.

Our other phone contacts are Ned Nickerson and Bess Marvin, teamed up due to George’s absence while doing an internship (at Technology of Tomorrow Today, no less!) and Bess’ extreme boredom without anyone else to hang out with.

The lovely thing about Ned and Bess is that we get to see Ned when he’s not Solo Boyfriend Ned, but a college guy hanging out with his friend. Their light-hearted banter is hilarious and comfortable (Bess dramatically asking permission to do a spit-take in his living room is of particular note), and we really get to see a different side of Nancy’s oft-abandoned boyfriend.

You can tell that their voice actors are having a terrific time as well (Scott Carty’s pitch-perfect imitation of Jennifer Pratt’s cadence and tone makes me laugh every time), and it really helps bring a bright and colorful spot to this otherwise rather tense and grim mystery.

We’ll round out our character list with the quasi-amateur, quasi-professional detective herself, Nancy Drew. Through her foil with Jessalyn — discussed above, so I won’t get too into it here — we get to see Nancy in a slightly different light, and get to look at the effect that she has on those around her when she disappears.

We know Carson and Ned (and occasionally Bess/George, and even more occasionally, Hannah) worry about Nancy while she’s off on a case, but this is the first time Nancy herself is dealing with what she leaves behind every time she jets off to Venice, or gets trapped in a lava tube, or lost in a rock maze. Nancy hasn’t investigated a straight-up kidnapping (or what appears to be one) since Maya in FIN (no, I’m not counting HAU, as it’s not played as a kidnapping nor does anyone think it is until 2/3 of the way through the game), and she has the same sense of urgency here that she did back then.

Upon replaying the game, the player will lose that sense of urgency for Jessalyn — we know she’s alive and well, and was never kidnapped — but Nancy’s reactions to the family are what stay interesting. She’s concerned for Jessalyn, but does most of her detective work through getting a sense of what the rest of the family thinks of the missing girl.

Given Nancy’s reputation as a good girl, a solid presence (if an occasional one) who loves her family and friends, and who is always responsible, it’s easy to see why she misses the one question that would have helped her solve the case in half of the time: what if Jessalyn isn’t missing? After all, Jessalyn, like Nancy, would never jet off after hearing an unsubstantiated claim about her mother without telling anyone or pausing to confirm it through a different, more trustworthy source, right?

In this game, we discover a huge characteristic about Nancy: she is reckless. Now, we know this already from other games — that Nancy is reckless physically, confronting bad guys alone, diving down into murky catacombs, jumping from pillars in ancient tombs — but here we see that she’s also reckless emotionally. Even though it interferes with her investigation, Nancy gets personally involved in this case; she’s mad at Colton for “cheating” on Jessalyn, she’s upset by the tragedy of Charlotte’s death, and she’s concerned for Jessalyn’s safety in a different way than she usually is with a victim or suspect.

Nancy’s always been willing to take huge risks, but she always stays emotionally on the surface level of a case — a good and necessary trait for a detective, and one that allows her to face down killers, saboteurs, and forgers without blinking. Here, Nancy’s dragged down into the web of the Thorntons, and — as we see in the middle and bad endings especially — she doesn’t quite recover from it. Nancy loses a bit of objectivity here, but what she gains is humanity — and she’ll need that for the last two games in this meta series.

The Favorite:

With such a well-executed game — even though it doesn’t fall in my personal top 5 ranking — there’s going to be a lot to love, so let’s get down to it.

My favorite puzzle is probably Nancy’s trek to ‘discover’ the ‘ghost’ — aka completing Harper’s tasks in order to meet her, culminating with reciting Charlotte’s rhyme while blindfolded. It’s a different kind of puzzle than the type we get commonly with Nancy Drew games, and really helped spark and keep the tension needed to maintain such a spooky game.

My favorite moment in the game is a quieter one — it’s Nancy’s remarks on Charlotte’s room. She’s taken aback at how, after a game of everyone talking about Charlotte, that it’s opening the door to her room that cements Charlotte as a living, breathing person. She continues that she can’t let that feeling distract her, that she needs to treat the room like the rest of the house and gather tools that will let her find Jessalyn, but it’s lovely to see the effect of the Thornton’s history really settle into Nancy’s bones as Charlotte Thornton turns from a scary rhyme that children chant to a girl who lived and died in the same walls that Nancy’s exploring.

There are, of course, other things that I love — the objectively creepy poem (“we’ll let you share with Charlotte/a gown of coal and glowing flame” is an incredible line), Savannah’s story about the willow tree, the small Francy crumbs of Frank being sullen after his Very Revealing voicemail in DED and considering an MBA, the multi-layered relationship that Wade and Savannah have, the gorgeous detail of Thornton Hall — and all of these add up to a game that’s frankly just enjoyable to play.

The big thing to mention in this game, as I talked a bit about in the intro, is its atmosphere.

Throughout the entire game, there’s this palpable feeling of death and grief and loss and pure pain, and those emotions are what GTH relies on to keep itself Scary, not the few spectre scares and swinging scythes that it also has to offer.

I don’t normally quote things other than the games/words of the cast and crew in these metas, but I do make exceptions when the quotation is this good, so I tip my hat here to Tumblr user aniceworld, speaking about ranking GTH their top Nancy Drew game of all time:

“The reason GTH is so successful as a scary game is because there’s such a pervasive sense of sorrow at Thornton Hall. People have died here who shouldn’t have. A family has been destroyed. The house has seen so much trauma it can literally no longer stand on its own. There are ghosts that live here, whether you can see them or not.”

This horror is far better than bloody slashers or obnoxious “continuous mysterious accidents”-style thrillers that tend to permeate the genre; instead of random death-by-umbrella or scary-guy-in-the-shower incidents driving the plot, the emotion behind death and loss and betrayal gets to take a turn at the wheel, and the game is much better for it.

The Un-Favorite:

As with any game, however, no matter how good the atmosphere, there are some things that I don’t love.

I’m not actually the biggest fan of Harper; while her design is great and her VA does a spectacular job, she’s a little cartoonish among a cast that endeavors to stay as far away from broad stereotypes as possible.

It’s fine to have a large personality, it’s fine that she’s a bit cracked, it’s great that she has her own reasons and motivations beyond “expose the truth” (especially since she’s not interested in exposing the truth, just in proving that Clara’s a murderer) — she’s just really not my cup of tea, and I prefer Harper as the Anonymous Note Leaver to Harper the Conversational Partner.

Even if she does get some of the best lines in the game.

I don’t really have a least favorite moment or puzzle that sticks out to me; there are puzzles I struggle more or less with, but none of them are immersion-breaking or so frustrating that I have to get up and walk away. The ones I love, I enjoy solving; the ones I don’t love, I turn to the walkthrough and finish them up to get on with the story.

The Fix:

So how would I fix Ghost of Thornton Hall?

Even given my small problems with Harper, I’m not sure I’d change her. Sure, she’s a bit Broad for the game, generally speaking, but she’s also another example of what loss can do to a person — it can make you cold and withdrawn, it can make you righteously angry and dismissive…or it can turn you malicious and violent. She’s an important presence regardless of my personal taste, and while I might tweak a line of dialogue or two, it’s important to note that her Persona is just another thing for Nancy to discover and re-discover as she investigates the Thorntons.

While not a perfect game — very few, if any, of the Nancy Drew games qualify for that title — Ghost of Thornton Hall is an excellent entry in the Nancy Drew series as a whole, and in the smaller series of Nancy-centric games. Through it, we get to see what happens to those who are left behind after a tragic, sudden, and even violent loss — and that becomes more and more important as we leave behind the gloomy Georgia island and leap across the pond to Glasgow.

[polar534]

Hockey Injury Pt. 1

So Hockey AU was... surprisingly more popular then I thought. Which is good, because I still have ALOT written down about it, and I intend to add more. (It's become a bit of a coping mechanism to write about.) So, in the set-up post I warned that I had a bunch of notes regarding Amity's hockey injury. Well, welcome to a 3-parter folks! That's right. I've got that much written.

Anyways, this first part will be a general text-dump summary of events, the second will be a Luz centered more detailed 'story' about what happened on the ice. And the third will be focused on both girl's healing after the fact.

So vague explanations and warnings aside. Have part 1. Under the cut cause I have ~problems~

In essence. Amity gets like... really injured. It's bad. Like she is laid up in a hospital bad. They don't even have time to get her to the demon dimension where they usually take her when she gets injured (because different biologies and hiding her witchiness), so she gets taken specifically in Camilla's hospital.

They were only barely able to sneak her away from the emt's on duty at the game.

The team becomes immediately suspicious and HIGHLY concerned but they can't do anything because Amity is hurriedly rushed out of the place and to the hospital. Camilla is completely freaked but she also knows this could be much more serious then anyone realizes, because if they take Amity to get the help she needs right now, they'll find out she is a witch. She barges into the hospital first and pulls aside the doctor she works for and explains, completely deadpanned, that the other girl who lives with them is a witch from a different dimension but there's no other place to take her.

Luz is in the hallway with Amity, and is completely shutting down. She is barely holding it together. She knows it's bad because she's only ever seen her mom like this once. And that was when Luz got deathly ill with the flu one year. Amity is barely conscious so there's no need for Luz to be brave.

Luz is alone and terrified. She's spiraling.

The doctor, having worked with and been taken care of by Camilla for years agrees in a heartbeat to not only treat Amity but to make sure the entire treatment is confidential. They get the xray's back and its serious. The broken bone has cut a major vein inside Amity's shoulder. She's bleeding out. They don't have time to worry about the different make up. They rush her into surgery and Camilla needs to be a part of it.

Luz is alone. Waiting.

She knows there's a chance Amity... is just not coming back.

She knows there's a chance of losing her.

And Luz completely shuts down.

During this time, the team secretly tracks down where the family went. As soon as someone pulls it up on their phone, they ditch all of their equipment and leave immediately, mid-match, much to the other's teams confusion.

They crash into the hospital, rushing past the nurses and security trying to stop them. They find Luz out in the hallway from the surgery room, and she's fully awake, but she's unresponsive. They can't get an answer out of her. So they sit there with her. Completely silent. Waiting.

The staff eventually catches up with the teens, but where they expect to find a bunch of rowdy teenagers, instead they find deathly quiet kids, all quiet in fear, they know there was warning put out to all the staff about privacy regarding this emergency surgery. So they buzz off and leave the teens be.

Nobody speaks a word, nobody moves a muscle until Camilla pokes her head out of the room, a couple of hours later. The team all become responsive and alert but Luz doesn't budge.

Camilla understands immediately. Knowing too many people will be overwhelming for Amity while she recovers she beckons Luz in first.

Luz, moves slowly, like a zombie. The team being extremely concerned about both girls but they have each other.

Amity is awake when Luz comes in.

Luz stiffly walks over to her and Amity knows something's wrong. Something broke her girlfriend.

"So. This is where your mother works right? It's so much more clean then the hospitals in the Isles." Amity points out, completely seriously.

Luz cracks. She is so incredibly relieved that she sobs, with a massive smile on her face.

"That's... that's not good Amity!"

It breaks both of the girls and they both laugh and cry as they have a soft moment. Luz updates her on everything that happened after she fell unconscious.

Camilla on the other hand is informing Eda and Lilith what has happened. Some members of the team leave the hallways to find some food and overhear their conversation. Specifically the frequent use of the word: Witch.

***

The next couple of days are spent with Amity being laid up in bed at home, with Luz absolutely spoiling her and fussing over her to the point of annoyance.

King, Eda and Lilith all go to the human realm to check up on their Blight child the night of the injury, Eda and Lilith are concerned but they also know Camilla has an absolute handle on the situation. They trust her to take care of Amity and promise to visit daily until she's better, warning the poor witch that they'll be telling the twins and Willow and Gus first thing in the morning. (Which was a whole thing) King... dallies at the portal to go home that night. Luz picks up on the little guy's worry immediately and knows he won't just admit to wanting to stay with the girls.

So she insists on stealing him for the night, for therapy of course and King takes the hint and runs with it. Insisting that his subjects NEED him.

This makes Luz feel much better because Camilla insists that Luz cannot miss classes despite her girlfriend being bedridden. So she entrusts King to take care of Amity. Which is a relief to King and Amity, because Amity is kinda tired of being babied and King isn't one to baby. He'll take care of her, but they mostly just chill out together and complain. King curling up on Amity's stomach while they both rest.

Meanwhile the team is concerned as well. They discuss the idea of Luz at first being the witch the mother was talking about, because it just kinda fits with her being quirky and an outsider to most everyone else.

So they confront her on it one day when they go to check on Amity, as she's walking them out.

Luz. Finds. This. Hilarious.

She loves it and is so incredibly excited because 1. They know now. And 2. They aren't afraid!! They aren't mad, just worried as to why the girls would keep it a secret.

However they got something wrong. And that's who the biological witch is. Luz points out the teeth and the ears and it suddenly clicks.

Amity is a witch.

Cue that night, Luz getting chewed out by Amity for telling them, but the girls both really giddy that they now have another place they don't have to hide in. They make a plan to have a serious discussion with the team about the need for secrecy.

But more angst. Back to the days immediately following the injury, Camilla comes in one night while Luz is visiting Eda and Amity is alone.

She has a serious talk with Amity about the danger she was in, and just how hurt she had gotten. Camilla wants to be honest and straightforward with her. Amity could've died that night. She brings up the idea that maybe the witch may want to reconsider her decision to continue next year. Just that Camilla will never stop worrying about her. Its soft and gentle and Camilla really is just concerned about her.  

Amity is quiet that night when Luz comes home. (She can't spend the night anywhere without her girlfriend, no matter how much she loves Eda) Quieter then Luz has seen her in a long time.

It worries Luz, but she just holds her girlfriend extra tight, knowing that Amity will talk to her when she's ready. That's their agreement.

The next day, Amity tells Luz she is quitting Hockey.

The witch is in tears and its incredibly obvious that she doesn't actually want to quit the sport. Luz begs her to explain and Amity breaks down and tells her that its her fault, and that she's been so selfish to worry Camilla like this. That she needs to quit. She fucked up. She got hurt and it made Camilla, Luz and everyone so incredibly worried.

Her toxic upbringing is coming back, the damage her parents did on her not quite leaving, Amity truly believes that she has deeply upset and offended Camilla and then that worry stetches into her team and Luz. That she needs to correct the problem that she made for other people.

Luz takes her by the shoulders, very seriously and tells her that Camilla loves her. Unconditionally. That worry comes not from a place of inconvenience, but out of care. That her mother would be 100x more upset if Amity sacrificed something she cared about, just to make Camilla feel more comfortable.

Luz admits to worrying about losing her, but she also gushes about just how HAPPY hockey has made Amity and how she loves seeing that happiness on Amity.

How incredible it looks on her.

Luz then proceeds to get Willow and Gus to come crashing through the portal to which they explain, Gus methodically and scientifically, and Willow from the heart, that Amity is doing wonderful and its clear that she is enjoying herself.

They original squad all have a night of support for Amity. Because that's just what a family does. Camilla overhears most of what Amity fears and let's her daughter and her friends handle it. Though she feels awful about how she made the girl feel like that worry was because Amity did something wrong. She takes a field trip to the demon dimension to talk with Lilith and Eda who explain that she's doing wonderfully. That not every parent is perfect or can be. They tell her everything that night about Amity's parents. Most of which Camilla has pieced together from the time Amity had been living with her, but alot of it is still shocking. Horrifying.

Its a night of healing and learning all around.

[the-awkward-outlaw]

A New Adventure - Pt. 8

Okay, y’all I know I been super absent on this piece. It’s not for lack of desire or care, I promise! It’s because when I started this, I was planning on using activities I did over this summer to inspire this, but then covid happened and I been stuck in my house all summer. K, excuses over. This one is extra fluffy with a side serving of even more fluff, so enjoy! 

Masterlist

Read on AO3

Silver Lingings

Things have been different between you and Arthur. Since you told him some of your insecurities and he comforted you, things have been better. 

You’ve never been able to easily open up to people but with Arthur, it’s different. Perhaps it’s because he’s the first person who’s told you to your face that he cares. 

Arthur has been warmer towards you. Not that he wasn’t before. But he’s even moreso. 

One day you come home from the store. You’d offered him to come, but he said he wanted to stay home, take a shower maybe. 

You haul in the few sacks of groceries, remembering the one that has the refill on Arthur’s meds. 

You’ve been doing some research on TB lately, as a way to try and help Arthur in his recovery. It’s not pretty to know that even today, well over a million people die a year from the disease, and those who recover are permanently damaged, their lungs scarred. Not only that, they suffer bouts of symptoms even though they no longer have the disease. Along with those is the fact that their immune system is greatly damaged and they’re more prone to other infections. 

The moment you walk in, you hear whistling. Is that Arthur? It makes you smile. 

When you get into the kitchen, he walks over and takes the groceries from you. “Let me help ya, darlin’.” 

You blush at his nickname for you. How can he be so terrifying in the ways you’ve seen and even made him be in the game, and yet so sweet? He’s a complicated man, and unpredictable in the best ways. 

He continues to whistle as he helps you put things away, and then he grabs the boxes of meds. You hear him give a heavy sigh. 

It’s no secret that these medications have kicked his ass nearly as well as the disease itself. 

“You okay?” you ask.

“Yeah. Just… don’t like these things. But I guess they’re better than the alternative.” 

“I know. But hey, you’re halfway through. Only three more months.” 

Arthur turns to look at you and leans his back on the counter. “These medicines have side effects, right?” 

“Course. Pretty much every medication does. Why? You having some?”

He rubs the back of his neck, not looking at you. “Yeah. A few. Kind of… embarrassin’ though.” 

“Arthur, it’s fine. My mother’s a nurse. She’s been a nurse longer than I been alive. Trust me, after hearing the things she saw, none of it really phases me.” 

Arthur grunts and then tells you in vague details some of the things he’s dealing with. Tingling in his hands and feet, occasional joint pain, and then he mentions in an embarrassed way about how his body fluids have been colored more orange. 

“Those are common, Arthur. Unfortunately nothing we can really do for most of them. You haven’t been drinking alcohol, have you?” 

He grunts that he’s had a couple beers a week. 

“Well, no more. That’s one reason why your body fluids have been discolored. It’s your liver doing it. And for your joint pain? That can be fixed with tylenol.” 

After a few seconds, you add “You’ve been coughing less.” 

“Yeah,” he says softly. “Been havin’ less pain in my lungs too.” 

You can tell he’s a little put out by the discussion of his medical problems. 

“Arthur, let’s do something fun this week. Even though covid is still strong, some places are starting to open up. We just have to reserve a spot ahead of time.” 

“How do you do that?” he asks. 

“Easy. Just by tickets on the internet.” 

He grunts again and looks out the window. The internet, well, most electronic technology baffles him. You once caught him trying to literally pop your phone open to see what was inside. He’s been more gentle since you explained phones don’t open up unless you destroy them. 

“Maybe. But… ain’t there places we can go we don’t have to reserve a place?” 

“Sure,” you say. “There’s plenty of lakes and trails we can go on.” 

He immediately perks up when you say that. 

“Can we go to one of them places today?” 

“Sure,” you say. “I know a nice little place.” 

An hour later, you’re driving up one of the many canyons towards a place called Silver Lake near Brighton Ski Resort. 

Arthur’s a bit baffled by your explanation of skiing. Even though you’ve lived in Utah your whole life (which reportedly has the greatest snow on earth) you’ve never been skiing or snowboarding. But you do your best to explain them. 

Arthur’s mood greatly improves the further in the canyon you get. He loves how wild it is, even this close to the city. And the quiet. He loves it all. 

You laugh when he gets particularly excited about seeing a moose cow standing in the marshes of a beaver’s pond, a heron sauntering nearby. 

Because you know how unusual it is to see a moose, you pull over and roll down the windows so he can see. 

The smell coming from the forest is intoxicating. 

The drive to the lake is nearly an hour, and by the time you finally get there, Arthur’s smiling. It’s rather contagious. 

However you have to catch yourself when you see how happy he is. It just makes him all that much more handsome. You’ve been trying to be so careful not to fall for him. 

The air is nice and cool up here, a relieving reprieve from the triple degree heat down in the city. 

Arthur’s donned his leather hat and blue shirt for this walk. It looks great out here and even though there’s some people, no one will think anything of his outfit.

The hike around the lake is very easy and is a good hour walk if you take your time. Perfect for Arthur as it won’t irritate his lungs. 

The path lies right against the shores of the lake, which is not any larger than lake Owanjilla in the game, and also quite shallow. 

As you walk along the boardwalk on the marshy end of the lake, Arthur stops and looks over the railing. There, you can both easily see minnows hiding in the reeds. 

Once you hit the trees, Arthur looks around. There’s no one around. 

He shocks you by taking your hand in his and just holding it as you both walk. You can’t help but smile up at him. 

At the halfway point of the lake, there is a bench on the trail. It has a great lookout on the lake and you can even see Mickey Mouse mountain, a curious mountain with a permanent bald spot that forms the shape of the famous mouse’s head. 

You and Arthur sit on the bench and say nothing. There is nothing that needs to be said here at this moment. It’s so quiet and calm, to say anything would spoil it. 

Arthur unleashes your hand, to which you feel sad about. You’d really been enjoying it. 

Then he surprises you. He feins scratching the back of his neck and then his arm drapes along the back of the bench behind you. 

It’s getting harder and harder to control yourself around him, and you find that you’re really not wanting to anymore. 

With the encouragement of the solitude and Arthur’s arm draped behind you, it’s not long before you’re leaning into his side and resting your head on his shoulder. 

Only seconds after you get into this position, you feel Arthur’s arm winding around you. 

Is this real? Are you cuddling with Arthur Morgan? The Arthur Morgan? 

It feels real, and it feels right. 

Just as you’re beginning to truly appreciate the beauty of the lake and the forest, Arthur speaks up. 

“I was afraid places like this wouldn’t be around anymore.” 

“How do you mean?” 

“Well, in that city. It’s so big and loud and… unnatural. Mostly big though. I was beginning to think man had truly driven any kind of wildness out.” 

“Well, we mostly have. But we also know the value of places like this. If we destroy them, we destroy ourselves.” 

Arthur sighs and falls silent for a moment. When he speaks up again, he takes you off guard. 

“Thank you, darlin’. For bringin’ me here. This is the best kind of medication.” 

You look up at him and are about to say “you’re welcome” when you’re stopped by his smile, the light in his eyes. That’s one thing the game failed to do despite being so detailed and lifelike. It failed to capture how truly beautiful and alive his eyes are. 

Just as you’re about to speak, Arthur closes the few inches between your faces and places his lips on yours. 

To say your heart stops is an understatement. How long have you thought of doing this with him? Much longer than you’ve known him, that’s for sure. 

His lips are better than you could have ever imagined. They’re not chapped (though that might be because you introduced him to chapstick), but warm and alive. Your hand leaves his knee and slides up his chest and to his neck. 

His free hand does the same, gently settling on your back to bring you closer. 

After a few seconds, Arthur pulls away. “Sorry, darlin’. That was… unwarranted.” 

You blush and smile. “Arthur, did it feel like I didn’t want it?” 

He smiles back. “Then… would you mind for a second?” 

You answer him by bringing your lips right back to his. This one is more fervent, more sure. 

It’s during this kiss you really begin to appreciate him, his body. How he feels, how he smells. 

Though a lot of his wild scent has been tamed by your home, he still holds onto some of it. That hint of leather, gun powder, tobacco. It’s like it’s been ingrained into his very skin. 

You don’t know it, but Arthur is appreciating the way you smell and feel too. 

He’s longed to feel you pressed against him like this since not long after he first met you. Oh, how he wished to do something like this with you during that earthquake. 

When he’d held you in his arms that night, oh it had felt so right, so pure. So good that he knew he didn’t deserve it. 

But this. Kissing you, holding you, bathed in the shade and the perfume of the pines. It’s beyond perfect. 

He doesn’t care that he thinks he’s too bad of a man for someone as good and kind as you. He just wants to revel in this moment. 

You’re both still deep in the kiss when you hear voices approaching from down the trail, and some of them belong to children. 

The two of you quickly break apart, but not before the man in the family sees you both smooching. 

He gives you both a hearty wink while the mother looks rather disapproving as they pass. 

You can’t help but smile as you blush, still nestled in Arthur’s arm. 

He rubs your back soothingly while the family passes. 

After a short while, the two of you decide it’s time to head back to the car and go home. 

Arthur holds your hand every second, and even sometimes brings your hand to his lips. 

Towards the end of the walk, the boardwalk allows people to walk out to nearly the center of the lake to either fish or look down into the water. 

You and Arthur head down it, finding yourselves alone on the planks though people can be seen on the trail still. 

Once there, Arthur takes you in his arms and kisses you again. This surprises you as you always took him to be a very private man who was not a fan of pdo. 

However, he doesn’t seem to care in this moment. Neither do you, so you loop your arms around his neck and press yourself into the kiss. 

Arthur chuckles when the kiss ends. “Sorry, had to do that. The sun hit your hair, made it so pretty. Just… had to kiss ya.” 

You smile and kiss the tip of his nose. “You can kiss me any time you want, Mr. Morgan.”

[whump-town]

Fic idea for your consideration: somewhat non-cannon because I think Emily owned property before she bought that brownstone... but what if that brownstone is her first purchase and she feels kinda weird buying it without a partner the way she thought her first home purchase would be. Cue Hotch making her feel better about it.

[I’m fairly certain that I understood your idea but if I didn’t just let me know :)]

“Penny for your thoughts?”

It’s ten o’clock at night and the bullpen is cast in darkness aside from Emily Prentiss’s desk lamp. So, rightfully, she thought she was alone. That is until her stupidly tall unit chief comes stalking into the bullpen. Making no noise.

“We need to get you a collar,” she says with a shake of her head. Her heart is racing, pounding against the palm she presses to her sternum. “Jeez,” she grunts, letting her hand fall back down to her desk. “Don’t sneak up on me like that!” she chides with no real heat. 

More surprising than Hotch’s ability to sneak up on her is the smile he cracks. “I’m sure Sergio has one that I can borrow,” he says far too matter-of-factly considering what it is that he’s suggesting. 

Emily blanches at him, more than a little surprised. “Did you-- Did you just make a joke?” She chuckles dryly. He’s such a strange man. In the same breath that she feels off about his joke, she feels like she’s just seen a special feature film. Hotch’s jokes come so rarely and far between, often so dry that they crack and go unnoticed, that she’s afraid she’ll never see it again. So does she reward the behavior or tell him how odd it is to hear him crack a joke?

“Are you done here,” he asks, stepping up to her desk. He lifts the cover of her case, giving it an approving nod. “There’s a sandwich place downtown, I was gonna stop and catch a late dinner.”

Again, it’s ten o’clock at night. “What kind of sandwich shop is open at ten on a Saturday night?” However, after spending her week eating crappy food from vending machines it’s sounding pretty good. He’s convinced her and he hasn’t even laid out his best argument. 

Admittedly, he really doesn’t feel like dining alone.

Hotch takes her inquiry as a yes because that’s, essentially, what it is. “It mostly gets cadets and a few college students,” he admits. It wasn’t around when he was a part of either of those groups but he can still appreciate a good late-night sandwich. Especially, with the way, he forgets to take breaks. “I would understand if you’d rather go home though. It’s late and the kids at the shop have a tendency to be pretty nosey.”

Emily rises to her feet with an eye-roll. “Hotch, I didn’t die and come back from the dead to abide by societal standards on when I should eat my meals.” She smiles when he hands her bag to her. He can be a bit uptight but he’s a gentleman and she can appreciate that. “Besides,” she adds, “I’ve never said no to a sandwich in my life. I’m not going to start now.”

He lets himself laugh with her. Not all that long ago, he almost lost her. He wants to enjoy her company just as much as he wants to get to the bottom of whatever’s bothering her. And he plans to do just that. “I can drive,” he offers, knowing that she drove to work too. He’s really just buying time… time with her that he’s afraid is coming to an end.

Emily blows a breath out her mouth, slow but steady. She’s heavily considering it.

“I’ll pick you up in the morning,” he offers, “and we can stop for coffee.”

She snaps her finger, “sold!” She motions in front of her, comically allowing him to lead the way. 

While she’d hoped that a sandwich and some small talk would deter her spiraling thoughts. 

It doesn’t.

She just sits in his car and thinks about the family he had. Haley and Jack. His marriage wasn’t the world’s happiest but Haley and Hotch loved one another. He had someone to come home to. That’s more than she can say she ever had. 

These thoughts plague her past the car ride and she finds that he’s mumbled something to her multiple times now and she’s been too far gone to notice. 

As they take their seats at the diner, opposing sides of a booth, Hotch sighs. “What did I tell you?” He means, of course, the two other groups in the shop. One of the kids is definitely a cadet, there’s something spectacularly star struck about the grin on the young woman’s face. It’s hard to tell, which one of them is causing said reaction. 

While her name may be the stuff of urban legend, his comes with his tricky career. Cadets are taught about the woman who infiltrated a unit renowned for studying human behavior. The only person to ever have her name and face placed on the wall of the fallen and taken down. While they teach his name alongside George Foyet-- the gift that keeps on giving. Cadets know, in intimate detail, what Foyet did to Hotch. 

He’s a lesson.

She’s a legend.

“So,” Hotch brushes his hands off. He’d torn into his own sandwich while her own had garnered only a little bit of her attention. She can’t stop thinking about the cadets and the students watching them. There seems to be a median of reactions and she knows that has to do with their attire, their jobs, and their names. 

“Buyers regret,” he recalls, frowning as his fingers work to undo his tie. To her shock, she sits and watches as SSA Aaron Hotchner is torn apart leaving only Aaron with slightly tousled hair and loosened collar. “Dave thinks you’re planning on leaving. Morgan knows you’re stalling. Reid’s... He’s certain you’ll ask for reassignment.”

Reassignment?

She shakes her head. Profilers, man, they suck. 

Hotch sighs, leaning forward and placing his elbows on the table. “I think they’re probably right,” he surmises. 

Emily winces. Now, she can’t lie to him. She pops a french fry in her mouth, buying herself time but looking incredibly guilty in doing so. “It’s about the brownstone,” she admits, playing with another fry so that she doesn’t have to look at him. “I just… It feels wrong, you know?”

He wishes he understood. He wants to offer her that comfort but he doesn’t understand. Her emotions, everything concerning her lately, has been pulled away. She’s guarded, even to him and JJ, and he can’t say he blames her. “I’m afraid I don’t,” he replies. “I’m willing to try, though, if you’re willing to explain.” 

Emily keeps her eyes lowered to the table, unable to meet his eyes knowing that they’re going to be burning with compassion. To think there was once a point in their lives that they hated the simple sight of one another. Only to end up here. 

The only thing holding them together these days. 

“I’m almost forty years old,” she admits sheepishly, rubbing at her cheek. She knows that he’s not a misogynist. So he’s not going to think it’s silly or childish that she planned out her wedding before she was even ten and thought she had her life planned out. 

Yet, when she meets his eyes all she can think about is that he probably had plans for forty-five too. 

Probably thought he’d still be married to his high-school sweetheart with three or four kids. Things wouldn’t be perfect but he’d have a family too. He’d have more to come home to than his dead ex-wife’s sister and his son. Not that he ever complains.

Now he’s raising an eyebrow at her, waiting for her to fill him in. Informing him of her age isn’t connecting the dots and he’s starting to think he’s missed something. Her birthday isn’t for a few more months. So, he knows that’s not it.

“I thought I would have a family,” she whispers, grimacing when she blushes. “I thought I would be married and I’d have kids.” She’s afraid to see his reaction to her words. To her surprise, the corners of his mouth have fallen into a deep frown. His eyes have moved to the table but he’s not mad. He’s not even upset, he’s just thinking. 

She sucks in a breath, fumbling to amend whatever she’s said to throw him for a loop. “I mean, it’s kind of selfish--”

“It isn’t.” His voice is deep, thick with the emotion he means to punch into the statement. “It’s not selfish to want a family, Emily.” He manages a small smile her way but his eyes are still pulled down by the weight of the topic at hand. Reaching up he rubs at his jaw, shaking his head as he thinks of something to say. “What does that have to do with the brownstone though?”

She grimaces. She was kind of hoping he’d put that together by himself and spare her the explanation. Clearing her throat and pulling her hands under the table to hide any tells he might see she manages. “I’ve never bought a home before,” she glances up for his immediate reaction before dropping her eyes back down. “I always… I just let myself down, Hotch. I just bought my first house but I don’t even have a partner to move into it with.”

He can see her tears swelling up in her eyes so he reaches across the table, resting his palm upright on the table for her to take. She looks up at him and then down at his hand and back at him again. He raises an eyebrow, silently waiting for her to take it. 

Hesitantly, she places her hand over his. 

“Emily,” he says softly. “There’s no right way to do any of this.” He motions vaguely around them, meaning not just her brownstone problem but life in general. He gives her hand a soft squeeze. “If it did, I imagine…” his immediate thought goes to Haley. If things had gone down as he planned… Well, things wouldn’t be as they are now. He shakes his head clear of that thought. “Things wouldn’t the same,” he decides. “We probably wouldn’t be a sandwich shop at eleven o’clock at night, that’s for sure.”

Emily nods her head. Good point. She’d be at home with a husband and kids to spend the night with. Not hanging out with her boss-- who doubles as one of her few friends-- and the only person waiting for her being a spoiled cat. “Rossi would probably still have his handful of divorces though,” she says with a shrug.

Hotch chuckles, “oh yeah.”

Pulling back to their respective sides of the table, Hotch turns his attention back to his food. He’s starving and he looks up to find Emily’s going back to own food as well. 

“I can-- I can put together IKEA furniture,” he offers lamely, after a moment. “I mean, I put together Jack’s crib and toddler bed…” Not to mention the half-dozen times he’s had to move over the last decade. He’s assembled his share of furniture.

She laughs as his weak offer to help but appreciates it none-the-less. “Morgan already promised he’d do that,” she tells him. She’s smiling but his shoulder’s drop a little as his only chance to help is kindly brushed away. Quickly, she adds, “but you and Jack can come by and I can bastardize one of Dave’s recipes to better suit the tastebuds of a five-year-old?”

He smiles, nodding. “I’ll bring wine and promise not to tell Dave you messed with one of his recipes.” 

Emily rolls her eyes. Dave loves her but he might also beat her if he were to find out she regularly adds and takes things out of his recipes. She smiles at Hotch, already excited to have Jack over. “It’s a date then.”

He nods his head, a date indeed.

[rex-shadao]

The Failure of Rey Nobody

I haven’t done a Star Wars analysis or review in a long time.  But with the recent release of Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker and the subsequent details being revealed, I feel it’s a good time to go over what happened in TROS and how it affects the rest of the saga.  Oh, there’s a lot to go over, but I’ll stick with one particular topic that I have an ax to grind on ever since the post-TFA release...

The topic of Rey’s parents and heritage.

As I’ve stated before, this is going to involve MAJOR spoilers from TROS, so please don’t continue reading if you don't want to be spoiled. Let’s begin, shall we?

So it turns out that Rey is actually related to someone important in the Saga.  While parents were nobodies just as Kylo Ren said, her grandfather is not.  And no, it’s not Obi-Wan Kenobi.  It’s Sheev Palpatine.

That’s right. Emperor Sheev Palpatine of the FIRST Galactic Empire aka Darth Sidious aka the BIG BAD of Prequel and Original Trilogies... is the grandfather of Rey.  And here I thought Harry Potter and the Cursed Child revelation was dumb but at least there I can understand how Lord Voldemort could have a child since he at least has a fanatical lover known as Bellatrix Lestrange.  But Palpatine is never shown to have any mistress, not in the films or expanded media.  And his characterization indicates that old Sheev only cares about power and immortality.  Why does he need to produce heirs when he has a powerful Darth Vader and his more powerful offsprings, Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa, to groom for the throne?  That is if he ever wants to give that up.

Regardless of that fact (that’s for another topic), the fact that Rey is revealed to be a Palpatine completely undermines the argument that Rey Random/Nobody advocates preached for the last three years or so.  That making Rey a nobody with unremarkable parents would send a stronger message for the audience and kids.  That making her a Skywalker would somehow imply that you could only be a hero and a Jedi if you came from Force royalty bloodline.  And that revealing that Rey is unrelated to anybody is a “great” subversion of the Luke, I Am Your Father trope.

I don’t know about you, but having Rey be related to the Lucifer of the Force, the most evil man in the galaxy, and the mastermind behind the Empire and the First Order, that is anything but a nobody.  It’s pretty much making her a Skywalker except with none of the actual Skywalker relationship benefits like good family members (Luke, Leia, and Padme) and a dynamic with Kylo Ren that isn’t Reylo.  Oh, I can see all of those TLJ defenders being pissed off about TROS retconning the Rey Nobody reveal and blaming JJ Abrams for “caving” to the angry fans... but honestly, this was inevitable.

Rey Nobody was doomed from the beginning.

Why? Because it offers no real narrative after the revelation.  It’s a meta-subversion that went after a short-gain that wasn’t needed to begin with.  Here are several reasons:

1) The idea of a Nobody becoming a hero or a Jedi is not new in Star Wars.

If you only see the films on a surface and don’t pay attention to the EU material, you’ll be left with the impression that the Skywalker family are the only people who have the Force due to their ancestor, Anakin, being literally born from the Force in a virgin birth.  But if you think about it for a moment, you would know that the Skywalkers were an exception to the rule.  Jedi were celibate and they were not supposed to have families.  How Force-sensitive people were found were dependent on luck, and Anakin himself came from a lowly position of a slave in a backwater planet of the Outer Rim.

So by default, potential Jedi always came from random people scattered across the galaxy.  Their parents were almost always muggles, and there’s no great mystery about them beyond what happened to them.  And for a Jedi, their story path lies ahead, not behind unless there is something about the past that they should know.

Story-wise, the default explanation for Rey’s origins is that of any Jedi.  She’s a nobody born to a bunch of nobodies and lives on a backwater planet with a greater future ahead of her.  The idea that is somehow a revolutionary concept in Star Wars is almost laughable.  It’s the same as making a big surprising revelation that Mulan is a woman in an army where every other soldier else are women as well.  People can accept Rey Nobody from the beginning like every other Star Wars character introduced in the Saga.  It’s only when you imply there’s more to the character than meets the eye...

2) The Mystery Box Hype

The Mystery Box is designed for one thing only.  To make you generate hype and investment into something that has very little to show.  It’s a great ploy to draw in an audience and see where you can take the story that would please the most people.  But the Mystery Box has a critical weakness.  Sooner or later, people would want to know what’s in the box, and they have spent money and time for that box.  The last thing they want to hear is that they paid for an empty box.

This is the undiscussed part of the Mystery Box factor.  People would rave about how Steven Spielberg created suspense and true terror by not showing the shark when it attacked people in the film.  But what they don’t talk about is that Spielberg nearly destroyed himself and his production trying to get good footage of the shark in its full glory.  Spielberg knew that the audience wouldn’t forgive him if he never showed them the actual shark that he hyped up from the beginning.

This was a critical flaw in Rey’s Mystery Box heritage.  As stated before, Rey started off in the film as a nobody.  That was no mystery.  So to imply that there is something hidden from the audience, something that vague enough for Han and Maz to get lingering shots about her identity, creates higher expectations.  It’s not necessarily about her parents but rather her role in the story.  All of the Skywalker Saga visions, Anakin’s Lightsaber, Luke being her destination, etc.  They seem to hint that Rey is important to the Skywalker family, whatever that reason may be, and it’s something that no other Force-sensitive person could do except her.  Of course, the big reveal in TFA is that she is Force-sensitive (as if that is surprising) but TFA didn’t clear up on Rey’s parents.  No faces, no names, nothing.  They are still a mystery that needed to be resolved despite what Maz Kanata states otherwise to Rey.  So we have two mysteries regarding Rey: Her connection to the Skywalkers and the starship leaving Rey on Jakku.

These two mysteries could be connected but not necessarily so.  But they had to be addressed in some way or some form.

And did TLJ address these two mysteries?  No.  It didn’t.  The best answer for the Skywalker connection is Snoke’s “The darkness rises and the light to meet it,” implying that Rey was destined to rise and combat the evil that is Kylo Ren.  Which is a generic answer that doesn’t explain why it has to be her and not someone else (remember, she didn’t choose to be the hero when those TFA visions happen).  The other mystery, her parents, is a non-answer.  Instead of revealing why the starship left Rey, TLJ focuses on the identity of the parents and reveals them to be filthy, deceased junk traders who sold their daughter for money.  It is clearly a meta-message to say that Rey has no place in the story and that she must forge her own path as Rey Nobody... except it answers nothing.  

It’s the same status quo that Rey was in from the very beginning of TFA.  She’s a nobody who would become the next Jedi hero and her parents are unimportant for the story.  Most reveals like Darth Vader being Luke’s father or that Bucky killed Stark’s parents are effective because they move the plot further and gives us something to look forward to as we wait for the sequel to answer the questions from the reveal (like how would Luke face his father, how would Cap and Iron Man repair their relationship, etc.).  But with Rey’s mysteries being revealed as something we would already be accustomed to, there is nothing for the audience to wonder for the next film.  Why should we care about the ship in the flashback if it’s just Rey’s parents selling Rey off for drinking money?  Why should we care about Rey’s connection with the Skywalker Family if she is not part of their story?

3) Meta-Narrative over In-Universe Reason

If you hadn’t noticed already, I’ve made a big emphasis on how Rey is assumed to be a Nobody at the beginning of TFA.  That is no mistake.  Because in-universe, Rey has no reason to believe that her parents or heritage were anything special.  She doesn’t believe that she is a Skywalker or a Palpatine.  She’s just an orphan lost in a world that has abandoned her.  She would be glad to find a new purpose in her life and resolve her parental abandonment issues.  This is Rey’s character at the end of TLJ.  It hasn’t changed since the end of TFA.  She learned nothing about herself except the confirmation that her parents were indeed nobodies.  Despite what Rian Johnson may say, that is not the worst thing Rey would hear as an answer.

Luke was content with his father being just a spice freighter navigator, and he was delighted to hear that his father was really a powerful Jedi Knight.  The answer that broke his spirit wasn’t Anakin was “a filthy junk trader” who gave him away to Uncle Owen; it was learning that Darth Vader, the evil man that he hated for killing his father and Obi-Wan, was his father Anakin.  To be related to an evil mass murderer who now wants you to join him and take over the galaxy together can traumatize any orphan who longed for a family, including Rey.

But Rey Nobody doesn’t offer that emotional narrative.  Rey Nobody was the starting status quo of TFA and TLJ offered nothing for Rey’s character beyond a “romance” with her archenemy.  The mysteries surrounding Rey have been answered with the starting status quo in an attempt to send in a meta-message that was unneeded from the beginning.  In short, Rey Nobody renders Rey to be a static character as everything about her was already answered in TFA.

Now compare that with Rey Palpatine.

Rey Palpatine, as dumb as it sounds, actually raises the stakes for her.  She is now related to the most evil man in the galaxy, and that evil man wants her to join him (or inherit the throne).  Rey must confront her grandfather and is now faced with the prospect that she would turn to the Dark Side because of her Palpatine blood as well as the moral dilemma of getting the family she wanted at the cost of knowing they are part of the most hated lineage in the galaxy.  There is tension, there is a personal conflict badly needed for her after TLJ...

And all of this could have been done with Rey Skywalker.  Rey Skywalker would have a lot more personal stakes, tensions, and weight considering how the films are billed as the Skywalker Saga.  It would have been perfect.  Instead, we get Rey Nobody... which didn’t offer JJ Abrams the conflict he needs for her in Episode IX thanks to the last two episodes playing around Mystery Boxes, so he retconned Rey as a Palpatine instead.  A Morton’s Fork at work, congratulations!

If you wanted Rey Nobody, you should have started her as Rey Nobody and then build up her character to make us care instead of surrounding her in mysteries that may not be satisfied.

[mister-maiden]

*It Comes At Night* A Palpable Fear

While laying in the confines of my fluffy blankets like that of a stuffed peanut with extra spice, I sit upon my red couch scrolling through the lists of Netflix Films I have already watched, ranging from horror to romantic comedy to Korean Horror Drama (Strangers from Hell on Netflix...FIRE) and here I am to come across one of my favorite films of 2017 yet again.

This is: It Comes At Night (2017)

I shall give you one fair warning before this read. This brief observation is meant for those who have already seen the film. This is not a review nor is it a summary, so I ask you look away now if you wish not to spoil a single detail.

What I wish to look at are the faucets of information we are given in the film to try and explain what “It” is in the film, for we are never actually given a proper explanation for what it is and how it works.

From the beginning, the audience can very well assume from the death of Buddy, the Grandfather, that “It” is referring to the deadly virus which has seemingly contaminated the population, forcing people to group together in their own hubs and depend upon one another for survival. The entire film focuses its central drama on this virus and how it spreads - seemingly through skin to skin contact like that of Cabin Fever’s rash, except this virus seems to cause the blood to corrode and turn black, produce fever, and hallucinations...so you would think “It” is this virus which has killed so many.

But what if I told you “it” represented far more than that?

Going back, scene by scene viewing only scenes in which the family is secluded in darkness do we see the real beast.

The Unknown.

The true antagonist is the very faucet of which produces fear. Allow me to explain. 

We have a completely unknown virus, both to us as the audience and to the characters. The only symptoms they know of are those that came from Buddy. The black boils of festering flesh, rotten blood, and darkened eyes. It’s a rather horrific virus which resembles the decay of the human body and its resources. In my opinion, this seems to be some form of the Bubonic plague as its symptoms are quite similar. Bleeding, weakness, fever, blackening and death of tissue...but we are never able to confirm what it is because this is a simple family. There is no doctor in which can save the world if he has the proper tools...Just a family whose only objective is to survive. 

Inside, we have all that is safe. The lights, food, water. But instead of thinking of the home as a home...let’s think of it as the human mind...And the door as the barriers we place up..The antagonist being the unknown which can tear these barriers to shreds.It’s the things that we remind ourselves everyday to reassure ourselves that everything is fine. The lovely hospitality of a self embrace that protects you, keeps your chest warm and your cheeks rosy...but then darkness falls, and all fades to darkness as paranoia sets in. The doors become hazy lines of paper as whatever protections you believed you had are simply torn apart in the most agonizing moments. For instance: The crimson door of which the family relied on so heavily to keep the evil at bay..was unknowingly opened..and no one knew who. This leads me to discuss the family.

The father heavily relies on his rules to keep the family safe, going so far as to ask the family who they slowly allow through these barriers to follow these rules a T (stick together, don’t go alone, curfew, etc). And he will do anything to keep his family safe. His strict survival has kept the family alive for this long...besides Buddy. Fanatically he strives to keep order, barriers in place to keep the unknown at bay. The sharp clutches of fear digging into the wood every night, slowly digging deeper into the mantel. When his barriers are tested by human/known means, (when the father of the opposite family tries to break in) he knows exactly how to deal with it...But when the door has been opened, and fear has been let into the house through the uncertainty of infection and the loss of trust, the father quickly attempts to establish the same barriers he kept in place from the unknown...only this time he deems the opposite family as the unknown now, keeping them out of his barriers, only this time these barriers are paper thin as fear has already infested the idea that everyone could now be infected...But with no way to be certain, paranoia is produced, and all is lost due to altered perception.

All order breaks down the the removal of these walls. “It” is the unadulterated fear which drives the reasoning of putting these walls in the first place, except “it” is the thing which tears the home apart. 

The unknown of if Will was lying about knowing the men trying to shoot them

The unknown if the family is to be trusted

The unknown of the effects and symptoms of the virus

the unknown of who has the virus

It’s the absolute meltdown of order which fear is a staple for. It’s the doubt which is embedded in  the families after each night..But the thing that is most frightening is that we don’t actually understand how this virus works in regards to its incubation period.

It was mentioned by the father that Buddy had symptoms in a day and was gone, we understand the child, Andrew, it infected and within the day shows symptoms of coughing and fever, and then the day after that Travis has the physical symptoms as well, and thanks to this movie’s ambitiousness, there is no possible way to tell if this is an actual good sign of whether or not someone has the virus for a simple reason. 

Travis is seen having visions of walking around the house quite often...Now pair this with Alex’s sudden want to sleep walk which the opposite family states he has NEVER done before. I believe this is a proper comparison to equal that the virus causes some form of restlessness. Hell, even when all the way infected, Travis seems to be in a near comatose state of being dazed.

My proposal: Travis was sick all along after catching it from the dog who was given it by the grandfather. Travis passed it onto the child, and Andrew showed symptoms before Travis because Travis was young and healthy while Andrew was simply too young to handle the effects. What’s cool about this is that it’s completely unknown if the theory can be true. I can try and explain. 

We understand that the dog was the Grandfather’s dog, so we can assume they spent quite the amount of time with each other. It’s no far fetched theory that the dog was infected by Buddy sometime before he passed because of the amount of time spent with him.This then is passed to Travis who has nightmares, insomnia, and paranoia, all mental symptoms of the virus before succumbing to the physical decomposition of skin and flesh. 

A piece of evidence I would like to point out for both the dog and Travis being infected is the scene in where the dog runs off into the woods because it heard something, which Travis claims to have seen/heard too...yet the two grown men close behind didn’t see nor hear a thing. It’s a small moment in the film but I believe it was the moment in which both the dog’s and Travis’s minds were fluid enough to hallucinate. We already know Travis has had some serious nightmares, so having this type of sensory misfire wouldn’t be too reaching. Then after this as Travis spends more and more time with the other family, he infects Alex without realizing it, causing the child to undergo insomnia, sleep walking, and confusion just as Travis had in his “visions” which were more or less small windows of time he was conscious while sleep walking. For instance: I believe the door was opened after Travis left to the outside to look for his dog, found the dog rather disgustingly mangled by an infected animal, and brought it back before going back to bed and not closing the door.

Could be a reach, but other explanations are just as palpable.

Everything was so perfectly placed to be as vague as possible! It could be as simple as Andrew opened the door for the dog scratching to get inside into the safety of home, touched it and became infected before going back inside frightened of what he saw, Travis then touched Andrew who then got the virus, and it could go from there...but the virus simply doesn’t seem to be the type to be able to move that quickly. No ordinary virus is going to be able to produce such protein decay in a matter of hours. I believe it begins in the mind and slowly seeps further into the system.

That’s what is so amazing of this film. No place can I look at and go “that’s what happened” or “yeah we can easily infer this from this” because there is no factual way to draw proper conclusions, just like there isn’t a way to properly place barriers to protect from the unknown. 

(Hey guys, I know I haven’t been doing much recently. To be honest I’ve been looking for employment and studying for my COMPTIA A+ exam so I can try and find a help desk job somewhere to begin a career into IT. I’m going to try and write more analysis's or observations to further enhance my communication skills. Hope you all have a good night~)

((Also might be recording some singing, so woop))

[kryptsune]

Frisky’s WTU mini vent

🌼So I rarely do these. I just need to get a specific set of topics off my chest. Don’t worry I am not sad or angry just a little... frustrated. I did a HUGE post about this a while back and I am posting it again. Look I know how it looks trust me. Just... please... give the fic, the characters, the relationships a chance. That is all I ask. I know it is a lot to read and I know there are some unsavory parts but they are there for very specific reasons. I am just really tired of people coming to me on AO3 or otherwise legitimately upset with either me not tagging it as something they want or otherwise. Please understand my frustrations and to those that read this entire thing, thank you >////<  

🌼I have a few things I want to discuss and talk about considering that I do not want this to become an issue. Look I made WTU M for a reason. It is dark and has adult themes and content (though admittedly not even close to some of the stuff I have seen or read). It is not a fic for the faint of heart. This story will not change and I am not going to conform to people’s scrutiny either. Let me first start by stating that I make specific things vague for a reason. Those that have followed this blog for a while will remember my explanation as to why violence happens the way it does. I don’t feel I need to justify anything to my readers. If you have questions I am more than happy to address them. That said to have someone skim the fic after the notorious chapter 6 and write in the comments irks me.

Guys the material and that frickin scene is not lost on me trust me and before anyone gets high and mighty with me in regards to Sans and Frisk let me explain why this scene exists and attempt to explain Sans actions in a spoiler-free way. I will not sugar coat that it is extremely difficult for me to do so and I will do my best. I also want to point out that I am in no way justifying his actions what I am trying to do is explain the two very different mindsets that exist in this world and how that clash causes ch 6 and how it is dealt with.

Why do I make certain things vague? I suppose that is a good place to start. The whole point of my lack of clarity is supposed to have the reader (that is all of you) come to your own conclusions. There are a lot of themes in WTU and making assumptions and judgments is a big one. You are supposed to take a side that is the whole point. You can choose to be like Chara or you can choose to be like Frisk. Now I know what happened in that chapter concerned a lot of people specifically because it gives off that abusee falling in love with their abuser vibe. That is not the case at all and I want to make this perfectly clear, I DO NOT APPROVE ANY SUCH RELATIONSHIP IN THE SLIGHTEST. IT IS HORRIBlE AND I WOULD NEVER EVER EVER EVEN THINK ABOUT THAT TOPIC IN ANY OTHER WAY THAN DISGUSTING. If it bothers you so much why is it in the fic especially since it is marked as Frans? Oh boy howdy, do I wish that I didn’t have to even write it. It made me sick for weeks as I attempted to handle that chapter and the one following it. I do not take these things lightly and I never will. I can not go into detail as to why the scene is in there however what I can say is that it is important and by important I mean there is no workaround (trust me I have tried it just does not have the same impact). Let me explain why this is: 1. Humans and monsters are different. They have different moral standards. One thing to them is different for humans due to biology and culture. Monsters who want kids need to both desire that outcome. Anything else is just fun/way to pass the time/ relief. What Sans does is not out of malice. In his mind, he doesn’t see the situation the same way Frisk does or us for that matter. That is the point. I am not justifying what he does, far from, and I want to be perfectly clear that it is there for a reason. It is vital to his and others character development. Sans is not a bad character. He is a conflicted character. One that is aggressive due to (plot spoilers) and backstory. If I explained it I feel people would understand but I am not going to do that as it would ruin more than 2/3 of the entire story.

2. There are consequences to his actions. Oh, boy is there. I won’t state what they are but trust me when I say his actions both in the physical violence and the sexual hit him hard and for a very VERY long time.

3. This is not solely a Frans fic. Firstly, people tend to automatically assume that this is all Frans shipping when it is actually quite the opposite. This is a story about how that comes to be but I won’t sugar coat anything in it. I treat my readers like adults and I will continue to do so. Second in this point is that Frisk does not fall in love with Sans… there is a reason I use Sans instead of Red. Sans is the person she first meets, the horrible monster that does all the things I have alluded to before. Red is not. Yes, they are the same person physically but not emotional/mentally. The point is that he changes and grows and sees a side to himself that he can not stand. Said situation is just the straw that breaks the camels back. After the events of Book 1, there is at least a 5-year gap. At that point, the past is in the past.

4. The story is not to its rebuttal yet. What do I mean by that? Well, the truth of the matter is this is an incomplete PUBLISHED story. I know exactly what I am doing and it is planned from start to finish. My readers do not. I do things in a very specific fashion that holds purpose and relevance for characters or chapters to come. Waterfall is a big one and eventually you will see what I am talking about as it will further dive into chapter 6s purpose. What I will say is this, after this scene in Waterfall the dynamic changes for the better. I promise you. I know some people are holding out for the hope that Sans will stop his shit. I can promise that to you, he will.

5. It is a work of fiction. This is a big one. There are plenty of novels or fictional works out there that have these kinds of material in them but something like that gets a pass while I get scrutinized? How is that remotely fair? I will handle the topic with respect and maturity as I always have. I have had people go through this and being a victim myself I understand where these kinds of comments come into play. That said. I can’t say this enough that it is important and I treat it as such. If it still bothers you and you want a further explanation as to the reasons I cannot state message me. I will explain. I am not doing so publically as I know people who don’t want the story spoiled.

After all of that, all I can say is that you can choose not to read it if it bothers you that much. What I ask is that you respect my decisions as an author and take a step back. There are very few that know the full story and I keep it that way for a reason. The first book in the Welcome to the Underworld series is not for everyone. That is the point. It is meant to make you think and reflect just like the characters I am writing for. At the end of the day, you can either trust me in these decisions or not that is entirely up to you but I ask that you give me a chance and opportunity. I am very open with my work I am more than happy to clear up things privately for others. Guys, I put my heart and soul into his fic and those that really enjoy it I appreciate your continued support. We are all on this roller coaster ride together and I am thankful so many have stayed on with me. It is always darkest before the dawn everyone, hang in there. Book 2 is pretty much all fluffy drabbles or mini stories. There is a reason I call the Underground the Underworld instead. It is supposed to have many allusions to Hell for both it’s inhabitants and it’s human captee. The darkness that I place in the story is supposed to make the good and happy all that more meaningful and impactful. I hope that eventually others begin to see those underlying themes. Thank you for reading this if you went through this word wall. I just felt like I needed to explain this a little further to avoid any unsavory conclusions.

[samtheflamingomain]

nancy who?

Oh, no. Where do I even begin with the absolute dumpster fire that is the newest iteration of Nancy Drew, the new TV series by the same name.

I realized very quickly while watching the first few scenes of the first episode that I actually have an astounding memory bank of Nancy Drew content in my head. I read every children’s book, every young adult book, and I’ve played all the computer games.

I noticed this because I watched it with my best friend, who barely knew Nancy Drew, and with every detail that I pointed out was different from the books, he was like, “Wow, really?”

I have So Many Thoughts on this, but I want to keep it relatively short. So I’m going to talk about a few main things: acting, writing, deviations from the book, and general thoughts, in that order.

The acting is... average. I actually think most of the actors did pretty well with what they were given with the exception of the actress who portrays Nancy - she’s very flat, even for a character that is known for her lack of personality.

Also not a huge fan of the actor portraying Carson, but that’s mostly because he looks like he could be Nancy’s slightly older brother, not the father of a 20-year-old.

Writing. Probably some of the literal worst writing I’ve ever witnessed. It was tragic. An absolute train wreck. I counted, and they used no less than 12 MASSIVE cliches (Good Cop/Bad Cop, Chekhov’s Gun, catching a vase just before it hits the ground, drawer with a false bottom, Nancy suddenly having a Sherlock Holmes moment where she perfectly recalls the crime scene and realizes the DEAD BODY she’d stumbled upon wasn’t wearing a ring when she was dead. Who the fuck would remember that?) and 90% of the “plot” (or rather “plots” - more in a sec) hinges on what I call Communication Conflict.

This is when the writers are so fucking lazy that they write characters into conflicts that would never happen in real life because in real life, these problems would be solved by the parties involved exchanging a few fucking sentences explaining themselves. Instead characters ignore each other’s explanations, use vague language, or otherwise don’t communicate like real humans, thus why such conflicts feel so contrived.

Nancy never addresses any problem directly. She’s just a broody, whiny little bitch about everything. 

And correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t Nancy Drew supposed to be a mystery series? I left the first episode barely focused on the actual mystery, because it was only the focal point of the show for about 3 minutes total. I’m pretty sure the scene where Nancy fucks Ned Nickerson in a mechanic’s shop (yes, that happened) lasted longer.

I mentioned there are a few plots. First, who murdered Tiffany? Second, why did Ned go to prison? What happened to the ghost girl? Also, why did Bess steal Tiffany’s ring, why is Nancy’s dad banging her cop friend, what’s with the dress in the attic, how does the power keep going out, and, quite literally the most important mystery of the show, “How has Ace not yet lost his job?”. That’s a lot to put out in the first episode. 

And somehow, they still managed to make it seem drawn out and boring with terrible writing. AND, they STILL managed to make a thousand plotlines in which Nancy is the center of none. Literally the only thing happening with her is that she sucks at communication and found a dead body. 

Finally, the worst offender of all, deviation from canon. 

Nancy Drew is a hardworking amateur detective. She’s caring, clever, quick on her feet, and has excellent relationships with her father, friends Bess and George, and boyfriend Ned. She’s excellent at reading people and getting information from them.

Except, not anymore. Now she’s an unconfident amateur detective. She’s cold, flat, annoying, and has terrible relationships with literally every person she knows. She’s terrible at reading people, and outright refuses to get information from most of them, instead choosing to dramatically leave the room whenever anything upsetting happens.

George “Fan” (”Fay” in the canon) is now Asian with tattoos and a complete bitch. It’s dropped early on that apparently she and Nancy hated each other in high school. Bess is described basically how she is in the book, but that she’s from out of town. In the books, all three were best friends since childhood.

Ned... whatever. I honestly don’t remember much of him from the books, but in the computer games he’s a loving, intelligent person, and I’m pretty sure he’s not a mechanic. But whatever.

One of the biggest changes is that Nancy’s mother died recently - in the canon she was very young when she died - and at first I didn’t get the point. But they use it to drive Nancy through the plot, though, much in the same way a toddler tries to drive in Mario Kart. The reason Nancy isn’t in college is because she bombed all her classes in high school after her mother died. They literally changed a character’s death date so they’d have a reason for Nancy still living in her hometown.

There’s a few more differences here and there (I would’ve LOVED a Hannah character, and maybe even Deidre) but those are the most glaring.

Final thoughts. This is is a very... contrived version of Nancy Drew. The only string tying the show to the books is the names of the characters in my opinion. Everything else is bullshit, changed for no reason, and I get the feeling that a lot of things will never be explained. It feels cobbled-together. It feels like there were too many cooks and it spoiled the dish. But worst of all, it feels so, so disappointing.

They could’ve done so much with Nancy, but instead they put her in a shitty ghost story surrounded by relationship drama.

2/10. Unless you’re a die-hard fan like myself, don’t bother. It’s basically Riverdale but worse. But I’ve played every game, read every book... so I’ll (begrudgingly) watch every episode. And probably rant about each one every week.

Stay Greater, Flamingos.

[elliemarchetti]

A Wonderful Mistake (part 2)

Marecal Modern!AU with a slight mention of Mareven in which Maven’s not a psycho

@lilyharvord @nightmarebarrow hope it's up to the expectations

Part 1

Other Red Queen fics:

A Rebel’s Song (part 2)

Red Queen Soulmate AU (Mare’s POV) Part 2 (Diana and Shade’s POV) Part 3 (Diana’s POV)

Words: 1443

When the phone rang, waking up Mare, she reached out to get it and check who thought was a good idea to write to a hangover girl at half past ten. To her extreme surprise, she discovered it was Tiberias. They had exchanged numbers the night before, but Mare didn’t think he would actually write something in the morning; she believed he had seen her as a girl who was hard to get but who sooner or later would have surrendered to his charm and would’ve fallen in temptation, seeing his aspired number on her phone. However, she didn’t have time to read the text as a small, icy hand slipped the device away from her grasp. She didn’t heard Ann coming, but when she wanted, that girl could be silent like a cat.

“Cal?!” she exclaimed, faking shock. “Have you already started using nicknames?”

Mare rolled her eyes but didn’t reply.

“Don’t roll your eyes at me! I noticed your look when he offered you that drink?”

“Which one?” asked Mare, with a smug grin. She had managed to get four, before the closing time.

“You greedy profiteer!” she exclaimed, before jumping on her. Cal had also been generous with Ann and Tristan but when they had gone on the dance floor, Cal had continued to offer. Not that he paid for anything he ordered: everyone knew he was the owner’s son and they were willing to turn a blind eye on many things, including the bill.

“Breakfast’s ready!” exclaimed Tristan from the kitchen, stopping his girlfriend’s attack. Though they were both lean as rushes, they ate like fattened pigs. Mare had a vague idea of how they burned all those calories, but preferred not to think about it too much; even if she liked Tristan, she liked Rasha more.

She had barely set foot in the kitchen, that Tristan was already looking at her with the look of who knew too much, chewing with deliberate slowness, waiting for her to give up the information of her own free will.

"I don’t have anything to say." gave up Mare, after a few minutes of total silence, in which she felt observed not only by one but by two pairs of eyes still kneaded by sleep but curious.

"Maybe not to us, but surely you talked to him a lot." observed Tristan, with a mocking smile, one of the things that most sent her mad of that damn redhead. That the boy was intelligent was undeniable, but his attitude was… she just didn’t knew what Shade, Kilorn and Ann found so interesting in him.

"You act as if I had hit on him."

"You let him take you to the car." Tristan pointed out, as if it were the craziest thing in the world. It had been a nice evening, they had all drank and she was a beautiful tipsy girl whose boyfriend had just cancelled their romantic weekend making her end up in the bar where she worked with her roommate and her boyfriend, what should she do? Send him away and spend the night with her brother and best friend to which she had screamed at the start of the night? Cal had been useful, but it would’ve ended there, which she intended to tell him. She turned to Ann, who had been strangely silent, to ask where she had left her cell phone, when she recognized her cover in her hands.

"Ann Walsh, what are you doing with my phone?" she asked, ready to run to get it back before she would do irreparable damage. When she met her guilty gaze she didn’t need more explanations.

When she wanted, Ann knew how to amaze with unthinkable athletic skills, but Mare had grown up with three older brothers, so it didn’t take long to plate her friend on the couch of the small open space that sometimes they called living room, sometimes kitchen.

Before she could snatch the phone from her hand, the trill of a message notification saturated the air, freezing Mare on the spot.

"It's Cal!" exclaimed Ann, trying to read before Mare took possession of her belonging again.

The message said Touché. What are you doing? so it was obvious that Ann had the time to reply at the first one, whatever it said.

Mare turned to her friend, her eyes narrowed to two slits. Ann had hid behind Tristan, as if that pile of bones could defend her if Mare really wanted to beat her, and she giggled like a little girl.

"The next time your father invites me for lunch, I'll drop some spicy details about your relationship."

If possible, Tristan paled more than usual, while Ann yelled at her not to dare. Mare replied with an example of what she could say, interrupted by uncontrollable laughter, and in spite of everything, she was truly happy.

It was about lunchtime when someone knocked on the door. Ann and Tristan had been out for nearly half an hour for their usual Saturday lunch at her parents' house, while Mare was still in her pajamas, her hair gathered in a messed up tail. Although this was a fairly poor neighborhood, the crime rate, excluding the small thefts, wasn’t very high, so Mare opened the door without even looking at who it was: probably it was Gisa who, once she became aware of her failed departure, had decided to visit her to raise her morale a little.

"The lunch!" exclaimed a male voice instead, cheerfully.

Mare couldn’t believe her eyes: Tiberias Calore was on the doorstep of her house, holding a bag of her favorite rotisserie, which was on the other side of the city, and two huge Cherry Coke. It was an unprecedented thing, no girl would have ever received such treatment from the most coveted young bachelor of the city without boasting around, apart, perhaps, those already engaged. Like her.

Despite being flattered, she tried to maintain a certain behavior and asked him how he had come to know her address, without taking off the door.

"It's not difficult to access employee data if your father is the owner of the venue." he replied naturally.

What he had done wasn’t quite right, just like what was just happening, but the smell of roast chicken made her stomach roar with such force that she let him in. After all, she had nothing in the fridge. Less than five minutes later they were sitting facing each other, eating in silence. Mare couldn’t have asked for anything better and was enjoying every spoon of mashed potatoes almost like every bite of meat trying to suppress the burning sense of guilt at the thought of Maven, who was in California, forced to work just because his mother had to have sensed something about their plans.

"Do you work tonight?" Tiberias asked suddenly, interrupting the flow of her thoughts, which had roughly taken the shape of a whirlpool of water in a flooded river.

"I have a free weekend."

"Beautiful, me too." he replied, tearing a perplexed expression from Mare. He was the son of the man who owned half of the city, he wouldn’t need to work for the rest of his life, let alone at twenty-three, but Mare tried to hide the vague disgust she felt at the idea.

"You could be amazed, you know?" he said. He must have grasped every nuance of her thoughts reflected in her gestures and Mare wondered why he hadn’t yet got up to leave, closing that farce there. Did he see in what hole she lived? Did he realize that probably the car by which he arrived would have been scratched by the kids simply because it was too beautiful, shiny and new?

"I'm not the rich and spoiled boy you think I am."

“Then prove it.” she replied, without thinking.

"Tonight, at seven."

Mare cursed in a thousand different ways; she cursed her curiosity and her stubbornness, and cursed herself for letting him offer her four drinks and cheer her up and for being flattered by the fact that he had brought her lunch, remembering exactly what she liked when she had told him in a crowded place with deafening music. She cursed Ann for answering him and Maven for telling her not to go, for not having called and for making her feel guilty whether he said something or not. But most of all, she cursed that almost golden light in Tiberias’ bronze eyes that attracted her like a moth is attracted by the fire.

"I'll be there. Are you going to pick me up?"

[kiruuuuu]

Sure! You only need to ask, anon :) And thank you so very much 💖 As I like the ship myself as well, I did go with Ash/Mira! (Rating T, fluff, ~1.5k words)

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Mira is currently answering Clash’s almost suspicious, quick-fire questions related to her new CCE shield when Ash enters the otherwise deserted workshop, probably looking for Mira as she begins wandering around aimlessly upon realising she’s deep in conversation. And though dealing with Clash and her no-nonsense attitude requires full focus, Mira feels her gaze drawn to the redhead regardless – she’s as beautiful today as always, even with her braid in disorder and dirt-caked clothes indicating earlier training outside.

“My biggest concern is how bloody light it is”, Clash is currently complaining, weighing her shield in her hands sceptically. It’s not that she’s actively doubting Mira’s abilities though it might seem like it to an outsider, but Mira has long understood that the other woman’s cautious demeanour stems from previous instances of tech which couldn’t be trusted.

In the background, Ash subtly moves tools and electrical components around on Echo’s table, knowing full well it’ll spark indignant accusations towards anyone unlucky enough to be in the room the next time the Japanese operator works on his current project. Mira bites back a grin and forces her attention back to her conversation partner.

“That sounds like the opposite of a problem to me”, she states amusedly. “It should allow for more mobility than your typical riot shield and you won’t look as silly as Montagne. I swear, sometimes he looks like a moving box.”

Seeing Ash laugh silently at the remark is oddly satisfying, even though she’s started doodling on IQ’s notebook now. Apparently she’s keen on upsetting pretty much the worst kinds of people as IQ is just as known for running amok should anyone dare to touch her stuff.

“I can handle myself even with those clunky pieces of shit, thank you, but most of all I want to know how much punishment this thing can take.”

“Well, Alexsandr sat on it and it didn’t break, so I’d call it remarkably sturdy”, Mira shoots back and feels another wave of pride when Ash can’t help herself but chuckle audibly while she tangles up all the wires neatly laid out on Twitch’s working place only to re-arrange them into a large heart shape.

Unsurprisingly, Clash doesn’t seem to appreciate the joke if the scowl on her face is any indication. “You call this thing bulletproof.”

“Yes, because it is”, Mira insists with a small smile. She’s used to being doubted, remembers the faces well when she introduced her black mirrors and their application to the members of Rainbow, expressions ranging from vaguely dubious to outright disbelieving – only a few people were impressed, Ash among them, following Mira’s explanation intently and with sparkling eyes. Though… in hindsight, maybe it wasn’t her technical knowledge which caught the Israeli’s attention. By now, she’s long proven herself and collaborated with Twitch several times, though she can’t fault any new operator for being sceptical of the gadgets she presents them with.

“So you’d agree to standing behind it and letting me shoot you with any rifle of my choice?”

Clash is merely covering her bases but Mira shuts her down efficiently with a simple yet friendly: “Yup.” Her nonchalance at the request seem to mollify the Brit and address her worries sufficiently.

“Alright then. And it doubles as a taser?”

While Mira explains the intricacies of the shield further, Ash sweeps through the entire room and subtly (or extremely obviously, in some cases), messes with people’s belongings. It became clear very early on that she’s a being of chaos, entropy itself, and completely unapologetic about it too – the prank war she once had going on with Bandit lasted until the rest of the base practically begged them to stop and left a variety of rooms in shambles, not to mention it cost Thermite his eyebrows, Jäger his favourite jeans and Frost the majority of her shoes. No one entrusts Ash with headphones anymore because they’ll inevitably end up in a horrifying knot she claims to know nothing about, and Mira has seen her struggle with cling foil several times. It just… balls itself up in Ash’s presence.

All of the above is partly the reason why Mira has grown so attached to this woman. She can with a clear conscience state that she’s never bored as long as the redhead is around somewhere, even if she’s going ham in the kitchen and will eventually either need a shower or medical attention, or if she tries to kill a spider by mixing ammonia with bleach because she read it somewhere on the internet and thought it sounded like a good idea. She single-handedly functions as an acceptable substitute to Mira’s large family seeing as she causes about the same amount of mischief while being approximately as loud as all of Mira’s siblings put together.

And right now, she’s testing Mira’s composure by abusing what she thinks to be a fully-functional black mirror but which is actually no more than a glorified window, therefore allowing Mira to see her pull wild faces right behind Clash’s back. Fearing for her girlfriend’s health should the unamused Brit catch wind of what she’s doing, Mira tries her best not to let anything show on her face even as Ash’s grimaces get more and more exaggerated and she ends up having to mask a laugh as a cough when Ash finally delves into the realm of extremely vulgar gestures (directed at no one in particular and performed apparently simply for the pure joy of it).

Once Clash is fully briefed on the shield she’ll take into battle, she gives Mira a respectful nod and shoots Ash a withering glance as she leaves. “What did I do?”, Ash murmurs defensively as soon as she’s gone, prompting an eye roll from Mira.

“You’re a demon, Liza, as usual”, she informs her and points at the unfinished black mirror behind which Ash had deemed herself safe. “And this one’s not done. You’re very lucky Morowa didn’t turn around.”

A brief look of terror replaces the self-satisfied smirk on Ash’s face. “But you’d save me from her, right, Lena?” And like a cat which got caught scratching up the furniture, Ash sidles up to her, basically purring as she presses their bodies together and kisses up the side of Mira’s face.

“I would throw you under the bus without any hesitation.”

“Does that mean you’re going to tell on me about this as well?” With a gesture, Ash indicates the rest of the workshop which is now largely in disarray.

“You’re a menace when you’re bored, I really should. But it’ll all fall back to me and I’ll be accused of not having my girlfriend under control.”

A meaningful glint steals into Ash’s eye and they both grin even before she says: “You certainly do, but only when we’re -”

Mira silences her with a kiss which she prolongs considerably, aiming to steal Ash’s breath and focus her a little, ending up successful if the bright expression on her face is anything to go by. “I actually have a surprise gift for you, which is why I told you to meet me in the first place.”

“Oh!” Ash ponders this revelation for a moment. “It’s not my birthday, it’s not our anniversary, it’s not Valentine’s day or Hanukkah… Please don’t tell me you’re going to propose while I look like a slob. At least give me fair warning!”

“I feel like if we were to actually marry, you’d insist on calling me ‘wifey’ and that alone is more than enough reason not to do it. Come on.” Grinning, Mira drags an indignantly sputtering Ash behind her, heading outside and towards the training grounds of the SAS. They end up in an old, unused part of it, the building in front of them old-fashioned and not at all up to modern standards anymore.

“Do you want to have a paintball fight?”, Ash guesses and seems excited at her own suggestion. “Then again, we had one last week and I’m still finding paint spatters between my -”

“This house”, Mira interrupts her before she can go into further detail, “is scheduled for demolition.” She pauses for effect, but so far Ash hasn’t caught on yet. “It’s meant to make way for a new, much improved one.”

She still doesn’t get it. “So?”

“So…” Mira nods in the direction of the entrance. “I organised us some grenades, other explosives and, of course, your breaching rounds. We’re allowed to go nuts and you have no idea how many favours I had to call in for this one.”

Ash looks like all events she listed earlier somehow fell on one and the same day. “Fucking hell, that’s – Lena, that’s amazing! You have no idea how much I love you, come here.” And after she’s hugged Mira so tightly she’s afraid of having cracked a rib, the redhead is already racing through the doorway.

It’s no special occasion today, that much is true, but Mira doesn’t think she needs any kind of excuse to spoil her lover a little. And so she follows with a secret smile on her lips, looking forward to hearing Ash’s squeals of joy amidst the carnage.

[blackjack-15]

Doubly Dubiously Designed — Thoughts on: Danger by Design (DAN)

Previous Metas: SCK/SCK2, STFD, MHM, TRT, FIN, SSH, DOG, CAR, DDI, SHA, CUR, CLK, TRN

Hello and welcome to a Nancy Drew meta series! 30 metas, 30 Nancy Drew Games that I’m comfortable with doing meta about. Hot takes, cold takes, and just Takes will abound, but one thing’s for sure: they’ll all be longer than I mean them to be.

Each meta will have different distinct sections: an Introduction, an exploration of the Title, an explanation of the Mystery, a run-through of the Suspects. Then, I’ll tackle some of my favorite and least favorite things about the game, and finish it off with ideas on how to improve it. In this meta, a section in between The Title and The Mystery will be The Historical Background, where we’ll dive into a what a mess HER made of this game and its history.

If any game requires an extra section or two, they’ll be listed in the paragraph above, along with links to previous metas.

These metas are not spoiler free, though I’ll list any games/media that they might spoil here: DAN, mention of SSH.

The Intro:

Holy eff, what was this game?

With Danger By Design, game #14 and our penultimate Jetsetting Game, Nancy kisses Blue Moon Canyon goodbye and flies off to the land of fashion, francs, and fabulous found fripperies — France.

Yes, it was a struggle to come up with so many f-words that made a mad sort of sense.

DAN is a case where they had two or three ideas for two or three different games, and then someone got high and was like “what if we smushed them all together and don’t make them gel together at all”…only none of the ideas were fully formed, so what you get is a tornado – heh — of different things whirling together, but the second the momentum dies, you can see that nothing is actually part of anything else.

There are just too many ideas in DAN to make a game that has an emotional (not to mention logical) payoff, and too few of them are actually used throughout the game to make a game that’s interesting. Add in the fact that the characters are flat in a way that they haven’t been for 10 games and that Nancy seems to have no concrete motivation for anything that she does, and you’re left with a uniquely frustrating experience — and one that fails to take advantage of its unique location in any meaningful way, unlike the other Jetsetting Games.

The Title:

DAN is based off of Nancy Drew Files: Death by Design, which is objectively a more enticing title, though not accurate to the game’s story at all. As it stands, Danger by Design is a pretty good title; it clues you into a vague danger, it establishes not only that it’s about fashion — design — but also that the plot is being orchestrated by players that aren’t immediately visible — design.

I would actually hazard to say that DAN’s title is the most successful part of it; it doesn’t have any gaping holes, it’s catchy, easy to abbreviate — it’s only small problem is that “danger” is a super common mystery title, and that there have already been several other games with “danger” in the title — Stay Tuned for Danger, Danger on Deception Island — so it could improve from a series-naming standpoint. Otherwise, this title does all that it needs to without extraneous detail.

The Mystery:

Summoned to investigate why a famous French designer has suddenly gone crazy, Nancy’s going undercover for the…at least third time in this series so far. The designer, Minette, has taken to wearing a full-face mask with a discomforting lack of air holes and firing employees like most people eat mini-MnMs.

All at once, out of a tube, before they melt and discolor your hand. Or something.

Minette has been running behind, and Nancy is supposed to figure out what’s causing her temper tantrums and slipping schedule, amid threatening letters and insistent phone calls to the moulin where Minette houses her studio. Amy Grunhild, her boss, is wondering what’s up with her behavior and hires Nancy do to some old fashioned snooping.

Once in France, however, Nancy finds out there’s more than meets the eye, both with Minette and with the moulin. Nancy somehow finds herself in the seat of international espionage, a historical futz-up of epic proportions, several fashion faux pas, a mint shortage, flooded catacombs, and the highly graphic murder of the French Language.

As a mystery, let’s be honest: DAN is a mess. A good ol’ Southern may-yuh-suh. The A-plot (Minette) and the B-plot (Noisette + History) intertwine maybe once on the surface and then basically are separate games, no focus is given to anything so it feels jumbled and messy, there’s not enough to do and too much space to do it in…the list goes on.

The focus is honestly the part that upsets the mystery the most; by the time Nancy’s down in the catacombs for the nth time, Minette is pretty much a distant memory, but when Nancy’s trapped with the stained glass, you’re reminded of Noisette suddenly and rather uncomfortably. There’s no clear mystery — there’s in fact at least two very unclear mysteries — and so there’s no clear story.

Now, let’s get to the players who contribute to the mess.

The Suspects:

Minette — real name Tammy Barnes — is supposedly an up-and-coming fashion designer, but is tackling projects that are more what a seasoned professional would handle (like making a dress for the First Lady). Her fierce rivalry with designer Hugo Butterly feels like a looming spectre overhead, and her timetable has begun slipping more and more since she donned the mask.

Why she, an inexperienced plus-size designer is designing a gown for the First Lady (who in 2005/6 was a small, petite woman), neither I nor anyone else has any ideas.

The real reason Minette’s timetable is a disaster is because remnants of the East German Police – no, stay with me here — are threatening her into making the First Lady’s dress complete with electronic bugs so that they could hear what’s going on at the National Summit.

Minette’s the closest thing we get to a culprit — she’s the one we fight at the end — but she’s also a victim of blackmail and threats herself, and I do find it odd that, unlike in other games, she’s not treated as a victim at all; Nancy never teams up with her, never helps fight her enemies, and is never really sympathetic at all. With Minette’s personality, it’s not a shock that Nancy doesn’t sympathize, but I do find it a little odd that the blackmail thing is just kind of glossed over.

Heather McKay is Minette’s only long-time employee, who vents her frustration with her boss by sending her threatening letters every so often. Absurdly young for her position — Heather is at most 23, given her graduation date from Waverly Academy — Heather also designs her own fashion on the side, hoping that working for Minette will give her the contacts she needs in order to be a successful designer.

Heather’s designs also happen to be hideous — did HER have no one with any fashion sense at all working on this game?

As a culprit, Heather would have been interesting, but unlikely; as the person closest to Minette, she’s already the most suspicious, especially since she could be delaying Minette to make her desperate and then offering to step in and “save the day” with one of her own designs. As it is, Heather ends the game far more successful than she should be, and avoids any taint of having worked with Minette.

Dieter Von Schwesterkrank is the red herring — I mean, the German fashion photographer centered in Paris, and the great-nephew of Noisette Tornade’s Nazi lover, Hans Von Schwesterkrank. Originally dating Minette in order to explore the moulin and find Noisette’s treasure, he found he had somehow developed actual feelings for her by the time she broke the relationship off.

As a culprit, Dieter would have been incredibly dull; he barely has enough personality to fill a teaspoon, he’s the obvious red herring due to him and the conspirators both being German (not to mention the German occupation of France in World War II, where the historical background is set), and he would get nothing out of messing with Minette, as his job does better the more that fashion designers thrive.

Jing-Jing Ling is an Australian (and presumably also part-Chinese, given her name) “plus size” (by this game’s standards; I talk about this later) model who was tricked into a contract with Minette and is Nancy’s roommate during Nancy’s time in France. A chronic liar with an interest in circuitry and engineering, JJ also spends her time baking and eating cookies —yeah, because that’s how a model keeps her size 12 (American size 10) figure, wow — and being easily duped into giving up an autograph via a game of Hangman.

The wet dream of both the catacomb-climber Zu and of Joe Hardy himself, JJ is my preferred culprit if I had to choose just from the cast; outwardly friendly while also outwardly manipulative, with the perfect excuse for going out at all hours of the day and night — Minette is an eccentric, remember — and smarter than she seems. She’s also related to both the “Secrets of Paris” plot (through Zu) and the Minette plot. Her being the culprit would make this an entirely different game, however, and so as the culprit in the current game, she’s an iffy choice at best.

Rounding out our physical suspects is Jean-Michel Traquenard, owner of the easiest to pronounce yet most mangled name of the whole game…and editor of Glam Glam Magazine. He’s also the only Frenchman in our suspects, and one of three probable Frenchmen in the entire cast (Zu and possibly Lynn Manrique, judging by her last name).

As a character, Jean-Michel is unique and memorable; as a culprit, he’s a non-entity. While he could have been more than just a place to see a photo and get a sprig of mint without painting bad replicas of famous paintings for 22 hours, he sits comfortably at Café Kiki, not caring three straws about the havoc happening both in the fashion world and in his city.

There are so many phone characters in this game (most one-off, but still), so I’ll run through them briefly.

Zu is an explorer of the Parisian catacombs, who helps Nancy get down there to explore once she gets him the aforementioned autograph from JJ. He’s fun to talk to, and necessary to the plot, but doesn’t show up quite enough. An interesting twist would have had him be one of the existing cast, but no one quite fits the bill.

Lynn Manrique is a one-off historian who wants to talk to Minette about the moulin and Noisette, but who keeps being blown off. She gives Nancy a bit of info, then promptly disappears again.

Hugo Butterly is another brief phone character, giving about as much information as you’d expect from a hoity-toity fashion designer. His convo with Nancy is mostly to rule him out as a suspect. He would have been a cool option for also being Zu. Ah well.

Prudence Rutherford, in all her glory, shows up as a phone friend here, and is one of the most memorable parts of the game — not shocking, as she was just as enjoyable in Secret of the Scarlet Hand. Here, she’s sent off a request to Minette for a few outfits that of course Nancy has to put together.

Sure, what Prudence wants is an eyesore, but a delightfully Prudence eyesore. Perfect for a woman who’s good friends with P. G. Krolmeister.

Finally, let’s talk a bit about the woman who started part of this game.

Noisette Tornade — literally “hazelnut tornado” in French, which is the oddest name ever – was a member of the French resistance during World War II. Though loyal to France, her boyfriend Hans was loyal to his native Germany, and their relationship resulted in Noisette being seen as a traitor.

Though acquitted, Noisette remained bitter towards those who distrusted her, and hid the treasures of Paris that she had saved for the rest of her life to punish them.

Interestingly enough, when you’re playing this game for the first time, you really do feel like Noisette is supposed to be a sort of tragic hero…but Noisette is not a good person, or a moral person. Even after being exonerated and elected as Director of Public Works for the rest of her life, Noisette is too bitter to restore the art to the country, and refuses to believe she might have acted in the wrong by knowingly and deliberately harboring a Nazi.

Perhaps in early planning stages (and I say planning very, very loosely), Noisette had been executed and was supposed to be a tragic figure who did nothing wrong. But Noisette wasn’t a good person, and any points she might have gotten for saving art disappear when she decided that because she was suspected due to the fact that her boyfriend was a freaking Nazi, the city would pay for it — forever.

The Favorite:

There’s some good stuff in DAN (even if most of it doesn’t come to fruition or feel deserved), and they do deserve to be mentioned.

Jean-Michel is by far the best character that this game has to offer, and he’d still be pretty good in a game that was a bit better. Apart from his painful pronunciation games with Nancy, he’s a lot of fun to talk to and has a great character design. A larger than life character needs a larger than life wardrobe, and Jean-Michel delivers.

My favorite puzzle in the game is the Prudence costume design; while it’s not a hard puzzle and doesn’t really make you feel very accomplished as a puzzler, it is a whole lot of fun and a way to design some of the ugliest outfits known to man.

My favorite moment in the game is anytime Nancy spends time in JJ’s apartment; it’s so well designed and homey without being ugly or kitschy. Baking cookies is prolly the best moment — I wouldn’t call it a puzzle, it’s more like just a task — because it just feels nice and relaxing.

The Un-Favorite:

It’s a small thing, relative to the rest of the things wrong with this game, but I hate that a size 10 (size 12 in France, which converts to an American size 10) is defined as plus-size in this game when in 2006, the year this game was released, a 10 was nowhere near a plus size. It’s a small detail that they very easily could have gotten right, and they didn’t bother to even check.

My least favorite moment in the game is easily the Minette fight that turns into Nancy trapped with Noisette’s artwork. Nothing quite illustrates the fact that they had no idea what story they were telling and no idea how to end the game more than the fact that we go from a slo-mo kung-fu fight to a hall of French artwork and no one’s quite sure which one is supposed to be the climax.

My least favorite puzzle is the catacomb puzzle; while the catacombs are cool to explore, navigating them is a frustrating experience, only made worse by the fear of getting lost – or the rats stealing things that you really, really need.

While most things in DAN bother me to some degree, the game is so uniformly disappointing that not a lot of things stand out over each other, so we’ll move on to where the actual work begins.

The Fix:

This is one of the few games that, in order to have a cohesive plot, storyline, and motivation for all (or even any) of its characters, needs a complete re-write to the setup along with changes to the “plot” progression itself.

The first big problem to fix is the reason Nancy’s there in the first place. It doesn’t make a lot of sense that she’s there to figure out what’s wrong with Minette — she should have a lot of specialized knowledge in order to be an assistant to such a major designer — and the justification is flimsy.

There’s also the problem that our historical characters aren’t heroes, so to try to “exonerate” Noisette when France already cleared her of everything except bitterness is, quite frankly, not a very heroic endeavor. Having this B-plot marginally tied to the A-plot by the fact that the Germans are the bad guys in both really isn’t great either — and certainly isn’t enough justification for the writing to be this bad.

To fix both of these in one fell swoop, shift the story in the past slightly.

Perhaps Noisette and Hans are still involved, but Noisette manages to turn her boyfriend against the Nazis and they spy on behalf of France, including saving France’s art from the hands of the Nazis and hiding it. The French government, however, doesn’t trust either one of them, and executes them for treason against the French state. Noisette and Hans carry the location where they stored the art to their graves, believing it to be unsafe with German sympathizers still around, but leave clues with friends and around the city, wanting it to be found in due time.

Cut to 2006, and Hans’ descendant Dieter Von Schwesterkrank has found evidence that Hans and Noisette were loyal to the French cause and were executed unjustly. The evidence is enough that he believes it (perhaps a work of art or two deemed ‘stolen’ by the pair has turned up in the family, but without any provenance, causing issues of authenticity), having always heard growing up that Hans was working for the French, but he knows that no one else will unless he can dig up more.

He tries to seduce Minette — an actual Frenchwoman in this version — into letting him hang around the windmill where Noisette and Hans once lived. He accidentally falls for her, but she breaks it off due to the external pressure, leaving him both heartbroken and unable to search more.

Having gotten the phone once in the moulin and been subject to one of Prudence Rutherford’s calls, he learns about a hotshot teen detective in America named Nancy Drew who’s worked undercover before and will take any job.

Needing her help, Dieter writes Nancy, telling her that he’s got a job for her and that he’s just trying to figure out how to get her a visa to come to France. Using Heather’s crush on him,  he mentions an intern from the States that he’s heard of that can supposedly handle any boss, no matter how obnoxious — and the wheels start spinning.

Once Nancy gets to France and gets the low-down on Minette, she goes to visit Dieter to get her real assignment — to balance working for Minette while finding proof of Hans and Noisette’s innocence.

With those changes in place, the game can proceed relatively unchanged in the order of events, albeit with more importance given to Dieter and less on pointless minigames with Minette. As Nancy tries to find out more about Noisette and Hans, she also notices Minette acting strangely: refusing to talk to people, communicating through emails and instant messages, falling further and further behind.

Zu changes from a wacky one-off character with an obsession to the expert in the catacombs and their use by the French Resistance during WWII; Lynn Manrique from a simple historian to a French Art historian specializing in identifying forged works of art and in art trafficking during the War.

Instead of Noisette’s plotline getting swirled into Minette’s, Minette’s issues are swirled into the larger plotline of proving Noisette and Hans’ innocence through finding the missing artwork and, along with it, the proof that they were working on behalf of France all along.

In the interest of not changing too much, the bad guys can still be fringe German extremists looking to destroy Noisette and Hans’ hard work (or perhaps who have a personal grudge against Hans in particular) and so threaten Minette, but rather than threatening a world summit through a bugged dress, they’ve been stealing fabric, designs, unpicking stitches — whatever they can think of — to delay her collection in the hope that she’ll think that the moulin is cursed and move to a different location, allowing them to search the building top-to-bottom to find the art that they suspect is hidden inside.

I know that this Fix section seems quite long, but it’s all really worldbuilding and premise changes; once a few motivations are shifted and the villains’ objective changes from something that the player doesn’t care about to something that they will care about, the game improves itself rather quickly.

WWII isn’t my preferred time in history to learn about, but even I can acknowledge that passing off the French occupation as “ah those wacky Germans” and “seriously and actively dating an actual Nazi shouldn’t get you suspected as a collaborateur because That’s Mean and if people suspect you just hide French national treasures because that’ll show them” isn’t a great look, nor does it fulfill the “edu” part of “edutainment”.

[jmacxyz]

I Must Confess

It's three minutes past 12 midnight on the 13th of December. I just finished sending a tweet to greet my favourite artist and love of my life---Taylor Swift. She's amazing and I love 99.9% about her but these scribblings aren't supposed to be about TS. It's a whole different story and I don't know why I'm using her to sort of delay what I intend to tell.

This time of the year is really different from last year for me internally but I won't spoil you the details since this isn't a year-end review of any sort. To be brief, December 2021 wasn't nice to me and I did a lot of covering and self-distraction to be able to present myself to be well put and in utmost glee for the holiday season (sort of a self-imposed tradition during Christmas and New Year time). It was bleak and unhealthy for me for all sorts of reasons. I managed to get over it and heal by myself and on my own terms. It wasn't easy as it took me, in a sense, a year to get back on my feet. However, I realized healing did not look like anything I imagined. Hence, I am writing this as some sort of confession.

I must confess that it's true, healing and dealing with the pain wasn't easy. It was also never linear. One day I feel like I'm fine and I don't give a damn about everything that has transpired then tomorrow I'm back at being a wreck. It was on and off and it felt like nearing the finish line but realising you're kinda back to square one again.

I would also confess that healing would never constitute regaining your past self or getting the 'old you'. Healing on my terms and experience entailed growth. Getting better and wiser slowly but surely. But it's not all sugar and spice and (of course) neither is anything nice. It was me being more reserved and shifty. I easily detach to situations and people who pose a threat to me and my peace. It's being distant and not trusting anyone easily. It amplified the level of overthinking and trust issues I predominantly possess as a defense mechanism to filter and scrutinize people with higher accuracy and precision.

But above all, I must confess, it doesn't just go away. I can guarantee that I have moved past the things that occurred but it doesn't mean I completely forgot it. Sometimes I still get thoughts about the memories and the person. The only difference is that it doesn't hurt anymore. Or there's still pain and disappointment but it became negligible. I don't have to starve myself just because someone's mad at me. I don't feel worthless because I never got the answer and the explanation I once longed for. I don't have to question my worth and sacrifice my self-esteem because of how a person valued me. I don't feel garbage just because I was told all the sweet things and promises that were just written in the sand only to be washed away by the weakest of waves.

I don't have to hate myself because you lied that you loved it. I don't have to take the blame because it wasn't my fault. I don't have to feel shitty just because you treated me like shit. I don't need to beg for you to come back nor to reciprocate the pain you've caused and get even. I don't have to punish myself because of how you treated me and made me feel.

But I confess, sometimes at random, I think of you. I didn't do it on purpose but random flashbacks and echoes still get me or if a thing or a person reminded me of you. I never would want to cross paths or talk to you but I still know your birthday. I still remember the first night we talked for hours and hours. And sometimes I do hate myself for entertaining the fact that I may be able to forgive you if ever there is some sort of miracle or faulty voodoo that would happen to make you reach out to apologize and explain. I clearly don't want that anymore but at the same time I still think sometimes like a hypothetical situation.

I must confess, it was over. I have accepted and came to terms with it. It already came to a vague and excruciating conclusion--- everything was said and done. I believe you don't think of me the moment it ended but I finally forgave myself for not being able to do the same thing. It's not my fault that I did things sincerely. It's not something to be ashamed of.

It was a bad time, but somehow, I survived.

End of confession. 12/13/2022.