assigning each of the party a Nancy Drew PC game + some descriptions for context because it's #MyNicheInterest
Will — Message in a Haunted Mansion. the haunted mansion is a b&b in san francisco. it's being run by two women who are totally lesbians. it was made in 2000 so one of the lesbians is whimsigoth and she hosts a seance. (controversial amongst christian players back in the day for having a seance scene.) despite being a very early game, it holds up as a Scary Game, and its crunchiness and lofi quality only enhance it. and there's an old west love story <3
Dustin — the Curse of Blackmoor Manor. EASY choice. it's in my top 3 favorite games, it is chock full of puzzles, and they are HARD. it's nancy at the kitschiest english manor and the stepmother thinks she's turning into a werewolf. there's a conservatory with a carnivorous plant. you practice alchemy and risk causing an explosion. nancy also gets made fun of for not knowing who Oliver Cromwell is.
More under the cut so I'm not longposting
Lucas — the Haunted Carousel. a bright, fun, classic game that has really no faults and is just a good time all around. you solder a circuit board, fix a broken arcade cabinet, play games, lathe a wooden dowel, and talk to a robot a guy made so his daughter can remember her dead mom.
Mike — the White Wolf of Icicle Creek. a lodge in Alberta with great cozy vibes turns out to be an absolute fucking slog of a game that feels like it's fighting with you from finishing it. and yet I don't hate it really. I rank it as a mid-tier game. the story alludes to some really interesting stuff about radiation, but that part got cut for some reason. also, there's a wolf. and Lou Talbot:
Max — Danger on Deception Island. biking around foggy Washington state and getting nosy because the woman (also totally a lesbian btw) who's hosting you is hated by everyone in town and got her houseboat wrecked. everyone talks heated politics about an orca. if you forget to click on your helmet before you bike at any point you get a game over. the same applies if you forget your life vest while kayaking. everyone loves this game because it's perfectly lovely
El — Last Train to Blue Moon Canyon — nancy is a plus-one of the Hardy Boys' on a wealthy socialite's train trip through the Nevada desert on a train custom built by a miner that's supposedly haunted by his dead wife. gemstones, dancing shoes, dolls, and a cop who's a stupid asshole. one of my favorite games <3
Erica — the Secret of Shadow Ranch. the horse game!!! a fan favorite despite plenty of arduous sections because it's so charming! and you get to ride a horse! but not before all of your chores and a ten-question horse quiz! another love story but this game really features it and it's very romantic and they have the Handsome cowboy flirt with you ;)
Bonus Nancy — The Final Scene. this game is not fucking around from minute one. nancy's friend maya is going to interview a movie star at a dying theater set to be demolished but maya is immediately KIDNAPPED and held hostage and you have three days to find her starting NOW until they swing that wrecking ball!!! and by the way NO ONE is helpful!!! BUT the theater is very beautiful and has a rich history connected to Harry Houdini! 😄
Bonus Jonathan — Legend of the Crystal Skull. stuck in an eccentric recently-deceased dentist's house in rainy Louisiana with his estranged goth great-nephew who's his last living family member and in charge of settling the estate. a lot of cemeteries, crypts, teeth, 25 unique glass eyes, and dead parents 🥀 my favorite game <33
Jonathan Joss was an Indigenous, gay man who was murdered on the first day of Pride month as well as Indigenous History Month. He died protecting his trans husband. Homophobia and racism aren’t marks of the past, and this is a heart breaking reminder of that.
Praying for a safe journey back to the spirit world, Uncle ❤️🩹🦅
Today is the anniversary of the death of Jonathan Joss (King of the Hill, Parks and Rec). Jonathan Joss was an Indigenous, gay man who died protecting his transgender husband, on the first day of Pride month. Today we remember him and how he protected his family.
The thing about the relationship between Will and Lonnie is that it sucks in its own unique way, distinct from the ways that the relationships Lonnie has with his ex-wife and older son respectively damage them, but I also think they're strangers.
Will does not get Lonnie at all. He doesn't really know what Lonnie wants or what he's looking for or what motivates him. He can't anticipate what he'll do or why. He thinks there's some way to please him, but it doesn't exist. Lonnie is confusing and probably stressful, and dealing with him involves some degree of engaging in a strange game that doesn't net Will very much, but he's looking for the kernels of joy and connection he can scrape from the experience.
It's the implications of his absence that loom over Will, I think, more than his presence. He represents what could have been because he's a big unknown whose sole contribution to Will's life was shame, through implicit rejection and ridicule and lack of interest, back when he was younger.
And I wonder how Joyce addressed that. We know she must have said something and supported him, and if Lonnie spewed any of his bigotry and verbal abuse within Will's earshot and she knew he was aware of it, then she would surely have said something. But she's not perfect, and she can't be everywhere or always say just the right thing, and maybe there isn't always a right thing to say. Maybe she fell back on "you know he doesn't mean it" or "he's wrong and you shouldn't listen to him" or "something came up and he couldn't make it but he's sorry he couldn't take you" or "it's not about you" and that's kind, but doesn't get at the heart of why what he's saying or doing matters, to the extent that it does. And it's not like Will can't tell when she's being untruthful to spare his feelings; he can hear her yelling down the telephone.
But it's a hard line for her to walk as a parent, and so there are gaps where the edges of the white lies and hard truths don't come together neatly. Same for Jonathan, whom we can see trying to make up the difference and reach Will, but who very carefully does not tell Will the whole truth either (that Lonnie does not care and he's wrong even if he's correct and what he thinks doesn't matter); he tells him a different truth that, for him, matters a great deal more, about the world and who Will can be in it.
But, still, those gaps, where well-meaning hands reach with love and can't quite touch... There's a shame that flourishes there, in those dark crevices. And it's very relevant to everything he's got going on, and Lonnie's shadow is definitely there, but Lonnie is just one part of it. Because the only thing he really ever learned about Lonnie was that Lonnie didn't want him and he could never be good enough to change it. I think a larger part of Will's hangups stem from steeping in that town all his life.
Conversely, Jonathan knows Lonnie all too well. He understands things about him that Joyce simply does not or cannot. He sees things that Lonnie does not reveal to her. He is burdened by this knowledge.
Joyce is somewhere in the middle, in terms of her grasp of Lonnie's particular brand of shittiness.
Do you ever think about how so much of the deadly anti-science rhetoric that fills America today and is killing countless vulnerable people can be directly traced back to one fucking guy who decided to just straight-up lie about vaccines causing autism because it would make him a profit? Do you ever think about that? Because I think about it a lot.
Putting the term "male gaze" on top of the fridge until everyone remembers that it refers to a cinematographic trend and not the act of looking at things while being a man
i think we should be ridiculing them more for this. you don't get to try and go all "queer website" when your staff likes to go on nuking sprees targeting the trans fem users
would be remiss not to mention that the rainbow notably straight up just removed the trans flag colors from it. like they’re gone. it’s the progress flag minus the trans flag colors.
we need to instill a new storytelling rule of thumb into people called "show don't tweet" where we encourage them to put all pertinent canon information into the actual story and its official supplemental material instead of using reddit AMAs as lore dlcs
