#amateur detective: nancy

[fxirytxlcfxtc]

Tag Dump - Muses, 6/?

[nxttheendxfthestxry]

"It's so hard having to tell clients that their idea of me isn't my responsibility to live up to."

[its-suanneschafer-author]

BOOK REVIEW: Three Can Keep a Secret by M. E. Hilliard

Like M.E. Hilliard’s debut novel, The Unkindness of Ravens, the newest in her Greer Hogan Mystery series, Three Can Keep a Secret, grabbed me from the onset. The first person narration rapidly pulls the reader in the the thought processes of amateur sleuth, Greer Hogan, a former New York City high-powered executive who becomes a small town librarian after the death of her husband. Greer’s…

[professorhotchkissesta]

The way Nancy opens a centuries old puzzle box and immediately YEETS the puppet stored inside it. Like. That puppet is gone. Lost to the world. Kept safe for centuries only to be absolutely decimated by an amateur detective in mom jeans

[mingos-commodoreblog]

The Crimson Diamond is an EGA text parser mystery adventure game where you play as amateur geologist and reluctant detective Nancy Maple.

[elliwiny]

Webcomic Day! Opportunities

Happy Webcomic Day, everybody! Looking for something new to read?

OPPORTUNITIES (opportunitiesinspace.com) is an Action Sci-Fi Thriller about rotten people doing crimes and the amateur detective caught up in the middle of their schemes. Imagine if Nancy Drew was an alien who stumbled ass-backwards into the villains from Die Hard.

Vigi is on a mission to single-handedly expose an intergalactic corporation for it's crimes. All she has to do is swap briefcases with a whistleblower and evade the notice of her ex-bosses… But things get complicated when she crosses paths with 'Holiday Hitman' Jack Frost, who is backed by an eccentric team of killers-for-hire with their own deadly agenda.

Vigi's got luck on her side, but how long will luck hold out when things start going off the rails?

Opportunities is very special to me. It's co-written by my wife, @truly-sincerely. We started posting all the way back in 2013 but went on hiatus in like, 2020? because gun violence is a huge bummer and, idk, some other thing that happened around 2020, probably. All this to say, I've been working on book 2's script for the last few months and I'm VERY excited for the future of this project.

We're currently re-uploading the entirety of book 1 (Which is complete!) each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Right now we're in chapter 5 which is where Jack starts to really get in it (alcoholism, getting tailed by a hot alien woman who's thinking about murdering him) so it's a GREAT time to jump in!

[morrithal]

Trapping famed amateur detective Nancy Drew in a micro time loop becaus I keep causing massive chemical explosions and dying in this fucking mini game

[netscapenavigator-official]

I just finished Nancy Drew: Mystery of the Seven Keys. I have a lot of mixed opinions on a lot of things, but I'm gonna keep this post abridged:

The puzzles gave me Ransom of the Seven Ships vibes. While there were certainly way more than in Midnight in Salem, they were way too hard, especially on Amateur Detective. I dread to think what this game is like on Master Detective mode. Maybe I'm a weenie and just way worse at these games than I thought, but this game, RAN, and The Deadly Device are the only three ND games that I've ever played where the puzzles got my so stressed I had to split my play time across multiple days because I kept getting headaches. I think I used the hint system or video walkthroughs to get answers more times than I solved the puzzles myself. Overall, not a rewarding experience, and I'm glad I didn't buy this game. This is the first Nancy Drew game I seriously considered not finishing.

The plot was fine. It would've been better with better graphics, a better environment, and better puzzles, but with those aspects missing, the plot was meh. I much prefer MID's over this game's, even though I really don't like scary games that much. It also felt like they were trying to win brownies points and distract longtime fans by including as many references as possible. I also feel like they realized what a botch job they did with Ned and Nancy's relationship last game, and they were trying to make up for it in this game. The problem, though, is that it felt... a bit forced and overdone. Like they were trying too hard to undo what they did last time.

Graphics were an improvement from MID, for sure, but still looked worse and more soulless than every past Nancy Drew game, even SCK and STFD. This game reminded me a lot of Supermarket Simulator... which is a solo-dev, Unity asset, early access Steam game...

The villain choice was interesting. Don't wanna get too spoiler-y, but but I just can't help but feel it was a shallow, surface-level, and rushed decision to chose who they chose to be the villain.

The navigation in this game sucks. I mean this wholeheartedly when I say I would've rather had MID's hybrid navigation system than either of these. The Modern Mode is soulless and makes the game a little harder. Part of the fun of point-and-click games is that they tend to only show you things that are relevant for the story and puzzles, allowing you to focus more on the puzzles and story as opposed to navigating this big open world looking for small items to click on. The Modern Mode in this game removes that and adds too much vagueness. Not to mention, the movement and gliding-ness of the movement gives "default Unity" vibes... which is fitting since the entire game sorta gives that energy. The Classic Mode isn't much better. This is the worst point-and-click system in any Nancy Drew game, ever. The click boxes are harder to find that SCK, but their more unpredictable in where they'll take you than MID. Truly an awful point-and-click system that only added to my stress playing the game. It was the clear that the new devs were totally fish out of water when it came to designing this system.

Overall, for the majority of this game, I was on the verge of stress tears, telling myself I just wanted it to be over. Nancy Drew: Mystery of the Seven Keys placed 32/35 on my ranking spreadsheet, just below Phantom of Venice and above Ransom of the Seven Ships. For reference of it's nearest games, age-wise, Midnight in Salem (2019) placed 15/35 and Sea of Darkness (2015) placed 7/35... so... I won't be replaying this game... ever... unless I absolutely have to.

Ultimately, the difficult puzzles were the Achilles heal of what could've been an semi-enjoyable game. This game, alone, has burned me out, and I think I'm gonna take a break from playing Nancy Drew games for a while...

[ndfan3]

“I Suggest You Surrender.”

Those words were like hammer blows into my chest. It wasn’t just the fact that Nancy Drew, “Girl Detective”, was standing nonchalantly on my very own stage, the coronet of Laura Farmer, the Homecoming Queen I had just ransomed back to her grateful family for a pretty penny, swinging in her hand. It wasn’t simply that the insouciant smile on Miss Drew’s girl-next-door pretty mouth meant she had discovered the offending article in my apartment, or even that I knew she was right - my crime was discovered, and I was caught. No, it was the fact that the little vixen was telling me I needed to surrender. Me - who had been arranging pageants before this absurd little amateur sleuth was even in kindergarten!

“Surrender? To you?” I replied, unable to keep the sneer from out of my voice. “It will go a lot easier for you if you come quietly, Mr Briggs.” the young woman replied simply. “I called the sheriff before confronting you: he will be here in twenty minutes.” I gazed in bitter frustration at my teenaged nemesis - taking in her dreary flat shoes, her conservative tan pantyhose and her sensible beltless grey dress. “You would never have won the Pageant, Miss Drew!” I told her somewhat pointlessly. “You are far too boring!” The girl laughed at that despite herself as my head dropped in defeat. “I think I had better tie you up, Mr Briggs,” she smiled at me happily, “just in case the sheriff is delayed, you see.” The girl removed the unsophisticated cloth band from her head, allowing her fair hair to tumble over her shoulders and then walked towards me. “Put your hands behind your back please, sir.” she told me. I glowered back at her miserably, but did as she instructed…

My interpretation of the cover to Pageant Perfect Crime, Nancy Drew Girl Detective #30 (June 2008); caption mine.

[truly-sincerely]

This Is A Masterpost

I'm Sincerely DeGelder. I'm a writer and part time kaiju. This is my writer bio: I will die if I go too long without seeing the ocean. My cat is Paisley and my wife is @elliwiny. I like writing comics the most, but I'm trying to teach myself to love prose too. My favorite thing to write about is awful people getting second chances. I prefer a hard-earned happy ending to a tragedy.

(art by Elliwiny, colors by me and @justerithings)

Opportunities

Sci-Fi Thriller webcomic about rotten people doing crimes and the amateur detective caught up in the middle of their schemes. Imagine if Nancy Drew was an alien who stumbled ass-backwards into the villains from Die Hard.

Currently updating Monday - Wednesday - Friday

The Verdant Deep

Action-adventure romance webcomic with an ensemble cast. It's about a group of adventurers who find themselves trapped in a dangerous underground realm. To their surprise, they find a home and a family in the sunless caverns… and a creeping otherworldly evil that seeks to devour it all.

Currently on indefinite hiatus

Cincerely on AO3

(Baldur's Gate 3)

Dark Star Falling M - durgetash/durgestarion - just act 3

Lifetaker / ɹǝʞɐɯƃuᴉʞ Gloomstalker M - part of a long-fic, durgetash - pre-canon

I'm also outlining a space opera called Black Dog Star and I talk about that and post concept work from time to time.

[moonlightreal]

Midnight in Salem

HerInteractive was churning out games three a year, and then… they weren’t. I don’t know the details but it probably had something to do with the Mysterious Benefactor no longer benefacting. The next game was going to be Midnight in Salem, and it didn’t appear and didn’t appear and the fandom assumed they’d solved their last puzzle.

The it did appear.

And it was disappointing.

That’s what I knew already but come on, Nancy Drew and witches, of course I was going to play it.

It was indeed disappointing, but not nearly as much as I’d feared. My verdict is that the game is fun but true blue Nancy Drew fans will have moments that just kinda make them twitch because the writers just did not quite get what they were supposed to be going for.

The worst twitch is Nancy herself. She has a new voice, with Lani Minella having retired from the role so she doesn’t sound right. And the writers don’t quite “get” Nancy. Or I guess you could say they’re trying to let her grow as a character, from a teenager who kind of chuckles about mysteries finding her wherever she goes and being “a bit of an amateur detective” to a young woman who is thinking about going into business with the Hardys as an official detective. At the end of the game Nancy makes a quip about wanting to ride a broom because it would be good for “getting an overview of crime scenes” and I just feel like the old Nancy doesn’t think in terms of crime scenes. Our girl has taken a step towards CSI and away from, well, Nancy Drew. A really small step, but enough to be jarring.

Oh, and there’s also a mild subplot where Ned is somewhere else in company with another girl who playfully steals his phone, and he’s concerned that Nancy is hanging out with Frank Hardy. It’s only a few phone calls, doesn’t take up much of the game, but again it’s a jarring change and it kinda makes me clutch my pearls and go, “The real Ned and Nancy would never!”

But Nancy also sounds more… human? Than Lani’s Nancy. She has longer conversations and comforts other characters who are scared. She freaks out when she sees the ghost—she still doesn’t believe in the supernatural, Nancy’s a confirmed skeptic, but in the moment she believes and is really freaked out. Which is how a real skeptic would react, I think. So if the idea is to make Nancy grow as a character, it’s not all bad.

(I, a confirmed magical being, love how Nancy is a confirmed skeptic and there’s always a rational explanation.)

The plot of Midnight in Salem went through some rewrites, so I’ve heard. Apparently the original was more concerned with the witch trials and some of the characters had the same names as historical figures. Knowing that you can kind of see it, there is a lot of witch history in the game but it sort of feels like there was more, more plot threads that were snipped along the way. The story that came out the end of the focus group was about arson at a historical house, a stolen book written by a judge apologizing for, y’know, sending innocent women to their deaths, a witchy tourguide, a girl with strong intuition, and a ghost. The spooky stuff is everywhere but the mystical minigamnes were a bit disappointing. There is a minigame where you make herbal remedies and that’s great but there was room for more ingredient gathering and potion making. You get to do some ghost hunting with a ghost-o-meter but Joe Hardy’s one homemade gizmo is kinda pathetic to everyone who’s played a Darkling Room game. Joe, props for trying but you gotta level up!

The puzzles and minigames are actually good. They’re on par with the puzzles in the rest of the series except for one aspect: their rarity. Midnight in Salem has like half as many wildly unrealistic puzzles as any other Nancy Drew game. Lauren didn’t ask us to help put her teas on the shelf except teas in blue tins have to be next to teas in green tins but teas in purple tins must be on the end of the shelf. Olivia didn’t make us identify crystals in her shop. Teegan didn’t ask us to arrange even one museum display! When we check out the water system we don’t have to reconnect the pipes to find the thing that’s hidden there. The careless judge hasn’t locked the evidence in a safe and forgotten how the unique lock works. Mei didn’t make us beat her at a phone game before she’ll talk to us. How is this even a Nancy Drew game?!

Come on HerInteractive, you gotta up the “Why does Nancy have to do this it makes no sense!” factor. We are not here for remotely realistic. We are here for puzzles.

All that said, I quite enjoyed Midnight in Salem. It’s not a good Nancy Drew game, it’s a fumbling attempt at a Nancy Drew game by people who were trying but didn’t quite get it, and it could have been a better game than it is. But approached with that expectation, accepting that you’ll twitch from time to time, it’s a good game!

And things are looking up for the series! Mystery of the Seven Keys just came out and it’ll be a while before I play it, but I know that HerInteractive did a stellar job of teasing the game through puzzles on the website, bringing the whole fandom together to find clues and solve them to learn hints about the game’s plot. That doesn’t promise a good game, but it’s a really good sign.

[nxttheendxfthestxry]

"Soooo, the gender reveal came back negative..."

[queerdagny]

Nancy gets away with so much shit. Imagine asking the sheriff of a city you’ve never been if you can traipse around a crime scene or condemned building because you’re an ~amateur detective~

[bohemain]

@nursc asked …   “            Do you have Nancy’s number?            ”

▉ ――   Now,  that’s just rude.   The hologram flickers to a disgruntled standstill,   head once eagerly leaning over to sneak a peek into whatever medical mystery she’s been studying,   now lifts back into a stiff position.           “            Am I a joke to you,  Christine?             ”             Apparently.   Sherlock eyes her with a squinted glare ––   spaceships,  non-human but humanoid intelligent species,  the non-corporal form he finds himself in …   he forgives that.   The constant comparison to a fictional amateur detective,   he does not.              “            You’re an awful bully.             ”

[nedxnancy]

Barbie (2023) and Nancy Drew (1959)

I have to put this under a read-more because it's gonna talk about the way Barbie (2023) ends.

I went to see the movie today, and I couldn't help thinking about Ned and Ken.

There are a lot of similarities between Nancy Drew and Barbie (in fact, if somehow that ever actually happened, a Barbie modeled on Nancy Drew instead of just general Detective Barbie or Spy Barbie, I would lose it. Lose. It. A friend made me some vintage-inspired-Nancy-Drew Barbie outfits and I LOVE THEM.) - Barbie is allowed agency and high-profile careers and all the importance, although, as the film points out, Stereotypical Barbie exists only to be pretty and blank.

(I also didn't realize until drafting this post that the Nancy Drew revisions, removing racial stereotypes and streamlining/shortening the plots from the 1932-1958 books, which began in 1959, started the same year Barbie was introduced.)

My Barbies were always involved in crime plots. Evil Barbie was blackmailing people and trying to steal their boyfriends. It was like a reality show in my Barbie townhouse. My Kens (who were outnumbered by a significant ratio) were pretty much always just accessories, either literal or figurative.

Nancy Drew is on the cusp of adulthood and has no stated money-earning career, much like Stereotypical Barbie. She loves mysteries and is an amateur detective, but it's very clear that she is not professional, is not paid for her work, and would be unable to operate as an amateur detective were her father unable to bankroll her activities.

Ned, like Ken, exists without Nancy—but also has no job. Ken does "beach," but performs no function there. (The film aside that Ken's domestic sphere, the Mojo Dojo Casa House, sells like hotcakes, is fascinating: masculine-coded toys seem to have castles or Batcaves for "homes," and are heroes or rescuers or doers in some sense; Ken is allowed to just be a horse enthusiast who also loves full-length fur coats. Ken doesn't sit in the Pink [White] House being absolute ruler all day.) Ned is a college student who plays sports but also isn't employed beyond temporary summer jobs. To the viewer/reader, Ned does functionally disappear without the context of Nancy. Nancy defines Ned's life.

a yellowed-paper heart imagines Ned without Nancy, much like Ken, but in the story Ned recognizes that Nancy has been made to never return his affections; he has agency, where she is bound by the decisions of her creator. Ned seeks meaning in reality but it's to escape the pain of knowing his love won't and can't be requited. He gets to be his own main character for a while, but recognizes that the lack remains.

Ned can't return. But Ken does. Ken comes off as kind of incel in the last part of the film, but he also freely admits early on that even if he did "stay over" at Barbie's house, he's not sure what that would actually mean. He's hurt that his feelings aren't returned, not that Barbie is denying him (functionally impossible) sex.

I think it's very easy to read Nancy Drew, especially original Mystery Stories, 1932-1979, Nancy Drew, as asexual. She can't return Ned's feelings because she hasn't been given the capacity. She does feel warmly toward him, he is her favorite escort, but her priority is always her mysteries, and for the most part Ned has no interest in interfering with that, because the excitement of her mysteries is part of what he loves about her.

I think it's really interesting to read Barbie as asexual too, although the film makes the point that Barbie lacks functional genitalia (until the end, anyway). Becoming a "real woman" doesn't make Barbie attracted to Ken. Stereotypical Barbie can't be married Barbie because that isn't a universal goal.

You can argue that Nancy Drew is niche; she's not stereotypical Barbie. But Nancy Drew also breaks gender norms in a few different ways while reinforcing others, and just like Stereotypical Barbie, Nancy calls the shots in her relationship.

Ned doesn't exist only for Nancy's gaze, even though he very obviously hints that he wants to marry her eventually. Ken wants to make a home with Barbie partially because Kens just don't have homes in Barbieland. Ned, were he to change his mind and seek another partner, is presented as a very attractive guy.

In the movie, the ways the Kens perform a lot for and with each other was fascinating. The Barbies interact with each other; Kens are temporary distractions from the work. Nancy and her friends interact with each other; Ned and his friends are around to serve as muscle in dangerous situations, crew sailboats, and call the cops before returning to their summer jobs. In that way, Ned does have a role, where Ken is shut out.

(This is also ignoring the Kens who clearly DID have careers, or at least the wardrobe to imply them. Those Kens always seemed niche, though. Doctor Ken was a thing. Otherwise, Ken comes dressed appropriately to accompany the corresponding Barbie on an adventure.)

Nancy Drew can't end. Barbie can't end. They were written to survive and be and read ourselves into. Marriage/relationships aren't the goal we all have - and even if they were, we aren't all straight - so the characters can't have that, but that doesn't mean that they, that Barbie, can't be people, adults, complete.

It's just interesting to think about.

[blogger360ncislarules]

Nancy Drew has one last mission to solve -- and it's a big one.

The CW's sleuth drama kicks off its fourth and final season Wednesday with the amateur investigator in quite the pickle. At the end of last season, a deadly curse was placed on Nancy and Ace, forbidding the eponymous detective to act on her romantic feelings. If she does so, Ace will die. When season 4 begins -- the first episode is appropriately titled "The Dilemma of the Lover's Curse" -- Nancy continues to fight the urge to act on those feelings, shifting her focus (temporarily) on a new investigation to find a group of missing bodies from the local cemetery that have been dug up or possibly risen from the dead. 

Of course, it wouldn't be Nancy Drew without some complications thrown her way, especially with the arrival of an attractive new hunk catching her eye. To make matters even more dicey, Ace may be tempted by a new relationship too.

"I am so happy to finally be bringing this season to the fans, and I'm really excited for them to see what we have in this final installment. And at the same time too, a little bit emotional," Nancy Drew star Kennedy McMann tells ET. "It's sad to say goodbye, and it's crazy to finally be here. But I'm so glad we got to have a proper conclusion. And then, I guess, we get to celebrate the life of the show now with fans, so it's really exciting."

The leading lady spoke with ET about the final season, how she feels about saying farewell to Nancy and the show and what's in store for the Drew Crew.

ET: Did you know at the start of the season that this was going to be the end?

Kennedy McMann: No, we had no idea when we started. We were filming episode 8 or 9 is when we found out. I wasn't in the writers' room, I have no idea what they were contending with, but I think as with a lot of things that have happened on The CW network within the last year, the writing was on the wall a little bit. So I think that they were prepared, to an extent, to be able to pivot that way if that's the way that it went. And I'm honestly just so grateful that we were able to find out and write a proper series finale instead of leaving everybody with a terrible cliffhanger that will never be resolved, which was my greatest fear after season 3. I was like, "We have to get a season 4 because if I have to live with this season 3 finale conclusion, I don't think I'll ever have closure in my life."

How would you describe Nancy at the start of the season?

Colin Bentley/The CW

She's still putting on her sleuthing hat while also dealing with this curse, while also just balancing everything as she always kind of does. How is she navigating everything?

She definitely [has a lot on her plate], which like you said, she kind of always does, and in some ways I think has grown so much in these four seasons in terms of dealing with anything emotional. But I think this conflict that she has with what's happening between her and Ace and this new reality that she feels forced to accept, she's really struggling to admit to anyone just how much she's suffering. And even though she's come so far in terms of learning to lean on people and develop friendships, this feels like such a different realm of intensity. She got to confess to Carson what happened at the end of season 3 and thankfully she has him, but I think she's really trying to shake it off with this newfound fierce independence and self-support that really is, in her own classic way, running from the emotions of that problem and trying to see if she can outrun it. So yeah, it's a lot of, compartmentalizing for her and taking it one step at a time and one distraction at a time.

How does she get out of this curse? Does she figure out a way to break this curse with Ace?

In the beginning of the season, she's so committed to what she has determined is the best course of action, which is making sure Ace never finds out and never thinks that there's any possibility that they could ever be together. And in her mind, that's the safest and easiest way for him to be fully protected emotionally and physically. So she's very stuck in this decision that she's made. Some things definitely jostle her around. As the season progresses, it's almost a Pandora's box that if she dare open the lid of possibility that there is a way to break this curse that she would give everything to that. It would sort of be an overflow.

And I think that the pain of that not working, or God forbid, Ace getting hurt in their attempts, is almost too painful of a reality. But we definitely play on that whole scale throughout the season. We get to see both of them at peak desperation and hope and pain, and it's a real rollercoaster that touches on pretty much all of that, and it's so raw emotionally for both of them. And I think that that always leads to some pretty good TV.

There's also another new character that comes into the world, Tristan. What can you say about his arrival and how that shakes things up for Nancy?

We first meet Tristan in The Claw. He is The Claw's lobster guy. He's a fisherman who helps Nancy in the premiere, in kind of a sticky situation she finds herself in. And really, as the season goes on, he's full of surprises and becomes a really unexpected part of their journey in many different ways, and I think has a lot to offer this season and definitely adds to the general confusion that Nancy feels about everything in her life and how to proceed.

Will we see the gang back together solving mysteries?

Yeah, most definitely. I think all of their individual growth definitely continues. They're all at a place where they're figuring out what's next for them in their lives and it feels like a natural almost graduation moment to what's to come for each of them individually. But there's definitely some great full crew moments. I think that's such a pillar of the show and the real heart of the show, and I think people will really enjoy that, especially some particular antics that they get up to as a group and, of course, how the series closes, which I think will be really heartfelt for everybody.

Not to get ahead of myself, but in broad terms, how do you feel about the ending of this show and the end of Nancy's story?

I think it is just right. Without saying too much and not assuring any particular conclusions, I think it's definitely handled with care from our writers and is really an ode to the audience in a lot of ways.

How would you describe overall the season?

There's a ton to sink your teeth into in this season. Our primary season-long mystery is really developed episode by episode, and there's all of these different paths that Nancy and the crew go down, trying to figure out what's happening. And it's sort of one of those things where you have all of these individual pieces of information in the air that you're not quite sure how they all connect. And then there's one great moment of connection that really launches into the last chunk of the season. So, in terms of the mystery of it all and fans getting invested in that, there's so much room for theories and I'm really excited to see how people experience it in real time.